Roman Times

Romano Britain website resurrected!

2012-01-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

I just received word that the website Romano Britain (http://www.romanobritain.org) has been resurrected by Marsh Wise, aka Decimus Mercatius Varianus of LEGIO IX HISPANA on the east coast of the U.S. Apparently the original webmaster developed serious medical issues some time ago and the original website disappeared . Fortunately, Marsh had stored a copy of the website for reference purposes and decided to resurrect the site so the Roman history community would not lose it as a valuable online resource.

Kudos to Marsh!

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Review: Lion of the Sun by Harry Sidebottom

2011-12-06T15:12:00.001-08:00

Dr. Harry Sidebottom's "Lion of the Sun" continues the story of Marcus Claudius Ballista, a courageous "Warrior of Rome" born to the Angles but raised as a hostage in the Roman imperial court .

When we left Ballista at the end of "King of Kings" he, along with his emperor Valerian, had fallen victim to a treacherous plot by the emperor's treasurer, T. Fulvius Macrianus, known as Macrianus the Lame, who had betrayed the emperor and his field army to Sassanid King of Kings, Shapur I.

Sassanid Persian King Shapur I with the captive Roman

Emperor Valerian at Naqsh-e Rustam. Image courtesy of

Flickr user farflungistan

Fortunately, although Ballista's prospects looked pretty grim, especially considering his past victories against the Persians and his practice of cremating the Persian dead despite the knowledge that it was viewed as a desecretion of holy fire by the enemy Zoroastrians, Ballista's famillia including his devoted Hibernian body guard Maximus, his lovingly irrascible Caledonian guardian Calgacus and his poetic Greek secretary Demetrius had escaped. So I wondered how they would rescue him from what looked like certain death. Having met the revolting Macriani in "King of Kings" I also hoped Ballista could avenge himself and his emperor as the tale unfolded.

But it was not Ballista's famillia that came to his rescue. It was the frail old emperor who finally remembered who he had always been able to trust.

Historically, Valerian apparently had a high regard for Ballista, as illustrated by the following communication from Valerian to a prefect of Illyricum quoted in the Historia Augusta:

"From Valerian to Ragonius Clarus, prefect of Illyricum and the provinces of Gaul. If you are a man of good judgement, my kinsman Clarus, as I know that you are, you will carry out the arrangements of Ballista. Model your government on them. Do you see how he refrains from burdening the provincials, how he keeps the horses in places where there is fodder and exacts the rations for his soldiers in places where there is grain, how he never compels the provincials or the land-holders to furnish grain where they have no supply, or horses where they have no pasture? There is no arrangement better than to exact in each place what is there produced, so that the commonwealth may not be burdened by transport or other expenses. Galatia is rich in grain, Thrace is well stocked, and Illyricum is filled with it; so let the foot-soldiers be quartered in these regions, although in Thrace cavalry, too, can winter without damage to the provincials, since plenty of hay can be had from the fields. As for wine and bacon and other forms of food, let them be handed out in those places in which they abound in plenty. All this is the policy of Ballista, who gave orders that any province should furnish only one form of food, namely that in which it abounded, and that from it the soldiers should be kept away. " - The Historia Augusta, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, Volume III:18, p113.

But the old emperor had been seduced by Macrianus into believing his seemingly loyal courtier acted upon reliable intelligence about the whereabouts of Persian forces and ignored Ballista's repeated warnings about the army's precarious position. Now that it appeared all was lost, Valerian realized the ambitious Macriani had inadvertently left him an instrument of redemption.

The anachronistic "Humiliation of Valerian" by Hans Holbein the
Younger, 1521 CE. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Without a hint to Shapur that Valerian had finally realized the ambitious author of the treachery, the old Roman asked Shapur to send Ballista to Macrianus' headquarters to negotiate a ransom, knowing full well that Macrianus would refuse any suggestion of ransom. But Valerian's best general would then be free to first, drive out the Persians, then deal with the imperial traitors.

But is Ballista being snatched from the frying pan only to be delivered to the fire?

Much of the ensuing story is based on the few fragments of history that survived Rome's brutal Third Century.

"The plague throughout these years was still rampant over the empire. Zosimus sets it alongside the invasions as if in doubt which was the worse. Inflation was raging. The normal course of bourgeois economic life was dislocated. Famine was endemic around the theatres of war, though the wheat fleets of Egypt and Africa still fed the Roman populace. The Christians had as much to fear from the imperial officials as from the Germans or the Persians. The social tension between the old senatorial class, tenacious in its grasp on its traditional preserves of office, and the new aspiring officer class, mainly Illyrian in origin, called for resolution. Loyalty in high places was far to see; provincial governorships and provincial high commands were potential focuses of usurpation; the soldiers tended to be sullen and mutinous. To some minds the complete dissolution of society might have seemed to be imminent."

"Spiritually and culturally too things were at an impasse. The old traditional forms of religion had long since lost their credibility outside the peasantry. There were the mystery religion, Greek and oriental. There were for the educated and intellectual the various schools of philosophy, the Stoic in decline, the neo-Platonist in the ascendant. Those in authority sought desperately, and sought in vain, for some cohesive belief or principle capable of welding the various classes of peoples of the empire into a spiritual unity and inspiring a common purpose and a common devotion." - Gallienus: A study in reformist and sexual politics by John Bray.

The few ancient sources we have to decipher the events of this tumultuous period is the much maligned and historically suspect Historia Augusta.

The Historia Augusta says Maeonius Astyanax claimed Ballista openly supported the usurpation of the Macriani saying:

"As for myself, my age and my calling and my desires are all far removed from the imperial office, and so, as I cannot deny, I am searching for a worthy prince. But who, pray, is there who can fill the place of Valerian except such a man as yourself, brave, steadfast, honourable, well proved in public affairs, and — what is of the highest importance for holding the imperial office — possessed of great wealth? Therefore, take this post which your merits deserve. My services as prefect shall be yours as long as you wish." - The Historia Augusta, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, Volume III:12, p97.

What? His age precludes him from seeking the purple himself? Ballista was only in his thirties! Although his military calling and personal ambitions may not have included the purple, he was hardly too old. In fact, he was probably not that much older than the sons of Macrianus.

Quietus the usurper, son of Macrianus the Lame.
Courtesy of The Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.
via Wikimedia

Sidebottom's novel, instead, has Ballista publicly accept the office of Prefect only after a henchmen of the Macriani makes veiled threats about Ballista's family in Antioch that was essentially at the mercy of the Macriani if Ballista refused to support the regime. I think this is a far more believable scenario as there is nothing in the histories to suggest Ballista was ever one to personally exploit a political situation.

But, either way, Ballista once more ends up in command of much of the Roman army in Syria and he once more inflicts serious losses on the invading Persians. Sidebottom's gritty descriptions of 3rd century warfare leave you breathless and his excellent characterizations makes you worry about not only Ballista (who captivated me in the very first novel of the series) but loyal (and virile!) Maximus, cranky old Calgacus and even gentle Demetrius. Ballista's wife, Julia, gets her moment to shine too as she confronts Persian warriors in a surprise attack on the city of Antioch.

The Persians, though, are not the ultimate enemy. To restore the imperium, Ballista must kill the Macriani pretenders but not until he can find a way to safeguard his wife and two sons.

Bust thought to resemble the emperor Gallienus.

Photographed at the Walters Art Museum

by Mary Harrsch.

When Macrianus the Lame and his namesake, Macrianus the Younger, leave for Europe to challenge Valerian's son Gallienus for the throne of the entire Roman Empire, Ballista is ordered to remain with Quietus. Now, at least, the odds for Ballista's opportunity to exact retribution improve.

However, when Quietus receives word that his father and brother have been defeated and killed in Thrace, he becomes paranoid and imprisons Ballista and his family. Now Ballista must place his trust in an old acquaintance from Book 1, "Fire in the East" and "The Lion of the Sun", Odaenathus, King of Palmyra, to save all that Ballista holds dear.

"...while Valerian was growing old in Persia, Odaenathus the Palmyrene gathered together an army and restored the Roman power almost to its pristine condition. He captured the king's treasures and he captured, too, what the Parthian monarchs hold dearer than treasures, namely his concubines. For this reason Sapor [Shapur I] was now in greater dread of the Roman generals, and out of fear of Ballista and Odaenathus he withdrew more speedily to his kingdom." - The Historia Augusta, The Two Valerians, Volume III:4

The Historia Augusta only includes a couple of brief paragraphs about Quietus but those few lines reveal why historians often find themselves so exasperated when trying to piece together the events of the period using the Historia Augusta as a source.

We read that Ballista was killed along with Quietus when Odaenathus captured the city of Emesa. But in the very next section of the Augusta Historia about Odaenathus himself, the Historia Augusta says while Odenathus was defeating Quietus at Emesa, Ballista claimed the purple for himself to avoid being slain.

Then under section 18 of Volume III describing Ballista, the author of that portion (if it is not the same as the rest of the work) details yet another fate of Ballista but admits that he really doesn't know what happened to Ballista since most ancient sources only refer to his prefecture not any reign as usurper.

"This man [Ballista], then, while resting in his tent was slain, it is said, by a certain common soldier, in order to gain the favour of Odaenathus and Gallienus. I, however, have not been able to find out sufficiently the truth concerning him, because the writers of his time have related much about his prefecture but little about his rule." -The Historia Augusta, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, Volume III:18, p113.

Fortunately, Sidebottom sorts this out in a much more satisfying conclusion that sets us up for the next novel in the series, "The Caspian Gates".

Note: This review is based on the unabridged audio version of this book produced by Blackstone Audio with an outstanding performance by Stefan Rudnicki.

Review: Claudius by Douglas Jackson

2011-11-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

"Claudius" by Douglas Jackson really isn't about the emperor Claudius but about his invasion of Britain as seen through the eyes of his elephant handler, a slave named Rufus and the opposing chieftain of of the Catuvellauni tribe, Caratacus.

The story begins shortly before one of the decisive battles at a crossing of the River Medway near present-day Rochester. We learn that Rufus is not just an experienced slave but an animal trainer for the arena once mentored by one of Rome's most famous gladiators, Cupido. His skill attracted the attention of the Roman emperor, Caligula who gives Rufus the task of caring for the emperor's elephant. A position he was allowed to retain after Caligula is assassinated and the emperor Claudius ascends the throne.

After I had already started reading "Claudius", I discovered it had a prequel, "Caligula". However, enough of Rufus' back story is provided so "Claudius" can be read stand alone without any lapses in story continuity. (I was suitably impressed by "Claudius" and have now purchased "Caligula" so will review it in the near future.)

Rufus winds up in Britain along with Beersheba (the elephant) when Claudius' freedman, Tiberius Claudius Narcissus, develops an invasion strategy to provide Claudius with a crucial military victory to strengthen his hold on the imperial purple. As part of the invasion force, however, Rufus is viewed with disdain by some of the legion's veterans. Although his position shields him from such mundane camp chores as digging defensive ditches, a disgruntled centurion assigns him to a foraging party that is subsequently ambushed by the Britons. Rufus is knocked senseless in the fighting and wakes up in the belly of a dreaded wicker man.

A Wicker Man photographed at the 2011 Beltain festival
by AngusKirk

But before he can be consumed by the flames made sacred by the wild gestures of a demonical Druid, he is spotted by Caratacus, recognizing Rufus as the handler of the beast so feared by his fellow tribesmen, and is wrenched from certain death.

We find Caratacus is a thoughtful leader consumed with intellectual curiosity. Although Caratacus doubts he can learn much about the impending battle from Rufus, he questions him for hours about the Romans, particularly the Roman emperor, in an effort to learn as much as he can about his enemy.
We also discover Caratacus' position as war leader is a tenuous one with other tribal kings jockeying for position to ensure a generous portion of any spoils that might result from future clashes. One of the most troublesome of his coalition is his own brother, Togodumnus.

In this novel Togodumnus is in an inferior position to his brother Caratacus but historically Togodumnus is thought by some scholars to have been the king of the Catuvellauni and the kingship only passed to Caratacus after Togodumnus was killed early in the invasion. Caratacus is shrewd and calculating here where his brother, Togodumnus, is painted as brashly impulsive, thinking little of strategy. Placing little value on unit discipline and group tactics, Togodumnus is convinced that brute force alone will ensure victory. So Caratacus must use every relationship with other tribal chieftains he can call upon to restrain the Britons until a plan can be set into motion that will give the Britons the edge they need to overcome the Roman war machine.

Sculpture of a Druid photographed at the Louvre
by Paul Kohler

Jackson also portrays Caratacus as politically forced to tolerate the blood-thirsty Druid priests because of their influence with many tribesman, but not particularly superstitious or appreciative of their ritual sacrifices. This may be Jackson's way of incorporating the fierce Druids into the narrative without giving them much sway with Caratacus since there are persistent legends about Caratacus' conversion to Christianity before he is ultimately taken to Rome.

The legend with the most historical evidence surrounds one Claudia Rufina, a historical British woman known to the poet Martial ( Martial, Epigrams, XI:53 (ed. & trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Harvard University Press, 1993). Martial describes Claudia's marriage to a man named Pudens thought to be Aulus Pudens, a friend of Martial's. Since the 17th century, this pair have been identified with the Claudia and Pudens mentioned as members of the Roman Christian community in 2 Timothy of the New Testament (2 Timothy 4:21 - "Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.") . Some biblical scholars have further claimed Claudia was Caratacus' daughter, and that the historical Pope Linus, described in an early church document as the "brother of Claudia" was Caratacus' son. These scholars point to the basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, and with which St. Pudens is associated, which they say was once called the Palatium Britannicum and was the home of Caratacus and his family.

Anyway, back to our story. Caratacus decides Rufus will best serve the Britons by setting Rufus free to return to the Roman lines so he can report the strength of the tribes in the hope that the sheer numbers will convince Aulus Plautius, the Roman commander, to withdraw. But Plautius does not give withdrawal a second thought and formulates a master plan with his legates the Flavian brothers, Vespasian and Sabinus. Rufus, as a slave, is not privy to any of the strategy and is once more subject to the whims of Narcissus who decides Rufus and Beersheba will be part of a "river rat" Batavian cohort that is being sent upriver to outflank the Britons. Beersheba is the lynch pin in a dangerous river crossing where she will pull leather leads tied to rafts bearing the Batavian armor and equipment. Obviously the author decided to use a ploy mentioned by Vegetius (De re militari III.7) in the 4th century describing how the Batavians were able to ford rivers with full armor (although an elephant was not mentioned).

A Batavian cavalry mask in the collections of
the Nijmegen Museum.

The flanking maneuver was to be supported by Vespasian's Legio II Augusta but Vespasian is delayed by fierce resistance and Rufus must join the battle line as the Batavians numbers dwindle after repeated assaults. [SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD] Fortunately, Rufus is a skilled swordsman thanks to his earlier friendship with the gladiator Cupido and he not only stands firm but kills Togodumnus.

As for the actual historical record, there is some confusion about the fate of Togodumnus. Cassius Dio says Togodumnus was killed in a battle along the Thames River. Other scholars, including Barry Cunliffe of Oxford University, point to references in Tacitus that indicate a war leader with a similar name submitted to the Romans and became a client king over the territories of the Regini, the Atrebates, the Belgae and the Dobunni with a headquarters at Chichester, the site of Fishbourne Roman Palace. (I've actually visited the Roman remains in Fishbourne and they are very impressive!) Jackson handles this discrepency by having another British leader who sided with the Romans against Togodumnus and Caratacus formally take the name Cogidumnus as part of his alliance pact.

Claudius finally makes his appearance and symbolically leads the legions in a string of followup skirmishes where he is hailed imperator and seals his place in history. In Jackson's story, Claudius is not the drooling, stammering, frail individual portrayed in other tales. Claudius actually assumes an imposing military posture, looking every bit the brother of the famous general Germanicus. Jackson also portrays Claudius as able to address the Senate without a hint of a stammer and easily able to bend the assembly to his will.

The emperor Claudius photographed at
the Museo Archaeologico di Napoli by
Mary Harrsch.

Apparently, Jackson has chosen to take Suetonius' description of Claudius with a major dose of salt and instead present a character capable of drafting authoritative legislation regulating commerce, slavery, taxes and marriage, envisioning comprehensive public works such as the development of the port of Ostia as well as roads, canals and tunnels and utlimately dodging numerous assassination attempts while maintaining a firm grip on the reins of power.

However, Jackson is not as generous in his portrayal of Claudius' freedman, Narcissus, who is revealed as cunning, manipulative and utterly. The ambitious courtier uses everyone around him, including Rufus, to promote his own ends although he protests that such actions are ultimately for the good of Rome. This portrait of Narcissus as essentially faithless to all except Claudius is consistent with his behavior reported in the ancient sources.

The ancient sources say that Narcissus conspired with Messalina to convince Claudius to execute certain individuals that Narcissus may have deemed too powerful or too influential. But later Narcissus turned on Messalina, reporting her infidelity to Claudius and when Claudius wavered about her punishment, gave the order for her execution himself. Afterward, fearing Messalina's son, Britannicus, Narcissus tried to convince Claudius to remarry the emperor's second wife, Aelia Paetina, so Claudius would name Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, the husband of Claudius' daughter with Aelia, Claudia Antonia, as heir instead of Britannicus. But when Claudius chose to marry Agrippina instead and named her son Nero to be his heir, then Narcissus allied with Britannicus against Agrippina and Nero. So, as in this novel, he was truly a friend to no one, only an opportunistic courtier ultimately concerned only with his own future.

Jackson employs and interesting literary device in his story that I had never seen before, too. Narcissus betrays a minor character in the novel and the way that the plot point is injected into the story reminded me of the execution of Anne Boleyn. I have read that when the French swordsman prepared to cut off Boleyn's head, he signaled to an assistant who made a small commotion that caused Anne to turn her head in the direction of the disturbance therefore (mercifully?) distracting her at the moment the fatal blow was administered. In this book, the author distracts the reader with a minor little battlefield drama just before assassins deal the death blow to a character not involved in the mini-drama, jarring the reader with its unexpected suddeness. I'll have to remember that tactic if I ever write a novel myself!

The book closes with an epilogue describing Caratacus' entry into Rome. A passage from an epic poem by William Mason came to mind:

I was born A king and
Heav'n who bade these warrior oaks
Lift their green shields against the fiery sun
To fence their subject plain did mean that I
Should with as firm an arm protect my people
Against the pestilent glare of Rome's ambition
I fail'd and how I fail'd thou know'st too well
So does the babbling world and therefore
Druid I would be any thing save what I am
- Caractacus by William Mason, 1759

Despite years of defeat by superior forces and betrayal by a queen many thought may have been his former lover, Caratacus still walks proudly among the shouting crowds, awestruck by the magnificent architecture and opulence. He courageously approaches the palace where he expects to be ritually strangled like the hapless Vercingetorix all those years before. There he finally meets the emperor Claudius, and is surprised to find a rather frail-looking old man. He must have thought:

Ye never felt the sharp vindictive spur
That goads the injur'd warrior the hot tide
That flushes crimson on the conscious cheek
Of him who burns for glory
- Caractacus by William Mason, 1759

But this old man holds a defeated enemy's life in his withered hands and Caratacus has no doubt that a signal will be given to end his. Instead Claudius gives him a chance to address the crowd expecting him to plead for his life. But, Caratacus simply asks "With all of this, you covet our huts?"

Caractacus at the Tribunal of Claudius at Rome

Engraving by Andrew Birrell of a painting by Henry Fuseli, 1792

Historically, Caratacus was brought before the Senate where he made such an impression he was pardoned and allowed to live out his life peacefully in Rome after saying:

"If the degree of my nobility and fortune had been matched by moderation in success, I would have come to this City as a friend rather than a captive, nor would you have disdained to receive with a treaty of peace one sprung from brilliant ancestors and commanding a great many nations. But my present lot, disfiguring as it is for me, is magnificent for you. I had horses, men, arms, and wealth: what wonder if I was unwilling to lose them? If you wish to command everyone, does it really follow that everyone should accept your slavery? If I were now being handed over as one who had surrendered immediately, neither my fortune nor your glory would have achieved brilliance. It is also true that in my case any reprisal will be followed by oblivion. On the other hand, if you preserve me safe and sound, I shall be an eternal example of your clemency." - Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A. J. Woodman, 2004;

However, after he was freed, Cassius Dio says the famous Briton asked, "And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them, covet our poor tents?" - Dio Cassius, Roman History, Epitome of Book LXI, 33:3c

Obiviously, the author thought a paraphrase of just the last quote would make a more elegant ending and I agree.

A note about the author: Douglas Jackson is the assistant editor of The Scotsman in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has spent 30 years working for various local and national newspapers around the UK. His first up-close-and-personal experience with the Roman Empire came to him while he was a young student and spent a summer restoring a Roman marching camp at Pennymuir in the Cheviot Hills. He has followed "Caligula" and "Claudius" with a series featuring Gaius Valerius Verrens, a tribune of the 20th Legion who faces off against Boudicca in "Hero of Rome". In Jackson's latest novel, "Defender of Rome," then Verrens is charged by Nero with capturing the leader of a new religious sect, the followers of Christus.

Were Sparta's "Happy Helots" a template for Roman slavery?

2011-10-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

Lacedaemonian furniture appliqué depicting

a nude swordsman 550 - 525 BCE, Bronze.

Photographed at the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA
by Mary Harrsch.

While doing some housekeeping up on Blogger I happened to notice a post by historian Helen P. Schrader entitled "Sparta's Happy Helots: A Closer Look at Helot Society". Of course I was intrigued because I have always envisioned Sparta's helots as a generally downtrodden lot always looking over their shoulder for an up and coming Spartan youth out to make his first kill. But Schrader paints a much different picture of helot society and as I read the article I immediately recognized similarities in the slavery practiced by the Spartans in comparison to Roman slavery.

Although there were obvious differences such as the fact that in Sparta the state owned all slaves that in turn were attached to particular governmental activities or particular parcels of land managed by a Spartiate elite while Roman slaves were the property of individual Roman patriarchs, I was astonished to learn that the ancient sources report that some helots became wealthy and were able to purchase their freedom just as in Roman society.

I have studied Greek history to some degree but this is the first time I had heard this. Schrader explains that Spartan helots, although unable to own land, were often entitled to up to 50% of the produce from the land that they worked. She also pointed out that helots were able to maintain a family unit and may have benefited from inheritance laws that channeled family wealth to the "tenant-in-chief" who in turn passed it on to a single recognized heir. If a helot had more than one son, the younger sons were forced to seek employment elsewhere within the boundaries of Lacedaemon to support themselves and their families.

"Some younger sons would have been apprenticed to learn crafts scorned by the perioikoi and prohibited to the Spartiates. Through apprenticeship to those that had taken this path before them, they would have become tanners and tinkers, cobblers and coopers, masons and dyers. As a master craftsman, able to retain 100% of their earnings, these helots would have been in a position to found families, build houses and accumulate wealth."

"Other young men unable or unwilling to embark on such a slow, hard career, would have sought employment as laborers for the Spartan army or state, or to individuals. Thus they could have become the personal attendants to Spartan hoplites or agricultural day-laborers, going from estate to estate. Others would have worked for wages as teamsters and mule-drivers for the Spartan army or as construction workers, bath attendants, gardeners and repairmen for the Lacedaemonian government. Still other could have found employment in perioikoi factories and business - as miners, quarry workers, rowers, etc." - Helen Schrader, Sparta's Happy Helots: A Closer Look at Helot Society

This ability for helots to accumulate wealth and purchase their freedom is clearly reflected in the Roman approach to slavery and manumission. Schrader did not delve into Spartan laws that may have regulated such manumissions, however. The Romans, being consummate legislators, developed over time an exhaustive body of laws regulating not only when manumission could be granted but the social status of those manumitted. One such law was the Lex Aelia Sentia of 4 CE. Portions of it were cited in a textbook written by an unknown jurist named Gaius in the 2nd century CE. I found the sections on the manumission of gladiators and former gladiators particularly interesting:

"The Lex Aelia Sentia requires that any slaves who had been put in chains as a punishment by their masters or had been branded or interrogated under torture about some crime of which they were found to be guilty; and any who had been handed over to fight as gladiators or with wild beasts, or had belonged to a troupe of gladiators or had been imprisoned; should, if the same owner or any subsequent owner manumits them, become free men of the same status as subject foreigners (peregrini dediticii)."

" 'Subject foreigners' is the name given to those who had once fought a regular war against the Roman People, were defeated, and gave themselves up."
"We will never accept that slaves who have suffered a disgrace of this kind can become either Roman citizens or Latins (whatever the procedure of manumission and whatever their age at the time, even if they were in their masters' full ownership); we consider that they should always be held to have the status of subjects."

Citizens

"But if a slave has suffered no such disgrace, he sometimes becomes a Roman citizen when he is manumitted, and sometimes a Latin."

"A slave becomes a Roman citizen if he fulfils the following three conditions. He must be over thirty years of age; his master must own him by Quiritary right; and he must be set free by ajust and legitimate manumission, i.e. by the rod (vindicta) or by census or by Will. If any of these conditions is not met, he will become a Latin." - Gaius, 2nd century CE, - More

It would be interesting to compare and contrast the development of manumission over time between the Spartans and the Romans!

Excellent princes, ridiculous sophists or jealous tyrants? Gibbon's take on some of Rome's good emperors

2011-10-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Caesar Augustus by Boschetti Italian
Bronze 19th century CE after Prima Porta
Augustus 2nd century CE. Photographed
at the University of Utah Museum of Art by
Mary Harrsch.

In my ongoing readings of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I was surprised to learn that Edward Gibbon maintained a rather harsh opinion of three of Rome's most respected emperors.

Gibbon claimed Vespasian's merit was "more useful than shining" and his virtues "disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony." He declared Hadrian to be, in turn, an excellent prince, ridiculous sophist and, eventually, jealous tyrant. But most surprising was his blistering assessment of Gaius Octavius Thurinus - the emperor Augustus.

Of Augustus, Gibbon declared, "A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him at the age of nineteen to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside."

Whoa! That's certainly an extreme assessment of the man ultimately responsible for ushering in the Pax Romana! I doubt Octavian was particularly likable since he appeared to calculate the political advantage in every move, but despite concessions that he had to make to his ill health, I would hardly call him a coward. It took a lot of brass for a 19-year-old stripling to go up against a man with the military experience and following of Marc Antony or the Roman world's most renowned orator and formidable politician, Cicero.

Cicero, 1st century BCE. Photographed at the
Capitoline Museum by Mary Harrsch

Gibbon seems to blame Octavian for authorizing Cicero's proscription but that was really done at the insistence of Antony. Octavian pragmatically didn't have any particular reason to oppose it. It's very much like the recent debt ceiling negotiations. Some programs were ultimately considered expendable in the overall "game of thrones".

Cicero had been so openly hostile to Antony, his appearance on Antony' hit list must have surely been a foregone conclusion. Cicero had also arrogantly miscalculated Octavian's political astuteness and assumed he could simply dispose of Octavian after he had served the purposes of the power brokers in the Senate - also a fatal error.

As for hipocrisy, Augustus, like many politicians today, maintained power and control by telling people what they wanted to hear while quietly disposing of those deemed a threat to his position through political maneuvering or outright assassination covered by some socially engineered construct. Scholars point to Augustus' blatant philandering while enacting morality laws to dictate the behavior of the people of Rome. But as I pointed out in an earlier post on Roman infanticide, perhaps these laws were meant as deterrents to abortion and infant abandonment and to encourage larger Roman families because Roman birthrates were falling noticeably and there was administrative concern that the economic system was in jeopardy.

A decidedly different view of Rome's first emperor was presented by author John Williams in his novel "Augustus". It is a novel written in the form of a collection of correspondence between the emperor and various members of his family and his imperial courtiers - much like Thornton Wilder's "Ides of March". Williams, in contrast to Gibbon, was relatively kind to Octavian and seemed to gloss over some of his shortcomings, like his false promises of military support to Marcus Antonius during the latter's Parthian campaigns. I think Williams did a good job, though, of demonstrating the overwhelming turmoil Octavian faced when he assumed the reins of power upon the death of his uncle, Julius Caesar.

Livia, 1st century BCE.
Photographed at the Palazzo
Massimo by Mary Harrsch.

Unlike Robert Graves, however, Williams also spared the empress Livia from any insinuations of overt murder in relating the deaths of many of Octavian's would-be successors. Instead, however, he surprisingly portrayed her as a cold, rather loveless individual who ran Octavian's household but did not command his heart. In Williams novel, most of Augustus' later years were spent in the company of Terentia, the wife of Octavian's close friend and advisor, Maecenas. I knew Octavian reputedly engaged in adultery in flagrant violation of his own morality laws, but I guess I didn't realize much of his philandering was targeted at the wife of one of his closest friends. Williams portrays Maecenas as openly homosexual and willingly supportive of his friend's dalliances but other scholars point out that the relationship between Maecenas and Augustus appears to have become more strained in later life probably due to the emperor's indiscretions. Marcus Velleius Paterculus said Maecenas was "of sleepless vigilance in critical emergencies, far-seeing and knowing how to act, but in his relaxation from business more luxurious and effeminate than a woman." Perhaps Williams relied on that reference to support his development of Maecenas' character.

At Maecenas' reception room by Stepan Bakalovich (1890)

Williams also had a decidedly different take on Octavian's banishment of his daughter Julia as punishment for her licentiousness. This has often been a sticking point with scholars who, like Gibbon, decry Octavian's hypocrisy. Instead of the traditional approach to this incident, Williams portrayed their father-daughter relationship as one that was quite close even to the point that Augustus simply ignored the string of lovers his daughter entertained in her efforts to display her contempt for her husband, the future emperor Tiberius because Augustus despised Tiberius as well.

Julia Livilla, daughter of Germanicus, like
Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus, also
suffered exile to the island of Pandataria
after being accused by the emperor Claudius
of adultery with Seneca. Photographed at
the Palazzo Massimo by Mary Harrsch.

But when Augustus' spies reported that Julia's latest lover, Jullus Antonius, son of Augustus' dead arch rival, Marcus Antonius and his third rebellious wife Fulvia, was plotting a coup and the emperor's assassination, Augustus had no alternative except to condemn her.

This may have been simply dramatic license on Wiliams' part - after all it is a novel not a text book - but this coup may have been more fact than fancy. When Julia and her lovers were tried for their breach of Augustus' morality laws, all of the lovers except Jullus were exiled. Jullus, however, was condemned to death as a traitor. Williams proposes that Julia, although apparently not aware of the particulars of the plot, would have been found guilty of treason too and also sentenced to death if Augustus' had not engineered her conviction on the violation of his morality laws. Thus, Julia's subsequent exile actually was an effort by her father to save her life, not severely punish her for moral indiscretions. The thing I find puzzling, however, is if her exile was meant only to preserve her life, why did Augustus keep up the pretense of punishment for the rest of his life, as he reportedly refused to ever see her or speak of her again. Had Tiberius already gained so much power that he could have pushed aside the aging Augustus whenever he chose to and exacted his revenge against Julia despite her father's acclaim as father of his country?

Hail Caesar: The evolution of family name to imperial title

2011-07-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

"The princes who by their birth or their adoption belonged to the family of the Caesars, took the name of Caesar. After the death of Nero, this name designated the Imperial dignity itself, and afterwards the appointed successor. - Footnote, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

However, scholars in Gibbon's time were unsure of the exact point in the Roman succession that the name transitioned to an imperial title.

Augustus as Pontifex Maximus

photographed at the Palazzo

Massimo in Rome by Mary

Harrsch.

"The time at which it was employed in the latter sense, cannot be fixed with certainty. Bach (Hist. Jurisprud. Rom. 304) affirms from Tacitus, H. i. 15, and Suetonius, Galba, 17, that Galba conferred on Piso Lucinianus the title of Caesar, and from that time the term had this meaning: but these two historians simply say that he appointed Piso his successor, and do not mention the word Caesar.  [Actually, Galba himself assumed the title "Servius Galba Imperator Caesar" then passed it on by adoption to his successor.]

Aurelius Victor (in Traj. 348, ed. Artzen) says that Hadrian first received this title on his adoption; but as the adoption of Hadrian is still doubtful, and besides this, as Trajan, on his death-bed, was not likely to have created a new title for his successor, it is more probable that Aelius Verus was the first who was called Caesar when adopted by Hadrian. Spart. in Aelio Vero, 102.- W."   - Footnote, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Adoption certainly accounts for Augustus, who was adopted by Julius Caesar, and Tiberius, who was subsequently adopted by Augustus. Claudius assumed the name of Caesar upon accession without previous adoption but he was a direct descendant of Caesar's bloodline. Claudius later adopted Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (Nero) thus transmitting the name Caesar to him. So Gibbon's initial observations are correct. However,  Gibbon seems to become a bit confused with the successions occurring in the Year of the Four Emperors.

Roman emperor Otho in 69 CE.
Photographed at The Louvre in Paris
by Mary Harrsch.

"Galba's reign did not last long and he was soon deposed by Marcus Otho. Otho did not use the title "Caesar", but occasionally used the title "Nero" as emperor. Otho was then defeated by Aulus Vitellius who acceded with the name "Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Imperator Augustus." Vitellius did not at first adopt the cognomen "Caesar" as part of his name, and may have intended to replace it with "Germanicus" (he bestowed the name "Germanicus" upon his own son that year).

Publis Septimus Geta 3rd century CE.

Photographed at the Palazzo Altemps

in Rome by Mary Harrsch.

Nevertheless, Caesar had become such an integral part of the imperial dignity that its place was immediately restored by Titus Flavius Vespasianus ("Vespasian"), whose defeat of Vitellius in 69 [CE] put an end to the period of instability and began the Flavian dynasty. Vespasian's son, Titus Flavius Vespasianus became "Titus Caesar Vespasianus". - Wikipedia

Following the Flavians, the emperor Nerva assumed the title as well then passed it on through adoption to his heir Caesar Nerva Traianus who, supposedly, adopted his heir Hadrian, passing the title to him. At this point our path once more converges with Gibbon.

I thought it was also interesting to read that to further distinguish the use of the name to designate the imperial heir, the title Nobilissimus (meaning "most noble") was added in the 3rd century CE beginning with Publius Septimius Geta.

On Scipio's Villa

2011-07-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Scipio Africanus the Elder

Today I was listening to one of Professor Steven Tuck's lectures in his series "Pompeii: Daily Life in an Ancient Roman City" and I was intrigued to learn that Dr. Tuck ascribes the introduction of Roman villa architecture to none other than Scipio Africanus. Not only did Scipio come back from conquering Carthage with a boatload
of money, but he subsequently ran afoul of other members of the senate, particularly Cato the Elder, so eventually chose self exile to free himself of the political bickering.

According to Seneca he cried “It is my wish,” said he, “not to infringe in the least upon our laws, or upon our customs, let all Roman citizens have equal rights. O my country, make the most of the good that I have done, but without me. I have been the cause of your freedom, and I shall also be its proof; I go into exile, if it is true that I have grown beyond what is to your advantage!”

So, Scipio took his hard earned wealth and moved to the seaside town of Liternum. There, he constructed a personal residence of significant proportions that would be emulated and embellished by Rome's later elite.

Two hundred years after Scipio's death, Seneca visited the villa and we are fortunate to have an extant copy of his observations.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca in Cordoba Spain. Image courtesy of Wikipedia

"I have inspected the house, which is constructed of hewn stone; the wall which encloses a forest; the towers also, buttressed out on both sides for the purpose of defending the house; the well, concealed among buildings and shrubbery, large enough to keep a whole army supplied; and the small bath, buried in darkness according to the old style, for our ancestors did not think that one could have a hot bath except in darkness. It was therefore a great pleasure to me to contrast Scipio’s ways with our own. Think, in this tiny recess the “terror of Carthage,” to whom Rome should offer thanks because she was not captured more than once, used to bathe a body wearied with work in the fields! For he was accustomed to keep himself busy and to cultivate the soil with his own hands, as the good old Romans were wont to do. Beneath this dingy roof he stood; and this floor, mean as it is, bore his weight." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On Scipio's Villa

I assume the forest (sometimes translated as "park") enclosed by the villa's walls represents the first vestiges of what would later become the peristyle garden. Although the structure was probably palatial for the time period, Seneca, tutor to the emperor Nero in the 1st century CE and well acquainted with the lavish accommodations of the imperial court, is obviously appalled by the modest nature of Scipio's bathing facility.

"But who in these days could bear to bathe in such a fashion? We think ourselves poor and mean if our walls are not resplendent with large and costly mirrors; if our marbles from Alexandria are not set off by mosaics of Numidian stone, if their borders are not faced over on all sides with difficult patterns, arranged in many colors like paintings; if our vaulted ceilings are not buried in glass; if our swimming-pools are not lined with Thasian marble, once a rare and wonderful sight in any temple-pools into which we let down our bodies after they have been drained weak by abundant perspiration; and finally, if the water has not poured from silver spigots." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On Scipio's Villa

Seneca goes on to point out that Scipio probably only washed his soiled limbs on a daily basis and did not fully bathe but once a week since he toiled at honest work and had no need to rid himself of perfumed oils like later members of elite Roman society. I found this interesting because I often think about how our own society has been influenced by the Romans and wonder if my parents view of weekly bathing back in the 1950s and 60s was ultimately a European adoption of a ritual handed down from conservative merchant-class Romans who also did not use perfumed oils excessively.

Seneca also makes much of the fact that Scipio bathed almost in the dark as his bathing chamber featured only "tiny chinks-you cannot call them windows-cut out of the stone wall in such a way as to admit light without weakening the fortifications..." I think Seneca should have, instead, marveled at how much safer the Italian countryside was in his time as opposed to the early 2nd century CE. After all, Scipio had just defeated Hannibal a few years before Scipio retired to Liternum and Hannibal had ravaged much of the surrounding Campanian countryside during the Second Punic War. It's hardly surprising, then, that Scipio would have been careful to preserve the strength of his walls rather than carelessly focus on aesthetics.

Old fisherman or Dying Seneca 2nd century
CE Roman copy of Hellenistic original.
Photographed at The Louvre by Mary Harrsch

Seneca also should have pondered Scipio's reputed mystic nature. Perhaps Scipio found that bathing in a relatively dark chamber encouraged the visitations of prophetic dreams. Most of what I had read about Scipio up until now described his military strategies and his political activities so I was not aware that some ancient sources, including Livy, reported that Scipio was prescient. Polybius, on the other hand, attributed Scipio's successes to good planning, rational thinking and intelligence, which he perceived as a better indication of divine favor than prophetic dreams.

"His [Livy's] account is more literary than historical, more dramatic and careless. He was not very critical of sources. In his effort to promote Roman patriotism he reduces Roman strength and increases that of the enemy. As for his attitude toward Scipio, he did not assume the mystical religion bit was purely 'a cloak and tool'..."
"The closest we can come to Scipio is the writing of Polybius, the eminent Greek general and historian, who composed his history of Rome some 60 years after Scipio's active career...He was, however, a Stoic. This philosophy insisted on the rationality of the universe and the existence of natural causes for historical events. This philosophy certainly helped him in comparison with the more mystic ideas held by others, but in Scipio's case it caused Polybius trouble."
"Polybius' sources besides the Scipio family and Laelius, were Greeks, on both the Roman and Carthaginian side. These Greeks followed the school of thought of Alexander the Great - that of a mystic leader. They were perhaps the original "image makers". They liked to surround the idea of the leader with a divine glow. If they could not explain something, they said it was due to divine intervention. Hence they developed the Legend of Scipio. Polybius was anxious to refute this legend. [However,] He admired Scipio as his Stoic HERO, so made him a supremely rational genius. The result was a kind of caricature, a cunning individual who purposely plays on the superstition of his followers and uses religion for his own ends. Polybius makes it seem Scipio spread these ideas of his divinity himself, while disbelieving them." - John Sloan, Scipio Africanus, Publius Cornelius, (The Elder) (237 - 183 BC), son of Publius Cornelius Scipio

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

A rather sour-faced Cato the Elder

Sloan also mentions that some scholars point to Scipio's Etruscan origins and the widespread acknowledgment of Etruscan mystical gifts as the source of belief in his prophecy. Whatever the reason behind this legendary aspect of his nature, I find it quite intriguing.

I noticed another interesting tidbit about Scipio in my research, too. He supposedly wore his toga in the Greek fashion, resembling the dress of Greek poets and artists. He was well known to be an avid Graekophile but this overt demonstration of his embrace of Greek culture did not endear him to many of the staunch Roman traditionalists, particularly Cato the Elder. Yet, Scipio also introduced the practice of being clean shaven, perhaps emulating images of Alexander the Great, but not typical of Greek philosophers and poets of the time. Definitely, a man of unusual contradictions. Perhaps what frustrated Cato the Elder so much was that he couldn't pigeon-hole Scipio into any particular category making it difficult for Cato to mount an all out political attack on the man.

Cato did ultimately succeed in driving him away, though. Apparently, Scipio took his resulting bitterness to his grave, reportedly ordering a tomb inscription that read: "Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habebis"—ungrateful fatherland, you will not even have my bones!" (although we don't really know where Scipio was ultimately buried and have never recovered any funerary monument with these words.)

I was curious whether any effort had been made to find Scipio's villa and learned that an initial excavation of Liternum was begun in 1923 and continued until 1937 but apparently no evidence of the villa was unearthed. A UNESCO volunteer excavation was launched in the 1970s but it, too, did not reveal the site of Scipio's last days. Then in 1988 a more extensive excavation was launched.

"The remains as they stand today date mostly from the the early imperial period. The standing monuments consist of a temple, a basilica and a small theatre, positioned on the west side of the forum with a large open area in front. These are contained within a surrounding wall onto which are abutted a number of small rectangular buildings that are thought to be shops.
"The temple is in a typical Roman style set on a high podium of locally quarried tufa, with the emphasis of approach from the front of the building, the facade of which would have dominated the space in front of the temple. One complete and one partial column are all that remain of the temple facade.."
"To the left of the temple lie the scant remains of the basilica. The brickwork in opus reticulatum suggests a date for the building between the second half of the first century BC and the first century AD, although the existing structure would almost certainly have been built to replace an earlier building on the site. The remains of the basilica today are unimpressive, but the vestiges of the marble that originally decorated the building, visible in one or two places where modern 'quarriers' haven't yet found it, give some indication of a rather grander past for the building."
"The other main structure on the site, to the right of the temple, is a small theatre of the imperial period. The remains show that the theatre follows a typical Roman plan. After removal of dense vegetation the scaena or stage building, and the cavea or seating area where clearly visible. The upper part of the cavea had collapsed, creating the impression that the theatre was much smaller than it actually had been. Although very small, the theatre would have been quite adequate for a town of this size. It might be surmised that the population had grown from the three hundred families of the original foundation, but probably not by much." - Jim Devine, University of Glasgow, Liternum: A Campanian Coastal Town

So, it seems that Scipio remains as elusive as ever. As for Scipio being credited with the development of one of the first villas, though, it seems the jury is still out on that one too. Helsinki scholar Eeva Maria Viitanen points out that the "Auditorium Villa", excavated in the 1990s, indicates there was a luxurious residential complex constructed as early as the 6th century BCE.

The Villae Regina, a villae rusticae unearthed at Boscoreale near Naples, Italy

was one of 30 small holdings situated on the lower slopes of Vesuvius and
on the adjacent plain of Sarno. These small- and medium-sized properties
were family-run or employed a few slaves. Photographed by Mary Harrsch.

"The building has a very long history, starting from the Archaic period, and its earlier phases are also fairly well perserved. What is special about this site is the rebuilding of the early small farm as a large and luxurious complex with what are probably separate living quarter and productive parts towards the end of the 6th century BCE. In comparison with other sites of the period, the built area is enormous and it remains very large among its peers until the 1st century BCE, when the villa becomes quite normal in size among the many other large country houses. It has been suggested that the Auditorium Villa was in fact a country residence for the head of a Roman elite family, who thus asserted his right over the landscape inhabited by members of his clan. Such residences would have been relatively rare which is why they probably have not been found before. The other farms were small in size and there would not have been intermediary forms between the very large and the small. The possible model for these large residences might have been the slightly earlier Etruscan elite palaces, such as Murlo. It is also claimed that there were no Catonian small or medium-sized villae rusticae in the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE. The development into the 1st century BCE villa would have been faster and the changes would have happened closer to this boom period than suggested before. The economic explanation echoes the common model of war booty invested in land, as external funds were needed to establish the new large villas and that the owners would have represented a much more heterogeneous group of persons than before." - Eeva Maria Viitanen, Locus Bonus: The Relationship of the Roman Villa to its Environment in the Vicinity of Rome

But whether Scipio inspired the widespread development of Roman villa architecture or not, he certainly was a passionate and gifted individual that I plan to study further. I hope that by giving up those "triumphs with their withering laurels" he found those "lasting rewards that keep forever fresh and green" Cicero described so eloquently in Scipio's Dream.

Trade Protectionism in the Roman Empire

2011-06-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

"It appears from the newly discovered treatise of Cicero de Republica, that there was a law of the republic prohibiting the culture of the vine and olive beyond the Alps, in order to keep up the value of those in Italy. Nos justissimi homines, qui transalpinas gentes oleam et vitem serere non sinimus, quo pluris sint nostra oliveta nostraeque vineae." - Footnote from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

I found this reference interesting because I had not thought about the Romans engaging in trade protectionism before. I did a little more research and found that the prohibition of the cultivation of grape vines beyond the Alps was actually mandated by the Roman Senate as early as 154 BCE.

Silver wine cup depicting Odysseus from

Homer's Odyssey Book 11 Lines 26-42,
Roman 1st century CE. Photographed
at the GettyVilla by Mary Harrsch.

But, by the 1st century CE, Roman demand for wine had grown so much that the ban must have either been overturned or was largely ignored as it is reported that by then Italian-produced wine was in such short supply that wine had to be imported from the Iberian peninsula or Gaul.

Mulsum was wine sweetened with honey, mixed in just before drinking (and therefore not like mead) and served as an aperitif at the beginning of the meal. (Conditum had herbs and spices such as pepper added as well.) Often freely dispensed to the plebs at public events to solicit their political support, the demand for mulsum became so great that it was more profitable to sell wine at home than to export it and, by the first century AD, wine had to be imported from Iberia and Gaul. - Wine and Rome

The problem of a wine shortage was further exacerbated by Domitian's vine edit in 90-91 CE.

"[Domitian]...thought that the corn-fields were being neglected as a result of too much concentration on vineyards, and issued an edit that no more vines were to be planted in Italy and that vineyards in the provinces were to be cut down, leaving no more than half standing..." - Suetonius, Life of Domitian, 7.2

Suetonius goes on to point out that Domitian did not initially go through with this measure when a poem appeared depicting him as a vine-eating goat. But he was later praised by others like Silvae (4.3.11-12) who hailed the legislation saying "to chaste Ceres, restores acres long denied her and a sober countryside", obviously considering the legislation more moral than economic, as did Suetonius and Statius.

"Undoubtedly, he wanted to encourage cereal-production both in Italy and in the provinces for shortages were not unknown. The vine edit (of c. 90-1) had been issued just before the severe famine in Pisidian Antioch (92-3) but there was more to it than this; the cities of Asia had been growing and their populations expanding for many years, but the emperors were reluctant to allow the local elite to assume complete control over the production of corn [grain], for fear it would result in a concomitant loss of imperial authority. In fact, what it did produce was famine. Domitian tried to deal with the problem: hence, perhaps, his popularity amongst the provincials." - Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian

Furthermore, the cultivation of grapes in the provinces was apparently restricted to Roman citizens until Caracalla conferred citizenship on all free inhabitants of the empire in 212 CE. Then, the last restriction on viticulture, Domitian's edict, was finally overturned in 280 CE.

In researching this aspect of Roman law, I found one other little interesting bit of information. I knew that Falernian wine (made from grapes grown on the slopes of Mount Falernus on the border between Latium and Campania) was generally considered the best quality. A wine price list still visible on the wall of a Pompeii tavern declares, " "For one as (a unit of money) you can drink wine; for two, you can drink the best; for four, you can drink Falernian."

"Next in rank were the wines of the Alban Hills southeast of Rome, and Surrentine and Massic (among others) from the Campania. Finally, there was Mamertine from Messina, first brought into favor by Julius Caesar, who had it served at public banquets." - Wine and Rome

Apparently Julius Caesar spent lavish sums of money on public banquets but even he did not favor the mob with the best wines Italy had to offer!

Review: Master of Rome by John Stack

2011-06-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

The glamor surrounding Hannibal and his amazing trek through the Alps with a cadre of elephants during the Second Punic War has captivated history buffs for so long that the First Punic War has been virtually overlooked by many historical novelists. Likewise, although many authors have written thousands of pages about Rome's fierce legions, Rome's first tentative efforts to build a navy and develop seamanship that would eventually rival Carthaginian mariners who had ruled the Mediterranean for centuries have been largely ignored as well. But Irish author John Stack has redressed both of these oversights in his "Masters of the Sea" series of novels.

I was unaware of Stack's efforts until the third book in his series, "Master of Rome", popped up in the available titles on Audible.com. As I am always on the lookout for stories set in the ancient world, I immediately selected it as one of my choices and was pleased to discover that its story focussed on the naval battles of the last years of the First Punic War.

The story's protagonist, a Greek born Roman prefect named Atticus Perennis, has honed his seamanship fighting pirates (which I learned later is covered by the first book in the series, Ship of Rome) and has learned to use the corvus, a boarding ramp introduced by the Romans to allow them to take advantage of land-type assault maneuvers at sea, to deadly effect.

The Roman corvus, a boarding ramp anchored to the enemy

ship by a sharp spike, is estimated to have weighed over

a ton causing severe instability in rough seas. Though

advantageous under the right conditions, it was ultimately

abandoned after the loss of an entire fleet in a storm following
the battle of Cape Ecnomus during the First Punic War.

I had known about the corvus from earlier studies but didn't realize that it was actually used for only a few years during the First Punic War because of the massive loss of ships in a storm following the brilliant Roman victory at the battle of Cape Ecnomus.

Perennis commands one of the few ships that survive the storm and is assaulted by charges of incompetence when he returns to Rome to report the loss to the senate. We learn that in earlier novels Perennis has apparently made a powerful enemy in the form of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina who earned his cognomen "Asina" meaning "donkey" when, as the first Roman fleet commander, he led an ill-conceived rush to take possession of the Lipari Islands and was subsequently captured by the Carthaginians. Since I had read only about the glory of the Scipioni in regards to the Second Punic War and the ultimate defeat of Hannibal, I was surprised to learn that the family had someone in the family tree much less militarily successful. A little research revealed that he was actually a brother to Lucius Cornelius Scipio who begat the much more glorious line of descendants.

Roman galley depicted in a fresco recovered from Pompeii, 1st century BCE -

1st century CE. Photographed by Mary Harrsch at the Archaeologico Nazionale

di Napoli in Naples, Italy.

Fortunately, Perennis has a powerful Senator in his corner, and he survives the spurious charges and is placed in command of a new fleet no longer equipped with the corvus. But this change brings the Romans back to their original problem. How do they overcome the supremely skilled Carthaginian seamen? To make matters worse, Scipio Asina is elected consul and ignores any advice Perennis offers to help the Romans achieve victory.

Perennis trains his men furiously but even the most brutal training schedule cannot equal the skills acquired and handed down for centuries by generations of Carthaginian sailors. However, Perennis manages to maintain a blockade of the city of Panormus and Scipio's legions eventually breach the city's defenses. But the Carthaginian defense is spearheaded by Greek mercenaries so Scipio refuses to acknowledge Perennis' crucial contributions to the ultimate Roman victory.

In the meantime, Hamilcar Barca has hired another of Perennis' wily countryman from Rhodes to slip through the Roman blockade and keep Barca informed of Roman dispositions of ships and legions.
This Rhodian, a real historical figure named Hannibal the Rhodian, was almost equal to Perennis in command seamanship and Perennis has to employ every ounce of his mariner's skill as well as a cuning ruse to finally overwhelm the Rhodian's sleek quadreme when the Rhodian attempts once again to run the Roman blockade. (I noticed in my research that the Rhodian's ship is thought to have been used subsequently as the model for faster Roman ships as the war progressed.)

The Rhodian's capture yields valuable intelligence about the location of the main Carthaginian fleet at Drepana and Scipio Asini is once again, all too quick to jump on the opportunity to grab a fistful of glory and orders a night voyage to surprise the Carthaginians.

Image via Wikipedia

For the sake of historical accuracy, I must point out that in history, Publius Claudius Pulcher, not Scipio Asini, was consul by then, and it is Pulcher who supposedly threw the uncooperative sacred chickens overboard when they refused to eat during the auguries before the battle of Drepana, declaring "Bibant, quoniam esse nolunt " - "Let them drink, since they don't wish to eat!". Stack includes this bit of theater in his story although some scholars point out that it was only referenced indirectly by Cicero and not documented by Polybius, recognized as the definitive ancient source on the Punic Wars, so whether it really happened is questionable.

Some reviewers have criticized Stack's consolidation of some of the Roman commanders but I think he meant to streamline the story to improve pacing and allow the reader to focus on the actions of the main protagonist and antagonists. Stack also simplifies the Carthaginian command structure by having Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's father, in primary command of all Carthaginian forces, including the fleet. In reality, Hamilcar Barca commanded the land forces and did not possess the level of naval acumen attributed to him by Stack in this story. However, since the story was so engaging I was obviously motivated to research the time period and battles covered further so I gained an understanding of the real details eventually anyway.

Hoping to surprise the Carthaginians, the Roman consul plans to sail under cover of darkness and trap the Carthaginians inside the harbor. But, Perennis feels his crews are not experienced enough to maintain battle formation at night. However, Perennis is once again ignored as orders are given to set sail for Drepana. As Perennis predicted, the ships are soon strung out in a long disorderly line and are spotted by the Carthaginians as they approach the harbor. The Carthaginians not only escape the trap but turn the tables on the Romans and destroy almost the entire fleet.

But the ever tenacious Romans once again rebuild their fleet and exact their revenge at the Battle of the Aegates Islands, the rousing climax of the novel.

Although a relatively new author, Stack demonstrates a command of the history of the era and the cultures involved coupled with the crucial ability to people his stories with vibrant personalities as well. I have little doubt that Stack will eventually be ranked among such bestselling historical fiction writers as Conn Iggulden and Harry Sidebottom.

Furthermore, I found Stack's ability to conjure up the terrifying ferocity of an ancient naval engagement with its splintering oars, screaming crewmen, shuddering timbers and gore-slickened decks absolutely riveting. I definitely plan to go back and read the other books in this series.

An excellent summary of the battles immediately preceding and including the events in this novel can also be read here.

Patient diligence - the fruit of habit and discipline of the legions

2011-05-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

"Active valor may often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline." - Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Roman fort depicted in the Witheridge Historical Archive

Gibbon made this observation after describing the formidable strength of a typical Roman encampment that was erected at the end of a day after marching 20 or more miles. He points out that the encampment was encircled by a rampart that was 12 feet high paralleled by a 12 foot ditch. The vallum, the Roman term for the palisade, (a term that Gibbon does not use by the way) was derived from the word for a stake.

I found it interesting that this feature of Roman military practice was actually adopted from the Greeks. We are told by both Polybius and Livy that both Romans and Greeks used young, preferably oak, trees with three to four substantial side branches. However, the Greeks spaced the trees farther apart, filling in the extra space with more branches. This enabled them to open the palisade by grasping the fill branches and dragging them out of the way, then sally forth from any point of the rampart.

The Romans, however, placed the trees much closer together, interlacing the branches and sharpening the ends into points. It was very difficult to breech and not intended to be a temporary convenience, easily cast aside. Ideologically the Romans used their fortification to reestablish the encircling sacred boundary that was used to demarcate a Roman city from surrounding countryside and once erected remained so until the mobile "city" of the legions moved on.

"Boundaries are very important in the Roman world, and defining those boundaries is essential to knowing what is Roman," explains Professor Steven Tuck, Miami University, in his lecture on Roman military forts and fortifications in his Teaching Company Course, Experiencing Rome: A Visual Exploration of Antiquity's Greatest Empire. He observes that gateways were viewed as a point of weakness, not only from a military viewpoint but from a religious one as a gateway represented a break in the religious protection of the pomerium. "...wherever you put a gate in one of these symbolic religious boundaries, you're creating a zone of religious conflict."

Tuck points out that formal Roman gateways were often protected by a protome, like the bust of Medusa or an important individual, that served an apotropaic purpose to ward off evil.

So we see that, like the eagle standard, the protective palisade served both a military and religious function, protecting the legions while projecting Roman power, reinforcing religious beliefs and demonstrating tangible benefits of Roman citizenship.

Exercising the legions in the Marcomannic Wars

2011-05-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
outside the Capitoline Museums in Rome

By every honorable expedient they [Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius] invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavored to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice. - Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

When I read this statement claiming Marcus Aurelius was essentially benevolent towards the barbarians, I can't help but remember the opening battle scenes in Gladiator and the observation by the emperor that he had been at war almost continuously for the past 20 years. To be exact, Gibbon is referring to Hadrian and the two Antonines but I can't believe Gibbon would mean Lucius Verus and not Marcus Aurelius. Gibbon goes on to acknowledge that there were some minor hostilities on the frontiers but they merely served to exercise the legions. This leaves the severity of conflicts during the reign of Marcus Aurelius a matter of interpretation I guess. A war with the Parthians was already in progress when Marcus Aurelius ascended to the purple followed by the Marcomannic Wars that are said to have lasted most of the rest of Aurelius' life. Perhaps Gibbon was anxious to portray Marcus Aurelius as the ideal philosopher king, probably a viewpoint shared by other 18th century historians who offered up a copy of his "Meditations" as proof.

In reality, however, the Marcomannic Wars were not as benign as we are led to believe. In the first Marcomannic War, one of the Germanic leaders, Ballomar, crossed the Danube and won a decisive victory over a force of 20,000 Roman soldiers near Carnuntum. The Germanic force followed that victory with the ravage of Noricum, the obliteration of Opitergium (Oderzo) and the siege of Aquileia. This was the first time hostile forces had entered Italy since 101 BC, when Gaius Marius defeated the Cimbri and Teutones.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Scenes of the Marcomannic Wars are

depicted on the column of Marcus Aurelius

near the Pantheon in Rome.

I particularly like this video comprised of a distillation of the ferocious scenes of one such battle of the Marcommanic Wars depicted in Gladiator even though Hans Zimmer's fantastic music has been replaced with another artist's soundtrack.

By the time Marcus Aurelius put down the revolt and signed a treaty in 175 CE, the barbarians had to surrender over 100,000 Roman prisoners they had captured in their various escapades. These numbers seem to indicate a far more extensive involvement than a skirmish that merely "exercised" the legions. Perhaps Gibbon is seduced by the fact that thousands of Marcomanni subsequently were enlisted as Roman auxiliaries (another requirement of the treaty) so Marcus Aurelius is perceived as having offered the hand of friendship even after the Marcommani engaged is such widespread destruction.

Dacian Ferocity and the Transmigration of the soul

2011-05-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

A scene from the Dacian Wars on Trajan's Column. Photographed by

Mary Harrsch in Rome, Italy.

"To the strength and fierceness of barbarians they [The Dacians] added a contempt for life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and transmigration of the soul." - Edward, Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

When I got my five minutes worth of Gibbon today, I noticed his description of the Dacians in Trajan's time. Although it's true that the Dacians of the early 2nd century believed in an immortal soul, they were one of the last Roman provinces to accept Christianity, not doing so until the 5th century CE. Instead, the Dacians believed in a complex religious hierarchy with its priests divided into orders of “god-worshipers”, “smoke-walkers” and “founders”. Their supreme deity was known at different times as Zalmoxis,Gebeleïzis and Darzalas.

A Dacian draco standard

According to the historian Mircea Eliade, wolves played an important role in Dacian mythology and secret societies of young warriors were said to engage in activities in which they imitated a wolf's behavior while wearing wolf skins. It may be from these rituals that legends of lycanthropy have been derived in the Balkans-Carpathian region. Their use of wolf symbolism is beautifully rendered in this relief depicting a Dacian draco standard capped with a ferocious-looking canine.

The relief also depicts the long-sleeved scale armor worn by wealthier Dacian warriors and their mounts as we see in the image from Trajan's column above left.

I noticed when I researched their religion that the Dacians were sometimes considered interchangeable with the Getae, although Strabo seemed to distinguish between the two. Whenever I think of the Getae, I envision the savage, almost inhuman warriors depicted in the pilot episode of "Spartacus: Blood and Sand". If the Getae (Dacians) were that wild in the 70s BCE, they obviously underwent a considerable social transformation before opposing Trajan in 101 CE.

Devouring Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 5 minutes at a time

2011-05-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

PORTRAIT, OIL ON CANVAS, OF EDWARD EMILY GIBBON
(1737–1794) BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723–1792)

The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe [The Romans] turned with contempt from gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians [Scotland]. - Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

18th century historians like Edward Gibbon (April 27, 1737 – January 16, 1794) write such stilted prose that I have found myself hesitant to tackle his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for fear that I would toss my hard-bound collection of this classic work into some cob-webbed abyss in the attic in frustration before I even finished Volume 1. But, despite its errors that have been revealed by research in the last 300 years, Gibbon's work is considered one of those sources that a well read Roman scholar should have studied in the course of their career.

Lately, though, I have found a technical solution to my dilemma. I read about a new service called Daily Lit that offers to email you five minutes worth of any work in their fairly extensive library of mostly public domain titles each day so you can "eat your vegetables" in tiny little bites.

I must admit trying to digest Gibbon's preface was a challenge, even at five minutes a day! But now I'm finally into the meat of his first chapter and found the quote above that made me smile at the flourishes in his description.

Daily Lit also offers to email you free video lectures from Khan Academy that run between 10 and 25 minutes long. Although Khan Academy's lectures are predominately math, they have begun offering history lectures too. I'm presently subscribed to their lecture series on The French Revolution.

Instructor Sal Khan, a graduate of MIT, uses a virtual blackboard overlaid with images on which he writes and draws as he lectures in a very laid back manner, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte as a "dude who really knew what he was doing!" His conversational style is so natural that you quickly become immersed in the topic and it doesn't feel like a formal lecture at all. I was so excited by their efforts to offer free educational experiences that I sent them an e-mail offering the free use of my image archive. I would love to have Sal explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire! His efforts even drew the attention of Google who gave him a $2 million grant to further develop his courses. I encourage you to check him out!

Related articles

Widespread Roman infanticide not substantiated by Hambelden studies

2011-05-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

Whenever I see a headline that purports to label an entire civilization with a practice that in modern times would be viewed as repulsive, I immediately cringe. That was my reaction when I saw the headline "Infanticide common in Roman Empire" on a Discovery News Article.

Dr. Simon Mays with infant remains from a Hambleden villa.

Image courtesy of the UK Daily Mail.

The article was posted to announce the release of a new study by Simon Mays, a senior scientific officer for the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage, and colleague Jill Eyers entitled "Perinatal infant death at the Roman villa site at Hambleden, Buckinghamshire" that is scheduled to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

"A previous excavation of Hambleden in 1921 determined that the site has 97 infant burials, the largest number of such burials for any Roman location in Britain. The excavator at the time suspected infanticide "with surreptitious disposal of the bodies." - Child Exposure in the Roman Empire by William V. Harris, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 84, (1994), pp. 1-22

Of the originally reported 97 infant burials reported in 1921, only about one third of the remains could be located for analysis. But of those analyzed, Mays and Eyers conclude that the cluster of age at death resemble those recorded for a cache of infant remains found in a sewer in Roman period Ashkelon, Israel, generally considered victims of infanticide, rather than the more normal pattern seen for burials of infants who died from natural causes such as remains found in a medieval site at Wharram Percy, England.

I was surprised when I read the original manuscript of the study that it included no estimates of fertile population of the large villa complex over four centuries (the villa is thought to have been occupied and productive from the first to the fourth century CE). It also included no projections of normal infant mortality rates, no anthropological context for the people living in or near the villa, no discussion of economic history of the area, no discussion of societal motive, no analysis of parental origins as indicated by DNA analysis for geographic markers, and no discussion of differences in funerary practices between newborn and more mature offspring. (In fact, W.V. Harris, in his paper "Child Exposure in the Roman Empire" dismisses the infant burials at Hambleden as evidence of widespread infanticide because of the Roman practice of burying infants but cremating older family members thereby creating the concentrated burial anomaly.)

Romulus and Remus Suckled by Lupa by Peter Paul Rubens.

Photographed at The Capitoline Museum in Rome

by Mary Harrsch.

So essentially, the labeling of Romans as a people who engaged in widespread infanticide based on the Mays/Eyers report rests entirely on an anomalous finding of a burial of a concentration of full term infants with no scientific evidence that the mortality rate itself was anomalous for the contemporary population or that the infants were, in fact, from parents of non-indigenous descent (or at least I couldn't determine these factors by reading the report).

So, was infanticide and child exposure really common in the Roman Empire?

As students of antiquity, most of us are aware that Greek (and to some extent Roman) mythology is rife with tales of famous heroes who, because of exposure as an infant outcast, were adopted by compassionate passersby and achieved incredible feats in their later years.

Danae and Perseus - based on a fragment from Simonides by Peter John Allan

Perseus and Danae by John William Waterhouse, 1892.

When now, above the fragile bark,
The howling tempest gathered dark,
And wide the foaming billows spread,
Danäe, wild with rising fears,
Her eyes bedew'd with bitter tears,
Round Perseus threw her arms, and said:-

'Thou durst not guess, O babe divine!
The griefs that rend this heart of mine;
Thou sleepest on thy mother's breast,
Nor knowest how weak a bark is ours,
Nor dread'st the angry ocean's powers-
The winds but lullaby thy rest.

'Wrapt in thy little cloak, my child,
Thou heed'st not the waters wild,
As o'er thy long dark hair they sweep;
My love, my life! if thou couldst see
Thy hapless mother's misery,
Those slumb'ring eyes would learn to weep.

'Yet sleep, my boy-I charge thee sleep,
And slumber thou, resistless deep,
And sleep ye, too, my many woes;
Oh! grant, great Jove, a mother's prayer,
My Perseus in thy mercy spare
(Rash wish!) to punish Danäe foes.'

Similar fates supposedly befell not only Perseus but Paris of Troy, Oedipus the King, Sargon the Great and, of course, Romulus and Remus. Although infanticide through exposure was a popular dramatic device in the ancient world, how common was the act in daily life?

Young Aristotle by Charles Degeorge 1875 CE

Photographed at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris,
France by Mary Harrsch.

Plato (428/427 BCR – 348/347 BCE) , in his Republic, suggests that children of "inferior guardians" should be exposed. His equally famous student Aristotle went on to imply that some Greek cities forbade exposure if it was done on demographic or economic grounds. Harris reasons that this observation must lead us to believe that in other Greek cities, child exposure carried no such sanction.

Isocrates(436–338 BCE) includes the exposure of infants in his catalog of horrendous crimes practiced in some cities (other than Athens) in his work Panathenaicus.

The comic dramatist Poseidippus of Cassandreia ( (316 BC – ca. 250 BCE) wrote:

Everyone, even if he is poor, rears a son,
But exposes a daughter, even if he is rich

"...the perceived reality is ... that in the author's world parents often did expose infant children ...." - Child Exposure in the Roman Empire by William V. Harris, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 84, (1994), pp. 1-22

"Plato and Aristotle, as well as the Stoics, Epicurus, and presumably Plotinus, accept the morality of the exposure of infants...on eugenic or sometimes on purely economic grounds...We see here further clear evidence of the ancient view that somehow value is acquired, either by the development of intelligence or by the acceptance into society. There is no reason to think that the philosophers made substantial advances on the assumptions of the general public in this regard." - Human Value: A Study in Ancient Philosophical Ethics, John M. Rist, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982, pg. 9.

So far, though, all of these sources are Greek and refer to Greek or Hellenized cultures of the Near East and Egypt. How did attitudes differ in Roman society, especially in the heartland of Italy?

Theopompus, a Greek historian from Chios (born c. 380 BCE) pointed out that the Etruscans were remarkable because they reared all of their children. The Etruscans heavily influenced Roman culture until around 400 BCE although some customs, especially those surrounding augury and funerary rites continued well beyond that point.

Medea killing her children by Eugene Delacroix,
1838.

The killing and even the abandonment of children after they had been accepted into a family seems to have been a horrific event in the Graeco-Roman world, and the readiness of many ancient parents to expose their not-yet-accepted infant children contrasts with their protectiveness towards children once they had passed that stage. - Child rearing in ancient Italy: The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, P. Garnsey and D. I. Kertzer and R. P. Saller (eds), , (I99I), 48-65.

In our literary sources Cicero refers to the pater familias' picking-up (suscipere, tollere) of the new-born child as a deliberate act of recognition which may or may not take place. What happened to a newly born child that for some reason was shunned by the head of the household?

Harris says there is little evidence to support a widespread practice of infant exposure in the Roman world up to the late Republican Period.

He does mention a quotation from Polybius (200–118 BCE), however, in which the historian criticizes the exposure of children and blames such practices for the depopulation of Greece. Polybius is talking about Greece but may have intended it as a warning about the consequences of such activities to the Romans who he served for 17 years as a distinguished hostage.

I find the timing of this admonition particularly interesting since it followed the wholesale integration of Greek culture into the Roman world that occurred after the sack of Syracuse by Marcus Claudius Marcellus in the Second Punic War that is viewed by many scholars as the point of a major cultural shift in Roman history.

Bust of Cicero 1st century BCE

photographed at The Capitoline

Museum by Mary Harrsch

About 50 years later we find references to legal regulation of the practice in a fragment from the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus who refers to a "law of Romulus" that supposedly required the citizens to bring up all their male children and the first-born female child, and not to kill any children under the age of three except those that were deformed as determined by a committee of five neighbors. Harris dismisses this quote as "fictional" because he says there are no other corrobarating sources and that it sounds "suspiciously Greek". But in his De Legibus Cicero mentions The Twelve Tables ordered a conspicuously deformed child should quickly be killed or 'removed'. Although this is not a direct corroboration of Dionysius' reference, it does deal with the same topic in a regulatory tone so I would have the inclination to accept both references with the "law of Romulus" being equated to "The Twelve Tables". I would also infer that infanticide or at least child-exposure, at this point in time, had become enough of a social problem to warrant legal intervention.

However, the Senate supposedly overrode such legal directives when auguries foretold of impending disaster. In his biography of Augustus, Suetonius says there was a story put about by a freedman of Augustus recalling that an evil portent in 63 BCE led to a senatorial decree forbidding the raising of any boy born that year.

The Roman emperor Augustus as

the Pontifex Maximus photographed

at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome by

Mary Harrsch

I am always intrigued by the inclusion of such startling information in a literary document. Was the phenomenon of child abandonment becoming so common during the Augustan period that Suetonius needed justification for some of it. We know that Augustus thought the institution of the Roman family was somewhat endangered because he launched a series of laws regulating adultery, unchastity, and bribery. The Lex Julia di Maritis Ordinibus mandated compulsory marriage and prohibited celibacy and childless marriages. He even went so far as to offer tax breaks to couples with children to encourage increased family size.
These laws were accompanied by sumptuary laws that restricted luxury items and extravagance. Many scholars assume this was an effort to force people to adopt Augustus' own religious views but what if they were meant to remove one of the recognized motivations for infanticide - the wish to acquire and display wealth as opposed to spending it on offspring?

Roman Egypt was evidently afflicted with a high incidence of infanticide as Harris points to an admonition from Hellenized Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria who extols the cruelty of child killers in his treatise "On Special Laws" although Harris includes the fact that Philo was addressing the Jews and other inhabitants of a long-Hellenized culture.

Suetonius also wrote of a famous grammatici born free at Spoletium near the very end of the Republic and exposed 'because of discordia between his parents', then rescued for profit in the slave market. This passage also raises the issue of foundling collection centers that cropped up around the Empire. These institutions sought to harvest the abandoned for the lucrative slave market.

Some scholars point out that at times when the slave market was flush from new conquests, this activity would not have been profitable, but by the time of Augustus, most large scale conquests had ended and the borders of the Empire were approaching their maximum extent, with the exception of Britain and fluctuations along the eastern borders.

Portrait of Germanicus, 1st

century CE photographed at

the Palazzo Massimo by

Mary Harrsch.

Suetonius also provides another example of widespread exposure due to bad omens in the year 19 CE.

"Such was the public's grief at the death of Germanicus [father of Caligula] in the year A.D. I9 that parents exposed their infant children."

However, this example emphasizes the extreme nature of the act, not an act widely accepted as common practice.

Musonius Rufus, a Stoic philosopher in Rome during the reign of Nero, writes passionately about an apparent contemporary practice of infant exposure by the prosperous as well as the poor.
"But what seems to me very terrible is that some who do not even have poverty as an excuse but are prosperous and even wealthy none the less have the effrontery not to rear later-born offspring in order that those born earlier may inherit greater wealth .... So that their children may have a greater share of their father's goods, they destroy their children's brothers."- Gaius Musonius Rufus, "Whether all children who are born should be reared?"

Seneca, Nero's tutor, wrote, "Mad dogs we knock on the head; the fierce and savage ox we slay; sickly sheep we put to the knife to keep them from infecting the flock; unnatural progeny we destroy; we drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal. Yet it is not anger, but reason that separates the harmful from the sound."

Portrait of Epicurus photographed

at Palazzo Massimo by

Mary Harrsch.

Epictetus ( 55 – 135 CE) criticized Epicurus for approving the exposure of children, saying that even a sheep or a wolf does not abandon its own offspring.

Hierocles (in Stobaeus IV.24. 14), echoes the same sentiment claiming "most people" seem to decline to raise (some of) their children for a not very lofty reason, love of wealth and the belief that poverty (penia) is a terrible evil.

I can't help but wonder about these philosophical exhortations, though, since researchers claim birth control methods used by the Romans, particularly the more affluent members of society were actually quite effective which would seemingly negate the need for infanticide.

J. M. Riddle put forward powerful arguments in favour of the effectiveness of the oral contraceptives and abortifacients known in Roman antiquity in his 1992 study, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance.

Harris points out, though, that unlike contraception or abortion, it [the reliance on exposure of unwanted offspring] permitted them to choose the sex of their children. In fact, some scholars point to a perceived gender inequity that existed in the Roman Empire as a clear indication that female infants were killed or discarded but Harris observes that it could have also been explained by gender-differentiated child care.

Ancient relief depicting childbirth with female in attendance -

not a male physician.

I was surprised that Harris did not mention the more obvious hazards of childbirth in the ancient world, especially among females in their early teens at the time of their first conception. Added to the heavy losses from childbirth are the losses from attempted abortions for unwanted offspring, both hazards unique to the female population. Another important factor that could skew an analysis of numbers of males is the nutrition and superior medical care that young men received in the military. Military scholars have concluded that Roman males in the legions actually enjoyed a much longer life span, despite the violent nature of their occupation, than civilian males because of the higher quality diet they received and the advanced skills of the military physicians. So, I am not convinced by less than dramatic perceived differences in gender equity.

Harris attempts to tease out a reasonable percentage of child exposures or infanticides in the Roman Empire by calculating Gross Reproduction Rates that take into account the young age at marriage and average lifespan of Roman women. But, although he does take into account a reduced reproduction from effective contraceptives, he surprisingly does not mention high maternal mortality rates that have been shown to occur when first pregnancies occur in very young women with absent or marginal medical care. Instead Harris suggests that lower female ages at marriage and/or better medical care may have actually increased fertility in the Roman Empire thereby increasing infanticide rates when compared to those of medieval and Renaissance Europe and Ming China studied by other scholars.

However, although the elite classes in Roman Society enjoyed surprisingly effective medical care, I doubt that the vast majority of women in the "Roman mob" would have had access to medical care much beyond mid-wives, which, when combined with the complications inherent in the delivery process with very young mothers surely could not have increased the rate of live births and in all probability would have had a depressive effect on fertility rates during the Roman period.

In a study prepared in 1980, Donald Engles takes these reservations a step further when he totally dismisses the possibility that female infanticide was practiced on any significant scale.

"Clearly, high rates of female infanticide were impossible for any ancient population. Even low rates of female infanticide would increase the death rate and lower the birth rate, and in a stable or nearly stable population, this would cause the population to decline at a geometric rate. For these reasons, a rate of 10 percent of female births killed per year would be highly improbable, and the rate almost certainly never exceeded more than a few percent of female births in any era. - The Problem of Female Infanticide in the Greco-Roman World by Donald Engels, Classical Philology Vol. 75, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 112-120.
And yet, Harris claims that an array of texts makes it obvious that exposure of infants was widely practiced in the high Roman Empire, though.

But Harris points out that in Book VI of Plutarch's Moralia entitled De amore prolis (On Affection for Offspring), Plutarch (46-120 CE) says the poor do not bring up their children for they fear that without an appropriate upbringing they will grow up badly; Harris says this must indicate a sustantial amount of exposure of healthy children among the author's contemporaries.

Harris also quotes a letter from Pliny the Younger to the Roman emperor Trajan (Ep. x.65-6):

Portrait bust of the Roman emperor Trajan

98 - 117 CE. Photographed at The Capitoline

Museum by Mary Harrsch.

"He [Pliny] consults the emperor [Trajan] about the threptoi, in other words 'those who having been born free, were exposed, then picked up by someone and brought up in slavery', a great issue, he says, concerning his entire province. Emperors since Augustus had often given rulings on the subject affecting other provinces, but never with respect to Bithynia; Trajan rules that claims to freedom are not to be made contingent on the payment of alimenta."

Harris thus concludes that child-exposure was or had been at least fairly widely practiced in the provinces of Achaea and Bithynia-Pontus as late as the early 2nd century CE.

In Rome, itself, however, the elite, including Trajan had rejected the practice.

"Tacitus' writings in 98 CE coincide closely with the creation of the imperial alimenta in Italy. This programme implied opposition to all forms of family limitation. By the time of Nerva criticism of child-exposure had spread from philosophers and moralists to leading Romans of more pragmatic mentality. The imperial alimenta, which aimed at population increase in Italy by means of subsidies specifically directed towards children, were preceded and, on a much larger scale, followed by private philanthropy with similar aims." - Child Exposure in the Roman Empire by William V. Harris, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 84, (1994), pp. 1-22

By the late second century, there appeared to be considerable opposition to the practice.

"The most intriguing piece of possibly Severan evidence, however, is the statement in Paul's Sententiae (Dig. xxv.3.4 - a summary of Roman laws), which equates the exposure of an infant with killing .... it would mean that exposers who did not possess patria potestas now became criminals ..." - Child Exposure in the Roman Empire by William V. Harris, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 84, (1994), pp. 1-22

Reproduction of 3rd century CE heroic

statue of Roman Emperor Alexander

Severus at the archaeological museum

in Naples. Photo by Mary Harrsch.

Then in 228 CE, the Emperor Alexander takes the next step and eliminates the right of even a pater familias to impose a death sentence on a child.

"...if the father wished to impose more severe punishment on a child than simple flogging, he must apply to the highest judicial authority, the President of the Province, for his sanction." - A systematic and historical exposition of Roman law in the order of a code by William A. Hunter, 1903.

These changes to Roman law demonstrate an important differetiation that has occurred in the social acceptance of infanticide by the late second and early third centuries C.E.. Athough exposure, with its indefinite outcome, is still problematic enough for Roman administration to continue to issue legal clarifications about the practice, outright infanticide has been criminalized. The infant has now acquired recognized social value as a human being.

I find this development particularly relevant to our examination of the claims made in the study of the Hambleden infant remains. The infant burials at Hambleden would probably not be the result of exposure but from natural death or infanticide since the remains were buried in close proximity to the living quarters. Based on the legal references above, infanticide was viewed, from the end of the second century or early third century onward, as not just frowned upon but tacitly illegal. So, unless a number of people at Hambleden were willing to repeatedly commit illegal acts, wholesale infanticide would seem highly unlikely to have occurred in the last two centuries of the villa's occupation unless inhabitants of provincial Britain ignored Roman tenets regarding domestic activities. I suppose this might largely depend on the culture of the inhabitants of the villa, especially if most of the inhabitants were indigenous peoples working the villa as peasants and not slaves of the household.

Sculpture of Barbarian captive thought to be

Dacian recovered from Trajan's Forum.

Photographed at The Louvre by Mary Harrsch.

"Agricultural labor among the Celts before Caesar's conquest of Gaul, as also among the German tribes, had been carried on by men who were vassals of the wealthier elements of their own tribes. Though not totally independent their position must be differentiated from that of the actual slave class. Under the Roman provincial organization the system of peasant vassalage was maintained. The tilling of the soil was in the hands of native peasants who were clients, debtors, or free leaseholders of the artistocracy of the towns and of the owners of the large villas which have become well known through excavations in the regions along the left bank of the Rhine."

"Little is known of the system of land tenure in the province of Britain or of the amount of slavery which developed there. Tacitus ascribes to the British chieftain, Calgacus, a knowledge of slavery. This may be either a proof of the existence of slavery in pre-Roman Britain or a reflection in the free areas of Britain of conditions developing in that portion of the island which had already been conquered by the Romans. It has been generally assumed that the peasants of Britain fell into a position somewhat similar to that of the Roman coloni. Inasmuch as the Romanization of Britain occurred at a atime when the decline in slave employment had already begun in Italy it is a reasonable supposition that industrial slavery, and probably agricultural employment of slaves, never developed to the point where they became important factors in the economic life of the island." - The slave systems of Greek and Roman antiquity by William Linn Westermann.

Unfortunately, an analysis of gestational age of the Hambleden infant remains without skeletal dating studies gives us no way to definitely eliminate the last half of the villa's period of occupation. I found no references to DNA analysis either that would help us determine if the infants were from indigenous parents or parents of Mediterranean origin, something that would need to be addressed to label just the "Romans" as perpetrators of infanticide.

But lets examine historical events in the first and second centuries that may have motivated parents to commit infanticide and try to determine the cultural context.

Detail of a 17th century tapestry by Pietro da Cartona depicting a Roman

sea battle. Photographed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art by

Mary Harrsch.

The invasion of Britain in the first century could have been considered catastrophic enough to trigger the sacrifice of newborns by indigenous people attempting to persuade the gods to lend them assistance in their resistance to the invading Romans. Researchers at Hambleden were appalled to discover at least one infant skeleton with cut marks indicating it had been possibly ritually dismembered.

"Human bones are a very small part of total bone assemblages from Iron Age sacred and occupation sites, but examples [of apparent sacrifice] do turn up with macabre frequency. Pieces of human skull at Hayling, the limbs and torso from a pit at Danebury, and the pathetic remains of a dismembered child from Wandlebury point to the sacrifice of human beings, perhaps of enemies. Possibly cannibalism was involved as well. It is not easy to separate the atrocities attributed for instance to the followers of Boudica from religious activities. The Romans had no doubt that the Druids were involved, and we are in no position to dismiss this allegation. Human sacrifice was something that the Romans found repellent..." - Religion in Roman Britain by Martin Henig.

But Henig goes on to point out that there is little evidence to indicate human sacrifice continued under Roman rule, especially in the rural areas. He also notes that even in cases where ritual infanticide appears most probable such as at Springhead where infant skeletons were found under foundations at the corners of buildings, there are alternative explanations such as the presence of a shrine associated with childbirth like the Roman Juno Lucina.

If the conquest had resulted in large scale enslavement, another motivator identified by Harris, infants may have been killed by their parents so the children would not have to endure the humiliation and hardship of a slave's life. This motivator most probably would have spurred newly enslaved populations to such extremes but probably not slaves who had been born into slavery as they would have been accustomed to their social position unless they had the misfortune to belong to an extremely cruel household. But if Westermann is correct, enslavement on a grand scale did not occur in Roman Britain.

A monument of Boudicca on the banks of the

Thames River in London, England.

Photo by Mary Harrsch

Could the Boudiccan Revolt in 60 or 61 CE have been considered enough of a bad omen to trigger infanticide? Possibly, but there's no literary evidence to support this suggestion like there was for the death of Germanicus in 19 CE. However, the destruction in surrounding territories could have caused a regional famine.

Famine or severe economic hardship is thought to have been one of the primary forces triggering infanticide in the ancient world. This motivator could have effected both indigenous and Roman inhabitants of the villa. But, I found no references to climate data or evidence of localized catastrophe such as a destruction layer at the Hambledon site so we have no physical evidence of such an event. The productive capacity of the villa would need to be evaluated to see if it was capable of sustaining itself without imported goods as trade was most likely disrupted during the rebellion.

The use of infantcide to control family size and maximize wealth and inheritance, declaimed so loudly by the philosophers, could have occurred within families of both Roman and non-Roman inhabitants, especially if those employed in the agricultural operation were, in fact, non-slaves as Henig proposes. But Riddle claims contraceptives and abortifacients known to the Romans were very effective so the only remaining reason to risk the dangers of childbirth would be to produce a male heir or escape the necessity to use wealth for a dowry, both pointing to female infanticide. I doubt if there is any way to trace the genealogy of the villa's owners over the centuries to determine inheritance issues and without gender analysis to identify gender inequity in the Hambleden remains, there's no way to know if female remains exceeded male remains to an extent to indicate preferential female infanticide. We also don't know if the Romans shared their family planning knowledge with non-Romans in the villa either so we can't discount the non-Romans using infanticide in place of general birth control.

Erotic fresco recovered from Pompeii

that was once displayed in the "Secret

Room" in the archaeological museum in

Naples, Italy. Photo by Mary Harrsch.

Researchers have proposed that the villa may have been used at some point as a brothel so as to equate the site's social context to that of Ashkelon in Israel where a cache of infant remains were found lodged in a sewer that ran beneath a Roman bathhouse thought to have been used as a brothel. But nothing recovered from the site suggests that could be the case. Ironically, the fact that nothing conclusively points to a brothel is an attribute shared with the Ashkelon study.

"...there is little independent evidence for the use of the bathhouse as a brothel. Further, one suspects that given the quantity of human remains found in the sewer, both it and the baths it served were probably out of use when the deposits were made." - Gender and the archaeology of death by Bettina Arnold and Nancy L. Wicker.

In the remains of larger bath houses in Rome, there appear to be rooms that may have been used for sexual activity but I doubt if smaller bath houses had the capacity for enough sexual activity to support the staff of a full time brothel.

At the Ashkelon site, a DNA analysis of the remains that could be tested there indicated male remains constituted more of the cache than female remains. After these findings, researchers postulated that female offspring must have been saved to be reared as the next generation of prostitutes while males were discarded. But like the Hambleden cache, only a small subset of the remains provided measurable data. Of the remains of 100 neonates found at Ashkelon, only forty-three left femurs could be tested and of those only 19 yielded results - 14 males and 5 females.

Clearly, we must face the conclusion that attempting to decipher human activity based strictly on ancient fragmented physical remains is dicey at best.

"The survival of skeletal material depends to a large extent on the size and thickness of the bones and since infants and women have smaller, thinner bones than men, fewer are likely to survive.
Furthermore, excavators are more likely to discard smaller, broken specimens, thus distorting the age of the remains upward and biasing the sex ratio towards males. Since health factors producing tougher skeletons also favor physical well-being and therefore greater longevity, the loss of weaker skeletons would also distort the age structure upward." - The Problem of Female Infanticide in the Greco-Roman World by Donald Engels, Classical Philology Vol. 75, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 112-120.

Engels points these problems out in 1980 after archaeology has matured somewhat as a science and excavation techniques have been refined. Hambleden was excavated initially in 1912 and again in 1921 when archaeology was in its infancy. Even the current researchers could not find two-thirds of the remains and could only base their analysis on a small subset. More fragile and therefore probably more fragmented remains like those of premature infants or less robust females may have not been recovered at all or discarded during the storage process in favor of more complete specimens from more robust individuals.

So, although the literary evidence indicates infanticide did exist in the ancient world, as it sadly does in the modern one, I feel claims that infanticide was "common" in the Roman Empire are not substantiated especially if the exposure of rejected offspring resulted in the collection of foundlings for the slave market rather than death. The possibility exists that direct infanticide may have been a factor in the burial of infant remains at Hambleden, but analysis of the gestational age of a small subset of remains is simply insufficient evidence on which to condemn an entire culture.

A reconstruction of the Roman villas of Hambleden:

Aqueducts that enabled an empire

2011-04-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

Aqueducts map courtesy of http://www.aqueducthunter.com

The second century Roman
Emperor Trajan. Photo by
Mary Harrsch.

Although remnants of some of the first aqueducts dating to the early Iron Age have been found in the Middle East, the Romans brought aqueduct engineering to an art form beginning with the  Aqua Appia, built in 312 BCE. At the height of the Roman Empire, the city of Rome, with inhabitants numbering an estimated one million people, was served by over 500 miles of aqueducts. But, by the time of Trajan, the so-called "Optimus Princeps", the Romans' complex system of water delivery was falling into disrepair.

"... the existing aqueducts at that time came from the east of Rome, the sources were from rivers or springs providing water that carried dissolved salts that were deposited inside and eventually blocked the pipes and ducts, and also sometimes carried very large amounts of silt that blocked the ducts and reduced the water flow." - AqueductHunter.com

So Trajan commissioned his magistrate of public works, Sextus Julius Frontinus, to construct a new aqueduct sourced by  fresh water springs distributed in the mountains around the volcanic lake known as the Lacus Sabatinus, known today as Lake Bracciano.

The Aqua Traiana was inaugurated in 109 CE and is thought to have supplied water to Trajan's new bath
Remains of the Baths of Trajan. Image via Wikipediacomplex, a naumachia (entertainment complex where mock naval battles were reenacted)  in the area that would become later known as the Vatican and grain mills high on the Janiculum Hill.

The Aqueduct arrives in Rome at the top of the Janiculum Hill at a high level above the city. In order to reach Trajan's Baths on the top of the Colle Oppio and the storage cisterns known as the Sette Sale, the aqueduct probably crossed the river Tiber on a large stone bridge or just possibly under the river in a syphon made with lead pipes.

The archaeologist Prof. Rabun Taylor from the University of Texas proposes that the aqueduct crossed the tiber on a high stone structure close to the Children's Hospice building at the Porto di Ripa Grande, and curved around the Aventine Hill before turning north towards the Colle Oppio, the hill adjacent to the Colosseum, and the site of Trajan’s baths. Some evidence of the structural arches can be seen on the 1551 map of Leonardo Buffalini. - AqueductHunter.com

The system would serve Rome, despite sporadic damage from various barbarian incursions, until the 9th or 10th centuries. Later, it would be restored in 1612 by Pope Paulo V (Borgese) and renamed the Aqua Paola.

"Various Cardinals were sent to the Lake Bracciano area to investigate the strength and value of the local water sources throughout the sixteenth century, and the result was the deed of purchase by Pope Paul V of most of the sources which had comprised the Aqua Traiana."

"However some veins of the aqueduct were specifically excluded from the purchase because by then they were supplying water for other purposes. Specifically the Aqua della Fiora was being used to supply the Bracciano grain mill which the local Duke, Paolo Giordano Orsini had caused to be constructed at Vigna Grande in 1578...The result was an aqueduct with a significantly lower yield than in Trajan’s day."

"...in its first incarnation [the Aqua Paola] was not nearly as copious as in Trajan's time, and by 1673, it was supplemented instead by dirty lake water.

For this reason, in modern Roman slang, something or someone of dubious worth is sometimes referred to as 'as good as the Acqua Paola'. " - AqueductHunter.com

At some point a small church was built over one of the primary sources of water for the Aqua Traiana near Lake Bracciano and obscured the Roman constructions beneath it. But it was shown on a map from the year 1718 and it was this map found in the state archives, that peaked the interest of modern day aqueduct hunters, UK filmmakers Ted and Mike O'Neill, Lorenzo Quilici, Professor of Topography at the University of Bologna, professor and historical map scholar Allan Ceen, archaeologist Raybun Taylor and Katherine W. Rinne, adjunct professor of architecture at the California College of the Arts. The group then decided to collaborate on a project to explore and film the second century Roman remains.

They have published much of their findings and images of their discoveries on their website AqueductHunter.com. It's a fascinating read and I encourage you to explore the site fully. The team is not sponsored by any particular institution so if you wish to become involved in their work, they welcome contributions or corporate or academic sponsorship.

Their initial explorations are also documented in the film clip below.

The Emperor's Sacred Spring - 7 minute HD trailer from MEON HDTV PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.

Check out my latest reviews of books about the ancient world!

2011-02-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

I have been busy trying to catch up on writing reviews about all of the books about the ancient world I have read lately and posted quite a few in relatively a short time span. Check them out!

King of Kings: Warrior of Rome by Harry Sidebottom (3rd century CE - Roman/Persian Wars)
The Hittite by Ben Bova (12th century BCE - retelling of the Trojan War)
The Green Bronze Mirror by Lynne Ellison (Young adult time travel - 1st century CE)
The Genghis trilogy by Conn Iggulden (12 -13th century CE - not Roman but fascinating none the less!)
Roman Games by Bruce MacBain (late 1st century CE)

The Gallic Wars: Genocide or Stepping Stone to Empire?

2011-02-05T08:18:00.000-08:00

Closeup of the Ludovisi Gaul (committing suicide)
Photographed at the Palazzo Altemps in Rome,
Italy by Mary Harrsch

He slits the wombs of pregnant women; he blinds the infants.
He cuts the throats of their strong ones...
Whoever offends the god Asshur will be turned into a ruin.
- Assyrian poem glorifying a military victory of Tiglat-Pileser I, 1100 BCE

The evidence for genocide in antiquity ranges from highly rhetorical celebrations or condemnations of the annihilation of an enemy to laconic notices about the destruction of cities, and its value is often hard to assess. Is a claim that the enemy was 'utterly destroyed' a record of genocide or a hyperbolic boast of overwhelming victory? What does it mean when cities are said to be 'razed to the ground', when so many of these places reappear in the sources only a few years later, as if nothing had happened? We do not always have enough evidence to answer such questions. Yet even when we cannot tell what reality lay behind the words, the rhetoric is valuable because it reveals ancient ideologies of genocide. - The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies by Donald Bloxham and A Dirk Moses Oxford University Press 2010.

Any civilization that expands by military conquest engages in one time or another in activities that when analyzed by modern ethicists may be deemed genocide by our definition. But were they considered justified by populations of the past?

As political structures evolved and became more complex, pacts of non-aggression, treaties of alliance requiring close cooperation and military obligations became subjects of negotiation as early as the third millenium.

"Tension between a ruling class and the rest of the population was a constant feature of political and social life in Greek cities, and in order to strengthen or regain control over their subject allies, classical Athenians and Spartans exploited such divisions by executing or exiling hostile or rebellious political elites. They had precursors in the Near East, such as Sennacherib's treatment of rebels in Ekron and Jerusalem, a few years before his demotion of Babylon. In Ekron, the elite were theatrically executed, some commoners enslaved, and the rest spared."

"...the annihilation of communities was not a goal in itself, but merely an incidental consequence of a ruthless pursuit of profit." - The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies by Donald Bloxham and A Dirk Moses Oxford University Press 2010.

A Roman slave medallion photographed at
the Terme di Diocliziano in Rome, Italy by
Mary Harrsch

Although the initial offensive may result in indiscriminant slaughter, 'one may often see not only the corpses of human beings, but dogs cut in half and the dismembered limbs of other animals.' When the assaulting commander gave the signal to stop, survivors of both sexes and all ages were systematically rounded up to be sold into slavery. One example is the Roman sack of 72 settlements in Epirus that produced a total of 150,000 slaves .

The Romans, always with an eye on the lucrative benefits of the slave trade, usually refrained from wholesale slaughter thereby emulating the Athenians who, in one of their own conquests opted to kill only a thousand elite in Mytilene because Greek commanders determined it was more profitable in the long run than the massacre of the entire community.

There were exceptions, of course, but scholars point out that most of these incidents reflect a response to a perceived societal threat.

In 206 BCE, the Spanish town, Ilurgia was totally destroyed because, ancient sources tell us, the Romans wanted to 'erase the memory' of their enemy.

As Rome expanded and developed the provincial system of administration, subjugated
communities were usually left intact, with a high degree of autonomy. Only rebellious cities suffered the exile or execution of the city's elite.

Roman soldiers were often allowed to sell captives and keep the profits for themselves as part of their remuneration so wholesale massacre was a rare occurrence unless particularly brutal tactics were used in defense.

"If the profit motive encouraged enslavement but discouraged killing, only when it was countered by even more powerful motivations did states resort to genocidal massacres....those perpetrating the massacre saw themselves as inflicting revenge or punishment for what one may call an 'aggravated' challenge to their power and status as a community and/or to the power of a god whose cause they champion." - The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies by Donald Bloxham and A Dirk Moses Oxford University Press 2010.

Bust of Cicero 1st century BCE photographed
at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Italy by
Mary Harrsch

Even non-military Roman statesmen like Cicero justified the destruction of small independent towns like Pindenissus by claiming "their very independence constituted an affront which made the empire look weak."

Such drastic action, though, was imposed most often on more formidable opponents who were regarded as too persistently hostile.

But, this reaction has been documented throughout antiquity and is not unique to Roman civilization. One example comes from ancient Greece.

"...while relations between Athens and most of its rivals alternated between hostility and alliance, the Athenians saw the neighbouring Aeginetans as implacable enemies, who had started hostitlities in the dim past and kept attacking without provocation. In 431 BCE the Athenians drove the Aeginetans out of their island, forcing the refugees to find new homes all over Greece; a large group settled in Thyrea. Not content with this result, in 424 BCE the Athenians sent a fleet to attack Thyrea, which they captured, looted, and burned down. All Aeginetans captured alive were taken to Athens, where a formal decision was made to execute every last one 'on account of the hostility which they had always shown in the past." - The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies by Donald Bloxham and A Dirk Moses Oxford University Press 2010

Samnite warrior as depicted in the game
"Rome: Total War"

The Romans exacted a similar price on ancient Carthage in 146 BCE.

So, were the Gauls viewed as too persistently hostile immediately before Caesar became engaged in the Gallic Wars? Yes, despite the passage of over 300 years, the Romans particularly feared the Gauls, harking back to the Gauls' sack of Rome in 387 BCE.

In the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar was also dealing with another common scenario, the treachery of a formerly friendly or allied city or tribal group. Roman precedent for the treatment of a people guilty of the heinous act of treachery had been clearly demonstrated in wars of the Early Republic. During the Second Samnite War (326-304 BCE), the Romans massacred four towns and killed all of the male residents of a fifth because the Samnites were considered guilty of treason. Later, during the Hannibalic Wars, the Romans enslaved 14 Italian and Sicilian towns and massacred the entire population of two other towns because the victims had changed sides or were thought to be about to do so.

So, researchers Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses conclude that intentional genocide was historically perpetrated throughout the ancient world but it was considered ethically legitimate if a community or group had committed a serious-enough offense.

So, was Julius Caesar, labeled by his contemporary political opponents as a war criminal, uniquely guilty of what, in the ancient world, would be viewed as indefensible genocide?

Some modern scholars like Philip Matyszak think so. In his Chronicle of the Roman Republic, Matyszak asserts Caesar's personal commentaries on the Gallic War is personal propaganda.

A heroically nude statue of the deified
Julius Caesar from the 1st century CE.
Photographed at The Louvre by
Mary Harrsch

"It masks the war's horrendous cost in human life and suffering (one historian describes it as the greatest human and social disaster until the settlement of the Americas.) It also hides the fact that the war was fought for Caesar's enrichment and glory. Contemporary Romans were well aware of this, and there was a movement in Rome to hand Caesar to the Gauls as a war criminal." - Chronicle of the Roman Republic p. 206

Others, like Dr. Miland Brown disagree observing that the conquest of Gaul was probably inevitable.

"War was different in the ancient world. There was no Geneva Convention back then. There were no rules for war other than those decide on by the combatants and which they then had the power to enforce. The Roman Republic itself had practiced brutal war repeatedly before Caesar and had even practiced genocide on the Carthaginian culture after the Third Punic War." - Julius Caesar, War Criminal? by Dr. Miland Brown.

Let's examine some specific engagements.

In the Battle of Vosges, 35,000 Suebi were killed out of 70,000 enemy combatants. Prior to the battle, Caesar and Ariovistus conducted negotiations but Ariovistus' cavalry continued to pelt the Romans with stones and spears. Although Caesar broke off negotiations, he still instructed his men not to retaliate so the Suebi could not claim they were trapped under "sanction of conference".

When battle was joined, the highly disciplined Romans, outnumbered almost 2 to 1, managed to slay half of the enemy warriors as they drove Ariovistus back over the Rhine. We must remember that this battle occurred very early in the conflict and the casualty rate could easily reflect the result of an informally trained tribal culture with a strong individual warrior ethos clashing with a professionally trained highly-disciplined force that relied on unit cohesion.

Full length view of the Ludovisi Gaul thought
to have been commissioned by Julius Caesar
after his victories in the Gallic Wars.
Photographed at the Palazzo Altemps by
Mary Harrsch.

Enemy casualties were high, but they were not excessively high in the context of an ancient battle involving hand-to-hand fighting among over 100,000 combatants.

Now let's look at an even larger battle near a major community of non-combatants. Bibracte was one of the most important hillforts in Gaul and capital of the Aedui tribe, pledged Roman allies. But one of its prominent war leaders, Dumnorix, was treacherouly supporting the Helvetii enemy.

Caesar was warned , "...he hates Caesar and the Romans, on his own account, because by their arrival his power was weakened, and his brother, Divitiacus, restored to his former position of influence and dignity: that, if anything should happen to the Romans, he entertains the highest hope of gaining the sovereignty by means of the Helvetii, but that under the government of the Roman people he despairs not only of royalty but even of that influence which he already has."

Caesar discovered too, on inquiring into the unsuccessful cavalry engagement which had taken place a few days before, that the commencement of that flight had been made by Dumnorix and his cavalry (for Dumnorix was in command of the cavalry which the Aedui had sent for aid to Caesar); that by their flight the rest of the cavalry was dismayed. - De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar Book 1, XVIII

Image via Wikipedia

Roman Silver Denarius With
Head Of Captive Gaul 48 BCE

Caesar's six legions and Roman auxiliaries faced about 368,000 Helvetii and allied Boii and Tulingi tribes of which about 90,000 were warriors and the remaining 278,000 were non-combatants, as this was the main body of Helvetii attempting migration into Gaul. The Romans, outnumbered almost 3 to 1 (not including non-combatants) pushed the Helvetii warriors back against their own baggage train, resulting in the involvement of many of the non-combatants. The Helvetii and their allies suffered about 238,000 killed or captured. But Caesar reports 130,000 men, apparently a combination of warriors and non-combatants, escaped, despite the prior treachery involved. Caesar didn't bother to report how many of the captured or killed were women or children. After the battle Caesar ordered:

"...the Helvetii, the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi to return to their territories from which they had come, and as there was at home nothing whereby they might support their hunger, all the productions of the earth having been destroyed, he commanded the Allobroges to let them have a plentiful supply of corn; and ordered them to rebuild the towns and villages which they had burnt. This he did, chiefly on this account, because he was unwilling that the country, from which the Helvetii had departed, should be untenanted, lest the Germans, who dwell on the other side of the Rhine, should, on account of the excellence of the lands, cross over from their own territories into those of the Helvetii, and become borderers upon the province of Gaul and the Allobroges. He granted the petition of the Aedui, that they might settle the Boii, in their own (i.e. in the Aeduan) territories, as these were known to be of distinguished valour to whom they gave lands, and whom they afterwards admitted to the same state of rights and freedom as themselves." - De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar Book 1, XVIII

I admit enemy losses were substantial but the aftermath does not sound like genocide to me.

Even at the decisive battle of Alesia where the Romans suffered more casualties than during any other battle of the Gallic conflict, one estimate is over 12,000 officers and men slain, Caesar pardoned the Aedui and Averni tribes, Roman allies who had joined the rebel alliance.

Image via Wikipedia

Vercingetorix Throws Down his Arms at the Feet of Julius Caesar [after the fall of Alesia] (1899), Lionel-Noël Royer

Of the participating Gauls, ranging in estimates from a total of 180,000 - 330,000 including the Gaul's relief force that invested the battlefield's periphery, scholars have estimated that at least 40,000 Gauls were taken prisoner, mostly from the 80,000 warriors initially beseiged within the walls of the fortified city. This prisoner count was estimated from a statement by Caesar in his Commentaries that each surviving man in his legions received a Gaul as a slave. Caesar himself would have also retained the profits from the sale of a large number of slaves too, not included in the total prisoner count, as the commander's portion of the battle spoils. Caesar also admits thousands of the 120,000 - 250,000 man relief force escaped back to their respective states.

Some scholars point out that our best record of events for the Gallic Wars is Caesar's own Commentaries so casualty figures should be naturally suspect. So how do these casualty figures and post-combat administrative actions compare to other ancient enagements?

One hundred and fifty years earlier, in 206 BCE the Romans squared off against the Carthaginians with Celt-Iberian allies at the battle of Ilipa during the second Punic War. A combined force of 43,000 Romans and their Iberian allies faced 54,000-70,000 Carthaginians, Numidians and their Iberian allies, ten miles north of modern Seville, Spain.

Celt-Iberians as depicted in the game "Rome: Total War"

There, the much celebrated Scipio Africanus sucked the Carthaginians and their Celtic allies into a "reversed Cannae", a concave deployment where the experienced Roman legionaries were placed on the wings facing less trained Iberian troops, while the Roman's Iberian allies manned the center opposite Mago Barca's African contingent. In the resulting envelopment, the Carthaginian army was almost entirely destroyed.

Sixty years later, in a Roman siege of Numantia in Hispania Ulterior in 133 BCE, the adopted grandson of Scipio, offered little mercy to its Celt-Iberian inhabitants.

Nearby fields were laid waste and what was not used burned. The stronghold of Numantia then was circumvallated with a ditch and palisade, behind which was a wall ten feet high. Towers were placed every hundred feet and mounted with catapults and ballistae. To blockade the nearby river, logs were placed in the water, moored by ropes on the shore. Knives and spear heads were embedded in the wood, which rotated in the strong current. Allied tribes were ordered to send reinforcements. Even Jugurtha, who later would revolt from Rome, himself, was sent from Numidia with twelve war elephants. The Roman forces now numbered sixty-thousand men and were arrayed around the besieged town in seven camps. The Numantines, "ready though they were to die, no opportunity was given them of fighting" (Florus, I.34.13).

Scipio Africanus the Elder photographed at the
National Museum in Naples, Italy by Massimo Finizio

There were several desperate attempts to break out but they were repulsed. Nor could there be any help from neighboring towns. Eventually, as their hunger increased, envoys were sent to Scipio, asking if they would be treated with moderation if they surrendered, pleading that they had fought for their women and children, and the freedom of their country. But Scipio would accept only deditio. Hearing this demand for absolute submission, the Numantines, "who were previously savage in temper because of their absolute freedom and quite unaccustomed to obey the orders of others, and were now wilder than ever and beside themselves by reason of their hardships," slew their own ambassadors.

After eight months, the starving population was reduced to cannibalism and, filthy and foul smelling, compelled to surrender. But, "such was the love of liberty and of valour which existed in this small barbarian town," relates Appian, that many chose to kill themselves rather than capitulate. Families poisoned themselves, weapons were burned, and the beleaguered town set ablaze. There had been only about eight-thousand fighting men when the war began; half that number survived to garrison Numantia. - The Wars in Spain

Only a pitiable few survived to walk in Scipio's triumph. The others were sold as slaves and the town razed to the ground, the territory divided among its neighbors.

In 69 BCE, just ten years before the beginning of the Gallic Wars, a Roman force of approximately 32,000 men lead by Consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus faced off against approximately 80,000 - 100,000 Armenian wariors (Appian claims 300,000 but scholars think the number wildly inflated) under the command of Tigranes the Great at the battle of Tigranocerta in the Third Mithrdatic War.

The Romans were so outnumbered that Plutarch claims Tigranes, upon seeing the much smaller Roman force remarked "If they come as ambassadors, they are too many; if they are soldiers, too few." (Plutarch. Life of Lucullus, 27.4) This engagement, then, was about equal in scope to the battle of Vosges, the second major battle of the Gallic War.

Unlike the Gauls, however, Tigranes forces included heavily armored cataphracts. There was no ingrained warrior ethos for soldiers to attempt to win personal glory so no one flung themselves at the Romans as some less experienced Gauls might do. Even so, Armenian losses were extremely high. Lucullus exhorted his men to focus on the horses legs and thighs and the Romans drove the cataphracts back upon the ranks of the Armenian infantry. Some scholars have estimated Armenian losses to be as high as 100,000 killed - almost annihilation. There is no discussion of the number of prisoners, if any. Only a note is made that Tigranes treasury was looted and each of Lucullus' soldiers received 800 drachma as their share.

Yet, I have never heard scholars or the late Roman Republican Senate apply the label of war criminal to Scipio Africanus, Scipio Aemilianus or Licinius Lucullus, commanders whose battles resulted in far greater casualty rates than Caesar's. So why do generations of scholars continue to attempt to label Julius Caesar as a perpetrator of genocide?

I think it is the result of the Optimate propoganda machine deployed in response to the threat posed to the aristocratic power base by Caesar's political activites. The primary focal point of Caesar's life immediately prior to and during the Gallic Wars that generates the most discussion about genocide is Caesar's recovery from almost overwhelming indebtedness due to his acquisition of vast amounts of booty acquired in the course of the Gallic Wars.

Caesar went deeply into debt sponsoring games and other public entertainments as an aedile and bribing voters and people of influence in his climb up the Coursus Honorum. But that was certainly not unusual. Furthermore, Roman commanders acquiring vast wealth in the prosecution of military objectives was not unusual either. In fact, Lucullus returned from the Third Mithradatic Wars so wealthy he astonished his contemporaries with the magnitude of his building programs, patronage of the arts and sciences and even aquaculture projects. He transformed his hereditary estate in the Tusculan highlands into a hotel-and-library complex for scholars and philosophers. He built the horti Lucullani on the Pincian Hill in Rome, the famous gardens of Lucullus, and in general became a cultural revolutionary in the deployment of imperial wealth.

A view from the hill of Pizzofalcone, the site of the original Greek
colony of Parthenope and later occupied by a famous villa of Lucullus.
Photo courtesy of Rabun Taylor - Ancient Naples A Documentary History

Pompey, Caesar's arch military rival, amassed a fortune on campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain and in mopping up after Lucullus in the Third Mithradatic War. Pompey never even bothered to incur the expense of seeking public office but merely bullied his way into consular or pro-consular positions based on his military reputation alone.

Gnaius Pompeius Magnus, Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek (inv. 733) photographed by
Gunnar Bach Pedersen

Yet classical scholars have never tried to label these two contemporaries of Caesar as war crinimals or pepetrators of genocide despite the high casualty rates of their military engagements or lucrative acquisitions of booty in their military campaigns. But, then again, neither of these two Roman commanders were ever targets of the Optimate propaganda machine either.

Lucullus, though a member of the Senate, did not appear to harbor a political agenda, essentially retiring to his vast estates after Pompey helped him obtain the Senate's authorization for a triumph Lucullus so adamantly desired.

Pompey himself did, in fact, serve as consul after reluctantly agreeing to join Caesar and Crassus in the First Triumvirate, but lost interest in politics after he married Caesar's daughter Julia. Later Pompey was manipulated by the Optimates into assuming the premier role of head of the exiled Senate during the Civil War but had no particular political agenda of his own except the passage of a bill granting land to his veterans.

So, the primary difference between Caesar and Lucullus or Pompey was that Caesar had strong political ambitions and goals that conflicted sharply with the political agenda of the conservative, aristocratic Optimates. It's really quite amazing that after 2,000 years, the Optimates' propaganda appears to be as virulent now as it was in the late Republic.

References:

The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies by Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses, Oxford University Press, 2010
History by Thucydides
Histories by Herodotus
War, Peace and Empire by Oded
History 10.15-4-16.9 by Polybius
De Bello Gallico by Julius Caesar
Chronicle of the Roman Republic by Philip Matyszak
Julius Caesar, War Criminal? by Dr. Miland Brown. World History Blog. 6/12/2006.
Goldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar: Life of a Colossus. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. 220-223.
Battle of Bibracte. Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
Appian's Roman History (Vol I: The Wars in Spain) (1912) translated by Horace White (Loeb Classical Library);
Lucius Annaeus Florus: Epitome of Roman History (1929) translated by Edward Seymour Forster (Loeb Classical Library)

Bavarian State Library launches new European history review platform

2011-02-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

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Splendig hallway of the Bavarian State Library in
Munich, Germany

The Bavarian State Library in collaboration with the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP) and the Institute for European History (IEG) Mainz, has launched an online database of presentations and reviews of books and journal articles about European history named recensio.net.

The reviews and publications on the platform focus on work published in Europe featuring European topics. The platform’s navigational languages are English, German and French. The reviews and presentations themselves may be written in any European language but a link to a .pdf is available that can be used in conjunction with an online translator like Google Translate if you do not speak the language of a review or presentation that catches your interest.

If you prefer to only browse reviews or presentations written in your native language, you can click on the Advanced Search function in the upper right hand corner of the home page.  When the Advanced Search page is displayed you can scroll about halfway down the page and specify your preferred language of the review or presentation.

The Advanced Search feature also lets you specify type of article, author, date range or other tags and date the document was prepared.

Remains of Radish, Cabbage and Hibiscus found in 2000 year-old Roman pharmaceuticals

2011-02-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

A Roman mosaic depicting a merchant ship in the
Piazzale delle Corporazioni in Ostia Antica near Lazio, Italy.
Photographed by Mary Harrsch.

Medical supplies retrieved from an ancient Roman merchant ship dating back to 130 BCE discovered back in 1980s have finally been analyzed by the Smithsonian Centre for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics.
Alain Touwaide, historian of sciences in the department of botany at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History obtained the tablets from the Italian Department of Antiquities in 2004.

In the 1980s, divers retrieved several tin containers, 136 vials made of boxwood, a locker and medical tools. The large number of vials suggests the medicines were being shipped rather than being used by the ship's doctor. The tablets, preserved in small tin boxes, are the first remains of ancient pharmaceuticals to be found and successfully analysed with advanced DNA techniques. - Adrian Higgins, Sydney Morning Herald

Samples from two tablets revealed a dried concoction of medicinal herbs, including celery, alfalfa and wild onion, bound together with clay and zinc.

"The tablets might have been used to treat skin conditions or dissolved in water or wine for intestinal ailments such as dysentery," Touwaide observed.

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Strange illumination in a medieval copy
of Hippocrates' Aphorismi.

Other ingredients found included radish and cabbage, wild carrot or a relative, yarrow, jack bean, a hibiscus species, willow, aster, the common bean and nasturtium.

Use of some of these herbs in ancient times has come down to us in fragments of an ancient Greek medical text called The Hippocratic Corpus.

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Andreas Vesalius

"The Hippocratic Corpus is a library, or rather, the remains of a library. Although the 34 books included in the Collection were originally attributed to Hippocrates himself, scholars now know that they were more likely composed between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Between the career of Hippocrates and the pre-Socratic philosophers, a special kind of prose for medical writings developed in Greece. Although Cos, the island home of Hippocrates, is located within what was a Doric-speaking region, the medical writers of Cos (believed to have written the Hippocratic treatises) appropriated the more refined Ionic dialect of philosophy. Later, during the Renaissance, scientists like Andreas Vesalius would similarly shun using the vernacular, instead penning their medical treatises in Latin." -Alvin V. & Nancy Baird, Joan Echtenkamp Klein, University of Virginia

The benefits of radishes and onions have been known since the time of pyrmaid construction in ancient Egypt.

"The Egyptians made sure that the laborers were fed a diet rich in radish, garlic and onion, which modern researchers have found to be extremely rich in Raphanin, Allicin and Allistatin. These powerful natural antibiotics would certainly help to prevent outbreaks of disease in the often-crowded conditions of the workcamps." - Shuttleworth, Martyn (2010). Ancient Medicine - History of Medicine. Retrieved 03 Feb 2011 from Experiment Resources: http://www.experiment-resources.com/ancient-medicine.html

Mosaic depicting Achilles confronting Agamemnon from the House
of Apollo in Pompeii Roman 1st century BCE-1st century CE.
Photographed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli in Naples,
Italy by Mary Harrsch.

In ancient mythology, Achilles was said to have used yarrow to treat the wounds of his comrades. Modern researchers admit that yarrow does, in fact, possess blood-clotting qualities and is an effective anti-inflammatory.

The jackbean, a natural source of L-dopa, is currently being studied for its effectiveness against neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease.

I found it interesting that modern scholars think the Romans used hibiscus to treat skin conditions and when I searched for ancient uses for hibiscus, I found a website on medicinal herbs, Ancient Wisdom Herbs, that included a comment that hibiscus is recommended for the treatment of weeping eczema, a skin disease. Willow, another ingredient found in the Roman tablets, was used in ancient Egypt to treat toothache.

Nasturtium, a plant containing a natural antibiotic, benzyl mustard oil, was used in ancient times to treat inflamed wounds, kidney and urinary tract infections and as a blood-cleansing salad. It is said that Hippocrates located his hospital by a stream with an abundance of nasturtium growing nearby so he could take advantage of a ready supply of the healing herb.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Bust of a young Marcus Aurelius
2nd century CE. Photographed at
the Palazzo Massimo, Rome, Italy.

Aulus Cornelius Celsus (ca 25 BCE—ca 50 CE), Roman physician and author of De Medicina, reports using celery for pain relief. In fact, in 1992, pharmacological researchers found that celery contains a chemical called 3-n-butyl phthalide, which relaxes the smooth-muscle lining of blood vessels, making them wider and thereby lowering blood pressure. This same expansion of the blood vessels would also provide relief for certain types of headaches.

Obviously the Romans had acquired a wealth of knowledge about medically effective herbs long before the celebrated physician Galen began treating gladiators and the emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second century CE.

Memetics and the transfer of Roman culture to be explored in Newcastle conference

2011-01-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

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Newcastle Univeristy

This year as part of the 21st Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference at Newcastle University scheduled from Thursday 14 April to Sunday 17 April 2011, classical scholars from around the world will explore a variety of topics from gender identity, castration in the Roman world and colonial consumption to the practicalities of supplying Roman fish sauce and examining functionalism, militarism and discrepant experience on Hadrian's Wall.

Conference organizers have posted abstracts of papers accepted for the conference on a new blog, http://trac2011.wordpress.com/.

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Richard Dawkins, pioneer of
memetics

I found the following abstract, discussing memetics, the study of cultural selection and transmission as theorized by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 work The Selfish Gene, of particular interest to me.

On the Origin of Behaviours: Examining the Process of Cultural Selection Through Funerary Evidence – Edward Biddulph (OA)

Similar to cultural analysis, memetics seeks to apply the techniques of epidemiology to the spread of beliefs and ideas through populations. They also analyze the relative prevalence of various memes and document their independent origins or common ancestry. Memeticists also seek to further explain, clarify, and quantify the theory of memes; they hope to use their theory to make predictions about how humans behave that go beyond what would be expected by evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, which assume genetic benefit to human behavior.- Cultural Evolution

So, what is a meme?

A meme is defined as "a unit of cultural transmission" (The Selfish Gene, p. 192). In other words, a meme is a cultural idea held by an adherent or host. Examples of memes include "tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches" (Ibid). Like genes, memes cause "phenotypes" - in this context it is useful to remember that the meme itself - its genotype - is the pure information it contains, like a musical score or a recipe. A meme's phenotype, on the other hand, is its physical expression - the actual music, the cake baked from the recipe, etc...

...Roman culture contains a number of different meme sets: religion, politics, entertainment, attitudes toward war, etc. The "Roman religion" meme set included the memes that humans' fates were determined by a set of gods and goddesses, that natural disasters were signs of the gods' disfavor, and that the gods could be appeased by animal sacrifice. During the time of the Roman Republic, the "Roman politics" meme set included the memes that representatives of the people should govern, that tyranny was unfavorable to Rome, and that only men of economic status should have a say in government. - Cultural Evolution

But memes, like genes, work in combination with context.

One example sometimes given to illustrate the effect of context on the transmission of an idea is the observation that the meme to fear flying did not exist in ancient times because flying vehicles did not exist. I would take exception to this particular example though.

Greek mythology, a widely accepted meme set, included the story of Icarus who died when he cast wings of wax then flew too close to the sun. So recognition of the consequences of a failed attempt to fly was obviously present. But the probability that an ancient Greek or Roman may face a choice to fly or not to fly from a practical perspective did not yet exist. So I would say this meme existed but could be viewed as dormant because of a lack of technological context.

As the Roman Empire expanded, its societal context was constantly bombarded by new ideas and practices from the different cultural groups it absorbed through its conquests. So I think evaluating how and why Roman society as a whole adopted some customs or ideas while rejecting others would be challenging research.

"Roman archaeologists have largely remained untouched by memetics, yet cultural selection provides an elegant mechanism for the emergence, persistence and evolution of traditions in the Roman world." - Edward Biddulph

Other abstracts that caught my attention included:

Multiple Masculinities in Roman Archaeology- No Girls Allowed!!

Beer, Blades and the Batavian Ear: The Batavian Myth, Roman Military

Burials and Brooches Collective Versus Personal Identity – Dr. Stijn Heeren (Amsterdam)

To Curse or not to Curse? Divergent Uses of Literacy in Aquae Sulis

Caesarion: Victim of the wicked who whispered 'Too Many Caesars'

2010-12-14T17:15:00.000-08:00


Colossal head thought to depict Caesarion recovered from Abukir Bay of the coast of Alexandria by French archaeologist Frank Goddio in 1997.

Behold, you came with your vague
charm. In history only a few
lines are found about you,
and so I molded you more freely in my mind.
I molded you handsome and sentimental.
My art gives to your face
a dreamy compassionate beauty.
And so fully did I envision you,
that late last night, as my lamp
was going out -- I let go out on purpose --
I fancied that you entered my room,
it seemed that you stood before me; as you might have been
in vanquished Alexandria,
pale and tired, idealistic in your sorrow,
still hoping that they would pity you,
the wicked -- who whispered "Too many Caesars." - Constantine P Cavafy, Greece (1863-1933)

Like Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, I have tried to imagine what Caesarion was like. Surely he possessed a healthy dose of charisma like his mesmerizing mother Cleopatra VII and his inspiring father Gaius Julius Caesar. But then again, when I studied genetics in high school back in the 60s I was told that nature tends to return to the "norm" rather than build successively on the talents of one's parents. I was always puzzled by that since researchers exploring the boundaries of eugenics always tried to manipulate the gene pool by selective breeding.

I had never seen a sculpted portrait of Caesarion, except the highly stylized relief of him as pharaoh alongside his mother Queen Cleopatra VII on the temple of Dendera, until I attended the "Cleopatra: The Search For The Last Queen of Egypt" exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania last month. There I saw an image of a handsome young man with hair peeking out from under the royal nemes headdress looking so melancholy as if he sensed his life would end soon without any of his dreams or ambitions fulfilled.

'Son of the avenging god, Chosen by Ptah, Dispenser of the justice of Ra, Living power of Amun' proclaims the translation of Caesarion's Egyptian name, Iwapanetjerentynehem Setepenptah Irmaatenra Sekhemankhamun. Sadly, Caesarion, Ptolemy XV, known by his Greek subjects as Ptolemy Caesar, did not live to dispense justice or avenge the death of his father. He was executed by his father's adopted son, Octavian, who would become the Roman emperor Augustus.

Of course, with literally the control of the Roman World at stake, Caesarion's actual paternity, needless to say, was much disputed by some ancient Romans, probably fueled by Octavian's robust propaganda machine.

Dio Cassius, a Roman consul and historian writing in the 3rd century CE (47.31.5) claimed Cleopatra VII only "pretended" that Caesar was his father while Nicolaus of Damascus, a Greek historian who actually served as tutor to Antony and Cleopatra's children but was later patronized by Augustus, in his Life of Augustus (20) claimed that Caesar explicitly repudiated Caesarion in his will.

Suetonius[, a second century historian patronized by the Roman emperor Trajan,] is carefully neutral in his Caesar 52. He notes that he [Caesarion] was said to closely resemble Caesar, but also that Caesar's secretary G. Oppius wrote a book proving that Caesar could not be Caesarion's father. He also says that Caesar "allowed" Cleopatra VII to name the child after him, implying that he did not in fact acknowledge him as his, but then notes that Antony had declared to the Senate that Caesar did acknowledge the boy as his. - Chris Bennett, Egyptian Royal Genealogy

How painful for a young man to look so much like his famous father but be denied by him. Of course, we must consider the real possibilities of political bias in these accounts. Even the later historians would have been influenced by the Roman public's perception that Augustus represented the 'gold standard" for a Roman emperor.

Even if Nicolaus of Damascus was faithfully recording his observation of Caesar's will it would not have been beyond the pale for Octavian to have discretely amended the will to reinforce his position as unchallenged heir - especially if , as Plutarch reports, Caesarion successfully escaped to India and was at large elsewhere in the world for a time before being lured back to his death.

Caesarion, who was said to be Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar, was sent by his mother, with much treasure, into India, by way of Ethiopia. There Rhodon, another tutor like Theodorus, persuaded him to go back, on the ground that [Octavian] Caesar invited him to take the kingdom. - Plutarch, Life of Antony

Plutarch's account coincides with an oral tradition in India that Cheras of Kerala traded extensively with Egypt and the descendants of that royal family were told that letters were exchanged with Cleopatra.

The [Canadian] historian George Woodcock says that Caesarion did indeed manage to escape with a large treasure and was granted asylum in Kerala. Lucy Hughes-Hallet in her book “Cleopatra: histories, dreams, distortions” says that the Queen herself intended to flee to India but fell ill and therefore ordered her son to leave without her...whether or not he reached Kerala and survived is not known clearly, but the story assumes that he arrived in Kerala and was received as a honored guest of the royal family. In fact, such was the respect and importance of this guest that there is said to have been a matrimonial alliance between the Egyptian prince and a Chera Princess. -Cleopatra and Cheraman Perumal

Furthermore, Nicolaus of Damascus reported ongoing communications between factions in India and Augustus at this time.

This writer [Nicolaus of Damascus] states that at Antioch, near Daphne, he met with ambassadors from the Indians, who were sent to Augustus Caesar. It appeared from the letter that several persons were mentioned in it, but three only survived, whom he says he saw. The rest had died chiefly in consequence of the length of the journey. The letter was written in Greek upon a skin; the import of it was, that Porus was the writer, that although he was sovereign of six hundred kings, yet that he highly esteemed the friendship of Cæsar; that he was willing to allow him a passage through his country, in whatever part he pleased, and to assist him in any undertaking that was just.

Were these letters part of Augustus' attempt to lure Caesarion back into his grasp?

Archaeological evidence cannot settle the paternity issue without scholarly controversy either - not so much from a lack of physical remains attesting to Caesarion's birth date but to the confusion over Egyptian regnal year notations as well as the state of flux in the official reading of the Roman calendar that was in the midst of being converted to the new Julian version.

A stele in the Louvre appears to record Caesarion's birth giving 23 Payni year 5 as the birthday of "the pharaoh Caesar".

Assuming this dates the birth of Caesarion to 23 June 47, it places his conception in September 48 = November AUC 706, which is precisely the period when Cleopatra VII and Caesar were in closest contact in Alexandria under the siege of the forces of Achillas. At this time, it is very difficult to imagine how anyone else could be Caesarion's father. - Chris Bennett, Egyptian Royal Genealogy

Bennett points out, though, that other scholars like J. Carpocino, Passion et politique chez les Césars (1958) 37, argued that Antony had been smitten by the 14-year-old Cleopatra in 55 BCE while stationed as a cavalry officer in Egypt and could have had an illicit affair with her resulting in the birth of Caesarion.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Portrait of Gaius Julius Caesar
from Trajan's Forum in Rome.

The second argument (J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Historia 7 (1958) 80, 86) is that Caesar's track-record for conceiving children is poor, and therefore he was possibly sterile at this time of his life. Only one child is certainly acknowledged, his daughter Julia, and the assassin Marcus Brutus, who is sometimes claimed as a son, can be excluded on chronological grounds. This is in spite of his having had three wives and numerous affairs. But R. Syme, Historia 29 (1980) 422, correctly points out that this means nothing. Low birth rates among the Roman aristocracy were a matter of official concern, whether this was due to lead in the pipes or the increasing independence of aristocratic Roman women in that time. Short-lived children were more common than not, and rarely noticed. And "Adultery in high society is more amply documented than any consequences"; although Cicero makes many scandalous charges against his opponents he never once accuses an opponent of not being his father's son. In illustration of the point, Syme constructs suggestive arguments that Decimus Brutus and P. Cornelius Dolabella may have been unacknowledged sons of Caesar. A Gaul, Julius Sabinus, claimed descent from Caesar through his great-grandmother in 70 AD (Tacitus, Histories 4.55). This has been generally disbelieved from Tacitus' day onwards, though, with H Heinen (Historia 18 (1969) 181, 202), I see no particular reason to doubt the story. - Chris Bennett, Egyptian Royal Genealogy

Bennett also discusses numismatic evidence with dual dates representing periods of the joint rule of Cleopatra and Caesarion. Although all of these speculations are interesting, the real bottom line is that the Romans at the time knew Cleopatra was making a valid claim which made Octavian's resolution to the question of his legitimate inheritance of Caesar's fortune and power base so urgent.

Colleen McCullough imagined a very poignant confrontation between Octavian and Caesarion in her bookAntony and Cleopatra: A Novel (Masters of Rome)Caesarion fearlessly approaches Octavian with a proposal to become a client king. But Octavian explains to the youth that he regretfully must take Caesarion's life. Caesarion's face reflects his confusion, disbelief, then resignation when he finally realizes his death is the consequence of looking so much like his famous father. This scenario was strictly fictitious, of course, but it was certainly plausible and perhaps painfully close to actual events that played out in those final days of the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt.

Head thought to be of Gaius Julius Caesar recovered
from the Rhone River near Arles, France in 2007.

So, did Caesarion so closely resemble his father that he had to die to avoid future problems for Octavian? If we compare the (suspected) colossal head of Caesarion found in Alexandria harbor with one of the stylized portraits of the divine Julius found in Trajan's forum, we can point to vague similarities in the width of the forehead and the angle of the cheekbones but, I think I see more similarity between Caesarion and a marble head found in the Rhone River near Arles, France in 2007 that is thought to be a portrait of the aging Caesar carved in 46 BCE, just two years before his assassination on the Ides of March. Caesar's hair has receded and his face is deeply lined but this more natural looking portrait appears to reflect a similar shape of the mouth and the same innate melancholia as I saw in the head of Caesarion recovered by French divers.

When I think of Caesarion, I can't help but wonder what might have been. Like Alexander IV, Caesarion held such promise but, as happens far too often in history, fortune doesn't just favor the bold, but the greedy and the ruthless.

A document thought to be written in Cleopatra VII's own
hand. Image courtesy of National Geographic.

Although I was fascinated by the portrait head of Caesarion at the Cleopatra exhibit, I eventually had to tear myself away to view the rest of the artifacts that had been assembled there.

I felt a real connection to Cleopatra viewing a document written in her own hand ordering her administrators to "Make it happen" - sounds a bit like Captain Jean-Luc Picard doesn't it?

I also found a statue thought to be Cleopatra II or III, both of whom ruled Egypt during the mid-2nd century BC, to be quite breathtaking. Near the remains of a temple that Cleopatra passed every day, divers discovered a beautifully carved sculpture of a priest holding an Osiris-Canopus jar.

"The tender way the priest carries the Osiris-Canopus vase, resting it lightly on his cheek, evokes a love for the god and a desire to forever remain in his presence." - Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt

The exhibit also included a variety of votive objects, a beautiful head of the god Serapis, and a wonderfully detailed statue of a delicate woman thought to have been Cleopatra VII herself although the head had either been broken off in the devastating earthquake that leveled and submerged the palace or perhaps stricken off by a vengeful Octavian.

The exhibit is in its final month at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. If you are going to be in the Philadelphia area over the holidays, I would strongly encourage you to attend.

The Tunica Molesta: Roman Execution Ad Flammas

2010-12-09T14:11:00.000-08:00

Nero's Torches (1876) by Henryk Siemiradzki

Warning: the following passage contains a very graphic description of the execution of four criminals condemned for arson by Commodus in the 2nd century CE. Reader discretion is advised.

Image via Wikipedia
The Roman Emperor Commodus dressed as Hercules
"Upon each platform had been erected a wooden cross, from which hung a condemned man. All four were arsonists, whose crimes had been committed at Brundisium and Capua in the south, Aquileia in the north, and at Rome. They each wore a tunic, but it was no ordinary tunic: it was black, and glistened in the sunlight. Each of the condemned wore the tunica molesta: the garments had been soaked in pitch. The arsonists were to be punished according to the nature of their crimes; they were condemned ad flammas...they were to be burned alive in the arena.

When they saw the four convestores entering the arena, the condemned started to scream and moan, begging the crowd for mercy. The crowd screamed back at them. They turned to the Emperor, their faces contorted in terror. Commodus merely smiled, gave them a friendly wave, and sat back comfortably.

Each confector carried a burning torch, which would be touched to the tunica molesta of each criminal. As they watched the approach of the confectores, two of the condemned lost control of their bowels. When he saw the faeces running down their legs, Commodus turned to those nearest him with an indulgent smile, as if sharing in some witticism at a theatrical performance.

The time of their death was now upon them. The torches of the confectores touched their pitch-soaked clothes, and the flames sprang to them, as if escaping imprisonment. Wrapped in cloaks of fire, the condemned began to scream as the burning pitch closed upon their flesh. Four columns of black smoke rose into the air above the arena. In revolting agony the bodies of the condemned writhed; in excitement and hilarity writhed those of the spectators. Skulls split with the heat, revealing the grey pulp within; stomachs burst, disgorging boiling entrails. The awful stench of roasting flesh filled the arena. Presently, the screams ceased, and the only sound that could be heard, other than the shouts of the crowd, was the crackle of the ravenous flames. - Alan Baker, .The Gladiator: The Secret History of Rome's Warrior Slaves

I came upon this horrific description of death by tunica molesta when I was researching the history of this form of execution after reading about it in Adrienne Mayor's text "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological & Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World. Although many of us have read about Nero executing Christians suspected of arson after the Great Fire in 64 C.E. by using them as human torches, I didn't realize that this method of execution, like crucifixion, had been used routinely for such crimes as arson and treason in the Roman world before that time.

I don't know why I had not considered this before because I knew that the Romans often used mythological reenactments with criminals to entertain the crowds at Roman games and certainly the death of Hercules, one of the most revered demigods of the Roman pantheon, by a burning poison garment would have figured prominently as a choice.

Image via Wikipedia
Heracles, Deianira and Nessus. Attic black-figured
hydria, ca. 575–550 BC.
"Intending to offer sacrifice, [Hercules] sent the herald Lichas to Trachis to fetch fine raiment. From him Deianira learned about Iole, and fearing that Hercules might love that damsel more than herself, she supposed that the spilt blood of Nessus was in truth a love-charm, and with it she smeared the tunic. So Hercules put it on and proceeded to offer sacrifice. But no sooner was the tunic warmed than the poison of the hydra began to corrode his skin; and on that he lifted Lichas by the feet, hurled him down from the headland, and tore off the tunic, which clung to his body, so that his flesh was torn away with it. In such a sad plight he was carried on shipboard to Trachis: and Deianira, on learning what had happened, hanged herself. But Hercules, after charging Hyllus his elder son by Deianira, to marry Iole when he came of age, proceeded to Mount Oeta, in the Trachinian territory, and there constructed a pyre, mounted it, and gave orders to kindle it. When no one would do so, Poeas, passing by to look for his flocks, set a light to it. On him Hercules bestowed his bow. While the pyre was burning, it is said that a cloud passed under Hercules and with a peal of thunder wafted him up to heaven. - Apollodorus Lib. 2.7.7

Execution "ad flammas" was actually one of the specified methods of execution in ancient Rome's governing XII Tables.

"According to the XII Tables men might be bound, beaten, and burned alive (vivicomburium, damnatio ad flammas, vivus uri, crematio) as an ancient penalty for treachery and arson. This was rare under the Republic, but the Roman masses knew the violent use of fire as a threat and as vengeance. More common under the Empire, execution by fire was mostly for slaves and the lower orders (humiliores) for arson, desertion, magic, and treason, and it was an especially common punishment for Christians." - Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (Approaching the Ancient World).

Politically capitalizing on the spectacular nature of this mode of execution probably did not occur, though, until the "age of senatorial ascendancy" during the Punic Wars.

"Elite Romans had long used elaborate funerals to reinforce familial claims to status, and they would later use imposing monuments and tombs as more enduring symbols. Just as the feasting and circus and theatrical games of triumphal ludi were vindications of awarded dignitas, the innovation of the gladiatorial munus on a limited almost experimental basis in 264 [BCE] allowed families, under the pretext of honoring a dead relative to display their claim to status. With the wars against Carthage and with elite families vying for consulships and thus generalships, demonstrations of the destruction of foreign captives, rebel slaves or deserters, or exotic beasts from the expanding limits of Roman power seemed entirely appropriate fro the military leaders of a burgeoning empire. Through the era of the Punic Wars, often called "the age of senatorial ascendancy", the nobles entrenched their control. From the magnitude of the Punic Wars to the Roman atrocities in Spain, Romans fought "total' wars against non-Italians and became more tolerant and even expectant of public brutality. In the same period munera [funeral games] and venationes [beast hunts] expanded in scope and frequency as the provision of spectacles of death was becoming more and more politically advantageous." - - Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (Approaching the Ancient World).

The adoption of many aspects of Greek culture that occurred after the conquest of Syracuse in 212 BCE might have also had an influence on the introduction of criminal execution in public spectacles.

Plato taught punishment in the form of pure retribution should be condemned as animalistic and pointless. As Roman nobility began to study the works of the Greek philosophers perhaps they rationalized these spectacles were a means to invoke humiliation in the miscreants thereby restoring social order, a loftier ideal than simple retribution. This viewpoint was later expressed outright in the writings of the Middle Platonist L. Calvenus Taurus of the 2nd century CE but could have been shared earlier by Roman adopters of Greek philosophy, especially since it socially justified these activities and drew attention away from the political benefits reaped by these Roman magistrates.

In her paper, Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments, K. M. Coleman also points out that the mockery of criminals at such public spectacles also served to dissociate and distance the onlookers from the individual whose behavior had been declared unacceptable by the state.

But, without properly equipped permanent facilities for these entertainments before the 1st century BCE, large scale reenactments of mythological narratives could not be properly presented. Perhaps this explains why the use of the tunica molesta was relatively rare until then.

A reenactment of the Orpheus myth was a
popular "fatal charade" used to execute
people sentenced to death ad bestias.
Roman mosaic of Orpheus circa 204 CE
Photographed at the Dallas Museum of Art
by Mary Harrsch.
"Underground passageways excavated below the Forum Romanum bear witness to an attempt to create adequate facilities, but it was the adoption during the first century of a Campanian architectural design, the amphitheater, which greatly increased the potential for sophisticated displays, made permanent accommodation available for seating a large audience and allowed easier control and handling of the animals, with a corresponding guarantee of safety of the audience." - K.M. Coleman, Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments

When the Flavian amphitheater was finally completed under the reign of Titus, the son of Vespasian certainly took full advantage of the degree of spectacle that could be presented in the new facility.

"...Titus celebrated his brother's birthday with great splendour, reserving in his honour for this festival much of the punishment of his Jewish captives. For the number of those destroyed in contests with wild beasts or with one another or in the flames exceeded two thousand five hundred." - Josephus, VII.37-40

The Roman Emperor 1st century CE.
Photographed at the Capitoline Museum in
Rome, Italy by Mary Harrsch

Some writers claimed many of the Roman people had objected to the cruelty of Nero's executions ad flammas but the people must have had a short memory!

Coleman also pointed out that executions ad bestias were the real crowd pleasers but acquiring beasts was expensive and there was always a degree of uncertainty about the willingness of animals to "do the job". Death by crucifixion, on the other hand, was usually too slow, taking hours or even days. So the tunica molesta could have been an alternative means of execution that still provided a certain degree of entertainment while being relatively cheap with a guaranteed result.

Coleman mentions that evidence of ongoing "fatal charades" disappears after the Severan dynasty but executions by fire certainly continued. Ironically, it was a Christian emperor, Justinian (r. 527-565 CE) who decreed that heretics would be put to death by fire as part of his Codex Iustiniani (CJ 1.5.), ratifying the decrees of his predecessors the Emperors Arcadius and Flavius Augustus Honorius. Burning was also deemed the appropriate punishment for Zoroastrians in the Byzantine Empire for their worship of fire.

Centurion gripping but suffers from skeletal characters

2010-12-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: "Centurion" is now available for instant download from Netflix!

I finally had a chance to watch "Centurion" about the fate of the fabled Legio IX Hispana produced in 2009 but never formally released here in the US. I was finally able to get it from Netflix.

Image via Wikipedia

Modern reconstruction of lorica segmentata armor

I've been so starved for historical ancient epics lately that I was more than willing to overlook many historical inconsistencies and just enjoy the action. I had read initially that this film was going to be some modern interpretation of the legend of the Ninth and by that I feared film producers were going to forgo costuming and tell the story in a modern setting. I guess I've been to too many Shakespearean presentations lately with characters like MacBeth dressed in 20th century garb which has really turned me off. But, happily, I was able to watch my courageous Romans in their full panoply of lorica segmentata!

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

The Roman Emperor Domitian

Of course the Roman governor, Agricola, was presented in a less than favorable light. Historically, Agricola was recalled to Rome by Emperor Domitian in 85 CE and died a private citizen in 93 CE so he was dead and incinerated long before the film's action takes place in 117 CE. But the film does raise questions that have plagued historians about the truth of some of the claims made about Agricola's victories in Scotland by his son-in-law Tacitus. So we'll cut the film a little slack for that.

The fictional events seem to be related to the aftermath of the Battle of Mons Graupius in which Agricola's troops defeated Caledonii led by the revered warrior Calgacus. Calgacus is the leader who gave us (via Tacitus in his biography of Agricola) the famous paraphrased quote "they make a desert and call it peace."

Whenever I consider the origin of this war and the necessities of our position, I have a sure confidence that this day, and this union of yours, will be the beginning of freedom to the whole of Britain. To all of us slavery is a thing unknown; there are no lands beyond us, and even the sea is not safe, menaced as we are by a Roman fleet. And thus in war and battle, in which the brave find glory, even the coward will find safety. Former contests, in which, with varying fortune, the Romans were resisted, still left in us a last hope of succour, inasmuch as being the most renowned nation of Britain, dwelling in the very heart of the country, and out of sight of the shores of the conquered, we could keep even our eyes unpolluted by the contagion of slavery. To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary of Britain's glory has up to this time been a defence. Now, however, the furthest limits of Britain are thrown open, and the unknown always passes for the marvellous. But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace. - Calgacus, in Agricola by Tacitus.

In the film the Caledonii war leader is Gorlacon, played by Ulrich Thomsen. Gorlacon, is, as far as I can tell, purely fictional and actually has very little screen time.

The real villain(ess) is the Brigantes turn-coat Etain, a female warrior essentially presented as hatred incarnate whose family was raped and slaughtered by the Romans and whose tongue was cut out, rendering her mute. Now, normally we would have at least some sympathy for her because of all she had endured but the producers gave us no flashbacks to emphasize her tragic background and no scenes to indicate she possessed any other aspects to her character except singleminded thoughts of butchery so you can't help but hope the Romans will make an end to her, preferably with as much brutality as she herself demonstrates.

The director used the scissors too liberally on the character of the main hero too, Centurion Quintus Dias, played by Michael Fassbender. We get very little background information on him but we can at least admire his tenacity for escaping a brutal massacre at Inchtuthil - a real Roman fortress on the bank of the River Tay southwest of Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross, Scotland, built as an advanced headquarters for Agricola's campaigns against the Caledonian tribes. Centurion Dias would have been a member of the Legion XX Valeria Victrix which occupied the fort until it was withdrawn to replace Legio II Adiutrix in Deva (Chester) after that legion was recalled to Moesia to fight the Dacians. The evacuation of Inchtuthil, like the recall of Agricola, has been traditionally dated to 85-86 CE too, leading me to wonder again why the filmmakers set the date of their story to 117 CE. Recent archaeology does point to the fort's occupation longer than previously thought, though, so again I must cut the filmmakers a little slack.

What little characterization the film possessed was awarded to Titus Flavius Virilus, played by Dominic West, the Ninth's brawling, up-from-the-ranks commander. Although his scenes were brief and he died in fairly short order, I liked him.

I also liked the scenes of the Ninth's ambush, with the Caledonians rolling flaming boulders upon the Romans while the legion tried desperately to maintain defensive formations. Virilus was not lulled into complacency by his female Brigantes "guide" and his men were marching in good order - not like those of Publius Quintilius Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, so I was gratified by that.

As the Roman survivors first attempt to free their captured commander then flee their pursuers, the film devolves into a formulaic chase movie where more and more survivors succumb to their ever relentless enemies. When they finally turn and fight at an abandoned Roman fort, I get frustrated because the Romans should cut the head off the snake by targeting Etain, the most skilled tracker/warrior among the Calendonii. Instead she is one of the last to meet her fate.

Still, the film made enough of an effort to portray the period accurately that I will add it to my collection and for Roman military buffs, I would recommend watching it at least once.

The other film about the Ninth Legion, directed by Academy Award winner Kevin MacDonald, is not set for release until February 2011, but it's synopsis makes it sound much more like the novel "Eagle of the Ninth" by one of my favorite authors, the late Rosemary Sutcliff.

In 140 AD, two men – master and slave – venture beyond the edge of the known world on a dangerous and obsessive quest that will push them beyond the boundaries of loyalty and betrayal, friendship and hatred, deceit and heroism…The Roman epic adventure THE EAGLE stars Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell and is directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald. 20 years earlier, Rome’s 5,000-strong Ninth Legion, under the command of Flavius Aquila, marched north carrying their treasured golden Eagle emblem. They never returned; Legion and Eagle simply vanished into the mists. Hearing a rumor that the Eagle has been seen in a tribal temple in the far north, Flavius’ son Marcus (Tatum), determined to restore the tarnished reputation of his father, is galvanized into action. Accompanied only by his slave Esca (Bell), Marcus sets out into the vast and dangerous highlands of Scotland – to confront its savage tribes, make peace with his father’s memory, and retrieve the hallowed Eagle. Along the way Marcus realizes that the mystery of his father’s disappearance may well be linked to the secret of his own slave’s identity and loyalty – a secret all the more pressing when the two come face-to-face with the warriors of the fearsome Seal Prince (Tahar Rahim). - Apple

I am really looking forward to this one so I hope it will garner screening in the US or I'll be stuck waiting for the DVD release again. At least now, thanks to some great Black Friday deals on a new LCD HD TV and Blu-Ray player, I'll get to watch it in Hi-Def!