Review: Women at War in the Classical World by Paul Chrystal

 © 2020 by Mary Harrsch

"Women at War in the Classical World" by Paul Chrystal is a compilation of anecdotes, gleaned from a variety of ancient sources, about the activities of women in societies directed by men engaged in martial activities. The book divides these anecdotes into subunits for the Greeks and Romans.  From there it is further subdivided into chapters on women in legend and women in history. But I thought it suffered beyond that point because it lacked a topical framework to organize the various activities associated with the decisions to make war, the funding of warfare, the logistics to prepare for war, the military forces in the field, and finally the fate of victims of ancient conflict.  Chrystal had anecdotes for each of these phases of ancient warfare but they were jumbled together so much that I felt like I was bumping along a Roman road in a crude oxcart with no suspension.  There was no transitional phrases to give you a clue as to the relationship between one paragraph and the next so I found his narrative hard to follow.

At one point we jump from an anecdote about Hortensia's oratorical prowess to object to the Second Triumvirate's tax levy on wealthy women to the ostentatious behavior of Catiline's wife Sempronia and then to Porcia's rather extreme strategies to get Brutus to share his plans assassinate Caesar.

Although the tax levy issue could be categorized as eventually funding warfare, the behavior of Catiline's wife and Porcia, without any reference to warfare seem extraneous and irrelevant to the topic without some additional details. Furthermore, these brief summaries are not even presented in chronological order thereby jumbling the history so a development of behavioral patterns based on precedent cannot even be considered. 

Chrystal's book provides a number of documented references to women in the classical world, which, in itself, constitutes a helpful resource.  I just felt it could have been organized much better to focus the work on warfare and irrelevant anecdotes pruned.

Overall, I found my expectation of the contents based on the book's title simply wasn't met. Chrystal's decision to document the activities of ancient women in a martial society as revealed by a variety of ancient sources was not a comprehensive analysis of how these activities supported and encompassed the prosecution of ancient warfare which is what I had anticipated.

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Poison Honey and the Importance of the Classics

My husband brought home a beehive this week so he could learn to become a beekeeper (his latest hobby).  We have multitudes of rhododendrons blooming in the front yard right now and, remembering my Xenophon, when we went to Glory Bee Foods to get some beekeeping supplies, I asked the salesperson if we were supposed to keep the bees shut up during the rhododendron bloom?  She seemed totally clueless so I reminded her of the fate of Xenophon's men who became severely sickened from eating honey produced by bees feasting on rhododendron pollen. She said she had never heard anything about it.  I told her she should brush up on her ancient history.

Xenophon, author of "Anabasis" that

relates the famous March of the Ten 

Thousand.  Image courtesy of 

Wikimedia Commons.

"The effect upon the soldiers who tasted the combs was, that they all went for the nonce quite off their heads, and suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, with a total inability to stand steady on their legs. A small dose produced a condition not unlike violent drunkenness, a large one an attack very like a fit of madness, and some dropped down, apparently at death's door. So they lay, hundreds of them, as if there had been a great defeat, a prey to the cruellest despondency. But the next day, none had died; and almost at the same hour of the day at which they had eaten they recovered their senses, and on the third or fourth day got on their legs again like convalescents after a severe course of medical treatment." - Anabasis by Xenophon, Book IV Chapter VIII

I also pointed out that if she needed a more recent reference she should check out the campaigns of Pompey the Great as well since, he, too, failed to learn from history and suffered from the effects of rhododendron honey when he and his troops were campaigning in Turkey in the 1st century BCE.

"As king of Pontus and a scholar of toxicology, Mithridates was well aware of the deadly properties of the rhododendron honey of his kingdom.  He would have kept some in his royal laboratory of pharmaka and, as noted earlier, he may have included it in his mithridatium...Mithridates would also have known of Xenophon's misadventure with the poisonous honey..."

Mithridates VI of Pontus, The Poison King
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

"In about 65 BCE, Pompey's army was approaching Colchis.  Mithridates' allies there, the Heptakometes, were described by Strabo as 'utterly savage' mountain barbarians, dwelling in tree forts and living on 'the flesh of wild animals and nuts.'  The tribe was feared for attacking wayfarers - suddenly leaping down on them like leopards from their tree houses.  The Heptakometes may have received specific orders from Mithridates on how to ambush the Roman army.  What we do know for a fact is that they gathered up great numbers of wild honeycombs dripping with toxic honey and placed them all along Pompey's route.  The Roman soldiers stopped to enjoy the sweets and immediately lost their senses.  Reeling and babbling, the men collapsed with vomiting and diarrhea and lay on the ground unable to move.  The Heptakometes easily wiped out about one thousand of Pompey's men." - Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor

I saw an article last week listing the ten most worthless disciplines to pursue in higher education and among them was archaeology and anthropology.  It looks to me like this is a prime example of information from the past that has direct modern implications and could be one of many examples that could refute such nonsense!

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Review: Lion of the Sun by Harry Sidebottom

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.

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Maximus vs. Achilles makes exciting face off!

This morning I received a note about a great fake movie trailer for "Star Trek vs. Star Wars" from my daily "How to Geek" subscription. The Youtube producer was so talented I couldn't help but check to see if he/she had any other remixes and found this great face off between Achilles and Maximus:

I know some ancient history enthusiasts have discussed at length whether Roman army tactics could defeat a Greek phalanx (we're split on that one - some think the maneuverability of the Roman maniple could outflank a phalanx formation but others think it would depend on the topography of the battlefield.) Of course, from the descriptions of the Greeks battlefield behavior in the Iliad, the Greeks at the time of the Trojan War didn't fight in the disciplined phalanx that was used later in Greek history.
But, history itself shows that the Romans repeatedly defeated phalanx formations:

The first encounter between a Greek phalanx and a Roman legion was the battle of Heraclea in 280, in which Pyrrhus of Epirus overcame his Italian enemies, but suffered heavy losses because the Roman army was more flexible and could replace the soldiers in the first line; they could continue to fight much longer. This flexibility was Rome's main advantage, especially when rearrangements had to be made during the battle - something that was always necessary during a fight on a hilly terrain. In June 197, at Cynoscephalae, the Roman commander Titus Quinctus Flamininus overcame the Macedonian king Philip V, and the Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis concluded that this battle was the best example to show that legions were superior to the phalanx  (World History, 18.28-31).  - Courtesy of Livius.org

Image of a Secutor (standing)  fighting a downed retiarius courtesy of  Wikipedia.As for a mano-et-mano confrontation between a seasoned Roman-trained officer and a Greek hoplite skilled in the use of a thrusting spear, I'm not so sure myself,  although it appears that the mighty Maximus is about to be victorious in this clip.  Achilles would have a much greater reach with his spear but a  full panoply of his own time period - a breastplate, greaves,  hoplon, and a tunic of stiffened linen - would weigh as much as 15 kg,  Maximus is dressed in only a ragged tunic and leather armor and armed with only a short gladius. Maximus would have speed and agility on his side like a retiarius but without the net and a longer weapon.
Russell Crowe and his character Maximus are admired as physically fine examples of an alpha male in our society but the Romans would have interpreted his lack of armament as a symbol of a demeaned status, even more than a slave.

The more skin left unarmoured and exposed, the lower a gladiator's status and the greater his perceived effeminacy. Likewise, the engulfing net may have been seen as a feminine symbol. The light arms and armour of the retiarius thus established him as the lowliest, most disgraced, and most effeminate of the gladiator types...
...There is evidence that those net-men wearing tunics, known as retiarii tunicati, formed a special sub-class, one even more demeaned than their loincloth-wearing colleagues.The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote that:

So even the lanista's establishment is better ordered than yours, for he separates the vile from the decent, and sequesters even from their fellow-retiarii the wearers of the ill-famed tunic; in the training-school, and even in gaol, such creatures herd apart….

The passage suggests that tunic-wearing retiarii were trained for a different role, "in servitude, under strict discipline and even possibly under some restraints". Certain effeminate men mentioned by Seneca the Younger in his Quaestiones naturales were trained as gladiators and may correspond to Juvenal's tunic-wearing retiarii. Suetonius reports this anecdote: "Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors." The reaction of Emperor Caligula showed the disgust with which he viewed the gladiators' actions: "Caligula bewailed this in a public proclamation as a most cruel murder, and expressed his horror of those who had had the heart to witness it." The fate of the retiarii is not revealed. This was probably not a standard competition, as real gladiators did not surrender so easily. Rather, such tunic-wearing net-men may have served as comic relief in the gladiatorial programming. - Wikipedia

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