Those who desire not to rule but to dominate

Those who desire... not to rule but to dominate—words which are thought to have the same meaning, although between them there is the utmost difference. For it is the duty of those who rule to make their welfare [provide for the citizens' welfare], whereas it is a habit of those who dominate to provide pleasures for themselves through the labors and hardships of others.  Isocrates.  On The Peace.  Speech 8.  Section 91.

Image: The Stag Hunt Mosaic from the House of the Abduction of Helen in Pella.

"One of the most remarkable mosaics of animals and people in the House of the Abduction of Helen is the Stag Hunt Mosaic, prominently signed by an artist named Gnosis. The blossoms, leaves, spiraling tendrils, and twisting, undulating stems that frame this scene are in a Pausian design. The coiling frame around it echoes the linear patterns formed by the figures of the hunters, the dog, and the struggling stag. The mosaicist has created an illusion of solid figures through modeling, mimicking the play of light on three-dimensional surfaces by highlights and shading. Through this technique, the artist is able to reveal a sense of movement with the figures, creating a sense of illusion in the flat space. This is done by the deliberate use of the different color pebbles, creating that dynamism of shadow. Another expert approach to this illusion and the interpretation of action is the skill of foreshortening with the dog’s front legs as it sprints into the scene to attack the stag."

Although it is unclear at first glance, it is argued that the figure on the right is actually Alexander the Great, by virtue of the upswept hair off his forehead, as well as its central parting, dating it to the late 4th century. And although its credibility is limited, the taller figure is thought to be the god Hephaistos, due to his attribution of the double-headed axe, which the figure rears up to swing. Because there is no identification of the figures by the artist, perhaps, according to Chugg, he is one of Alexander’s secretive and scandalous lovers.

Regardless of the mosaic’s subject, the artistic skill in terms of shading and the illusion of shadow is exquisite and should be noted. In comparison to past mosaics, this work is all the more impressive because it was not made with uniformly cut marble in different colors, but with a carefully selected assortment of natural pebbles. The movement of the figures is clear against the dark background, and their energy is definitely present as they hunt the surprised stag, succeeding in their mission of victory. The emotion of this scene makes it typical Hellenistic. The extreme violent movement of the nude figures and the intense drama of the hunt characterize this era’s unique stylizations. - Jordan Wolfe, Furman University

https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/art231/54/

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A physician as "lower middle class" in the Roman world

Galen blood letting by Robert Thom (before 1958)

A history resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2020

I'm working on my article about the House of the Prince of Naples based in part on my translation of Hauser in Pompeji by Professor Volker Michael Strocka.  In the text, he concludes that the less skillful paintings and roughly finished earthquake repairs in the Casa del Principe di Napoli point to the occupants of the house being members of the lower middle class.  However, he seemed to have overlooked the findings of surgical instruments in several locations as well as a Roman version of a mortar and pestle which, to me, points to the last resident being a physician. So I wondered if physicians would be classified as "lower middle class" since they are  definitely more respected and usually much more well compensated in the modern world.  Yesterday, I was researching the issue of the social status of physicians in the ancient world and found a fascinating paper about the topic on JSTOR written by H. Horstmanshoff in 1990, entitled "The Ancient Physician: Craftsman or Scientist?" published in the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.  In it Horstmanshoff points out that our modern opinion of physicians as a scientifically educated practitioner of a legitimate profession of high social status was not shared by the ancients and only emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century.

"The physicians of antiquity did not belong to a legitimate profession protected by legal and official recognition. For the most part he lacked scholarly academic training and he did not always enjoy a high social status. He had to compete with quacks and miracle workers.  He could not afford to risk his reputation by treating patients who had no chance of recovery...The borderline between rational and irrational medicine was not sharply drawn. There were priests who furnished medicines and dietary regulations and performed bloodletting, just as there were physicians who used amulets and prayers." - Horstmanshoff, "The Ancient Physician: Craftsman or Scientist?"

He points out that physicians, including those who treated emperors like Galen, were actually more respected if they spent time expounding philosophical observations about humoral theory and engaging in rhetorical discussions of prognosis than in actually practicing their craft.

"The Hippocratic physician constantly invested in his reputation, since with a good reputation he would not repeatedly have to demonstrate his competence, especially in the continual competitive battles waged with physicians of quite different alloy." - Horstmanshoff, "The Ancient Physician: Craftsman or Scientist?"

Horstmanshoff notes in Homer's Iliad two types of physicians are described, the "gentleman practitioner" who is more knowledgeable in the treatment of battle wounds than the average warrior (who can treat elemental wounds), and the traveling healers who are equated to manual workmen on par with builders, who do not belong to the noble elite but are not landless laborers.  So, depending on the type of physician, their social standing was somewhere in between the extremes of social hierarchy.

"The most desirable position for a physician was that of city or community physician.  The city physician enjoyed public recognition and, probably, a fixed minimum income by virtue of a contract through which he was obliged to remain in a given city for a number of years.  The advantage for the physician was that he no longer had to contend with other physicians in competitive forays.  The advantage for the city was that it could be assured of medical services." - Horstmanshoff, "The Ancient Physician: Craftsman or Scientist?"

Apparently epigraphic evidence of these arrangements during the Roman Imperial Period have been found.

Horstmanshoff quotes Cicero's De officiis to illustrate the prevailing attitude towards physicians in the late Republic and summarizes it in this way.  "A physician was a craftsman who had to live on what his craft would earn him, but in antiquity work for wages was considered to be of inferior worth, actually a form of slavery, compared with the ideal of the self-sufficient landowner who possessed wealth obtained through long-standing inheritance and who did not need to work for a living. The arts of healing, architecture, and teaching in the honorable disciplines (included are grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy) were respectable only if one exercised them as an amateur, not if one wanted to earn one's daily bread from them."

As for the roughly repaired earthquake damage, I researched the House of the Surgeon, (Reg VI, Ins 1, 10, 23) a site recognized as a probable home of a physician because of surgical instruments found there and also located in Region VI of Pompeii, and learned that it was actually in worse repair than the House of the Prince of Naples. Archaeologists point out they found holes in the floor of the atrium that they think were left by poles holding up its roof after the earthquake of 62 CE or subsequent quakes before Vesuvius' devastating eruption in 79 CE.

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Owls: Symbols of Wisdom or Harbingers of Death

Those of us who study the ancient world are familiar with Athena's owl and its association with wisdom and vigilance but even in the ancient world owls were not always viewed in such a positive light.  Pliny the Elder tells us Rome had to undergo a lustration, a purification of the entire city normally performed at the conclusion of the taking of the census every five years, because an owl found its way into the Capitolia. Pliny describes the owl as a funereal bird, a monster of the night and the very abomination of human kind.  Virgil describes an owl's death-howl as a precursor to Dido's death and Ovid speaks of the bird's presence as an evil omen.

Surprisingly, the same viewpoint was held by the Aztecs and Maya who considered the owl a symbol of death and destruction.  The Aztec god of death, Mictlantecuhtli, was often depicted with owls.  The Popol Vuh, a Mayan religious text, describes owls as messengers of Xibalba (the Mayan "Place of Fright").  Later tribes of Native Americans also believed owls were messengers and represented supernatural forces.  Apache and Seminole people associated owls with the spirits of the dead and the bony circles around an owl's eyes are said to comprise the fingernails of apparitional humans.  The Hopi associated owls with sorcery and the Ojibwe used an owl as a symbol for both evil and death. Pueblo people associated owls with Skeleton Man, the god of death and spirit of fertility. Other tribes, though, had a less dire viewpoint.  Pawnee tribes viewed owls as the symbol of protection from any danger within their realms. Yakama tribes use an owl as a powerful totem, often to guide where and how forests and natural resources are useful with management.

Owl in a Roman mosaic in the Archaelogical Museum of El Jem, Tunisia courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Effi Schweizer

Owl with the inscription from an Attic black-figure amphora, ca 500 BCE at the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bibi Saint-Pol

Owl from the Athenian Acropolis 5th century BCE at the Acropolis Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Wpopp.

Armed owl Attic red-figure Anthesteria oinochoe, ca 410–390 BCE at the Louvre courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen

Owl-shaped protocorinthian aryballos at the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bibi Saint-Pol

Large Native American owl shaped mortar from the Columbia Plateau region photographed at the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Washington.

Native American Stone Owl Effigies from the Columbia River region photographed at the Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, Washington.

Silver Vessel in the form of an owl found in the silver hoard of Hacienda Mocollope in the Chicama Valley of Peru 14th-15th century CE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Painting of an owl in the Vienna Dioscoride manuscript dated to 512 CE courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Owl-shaped Zun wine vessel Shang Dynasty, 1600 - 1046 BCE courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art

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Nero: Hating those who denounce your mistakes

You are wont to hate not so much those who are responsible for your mistakes as those who undertake to denounce them.  Isocrates.  On The Peace.  Speech 8.  Section 80.

Image: The caldarium of the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis near Naples, Italy with a panel painting depicting Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor AlMare.

Although most of us are familiar with the story that Nero kicked Poppaea to death in a fit of rage (according to Suetonius), The ancient sources actually are not in agreement on that subject. Tacitus claims Nero's kick was a "casual outburst,"  Cassius Dio claims Nero leapt upon her belly, but admitted that he did not know if it was intentional or accidental, and other writers say Nero poisoned her.  Modern scholars, however, think Poppaea may have died due to fatal complications of miscarriage or stillbirth and the stories about Nero's involvement were just attempts to blacken his reputation further and, as often occurred, provide evidence to justify his forced suicide.

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Terracotta sarcophagi of the Ionian Greeks at Clazomenae

Clazomenae was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia and a member of the Ionian League. It was one of the first cities to issue silver coinage. Its ruins are now located in the modern town Urla near Izmir in Izmir Province, Turkey. The city was originally located on the mainland at Limantepe, but probably during the early fifth-century BCE Ionian Revolt from the Persians, it was moved to Karantina Island just off the coast. Soon after that, the city of Chyton was founded on the mainland.

For some time it was subject to the Athenians, but during the middle of the Peloponnesian War (412 BCE) it revolted. After a brief resistance, though, it once more submitted to Athenian supremacy, and repelled a Lacedaemonian (Spartan) attack. In 387 BCE Clazomenae and other cities in Asia were once more taken over by Persia.  Then came Alexander the Great, who eventually connected Karantina island to the mainland with a causeway, the remains of which are still visible.

Later, under the Romans, Clazomenae was included in the province of Asia, and enjoyed immunity from taxation.  The city was famous for production and exports of olive oil and was also prized for its variety of garum. The philosopher Anaxagoras (c. 510 – 428 BCE) was born in Clazomenae, as was the earlier philosopher Hermotimus of Clazomenae. 

Nineteenth century archaeologists have recovered large painted terracotta sarcophagi from the site weighing up to two tons dating to the last quarter of the 6th century BCE to the mid 5th century BCE.  Examples can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California,  the British Museum in London, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and the Izmir Archaeological Museum in Turkey.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Greek Terracotta Sarcophagus from Clazomenae in present-day Turkey attributed to the Albertinum Group 480-470 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Terracotta sarcophagus rim East Greek Clazomenian last quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta sarcophagus rim East Greek Clazomenian last quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta sarcophagus rim East Greek Clazomenian last quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta sarcophagus rim East Greek Clazomenian last quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta sarcophagus rim East Greek Clazomenian last quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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