AncientRome.StudyPast.com

Cassius Dio - Dio Cassius

2007-02-20T18:31:54Z

Cassius Dio (an historian who wrote in Greek) is sometimes called Dio Cassius. In an inscription from Macedonia he is called (transliterated from Greek into Roman letters) Cl (for Claudius) Cassius Dion. Sometimes he is called Cassius Dio Cocceianus. The cognomen Cocceianus is used by Pliny the Younger for the rhetor, Dio Cocceianus, who is known by others as Dio Chrysostom. The Gothic historian Jordanes confuses the historian and rhetor/orator because the orator, stepping into a somewhat different hat, wrote a history of the Goths. Confusion continues in the areas of the identity between the two men and the relationship between them -- some claiming that the historian was the grandson of the orator.

Pompeii - Harris and Polanski

2007-02-19T22:45:08Z

Director Robert Polanksi and writer Robert Harris have agreed to create a movie based on the novel Pompeii. The cost is projected to be $197 million. Harris has 8 weeks to write the screenplay and Polanski is scheduled to film the epic this summer.

Pompeii, by Robert Harris, is a retelling of the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius from the perspective of an ancient aqueduct engineer.
It is a carefully researched modern thriller set in August A.D. 79 in Campania. Robert Harris tells the story of corruption, politics, love, Roman superstition, slavery, and engineering, all set against the power of Mt. Vesuvius.

Read my review of Pompeii.

Plautus (c. 254-184 B.C.)

2007-02-19T22:39:14Z

Renowned as a Roman writer of comedies, Plautus ('Flatfoot') was born in Umbria where he may have joined a traveling acting group that performed farces. He then became a Roman soldier, where, while stationed in southern Italy, he was exposed to Greek New Comedy and the plays of Menander. Although based on Greek comedy, the behavior of the characters in the plays of Platus was very Roman, although Plautus himself may never have been a Roman citizen. Read more about Plautus.

Constantine the Great

2007-01-17T03:50:34Z

Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, better known as Constantine I, emperor of Rome from A.D. 306 until his death in A.D. 337, is called the most important Roman emperor in late antiquity. He was born on February 27, in the early 270s, in what is now Serbia, but was then the Roman province of Moesia. His father was to become Emperor Constantius I, but was a military officer at the time of Constantine's birth. His mother was Helena, who became a saint in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church. Constantine completed the major necessary administrative reorganization of the Roman emperor that had been begun by Emperor Diocletian (ruled 284-305), waged successful wars against barbarians -- the Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, and Sarmatians -- on the borders of the Empire, moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium, and legalized Christianity.

]]> While Constantine was a teen, Emperor Diocletian began the reorganization of the Roman Empire into what is known as the "tetrarchy," a word which comes from Greek words for "4" and "rule." The tetrarchy was a division of the Empire into two parts, an eastern and a western, with emperors (called "Augustus") in charge of each. Under each Augustus was a lesser emperor referred to as "Caesar" who, while being groomed for the higher office, could act in his own right as the head of an army. The eastern and western parts of the Empire were subdivided to allot provinces to the Caesars. Diocletian appointed Maximian as the Augustus for the western section of the Empire, and Maximian chose Constantine's father, Constantius, as his Caesar. Diocletian, who kept command of the eastern section (which came to be known as "Byzantine"), chose as his Caesar a man named Caius Galerius Valerius Maximianus, better known as Galerius.

It seems odd that an emperor would deliberately give up half of his land to another, as Diocletian did in 285. However, the administration of a gigantic empire that spread to Persia in the East, Britain in the West, the Rhine and Danube in the North, and the northern area of Africa to the south proved impossible for Diocletian alone, especially since there were regular attacks and rebellions along the northern border and conflict in the East.

Diocletian's reforms in the 290s included renewal of the imperial cult. Roman citizens were compelled to worship those dead emperors who had been named gods by act of the senate. They also had to revere the "genius" or spirit that was protecting the living emperors and prostrate themselves before the purple-clad rulers. Diocletian believed such worship was necessary for the security of the Empire. This is a typically Roman way of thinking. During the Roman Republic, the Vestal Virgins had been treated with great respect because they were believed to hold the luck of Rome. Christians, who refused to worship the emperors, were persecuted. Although Christians had been persecuted on and off since the Crucifixion, the 8-year persecution of Diocletian is known as the Great Persecution.

Diocletian did not just give up half the empire. In 305 he and his co-Augustus, Maximian, abdicated. Constantius and Galerius became the new Augusti (the plural of Augustus). New Caesars were needed. Reverting to the emperor-selection processes from before the tetrarchy, the imperial army in Britain acclaimed Constantine emperor on July 25, when his father, Constantius I, died in York, in 306; those in Rome chose Maximian's son, Maxentius. Of the two, Galerius, the eastern Augustus, accepted Constantine as Caesar of the west. Galerius made his nephew Caius Valerius Galerius Maximinus (known as Maximinus or Maximinus Daia) Caesar in the east. There was no western Augustus, so Galerius appointed Flavius Valerius Severus, and when Severus died, Valerius Licinianus Licinius. Before his death in 311, Galerius promoted Constantine and Maximinus to Augusti. That made four legally appointed Augusti (Galerius, Constantine, Maximinus, and Licinius), plus Maxentius, who also claimed the title of Augustus.

Licinius held what we call Eastern Europe, the Roman provinces of Illyricum (modern Albania), Thrace and Pannonia (modern Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina). Constantine was in charge of Britain, Gaul, the Roman province of Germany, and Spain, with his army stationed at the Rhine frontier, the source of many barbarian threats.

In 312, a year before Constantine established a stronghold on the dangerous and troublesome right-hand side of the Rhine and Danube -- the area from which the Goths under Alaric would later descend upon Rome, Constantine defeated Maxentius (who still held Italy), at the Milvian Bridge, near Rome. This was an important battle for the history of Christianity because Constantine claimed the night before the battle he had a vision telling him we would win if he fought under the sign of Christ. Constantine did as the vision directed. Although Constantine did not officially become a Christian until his deathbed baptism, he called himself one (the first Roman emperor to do so) and interfered with Church policy from this point on.

In 313, in which year Licinius defeated the eastern Augustus, Maximinus, Constantine met with Licinius in Milan, Constantine's sister married Licinius, and the two Augusti -- Constantine and Licinius -- issued what is called the Edict of Milan, a bill granting religious freedom to Christians. This was not the first edict of tolerance, but it put Christianity on the same playing field as paganism. Licinius went along with the edict, although he did not support the new religion.

By 316 the two Augusti were at each other's throats. Although the battles between the two men were not decisively in Constantine's favor (Constantine won the first and the second was a draw), a settlement made in 317 granted Constantine all European provinces of the Roman Empire except Thrace. Hostilities erupted again seven years later. This time Constantine decisively defeated Licinius, beating him at Adrianople, in Thrace, and on the Bosporus. Despite his sister's pleas for her husband, Constantine executed Licinius.

By 325 the tetrarchy was a memory. As sole Augustus, Constantine hosted the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church. It was called the Council of Nicea and it set Church policy on the relationship between two of the three components of the Christian trinity, leaving the Holy Spirit for later discussions. Today's Nicene Creed came out of that Council.

In A.D. 330, Constantine moved his capital to Byzantium, which he re-named Nova Roma 'New Rome' and provided with the necessities of a Roman Imperial capital city, including a senate and civic offices. Byzantium was a rich city situated between Europe and Asia, with access to the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea. Constantine increased Byzantium's size four-fold, built new walls, and started two churches, the Hagia Sophia 'Holy Wisdom' and the Hagia Eirene 'Holy Peace'. Upon Constantine's death in A.D. 337, Nova Roma was named Constantinople, and Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was deified, like many of his pagan predecessors. 'Constantine's City' remained the center of the Byzantine Empire until its fall in 1453. It was only in the Twentieth Century that Constantinople became Istanbul.

While Constantine made great strides towards overcoming the barbarian threat along the northern frontier and would have tried his hand at Persia if he had lived, he is known not so much for his military prowess as for moving the capital of the Roman Empire to an exciting, viable, wealthy new location, and for his legitimizing Christianity. During his reign, he not only killed his brother-in-law, but his own wife and son. Despite his ruthlessness, Constantine was made into a saint. Historians labeled him Constantine the Great.

The Founding of Carthage © N.S. Gill

2006-12-06T00:00:52Z

Tyre was a Canaanite city in what is now Lebanon or Syria whose inhabitants the Greeks called "Phoenicia" for the color of the dye they applied to their garments. Tyre became very wealthy through trade in these garments, whose deep hues made them fit for kings, precious glass, and wooden objects, as well as through the establishment of colonies throughout the Mediterranean, the sea that linked Spain, Greece, Italy, and northern Africa with the western edge of Asia. One such colony was Carthage, which eventually took over as leader of the loose Phoenician trading empire when Tyre fell to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar of Biblical fame, in 575 B.C.
We don't really know when or how Carthage was founded, but we do have guesses and some legends that make glamorous a land that the Greeks and Romans did much to defame. One example of this is that Roman and later, Christian writers described with horror a supposed Carthaginian custom of sacrificing infants to the gods in times of trouble. Whether or not they actually did so is a matter of scholarly dispute even today, but no matter whether they actually engaged in this appalling practice, the Carthaginians were used by their enemies as examples of most undesirable traits.

]]> The Romans under the Emperor Augustus experienced a golden age of literature. The best Roman writers were concentrated in this period. Of these writers, many consider Vergil to have been at the top of the list. His masterpiece is known as the Aeneid. It tells the story of the Roman prince Aeneas, who unlike most of his family, survived the burning of the city of Troy when the armed Greek soldiers emerged at night from the belly of a giant wooden horse to torch the city where Paris had taken the beautiful Helen. Aeneas left the burning city with a handful of followers and set out on his divinely appointed mission to found Rome. In the Roman tradition, Aeneas is usually viewed not as the founder of Rome, but of a settlement that preceded Rome, and Romulus, the twin brother of Remus, is credited with the actual founding of Rome itself.
A romantic Carthaginian legend included in The Aeneid tells us that Mattan (Methres according to Servius AJPh Vol 68 no 1 p. 79) was a wealthy king of Tyre who gave his daughter, Elissa (Elishat), to his brother, Sichaeus (or Acerbas, priest of Melqart), in marriage. In addition to giving his brother a bride, he passed on to him the kingdom. This made Elissa queen. Elissa had a brother, Pygmalion, who assumed that he would be heir to the throne. In order to win back what he felt to be rightfully his, he killed his uncle, but kept secret from Elissa his part in their uncle's death. Pygmalion pretended to comfort his sister in her loss, but still takes the throne and the royal treasure. Sichaeus, as a ghost, worried about his widow, so he came to her in a dream warning her that she is not safe around Pygmalion. He urged her to gather all her household goods and gods, as well as those that Pygmalion has taken, and flee. This Elissa does: with her attendants, she seizes a fleet, and sets sail.
An alternative version of this is told in a work known as Justin's Epitome of Trogus' History. [Trogus lived at the time of Augustus; Justin wrote about 200 A.D.]Since the Epitome is historical, it deletes the supernatural detail found in Vergil. When Elissa sails off, her brother Pygmalion wants to pursue her, but is dissuaded by his mother and the seers who tell him it is against the will of the gods because Elissa is destined to found the most prosperous city in the world.
The royal refugees from Tyre land first on the Greek island of Cyprus and then on the north coast of Africa, near modern Tunis and opposite Sicily. In Vergil's story, the name Dido (meaning wanderer) is then given to Elissa. A second legend tells how Elissa/Dido came to command the area that is known as Carthage.
Dido asks the local ruler if she can buy a bit of land for her people so they might rest after their voyage. It's unclear whether this purchase is for permanent possession or just a rest stop. The local king agrees and tells Dido she can have as much area as fits in an ox hide. Some say the word for ox hide is the same as the word for citadel and what Dido was really offered was a citadel, but crafty (a typically Phoenician trait according to the Greeks) Dido took an ox hide and cut it into thin slivers which she lay out end-to-end in a large crescent shape with the Mediterranean shore on its inside arc. The area thus circumscribed by the ox hide was large enough to give the settlement command of Mediterranean trade.
This settlement was a colony of Tyre that received the name Carthage (Kart hadašt), which means "New City". As it was a colony, it is clear that however the settlement began, it either kept or re-established bonds with the mother kingdom of Tyre.
Later, in a third legend about the formation of Carthage, Aeneas stops to rest in Carthage on his way to Italy to fulfill his god-given mission to found Rome. Dido welcomes him and his followers. Perhaps Dido believes that when he said “stop to rest” he meant what she had meant, or else she thinks he can be dissuaded from continuing his journey. At any rate, Dido and Aeneas have an affair that Dido considers essentially a marriage. When she finds that he is about to abandon her in order to resume his divine mission, Dido kills herself, but not before cursing Aeneas and his descendants, the Romans. In Trogus’ version, Elissa falls on a sword to avoid marriage to an African king.
Romans date the founding of Rome by Romulus to 753 B.C. This is several generations after Aeneas founded a settlement in Italy that would become Rome. Thus, the story of Aeneas' sojourn with Dido does not help to figure out when Carthage was founded, although the historical work by Trogus mentioned above claims Carthage was founded 72 years before the founding of Rome, which could conceivably be enough time for Aeneas to leave Carthage, found a colony in Italy and still leave time for Romulus and his twin Remus to be born by 753.
Turning from legend to history to look at the founding of Carthage, we run into problems. The Romans hated Carthage. Carthage was a trading nation, used to luxury rather than the virtuous, hard life the Romans prided themselves on, but even so, the two nations came to a virtual stalemate at the end of the First Punic (the Roman version of the Greek “Phoenician”) War. At the end of the Second Punic War, the Romans won, but not decisively, and in the Third Punic War, the elephants and troops under the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Rome and destroyed Roman legions. Rome was not only mortified, but also in danger of being destroyed. When the tide finally turned, Rome was in no mood for mercy. Its rallying cry was "Carthago delenda est" ("Carthage must be destroyed").
In 146 B.C., at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, Rome sold the surviving, defeated Carthaginians into slavery, destroyed everything in sight, and (supposedly) salted the earth so no crops could grow. Some pottery sherds remained, but not much else. As if this were not enough to make it difficult for future researchers to learn about ancient Carthage, a century after obliterating the city, the Romans built up a new city of Carthage on the same site. The new Roman Carthage lasted until the Arabs destroyed it in the 7th century.
Because of the destruction of most of what the Carthaginians had created, there is almost no physical material on which to make judgments about when Carthage was founded. This means that we must rely mainly on ancient writers.
In his epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (fl. c. 8th century B.C.) describes the Phoenicians as craftsmen and craftymen, traders and thieves. The talented but cheating Phoenicians, who are capable of making intricate metalwork cups that are fit gifts for kings, make their great wealth from trade in tawdry costume jewelry.
Herodotus, known as "the father of history" (and also as "the father of lies"), and later writers believed that Homer’s mention of the Phoenicians authoritatively placed them in the Mediterranean at the time of the Trojan War; that is, in about the tenth century B.C. In reality, Homer may simply have been incorporating data from his own age. This complicates attempts to date the Phoenicians' founding of Carthage.
Herodotus describes as factual some of the myths and legends of the Phoenicians, like the migration of Cadmus from Tyre to Thebes in search of his lost sister Europa who had been carried off on the back of a beautiful white bull that was really the king of the Greek gods, Zeus. Coupled with this myth is the historically plausible note that Cadmus brought the semitic alphabet of the Phoenicians with him to Thebes, and so introduced writing to the Greeks.
Following Herodotus, Thucydides, who gave the ignominious label to his predecessor, is accepted as the more reliable of the Greek historians. His story of the Phoenicians is that they inhabited Sicily before the Greeks arrived there in the seventh century. Archaeological evidence from Sicily suggests this may be true.
Removing the fictional details, the tales of the Phoenicians show that there were Phoenicians in the Mediterranean by the 8th century and that the Phoenicians were great sailors and traders. Archaeologists using radiocarbon dating believe that Carthage was founded in the late 9th century B.C. This would put it approximately right in line with Trogus’ dating.

The Roman Army

2006-12-05T23:56:17Z

hrough its military operations, Republican Rome came to dominate all of Italy. The Roman Empire, created by the conquering army, extended through most of Europe, and into Africa and Asia. Originally Roman or at least Italian, the conquering legions spread the culture of Rome wherever they went. Initially, when native populations were added to the army they adopted the Roman customs and brought them back home with them. The army of Rome began during the time of the kings, roughly 753 B.C., and lasted well over a millennium.

St. Nicholas

2006-12-05T23:52:44Z

t. Nicholas Day is December 6. St. Nicholas is a legendary figure connected with Christmas gift-givers like Santa Klaus. He is thought to have lived in the 4th century, and to have been born in Lycia in Asia Minor. He was probably bishop in the Lycian city of Myra. Nicholas is thought to have been wealthy and to have given his gold away to help others. There is a story that he provided bags of gold as dowries for three daughters of a poor man to keep them from having to become prostitutes.

Epilepsy

2006-11-29T00:32:18Z

Romans called epilepsy by various names, including "morbus caducus" [the falling sickness] and "morbus comitialis" [disease of the assembly hall]. It is still sometimes referred to as the falling sickness, but the idea that it was the disease of the assembly hall seems just bizarre. The explanation for it is that if someone had an epileptic attack in the assembly, it had to be shut down for ritual purification. Read more about the Romans and epilepsy.

Plutarch - Bona Dea Scandal

2006-10-23T01:41:17Z

Plutarch Bona Dea Scandal
The story of Clodius, Caesar, and the Bona Dea Scandal in Plutarch comes from section 9 of Plutarch's Life of Caesar. In this, Clodius attends the women-only December feast of the Bona Dea which is being held at the home of Caesar and hosted by his wife Pompeia, thought to have been having an affair with Clodius. A roughly 30-year-old Clodius shows up dressed in women's garb, although presumably not the diaphonous flute-girl garb, looking so much like a woman that he passes until he opens his mouth. As a result of his intrusion, the sacred rites of the Vestal Virgins are violated and it is held to be a sacrilege landing Clodius on trial facing Cicero. Although Clodius is acquitted and Caesar doesn't actually accuse his wife of adultery, Caesar divorces Pompeia because, he says, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

In "The Early Career of P. Clodius Pulcher: A Re-Examination of the Charges of Mutiny and Sacrilege," by David Mulroy (Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 118. (1988), pp. 155-178.) Mulroy argues that Clodius was doing little more than party-crashing when he attended the festival. The sacrificial rite was not a necessary part of the event, which may have been a Bacchanalian festival, for which transvestism would have been appropriate, so Clodius may not have known that he was committing sacrilege. Cicero claims the Bona Dea festival was a revered ancient festival, but there is reason to think it was imported from the Greeks after the fall of Tarentum in 272 B.C., making it 210 years-old at the time of the scandal.

Asia Minor

2006-09-27T18:16:32Z

Ancient Asia Minor
Asia Minor is that name the Romans gave to the area now called Anatolia or the Asian part of Turkey. When the Romans finally defeated Mithridates, they were able to add the Bithynia and Pontus areas of Asia Minor to the Roman provinces in 63 B.C.. During the Roman Empire, the provinces of Lycia and Galatia, both also in Asia Minor, were added.

Livy on the Roman Senate

2006-09-27T02:33:20Z

Roman Senate

During the regal period, King Tullus Hostilius built the Curia Hostilia, the Roman Senate building.

Because it was a templum -- a consecrated place, it was oriented north/south, like other temples in Rome.

The first king, Romulus, created the original Senate to serve as an advisory staff. Later, the senators' powers became extensive, although they did not write laws: Senators handled treaties, alliances, war, and more. During the early period their numbers increased from 100-300. Once senators assumed office, they were there for life, unless kicked out. Once a Roman held a magisterial office, he became a senator. Thus, insofar as the magistracies were elected offices, senators were elected, but they were not directly elected to be senators.

Read relevant passages on the ancient history of the Roman Senate and Senators from Livy.

Praetor

2006-08-06T14:44:32Z

When the Romans deposed their last king, the power of the king or imperium was given to the consuls, except for the judicial power, which was given to the praetor.
Thus, the praetor urbanus (city praetor) originally had a military function, but became a civil judge. In 241 B.C. a second praetor (praetor peregrinus) was added to deal with cases involving foreigners. By 80 B.C., there were 8 praetors. During the Empire, the praetors had charge of the festivals and games.
Praetors were annually elected by the comitia centuriata.
The position of praetor was part of the cursus honorum, second only to the position of consul. Like the other magistracies, being a praetor made the magistrate a member of the senate for life, unless the censor decided otherwise.

Aedile

2006-08-06T01:32:36Z

During the Roman Republic, 4 aediles were elected each year. There were 2 curule aediles and 2 plebeian aediles.

An Aedile was a magistrate who looked after the city of Rome, its corn supply, municipal regulations, and games.
The Concilium Plebis elected plebian aediles, while the Comitia Tributa annually picked curule aediles.
The office of aedile came between quaestor and praetor in the cursus honorum.
It was not necessary to become aedile in order to advance to the next step, yet Julius Caesar thought it advisable to run for the office. (He was elected.)

Although a work of historical fiction, Benita Kane Jaro's 2002 book on Cicero, The Lock, contains a clear explanation of the aedile, why people might want to become aedile, as well as clear pictures of the other offices on the Cursus Honorum. In more scholarly format, Erich S. Gruen also discusses this magistracy in The Last Generation of the Roman Republic.

Robert Graves' Birthday

2006-07-24T22:29:04Z

Today is the anniversary of the birth of the English poet, fiction, and non-fiction writer Robert Graves, in 1895. Robert Graves is best known today because of the BBC production of his I, Claudius historical fiction series about the bumbling Julio-Claudian emperor whose life was spared because he was seen as too incompetent to be a contender for the throne. In one biography of Robert Graves I read that although he had received a scholarship to Oxford, the thought of doing more Greek and Latin put him off, so he enlisted in the first World War, instead, in a Welsh unit. After finishing his service he did, indeed go to Oxford. I find this a pleasing anecdote. Not everyone wants to work on the hard stuff all the time, although choosing the military hardly seems a reprieve. At any rate, although Robert Graves is referred to as a scholar some people today take issue with the label. Perhaps Robert Graves was simply too versatile and talented. Graves died in Majorca in 1985 on December 7.

Bulfinch's Birthday

2006-07-15T20:23:19Z

Bulfinch

I grew up on the tales from Greek and Roman mythology written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I had other books of mythology as well, including a storybook of the Trojan War that I will always remember for the fact that Agamemnon believed in his dreams. The mythology I read was colorful, literally and figuratively, and completely captured my imagination. The trouble was that they were not the canonical tales. It wasn't until high school that I encountered Ovid and Thomas Bulfinch. All of a sudden I didn't know mythology. Or at least I had an incomplete and childish impression of mythology. Although I have always held it against Bulfinch and Ovid that I was condsidered ignorant of a topic that had been my passion for almost 14 years, the two mythology compilers have a lot going for them. They really do cover the world of Greco-Roman mythology. In 1855 Bulfinch's mythology was published. It includes not only tales from Greek mythology but also tales of the Norse gods. Just as Ovid's mythology is not so named, but is instead named Metamorphoses, so Bulfinch's mythology has what seems like a misleading title, The Age of Fable; or Stories of Gods and Heroes.