In Search of the Romans [2 ed.] 1474299911, 9781474299916

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In Search of the Romans

i

Also available from Bloomsbury Augustan Rome, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill Pompeii, Alison Cooley The Roman Army, David J. Breeze Rome Victorious: The Irresistible Rise of the Roman Empire, Dexter Hoyos Women in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook, Bonnie MacLachlan In Search of the Greeks (Second Edition), James Renshaw

Online resources to accompany this book are available at: www.bloomsbury.com/renshaw-romans-2e. Please type the URL into your web browser and follow the instructions to access the Companion Website. If you experience any problems, please contact Bloomsbury at: [email protected] ii

In Search of the Romans SECOND EDITION James Renshaw

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BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2012 This edition published 2020 Copyright © James Renshaw, 2012, 2020 James Renshaw has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Sources of Illustrations and Quotations on pp. 435–42 constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Terry Woodley Cover image © mammuth/Getty All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Renshaw, James, author. Title: In search of the Romans / James Renshaw. Description: Second edition. | London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, [2019] | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019015298| ISBN 9781474299916 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781474299930 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Rome—Civilization. | Rome—History. | Rome—Social life and customs. | Rome—Antiquities. Classification: LCC DG77 .R46 2019 | DDC 937—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015298 ISBN:

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Contents

Introduction

1

1

From Kingdom to Republic

3

2

The Emperors

3

Running an Empire

135

4

Roman Religion

179

5

Roman Society

229

6

Roman Entertainment and Leisure

289

7

Pompeii

339

8

Herculaneum

391

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Appendices 1

Roman Currency Values

419

2

Roman Clothing

421

3

Roman Names

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4

Roman Time

425

Glossary

428

Sources of Quotations

431

Sources of Illustrations

437

Index

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Introduction

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s the title In Search of the Romans suggests, this book is designed for those seeking to explore ancient Roman civilisation and history, perhaps for the first time. The first two chapters narrate the broad sweep of Roman history, from the city’s beginnings in the 8th century BCE to the fall of the western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE . Chapters 3–6 then look at key aspects of Roman life: how the empire was run, the character of Roman religion, the nature of Roman social life, and the phenomenon of Roman entertainment and leisure. The final two chapters explore the detailed picture of Roman life that Pompeii and Herculaneum provide us with. The chapters are designed to be independent but inter-related and so there are a number of cross-references between them. After the first two chapters, they need not be read in sequence, since each investigates a distinct aspect of the ancient Roman world. While the study of the ancient world can be very exciting, it can also be daunting for new students, with so many new terms, ideas and themes, and I hope that In Search of the Romans will give readers a firm foundation for studying the ancient Roman world. To use a mountaineering analogy, it is intended to provide a secure base camp from which the reader can journey higher. With this in mind, the text is interspersed with the following extension exercises and resources: ●

Review and Reflect boxes encourage the reader to think more deeply about issues raised in the preceding section.

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In Their Own Words boxes highlight passages written by ancient writers that give an insight into a particular topic. Readers are encouraged to read and reflect on them for themselves. To this end, a vast array of Latin (and Greek) texts, in the original and in English translation, can be found at the following website: www.perseus.tufts.edu, while a wide range of resources for the study of women and gender in the ancient world are provided at www.stoa.org/diotima. 1

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Further Reading boxes give suggestions for books that would help readers deepen their knowledge on the topics covered in In Search of the Romans.

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Website This book is supported by a website – www.bloomsbury.com/ renshaw-romans-2e – which has a range of resources and photographs to support the text: ●

Learn More About: weblinks with information and activities to help you study the topics in each chapter.

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In Their Own Words: links to online extracts specified in these text boxes. ●

Academic Debate: find out more about controversial topics.

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Quizzes: multiple-choice quizzes for each chapter.

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Galleries: a range of extra photographs grouped by region and site.

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Timelines: digital versions of the timelines from the textbook.

Why is it important to study the Romans? On one hand, we can marvel at their achievements in art and architecture, their extraordinary technological advances, and their remarkable literature. Many modern systems of law and government derive from Rome, while the Latin language has directly influenced some of the major world languages today, including English, French and Spanish. We can admire the Romans for their commitment to civic order and structure, and be impressed by their tolerance of most religions. On the other hand, there is no escape from the very dark side of their civilisation; their achievements were interwoven with great cruelty, be it in the crushing of opponents, the treatment of slaves or the gladiatorial shows where huge crowds enjoyed the killing of fellow human beings. For good or for ill, the many centuries of Roman rule have had a profound influence on our world today. By learning about the Romans, we can come to understand our own societies more deeply. Once again, I have received tremendous support from a number of people while writing this second edition, and I am extremely grateful to all of them. Above all, James Morwood’s influence on this book is pervasive, and I would like to dedicate this edition to his memory.

From Kingdom to Republic

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Rome was not built in a day.

This saying is so well known that it is easy to forget the truth behind it. The first settlements in the region of Rome were established in the late Bronze Age, and later Romans liked to believe that the city itself was founded in 753 BCE , but it was not for another four centuries that the city began to extend its power beyond central Italy. Its first overseas conquest came in 264 BCE , and over the next three centuries Rome established one of the largest empires in the ancient world by conquering swathes of Europe, North Africa and the Near East. By the early 1st century CE , the Romans ruled from Britain in the north to Egypt in the south, and from Portugal in the west to Iraq in the east. This chapter aims to give an overview of the first half of ancient Roman history, up to the moment in 31 BCE when Augustus became the sole ruler of the Roman Empire and the man regarded as its first emperor. Chapter 2 then continues the narrative from this point, examining Rome under the emperors until the fall of the western empire in the 5th century CE .

Sources for Early Roman History It is difficult to piece together with confidence a detailed history of Rome before 300 BCE . The archaeological evidence is limited by the fact that the city has been built over so many times. Each new building project has dug through and destroyed archaeological layers below, which also means that there are few available places to dig up and find out about the city’s earliest stages. None the less, the archaeological evidence for Rome’s early history that we do have gives an overview of the main developments. 3

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The written tradition of Rome’s early history provides a more difficult set of problems. The two earliest recorded Roman historians are Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus, who wrote in the late 3rd century BCE . Neither of their works has survived beyond fragments, but they were used as sources by later historians whose works have survived. How reliable could the accounts of Pictor and Alimentus have been? The two writers would have been able to conduct research about events in the two or three generations before their time by talking to people about their memories and those of their parents and grandparents. This would stretch back to about 300 BCE ; but any further back in time than this, their accounts must have moved quickly from history to legend. Despite this, it is clear that by the time of Pictor and Alimentus the Romans were telling an elaborate history of their city. They believed that the Trojan warrior Aeneas had led refugees to Italy in the 12th century BCE, and that his descendent Romulus had founded Rome in the middle of the 8th century – 753 being the most commonly accepted date. There was then a detailed narrative of Roman history down to their own day. Modern scholars agree that this literary narrative should be regarded as a set of legends rather than accurate history – it is sometimes referred to as the ‘literary tradition’. How did this narrative develop? It seems that it was a complex mixture of Roman tradition handed down by word of mouth, interwoven with Greek history and legend. In the 3rd century BCE , Greek culture was starting to have a significant influence on the Roman world, and this influenced Pictor and Alimentus enormously; despite being Roman senators, both men wrote in Greek for a Greek audience, to whom they sought to justify Rome’s rise to power in the western Mediterranean. Both seem to have drawn heavily upon celebrated Greek historians, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, who had written in the 5th century BCE . Indeed, a number of stories in the Roman literary tradition seem to have been patterned on an equivalent set of events in Greek history.

Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus Titus Livius, or Livy, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus have left us our most detailed surviving accounts of early Roman history, although there are references to the literary tradition in many other authors too. Livy (59 BCE –17 CE ) came from Patavium in northern Italy, and set out to write, in Latin, a history of Rome from its foundation up until his own day. It consisted of 142 books, 35 of which still survive complete, including those that cover the city’s earliest history. It is significant that Livy was writing during the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, who wished to promote the traditions of the Roman past (see p. 77). Livy believed in the new Augustan regime, and for him history writing was primarily about providing moral lessons for his readership. Dionysius came from Halicarnassus, a Greek city on the south-west coast of Asia Minor (a region roughly equivalent to the western two-thirds of modern Turkey). A contemporary of Livy, he came to Rome in 30 BCE to teach rhetoric. His Roman

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Antiquities were written in Greek for a Greek audience, and covered the years from the foundation of the city down to 264. Only the first eleven books of twenty have survived complete, covering events down to 449. Although Dionysius is often longwinded compared to Livy, he assumes that his Greek readership has a limited knowledge of the Roman world and so provides helpful additional information. Moreover, his account of some events differs from that of Livy, suggesting that the earlier Roman sources themselves were sometimes at odds with one another. How should the modern historian interpret the Roman literary tradition? Two approaches can usefully be applied. One is to recognise that the stories of early Roman history are legendary, but to assume that they have some basis in real events. The task is then to work out how much truth lies behind each story. It is on this point that scholars tend to debate and disagree. A second approach is to recognise that the literary tradition was a key part of the development of a Roman identity. Since these stories therefore give us insight into fundamental Roman cultural values, beliefs and anxieties, they give us a deeper understanding of how the Romans saw themselves. There is a further reason why the stories of early Roman history remain important today, which is that they have been a source of inspiration for artists and writers from the European Renaissance onwards. For example, both Botticelli and Titian painted the story of Tarquin and Lucretia, Shakespeare wrote a play about Coriolanus, while Purcell composed an opera entitled Dido and Aeneas. These stories are entwined in the western cultural heritage, and an awareness of them gives the modern reader a deeper cultural literacy.

I Origins and Kingdom In considering the development of Rome down to 509 BCE , the literary tradition and the archaeological evidence will be examined separately.

1 The Literary Tradition There are two complementary legends about how the city came to be founded, one which traces Roman origins back to the heroic age of the Trojan War in Greek mythology (which was believed to have happened in the early 12th century BCE ), the other which is based in native Roman folklore.

Aeneas The legend of the Trojan War had been a key part of storytelling in the Greek world for hundreds of years. It recounted the abduction of Helen of Sparta by the Trojan prince Paris, which provoked a huge Greek armada to sail to Troy to win her back.

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The legend tells of many great heroes, both Greek and Trojan, including Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon and Odysseus. The two great Homeric poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, tell respectively of events in the final year of the war and of the challenging journey home of Odysseus in its aftermath. One relatively minor character in the Iliad is Aeneas, a member of the Trojan royal family; he is the son of the goddess Aphrodite and of a mortal man, Anchises. At one point in the poem, the god Apollo justifies rescuing him from certain death in a duel against Achilles so that the Trojan race (whose founder was Dardanus) might live on: Aeneas is destined to live on, so that Dardanus’ race itself might survive, Dardanus whom Zeus loved above all his children by mortal women. The Son of Cronos [Zeus] has come to hate Priam’s line, and mighty Aeneas will be the Trojan king, as his descendants will in time to come. Homer, Iliad, 20.302–308

This prophecy gave other storytellers plenty to work with, and a tradition soon grew up that Aeneas had escaped during the sack of Troy and led Trojan survivors to Italy. Dionysius of Halicarnassus refers to several early Greek traditions which made Aeneas the founder of Rome or ancestor of the later Romans: they claimed that he had settled his people in Latium, the region of central Italy where Rome would one day be founded (people from Latium were known as Latins, and the Latin language also takes its name from this region). It is unclear when the people of Latium first adopted this tale for themselves, but it is likely that it became prominent in the Roman identity during the 3rd century BCE , when the Romans began to absorb Greek culture and accordingly wished to associate themselves with the heroic world of the Trojan War. According to the Roman version of the legend which grew up, following a long and arduous journey Aeneas arrived in central Italy, near the future site of Rome. After a war with the local people, the Latins, he made a treaty with them and married Lavinia, the daughter of their king, Latinus, and founded a new city, Lavinium, where the Trojans and the Latins lived together as one people. Aeneas’ son, Ascanius (also known as Iulus), later founded another city nearby, called Alba Longa. Although Aeneas did not found the city of Rome, his descendants would go on to do so centuries later, and so he was regarded as the founder of the Roman race. The definitive version of the Aeneas story was created by the poet Virgil when he wrote a national epic poem, The Aeneid, in the late 1st century BCE (see p. 89). The greatest quality that later Romans admired in Aeneas was his pietas. This is not an easy word to translate, but it means something like ‘sense of duty’, with the duty being to one’s family, country and gods. Aeneas is often seen as the first and finest example of this dutiful Roman. In particular, one famous moment of his pietas was often portrayed in paintings and statues (Fig. 1.1 and Fig 1.18 on p. 64): as Aeneas escaped from the flames of Troy, he carried his elderly father on his shoulders and led the young Ascanius by the hand; Anchises himself carried the household gods of Troy (the Penates – see p. 238), as grandfather, father and son all escaped from the city to found a new Troy. This image of familial, civic and religious duty symbolised for later Romans the pietas expected from each one of them.

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Fig. 1.1 This terracotta figurine was discovered in Pompeii. It depicts the classic moment of Aeneas’ pietas as he carries Anchises out of Troy and leads little Ascanius beside him.

Romulus and Remus The second legend recounts the foundation of Rome itself. It was originally completely separate from the Aeneas tale, but at some point Romans joined up the two by making Aeneas a distant ancestor of Romulus. Twelve generations after Ascanius, so the story went, his descendant Numitor was overthrown as king of Alba Longa by his wicked brother Amulius. Amulius wanted to eliminate any threats to his power, and so he had Numitor’s sons killed and his daughter, Rhea Silvia, instituted as a Vestal Virgin (the most important office of priestess in Rome – see p. 204), meaning that she would never be able to marry or have children. However, at this stage, the god Mars intervened by impregnating Rhea Silvia, so that she gave birth to twin sons, Romulus and Remus. Upon discovering this, a furious Amulius ordered that the twins be drowned in the river Tiber. However, the boys were washed onto a dry patch of land, where they were suckled by a she-wolf (Fig. 1.2). Soon afterwards, they were discovered by a shepherd named Faustulus who, along with his wife Acca Larentia, brought them up as his own children. When the twins reached manhood, they discovered their true identity and took revenge on Amulius, killing him and restoring Numitor to his rightful throne. Romulus and Remus next decided to found a city of their own near the point of the river Tiber where they had been exposed as infants. Each wanted to name the city

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Fig. 1.2 The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. This bronze masterpiece was long thought to have been made by an Etruscan artist in c. 500 BCE , although there is a modern theory that it was made in the 11th century CE . The figures of Romulus and Remus were certainly added during the 15th century CE .

after himself, and so they looked for a sign from the gods through the flight of birds (a practice known as augury – see p. 202). Remus, standing on the Aventine Hill, was the first to see birds in flight – six vultures. However, Romulus, positioned on the Palatine Hill, then saw twelve vultures. Each brother claimed to have been chosen by the gods – Remus because he had seen birds first, Romulus because he had seen twice as many. A fight then broke out between their supporters; Livy describes how Remus met his death: From a war of words, anger turned them to bloodshed. In the heat of the melee, Remus met his death. The more common story is that in mockery of his brother’s claim, Remus jumped over Romulus’ half-built walls whereupon the enraged Romulus struck him down, crying ‘So be it for any other who overleaps my walls!’ Romulus thus became sole sovereign and gave his name to the city so founded. Livy, History of Rome, 1.6–7

The traditional date for the foundation of the city was 753 BCE , although this was based on the calculations of Varro, a writer of the 1st century BCE . The line that Romulus was believed to have ploughed to mark out his city was known by later Romans as the pomerium, Rome’s religious boundary which was later designated by white marker stones. It seems that even the Romans were troubled by such a violent foundation story. However, two points could be highlighted: the first is that through much of its later

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history Rome was dogged by civil wars, and so it is perhaps no surprise that Romans believed that their city had been founded at a moment of inter-family strife; secondly, the story is also a very patriotic one, since Romulus sets the example that nothing – not even a tie of blood – is as important as defending one’s city.

The Sabine Women In a further legend, Romulus is supposed to have populated his new city by offering citizenship to men from nearby settlements – whether slave or free. It is notable that immigration is prominent in the early Roman narrative; the city was believed to have been open to people of all backgrounds from elsewhere, who were permitted to become ‘Romans’ as long as they dedicated themselves to Rome’s service. The population swelled, but Rome was very short of womenfolk. After trying unsuccessfully to make marriage alliances with people from nearby cities, the Romans came up with a new plan. They invited people from these cities to a chariot racing festival. Amongst the visitors were the Sabines, a local hill tribe. During the festival, a signal was given and each Roman snatched one of the Sabine women and took her off as his wife. The Sabine men were naturally enraged and a battle followed. The Sabine women, however, became the agents of peace by running between the two battle lines and addressing their fathers as follows: Turn your anger against us. We are the cause of this war, we the cause of husbands and fathers lying wounded and slain. Only one side can win this fight. As for us, it is better to die than to live, for we must do so either as widows or as orphans. Livy, History of Rome Rome, e, 1.13 Moved by these words, the two peoples came to terms with one another and formed an alliance that joined them together as one.

Fig. 1.3 The Intervention of the Sabine Women was painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David in 1799. It is a famous example of the many works of art that have been inspired by stories from Roman history.

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The Seven Kings Romulus was the first of seven kings of Rome who, according to legend, between them ruled from 753 to 509 (it is clearly impossible that the city had just seven kings over such a long period). Romulus’ six successors were, in order: Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus. Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus were not Romans, but Etruscans from the region of Etruria further north (see p. 13). Each of the seven kings is credited with bringing specific innovations to the city. For example, Romulus is said to have established the Senate, Numa Rome’s priesthoods and cults, and Servius Tullius the Roman constitution and the first city walls. Much of this does not survive historical scrutiny, although it is clear, for example, that the Roman calendar of religious festivals does date to an early period in the city’s history. It is hard to know whether these kings are based on historical figures. In Romulus’ case, the name suggests not – it simply means ‘the Roman’ or ‘Mr Rome’. Other kings may be based on the lives of real people, but if so their achievements have been heavily mythologised. The scholar Mary Beard puts it as follows: ‘These rulers were assumed to be historical characters . . . but again, it is clear that much of the tradition which has come down to us, far from reality, is a fascinating mythological projection of later Roman priorities and anxieties into the distant past.’

The Overthrow of the Monarchy According to the tradition, Tarquinius Superbus became increasingly tyrannical. He forced the Roman citizens to toil ceaselessly on grand building projects, and had senators who opposed him assassinated. Eventually, he became so unpopular that in 510 the Etruscan ruling class was driven out of the city by an uprising of Roman aristocrats. The catalyst for this revolution was apparently the rape of a noble Roman woman, Lucretia, by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Tarquinius Superbus. Lucretia made her father and husband take revenge on Sextus, and then took her own life from shame. This story is an example of one which seems to be patterned on a key moment in Greek history – the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias from Athens, which led to the birth of Athenian democracy. Notably, Hippias too was said to have been expelled in 510 following a sexual crime by one of his relatives. In Livy’s account, Sextus Tarquinius, who was killed in revenge, symbolised the arrogance and abuse of power associated with his father’s rule; in fact, the Latin word superbus could mean ‘arrogant’. The uprising that followed Lucretia’s suicide was led by an aristocratic Roman called Lucius Junius Brutus. Yet Brutus was to suffer personal tragedy in the course of events. For when his two sons were found to be conspiring with the enemy, they were sentenced to death. Brutus was duty bound to support these sentences and watched in silence as they were both beheaded – another example of a man from Rome’s early history putting patriotic duty ahead of ties of blood.

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In Their Own Words 1.1 1

Compare the accounts of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus on the legend of Aeneas (Livy 1.1–3, DH 1.72–4), and on the foundation myth of Romulus and Remus (Livy 1.3–7, DH 1.73–88). What impression do you form of each historian from these passages?

2

Read Livy’s account of the kings of early Rome from 1.14 to 1.60. To what extent does the character of each king match his reforms?

3

Read Livy’s account of the conflict with Lars Porsenna at 2.9–15. What might we learn about later Roman values from this passage?

4

Read the following prophetic passages from Virgil’s Aeneid: 6.752–885; 8.306–369; 8.626–651. How do these passages reflect the importance of early Roman history to Romans of Virgil’s day?

Although Tarquinius had been driven into exile, he set out to recapture his throne. He formed an alliance with a nearby Etruscan king, Lars Porsenna of Clusium, whom he persuaded to declare war on Rome. Livy’s account of this war is a masterpiece of Roman propaganda: Porsenna was apparently so impressed by the bravery of the Romans – in particular of Horatius Cocles, Mucius Scaevola, and the unmarried woman Cloelia – that he agreed to come to terms with them. Finally free of their Etruscan rulers, the Romans chose to abolish the monarchy for good and to replace it with a system of government that prevented any one individual from taking – and abusing – sole power in the city. They called this system the Republic. Thereafter, the Latin word rex (‘king’) would be a hateful one to Roman ears.

2 The Archaeological Evidence Prehistoric Italy As with any region, human settlement in Italy was defined by its landscape (Fig. 1.4). Geographically, the country is divided into two distinct areas, each defined by a mountain range. The northern range, the Alps, descends into the Po Valley, a fertile plain whose river runs eastwards into the Adriatic Sea. South of the Po Valley is the Italian peninsula, with the Apennine Mountains running down its middle like a spine. Either side of these mountains, the peninsula consists of hill country and a number of plains, including those of Etruria, Latium and Campania on the western side, and of Apulia to the south-east. The three western plains all possess a rich volcanic soil and a good climate for agriculture. In addition, the plain of Etruria was especially rich in mineral deposits.

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Fig. 1.4 A relief map of Italy.

Human habitation in Italy stretches back thousands of years. However, while there were great Bronze Age civilisations in Greece and the lands further east (collectively known as the ‘Near East’) during the second millennium BCE , no such advanced civilisation rose in Italy in this period. One possible reason for this is that early Italians did not develop a tradition of sea-travel; although the Italian peninsula has a coastline of some 2000 miles, and no point of land south of the Po Valley is more than 70 miles from the sea, it has few navigable rivers. This seems to have

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discouraged the development of sea-faring, which would have increased trade and development. From about 1100, iron began to replace bronze as the state-of-the-art technology in the eastern Mediterranean. The working of iron did not come to Italy until relatively late, around 900, and even then it took another 200 years or so for it to displace bronze as the metal of choice. None the less, the plain of Etruria was a rich source of mineral resources, and this attracted traders and prospectors from the more developed civilisations to the east. These traders carried with them their knowledge and expertise in other areas, and so acted as a catalyst for the Etruscans (the people of Etruria) to develop the first major civilisation of Italy during the 8th century. The geography of Italy also fostered linguistic diversity. The four most spoken languages – Venetic, Latin, Umbrian and Oscan – belonged to the Indo-European family of languages, although the origins of the Etruscan language were completely different and remain a mystery to this day.

Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians Archaeological evidence shows that the Etruscans were the most powerful people in Italy between 800 and 500 BCE . They traded in particular with two peoples to the east: the Greeks and the Phoenicians. During the 8th century, the Greeks had established cities and trading posts at coastal points of southern Italy and Sicily. Indeed, Romans later came to call the region Magna Graecia (‘Great Greece’), and Greek culture was dominant there. The Phoenicians came from the region which is today Lebanon, and were renowned traders and seafarers. They had also settled beyond their homeland, notably in north Africa, where they founded the city of Carthage in about 800. Both peoples were central to the development of Etruscan civilisation at this time; in the words of one archaeologist: ‘The Etruscan civilisation offers the single best testimony to the extraordinary impact that Phoenician and Greek settlement and commercial activity in the western Mediterranean had upon the people of Italy.’ As Phoenicians and Greeks began to travel to Etruria for trade, they brought with them new ideas and technologies. Among them was the very concept of urban settlement: until this time, Italians had been living in circular, single-room huts in small settlements. Soon after 700, larger settlements grew up in Etruria; their buildings were constructed on stone foundations, arranged in grid formation, and often surrounded by stone walls with a monumental gateway. These new Etruscan settlements displayed advanced engineering features, such as underground drains and cisterns, aqueducts, bridges and tunnels. They also had extensive trading links: there is evidence of amber from the Baltic; gold, silver and tin from Carthage; and ivory and an ostrich egg from other parts of Africa. As these Etruscan cities developed, so followed changes to social and political organisation, including the construct of social classes with a division between the aristocracy and the ‘common people’. Other innovations came too: wheel-made pottery, specialisation of arts and crafts, the adoption of writing, artistic representation of Greek myths on pottery, bronze

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sculpture, wall painting, and monumental architecture (as the Etruscans did not have ready access to marble, they became adept at sculpting in terracotta). The best surviving evidence for Etruscan art comes from the elaborate tombs built for the aristocracy. These often depict people feasting, dancing, taking part in athletic contests, as well as hunting, fishing and riding on horses; the figures are dressed elaborately, with fine jewellery. Indeed, Etruscan bronze-casting and jewellerymaking were of such high quality that they remain a source of wonder to art historians today (Fig. 1.5). One tomb shows women reclining at a banquet alongside men, while in other paintings women wear outdoor clothing; both scenes suggest that Etruscan women of high status led more public lives than women further east.

Fig. 1.5 This ‘sarcophagus of the spouses’ from Caere is one of the masterpieces of Etruscan art. Made of terracotta, over a metre in height and nearly 2 metres in width, it was originally brightly painted and depicts an Etruscan couple reclining at a banquet together in the afterlife.

An Alphabet Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Greeks to the Roman world has been its alphabet, which was transmitted via the Etruscans. The Greeks themselves had for centuries not used writing until the mid-8th century, when they borrowed the Phoenician script, adapting it into an early version of the Greek alphabet still in use today. Greek traders introduced their alphabet to the Etruscans in about 700, and they developed it for their own language (the Etruscan language remains something of an enigma today, even though we can sound out its words). The Romans themselves learnt the art of reading and writing from the Etruscans soon afterwards, and adapted the Etruscan script to their own Latin language. This is of course the script still used in many parts of the world today. In addition, it was from the Etruscans that the Romans developed their numeral system, which today we know as Roman numerals.

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The Etruscan cities never formed one unified state, but remained a collection of independent cities that shared cultural, religious and linguistic ties. During the 7th century some Etruscans settled as far south as Campania, where they founded the city of Capua, which was to become the most powerful city of the region. Others headed north to the Po valley, where they founded towns that would grow into important modern cities, such as Bologna, Milan, and Ravenna (Fig. 1.6).

NS

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S GAUL ) S T L E (C

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ia dr A tic Se a

Ligurian Sea Perusia

ETRUSCANS

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SABINES Ti be r Tarquinia AEQUIANS Veii Caere Rome VOLSCIANS

SA MN ITE S

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Capua MP AN IAN S

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Etruria in 750 BC Etruscan expansion between 750 and 500 BC

0

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Fig. 1.6 Etruscan expansion between 750 and 500.

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Early Rome Archaeology suggests that the area around the Palatine hill in Rome was inhabited by the 10th century BCE , and the remains of huts dating to the 8th century at the latest have been found. However, the region of Latium did not develop as quickly as Etruria at this time, since it did not have the same mineral deposits to attract foreign traders, and it was not until about 650 BCE that houses there were first built on stone foundations. The city did not develop in a recognisably urban form until the last quarter of the 7th century. At this time the marshy valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline was drained and filled; the area was developed as the forum, the community’s religious, social and political heart. The process of urbanisation continued during the 6th century, and from this time onward the archaeological evidence becomes more visible. It is notable that the literary tradition records that the last three kings of Rome carried out major building works just at the time that the city was indeed growing and developing significantly. This century saw the construction of public buildings such as temples, and there is evidence for skilled metal-working and pottery manufacture, increased agricultural production, and the development of social classes with a wealthy elite at the top. It is probably at this time that poorer farmers and farm labourers came to depend on an aristocratic master, something which would develop into the patron/client relationship in later Roman history. Rome became the leading centre of Latium at this time because of its strategic position on the river Tiber, which formed the boundary between Latium and Etruria. This ensured close Roman contact with the more advanced Etruscans. Moreover, the river was ever a hub of trade: merchants travelling on the north–south route between Etruria and Latium needed to cross it, while salt fields at its mouth drew others down the river from inland on the east–west route. At the site of Rome, about 16 miles in from the sea, a little island in the Tiber made the river easy to cross and enabled it to become a stopping point for such merchants. On the east bank of the river here grew up the Forum Boarium, a market that remained important throughout the city’s history as a centre of trade, religion and entertainment. The geography of Rome therefore encouraged an ethnically and culturally diverse population to develop. Later Romans knew their city as the city of seven hills, although in fact there are more than seven in the vicinity. The association with seven specific hills probably originates from a reinterpretation of an annual religious festival, the Septimontium, which dates back to Rome’s earliest history, and which involved seven areas of the city. Of the seven ‘official’ hills of the city, the Palatine, Capitoline and Aventine lay close to the river and were separated from one another by valleys. Three others – the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline – were really westward projections of a plateau to the east of the city. The other hill, the Caelian, was located between the Esquiline and Aventine (see Fig. 1.8 on p. 26). One archaeological discovery from this period caused particular excitement (Fig. 1.7). A Latin inscription, uncovered at the Capitoline end of the forum and

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tentatively dated to the late 6th century, bears the word recei, an early version of the word rex, meaning ‘king’. Although it is impossible to understand the inscription as a whole, it was clearly some sort of public notice and suggests that Rome at this period had a ruler who was called a king – just as the literary tradition records. However, we should think here not of the kings described by Livy, who head a developed Roman constitution and political system, but more of a chieftain who held sway over his community. Indeed, the great battles described by Livy must be greatly exaggerated: they all occur within 12 miles of the city, and probably had something more like the character of skirmishes between local communities. There is no archaeological evidence for any significant Etruscan ‘take-over’ either, as related in the literary tradition. Rather, it seems that Rome benefited from being on the borders of Etruria, and that its early development was strongly influenced by interchange with Etruscan peoples. However, Etruscan civilisation went into sharp decline in the early 5th century, as maritime trade routes moved to the Adriatic and to Spain. It is perhaps no coincidence that at this time the literary tradition records the Romans expelling their Etruscan rulers and creating a new political system. By this time, Rome had grown into the largest city in Latium, with an estimated population of between 20,000 and 30,000. This meant that it was still a very ordinary city in international terms; in the same period, the Persians ruled over a Near-eastern empire of some 20 million people. None the less, at the turn of the 5th century there is evidence for Rome’s growing status beyond its borders. Contact with the Greek cities of Magna Graecia is

Fig. 1.7 This early Roman inscription, written in archaic Latin with letters that look more like Greek, contains the word recei.

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Date

Literary Tradition

c. 1200

Aeneas leads his Trojan exiles to Latium

753

Romulus founds Rome

Date

Archaeological Evidence

c. 1000

Early settlement at the site of Rome

8th Urbanisation in Etruria begins century Wooden huts on the Palatine

753–716 Reign of Romulus 715–673 Reign of Numa Pompilius

c. 700

Emergence of Etruscan and Latin alphabets

c. 625

Urbanisation at Rome begins

673–642 Reign of Tullus Hostilius 642–616 Reign of Ancus Marcius 616–579 Reign of Tarquinius Priscus 578–535 Reign of Servius Tullius 535–509 Reign of Tarquinius Superbus

509

Establishment of Roman Republic

c. 508

Conflict with Lars Porsenna of Clusium

late 6th Substantial building developments century at Rome; ?recei inscription stone set up?

c. 500

Rome now the largest city in Latium, with a population of between 20,000 and 30,000

suggested by the tradition that one of the Tarquins purchased the Sibylline books, prophetic books written in Greek (see p. 184). Moreover, by this time a temple to Diana had been built on the Aventine hill in the fashion of temples to the goddess Artemis founded by Greeks elsewhere in the Mediterranean, most famously at Ephesus in Asia Minor. The construction of such a temple indicates a Roman desire to welcome and impress Greek visitors. Finally, it is to this period that the first treaty between Rome and a foreign people is dated. According to the historian Polybius, in the year 509 the Romans made a treaty with the Carthaginians that covered Carthaginian commercial concerns in territory controlled by Rome. Although the date of 509 is too precise, Phoenician texts written in the same era seem to corroborate the existence of this treaty. By 500, it seems, Rome was becoming a name in the affairs of the wider world.

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Review and Reflect 1.1 1

Which aspects of the two foundation legends do you think later Romans would have valued most, and why?

2

What similarities are there between Aeneas and Romulus, and legendary figures from other cultures such as Heracles, Perseus, Zeus, Moses and Cyrus of Persia?

3

How important are the examples of virtuous women to the stories of early Rome?

II The Early Republic (509–264 BCE ) While Livy and Dionysius continue to offer wonderful stories of heroism, which were no doubt believed by later Romans, we must continue to be sceptical about the literary account of events of the 5th and early 4th centuries BCE . Archaeology also continues to have its limitations. By contrast, the closer we get to the 3rd century, the stronger the evidence becomes, both literary and archaeological.

1 The Literary Tradition According to Livy and Dionysius, after the expulsion of the Tarquins the victorious Roman aristocrats immediately came up with a fully-formed new political system. This political system was called the Republic (from the Latin words res publica – ‘the public matter’), and it was designed to prevent any one individual from holding absolute power. Each year, the citizens elected two senior politicians to govern. They became known as the consuls (the earliest known use of this term is not until 200 years later and they may originally have been called praetors), and they ran the city together – no decision could be taken unless they were both in agreement. Two key principles were therefore established: that power should be shared by elected officials, and that power should change hands on an annual basis. A key theme of Livy’s writing about this period is that the Roman citizens had won for themselves libertas, ‘freedom’. We cannot know exactly how the structures and offices of the Republic developed in these early years, but over the next two centuries a constitutional system emerged with other elected officials below the level of the consuls, an advisory council known as the Senate, and citizens’ assemblies (this constitution is described on pp. 38–47). While the new system cannot have emerged as smoothly as the literary sources relate, these writers were no doubt correct to record that the young Republic faced external challenges as well as internal political dissent and conflict.

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External Challenges According to the literary tradition, the other Latin cities soon felt threatened by a newly independent Rome. They formed an alliance – known today as the Latin League – and in the early 490s the two sides fought a battle to the south of Rome. The Romans won, supposedly with the assistance of the divine twins Castor and Pollux, together known as the Dioscuri (‘the sons of Zeus’), who belonged to the world of Greek myth but were adopted for worship at an early stage by the Romans. Although the Romans had won, soon afterwards they entered into an alliance with the Latin League. This alliance was to become very important for the Romans as a template for how to bring other cities into their sphere of control, while allowing them some rights and a degree of freedom in return. The Latin cities were required to provide equal shares of a common defensive army and to split any spoils of war. In return, the Romans gave citizens of the Latin cities three important rights: 1 The right to own property in any other Latin town and to do business without hindrance. 2 The right for a Latin of one state to marry a Latin of another state without legal complications. 3 The right for a Latin citizen to move to any other Latin town and automatically take up full citizenship there. These rights are often referred to today as ‘Latin status’. This Latin status was used by the Romans as a model over the following centuries for giving rights to people well beyond the borders of Latium. Once they had settled the Latin question, the Romans faced other challenges: first from the Sabines who lived further inland up the Tiber, and then from two tribes based in the hills beyond, the Aequi and the Volsci. The Sabines were defeated by the middle of the 5th century, but the two hill tribes continued to provide a major threat throughout the century as they tried to move into the more fertile lands below. Livy’s account of how the Romans faced these threats is full of fine moral examples, such as the story of the dictator Cincinnatus, who supposedly was called out of retirement on his farm to lead the state in a crisis. The qualities shown by such early Roman heroes, such as courage, industry, and simplicity, were collectively known by later Romans as the mos maiorum – ‘the customs of our ancestors’.

Internal Dissent: The Conflict of the Orders The literary tradition also tells us that Roman society in the early Republic was highly polarised between the small group of wealthy, land-owning aristocrats, known as the patricians, and the poor majority of citizens, known as the plebeians (from the Latin plebs, which means ‘common people’). At the start of the Republic, it was the patricians who held all the positions of power in the city, and who filled the

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Patricians and Plebeians – A Continued Struggle The new office of tribune did not solve all the plebeians’ problems at once. According to the literary tradition, the Conflict of the Orders continued for more than two hundred years until 287 BCE , at which point all plebiscita passed by the plebeian assembly were made legally binding on the whole population. It is no coincidence that this happened just as Rome was taking control of the whole of Italy, and needed all citizens to work together in managing the growing sphere of her power. Between 494 and 287 ancient authors record important stages on the road to full equality between patrician and plebeian. For example, in 455 a ban on inter-marriage between the two orders was lifted. In 367, a law was enacted that one of the consuls had to be plebeian. In 326, a ban was introduced on enslaving citizens who could not repay their debts: at that moment, Roman citizenship had become an inalienable right to all those born into it.

Senate (the senators were known as patres, or ‘fathers’, as they were seen to be the fathers of the state). The plebeians soon came to resent this, and insisted on having their own representatives in the political system. The conflict between the two groups is known as the Conflict of the Orders. Tradition records the first key date in this conflict as 494 BCE . The plebeians were apparently plagued by problems of debt, and so staged a mass walkout from the city to try to force reform on the patricians. They were successful and a new political office was created, that of the Tribune of the People. Tribunes were elected annually by a new plebeian assembly to represent the views of the plebeians to the patricians. The assembly could pass its own laws known as plebiscita (from which is derived the English word plebiscite).

The Conquest of Veii and the Sack of the Gauls By the end of the 5th century, Rome was the leading power in Latium and looked to expand. In 396, the Romans defeated their main regional rival, the Etruscan city of Veii, which lay about 10 miles away (see Fig. 1.6 on p. 15). Veii was now incorporated into Roman territory: this was Rome’s first major moment of territorial expansion. Indeed, the land now controlled by Rome is estimated to have grown by 60%. Livy and other writers frame this war as Rome’s version of the Trojan War: it apparently lasted ten years and Roman soldiers showed enormous bravery under the command of a general called Camillus. However, soon afterwards, disaster struck the Romans: in about 387, the city was sacked by a marauding tribe of Gauls from the Po Valley in the north. They defeated the Roman army at the River Allia, a few miles north of Rome, and advanced

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on the defenceless city. When the Gauls arrived in Rome they found it deserted apart from a garrison on the Capitoline Hill, and also the senators, who had chosen to remain in their houses, dressed in togas and wearing the full insignia of their rank, and to wait for death. However, the Gauls were interested only in acquiring booty, and the Romans agreed to pay them 450kg of gold if they would leave Rome in peace. This was to be the last time the city would be invaded by barbarians until 410 CE (see pp. 129–130), and the memory of it was held deep in the Roman psyche: the supposed date of the battle, 18th July, was regarded as a dies atra in the Roman calendar – a ‘black day’. In the decades that followed, Gallic incursions to central Italy probably continued to challenge the Roman state. However, at this time other measures were put in place which allowed the city to surge forward. It is significant that the tradition records that plebeians were first eligible for the consulship from 367; this allowed a wider talent pool to be elected to high office, which was now defined by wealth rather than birth.

The Latin and Samnite Wars Between 343 and 338, Rome won two wars which propelled it forward. The much shorter conflict, the Latin War, was fought between the Romans and the Latin states from 340 to 338. It arose out of Latin fear of Roman expansion, and the potential loss of their status. The conflict ended in a Roman victory; Rome dissolved the Latin League, and most of the Latin states were absorbed into the Roman state at this time. Their citizens were given Roman citizenship, but allowed to retain management of their own local affairs. Between 343 and 290, Rome engaged in three conflicts with the Samnites, a loose confederation of hill tribes living in the Apennine Mountains. Since their resources were scarce, the Samnites looked to expand their territory into the plains below. This brought them into conflict with the growing Roman state. The first Samnite War was fought between 343 and 341. Rome was drawn into it by an appeal for help from the city of Capua, which was under Samnite threat. After some fighting, in 341 the two sides negotiated a peace. Rome now become allied with Capua, one of the largest cities of Italy at the time, as well as with Capua’s Campanian allies. It soon came to dominate the alliance. The Second Samnite War lasted from 327 until 304. From 311, the Samnites were boosted by Etruscan support. A peace was made in 304 but did not last long, and a third Samnite War broke out in 298. At the battle of Sentinum in 295, the Samnites were supported by a loose coalition of Etruscans, Umbrians and Gauls. The Romans won, and over the following two decades they subdued these peoples, forcing them to join the Roman state. Through conquest and alliance, the city now dominated northern and central Italy. Only the Greek cities of the south stood apart.

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A Pyrrhic Victory Pyrrhus is famous for giving us the phrase ‘a Pyrrhic victory’, describing a victory that is achieved at such a cost that it is not worth the effort. When Pyrrhus’ army defeated the Romans at Asculum in 279, the losses on his own side were extremely heavy: the majority of his soldiers lay dead, including almost all his closest confidantes and commanders. The story goes that when he was congratulated on his victory, Pyrrhus replied: ‘If we defeat the Romans in one more battle, we shall be utterly destroyed.’

Magna Graecia The Greeks of Magna Graecia had long traded with the Romans, and the peoples had generally had good relations. By 282, however, the people of Tarentum, the most powerful city in the region, were becoming nervous of the encroaching power of Rome. The Tarentines summoned help from King Pyrrhus of Epirus in north-west Greece. He arrived in Italy with a force of 20,000 skilled professional infantry, 3,000 cavalry and about 20 elephants. This was the greatest army yet faced by Rome, and Pyrrhus won the first two battles in 280 and 279. After this, however, Pyrrhus answered a call for help from the Sicilians, and while he was away his Greek and Italian allies changed sides. When he returned to Italy in 275, he was defeated, and withdrew to Epirus. Tarentum surrendered to the Romans three years later, and by 270 the whole of Magna Graecia was under Roman control. Within another five years, the Romans had brought the whole Italian peninsula under their control. International recognition soon followed: Ptolemy II of Egypt, one of the most powerful rulers of the day, sent envoys to Rome to make a pact of friendship.

Reasons for Roman Success The conquest of Italy between 343 and 270 was a definitive period in Rome’s rise. Military strength was clearly a key factor in this, but the Romans also followed up

In Their Own Words 1.2 1

Read Livy’s account of the stories of Coriolanus (2.33–40) and Cincinnatus (3.25–29). How does Livy present these stories as moral lessons for Romans of his own day?

2

Read Livy’s account of the sack of Rome by the Gauls (5.32–48). Are there any positives that later Romans could take from this calamitous defeat?

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Review and Reflect 1.2 1

Do we have anything like the mos maiorum in our society today? What words do you think best communicate our most cherished values?

2

Are there other societies, ancient or modern, which have extended limited citizen rights to non-citizens to the benefit of both parties?

conquests with farsighted policies. Rather than trying to oppress defeated foes, they offered them the chance to join them as junior allies. These new allies were allowed to manage their own local affairs, but they had to provide manpower for the Roman army and to follow Roman foreign policy. The allies benefited in turn since they could share any future war booty following Roman conquest. As well as the prospect of war booty, the allies were given a series of rights by the Romans. Many of the Latin towns were given full Roman citizenship: Latium effectively became an extension of the Roman state in 338. However, a few Latin towns retained greater independence, and they kept Latin status. A second status was called ‘citizenship without the vote’. As the name suggests, allies with this status could not vote in Roman elections but had the legal rights of a citizen at Rome. A third group, sometimes known as ‘Italian allies’, had fewer rights. In all cases, the Romans aimed to ensure that it was always more advantageous for these peoples to stay allied to them than to oppose them. The Romans themselves benefited greatly from this network of alliances: their military strength increased enormously, while at the same time they did not have the administrative burden of having to rule the allied communities directly. In addition to this, Rome founded new settlements called colonies, which were largely inhabited by settlers from Rome. Some of these settlers retained their Roman citizenship, but most gave up their citizenship and received Latin status instead. The trade-off was that they would have more land to farm and a better quality of life. Colonies were formed at key strategic points in Italy, such as river crossings, junctions of key roads, and places where the local population were thought likely to revolt. The presence of men loyal to Rome in these colonies ensured the security of the Roman state.

2 Archaeological Evidence In contrast to the literary sources, the archaeological evidence suggests that the 5th century BCE was a period of significant decline in Rome. There was serious burning in the city around 500, and this was followed by a sharp drop-off in imported pottery during the first quarter of the century; furthermore, temple construction ceased for decades after about 480. This may imply that Rome endured a period of great pressure from hill-tribes who attacked the coastal plains for their resources.

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One fascinating insight into the world of 5th-century Rome comes in a set of written legal instructions known collectively as the Twelve Tables. These were believed to have been first set down on bronze tablets in the middle of the century; the original tablets have not survived, but some of the instructions have been preserved in the works of later Roman writers. It is hard to understand the exact meanings of many of the legal clauses written on the Tables, which typically prescribe solutions for domestic issues such as private property and inheritance. They are written in an early form of Latin that does not make much use of nouns or pronouns, and so makes little sense without interpretation: ‘If he summons to law, he is to go. If he does not go, he is to call to witness, then is to seize him.’

This law is usually reworded to mean: ‘If a plaintiff summons the defendant to court, the defendant is to go. If he does not go, the plaintiff is to call someone else to witness, then is to seize the defendant.’

The surviving laws of the Twelve Tables reveal a far less sophisticated society than the one that Livy portrays. However, the codification of laws is usually a key moment in the formation of a state; once laws are written down, it is much harder for those in power to manipulate the legal system. Moreover, at times the Tables mention elements of society that correspond with the literary tradition; for example, they refer to plebeians and patricians, patrons and clients, and a Vestal Virgin. Some of the key elements of later Roman society are therefore visible at this early stage. Scholars agree that the 4th century was a period of dynamic change for Rome. One important piece of archaeological evidence for this still visible in places today is the Servian Wall, which was built around the city in around 370 (it is named after the king Servius Tullius, who was believed by the Romans – incorrectly – to have commissioned it centuries earlier) (Fig. 1.8). This is the first time that the city had a substantial defensive wall, and it may have been a response to the Gallic invasion (although there is no archaeological evidence for the Gallic sack recorded in the literary tradition). The wall was seven miles long, and in places four metres thick; it was built from blocks of tufa stone obtained from quarries near Veii, confirming that Rome had indeed by now taken control of that city. In the late 4th century there are further signs of the growth of Rome in line with its victories against the other peoples of Italy. One patrician, Appius Claudius Caecus, gave his name to a new road, the Appian Way, which he commissioned in 312. This road ran from Rome to Capua, enabling faster journeys for soldiers and traders between these two important cities. A by-product of this road-building was the emergence of Roman coinage for the first time, which was used to pay builders (and soldiers) in southern Italy, where the Greeks had long used coinage. Until this point, the city had used weights of metal to determine monetary value. Caecus also oversaw the construction of Rome’s first aqueduct, which drew water from hills ten miles away.

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er

b Ti

Quirinal Viminal

Capitoline

Esquiline

Palatine

Caelian Aventine

Servian Wall City limits of Rome under Augustus

Fig. 1.8 The seven hills of Rome and one potential route of the 4th-century Servian Wall.

Numismatics The study of coinage, known as numismatics, can provide the historian with valuable information. On the ‘heads’ side of a coin, the obverse, was originally depicted a god or gods. In the 1st century BCE , images of notable deceased Romans also started to appear, and in the 40s BCE Julius Caesar was the first living Roman to have his head minted on a coin at Rome, a practice then followed by the emperors (coins during the imperial period are almost all datable to the year of issue). On the other side of the coin, the reverse, was usually depicted an image that promoted the ideology of the person minting the coin (usually a general or an emperor). Such men recognised the propaganda value of coinage, which would be used daily by their soldiers and other ordinary Romans. Coins do not just give information from their imagery; almost all of them also have brief texts on either side to explain the image or say more about where, when, or why the coin had been issued.

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At the start of the 3rd century, the archaeological record becomes richer. One famous tombstone inscription, dated to about 280, is probably the first biographical narrative to survive from ancient Rome (Fig. 1.9). It commemorates the life of a certain Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus: L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, born of his father Gnaeus, a brave and wise man, whose handsomeness was most equal to his excellence, who was consul, censor, and aedile among you. He captured Taurasia and Cisauna in Samnium; he subdued all of Lucania; and he took away hostages. CIL VI.1285

Here we have evidence of the achievements of a leading Roman as he wished them to be remembered. It is notable that he had served in three of the offices of magistrates that are recognised as part of the republican system (see pp. 39–41). His successful career is also closely bound up in military achievement. This was someone whose life and career would have been recognisable to a Roman living centuries later. By now, Rome was one of the biggest cities in the Mediterranean world, with an estimated population of between 60,000 and 90,000. It also controlled much of central and southern Italy, and could call on perhaps as many as 500,000 troops. The extraordinary scale of this manpower comes sharply into view when compared with the army of Alexander the Great, which in the 330s and 320s conquered the Persian Empire: about 50,000 men are estimated to have followed Alexander on his campaigns.

Fig. 1.9 The sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus. Although made of tufa, a local Italian stone, and far less impressive than later monuments of marble, this was a highly impressive monument for its day in c. 280.

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Date

Literary Tradition

Date

c. 496

Battle of Lake Regillus. Rome defeats the Latin League

c. 500 Major burning evident at Rome 500–475 Sharp drop in imported pottery

494

Creation of plebeian tribune and plebeian assembly

c. 480

Temple construction ceases for decades

493

Coriolanus and the Volsci defeated

458

Cincinnatus leads the defeat of the Aequi

c. 450

Writing of the Twelve Tables

396

Rome conquers Veii

c. 387

Rome sacked by the Gauls

367

Law enacted that one consul should be plebeian

c. 370

Construction of the Servian Wall

338

Rome wins the Latin War and absorbs the region of Latium

326

Law introduced banning the enslavement of indebted citizens

343–290 Three Samnite Wars end in victory c. 312 for Rome

280–272 War against Pyrrhus and cities of Magna Graecia ends in victory for Rome, so that it controls all of peninsular Italy

c. 280 c. 270

Archaeological Evidence

Construction of the Appian Way and the Appian Aqueduct; first Roman coinage appears Scipio Barbatus’ tombstone set up Rome now one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean, with a population of between 60,000 and 90,000

Further Reading 1.1 Barker, Graeme and Rasmussen, Tom, The Etruscans (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). Beard, Mary, Confronting the Classics (London: Profile, 2013), chapter 6. Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapters 1–4. Claridge, Amanda, Oxford Archaeological Guides: Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Cornell, Tim, The Beginnings of Rome (London: Routledge, 1995). Flower, Harriet (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chapter 1. Forsythe, Gary, A Critical History of Early Rome (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).

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Hopkins, John, The Genesis of Roman Architecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016). Smith, Christopher, The Etruscans: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

III The Middle Republic (264–133 BCE ) Over the following 130 years or so, the Romans moved from controlling Italy to being masters of most of the Mediterranean. They did this predominantly through two different sets of conflicts – one with the Carthaginians of North Africa, and the other with the Greek kingdoms to the east.

1 The Punic Wars In the early 3rd century BCE , the greatest power in the western Mediterranean was Carthage, a city in north Africa (its site lies in what is today Tunisia) founded in about 800 by settlers from Tyre in Phoenicia. Like the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians were notable traders, and they controlled the major maritime routes into the western Mediterranean with trading posts in North Africa, the western half of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Spain. On Sicily they engaged in frequent conflicts with the Greek cities, especially Syracuse, which was the dominant power on the island. Sicily was both fertile and strategically important for controlling shipping routes. It seems that until 264 the Carthaginians had maintained reasonably good relations with the Romans, although they must have viewed their growing power with some nervousness. At this date, however, the two cities entered into the first of three conflicts, which were to be fought until 146. These wars were known as the Punic Wars – the Romans called the Carthaginians Poeni, the adjective of which was Punicus. The word Poeni was itself derived from the Greek Phoenikikos (‘Phoenician’).

The 1st Punic War (264–241) The first war started in Sicily in 264 when the Carthaginians and the Romans were drawn into supporting opposing sides in a local conflict, which soon escalated into a full-scale fight for control of the island. Although the Romans had little naval tradition, they built themselves a significant fleet for the first time, and had some successes with their tactic of using boarding ramps to clamber onto Carthaginian ships and fight hand to hand. None the less, the Romans also suffered great disasters – effectively losing two fleets – and it was only with a rebuilt fleet that they won the conflict and took control of Sicily in 241. The island now became Rome’s first overseas province.

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The 2nd Punic War (218–201) In the aftermath of their victory, the Romans possessed a larger fleet than the Carthaginians. In 238, they seized the islands of Sardinia and Corsica as a combined province, further weakening Carthaginian trade. Carthage therefore looked to open up new markets and expanded its control in Spain where it founded new settlements. This mission was led by a Carthaginian noble called Hamilcar Barca, a veteran of the First Punic War. Hamilcar had a young son, whom he made swear undying hatred of the Romans. That boy’s name was Hannibal, and he was to become synonymous with the next, and decisive, conflict between the two peoples. As the Carthaginians expanded in Spain, the Romans were initially distracted by problems to the north. They defeated pirates in the northern Adriatic, making the region of Illyria across that sea into a protectorate in the 220s. Soon afterwards, in 220, they subdued the region of the Po valley, which they called Cisalpine Gaul (‘Gaul this side of the Alps’), in order to protect themselves from Gallic attack. None the less, the Romans soon became nervous about growing Carthaginian power in Spain, and a full-scale war broke out in 219 after Hannibal besieged Saguntum, a Spanish town allied with the Romans. The Roman plan was to send a fleet over to Spain to fight Hannibal there. However, Hannibal had other ideas, and set out on an overland invasion of Italy with an army of about 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and a battalion of elephants (Fig. 1.10). It was a treacherous journey, with terrible weather conditions and various conflicts with local tribes, all of which paled in comparison with the crossing of the Alps, a journey of about fifteen days which resulted in enormous loss of life – the army is said to have arrived in Italy with only 26,000 men and 21 elephants. The following passage describes the dramatic moment when they arrived in Italy: Setting out at dawn, the army struggled slowly forward over snow-covered ground, with exhaustion and desperation showing in every face. Seeing their despair, Hannibal rode ahead and at a vantage point where there was a view out far and wide, he gave the order to halt, pointing to Italy far below, and the Po Valley beyond the foothills of the Alps. He told them that they were now not only scaling the walls of Italy, but of Rome itself; the rest of the way would be level or downhill; and after one, or at the most, two, battles, they would have in their hands and in their power the citadel and the capital of Italy. Livy, History of Rome, 21.35

The Carthaginians inflicted three early defeats on the Romans at the River Trebia, Lake Trasimene and, most spectacularly, in 216 at Cannae, where the Romans lost somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 men in one day. The defeat added to a general sense of unrest at Rome and traumatised the Romans so much that they even resorted to the extremely rare practice of human sacrifice, burying alive in the forum two Greeks and two Gauls. Rome was now at the mercy of Hannibal, but the senators held their nerve and refused to give in: they ordered the city walls to be manned by slaves, boys and old

e on

Roman possessions before 2nd Punic War Key battles

NUMIDIA

Baleraic Is.

Rh

Zama

Carthage

Utica

Fig. 1.10 Hannibal’s route into Italy (the Alps route is an approximation) and his key battles there.

Route of Hannibal

Carthage possessions before 2nd Punic War

Saguntum

New Carthage

Ebr o

Massilia

River Trebia

A SIC CO R IN RD

Rome

Lake Trasimene

Po

r

SA

e Tib

IA

River Ticino

SICILIA

Capua

Mediteranean Sea

Syracusae

Rhegium

Croton

Tarentum

Cannae

ILL YR IA

EP IR US

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MACEDONIA

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men. Hannibal’s cavalry commander, Maharbal, begged Hannibal to send him ahead to Rome, suggesting that they could be dining on the Capitoline Hill within three days. Yet Hannibal hesitated, unsure of his ability to hold the city with his shattered troops. According to Livy, Maharbal told his leader sadly: ‘You know how to win, Hannibal, but you do not know how to use your victory.’ Instead, Hannibal preferred to pursue a policy of undermining Roman strength by attempting to win over the Italian allies. This had limited success: some cities of southern Italy and Sicily went over to the Carthaginians, including Capua and Syracuse; but many more allies, including those of central Italy, remained loyal to Rome. With help from the allies that remained loyal, Rome rebuilt its army and Hannibal withdrew to southern Italy, where a stalemate ensued. Once again, it was Roman manpower that was the defining factor: a census in 220 indicated that the total number of Romans and allies able to bear arms was more than 700,000 infantry and 70,000 cavalry. The Romans were able to sustain even the losses at Cannae and fight on. In 205, a dynamic young Roman general was elected consul for the first time. Publius Cornelius Scipio (Fig. 1.11) – the great-grandson of Scipio Barbatus – had made his name defeating Carthaginian forces in Spain between 211 and 206. As consul, he advocated the controversial policy of sending a Roman army to north Africa to threaten Carthage itself, so as to draw Hannibal’s forces out of Italy. The motion was passed after heated debate in the Senate, and the plan worked. In 202 the Romans won a great and final victory at Zama. Scipio became known ever afterwards as ‘Scipio Africanus’. The Romans imposed severe peace terms

Fig. 1.11 This portrait bust of Scipio Africanus is typical of the veristic style of the late Republic; this sought to portray Roman statesmen in a ‘warts and all’ style, which emphasised their life experience and hard-won wisdom.

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In Their Own Words 1.3 1

Read Livy 22.59–61. What can we learn about the Roman character from the response to the defeat at Cannae?

2

Read and research Horace’s Ode 3.5. How does this poem reflect the importance that later Romans placed on the Punic Wars?

on the conquered Carthaginians, reducing their navy to ten ships and stripping them of their possessions outside Africa. Spain was divided into two Roman provinces: Nearer Spain and Further Spain. The Carthaginians were also forbidden to declare war on others and forced to pay 800,000 pounds of silver over a 50-year period. Hannibal himself was spared and remained in Carthage to help the city recover. However, the Romans soon became afraid of his continuing presence, and he was forced to flee east, where he fought for various kingdoms in their wars against the Romans. Eventually, Rome demanded that he be surrendered; in response, Hannibal committed suicide sometime after 183.

The 3rd Punic War (149–146) Despite this disastrous defeat, Carthage recovered economically and quickly paid off its levies. It became a small but prosperous city, which posed little threat to Rome. However, many Romans felt that it should have been wiped out completely after Zama; most notable among them was the senator Marcus Porcius Cato, an

Cato the Elder Marcus Porcius Cato, often known as Cato the Elder to distinguish him from his great-grandson introduced on p. 60, lived between 234 and 149 and was a remarkable figure in the life of the Republic. He came from a plebeian family noted for its military service and had served in all the major offices of state by 184. Thereafter, he held no public office, but for the last 35 years of his life was a powerful voice in the Senate advocating a traditionalist and conservative agenda. In particular, he was alarmed at what he saw as the corrupting influence of new ideas emerging from the Greek world. Cato is also an important figure in the history of Roman literature. He was the first to write a history of Italy in Latin, Origines, while his other works include On Agriculture, a manual for farmers. This treatise reveals that, for all his contempt for the Greeks, Cato was prepared to employ the tricks of Greek rhetoric and display the Greek learning that he claimed to despise.

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arch-conservative who visited Carthage as part of a Roman delegation in 157 and was alarmed by its prosperity. He apparently always ended any speech in the Senate, no matter its topic, with the words delenda est Carthago (‘Carthage must be destroyed’). These hawks were given their opportunity in 150 when Carthaginians attacked a neighbouring city, thereby breaking the terms of their surrender after Zama. The Romans sent a force led by another Scipio, Scipio Aemilianus, who was the grandson of Scipio Africanus by adoption. After a hard-fought three-year war, the city was burnt to the ground in 146 and its 50,000 surviving inhabitants sold into slavery. The surrounding area was annexed and turned into the province of Africa. Rome now had six provinces, five of which had been gained through the wars with Carthage.

2 Rome and the East In the eastern Mediterranean, Greek civilisation had been predominant since the 320s, when Alexander the Great had conquered vast swathes of land as far as northern India. After Alexander’s death, his vast empire had been split into various kingdoms: the three largest were those of Macedonia (covering most of central and northern Greece, as well as the lands to the north of the Aegean Sea), the Seleucid kingdom (covering most of Asia Minor and the Near East), and Egypt. There were other smaller states; we have already read of the kingdom of Epirus in north-west Greece, the kingdom of Pergamum in north-west Asia Minor was a great centre of culture, and the Aegean island of Rhodes was a centre of trade and commerce. In mainland Greece, many of the southern cities remained independent, but belonged to one of two political Leagues – the Aetolian League and the Achaean League. During the Second Punic War, the Macedonian king Philip V made an alliance with the Carthaginians, hoping to benefit from their defeat of the Romans. Rome did not have the manpower to launch a full-scale attack in the east, but instead formed an alliance with the Aetolian League, which was itself an enemy of the Macedonians. The half-hearted conflict lasted between 214 and 205 and was known as the First Macedonian War. However, after defeating Hannibal in 202, the Romans came to focus on the east. In 200 the Aetolian League asked Rome for help in the continuing conflict with Macedonia. A Second Macedonian War ensued, in which the Romans portrayed themselves as ‘liberators’ of the Greeks from the Macedonian king Philip V. The Roman commander Flamininus even announced their liberation – to reportedly rapturous enthusiasm – at the Isthmian Games at Corinth in 196. Over the following decades, the Romans continued to be involved in Greek affairs, most notably during a Third Macedonian War between 171 and 167, by the end of which they had destroyed the kingdom of Macedonia. However, throughout this period, Roman

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policy remained one of alliance with supportive Greek peoples rather than of conquest. This changed in 149, by which time the Romans had grown tired of the infighting amongst the Greeks, and their policy turned to one of conquest. The following year, Macedonia was annexed as a Roman province; in 146, the Achaean League was defeated too and the major cultural centre of Corinth was sacked and destroyed – all the men were killed and the women and children were sold into slavery. Within the space of a few short months, Rome had all but obliterated both Carthage and Corinth, two of the great cities of the Mediterranean world.

Hellenisation We have seen that the Romans had interacted with Greeks for many centuries, both directly and via the mediation of the Etruscans, and had absorbed various aspects of Greek culture. This process of absorption gathered pace during the 3rd century, when Rome took control of the Greek cities of Magna Graecia, and then even more so during the 2nd century, when Greece itself came under Roman control. By now, many Greeks were living in Rome – the majority forcibly as slaves, some as free men. This brought about an enormous cultural revolution in the city; today it is known by scholars as Hellenisation (from ‘Hellas’, the ancient name for Greece). Greek culture now became mainstream in Rome. New buildings, public and private, copied Hellenistic fashions; Greek orders of architecture became common, and marble was used to adorn buildings for the first time. Greek sculptures were put on display, in particular after the sack of Corinth; Greek sculptors followed – in fact, most of the famous Greek statues that can be seen today are copies of Greek originals produced during the Roman era. Greek medicine, philosophy, drama and literature came to be studied and appreciated more deeply, and the Roman education system began to model itself on that of Greece. As the Roman poet Horace would later put it: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit – ‘captured Greece captured her savage conqueror’. The Roman aristocrat most associated with embracing Hellenisation was Scipio Aemilianus, who is said to have gathered around him a circle of intellectuals to discuss these new ideas. Among them were the philosopher Panaetius of Rhodes, who introduced the doctrines of Stoicism to the Romans (see p. 214), and Polybius, the Greek historian of Rome whose analysis of the Roman constitution is examined on pp. 46–47. It is in the emergence of Roman literature that Hellenisation remains most visible. The man regarded as the father of Roman literature, Livius Andronicus (c. 270– c. 200 BCE ), was a Greek from Tarentum who had been captured in war. In 241, he adapted into Latin a Greek tragedy; when it was performed the following year, it was the first time a tragedy had been shown in a Roman theatre. Livius also produced the first Latin translation of Homer’s Odyssey. We have already seen that, towards the end of the 3rd century, Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus wrote the first histories

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Roman Satire Although the Romans looked almost entirely to the Greeks for literary inspiration, they did invent one genre of literature themselves: satire. The first satirist we hear of is Lucilius (c. 180–102), who wrote in hexameter verse (his work was therefore partly a response to epic poetry, which is also written in hexameters). Only fragments of his work have survived, but they suggest that he was a sharp social critic who was keen to show up hypocrisy, especially when practised by public figures. Lucilius acted as a model for later Roman satirists, among them Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. It is notable that Lucilius was the first poet we know of to hail from the Roman upper classes – he was a close friend of Scipio Aemilianus and a member of his circle. This suggests that at this time writing poetry was first being taken seriously by the Roman educated elite, who were both Lucilius’ target audience and his friends.

of Rome, in Greek for a Greek readership. A contemporary of theirs was Gnaeus Naevius, who adapted Greek comedies and tragedies into Latin, and wrote a poem about the First Punic War. The earliest Roman literature to have survived in any amount came soon afterwards, with the comedies of Plautus and Terence, which were heavily based on Greek models (see pp. 320–323). Around 200, Quintus Ennius wrote his Annals, the first Roman epic poem in hexameter verse, which recounted the history of Rome from the fall of Troy down to his own day. In the following generations came two playwrights who focused on tragedy, Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius (see p. 319). While many Romans welcomed this new cultural influx, it also provoked a backlash from conservative Romans who found it threatening; they saw Greek culture as soft, effeminate, and inappropriate for the supposedly austere Roman character. One example of this is related by Livy. In 204, senatorial critics of Scipio Africanus sought to smear the general by criticising him for ‘going Greek’ while in Syracuse: Passions were inflamed in support of Scipio and against him, and as a result not all opinions could be gathered that day . . . there were even criticisms of the commander’s personal appearance – not simply unlike a Roman, but unlike a soldier. He would saunter around the gymnasium in a Greek cloak and sandals, it was said, and spend his time on books and exercising – and his entire staff enjoyed as much idleness and easy living, tasting the delights of Syracuse. Livy, History of Rome, 29.19

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The most prominent critic of Hellenisation was Cato the Elder, who is quoted warning his son about the dangers of the Greek influence on Roman culture as follows: I shall tell you what I discovered at Athens, and convince you that it is good to skim through their literature, but not to study it in depth. They are a worthless and intractable lot – in this area accept me as a prophet. For when the Greeks give us their literature it will undermine our whole way of life, and even more so if they send us their doctors. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 29.14

Yet Cato and his kind failed to halt the spread of things Greek: over the following centuries, Greek culture became so much a part of Roman society that it is more apt to refer to Graeco-Roman culture from this time on.

Date

Event

264–241 First Punic War between Carthage and Rome 241

Sicily becomes Rome’s first overseas province

238

Rome establishes a combined province on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica

230s

Carthage expands its territory in western Spain

220s

Rome conquers first Illyria then Cisalpine Gaul

218–202 Second Punic War 218

Hannibal crosses the Alps and defeats Rome at Ticinus and Trebia

217

Battle of Trasimene – Romans defeated

216

Battle of Cannae – Romans suffer catastrophic defeat

214–205 First Macedonian War 211

Hannibal’s march on Rome fails

204

Scipio Africanus invades Carthaginian territory in North Africa

202

Battle of Zama – final defeat of Carthage; Roman provinces of Nearer Spain and Further Spain established

200–197 Second Macedonian War 171–167 Third Macedonian War 149–146 Third Punic War 148

Roman province of Macedonia established

146

Sack of Corinth

146

Sack of Carthage; Roman province of Africa established

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Review and Reflect 1.3 1

How might history have been different if the Carthaginians had won the Punic Wars?

2

Why do you think societies often have vigorous debates about the merits of influences from other cultures?

Further Reading 1.2 Bagnall, Nigel, Essential Histories: The Punic Wars 264–146 BC C (Oxford: Osprey, 2014). Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 5. Feeney, Denis, Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). Flower, Harriet (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chapters 9, 12, 13, 15. Goldsworthy, Adrian, Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC C (London: Cassell, 2003). Gruen, Erich, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). Gruen, Erich, Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policyy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990). Hoyos, Dexter (ed.), A Companion to the Punic Wars (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).

IV The Political Structure of The Republic At this point in our account of Roman history, we turn to look at how the Roman political constitution had come to work by 146 BCE, by which point the Romans had become the dominant power in the Mediterranean. The literary tradition gives a detailed description of the development of the constitution from the moment the kings were expelled in 509; this should of course be treated with scepticism. However, there can be little doubt that two basic principles – that power should be shared, and that it should be rotated on an annual basis – were there from the start. Beyond this, it seems clear that the constitution had evolved and adapted over the generations. Indeed, according to Cicero, Cato the Elder believed that this was one of its great strengths:

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Cato used to say that the organisation of our state surpassed all others for this reason: in others there were generally single individuals who had set up the laws and institutions of their commonwealths . . . Our commonwealth, by contrast, was not shaped by one man’s talent but by that of many; and not in one person’s lifetime, but over many generations. Cicero, On the Republic, 2.2

This flexibility allowed the Romans to adapt to new circumstances and to the demands of their growing status in Italy and beyond. None the less, the constitution was never written down in law, something that turned out to be a fatal weakness as its conventions came under serious challenge during the late 2nd century and thereafter. There were three structural elements to the government of Rome: the magistrates, elected politicians who ran the state; the Senate, an aristocratic council that advised the magistrates; and the assemblies of citizens, which elected the magistrates.

1 The Magistrates By 146, there were four regular offices of the Roman state, collectively known as magistracies (so that officers of state were called magistrates). These ascended in seniority as follows: quaestor, aedile, praetor and consul. There was therefore a career path for aspiring politicians; one could not become consul without having been elected to the lower magistracies first (although it was not essential to have held the aedileship). This career path was known as the cursus honorum, or ‘course of honours’ (Fig. 1.12). The magistracies were structured as follows (the

Fig. 1.12 Diagram illustrating the cursus honorum. The offices in bold carried imperium (see p. 41).

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number of each elected on an annual basis in the mid-2nd century is given in brackets): ●

Consuls (2). The consuls were the most senior magistrates and the joint heads of state. Their most important role was as commanders of the Roman army, for which they levied troops each year. They also consulted and presided over the Senate, and could initiate and pass their own legislation – if both were in agreement. A consul had to be an ex-praetor over the age of 42.

●

Praetors (6). Originally the praetors were just in charge of private law cases, but they came to have other military and political powers as well. Like the consuls, they could convene the Senate, command armies and govern provinces. They could also take on the administrative duties of consuls absent from the city. A praetor had to be an ex-quaestor over the age of 39.

●

Aediles (4). In the early Republic, there were two aediles who acted as assistants to the tribunes of the people. In 366 BCE two more aedileships were reportedly created, which were to be held by patricians (although this rule was later relaxed). There were therefore two types of aediles: those elected by the plebs were known as plebeian aediles, those elected by the whole people were known as curule aediles. In practice, the functions of each type were identical. The aediles were responsible for public services, such as streets, public order, water supply and public games. An aedile had to be an ex-quaestor over the age of 36.

●

Quaestors (8 to 12). The quaestors were responsible for financial affairs, supervising the state treasury, the collection of taxes, and managing public expenditure. A quaestor had to be over the age of 25.

Ex-consuls and ex-praetors were eligible to serve as governors in the provinces. They were appointed by the Senate and in their capacity as governors known as proconsuls and propraetors. In addition, there were two other key positions at the heart of the constitution: ●

Dictator (1). If the city was facing such a grave military crisis that it needed one man to take control, then one of the consuls could nominate a dictator. He had to be an ex-consul, and could serve for up to six months. He was normally given a specific task to fulfil, and during this time the constitution was suspended. He was assisted by a junior colleague known as the magister equitum (‘master of the cavalry’). By the late 3rd century BCE , the office of dictator had largely fallen into disuse – although, significantly, it was to be revived again during the 1st century BCE .

●

Censors (2). The censorship was perhaps the most prestigious office in the Roman state. It was only open to ex-consuls and, unlike the other magistracies, it was not an annual office: two censors were elected every five years to serve for a period of about 18 months. The censors were primarily responsible for completing a census of the Roman people, in which they registered all Roman citizens and put them into property classes. Moreover,

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the censors also updated the list of senators, adding new members and, if a senator was deemed to have behaved inappropriately, expelling him from the body. Indeed, the censors were seen as guardians of public morals – a duty that has given us the meaning of the modern word ‘censorship’. The censors were also responsible for the construction and repair of public buildings. The final key position in the state was not technically a magistracy, but still carried enormous importance: ●

Tribune of the People (10). We have seen that the literary tradition records that the office of tribune was established in the early 5th century, when the tribunes were the elected representatives of the plebeians in the Conflict of the Orders. A tribune therefore had to be plebeian, and his person was said to be sacrosanct (i.e. it was a religious offence to attack him physically). The main function of the tribunes was to preside over the Tribal Assembly (see p. 45), and to present bills to it. However, a tribune had one extraordinary power – the right to veto any legislation of a magistrate or proposal of the Senate (in Latin, veto meant ‘I forbid’). This meant that any one of the ten tribunes could bring Roman government to a halt.

One important point about magistrates is that they could not be prosecuted in the courts during their period of office. Such prosecutions had to wait until they had finished their term of service.

Imperium and Auspicium The Romans believed that their most senior magistrates – the consuls, the praetors, a dictator and his magister equitum – had been given an almost mystical power to command the army and run the state. This power was known as imperium, or ‘command’, and was believed to have been first given to Rome’s kings with the approval of the gods. Since these magistrates’ power was thought to come from the gods, they were also allowed to consult the gods on behalf of the state, a process known as auspicium (see p. 202). Magistrates with imperium held privileges and insignia of great symbolic importance. They wore a purple-bordered toga and could sit on a special seat, the ‘curule seat’. They were also given an escort of bodyguards known as lictors (24 lictors for a dictator, 12 for a consul, 6 for a praetor). To symbolise the power of their magistrate to flog or execute, each lictor carried the fasces, a bundle of white birch rods, tied together into a cylinder, with the blade of a bronze axe coming out of the top. It is notable that the modern word ‘fascism’ is derived from the fasces. When the Italian Benito Mussolini and his group of ultra-right-wing authoritarians formed a new political party in 1921, they wanted to connect themselves to Italy’s ancient past. They saw the fasces as a symbol of how the Roman Republic had maintained good order, and so called themselves ‘fascisti’’ – fascists – to indicate the authoritarian nature of their movement.

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2 The Senate Although the Senate was technically only an advisory body, in practice it wielded enormous power over the government of Rome. Technically it was the censors who selected senators, but in practice anyone who had been elected to one of the four major magistracies usually became a senator (there was never an absolutely fixed number of senators, but in 146 it was around the 300 mark). The main duties of the Senate were as follows: ●

To issue pieces of advice to the magistrates.

●

To control public finances.

●

To deal with foreign affairs.

A key point is that the Senate had no power to make laws – it could only issue pieces of advice to the magistrates, known as senatus consulta (‘decrees of the Senate’). The two consuls would introduce to the senators a proposal for legislation and, if the Senate approved it, then the consuls would put it to the vote in one of the popular assemblies. Therefore, the Senate effectively controlled what laws could be voted on. The Senate also controlled public finances and foreign affairs, administering the provinces and sending out its own members to be provincial governors. As Rome’s territory increased, the Senate grew increasingly powerful, since only the senators, it was believed, had the education and experience to deal with the complex issues of imperial administration. In particular, the Senate was held in great esteem for the role it had played in guiding strategy during the Punic Wars. It was naturally in the interest of magistrates to work closely with the Senate, since this was the body they would belong to for life. Many senators would hope to serve as magistrates more than once, and they knew that they would return to the Senate after their year in office. They would therefore not want to alienate their senatorial colleagues who could help them in their future career, and who themselves might also hold magistracies in the future. For this reason, magistrates would rarely go against the Senate’s wishes.

The Nobiles Even within the Senate there was an inner circle of about 20 aristocratic families, collectively known as the nobiles (‘the well-known’), who held the most influence. Although no ancient source tells us who could count among the nobiles, it is commonly believed that the status was conferred by having at least one family member, past or present, who had served as consul. Of these families, some were patrician and some were plebeian – this distinction now indicated little about a family’s wealth and status (the main differences now were that there were some religious posts only open to patricians, while only plebeians could stand for election as tribunes).

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These families managed to control who stood for election to a great degree through their enormous wealth and patchwork of clients. The patron/client relationship, which is described in more detail on pp. 254–255, was a key aspect of Roman society. In early Rome the relationship had developed the form of patrician families supporting poorer citizens in return for their public support. So, for example, patrons might offer financial or legal help, or simply food handouts, when needed. By the late Republic, nobiles in particular had amassed a vast patchwork of clients whose interests they looked after, and who in turn voted for their preferred candidates. It was therefore hard to break into this inner circle, but some men managed it: the nobiles usually showed considerable resentment and snobbery towards any senator from outside their group who was the first in his family to become a consul. Such a newcomer to the rank was known as a novus homo (‘new man’).

The Equestrians As the Roman sphere of control grew, it gave many opportunities for men outside the traditional aristocracy to make money from trade and commerce throughout the Mediterranean world. By 120, such men were known as equites (‘equestrians’ – since in early Rome only the wealthy could own a horse and fight in the Roman cavalry). Together with the senators, the equestrians made up the wealthiest socioeconomic class at Rome. However, the equestrians vastly outnumbered the senators; by the end of the 2nd century BCE there were thousands of them (they were defined by a property qualification), as opposed to the few hundred senators. The most important distinction between the senators and the equestrians was that the latter did not run for political office. In turn, the senators were technically barred from engaging in commerce – they derived their great wealth from landowning. At times, the two groups came into conflict, yet there were other instances of them working together; since senators could not engage in business, they were often silent partners on commercial transactions, and would make alliances with certain equestrians for the benefit of both parties.

3 The Assemblies of Citizens Roman citizens were able to vote both to elect magistrates and to ratify proposed legislation. However, they did not vote on a ‘one man, one vote’ system, whereby every man’s vote counted equally, but instead by a complex collegiate system, with each citizen belonging to an electoral college. A key point about these assemblies is that citizens could not themselves propose legislation, amendments, or motions to debate – they were simply given the opportunity to vote in favour or against what was put to them. In advance of an assembly meeting, another public meeting, known as a contio, could be convened at which leading politicians could put forward their views on an issue that was to come to the public vote.

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Fig. 1.13 This denarius was minted in 63 BCE . The reverse shows a citizen wearing a toga casting a voting ballot. The V on it stands for uti rogas (‘as you ask’), indicating that he is voting in favour of the motion.

By 146, there were three main voting assemblies: the Comitia Centuriata (the Centuriate Assembly), the Comitia Tributa (Tribal Assembly) and the Concilium Plebis (Plebeian Assembly). The different assemblies controlled different aspects of legislation or election, and all citizens could vote in each of them (Fig. 1.13), with the exception that patricians were excluded from the Plebeian Assembly.

The Centuriate Assembly This was the oldest of the three and had its origins in Roman military organisation; in the earliest days of the Republic, citizens voted according to which ‘century’ (military unit of 100 men) of the army they belonged to. However, by the 2nd century this military connection was long past. There were 193 centuries in all, and they were arranged by wealth – measured by the amount of property a citizen had registered at the most recent census. The first 18 centuries were made up of equestrians, and after that there were five broad classes of wealth. Into the next 70 centuries were distributed members of the highest of these classes. We do not know how the next four classes were divided up, but beneath even them was a class of men without property, known as the proletarii, those whose only contribution to the state was their offspring (proles). This class had by far the largest number of men. There was an inherent inequality built into this voting system, since the number of citizens in each century varied significantly: the higher up the wealth hierarchy, the

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fewer the members in each century. Since each century had just one block vote (determined by majority), a citizen’s vote counted for far more in one of the wealthier centuries. The two wealthiest groups – the equestrians and the highest wealth class beneath them – collectively made up 88 of the 193 centuries, and so if they all voted the same way they came close to providing the required majority of 97 on their own. Moreover, the centuries voted in order, with the wealthiest going first, and once a majority was reached the voting stopped. In practice, therefore, the poorest centuries would rarely have been called on to vote. This assembly could only be convened and presided over by a magistrate holding imperium, and its powers were as follows: ●

To elect consuls and praetors.

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To vote on matters related to war and peace.

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To act as an appeal court for citizens convicted of capital offences.

The Tribal Assembly and Plebeian Assembly These assemblies were very similar in structure. The key difference between the two was that only plebeians could vote in the Plebeian Assembly, whereas the Tribal Assembly was constituted of the whole Roman people. The voting unit in each case was not the century but the ‘tribe’. In Rome’s early days, there had been four tribes, which were organised by geographical location in the city. As Rome expanded its territory into Latium and beyond, the number of such tribes grew until in 241 BCE it was finally fixed at 35. Of these, there remained 4 urban tribes for the city of Rome, and 31 rural tribes relating to the surrounding regions. However, the link with geographical districts faded over time since membership of a tribe passed from father to son. Moreover, as Rome continued to expand its territory, new citizens were distributed into one of the 35 tribes; immigrants and freed slaves in the city were normally assigned to one of the four urban tribes, and so they became much more sizeable (and so each vote in them counted for much less than in the 31 rural tribes). The voting order of the tribes was determined by lot. The Tribal Assembly could be convened and presided over only by a curule magistrate (consul, praetor, curule aedile), and its powers were as follows: ●

To elect the curule aediles and the quaestors.

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To approve legislation put forward by consuls or praetors.

The Plebeian Assembly was convened and presided over by a plebeian magistrate, usually a tribune of the people. Its powers were as follows: ●

To elect the tribunes of the people and the plebeian aediles.

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To enact a plebiscitum – a decree legally binding on the whole Roman people.

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SPQR The phrase signifying the Roman state was SPQR, standing for Senatus Populusque Romanus – ‘The Senate and People of Rome’. It appeared on coins, public documents, and the standards of Roman legions. Today, Rome’s city council uses the formula as the motto for the city, and it can still be seen on the city’s coat of arms, as well as many other civic buildings and monuments – as well as on the manhole covers of the Roman drains.

4 Polybius’ Analysis of the Constitution The earliest surviving analysis of the Roman political system comes from the Greek historian Polybius (c. 200–c. 118 BCE ). His father, Lycortas, from the Greek city of Megalopolis, was a leading figure in the Achaean League, and Polybius looked set to follow in his footsteps. However, after the Third Macedonian War the Romans detained 1,000 Achaeans and deported them to Italy where they were held without trial. Amongst them was Polybius, but to his good fortune he was sent to live with the family of Scipio Aemilianus, to whom he became both a friend and mentor. Polybius followed him on campaign, and was an eye witness to the two great sackings of 146, at Carthage and at Corinth. Polybius wrote in Greek for Greeks, and his Histories originally aimed to record and explain to them Rome’s rise to power between the years 220 and 167 (although, in the end, his account carried on after that). He states at the start of his work why he believed that this subject was so important: There can surely be nobody so petty or apathetic in his outlook that he has no desire to discover by what means and under what system of government the Romans succeeded in less than fifty-three years in bringing under their rule almost the whole of the inhabited world, an achievement which is without parallel in human history. Polybius, Histories, 1.1.5

Polybius believed that the Romans’ political constitution had been central to their rise to power in the Mediterranean. Indeed, he argued that the Romans had been able to recover from the terrible disaster of Cannae in 216 so effectively exactly because their governance was so strong. His work includes an analysis of the Roman constitution, which he divides into three parts on Greek theoretical lines: a monarchic element (the consuls), an oligarchic element (the Senate), and a democratic element (the people’s assemblies) (Fig. 1.14). He concludes that the system works so well since each of these three elements acts as a check on the other. However, most modern scholars would say that Polybius was too idealistic in his analysis of the constitution, since in reality power lay in the hands of the relatively small number of aristocratic families who managed to control the Senate.

Chapter 1 From Kingdom to Republic SENATE

ADVISORY BODY TO MAGISTRATES MEMBERS ELECTED AS QUAESTORS

MAGISTRATES CONSULS PRAETORS AEDILES QUAESTORS PROPOSALS FOR LAWS

TRIBUNE’S VETO TRIBUNES CAN PROPOSE LAWS DIRECTLY

ELECT AEDILES & TRIBUNES

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COMITIA POPULI TRIBUTA COMITIA CENTURIATA

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Fig. 1.14 The responsibilities of the Roman constitutional bodies.

In Their Own Words 1.4 1

Read Polybius’ analysis of the Roman constitution at Histories 6.11–18. To what extent do you think that he was unrealistic and overly idealistic in his view of how the Republic worked?

2

Read a letter thought to have been written by Quintus Tullius Cicero to his brother Marcus Tullius Cicero, Some Thoughts on Political Campaigns. What information does this give about political campaigning in the late republican period?

Polybius, the Roman Republic and the US Constitution Polybius’ analysis of the division of powers in the Roman Republic came to influence the writing of the constitution of the United States of America in 1787. It is not hard to see why the Roman Republic, formed in opposition to monarchy, held great appeal for those planning to establish a new US Constitution. Delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia were able to draw upon translations and a summary of Polybius’ sixth book, which had been made available just beforehand by John Adams. Three branches of US government with checks and balances then emerged: the Executive, led by the President, was modelled on the consuls; the Senate could ratify all treaties, just as the Roman Senate had been able to; and the House of Representatives followed the principle of the Roman popular assemblies, which had the final say in matters of law, as well as of war and peace. Moreover, the government was to meet on the ‘Capitol’ in Washington, D.C., another conscious echoing of ancient Rome.

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Review and Reflect 1.4 1

How democratic do you think the Roman Republic was? What changes to the constitution would have made it more democratic?

2

Do modern societies have elements of their governance that are not formed by election but by appointment, as the Roman Senate was? Can such a practice ever have any benefits?

Further Reading 1.3 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 5. Flower, Harriet (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chapters 2, 18. Flower, Harriet, Roman Republics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), chapters 3, 4. Lintott, Andrew, The Constitution of the Roman Republicc (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). McGing, Brian, Polybius’ Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Mouritsen, Henrik, Politics in the Roman Republicc (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

V The Late Republic (133–31 BCE ) Over the following century, the republican system of government came under so much strain that it eventually collapsed. This period, which lasted from 133 to 31 BCE , is therefore referred to as the ‘late Republic’. The system is often regarded to have ended for good in 31 BCE , after which Rome reverted to the rule of one man – known to us as the emperor. The set of events that led to this outcome is sometimes referred to as the ‘Roman revolution’, a term coined by the scholar Ronald Syme. An enormous amount of scholarly work has explored, and continues to explore, how and why the Republic collapsed. Many scholars have argued that a fundamental reason is that this system of government was designed to run a city-state, and it did not manage to adapt well enough to the challenges of administering the newly-won empire (Fig. 1.15). Moreover, the competitive nature of Roman elections meant that many of the leading senatorial families came into bitter opposition and so looked to further themselves rather than the needs of the state. Some of the key problems that had emerged by the second half of the 2nd century BCE are given below. Although steps were taken to address some of these issues, they were never entirely fixed and continued to cause problems throughout the period:

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ANIA GERM

BLACK SEA

L

GAU ATLANTIC OCEAN

ITALY

A S I A

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Massilia Rome

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Legend Roman Republic in 201 BCE Additions by 100 BCE

Key battle

Fig. 1.15 The expansion of Roman territory in the 2nd century BCE .

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Land crisis in Italy. Huge numbers of slaves were now being brought to Italy, and wealthy senatorial landowners developed large farming estates, known as latifundia, to be worked by these captives. These landowners often took over land that had been set aside in law for public smallholdings (ager publicus), thereby pushing citizen smallholders and labourers off their land and out of work. Alongside the growth of the latifundia, Rome began to import grain cheaply from abroad and this contributed to putting many smallholders out of business.

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Population growth in Rome. Deprived of land to work, such men flocked to Rome to start a new life. The population of the city soared – at a conservative estimate it had reached about 250,000 in the later 2nd century, and about one million by the middle of the 1st century BCE . As a result, the city acquired a large population of impoverished citizens.

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Military manpower crisis. By law, all soldiers serving in the Roman army had to own a certain amount of land. All those citizens who had lost their land and moved to the city were now ineligible to serve and the state faced a military manpower crisis. As we shall see, this was solved to some extent by Gaius Marius at the end of the 1st century BCE , when he allowed all citizens to fight in the army, but as a consequence poor soldiers now became more loyal to their commander than to the state, since the commander could provide them with money and land upon discharge.

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Provincial governance. The governors sent out by the Senate to administer provinces often viewed their governorship as an opportunity to recoup the financial losses they had accrued while running for office (see pp. 135–138). They often practised extortion, thereby alienating local peoples. To confront this problem, in 149 a law, the lex Calpurnia, was introduced allowing governors to be prosecuted for mismanaging a province, but at this point the juries in such cases were drawn from the ranks of the senators, who were unlikely to convict one of their own. Governors sometimes also started wars in order to gain military glory and to win booty, rather than because it was in the interest of the state.

As a further provocation to the urban poor, vast riches poured into Rome from its new territories. However, almost all of this wealth went to the aristocrats, so opening up a huge gap between rich and poor. Many senators showed little interest in facing up to these new problems, but rather looked to further their own interests. As a result, the Senate’s authority came to be challenged. Historians tend to see the collapse of the Republic as a process that lasted for about a century. With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible to identify key moments along the way, and these are outlined below.

The Gracchi Some members of the elite recognised that things had to change. In 133, a tribune called Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus attempted land reform. He came from the Sempronii, one of the most established families of nobiles, and his sister was married to Scipio Aemilianus; on his mother’s side, his grandfather was Scipio Africanus. This illustrates how the tribunate was an office held by those plebeians wealthy enough to be elected, even though it was supposed to represent the ordinary people. Tiberius apparently recognised that issues of land ownership had the potential to cause a huge crisis for the Roman state. He wanted to solve this situation by insisting that an old law dating to 367 should be applied properly once more: this law limited the amount of ager publicus a citizen could own to 500 iugera (about 325 acres). Tiberius proposed that citizens holding more than this amount should return the excess to the state, which would then redistribute it among the landless poor. Since his proposal was intended to solve Rome’s military manpower problem, it had some

In Their Own Words 1.5 The Greek Plutarch (c. 46–120 CE ) wrote a number of biographies of key figures in the late Republic. Read them to find out more about the period: Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Cato the Younger, Marc Antony, Brutus.

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support in the Senate; none the less, those senators who stood to lose the most mounted fierce opposition. Gracchus therefore made the provocative decision not to consult the Senate about his proposal, but to put it directly to the Plebeian Assembly – which was legitimate but contrary to convention. To counter this, some senators persuaded another tribune, Octavius, to veto the bill. Tiberius then proposed to the Plebeian Assembly that Octavius should be deposed since he was not acting in their interests. This proposal was passed – although many argued that it was illegal to depose an elected official in this way. The Plebeian Assembly then passed Tiberius’ law, but stalemate loomed when the Senate refused to fund its implementation. However, by an extraordinary coincidence, just at that time King Attalus of Pergamum died and bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people. Tiberius proposed that this new source of wealth be used to fund the land reform, and he announced his intention to stand for the tribunate again in 132 to see the reform through (although he was also partly motivated, no doubt, by the wish to make himself immune from prosecution for the deposition of Octavius). This was too much for some senators, who accused him of wanting to overturn the Republic and make himself king – the ultimate political slander. Several of them marched to the forum and clubbed him to death, together with some 300 of his supporters. Their bodies were dumped in the Tiber. Tiberius had challenged the conventions of the Republic in a number of crucial ways. By bypassing the Senate and putting a vote directly to the Plebeian Assembly, he had reminded the Roman people that they could pass laws through their tribunes. Moreover, by having Octavius deposed, he had undermined the principle that elected officials should work together to put proposed legislation to the people. Finally, by proposing to the Plebeian Assembly that they use funds from King Attalus of Pergamum, he ignored the convention that the Senate held responsibility for the management of public funds and foreign affairs. In their turn, the murderous senators had introduced another precedent into Roman politics: that political opponents could be defeated with violence. This practice was to occur time and again over the ensuing decades. The next crisis came in 123, when Tiberius’ younger brother Gaius was himself elected tribune, a post to which he was re-elected for the following year. Spurred on by the memory of his brother, he put forward a much wider set of radical proposals to the Plebeian Assembly. In addition to supporting the land reforms of his brother, he proposed the following: ●

The equestrians should be given the responsibility to sit on juries for cases involving extortion in the provinces, replacing senators.

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He introduced a range of measures to boost the status of the urban poor in Rome. One of these was that the state should provide them with subsidised grain, to be paid for by taxes collected from the empire. This was far-sighted, as Rome’s population had grown so much that the city could no longer always feed itself from outlying farmland. A second measure was to revive his brother’s land reform by establishing large new colonies in Italy for landless citizens, as well as one on the site of Carthage.

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He proposed that those Italian allies with Latin status should be given Roman citizenship, and the other allies should be given Latin status. The status of the Italian allies was becoming heated, since they now provided so many men for the Roman army. The senators were particularly resistant to this idea, since it would have involved a huge increase in the citizen population. They themselves would have to engage with new rivalries from among aristocratic Italian families, while this new mass of citizenship would have upset the patchwork of clients they had built up over the generations.

This time, the Senate tried to outdo Gaius in winning popular support. The senators knew that the extension of citizenship to the Italian allies was not popular with the Roman masses, and this gave them some leverage. They put up another tribune, Livius Drusus, to offer the people free grain, colonies in Italy, and improved conditions for Italian allies in the army – but no citizenship for them. Gaius was away in Carthage prospecting the new colony, and when he returned the political mood had changed. He failed to be re-elected tribune in 121, and the new consul Opimius and some allied tribunes began to unpick Gaius’ laws. At a public meeting, supporters of both sides came to blows, and a servant of Opimius was murdered. Opimius denounced the murder as a deliberate attack on the state, and convinced the Senate to pass an extraordinary measure, the senatus consultum ultimum (‘final decree of the Senate’), giving him emergency powers to ‘see that the state suffered no harm’. This gave Opimius the legal cover to do as he wished with impunity. Three thousand of Gaius’ supporters were killed and Gaius himself committed suicide. Once again, the senators had got their way through violence.

Optimates and Populares As the tension between the conservative Senate and the common people grew during the final century of the Republic, ambitious politicians broadly sought to win power by identifying with either one or the other. It is a simplification, but a helpful rule of thumb, that those who championed causes popular with the common people, such as the Gracchi, were known as populares (‘those favouring the people’), and they used the Plebeian Assembly to pass legislation. Others, who identified with the Senate, were known as optimates (‘the best men’), and they used the Centuriate Assembly. It should be emphasised that the populares were still drawn from the wealthy elite; they were not ideological revolutionaries who wished to promote the rights of working people as such, but instead saw gaining the support of the common people as the best route to securing their own platform in the state. It is also important to be aware that there were no political parties in the modern sense – being a popularis or an optimas simply denoted the route by which one tried to gain power in the state, and politicians could always change their stance when it suited them.

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None the less, the Gracchi had shown the Roman people that it was possible to challenge the senatorial elite. Many of the issues that the brothers raised, such as land reform, grain provision and the extension of citizenship rights, would continue to feature prominently in Roman politics in the coming decades. So too would the violence.

Gaius Marius In the following generation the city faced military threats in various parts of its empire. The Senate handled these crises badly, and this strengthened the hand of populares politicians. The most famous of these was Gaius Marius, an ambitious general who came not from an established Roman family but from the hill town of Arpinum in southern Latium. Through his military genius, Marius managed to rescue the state from these threats. In doing so, however, he changed the course of Roman politics forever. One trouble spot was the north African kingdom of Numidia, an ally of Rome. In 116 BCE , an internal power struggle broke out there and the Romans were asked to resolve it. In fact, they succeeded only in making an enemy of a Numidian leader, Jugurtha. From 112, he led his troops against the Romans and held out for a number of years, apparently bribing Roman officials appointed by the Senate. When Gaius Marius ran for the consulship of 107, he argued that the people should trust experienced soldiers such as himself, rather than candidates put up by Rome’s elite families. He was elected, making him a novus homo, and soon afterwards the command of the war against Numidia was transferred to him – by a vote of the Plebeian Assembly rather than by the Senate. Within two years he had brought the war to a successful conclusion. It was one of Marius’ junior officers, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who had Jugurtha captured and brought to Rome for execution. Sulla himself was to go on to become one of the most significant figures in Roman history. At the same time, Rome was facing a different crisis on its northern borders. Two tribal peoples from northern Europe, the Cimbri and the Teutones, had migrated south in search of new land; they were now stationed on the borders of Roman territory in Transalpine Gaul and northern Italy (Transalpine Gaul stretched from the Pyrenees to Lake Geneva; the Romans had added it as a province in 121 to secure the land route to Spain). These barbarians had already had some success against Roman armies sent by the Senate when, in 105, at Arausio in Transalpine Gaul they inflicted a crushing defeat on a Roman consular army. This saw the greatest loss of Roman life on the battlefield since Cannae in 216. In the aftermath, Marius was elected consul for 104 and given the command against the tribes. He was subsequently elected consul four more times in a row down to 100, managing to defeat the tribes for good in 101. Such a run of consulships was unprecedented; at some point after 152 a law had been passed dictating a gap of ten years between consulships, but it was evidently ignored in the military crisis. During his consulship of 100, Marius lost some popular support after he had arrested, and

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allowed the murder of, one of the tribunes, Saturninus. He withdrew from public life soon afterwards. Marius’ most significant legacy was the way in which he restructured the Roman army (described in more detail on p. 141). When he became consul in 107, in order to increase the manpower at his disposal, he removed the law preventing a citizen from serving in the army if he was not a landowner. He also promised recruits to his forces that they would be rewarded with a plot of land on retirement. In the short term, this solved the manpower crisis, but in the long term it was to have far-reaching consequences because the landless poor who served in the army now relied upon Marius to provide them with a retirement package. Such soldiers therefore felt more loyalty to their general than to the Roman state, or to the aristocratic Senate, which supposedly represented it. The balance of power in the state had shifted dramatically and in the following decades a number of generals took advantage of this changed state of affairs.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla In 91, the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus was assassinated after proposing, as Gaius Gracchus had, that Rome’s Italian allies should be given citizenship (Drusus’ motives seem to have been self-serving – he advocated the measure in order to widen his citizen support base after failing to get other reforms through). Many of the allies now despaired of winning equal rights and revolted. This war, known as the ‘Social War’ (from the Latin socius, meaning ‘ally’) lasted until 88 and resulted in huge losses of life on either side. The Senate now had little choice but to accept that it was in Rome’s long-term interest to extend citizenship rights, and all free inhabitants of Italy south of the River Po were given Roman citizenship over the next few years. This had a dramatic effect on the Roman citizen body, which probably trebled to about one million. Roman Italy became the closest thing to a nation state that the ancient world would ever know. The Social War also brought Marius and Sulla to centre stage: Marius had returned to action as a commander of forces in the north of Italy, while Sulla played the same role in the south. A bitter rivalry between the two men flared up in 89 BCE when a war broke out in Asia Minor. Mithridates, king of Pontus, a region close to the Roman province of Asia, was provoked into invading Roman territory after the Romans had sided against him in a border dispute. He urged the slaughter of all families with Roman or Italian citizenship in the region, and tens of thousands were killed. However, many Greek cities of the region welcomed him as a liberator. Both Marius and Sulla wanted the command against him, eyeing the enormous wealth to be gained by a successful campaign. Sulla was consul in 88, and so the Senate appointed him to lead the task force. However, Marius, now 70 years old, arranged for a tribune to propose to the Plebeian Assembly that Sulla’s appointment be overturned in favour of himself. The motion was passed. This set of events illustrates the fault-line in Roman politics at this time: the Plebeian Assembly was used as an alternative powerbase to challenge the wishes of the senatorial elite.

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Chaos ensued, and Sulla took the law into his own hands. He marched on Rome at the head of his six legions based in Campania, drove Marius out of the city on the grounds that he was a tyrant, settled matters in Rome to his own advantage, and then headed east to fight Mithridates. In doing this, Sulla had set the terrible precedent of a Roman commander marching his troops against Rome itself. It is telling that all but one of his senior officers refused to make the journey with him, perceiving that it would undermine the Republic, but that his common soldiers followed him willingly. Once again, ordinary Roman soldiers showed less loyalty to an aristocratic system of government that offered them little than to a commander who promised them financial rewards and gifts of land upon retirement. In Sulla’s absence, Marius himself marched on Rome in 87, massacring his opponents and seizing power. He declared himself consul for 86 (bypassing elections), but died shortly into his term of office. His cause was taken up by his ally Cinna; in turn, Sulla made a lenient peace with Mithridates in order to get back to Rome quickly to tackle the crisis he saw unfolding there. When he returned to Italy in 83, the stage was set for a full-scale civil war. After a series of bloody battles, Sulla captured Rome in November 82, meaning that he was now in sole charge. He had himself appointed dictator for an indefinite period (rather than for the six-month period that was conventional) with the title of ‘Dictator for the making of laws and the establishment of the Republic’. It was the first time that a dictator had been appointed since 202. He confiscated land in the cities of Italy that had opposed him, and reassigned it to his veteran soldiers, perhaps 80,000 in all; this caused widespread social upheaval throughout the peninsula. As dictator, Sulla attempted to downgrade the tribunate and strengthen the powers of the Senate. Tribunes were no longer allowed to introduce legislation to the Plebeian Assembly, and their power of veto was curtailed. Ex-tribunes were barred from standing for any other political office, reducing the tribunate to an unattractive deadend for ambitious politicians. Sulla shored up the power of the Senate in a number of ways; for example, the number of senators was increased to perhaps as many as 600, and the number of quaestors increased to 20. He also made the quaestorship the automatic point of entry to the Senate, thus ensuring a healthy number of senators in future years. He established permanent standing courts, giving back to the senators the right to sit as jurors, and removing that right from the equestrians (many equestrians had in any case been elevated to the newly enlarged Senate, while others were killed in Sulla’s purges). Some of Sulla’s reforms were sensible and longlasting; all of them were done with the intention of fortifying the pre-eminence of the Senate. Sulla combined this with a brutal purge of his opponents. He introduced a process called proscription, whereby the Senate drew up (on behalf of Sulla) a list of men considered to be enemies of the state. The list was published in the forum, and any man on it was immediately stripped of his citizenship. Any person, slave or free, who gave information leading to the death of a proscribed man was given a financial reward; anyone who killed a proscribed man was allowed to keep part of his estate, with the rest auctioned off by the Roman state. The sons and grandsons of the

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proscribed were barred from public office. Many victims were decapitated, and their heads displayed on spears in the forum. Plutarch gives a sense of the terror in Italy: These lists were published not only in Rome but in every city of Italy. No place remained undefiled by murder – neither temple of God, nor hearth of hospitality, nor ancestral home. Husbands were slaughtered in the embraces of their wedded wives, sons in the arms of their mothers. And those who were killed in the passion of the moment or because of some private hatred were as nothing as compared with those who were butchered for the sake of their property. Plutarch, Sulla, 31

It is not clear how many leading men died in these purges, but it was at least 500 and perhaps many more. As Plutarch indicates at the end of this passage, in many cases they were killed as much for their property as for any political stance they had taken. Sulla resigned his dictatorship at the end of 81, but ensured that he was elected consul in 80. In 79, he retired from public life. As he saw it, he had done his job of giving control of the Roman state back to the senatorial elite. He died of natural causes a few months later.

Crassus, Pompey and Caesar Within ten years, Sulla’s reforms had been largely dismantled by other leading men. Two amongst them were Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey) (Fig. 1.16) and Marcus Licinius Crassus, both powerful army generals who came to the fore in the 70s. Pompey was the son of an ex-consul who had died in the Marian purges of Rome. He inherited the loyalty of his father’s legions, and he offered them to Sulla’s cause in 83. When Pompey led these men successfully against the Marian forces in Africa, he persuaded Sulla to grant him a triumph (a grand military parade of celebration for a victorious general (see p. 142), even though he had not yet been a consul or praetor, as was normally required. In 77, one of the consuls of the previous year, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, tried to lead an uprising against the state from a base in Etruria and northern Italy. The Senate granted Pompey the imperium of a propraetor to lead troops against the revolt, and this he did successfully. This appointment was another extraordinary precedent: Pompey was allowed to become propraetor without having held the office of praetor. His success convinced the senators that they should give him a similar command in Spain, where a Marian loyalist, Quintus Sertorius, had tried to set up an alternative Roman state. Pompey campaigned there between 77 and 72, in what was effectively a Roman civil war. Eventually he prevailed and brought order to the province. When he returned to Italy in 71, he was awarded a second triumph. Marcus Licinius Crassus belonged to a patrician family and had acquired fabulous wealth – in no small part by buying up land cheaply during Sulla’s proscriptions (he too had allied himself with Sulla). In 73, a new crisis emerged for the Roman state when scores of slaves escaped from a gladiatorial training school in Capua, led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus. The fugitives soon gathered a vast force of some

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Fig. 1.16 This marble bust of Pompey combines a thoughtful expression with hair curled back, and so has echoes of busts of Alexander the Great.

70,000; many of these were runaway slaves too, but there were also disaffected free men – another indication of the sense of disillusionment felt among the masses towards the Roman elite. The Roman forces sent to counter this revolt initially fared badly, and in 71 Crassus was given sole command against them. He turned the tide and in a final, decisive battle, captured 6,000 rebels; he had them all crucified along the Appian Way. Soon afterwards, Pompey and his troops arrived to help with the mop-up operation; although Crassus initially welcomed this, he came to regret it when he saw Pompey claiming credit for putting down the revolt. The two men became bitter enemies. Both marched their forces towards Rome and seemed destined for a show-down, but the matter was resolved when they agreed to share the consulship for 70. In Pompey’s case, he was completely unqualified: not only was he not a member of the Senate, he had still not even held the praetorship, and was too young at the age of 35. Still, he was elected, and during the year the two of them undid the reforms of Sulla that had not already been discarded. In particular, the tribunate was restored to its former power; this was no doubt done not from any ideological belief in the rights of the people, but because it represented such a good avenue for powerful men to gain a controlling influence of the state. There were now three such avenues: working with the Senate in the traditional way, using the tribunate to rally support from the Roman people, or simply bearing down on the city at the head of a large army (as Sulla had been the first to do).

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During the 60s, Pompey’s star continued its dramatic rise. In 67, a tribune, Gabinius, proposed to the Plebeian Assembly that he should be given an unprecedented three-year command against the Mediterranean pirates, who posed a huge threat to maritime trade routes. The command was to cover the entire Mediterranean Sea, including all its islands, as well as territory for 50 miles inland. The proposal met with fierce opposition from the senators, who feared giving one man so much power. Yet Gabinius stood firm and the proposal had popular support. Once he had been appointed, Pompey finished the job in just three months. The Plebeian Assembly then transferred his command to the east, where Mithridates had been openly at war with the Romans again since 75. Pompey next defeated Mithridates and brought the entire region under Roman control. Supported by shrewd advisers, he then engaged in a massive administrative reorganisation. The idea was to create a ring of Roman provinces from the Black Sea to Egypt. Some existing provinces were enlarged, while others, such as Syria, were created for the first time. As well as these provinces, Pompey struck deals with other states: they were to remain loyal to Rome as client kingdoms, and so provide a buffer zone between Roman territory and the Parthian Empire to the east. Pompey also founded or refounded about 50 cities in the region. It was an extraordinary expansion of Roman power, brilliantly conceived. In 62, Pompey was ready to return to Rome. Many there remembered Sulla’s return from the east in 83 and feared a similar military takeover; it was hard to see how Pompey, now such a powerful figure, could return to being just one citizen among many. In the event, he did disband his army and enter Rome as a private citizen. The following year he was allowed to celebrate an extraordinary third triumph, which lasted for an unprecedented two days. Plutarch relates the significance of the event: But what seemed to be the greatest glory of all and one quite unprecedented in Roman history was that this third triumph of his was over the third continent . . . his first had been over Africa, his second over Europe, and now this last one was over Asia, so that in his three triumphs he seemed in a sense to have led the whole world captive. Plutarch, Pompey, 45

The Catilinarian Conspiracy In 63, the Roman state came under a new threat of rebellion in Italy when a young noble called Catiline was caught plotting its overthrow; the consul of that year, Marcus Tullius Cicero, swiftly had many of Catiline’s supporters executed without trial, while Catiline himself was killed in battle soon afterwards. The conspiracy once again illustrated a key point about Roman politics: that there was so much discontent among the common people that a charismatic aristocrat could readily call men to arms against the state.

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The wealth Pompey brought back from the east was eye-watering; as well as 20,000 talents given to the Roman treasury, the empire’s annual revenue from tribute increased from 200 million to 340 million sesterces at a stroke. Moreover, Pompey gave at least 6,000 sesterces to each of his common soldiers (more than ten times their annual salary), and much more to his officers. Many cities of the east remained loyal to him in the years to come, since he had brought them more peace and stability than they had known before. In some quarters there, he was treated almost as a god.

The Culture of the Late Republic Although the late Republic saw enormous political turmoil, it was also a time of great aesthetic and cultural development, as the influence of Hellenisation continued. Public architecture developed significantly with new buildings such as Pompey’s magnificent theatre complex (see p. 315). There was also an explosion in the number of grand private houses; Pliny the Elder records that the house of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was the grandest in Rome in 78, but 35 years later it did not even make the top one hundred. These buildings, both public and private, were adorned with stunning works of art, which had poured in from the conquests of the east by Sulla and Pompey. It was in the field of literature that this cultural dynamism was most evident. This was the era of Cicero, one of the greatest writers of Latin prose, whose life is described on p. 67. History writing was taken to a new level by Sallust, one of Caesar’s officers, who wrote acerbic accounts of both the Catilinarian conspiracy and the war against Jugurtha. Caesar himself wrote his Commentaries on the Gallic Warr, the only surviving account by a general on campaign from Roman history. Two poets also stand out. Lucretius composed De Rerum Natura (‘On the Nature of Things’), a philosophical poem outlining the theories of Epicurus, including the atomic theory of the universe (see p. 214). A very different sort of poet was Catullus, who wrote intensely personal love poetry modelled on earlier Greek poets. Indeed, Catullus was the first to introduce such poetry into the Latin language, and his work remains justly celebrated. One famous example is a poem to his lover, Lesbia: Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us value all the rumours of judgemental old men at just one dime! Suns are able to set and rise again: for us, when a brief light has set just once an everlasting night must be slept. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred, then, when we’ve made many thousands, we’ll mix up the number, so that we don’t know, or so that some bad soul can’t cast an evil eye when he finds out there were so many kisses. Catullus, Poem 5

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Back at Rome, Crassus sought to counter Pompey’s rise. As part of his strategy, he promoted the career of another young patrician as a potential rival and counterpoint. His name was Gaius Julius Caesar. As aedile in 65, Caesar won popularity by lavishing money on public works and games. In 63, he was elected Pontifex Maximus, the chief priest of Roman religion, a life-long post that was normally held by a far older man with a long career behind him (see p. 201). He was also elected praetor for 62, after which he served as the propraetor of Further Spain in 61, where he governed well and won the respect of his soldiers. He returned to Rome in 60 expecting both to be awarded a triumph and to stand for the consulship.

The First Triumvirate During the 60s, an ultra-conservative group emerged in the Senate, led by Cato the Younger, the great-grandson of Cato the Elder. This group managed to block two key demands of Pompey when he returned from the east: that his eastern settlements should be ratified, and that his veterans should be settled on land in Italy. At the same time, the Senate blocked Caesar’s demands that he be allowed to celebrate a triumph and run for the consulship in the same year: they forced him to choose between the two. In this situation, Caesar approached Pompey and proposed an alliance against the Senate; it was sealed by marriage when Pompey married Caesar’s daughter Julia. Caesar knew that the two of them would benefit from having Crassus’ wealth on board, and so he brokered a reconciliation between Pompey and Crassus. The three men now ganged up in order to get their own agenda passed, while the Senate remained helpless. This arrangement is known today as the ‘First Triumvirate’, although it was an informal arrangement rather than a formally ratified rule of three men, as the word ‘triumvirate’ suggests (and as the Second Triumvirate was to be – see p. 65). With the backing of the other two, Caesar was elected consul for 59. He managed to sideline his co-consul, Bibulus, largely by using intimidation at public meetings and assemblies. Caesar passed all the legislation that the three men wanted: Pompey’s eastern settlement was ratified and his veterans given land. To secure his own future position, Caesar gave himself a five-year command in southern Gaul and in Illyria, with the command of five legions (rather than the much more minor posting the Senate had intended for him); Crassus benefited financially from a number of laws, particularly relating to tax collection in the east. But Caesar’s methods were highly controversial, and his enemies were able to argue afterwards that his legislation had been passed illegally. Caesar headed to southern Gaul in 58 and began an astonishing campaign of conquest, which brought the whole of Gaul under Roman control over the ensuing years. His generalship was both brilliant and brutal, and it is estimated that he killed up to a million people in his campaigns. He also transformed the map of Europe: until this point, Rome’s empire had been based around the Mediterranean;

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Caesar’s conquests turned it into an empire that would move north and encompass most of western Europe (Fig. 1.17). In 55 and 54 he even led his men on reconnaissance missions to Britain, an island believed to lie at the very edge of the world. Caesar’s successes left Crassus and Pompey feeling threatened. The city of Rome was virtually controlled by a tribune called Publius Clodius Pulcher, a patrician who had had himself adopted into a plebeian family in order to stand for the tribunate. He originally aligned himself with the triumvirate, and had his bitter enemy Cicero exiled in 58 as revenge for his humiliation during the Bona Dea scandal (see p. 206), as well as securing the removal of Cato the Younger from Rome by having him appointed to annex Cyprus. However, Clodius also organised a street gang to ensure that he could control the public assemblies. This set him in opposition to Pompey, the dominant triumvir in Rome, and he in turn established his own street gang, led by Titus Annius Milo. The two gangs fought with each other for control of the city throughout the next five years. In 56, with tensions running high, the triumvirs reestablished their agreement. Caesar was given a further five years’ command in Gaul, Pompey received a five-year command in Spain, which he was allowed to exercise from Rome, while Crassus took a five-year command in Syria, from where he could take on the Parthian Empire. Pompey and Crassus were to be consuls in 55. All these decisions were taken without consulting the Senate, and were put through via tribunes and popular votes. However, the triumvirate was always a fragile arrangement of convenience between three highly ambitious men. In 54, a key link between Caesar and Pompey was broken when Julia died in childbirth. The following year, Crassus was killed during a disastrous military defeat against the Parthians at Carrhae. In 52, street fighting between the gangs of Clodius and Milo effectively blocked government. When Clodius was murdered, rioters burnt down the Senate house. The senators declared a senatus consultum optimum; they turned to Pompey to bring calm to the city, appointing him sole consul for the year (another constitutional precedent). Pompey did restore order by force, and the Senate now tried to bring him over to their side against Caesar, whom they feared more. Some senators were calling for Caesar to be brought to trial for the way he had conducted his consulship of 59, and for war crimes in Gaul. Although Pompey did not publicly back these calls, he did nothing to oppose them. Caesar realised that he would be in danger if he laid down his command and returned to Rome as a private citizen. He would then be liable to prosecution, which could lead to political and financial ruin, and perhaps also to his death. He tried to negotiate, and in December 50, he proposed that both he and Pompey lay down their commands at the same time. The ultra-conservative senators, led by Cato and his circle, ensured that this did not come to pass, and Caesar was left with two options: either to return to Rome as a private citizen, or to march on the city at the head of his army. In January 49, he marched one legion across the river Rubicon, the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. In doing so, he had started a civil war.

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Caesar as Dictator Pompey, who now presented himself as a defender of the republican cause, had the support of Rome’s leading senators, as well as the control of Italy, Spain, the eastern provinces and the corn supply. However, the two legions he had at hand had been taken from Caesar, and he did not trust them to remain loyal to him. He withdrew to Greece with his supporters, Cato and Cicero among them. Caesar was thus left in control of Italy. He was appointed dictator for eleven days, and saw to it that he was elected consul for 48. He would take up the dictatorship again for one year in October 48. Before that, he moved to Greece and defeated Pompey’s forces in a battle at Pharsalus. Pompey himself fled to Egypt, where he was treacherously killed by the boy-king Ptolemy XIII, who was himself fighting a civil war with his co-ruler and older sister, Cleopatra VII. Cleopatra was to play a defining role in the next 18 years of Roman history. Soon after Caesar arrived in Alexandria, he fell out with Ptolemy; the boy-king turned the local people against Caesar, and he was besieged in a palace by an angry mob. Cleopatra took her chance, smuggling herself into Caesar’s presence rolled in a carpet. He was captivated, and so began both a love affair and a political alliance. In 47 Cleopatra gave birth to their son, Caesarion. Although Caesar had to leave Egypt to fight in Pontus, in 46 he summoned Cleopatra and Caesarion to Rome and installed them in a villa near the Tiber. In Pontus, Caesar defeated Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, in a lightning campaign that he later commemorated with the phrase: veni, vidi, vici (‘I came, I saw, I conquered’). When he returned to Italy, he faced a mutiny by his troops who believed that they should have been discharged after Pharsalus. Caesar appeared before them just in time to calm the situation. In January 46, Caesar moved to Africa where Pompeian forces had gathered and, once again, he secured victory. When he returned to Rome, he was appointed dictator again, this time for ten years, and staged an extraordinary triumph celebrating his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa. Its scale put even the third triumph of Pompey into the shade. As part of the festivities, he handed out 400 sesterces to every citizen. He was also magnanimous to supporters of Pompey, showing them mercy if they offered him their support. One man shown this clemency was Brutus, who would go on to become one of Caesar’s assassins; another was Cicero, who nervously returned to Rome after the battle of Pharsalus: He [Cicero] was some way ahead of the rest when Caesar saw him coming, and he immediately got down and embraced him and then took him along with him for a considerable distance, talking to him privately. Afterwards, too, Caesar always honoured him and showed him kindness. Plutarch, Cicero, 39

When he had first become dictator, Caesar had embarked upon a wide range of popular reforms, and these now gathered pace. Among the most important were: the reorganisation of the calendar (see pp. 425–426); the granting of citizen status to Cisalpine Gaul; a grant of citizenship to doctors and teachers resident at Rome;

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Fig. 1.18 This denarius was issued by Julius Caesar in c. 47 BCE . On the obverse is the head of Venus, while the reverse depicts Aeneas carrying Anchises in one hand, and a Trojan statue of Athena, known as the palladium, in the other. With this coinage Julius Caesar promoted his claim to be descended from Aeneas.

colonisation and resettlement of 80,000 veterans and urban poor in Italy and the provinces; debt relief, with assessments made at pre-war values; a major programme of public works; and a requirement that land-owners should employ citizens as at least a third of their workforce. None the less, Caesar was intent on keeping power to himself. The Senate continued to offer him new honours, and coins started to appear in Rome with Caesar’s head on them – the first time that a portrait of a living Roman appeared on a coin minted in Rome. Other coins emphasised his family’s supposed lineage all the way back to Aeneas (he traced his family name, Iulius, back to Iulus, the son of Aeneas) (Fig. 1.18); others still celebrated his victories in Gaul. Many Roman aristocrats felt growing alarm at what now seemed like a monarchy in all but name. The tipping point came in February 44 when Caesar had himself appointed dictator perpetuo, ‘dictator for life’. A conspiracy to murder him now firmed up; the assassins had to act quickly as Caesar was planning to leave Italy for major campaigns in Dacia and Parthia. The conspirators were led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, and may have numbered as many as sixty (although only about twenty are named). On 15th March, they struck him down at a meeting of the Senate in the theatre of Pompey.

After the Assassination Yet the conspirators’ victory was short-lived. Although they hailed themselves as the ‘liberators’ of the Roman people (Fig. 1.19), there was little popular support for their actions and they had no plan for what was to follow. They withdrew to the Capitoline where they debated their next steps. Caesar’s supporters were able to organise themselves, led by his right-hand man, Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony). By brokering a compromise with the liberators, he was allowed to organise Caesar’s funeral in the forum, during which he read out the contents of Caesar’s will (a speech immortalised by Shakespeare’s fictional version of it): the dictator had left 300 sesterces to every citizen in Rome, and had donated some of his private gardens to the people. Those present started to riot out of anger at the assassination, and the liberators were forced to flee Rome.

Chapter 1 From Kingdom to Republic

Fig. 1.19 Marcus Junius Brutus issued this denarius in 43 or 42 BCE . On the obverse is his head, and on the reverse a pileus (the cap of liberty worn by a freedman) in between two daggers. Underneath is a date: the Ides of March.

Antony was now the most powerful man in the city and seemed well placed to assume Caesar’s mantle. However, the will had contained another surprise: Caesar had named as his heir not Antony, but his 18-year-old great-nephew whom he barely knew, Gaius Octavius. At the time Octavius was in Illyricum, preparing to take part in Caesar’s Parthian campaign. Against the wishes of his own family, he travelled to Rome to claim his inheritance, renaming himself Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in the process (modern historians therefore refer to him at this stage of his career as Octavian, although he called himself just ‘Caesar’). Octavian was later to become the first Roman emperor, at which point he assumed another name, Augustus. He is perhaps the most significant figure in all Roman history. Great tension ensued between Antony and Octavian. Octavian was able to raise two legions from his adopted father’s veterans, and some soldiers of Antony also defected to him, lured by the name of Caesar. At the same time, Antony was waging a campaign against the liberators in Cisalpine Gaul. The Senate did not know which party of the three to back; it showed its indecision by ratifying all of Caesar’s reforms, but at the same time offering an amnesty to the assassins. At the urging of Cicero, the Senate decided to seek alliance with Octavian, believing that he could be useful in helping to remove the real danger, Antony, and then discarded. The senators’ plan backfired: Octavian marched eight legions to Rome in the summer of 43 and demanded to be elected consul, something which duly happened. He was just 19 years old. He revoked the amnesty given to the liberators by the Senate, and then looked to make an alliance with Antony.

The Second Triumvirate Octavian and Antony now joined forces with another of Caesar’s loyal lieutenants, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, to form a three-man coalition today known as the ‘Second Triumvirate’. Unlike the First Triumvirate, this was formally established by a law passed in the Plebeian Assembly in November 43; it was to last for five years. As a result, the three men were able to rule as a military junta.

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The triumvirs needed money to pay their troops, so they reintroduced proscriptions. They refused to show any clemency, arguing that Caesar had been betrayed by employing just such a policy. The chilling wording of their edict climaxed as follows: May fortune, then, bless our proclamation: that no one is to harbour or conceal any of the persons listed below in this register, or arrange to convey them anywhere else, or be induced by payment to do so. If any person is discovered to have saved, assisted or been privy to information about them, we regard such a person as one of the proscribed, and we exclude the possibility of excuse or pardon. The killers are to bring the heads of their victims to us: for each, a free man will receive 25,000 denarii, and a slave will receive his personal freedom, 10,000 denarii, and Roman citizenship for his master. The same will hold for informers, and to preserve anonymity the names of none of those who receive rewards will be noted in our records. Appian, Civil Wars, 4.11

The most famous victim of these proscriptions was Cicero (Fig. 1.20), who had made an impassioned set of speeches against Antony after the assassination. Cicero’s head and his hands were nailed to the speaker’s platform in the forum – symbolising the silencing of the hands that had written his speeches and of the voice that had delivered them.

Fig. 1.20 This veristic marble bust of Cicero emphasises personal details, such as his large and asymmetrical nose, jowls and the lines around his eyes. The overall impression is of wisdom and gravitas.

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Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE ) was a key figure in the final decades of the Republic. He was born to an equestrian family in the hill town of Arpinum in Latium (its other famous son was Gaius Marius). His family had never played a serious role in Roman politics, so when he became consul in 63 he was a novus homo. Earlier in his career, he had made his name as a lawyer, most famously prosecuting Verres, the governor of Sicily, for corruption in 70. Unlike other leading players of his day in Roman politics, Cicero had no military experience and relied on his talents as a speaker to advance himself. Throughout his political life, Cicero fought for the preservation of the Republic, vainly hoping that the senators and the equestrians could learn to work together in harmony. He was offered the chance to join Caesar, Pompey and Crassus in their coalition of 60, but turned it down on principle. In 58, he was exiled for a year for the way in which he crushed the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63; however, he was rehabilitated after his return and was given the governorship of Cilicia in 51. Cicero reluctantly sided with Pompey in the civil war against Caesar, and although he took no part in Caesar’s assassination, he clearly approved of it; in February 43 he wrote a letter to Trebonius, one of the conspirators, which began: ‘How I wish that you had invited me to that most beautiful feast on the Ides of March!’ Cicero was executed later that same year on the orders of Marc Antony, against whom he had delivered a series of savagely critical speeches, known as the Philippics Philippics.. Cicero’s writing leaves an extraordinary legacy. One of the greatest prose writers in the Latin language, a vast body of his works has survived, including speeches for the law courts, philosophical treatises and poems. He was also a great letter writer, and about 1000 of his letters remain. They are today divided into 35 books – 16 to his family and friends, 16 to his closest friend Atticus, and 3 to his brother Quintus. These throw a very detailed light on the Rome of his day, and allow us to go behind the scenes of public life to learn about all manner of aspects of his life, public and private. In fact, the two decades during which they are written is the best documented period in the whole of the ancient world.

In 42, Antony led the Caesarians to a decisive victory over the liberators’ army at Philippi in Macedonia (both Brutus and Cassius committed suicide during the battle). The triumvirs now divided the empire between them, with Octavian ruling in the west, Antony in the east, and Lepidus in Africa. They also declared the deification of Julius Caesar, and Octavian could now refer to himself as divi filius, the ‘son of a god’. After Philippi, Octavian returned to Italy and caused huge social upheaval by confiscating vast tracts of land in order to settle 100,000 veterans. Many farmers were thrown off their land, and Octavian became very unpopular. His fragile alliance with Antony was threatened in 41 when Antony’s wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius raised eight legions and marched on Rome in protest at the confiscations. Octavian chased them to Perusia and forced them into submission. In 40, a civil war seemed imminent between Antony and Octavian, but the two men met and settled their

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differences. As a sign of their alliance, Antony now married Octavia, the sister of Octavian (Fulvia had recently died). However, in 41 Antony had met Cleopatra and started an affair with her, and she had borne him twins the following year. His relationship with Cleopatra would ultimately lead to his undoing. For the next four years, the triumvirs got on with ruling in their own spheres. In the west, Octavian, aided by his lieutenant Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, waged a campaign against Sextus Pompeius, the only-surviving son of Pompey, who was commanding a pirate navy from a base in Sicily. These pirates were finally defeated in 36. In the aftermath, Lepidus, who had managed to distance himself from the quarrels of Antony and Octavian, made a fatal political move by trying to take control of a number of Octavian’s legions. Octavian accused him of attempting rebellion; Lepidus was removed from the political scene and stripped of all his titles except that of Pontifex Maximus, which he had assumed after the death of Julius Caesar. He lived on in relative obscurity until his death in 13 BCE . In the east, Antony waged campaigns against the Parthians with moderate success. In 37, he abandoned Octavia and renewed his affair with Cleopatra; at some point, he married her under Egyptian law (a marriage unrecognised in Rome), and formally recognised their twin children; Cleopatra soon gave birth to a further son. Following his campaigns in the east, Antony returned to Alexandria in 34 and staged what looked like a triumph for a victory over the Armenians: it was without precedent for a Roman general to stage a triumph outside of Rome. During the event, known as the Donations of Alexandria, Antony declared Caesarion to be the legitimate heir of Julius Caesar, proclaiming him ‘King of Kings’. He also declared Cleopatra ‘Queen of Kings’ (Fig. 1.21). Back in Rome, Octavian waged a skilful propaganda campaign against Antony. He portrayed himself as the protector of traditional Roman values, while Antony was depicted as someone who had abandoned his loyalty to Rome under the spell of a foreign queen. War was now inevitable, and some 300 senators (out of 1000) departed Rome to side with Antony. In 32 Octavian obtained what he claimed was Antony’s

Fig. 1.21 This denarius minted in 32 BCE shows Cleopatra on the obverse with the title ‘Queen of Kings and of her sons who are Kings’, and Antony on the reverse celebrating his conquest of Armenia. The two are presented as joint rulers of the east.

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will and read it out to the Senate. It was met with shock: Caesarion was named as the true heir of Caesar, and Antony stated that he wanted to be buried with Cleopatra in Egypt. Octavian now claimed that Antony was intending to move the imperial capital from Rome to Alexandria. Public opinion moved firmly behind Octavian, and people took a personal oath of loyalty to him. He declared war – cleverly, he did so against Cleopatra rather than Antony so that it could be presented as a war against a foreign enemy. The decisive battle came at sea on 2nd September 31, off Actium on the west coast of Greece. Under the command of Agrippa, Octavian’s navy scored a victory, but not before Antony and Cleopatra had deserted their troops and sailed back to Egypt. Soon afterwards 18 legions of Antony deserted. The following year Octavian headed to Egypt and defeated Antony and Cleopatra’s forces again outside of Alexandria. More of Antony’s men deserted, and the lovers then both separately committed suicide. Octavian was now the sole ruler of the Roman world – the last man standing after a century of civil unrest and warfare. The Roman Republic had passed into history.

In Their Own Words 1.6 1

Read the accounts of Julius Caesar’s assassination by Suetonius, Julius Caesar 80–82, and Plutarch, Julius Caesar 63–66. How do they compare?

2

Read Horace’s Odes 1.37, and Virgil, Aeneid, 8.671–713. In what ways is Cleopatra demonised as a foreign queen in these works? Is there anything positive in the portrayal of her?

3

Read Sallust’s analysis of why the Republic collapsed at Jugurthine War, 41–42. How valid do you think his arguments are?

Review and Reflect 1.5 1

Do you think that the collapse of the Republic was inevitable? If not, how could it have been saved?

2

Why do you think that this was also a period of great cultural innovation and creativity?

3

People take different views as to when the Republic really ended: the dictatorship of Sulla, the command of Pompey in the east, the first triumvirate, the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, and the defeat of Antony by Octavian. Which point do you think marks the point at which the Republic was finished?

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Further Reading 1.4 Alston, Richard, Rome’s Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapters 6, 7. Flower, Harriet (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, Republicc, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chapter 4. Flower, Harriet, Roman Republics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). Goldsworthy, Adrian, Antony and Cleopatra (London: Phoenix, 2011). Goldsworthy, Adrian, Caesarr (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006). Gruen, Erich, The Last Generation of the Roman Republicc (London: University of California Press, 1995). Scullard, Howard, From the Gracchi to Nero (London: Methuen, 1982). Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Tempest, Kathryn, Cicero: Politics and Persuasion in Ancient Rome (London: Continuum, 2011).

Date

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Population of Rome at least 250,000

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Gaius Gracchus proposes a wider range of reforms

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Gaius Gracchus commits suicide; 3000 of his supporters murdered

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War against Jugurtha

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Marius’ first consulship

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Battle of Arausio – Cimbri and Teutones defeat Roman forces in Gaul

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Marius finally defeats the Cimbri and Teutones

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Social War between Rome and its Italian allies

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Marius marches on Rome and seizes power

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Sulla returns from the east and marches on Rome

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Slave revolt led by Spartacus

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his chapter outlines the centuries of Roman history under the rule of the emperors from 31 BCE to 476 CE . It begins with an extensive examination of the rule of Octavian, who took the name Augustus, and how he set up a political system that lasted for centuries. It then focuses on the key developments in Roman history until the collapse of the western Roman empire in the 5th century CE .

I Augustus and the Principate (31 BCE –14 CE ) After Actium, Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt. Many of their troops deserted to Octavian who headed to Egypt in pursuit. As he approached Alexandria in 30, first Antony then Cleopatra committed suicide. Octavian also had Caesarion murdered, and he turned Egypt into a Roman province. This gave him access to the country’s vast riches, with which he was able to pay his troops. He returned to Rome in the summer of 29 and held a triumph lasting an unprecedented three days; it celebrated victories in Dalmatia, Actium and Egypt, and so was known as the Triple Triumph. It promoted Octavian’s image as Rome’s supreme military commander, something reinforced further by the creation of a memorial in Rome: a triumphal triple arch (Fig. 2.1). Octavian now had many more troops than was necessary; consequently, he reduced the number of legions from 60 to 25, and settled some 100,000 veterans both in Italy and abroad (28 settlements were founded in Italy alone). He also announced an amnesty at the end of the civil wars, which allowed peace to be established. Octavian’s challenge was now to consolidate his power while avoiding the fate of his adoptive father. In this, he proved a far more skilled political operator than Julius 73

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Fig. 2.1 The triumphal arch in Rome, which the Senate dedicated in 27 BCE to honour Augustus and commemorate his Triple Triumph, has not survived. However, copies were set up in the empire, including this surviving example from Rimini on the east coast of Italy.

Caesar. Over the following decades, through a process of trial and error, he managed to restructure the Roman state.

1 The Constitutional Settlements of 27 and 23 Octavian held the consulship every year between 31 and 27, but he knew that this situation could not last. Therefore, in 27 he assumed a new status; today this is known as the First Constitutional Settlement. This was carefully stage-managed at a meeting of the Senate on 13th January 27, at which Octavian suddenly announced his intention to retire from public life. Senators, some of whom had no doubt been primed in advance, expressed their dismay, and begged Octavian to reconsider; they argued that the state could not do without him. Octavian could therefore present himself as reluctantly staying on in power at the pleading of the Roman Senate and people. He would continue to be a consul, and was granted a collection of powers and honours: ●

He was given a ten-year command of a super-province consisting of the regions of the empire with most of the troops stationed in them: Spain, Gaul and Syria. This gave him control of about 20 legions. The other provinces of the empire remained under the control of magistrates sent out by the Senate.

Chapter 2 The Emperors ●

He was given the new name Augustus, so that in full his title was Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Commander Caesar, the son of a god, Augustus). Augustus meant something like ‘the revered one’, suggesting the religious awe in which he should be held. The word imperator, which meant ‘commander’, gives us the modern word ‘emperor’, the term used today to describe Augustus and his successors.

●

He was to be referred to as the princeps (‘the first citizen’) because of his services to the state. Romans therefore referred to the political system he established as the principatus (‘Principate’).

●

The Senate commissioned a golden shield, the Clipeus Virtutis (‘Shield of Virtue’) engraved with four of Augustus’ pre-eminent qualities (courage, clemency, justice and piety). This was displayed in the Senate house and replicas were set up throughout the Empire.

Augustus himself comments on this settlement in his account of his reign, Res Gestae Divi Augusti (see box, p. 77): In my sixth and seventh consulships (28–27 BCE ), after I had extinguished the civil wars, having become master of everything by the consent of all, I transferred the Republic from my power to the control of the Senate and the Roman people. In return for this service of mine by decree of the Senate, I was called Augustus and the doorposts of my house were screened with laurel at the public expense, and a civic crown was fixed above my door and a golden shield was set up in the Julian Senate-house with an inscription attesting that the Senate and the Roman people gave it to me because of my courage, clemency, justice, and piety. And after that I excelled all in authority [auctoritas], but I had no more power [potestas] than others who were my colleagues in each magistracy. Augustus, Res Gestae, 34

The final sentence illustrates a key point about how Augustus wanted to be seen: it was the force and quality of his character (auctoritas) that marked him out, rather than any formal power (potestas). The word used to describe this force of character, auctoritas, is hard to translate precisely into English, but it conveys the idea of Augustus’ influence and the respect in which he was held. In effect, Augustus’ auctoritas allowed him to indicate what he thought should happen, and it was then carried out. The First Constitutional Settlement went some way to establishing Augustus’ position, but it did not provide a permanent solution. For one thing, by continuing to serve as consul each year, he looked like a monarch and reduced the number of senators who could hold the office. Secondly, the powers and honours conferred on him could not easily be passed on to a successor, and Augustus needed to come up with a way to promote someone to succeed him after his death. As a result, in 23, what is known as the Second Constitutional Settlement was established. This gave Augustus two key new powers: ●

Imperium proconsulare maius (imperium greater than that of a pro-consul). This gave him power as the head of the Roman army and also the right to

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overrule any provincial governor. This meant that Augustus could give up the consulship but still retain command of the legions in the provinces. ●

Tribunicia potestas (tribunician power). As the name suggests, this gave Augustus power equal to that of a tribune, which meant that he could convene the Senate, pass legislation through the Plebeian Assembly, and present himself as a representative of the people. It also gave him a veto over any other legislation put forward.

These settlements largely defined Augustus’ power, although he did assume other honours later in his reign: when Lepidus died in 13 BCE , Augustus took on the role of Pontifex Maximus, while in 2 BCE he was given the title of pater patriae (‘father of the nation’). This suggested that his relationship with the Roman people was similar to that of the male head of a Roman family to his household (see p. 229). Augustus claimed to have restored the Republic, but this was merely a facade; he had created for himself an overarching position above the traditional structures of the Republic (Fig. 2.2). None the less, he was clever enough to maintain the facade by rejecting the office of dictatorship, or any other position that might indicate that he was a monarch.

Fig. 2.2 There are hundreds of surviving images of Augustus. This famous one is a marble copy of a bronze statue the Senate vowed to Augustus in 20 BCE . It celebrates his victory over the Parthians, and shows the princeps as a military leader addressing his troops. His family link to Venus (through Aeneas) is suggested by his holding hands with Cupid.

Chapter 2 The Emperors

The Res Gestae Augustus has left us his own version of how he brought peace and order to Rome in his very own commemorative autobiography, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augustii (‘The things achieved by the divine Augustus’), which was inscribed outside his mausoleum in Rome upon his death in 14 CE . The original has not survived, but a copy was discovered, almost in full, on a temple to Augustus in what is now Ankara, Turkey. Augustus was keen to present himself as the man who restored the Republic to the Roman people, as the opening line makes clear: Of the achievements of the deified Augustus by which he subjected the world to the empire of the Roman people and of the expenses which he incurred for the Republic and the Roman people, which are inscribed on two bronze pillars erected at Rome, a copy is set out below. Augustus, Introduction to the Res Gestae The Res Gestae is another example of Augustus’ excellence in propaganda and it makes for fascinating reading, as it is a first-hand record of how the first emperor wanted to be remembered.

In Their Own Words 2.1 Read the Res Gestae, and draw up a list of the major achievements Augustus claims to have made. In what ways do you feel that the account might be considered propagandist?

2 Augustus as Emperor Writing around 100 CE , the historian Tacitus, who was very critical of the Principate as a system, evaluated Augustus’ relationships with the various constituencies of the Roman people as follows: He seduced the army with bonuses, and his cheap food policy was successful bait for civilians. Indeed, he attracted everybody’s goodwill by the enjoyable gift of peace. Then he gradually pushed ahead and absorbed the functions of the Senate, the officials, and even the law. Opposition did not exist. War or judicial murder had disposed of all men of spirit. Upper-class survivors found that slavish obedience was the way to succeed, both politically and financially. They had profited from the revolution, and so now they liked the security of the existing arrangement better than the dangerous uncertainties of the old regime. Besides, the new order was popular in the provinces. Tacitus, Annals 1.2

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The common people at Rome (the plebs) and the people of the provinces were understandably supportive of an emperor who had brought peace after decades of tumult. At Rome, people seemed happy to forgo their political rights in return for this stability. Augustus saw that they could be kept happy by ensuring a cheap grain supply, as well as by the provision of spectacular public entertainments such as gladiatorial shows. More than a century later, the satirist Juvenal could quip that all that the Roman people needed was ‘bread and circuses’ to keep them happy (see p. 290). The people of the provinces were now able to develop a new relationship with the Roman state. Whereas in the past they had been required to engage with an ever-changing republican leadership, they could now appeal directly to the emperor in person and expect a response (it is often referred to as the ‘petition and response’ model, and is described in more detail on p. 139). It was with the Senate that Augustus had to exercise the most care. He needed to retain the image of republican government and ensure the senators’ loyalty. One way in which he achieved this was by revising the membership of the body, which he did on three occasions (28, 18, and 11 BCE ). Under Julius Caesar, the number of senators had reached 1,000, although those 300 or so who sided with Antony in the subsequent civil wars would have been killed in battle or excluded by Augustus. Further reductions were achieved by raising the property requirement for membership from 400,000 to 1 million sesterces. By 18 BCE the number of senators had therefore dropped to 600. This made the order more exclusive. Augustus also made senatorial status hereditary, so that there was an official ‘senatorial class’. Men could lose membership at any revision of the roll if they did not have enough wealth, or if they displeased the emperor. Conversely, citizens could be admitted to membership if they gained enough wealth and imperial favour. Augustus used senators to help with the administration of the empire. At Rome, he created new offices for the upkeep of public buildings, roads and aqueducts, and for grain distribution; senators could also serve in the newly created role of praefectus urbi (prefect of the city), who oversaw the daily administration of the city. Moreover, two new offices of praetor were created, increasing the number to ten. In the provinces, the Senate shared the burden of administration with Augustus, managing those provinces that did not have a significant army presence. None the less, Augustus enacted measures that clearly restricted the power of the senators: they were banned from Egypt, a new steering committee for senatorial business was created, and a 5% inheritance tax was placed on senators, the proceeds of which funded the army. For a senator to prosper under the new system, he had to be loyal to the emperor. Augustus also elevated the equestrians into a distinct political order. They were given the right to serve in public administration (from which they had been largely excluded before), thereby securing their loyalty to the state. Augustus used them as financial agents in the provinces and as governors of some provinces, including the

Chapter 2 The Emperors

province of Egypt (which offered too much of a power base for an ambitious senator). Membership of the order was standardised: an equestrian had to be of free birth and good character, to own 400,000 sesterces in wealth, and to have served in the military. Members of the order were allowed to receive a public horse, and to wear a gold ring and a narrow purple stripe on their tunic (senators had long been allowed to wear a tunic with a broad purple stripe). The order also included the sons of senators until they reached the age of 25.

The Pax Augusta Augustus set out to establish peace in the Roman world, and in this he was very successful. By the time of his death in 14 CE , the empire was much more peaceful and prosperous. This period of stability lasted for more than two centuries, and is often referred to as the pax Romana (‘Roman peace’) or the pax Augusta (‘Augustan peace’) (Fig. 2.3). Key to the peace was the management of the army. One of Augustus’ most farsighted reforms was to bring it under the control of the Roman state, thus preventing the build-up of personal power around a general, which had been such a destabilising feature of the late Republic. For the first time, therefore, the Roman army was a fully professional body, which swore loyalty to the emperor (the structure of the army is described in more detail on pp. 141–154). Legions were placed at strategic points around the empire, and territory was consolidated up to the Danube and Rhine rivers. Moreover, Augustus developed an efficient system of civil service administration in the provinces. Augustus also sought to promote himself as a bringer of peace. He boasts in the Res Gestae that on three occasions he was able to revive the ancient tradition of closing the gates to the temple of Janus to indicate that the whole empire was at peace. This had apparently happened only twice before in the long centuries of Roman history. Moreover, in 13 BCE the Senate commissioned the construction of a monumental altar complex, the Ara Pacis Augustae (‘the Altar of Augustan Peace’) (Fig. 2.4). This was dedicated to the goddess Pax (‘Peace’), a divinity who had featured very little in Roman ideology before that time. The huge marble altar can still be visited in Rome today. At its front are two panels which are most likely to depict Rome’s two mythological founders, Aeneas and Romulus – both were of course promoted as ancestors of Augustus through his adoptive father. To the rear two other panels respectively show the goddess Roma (‘Rome’) and a goddess often interpreted to be Pax. The upper sections of the exterior side walls are decorated with a frieze depicting almost fifty figures taking part in a grand religious procession. Augustus is depicted wearing a toga, as opposed to military dress, thereby presenting him as the leader of an empire at peace.

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Fig 2.4 Today the Ara Pacis stands in its own museum. Despite its good state of preservation, some of the sculpted reliefs have not survived, nor has any of the colour painted on them.

The Praetorian Guard Augustus ensured that he would have strong military protection for himself in Rome by establishing the ‘Praetorian Guard’, consisting of nine cohorts of 500 soldiers each. The guardsmen’s role was to patrol the city, with one cohort always on duty at the imperial palace. Three cohorts were stationed in Rome, and the others nearby. Serving as a guardsman offered exceptional terms of service. The mandatory service period was shorter than that of the legionaries: from 5 BCE , praetorians served for 16 years, while regular soldiers served for 20. The guardsmen’s pay was also three times that of regular soldiers. In the reign of Augustus’ successor Tiberius, a large barracks was built for the guardsmen just outside Rome. At this point, the Praetorian Guard came to have one commander, known as the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. The Guard came to wield huge political power in Rome, as it was hard for an emperor or the political class to go against the wishes of such a large number of soldiers. The Guardsmen were at times bribed to turn against emperors or even against the people of Rome. As a result, the Prefect was usually a key figure in Roman politics in the time of the emperors.

Morality and Religion Another aspect of Augustus’ rule was his encouraging of Romans to return to what he promoted as traditional morality and religion. This was part of his claim to be

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restoring the Republic: Augustus’ propaganda put forward the idea that Roman society had become corrupt, and only a return to traditional values could rectify this. This was a clever political move: by portraying his regime as a return to the past, Augustus could make his reforms more palatable. Religion was an obvious area for Augustus to emphasise in this restoration. Romans had often interpreted the sufferings of their civil wars as punishments from angry gods, and so by contrast Augustus could present a return to peace as evidence of divine blessing. Many of the buildings which he repaired or constructed as part of his building programme were temples: in the Res Gestae he claims to have restored 82 shrines to the gods. The princeps also successfully wove himself into this process, holding seven simultaneous priesthoods, including the office of Pontifex Maximus from 12 BCE . Many statues of the emperor portray him with his head veiled in the role of a Roman priest (Fig. 2.5). A more radical evolution came in the development of the imperial cult (see p. 193). Lands in the eastern empire had long been used to worshipping their kings as gods. After 30, the eastern provinces petitioned Augustus to be allowed to worship him as a god. He knew that this would be dangerous in the western provinces, and so his solution was clever. His divine spirit, or genius, could be prayed for as a god. So emerged the imperial cult, which enabled the emperor to become a god upon his death. Temples to the imperial cult were built throughout the empire. Augustus also tried to change attitudes around personal morality. According to the biographer Suetonius, he had a severe attitude toward moral and social purity, and in

Fig. 2.5 This image of Augustus is notably different from the image in Fig. 2.2. Here he is presented as a priest, with the fold of his toga over his head, suggesting his role as a pious citizen and the Pontifex Maximus.

Chapter 2 The Emperors

18 BCE , he passed two pieces of legislation to promote the birth of legitimate children: the ‘Julian Law on the duties of husbands’ and the ‘Julian Law on constraining adultery’. The laws were very unpopular with the senatorial and equestrian classes, but they reinforced Augustus’ desire to promote what he believed to be traditional Roman family values. Unfortunately for Augustus, he was forced to exile his only child, Julia, in 2 BCE for adultery and treason. Her marriage was annulled, and she was sent to the tiny island of Pandateria for five years, where no men were allowed to be in her presence and she was banned from drinking wine. Another famous Roman who fell foul of the laws was apparently the poet Ovid (see p. 90). As part of this drive to boost the number of legitimate children, in 28 Augustus carried out the first official census of the Roman people for 42 years. Two more censuses were held in 8 BCE and 14 CE , each one showing an increase in the total citizen population.

Two Imperial Women One feature of the new imperial system was that women closely related to the emperor could play a far greater role in influencing the direction of politics, although they could still have no official power. The lives of two women closely associated with Octavian/Augustus illustrate this well. His elder sister Octavia was admired by contemporaries for her loyalty, nobility and humanity, and for maintaining traditional Roman feminine virtues. However, her life was very challenging. Her first marriage, to Gaius Claudius Marcellus, produced three children. He died in May 40, and in October of the same year Octavia married Marc Antony as part of Octavian’s renewal of the triumvirate. She now became the step-mother to Antony’s two sons, and herself had two daughters by him. She had followed him to the East in 40, at times acting as an intermediary between her brother and her husband, but in 36 Antony sent her back to Rome as he carried on his affair with Cleopatra. Although Antony divorced her in 32, after his suicide in 30 she became the guardian to the three children that Cleopatra had borne him. The other pre-eminent woman in Augustus’ life was his wife Livia Drusilla. Born in 58, she was first married to Tiberius Claudius Nero, a senator who took Antony’s side in his conflict with Octavian in the 40s. She had two sons by him, Tiberius and Drusus. After Antony and Octavian settled their differences in 40, Octavian persuaded Claudius to divorce Livia so that he could marry her; at the time, she was pregnant with Drusus. Livia and Octavian/Augustus never had any children of their own, but Augustus never wavered in his dedication to their marriage. Livia was held up as the old-fashioned ideal of the married Roman woman – tactful, dignified, and beautiful – and she played a prominent role as his First Lady. After Augustus’ death, she became a principal figure in his cult, and took the name Julia Augusta. She also had a direct influence on the Principate beyond Augustus: the second emperor, Tiberius was her son; the third, Gaius, her great-grandson; the fourth, Claudius, her grandson; and the fifth, Nero, her great-great-grandson.

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Fig. 2.6 In this marble statue Livia, the wife of Augustus, is presented as Ops, a Roman goddess of fertility and plenty. She carries a wheat sheaf and a cornucopia, both of which suggest abundance.

3 The Augustan Building Programme In Rome, Augustus was keen to beautify the city, making a worthy capital of such a vast empire (it had never acquired the architectural grandeur of other great Mediterranean cities such as Athens or Alexandria). Augustus therefore commissioned an enormous building programme. According to Suetonius, Augustus boasted: ‘I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble.’ While some buildings were entirely new, many were restored temples, and this was in keeping with Augustus’ desire to re-establish traditional Roman religious practices. However, some aspects of the project had more functional benefits. Augustus divided the city of Rome into fourteen administrative districts, each of which was under the control of magistrates chosen annually by lot; each district was further subdivided into wards overseen by locally elected supervisors (Fig. 2.7). Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, still Augustus’ closest associate, was appointed to organise and fund projects to improve the quality of life for the urban poor. This included a project to improve the water supply in the 30s, a law limiting the height of a block of flats to 18 metres, and the formation of a standing fire brigade for the first time in the city’s

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history. This consisted of 7,000 men known as vigiles who were permanently on patrol in the city (although at times they could not prevent disasters from happening). The Tiber was also widened in some places to prevent flooding. Agrippa also donated many acres of his own land for public use, and surrounded his villa with theatres, parkland, exercise grounds and baths. He also built the Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the gods, although this would twice burn down in fires (in 80 and c. 110 CE ), and the much grander version that survives today was developed under the Emperor Hadrian (see p. 200).

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The Roman Forum The forum of Rome, the Forum Romanum, had for centuries been the heart of the city’s social, political and commercial life. This too Augustus decided to renovate and improve. A temple to the deified Julius Caesar was completed, the Senate house was rebuilt for the first time since 52 and renamed the Curia Julia, after Julius Caesar, while the Basilica Aemilia and Basilica Julia were two large civic spaces that served as meeting places both for the law courts and for merchants and bankers to do business. To symbolise the fact that the forum was the heart of the empire, Augustus set up a golden milestone, which marked the origin of all the roads that made their way out of the city to all parts of the empire. The remains left in the forum today are relatively sparse and date from various periods in Rome’s history (Fig. 2.8). Figure 2.9 gives an outline of the area during the time of Augustus. The forum is split by a main road, the Via Sacra (‘Sacred Way’), which was the city’s main ceremonial street. At one end of the forum was the temple of Vesta and the house of the Vestals (see p. 204), and the temple of Julius Caesar was built nearby. Senators met and discussed matters in the Curia, while politicians made speeches on the speaker’s platform, known as the rostra. This name comes from the six rostra, or ship’s rams, which were apparently captured in a naval battle off Antium against the Latins in 338 BCE and attached to the front of the platform.

Fig. 2.8 A view of the remains of the Roman forum today from the Capitoline Hill.

Chapter 2 The Emperors

Fig. 2.9 A map of the Roman Forum in the time of Augustus.

Three Commemorative Arches Visitors to Rome today can see three commemorative arches in the vicinity of the Forum. These were built to commemorate later emperors: the arch of Titus (82 CE ), the arch of Septimius Severus (203 CE ), and the arch of Constantine (315 CE ). The presence of these arches, constructed at such a distance of time from one another, is a vivid reminder that the cityscape of Rome changed and evolved over a number of centuries.

During the day, the forum would have been alive with people of all varieties. As well as politicians and businessmen, other citizens might come to visit the temples, listen to the speeches, watch trials, shop or just to meet friends. At other times, more formal ceremonies might take place, such as young men assuming the toga of manhood (see p. 252), or the funerals of important men.

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The Forum of Augustus Before his assassination, Julius Caesar had commissioned an extension to the Roman Forum, and this extension was known as the Forum of Julius Caesar. Augustus probably put the finishing touches to this project, but he also recognised that the enlarged Forum Romanum had become too small to cope with the growing population of the city. He therefore commissioned a new forum to be built nearby. Construction began in 20 BCE and took nearly 20 years. Its centrepiece was a large temple dedicated to Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger); before the battle of Philippi, Augustus had vowed that he would dedicate a temple to the god if the Caesarians were victorious. The forum was rectangular, with a central courtyard and two long porticoes on either side. These were lined with statues of famous Romans, with Augustus’ ancestors on one side, and the great heroes of the Republic on the other. In the west portico there was also an enormous statue of Augustus himself. In building this new forum, Augustus established a practice that three later emperors were to follow; Vespasian, Nerva and Trajan all created their own new spaces in the centre of the city to take some of the pressure off the original Roman forum, and to promote their own regimes.

4 Augustan Literature We have seen that in the final decades of the Republic great writers had emerged. Under Augustus, this literary revolution flowered even more colourfully. The emperor was keen to make use of talented writers to promote the new state of affairs. He appointed a key ally, Gaius Maecenas, as his minister of the arts. Maecenas acted as patron to a number of writers whose task was to write positively about the Augustan regime, although even those who were closest to Maecenas managed to retain some independence. Two of these writers, Virgil and Horace, stand among the greatest poets in the history of European literature. Publius Virgilius Maro (Virgil) (Fig. 2.10) was born near Mantua in northern Italy in 70 BCE . The region suffered heavily from the land confiscations of Octavian in 41 and Virgil lost his family farm at this time, although he later recovered it (or he may instead have received a better one from Octavian). His first set of poems, the Eclogues, refer to these troubles; written between 42 and 37, they are pastoral poems, modelled on the work of the Alexandrian Greek poet Theocritus, which idealise the countryside. It was at this time that Virgil came to know Maecenas. He next wrote the Georgics, a didactic poem that sought to give practical advice to farmers; it promotes the idealised life of the simple country farmer whom Romans liked to think had formed the backbone of their state. In 29, Virgil read the Georgics to Octavian (as he was still called at the time); Octavian was so impressed that he asked him to compose a national epic for Rome.

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Fig. 2.10 Virgil and the Muses.

Virgil’s Aeneid In the 20s BCE , Virgil composed a national epic poem, the Aeneid d, in the style of the Homeric poems, the Iliad d and the Odysseyy, the greatest works of Greek literature, which had been composed centuries earlier. In this way, Virgil hoped both to associate the Roman people with the Greek heroic world, and to inform Romans about their heritage, culture and values. There is a clear analogy made between Aeneas and Augustus in the poem; indeed, much is made of Augustus’ supposed descent from Aeneas. Moreover, there are moments when Virgil refers overtly to Augustus, not least when Aeneas visits the Underworld and is shown a vision of the future Rome: Now turn your two eyes in this direction and look at this family of yours, your own Romans. Here is Caesar, and all the sons of Iulus about to come under the great vault of the sky. Here is the man whose coming you so often hear prophesied, here he is, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, the man who will bring back the golden years to the fields of Latium once ruled over by Saturn, and extend Rome’s empire beyond the Indians and the Garamantes to a land beyond the stars. Virgil, Aeneid, 6.788–795 Despite this praise, the Aeneid d is no simple propaganda piece. The poem is full of subtleties and ambiguities, and Virgil leaves the reader in no doubt that Roman success must come at the price of enormous suffering. The ancient grammarian Donatus relates that when Virgil was on his deathbed in 19 BCE , the poem was not complete and so he ordered that it be burnt. However, Augustus intervened and it was preserved. Romans soon came to regard the poem as the greatest work of Latin literature, giving it the same standing as the works of Shakespeare have in the modern English language; fortunately, it still survives for us to read today.

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In 38, Virgil introduced Maecenas to Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace). The son of a freedman, Horace was born in 65 in the southern Italian town of Venusia. His father managed to school him in Rome, after which he furthered his studies in Athens. Here he was caught up in the civil war after the assassination of Julius Caesar, fighting on the side of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42. Like Virgil, his family lost its farm as the result of Octavian’s confiscations. Yet his talent as a poet brought him to the attention of Virgil and Maecenas. Maecenas gave him a farm in the Sabine hills outside Rome, from where he was able to compose poetry supportive of Octavian, as well as more personal poetry. During the 30s, he wrote the Epodes and then the Satires, which followed in the tradition of Lucilius but were far gentler in tone. Later in his career, he wrote two books of poetic Epistles, letters to friends that reflected on life and literature, as well as a discussion of poetry, the Ars Poetica. He was also commissioned to compose a celebratory hymn, the Carmen Saeculare, for the Centenary Games held in 17 BCE. However, Horace’s greatest achievement were his four books of Odes, the first three of which were completed in 23 and the fourth in 13 BCE . These poems, 103 in all, were based on Greek lyric models, and give personal perspectives on many aspects of life: war, politics, love, friendship, beauty and philosophy. A number of poems openly praise the Augustan regime, including the first six of his third book, which are known as the Roman Odes. It is in the second of these that one famous phrase appears: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (‘It is sweet and honourable to die for your country’). In another ode, 1.2, Augustus is even presented as a god in human form, while in Ode 4:15, one stanza runs as follows: While Caesar is guardian of the state, neither civil war nor civil madness will drive away our peace, nor will anger beat out its swords and set city against unhappy city. Horace, Odes, 4.15

However, as with Virgil, Horace was not a mere apologist for the emperor. While he owed a great deal to Augustus, his poetry is far more wide-ranging and sophisticated than to be political propaganda. Many of his poems focused on private life, including one that gives us the phrase carpe diem. The tone of such poems often reflects Horace’s fondness for Epicurean philosophy, which is outlined on pp. 214–216. There were other significant writers of the Augustan age. We have read about the history writing of Livy in Chapter 1, and his work did much to give Romans a sense of their past, and so to imbue them with national pride. Meanwhile three poets – Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid – wrote love poetry in a specific metre, the iambic pentameter, in a genre known as love elegy. The style of this poetry owed much to Catullus but came to have its own distinct flavour. These poets came to focus on love rather than politics, although Propertius did attempt pro-Augustan pieces at times. The genre of love elegy was short-lived, lasting for just 40 years or so. Ovid (43 BCE –18 CE ) was its last poet, and he went on to expand his range and become one of the greatest of all Roman poets. Born in Sulmona, central Italy, he was of equestrian rank but abandoned a public career to write poetry. He followed his elegiac love poems, the Amores, with other poems offering humorous advice to lovers: the

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Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and the Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love). He also composed a set of poems, the Heroides, in which he penned imaginary letters from famous lovelorn women of myth to their beloveds. Ovid’s greatest nod towards the Augustan regime was his poem Fasti, which described the religious festivals of the Roman year. However, his love poetry was so racy that it presented a challenge to Augustus’ moral reforms, and in 8 CE he was exiled to the Black Sea where he died about ten years later (although some scholars argue that this exile is simply a literary fiction). Two sets of poems, Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, are written from the standpoint of his lonely exile in Tomis (modern Constanta in Romania). Ovid’s greatest work was his Metamorphoses, which had a profound influence on many artists and writers of the European Renaissance. The poem is written in hexameter, the metre of epic poetry, and provides an anthology of Graeco-Roman mythology, starting with the foundation of the world and finishing with the transformation of the deified Julius Caesar into a star. As the name Metamorphoses suggests, the unity of these stories is found in the changing of shape – often of human beings changed into something non-human. Ovid is a wonderful story-teller who writes with humour or pathos as the story requires. In the following passage, he evokes pathos by describing the moment the hunter Actaeon, who has just stumbled across the goddess Diana bathing naked, is turned into a stag: She [Diana] stood with her front turned sideways and looked at the rash intruder over her shoulder. She wished that her arrows were ready to hand, but used what she could, caught up some water and threw it into the face of the man. As she splashed his hair with revengeful drops, she spoke the spine-chilling words which warned of impending disaster: ‘Now you may tell the story of seeing Diana naked – if story-telling is in your power!’ No more was needed. The head she had sprinkled sprouted the horns of a lusty stag; the neck expanded, the ears were narrowed to pointed tips; she changed his hands into hooves and his arms into long and slender forelegs; she covered his frame in a pelt of dappled buckskin; last, she injected panic. The son of Autonoe [Actaeon] bolted, surprising himself with his speed as he bounded away from the clearing. But when he came to a pool and set eyes on his head and antlers, ‘Oh, dear god!’ he was going to say; but no words followed. All the sound he produced was a moan, as the tears streamed over his new face. It was only his feelings which stayed unchanged. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.187–203

The poet goes on to tell the horrifying ending to the story: Actaeon torn to pieces by his own hounds. On one level, the Metamorphoses is a wonderful work of story-telling literature. However, some scholars argue that it can be no coincidence that Ovid penned a great work on the nature of change just as the Roman state itself had undergone an enormous transformation under its first emperor.

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In Their Own Words 2.2 1

Read Horace, Ode 3.2, and read a commentary to find out about its referencing of Augustus. In what ways does this poem praise the emperor?

2

Read Virgil, Aeneid 1.257–296. How does this prophecy by the god Jupiter tie the stories of Aeneas and Romulus to that of Augustus?

3

Read Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.745–870. How does the poet present Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar in these lines?

4

Read Suetonius’ biography of Augustus. In what ways does this give a more down to earth portrayal of the emperor?

5 The Succession One major challenge for Augustus was to ensure that the role of princeps was passed on to a successor after his death. This was another area in which he had to tread carefully: if he was seen to nominate a successor, then the facade of republicanism would be broken. None the less, as all dynasts do, Augustus looked within his own close circle of family and allies to find a successor. Here he suffered some ill-fortune: he had no son of his own, while a number of chosen successors died before he did. Initially, his preferred method of establishing an heir was to marry the chosen man to his daughter Julia (commonly known as ‘Julia the Elder’ to distinguish her from her daughter of the same name). She was first married to his nephew Marcellus, whose career Augustus advanced. But Marcellus died in 23, and Julia was then married to Agrippa. The marriage produced five children: Gaius, Julia the Younger, Lucius, Agrippina the Elder and Agrippa Postumus. Agrippa was clearly designated as heir in 18, when he was given tribunician power alongside Augustus. At this time too the princeps adopted his grandsons Gaius and Lucius as his own sons. When Agrippa died in 12 BCE , Augustus looked to his two stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus, to handle military affairs while he got older and Gaius and Lucius were too young to campaign; Julia the Elder was now married to Tiberius (who was forced to divorce his beloved wife Vipsania to enable the marriage). Tiberius and Drusus had success leading the legions on the northern frontier, but in 9 BCE Drusus was killed. Augustus was hit by personal tragedy when Lucius and Gaius died in 2 CE and 4 CE respectively. Although he had no great affection for Tiberius, he was left with him as the only realistic option after he deemed Agrippa Postumus unsuitable. In 4 CE , Augustus adopted Tiberius as his heir, and saw that he was awarded tribunician power for ten years and given special imperium on the northern frontier, where he had great military success. At the same time, the emperor forced Tiberius to adopt his own nephew, Germanicus, as his heir (even though Tiberius had a son of his own by Vipsania, also called Drusus). Tiberius’ tribunician power was renewed in 13 CE , at which point he was also given joint command of the armies. When Augustus died in 14 CE , he was the obvious successor.

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Review and Reflect 2.1 1

Was a regime such as that of Augustus the only way in which the Roman civil wars were likely to end?

2

Does literature today ever successfully act to praise and endorse those in power?

3

To what extent can art and architecture serve to promote a new political order?

Further Reading 2.1 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 9. Cooley, Alison, Res Gestae Divi Augustii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Galinsky, Karl, Augustan Culture (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1996). Southern, Patricia, Augustus (2nd ed.), (London: Routledge Press, 2014). Thorpe, Martin, Roman Architecture (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1995). Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Augustan Rome (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1993). Zanker, Paul, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, 1988).

Date

Event

30 BCE

Suicides of Antony and Cleopatra; Egypt annexed as a Roman province

29

Octavian celebrates his triple triumph

28

Octavian’s first census of the Roman people

27

First Constitutional Settlement; Octavian assumes the name Augustus

23

Second Constitutional Settlement; death of Marcellus

18

Agrippa given tribunician power; Augustus introduces his laws on morality

12

Augustus becomes Pontifex Maximus; death of Agrippa

9

Dedication of the Ara Pacis in Rome

2

Augustus receives the title pater patriae

4 CE

Augustus adopts Tiberius; Tiberius adopts Germanicus; Tiberius receives tribunician power for ten years

6

Judaea made a Roman province

9

Varus defeated in Germany by Arminius – three Roman legions are lost

13

Tiberius’ tribunician and other powers renewed for a further ten years, with authority equal to that of Augustus.

14

Death and deification of Augustus; accession of Tiberius

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II The First Century CE The history of the Principate over the next two centuries or so is one of a series of dynasties; at the breakdown of each dynasty, there tended to be a period of civil unrest or turmoil until another dynasty emerged to take control.

The Julio-Claudian Dynasty The dynasty of Augustus and his successors is known as the Julio-Claudians, referring to the two noble Roman families to which these rulers were connected: the Julians were of course the family of Julius Caesar; the Claudian family contributed to the dynasty by the fact that Livia, the wife of Augustus, had first been married to a

The Sources Historians are blessed with a variety of sources for the Julio-Claudian emperors. The two main literary sources are Cornelius Tacitus and Gaius Suetonius. Tacitus, widely regarded as Rome’s greatest historian, published a range of works between about 100 and 120 CE . His Annals cover the years 14–68 CE , and his Histories the years 69–96. However, not all of his work has survived: in the Annals, for example, we lack most of the years 28–33, the whole of the reign of Gaius, and the account of the downfall of Nero. Tacitus writes acerbically from the perspective of a senator who disapproves of one-man rule and longs for a return to the Republic. Suetonius, a contemporary of Tacitus, was of equestrian rank and held a number of roles within the imperial civil service under Trajan and Hadrian. He leaves a very different sort of historical legacy: his De Vita Caesarum is a set of biographies of the ‘Twelve Caesars’ from Julius Caesar to Domitian. Suetonius writes in a gossipy, tabloid style, and his accounts often do not follow a chronological order of events. None the less, his position in the imperial household gave him special access to private letters of emperors, state documents and finances of the empire. He therefore provides very useful information, especially for the periods where the account of Tacitus is missing. There is a range of other sources that allow us to develop a fuller picture of the period. For example, Josephus was a Jewish historian who was close to the Flavian emperors of the late 1st century CE (see p. 158). Cassius Dio, writing in the early 3rd century, was a senator who composed in Greek a Universal Historyy of Rome. There is also an enormous amount of inscriptional and numismatic evidence for this period: inscriptions give us a richer insight into matters both political and personal, while coins can be used to examine how emperors wished to portray themselves to their public.

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prominent member of the family, Tiberius Claudius Nero. The product of that marriage, the emperor Tiberius, was therefore linked to both families. When Tiberius came to power, he seemed to have the outstanding qualities required for the role: he was a very experienced and successful army commander who was popular with the troops, and he had served almost as Augustus’ co-regent in the years up to 14 CE . However, most of the sources portray him as a brooding, embittered figure. Tacitus records that he negotiated the initial meeting of the Senate to confirm him as the new princeps with some awkwardness; this was the first time that power had changed hands under the new system, and Tiberius made the same pretence of rejecting power which Augustus had in 27 BCE . Once confirmed, however, he gave orders to the Praetorian Guard and informed the provincial governors that they were now to report to him. The legions were another matter: the troops on the Danube and the Rhine both mutinied over the lack of payment of bonuses that had been promised to them by Augustus. Tiberius sent his son Drusus and his adopted heir Germanicus to quell the uprising. This was achieved, and Germanicus also led the troops on a successful mission into German territory, which won him their admiration. Although Germanicus stayed loyal to the new emperor, Tiberius now perceived him as a threat. In 17, he moved him from the Rhine and appointed him to a command in the east to deal with troubles in Syria and Judaea. At the same time, Tiberius appointed a new governor in Syria, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who acted to undermine the popularity and authority of Germanicus. In 19, Germanicus fell seriously ill. As he lay dying, he was convinced that he had been poisoned by Piso, with Tiberius’ involvement. In his last words, he warned his wife Agrippina the Elder not to anger those in power. Piso was brought back for trial in Rome, and committed suicide when he realised that Tiberius would not come to his aid. Throughout this episode, Tacitus portrays Tiberius as cold in the face of widespread popular grief for Germanicus; he even refused to meet Agrippina when she returned to Italy with Germanicus’ ashes. The fate of Germanicus illustrates the dangers for potential successors of becoming too popular or too powerful. After the death of Germanicus, the obvious successor was Tiberius’ son Drusus, and he was given tribunician power in 22. However, by this time another key player was emerging to eclipse him: Sejanus, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard. It was he who convinced Tiberius to concentrate all the guardsmen in one camp near one of the gates of Rome, so strengthening the power of the Guard. In 23, Drusus died suddenly, and Sejanus’ influence grew steadily from this point. He had started an affair with Drusus’ wife Livilla and tried to convince Tiberius to let them be married. When Tiberius refused, Sejanus managed to persuade the emperor to leave Rome: he headed to Campania in 25, and then in the following year to the island of Capri in the bay of Naples, which remained his base until his death in 37. With Tiberius away, Sejanus wielded great power at Rome with much cruelty. He managed to do away with a number of rivals by use of the charge of treason (maiestas in Latin). By 31 Sejanus had nearly achieved his goal of being named successor: he had proconsular imperium, held the consulship with Tiberius, and was to marry a woman of the imperial family. All that he needed was tribunician power. However, at this point,

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Tiberius turned on him, no doubt having learnt of his plotting and scheming. He denounced him in a letter to the Senate, which promptly condemned him. Sejanus was strangled in prison and his body torn to pieces by the Roman mob. Members of his family and his closest associates were also murdered. After this, the reign of Tiberius apparently degenerated; he trusted no one and there were a number of trials of prominent figures for maiestas. The penalty for conviction was execution. Tiberius’ trust in the Senate also broke down, and he was unpopular with the people; at the start of his reign, he had stopped popular elections and transferred the voting for the magistracies to the Senate. The people had formally lost any democratic rights; it is perhaps no surprise that on his death people apparently shouted ‘To the Tiber with Tiberius’. Although Tiberius is not well remembered in the sources, they cannot tell the whole story. It can be said in his defence that he was a good administrator who was careful with money and left a surplus to his successor – his lack of lavish expenditure allowed him to deal with fires at Rome and provide relief for an earthquake in the province of Asia. The empire was largely at peace, and in some ways he continued the Augustan model of modesty by rejecting the title pater patriae (although he was the first emperor to build a palace on the Palatine, a contrast to Augustus’ modest house). Ultimately, any successor to Augustus was likely to have suffered by comparison. When Tiberius died in March 37, he had left two heirs to his property in his will: his grandson Gemellus, and Gaius, the 27-year-old son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder. Gaius was more commonly known among the people as Caligula, meaning ‘Little Boots’, since as a child he would accompany Germanicus in military camp in a miniature soldier’s uniform. He had remained very popular with the soldiers because of their love of his father, and the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Macro, saw to it that he was proclaimed sole emperor. The Senate backed the proposal, invalidating Tiberius’ will; Gaius was immediately bestowed with imperium maius and tribunician power. He was given a rapturous reception by the Roman people, and his reign started well: he pardoned political prisoners, staged public games, and reduced taxation; he also honoured the memory of his mother and brother, who had suffered and died under Tiberius. However, the sources report that an enormous change came over him in October 37 after a serious illness. Suetonius is stark in his assessment of the effect this had on his personality: So much for the emperor; for the rest of this history must deal with the monster. Suetonius, Gaius, 22

Gaius now apparently grew drunk on lust and cruelty. He committed incest with his sisters, insulted and humiliated the Senate, ran up huge public debts, made fun of senior members of his imperial guard, and killed many individuals or drove them to their deaths. Moreover, he sought to adapt the imperial cult so that he could be worshipped directly as a god while still alive. If only a small number of such stories are true, then it is perhaps not surprising that Gaius was assassinated by members of his own imperial guard in January 41. It is hard, however, to know just how biased the sources are against him. What the story of his reign no doubt illustrates, however, is that the Principate could allow a young ruler to be corrupted by the temptations of absolute power.

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Gaius died without naming a successor and so the Senate immediately met to discuss a return to the republican system. The Praetorian Guard had other ideas: when a guardsman found Claudius, the 50-year-old uncle of Gaius, hiding behind a curtain in the imperial palace, he was immediately carried off to the Praetorian camp. Suetonius relates the events that followed: Crowds surrounded the building and demanded a monarchy, expressly calling for Claudius; so he allowed the guards to acclaim him emperor and to swear allegiance. He also promised every guardsman 150 gold pieces, which made him the first of the Caesars to purchase the loyalty of his troops. Suetonius, Claudius, 10

The accession of Claudius did indeed show the power now wielded by the Praetorian Guard. No emperor could hope to rule without its support. The diminished power of the Senate was equally evident. Claudius was in fact a most unlikely emperor – crippled by palsy as a boy, he spoke with a stammer and was seen as a quiet intellectual lacking the confidence to rule. As with Gaius and Tiberius, the sources are largely hostile towards him, portraying him as the victim of manipulative and ambitious freedmen, as well as of scheming wives. His third wife, Messalina, was put to death in 48 for plotting against him; his fourth wife, Agrippina the Younger, convinced him to adopt her son Nero as his heir ahead of his own natural son Britannicus, and then apparently oversaw the emperor’s death by poison in 54. However, one must bear in mind the potential source bias; these writers were aristocratic men who no doubt disapproved of the rise of freedmen and women at the imperial court. In fact, Claudius can be credited with ruling well. His two most significant achievements were the conquest of Britain and the development of the imperial civil service. The decision to invade the island of Britain came on the back of a failed army revolt of 42. Claudius needed to secure the loyalty and respect of the troops, and so he turned the focus onto foreign conquest – the first for some decades. After careful preparations, four legions were sent to Britain in 43, successfully annexing the southern two-thirds of the island as a new province. Claudius himself spent a short time there at the end of the campaign. He was then able to return to Rome where he celebrated a splendid triumph. Claudius’ development of the imperial civil service had a significant and lasting effect on the whole empire. Augustus had used the slaves and freedmen of his own household as secretaries and clerks, a practice copied by Tiberius and Gaius. Claudius, conscious of his workload and the need for more efficient administration, took this much further; he created specialised ministries and departments, which were answerable to him rather than to the Senate. Freedmen ran these departments – no doubt because senators thought it beneath their dignity to do work that looked like personal service – and slaves formed the backbone of them. Three of the most powerful freedmen were Callistus, who was in charge of petitions, Narcissus, who was Claudius’ Chief Secretary in charge of correspondence (he oversaw separate offices for Latin and Greek correspondence), and Pallas, the treasurer and chief

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accountant. These men, and others like them, were able to attain great wealth and power. Claudius made changes in other areas too. The empire had been virtually bankrupted by Gaius, and he set it on more secure foundations. He ensured the reliability of the grain supply to Rome; he completed the construction of two new aqueducts for the city, which nearly doubled its water supply; and he commissioned a project to develop the city’s harbour at Ostia. Claudius also returned to a policy of granting citizenship to leading provincials, going so far as to allow Gauls to be admitted to the Senate, despite predictable resistance from the old guard of senatorial families. This move introduced fresh blood to the body, made it more representative of the empire, and served to build a loyal senatorial base for the emperor. In 48, the first census of the Roman empire since 14 CE was held; the total number of citizens, 5,984,072, compared favourably with the total of 4,937,000 at the end of Augustus’ reign.

Damnatio Memoriae One of the difficulties we encounter when trying to create an accurate picture of the life and character of a key figure in the imperial years is the concept of damnatio memoriae, a Latin phrase coined only in the 17th century, which means ‘condemnation of memory’. This was a principle whereby the Senate could declare a deceased man an enemy of the state, and take steps to wipe out all memory of him, although that of course was rarely possible. More commonly, the condemnation meant that that person passed into disgrace after his death. In such a case, it is very hard to attain a balanced view of such a person’s life. The Senate wanted to condemn Gaius, but Claudius forbade it. None the less, some later emperors, including Nero, Domitian and Commodus, were condemned after their deaths. It did not need an official decree of the Senate for a man’s reputation to be sullied after his death. There are examples of this in the period of the Republic – not least in the propaganda Augustus put out about Antony after Actium. Very often, an emperor who had come to power controversially or after an assassination sought to trash the memory of his predecessor so as to justify his rule. In this vein, the wilder stories about Gaius may simply have been confected by men loyal to the new emperor Claudius as a way to strengthen his position. Likewise, the appalling stories of Nero’s character may have been convenient spin for the Flavian dynasty that succeeded him. Conversely, an emperor who had come to power peacefully after being named heir would exalt the memory of his predecessor by having him deified, so justifying his own position. Our sources therefore tend to portray either ‘good emperors’ or ‘bad emperors’. In reality, their characters must have been more nuanced than that simplistic presentation; it is also worth remembering that to an ordinary person living in the empire, the character of an emperor was likely to have made little tangible difference.

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Nero succeeded Claudius in 54 at the age of just 16. His rule seems to have started well; he was popular with the masses, gained the confidence of the Senate, and modestly rejected the title pater patriae. He had also ensured the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard upon becoming emperor by paying each man a gift of 15,000 sesterces. Burrus, the Guard’s prefect, acted as one of the new emperor’s key advisers; two others were his tutor, the highly respected philosopher Seneca the Younger (see p. 215), and his mother Agrippina the Younger, who had engineered him onto the throne (Fig. 2.11). But mother and son fell out over Nero’s passion for a freedwoman, Acte. When Agrippina threatened to support the claim of Britannicus instead, Nero had him killed in 55, and in 59 he even resorted to the murder of his mother. The crime shocked the public, but Seneca and Burrus continued to support the emperor. From this point, Nero is portrayed as displaying the same sort of monstrous behaviour as Gaius. In 62, he divorced and exiled his first wife, Octavia, and then had her murdered. He married his mistress Poppaea Sabina; she died in 65 after Nero apparently kicked her while pregnant. He also lost the support of the Senate by having leading men executed and appointing freedmen and Greeks to important positions. His great moment of disaster, however, happened when Rome was struck by a great fire in 64. Nero made a terrible misjudgement when he took for himself some of the burnt-out land, where many of the urban poor had seen their houses destroyed. He then built a magnificent new mansion and set of gardens for himself there, the so-called domus aurea (‘golden house’). Unsurprisingly, the people turned against him, and rumours soon abounded that he had started the fire deliberately and allowed it to rage (the sources neatly illustrate the conflicting versions of events: Suetonius reports people claiming that Nero had played the lyre as he watched Rome burn, but Tacitus reports that he had rushed back to the city to oversee the firefighting operation). Nero needed a scapegoat, and so he blamed the fire on followers of a newly-emerging religious cult from the east, the Christians (see p. 222). It was easy to tarnish Nero with the slur of playing the lyre, since the emperor himself clearly gave great importance to the arts. He even commissioned a coin of himself playing the lyre, which also linked him to the god Apollo. To traditional aristocratic Romans, such pursuits were considered well beneath their dignity. Worse

Fig. 2.11 This aureus dates to 54 CE and the obverse presents Agrippina and Nero almost as co-rulers. The text reads: ‘Agrippina Augusta, wife of the divine Claudius, mother of Nero Caesar’. On the reverse is shown a laurel wreath, and the text explains that the coin was issued for Nero by decree of the Senate.

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still, Nero even took part in chariot-racing; both chariot-racing and acting were professions for the lowest elements of Roman society (see p. 290). Nero apparently went on a tour of Greece in 66–67, where he took part in a hastily arranged Olympic Games held out of its normal four-year cycle to accommodate him. All this fuelled criticism of the emperor amongst the elite, who smeared him with the charge of being a philhellene. Aristocratic disgust at this behaviour is captured by the cutting judgement of the senatorial Tacitus: He [Nero] had a long-standing desire to mount a racing chariot, and an eagerness no less foul for singing to the lyre competitively. Tacitus, Annals, 14.14

A major plot against Nero was hatched in 65, but the plotters were betrayed. Nero used the conspiracy as an excuse to execute dozens of senators and equestrians, Seneca among them. The legions now began to lose faith in the emperor. In 68, Vindex, a Romanised Gaul who was governor of one of the Gallic provinces, led his troops in revolt. He was immediately supported by Galba, the governor of one of the provinces of Spain, whose soldiers declared him emperor. Vindex was defeated and took his own life, but Galba posed a more serious threat. The Praetorian Guard was bribed to support him and the Senate also came down on his side; they declared Galba emperor and outlawed Nero. Nero fled Rome, but the game was up. As he contemplated suicide, he apparently immodestly lamented the loss to the world of his artistic talents with the final words qualis artifex pereo – ‘what an artist dies with me’. It is clear that Nero had become very unpopular by the time of his death, but once again the sources should be read with some caution. In the twenty years after Nero’s death, at least three impersonators of him appeared in the east claiming the right to the imperial throne. For this to have been a plausible trick, Nero must still have had some popular support there. Tacitus makes a famous comment about the implication for the Principate of the events of 68: The death of Nero had been welcomed at first by an outburst of rejoicing. But it had also roused varied emotions in the Senate, the people, and the soldiers of the city; and not only in Rome, but also among the legions and their commanders, since the secret of the Principate had been revealed: a man could be made emperor away from Rome. Tacitus, Histories, 1.4

Indeed, it had been the legions in the provinces rather than the senators that had forced the change of emperor. In the centuries that followed this remained the case, and the emperor always needed to maintain the loyalty of his legions in three major border areas in particular: the Rhine, the Danube and the Euphrates.

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Literature of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE After the glories of Augustan literature, few substantial writers emerged for some decades. The possible reasons for this are varied; writers perhaps felt they had less freedom of expression under the emperors who followed Augustus (Tiberius is said to have killed two minor poets for attacking him in their verses), while a new focus on rhetorical technique may have dulled the creativity of some. However, by the middle of the 1st century CE , new writers started to emerge. One of the earliest of these was Seneca the Younger ((cc. 4 BCE –65 CE ). He was enormously varied in his output, writing philosophical works such as On Anger and On the Blessed Life, Life, as well as an essay for Nero On Clemency, commending this quality to the young emperor. He also wrote a satire on the deification of Claudius, and a number of tragic plays that had a great influence on the playwrights of Renaissance Europe. Seneca’s nephew, Lucan (39–65 CE ) was another important writer of the period; his most famous work is an epic poem known as Pharsalia, and recounts the events of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey in 49 and 48 BCE . Lucan was forced to commit suicide in the same purge as his uncle in 65. Another writer of this time was Petronius, who may also have been Nero’s ‘judge of taste’ at his court, but who also eventually fell foul of the emperor. He wrote Satyricon, a satirical novel that made fun of social stereotypes; its most famous episode describes a dinner party hosted by a grandiose and vulgar freedman, Trimalchio. A fourth writer of the Neronian period was Persius, who wrote satires from a stoic perspective. In the following decades emerged writers whose works leave a mark even today. We have already read about Tacitus and Suetonius, who were writing history and biography in the early 2nd century CE . One Greek writer of this period should be mentioned alongside them: Plutarch (c. 50–c. 120) has made an enormous contribution to the historical record of Greece and Rome; he is most famous for writing Parallel Lives, paired biographies in which he compares a famous Roman to a famous Greek. Pliny the Elder (c. 23–79), whose heroic death during the History, y, an eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 is described on p. 349, wrote Natural History encyclopaedia of the natural world in 37 books. His nephew, Pliny the Younger ((c. c. 61–c. 112) had a successful career at Rome, and published ten books of letters on matters public and private; the tenth book contains his correspondence with the Emperor Trajan while he was governor of Bithynia and Pontus. Near contemporaries of the younger Pliny were two of Rome’s great satirical poets: Martial and Juvenal. Martial (c. 40–c. 104) grew up in Spain and came to Rome as a young man, where he was supported by Seneca the Younger. He is most famous for writing twelve books of Epigrams, short poems which make fun of everyday life in Rome. Juvenal (c. 55–130) wrote sixteen satires on life in the city in an angry and biting style. He has given us a number of phrases still in use today, including mens sana in corpore sano (‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’). Later in the 2nd century, two other writers are of particular note: Apuleius and Marcus Aurelius. Apuleius (c. 125–c. 170), who came from Numidia in north Africa, wrote Metamorphoses (sometimes also called The Golden Ass), the only novel to survive from the Roman world. It relates the bizarre and remarkable adventures of its main character Lucius, who experiments with magic and is turned into an ass. Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome between 161 and 180, whose rule is described in more detail on pp. 110–111, wrote Meditations, philosophical reflections on life that remain popular today.

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The Year of the Four Emperors The Roman world lapsed into civil war. In 69, Rome had four emperors – Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian – all of them powerful army commanders. After ousting Nero, Galba played his hand badly: he was miserly towards his soldiers, refusing to reward them financially for their support. He also alienated one of his key supporters, Marcus Salvius Otho, the governor of Lusitania, by naming a young aristocrat as successor instead of him. Five days later, Otho garnered enough support from the Praetorian Guard to have himself named emperor; Galba was murdered in the forum. However, another contender had emerged at the same time: Vitellius, the commander of the legions on the Rhine, had already led his men in revolt against Galba. The legions of the empire were now roughly divided between Otho and Vitellius: Otho had the loyalty of the Praetorians, as well as many of the soldiers in the east, on the Danube and in Africa; Vitellius was supported by his Rhine legions, as well as the troops in Spain, Gaul and Britain. Conflict followed in northern Italy, and Otho took his own life after his forces came off worse. He had ruled just 91 days. Vitellius himself ruled only for a few months. The eastern legions and their commander, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who were confronting a major revolt in Judaea (see pp. 157–159), had sworn loyalty to Otho, and so Vespasian was able to present himself as his avenger. Forces loyal to Vespasian invaded Italy and in Rome itself factional fighting led to the burning of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. When Vitellius was killed in the city on 20 December, Vespasian became Rome’s fifth emperor in 18 months.

The Flavian Dynasty Vespasian went on to establish a new dynasty, which lasted for 27 years; he ruled from 69–79, and he was followed by his sons Titus (79–81) and Domitian (81–96) (Titus was the first natural son to inherit the position of emperor from his father). Their family name, Flavius, gives us the term the ‘Flavian Dynasty’. Once again, the sources give us a polarised picture: Vespasian and Titus are presented as ‘good emperors’, while Domitian is the archetypal ‘bad emperor’. Vespasian was born in 9 CE , and so had lived under all the emperors. He had a successful career, serving under Gaius as aedile in 38 and then as praetor a year or two later. Under Claudius, he served with distinction as a legionary commander in the invasion of Britain in 43. He was consul in 51, but then fell foul of Agrippina the Younger and retired from public life for a time. However, under Nero he was sent out as governor of Africa in 63. Upon his return, he fell out of favour with the emperor, but his expertise as a military commander was needed to tackle the Jewish Revolt that broke out in 66. Therefore, when he became emperor in 69, he had gained enormous experience of the empire and how it needed to be run.

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Vespasian is presented as a pragmatist who restored order after the chaos of the preceding years. One key development during his rule was the promotion of equestrians and even senators to serve in key roles in the imperial civil service, something that had the benefit of removing freedmen from positions of power. Although Vespasian made very few changes to the structure of the Principate, one remarkable document suggests that the veil of republicanism had now been lifted. Partially preserved on a bronze tablet, it records a bill put before the Roman people granting powers to Vespasian on his accession as emperor. Part of the final section reads as follows: And whatever he judges to be to the state’s advantage and in keeping with the majesty of things divine and human, public and private, let him have the legal power to perform and do this, just as it was for Divus Augustus, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, and Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Law on the Powers of Vespasian: ILS 244

There are two points of interest here. One is that the two supposed ‘bad’ emperors, Gaius and Nero, are not mentioned. Even more significantly, this statement says that as emperor Vespasian had the power to do as he saw fit – and that his predecessors Augustus, Tiberius and Claudius had always had the same power. But they would never have said so publicly in this way. Vespasian embarked on an extensive public building programme at Rome. He restored the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline and commissioned a Temple of Peace, the centrepiece of a large new forum complex with public galleries and a grand library. Yet the building with which Vespasian will always be associated was an enormous new amphitheatre today known as the Colosseum, but known at the time as the Flavian amphitheatre (described on pp. 305–307). He did not live to see its extravagant opening games in 80, which was presided over by his successor Titus. Before becoming emperor, Titus had won great acclaim for his victories against the Jews. After Titus’ death, Domitian set up a ceremonial arch honouring his brother’s victories; it still stands at one end of the Roman Forum today and has been a model for a number of later triumphal arches, including the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Titus ruled for just two years; the eruption of Mt Vesuvius came in the opening months of his rule, and the emperor apparently reacted impressively to the humanitarian crisis that followed (see p. 351). Domitian is presented in the sources as a tyrant, so much so that he was the first emperor to suffer from an official damnatio memoriae. However, he was an efficient administrator, and was clearly popular with the troops. He built a magnificent new palace on the Palatine – this is the best example of the fact that, in contrast to the buildings commissioned by Vespasian, those of Domitian were focused entirely on his own sense of self-importance. Domitian had a poor relationship with the Senate, and towards the end of his reign he purged a number of senators for treason, a period known as his ‘reign of terror’. Tacitus, who managed to serve successfully but unhappily as a senator under Domitian, refers to the public burning of books written by two philosophers, and the impotence of the Senate in the face of such behaviour:

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In Their Own Words 2.3 Read the Twelve Caesars of Suetonius. How varied are the characters Suetonius portrays in his biographies?

In those fires doubtless the Government imagined that it could silence the voice of Rome and annihilate the freedom of the Senate and men’s knowledge of the truth. They even went on to banish the professors of philosophy and exile all honourable accomplishments, so that nothing decent might anywhere confront them. We have indeed set up a record of subservience. Rome of old explored the utmost limits of freedom; we have plumbed the depths of slavery, robbed as we are by informers even of the right to exchange ideas in conversation. Tacitus, Agricola, 2

No source puts Domitian’s case for him, but it should be said that he remained liked by the army, who showed unrest when he was finally killed. This happened in 96, when he was assassinated by members of his circle; his wife may have been amongst the plotters.

The Nerva-Antonine Dynasty Domitian had named no successor, and so it fell to the Senate to nominate someone. They choose Nerva (96–98), a respectable elderly lawyer who went back to consulting the Senate regularly and submitting legislation to it for approval. However, his succession further stoked resentment amongst the legions who favoured Domitian. Nerva appeased them with a masterstroke: childless himself, he adopted as his successor and co-emperor Trajan, the governor of Upper Germany who was himself popular with the soldiers. This set a template for an effective succession and was Nerva’s great contribution to the Principate. The Roman empire now entered into a period of greater stability under the rule of the so-called ‘five good emperors’ who ruled from 96–180: Nerva, Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138), Antoninus Pius (138–161) and Marcus Aurelius (161–180). Like Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius were all childless, so a suitable and qualified candidate could be selected to succeed them. This therefore is sometimes also called the ‘Adoptive Dynasty’.

Alimenta Nerva may have been the first emperor to set up a philanthropic scheme, which came to the fore in the time of Trajan and lasted for over 200 years. Large sums of state money were set aside to provide loans for farmers at a low rate of interest,

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meaning that they were guaranteed their livelihood. More importantly, the interest on these loans was used to support and educate orphans and the children of the poor; the loans were known as alimenta, ‘nourishments’. Inscriptional evidence from the town of Veleia in northern Italy gives details of the scheme. Here, Trajan bought 46 farming estates for just over 1 million sesterces – the real value was more than 12 times that amount – and then required the landholders to pay into a local alimentary scheme at a 5% rate of interest. In one year, the 55,800 sesterces of interest were distributed among 263 boys, 35 girls and two illegitimate children. Such figures are therefore likely to provoke a mixed reaction in a modern reader: any respect for a scheme to support children has to be set against the stark reality that boys were so heavily prioritised.

Review and Reflect 2.2 1

Do we have anything similar to damnatio memoriae in our society today? To what extent are people’s reputations reassessed after death?

2

How helpful is it to see a period of an empire’s history through an examination of its ruler? What shortcomings does this have?

3

Find out about the arguments for the rehabilitation of Caligula and Nero. What points can be made in defence of their records?

Further Reading 2.2 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapters 9, 10. Garzetti, Albino, From Tiberius to the Antonines (London: Routledge, 2014). Griffin, Miriam, Nero: The End of a Dynastyy (London: Batsford 1984). Levick, Barbara, Claudius (London: Batsford, 1990). Levick, Barbara, Tiberius the Politician (London: Routledge, 1999). Levick, Barbara, Vespasian (London: Routledge, 2016). Morgan, Gwyn, 69 A.D.: The Year of the Four Emperors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Scullard, Howard, From the Gracchi to Nero (London: Routledge, 2010). Winterling, Aloys, Caligula: A Biographyy (London: University of California Press, 2011). Woodman, Anthony, The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Zissos, Andrew. (ed.) A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).

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Date

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14

Accession of Tiberius

19

Death of Germanicus in Syria

26

Tiberius moves to Capri; Sejanus in charge at Rome

c. 33

Execution of Jesus Christ in Judaea

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Death of Tiberius; accession of Gaius Caligula

41

Assassination of Gaius Caligula; accession of Claudius

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Roman conquest of Britain

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Death of Claudius; accession of Nero

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Murder of Agrippina

61

Revolt of Boudica in Britain

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Great fire of Rome

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Jewish Revolt; Vespasian sent to command the Roman forces in 66

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69

Year of the Four Emperors; Vespasian emerges as the lasting successor to Nero

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Sack of Jerusalem

79

Death of Vespasian; accession of Titus; eruption of Mt Vesuvius

80

Opening games of the Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum)

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Death of Titus; accession of Domitian

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Domitian’s ‘reign of terror’

96

Death of Domitian; accession of Nerva

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Trajan adopted by Nerva; introduction of the alimenta

98

Death of Nerva; accession of Trajan

III The Second Century CE The 2nd century is notable for its lack of surviving historical accounts. For the most part, we rely on Byzantine summaries of earlier lost works, as well as coins and inscriptions. There are some exceptions to this: Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan illuminates the relationship between emperor and governor (see pp. 139–140 and pp. 223–224), while towards the end of the century the surviving accounts of Cassius Dio and Herodian inform us of the reign of Commodus and subsequent years. Trajan was born and raised in Spain and so was the first non-Italian emperor. This reflected the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of the empire, and by now senators too were increasingly drawn from all parts; especially important were those from Asia Minor and the other eastern provinces, where the Greek-speaking population was becoming ever more involved in imperial administration. Upon becoming emperor, Trajan first inspected the entire northern frontier from west to east, and then returned

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to Rome to win over the senatorial classes. In 101, he launched an expansionist campaign against the Dacians on the far side of the Danube (who lived in what is today Romania). It is unclear what his motive was for the campaign, but the farthest regions of Dacia were home to gold mines; he may also have felt the need to restore the morale of legions still smarting over the assassination of Domitian. Whatever the case, by 106 Dacia had been made into a full province of the empire, which it remained for 150 years. This was the last major addition to the empire. Later in his rule, Trajan captured part of the Parthian Empire as well, but this was soon given up by his successor. Trajan instigated a large building project in Rome both to improve the city’s infrastructure and to commemorate his achievements. The project was supervised by Apollodorus, a celebrated architect from Damascus, and included the world’s first shopping centre – ‘Trajan’s Markets’ – which can still be viewed in the centre of Rome today. The project was centred around a magnificent new forum, with two libraries, one for Greek texts, the other for Latin texts, as well as the iconic column that still bears Trajan’s name (Fig. 2.12). This monument consisted of three parts: a marble pedestal at the base, the marble column itself, and a bronze statue of Trajan on the top. The pedestal is about 5 metres in height and became Trajan’s tomb. The column is about 30 metres in height, with a diameter of 3.7 metres. On its outside, the frieze depicting the Dacian wars is nearly 200 metres long and winds around the column twenty-three times. Trajan’s Forum was the last and grandest of all the imperial fora: over two hundred years later, when the emperor Constantius II visited Rome for the first time, it was this forum of all the city’s monuments that most amazed him:

Fig. 2.12 Trajan’s Column still stands in Rome today. The bronze figure at the top now depicts St Peter, and was set up in 1587 on the instruction of Pope Sixtus V.

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But when he came to the Forum of Trajan, a creation which in my view has no like under the cope of heaven and which even the gods themselves must agree to admire, he stood transfixed with astonishment, surveying the gigantic fabric around him; its grandeur defies description and can never again be approached by mortal men. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 16.10.15

Trajan also commissioned new baths for the city. Another significant achievement of Trajan’s rule was the development of a faster route linking Rome to the port of Brundisium. The Via Appia had always linked the two, but now Trajan had built a new highway, known as the Via Traiana, which peeled off from the Via Appia at the town of Beneventum and provided a shorter journey to Brundisium via the east coast. A commemorative arch celebrating Trajan’s rule was built in Beneventum in 114 and today is one of the best-preserved arches in the Roman world. Trajan’s expansion of the empire was not limited to Dacia. By 107, the client kingdom of Nabataea had been turned into a full Roman province known as Arabia Petraea, which encompassed much of what is today southern Jordan and north-west Saudi Arabia (the UNESCO world heritage site of Petra was a key trading post in this region). In 113, Trajan launched a campaign against the Parthian Empire, provoked by a pro-Parthian king coming to the throne in Armenia, which had long been a buffer kingdom between the two empires. The sources for Trajan’s campaign are fragmentary, but it is clear that he made it all the way through Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the Persian Gulf, and declared new provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria. Although these conquests did not remain in Roman hands for long, it is often pointed out that the empire reached its greatest extent by the death of Trajan in 117. While Trajan was away in the east, there was a major uprising of diaspora Jews in Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Egypt, known as the Kitos War, which was only put down by Roman legions after two years and great loss of life on both sides. Trajan’s adopted successor was Hadrian, a cousin of his from the same town in Spain. Hadrian focused on making the empire’s borders secure, believing that the Romans had overstretched themselves: one famous symbol of this is the wall that was constructed across the north of England. He also fortified the border along the Rhine, and withdrew from the Parthian territory conquered by Trajan. Ultimately, Hadrian is remembered for his love of Greek culture and his building projects. Buildings commissioned under Hadrian can be seen all over the empire, including the Pantheon in Rome (which was rebuilt – Fig. 2.13), his mausoleum in Rome, his villa complex outside the city in Tivoli, the temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, and the monumental arch at the entrance to the city of Jerash (in modern Jordan). Hadrian spent half of his years in power touring the provinces, something which made him popular there. Between 121 and 127, he toured largely in the west, travelling all the way to Britain to begin the wall, and then between 128 and 131 he toured largely in the east. Accompanying him at this time was his younger lover Antinous, a Bithynian youth with whom Hadrian was besotted. When Antinous drowned in Egypt in 130, the emperor was devastated and had him deified. The tour was also marred by a serious revolt by the Jews: in his desire to spread Greek culture,

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Forum of Augustus

branch of Aqua Julia

Portico of Livia

Forum of Julius Caesar

Portico of Octavia

Theatre of Marcellus Palace of Domitian

buildings of Baths of Trajan the Forum Temple of Romanum Jupiter Capitolinus Baths of Titus Temple of Vespasian Arch of Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum) Titus Palace of Tiberius Site of Nero’s Golden House Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Ci rc Domus us M Flavia Temple of Claudius

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Hadrian had banned circumcision in Judaea. Worse still, he had decided to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city named Aelia Capitolina. The revolt against this offset was led by Simon Bar Kokhba, and so is known as the Bar Kokhba revolt; it lasted between 132 and 135, and saw a huge loss of life on both sides until the Romans finally won. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed or sold into slavery. It was the third and final war between the Romans and the Jews in a set of conflicts that had started in 66. The province of Judaea was afterwards renamed Syria Palestina.

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Hadrian left the succession in good order for the next two generations. He had adopted Antoninus Pius, and arranged for Antoninus himself to adopt two children: the 17-year-old Marcus Annius Verus (later to become Marcus Aurelius) and the 7-year-old Lucius Verus. The sources for the reign of Antoninus Pius are very sparse, but it was recognised even then as a golden age of peace. In contrast to his predecessor, Antoninus never left Italy; he made few administrative changes and apparently ruled in harmony with the Senate. In many ways it seems that was the embodiment of what Augustus had hoped for the Principate: that the empire would be ruled by a ‘dutiful prince’. In which case, the title pius given to him by the Senate was apt. Antoninus kept a tight reign over the state finances, which meant that he was able to assist cities affected by natural disasters, and left a surplus of 675 million denarii at his death. But he was not averse to providing public entertainment; he put on spectacular games in 148 to celebrate Rome’s 900th anniversary. He was devoted to his wife Faustina, and after her death in 140 set up a charity for homeless girls called the Faustinianiae in honour of her. Antoninus was remembered as a man of peace; his last word was apparently ‘equanimity’, while a biographer sums him up as follows: He always loved peace, so much so that he often quoted Scipio’s opinion, in which he used to state that he would rather save a single citizen than kill a thousand enemies. Augustan History, Life of Antoninus Pius, 9.10

Antoninus was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius, who is today best known for his book of Meditations (see box, p. 111). In fact, between 161 and 169 he ruled jointly with Lucius Verus, as Hadrian had intended. They had all the same powers, although Marcus Aurelius was the sole Pontifex Maximus, marking him out as the senior of the two. This was the first time that Rome was ruled by co-emperors, a model that was to reappear during the later period of the empire. It was no doubt an attempt to share out the vast administrative duties with which an emperor was charged. Between 162 and 166, Roman forces were once again engaged in fighting the Parthians. As they returned westwards, they brought with them a devastating plague, which caused immense loss of life: 10% of the population of the empire may have died. At the same time, the Danube frontier came under great pressure from invading tribes; about 6,000 barbarians crossed the Danube into Pannonia. They were driven out, but the Romans were forced to sign a peace treaty with eleven barbarian tribes.

In Their Own Words 2.4 Read two panegyrics (speeches of praise): Pliny the Younger’s Panegyric of Trajan delivered to the Senate in 100, and Aelius Aristides’ Regarding Rome, written for the Imperial household in 155. What can we learn about imperial ideology from these speeches?

Chapter 2 The Emperors

These events were a forerunner of the pressures the empire was to come under from outside its borders in the coming centuries, and which would eventually lead to its collapse. Both emperors headed north to meet the threat in 168; when Lucius Verus died in 169, Marcus Aurelius become sole emperor. He was forced to spend the next decade campaigning on the northern frontiers of the Rhine and the Danube. He had to raise taxes and conscript thousands of men into the legions; vast sums of money were required to sustain the empire, and Marcus even decided to auction off property from palaces in Trajan’s Forum to raise money for his campaigns. The written sources about his northern campaigns are once again threadbare, but it seems that the Romans suffered a major military defeat in about 171, after which barbarians poured into the empire. Marcus came to a settlement with them in 175. None the less, trouble broke out again in 178, and the emperor headed north to combat it. He died in camp in 180 (an event that is fictionalised in the film Gladiator). The reign of Marcus was later seen to be the end of a high point that Rome never regained. The contemporary historian Cassius Dio wrote that ‘our history now falls down from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust’. In truth, his reign had given forewarning of what was to come in future centuries. Marcus Aurelius had announced in 177 that his natural son and heir, Commodus, would rule jointly with him. Upon his father’s death in 180, Commodus assumed sole power at the age of 19. He was the first natural born son of an emperor to assume power since Titus in 79, and his reign showed the weakness of inherited rule. Commodus abandoned his father’s policy of extending Roman territory beyond the Danube, and returned to Rome. He took far less care over the role of emperor than his

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius is best known today for the reflections on life he set down, which have been divided into 12 books. Written in Greek, and known today as his Meditations, the original Greek title was apparently Ta Eis Heauton, which literally translates as ‘Things to Oneself’. The Meditations were completed between 175 and 180, and reflect the emperor’s stoic outlook on life (see p. 214). Above all, they recommend living the best life that you can in the short time allotted: Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live. The inescapable is hanging over your head; while you have life in you, while you still can, make yourself good. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, s 4.17 The Meditations continue to be popular today. The former US president Bill Clinton has named the work as his favourite book, while in 2002 a new translation made the bestseller list in the US.

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father did, and many decisions were left to a council of advisers. He is reported to have had tendencies to megalomania; he was portrayed as the Greek mythological hero Hercules in statues (Fig. 2.14), and in 192 he responded to a serious fire at Rome by declaring himself the new Romulus and ritually refounding the city with a new name. Commodus was a lover of gladiatorial combat, and enjoyed taking part himself (see p. 309) he is said to have fought more than a thousand times during his rule. When he announced his intention to assume the consulship on 1 January 193 dressed as a gladiator, it was the final straw for the aristocracy. He was assassinated on the last day of 192; his mistress Marcia, one of the conspirators, fed him poison, but he was so drunk that he vomited it up. However, the conspirators then enlisted his wrestling partner, Narcissus, to strangle him in the bath. After Commodus’ demise, there followed a period of unrest similar to that of 68/69. The Praetorian Guard named a senator (and son of a freedman), Pertinax, to take his place in January 193, but some of the guardsmen turned against him and killed him just three months later. The Guard then nominated another senator, Didius Julianus, but legions from three different regions each named their commander as emperor too. The commander of the Pannonian legions, Septimius Severus, emerged triumphant from the chaos.

Fig. 2.14 This bust depicts Commodus as Hercules. Dated to about 190, it shows the emperor with the club and lion skin usually associated with the Greek mythological hero. The globe at the bottom suggests his control of the whole world. This statue corresponds exactly to comment in the Historia Augusta that Commodus had statues set up of himself as Hercules.

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Date

Event

98

Accession of Trajan

106

Dacia conquered and turned into a Roman province

107

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113–117

Roman invasion of the Parthian Empire

115–117

Kitos War: revolt of diaspora Jews in the eastern part of empire

117

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118

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125

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132–135

Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea

138

Death of Hadrian; accession of Antoninus Pius

148

Games celebrating Rome’s 900th anniversary

161

Death of Antoninus Pius; accession of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Varus as co-emperors

162–6

Campaigns against the Parthians

165–7

Plague in the empire causes terrible loss of life

168

Both emperors campaign against invading tribes on the Danube frontiers

169

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169–180

Marcus Aurelius largely campaigning on the northern frontiers

177

Commodus becomes co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius

180

Death of Marcus Aurelius; Commodus becomes sole emperor

192

Death of Commodus

193

Accession of Septimius Severus

Further Reading 2.3 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 10. Bennett, Julian, Trajan: Optimus Princeps (London: Routledge, 2001). Birley, Anthony, Hadrian: The Restless Emperorr (London: Routledge, 2013). Birley, Anthony, Marcus Aurelius: A Biographyy (London: Batsford, 1987). McHugh, John, The Emperor Commodus: God and Gladiatorr (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military, 2015).

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Review and Reflect 2.3 1

Research the building projects of Trajan and Hadrian. What can these tell us about the nature of these emperors?

2

Is it surprising that Marcus Aurelius was both a ruthless military commander and a philosopher?

3

The Romans believed in physiognomy (that facial features reveal character). Find some official images of emperors (e.g. statues or on coinage) and suggest what impression of the emperor’s character is created.

IV The Third Century CE The Severan Dynasty Septimius Severus (193–211) began a new imperial dynasty, which ruled until 235. Severus came from Leptis Magna in Libya and so was the first emperor to have been born in Africa (Fig. 2.15). He was an able administrator, rooting out the corruption of Commodus’ era, but ultimately he is remembered as a soldier. He campaigned against the Parthians in 194–195 and then again in 197–199, extending the empire into northern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). He portrayed these campaigns as a glorious achievement on the arch that still stands prominently in the Roman forum. Between 208 and 211 he led campaigns against the Caledonians in Britain. He died in York, the northern-most city of the empire. Septimius Severus had a poor relationship with the Senate. He conducted a number of treason trials against senators, and reduced the number of senior administrative posts open to senators. To the troops, however, he was one of them. He improved their terms of service, allowing legionaries to marry for the first time since Augustus had introduced a ban on it, and increasing their annual salary from 1,200 to 2,000 sesterces (there had been no increase in pay for over a hundred years). His wife, Julia Domna, was known as mater castrorum, ‘mother of the camp’. He named his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, as his co-heirs. It is perhaps indicative of his rule that his last words, spoken to his sons, are said to have been: Be of one mind, pay the troops well, and despise everyone else. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 77.15

Yet the elder son Caracalla ignored the first part of this advice – within a few months he had Geta murdered and then ruled on his own until 217. Geta was subject to damnatio memoriae; one example of this can be seen in Fig. 2.15, and another can

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Fig. 2.15 This family painting on wood of Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, Caracalla and (the excised) Geta tells more than one story. It is a striking emblem of the diversity of the empire: the emperor was born in African Leptis Magna, his wife in Asian Syria, while they lived in European Rome. The painting was produced in about 198, but Caracalla had Geta’s face erased as part of his damnatio memoriae after his murder in 211.

be seen on the arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman forum, where Geta’s name is erased. Caracalla’s reign was marked by troubles on the borders, both on the Rhine and in the east. However, it is most notable for his decision to award citizenship to every free man in the empire. The motives behind this extraordinary move are unclear, but it marked the culmination of the Roman ideal that citizenship was a status to be granted to those far from the city itself. None the less, Caracalla is reputed to have ruled with great cruelty, and he was assassinated by one of his officers in 217. A power struggle followed, after which Rome was ruled first by the praetorian prefect Macrinus (the first non-senator to become emperor); after he was assassinated,

The Baths of Caracalla Visitors to Rome today can still see the substantial remains of the baths of Caracalla. The massive complex occupied an area of about 13 hectares (32 acres) and could hold 1,600 bathers at any one time. Like other large thermae, it had a huge library, with separate rooms for Greek and Latin texts. It was also home to some of the most famous works of art to survive from the Roman world, such as the Farnese Bull and the Farnese Hercules.

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a 15-year-old distant relative of Caracalla, Elagabalus (218–222), replaced him. He was supported by his mother and grandmother. His obsession with worshipping a Syrian sun-god rather than running an empire led to his murder by praetorians. He had named as his heir his 14-year-old cousin Alexander. From the start of his rule, Severus Alexander (222–235) deferred to his mother, Julia Mamaea, who ruled almost as empress. These years were largely ones of peace and stability for the empire, and progressive initiatives were put forward: teachers and scholars were subsidised, taxes were reduced, and the grain supply was improved. The legal system was overseen by noted jurists. Moreover, the emperor was advised by impressive men, such as the historian Cassius Dio. Yet the stability of Alexander’s rule was not to last. Although he had put down a threat on the eastern borders, he came into more trouble on the Rhine. When he tried to negotiate a peace with the German tribes, mutinous soldiers murdered him in disgust, along with his mother.

The Third Century Crisis The empire now entered upon five decades of enormous instability. The literary sources for this period are thin, and we rely on archaeology and coinage to piece together a narrative. Italy and cities elsewhere suffered a 20-year plague, and there was a serious decline in the population. Famine may have been caused by the breakdown of transport routes. Between 235 and 284, at least 18 emperors were nominated by the Senate, and about twice as many pretenders were declared emperor by their troops. The succession problem loomed large as rivals fought for the right to assume the ultimate office. The empire was also beset by economic problems; soaring inflation led to the collapse of the silver-based currency, while ordinary people were crushed by heavy taxation. As well as these internal problems, the empire also faced new pressures on its borders. Indeed, enormous changes were happening beyond the empire, which were to have a great effect on it for generations (Fig. 2.16). In the early 3rd century, a group of tribes previously unknown to the Romans, the Goths, had migrated from north-eastern Europe towards Roman territory, settling on the north side of the Black Sea and along the upper Danube. Other tribes from northeastern Europe, such as the Vandals, followed them. In the 230s and 240s, the Goths invaded Dacia and Pannonia. When they killed the emperor Trajan Decius in battle in 251, his successor Trebonnius Gallus came to terms with them. However, the new emperor had to return to Rome to secure his position, leaving the Danube frontier vulnerable and in 267 the Goths pushed much further, launching a maritime invasion across the Black Sea and sacking cities in Asia Minor as well as in Thrace and Greece. To the horror of the Roman world, great cultural centres such as Athens, Delphi and Ephesus were ransacked. The migration of the Goths had the effect of pushing other Germanic tribes into Roman territory. Moreover, the make-up of these tribes had changed; previously the lands across the Rhine and Danube were inhabited by numerous small tribes, but

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they were now merging into new confederations, such as the Franks on the Rhine and the Alamanni and Marcomanni on the Danube. These peoples made repeated incursions into the empire. For example, in 253, tens of thousands of Franks crossed the Rhine and spent five years pillaging Gaul and Spain. They were driven back in 258 by a Roman commander, Gaius Latinius Postumus who, as a response to the crisis, in 260 created a breakaway state from the Roman empire, the ‘Empire of the Gauls’, which controlled Gaul, Germany, Britain and, for a time, Spain. His ‘empire’ had its own Senate, army and administrative structures. It won popular support since it was able to police the frontiers effectively. In the East, the Parthian Empire, weakened by the campaigns of Septimius Severus, had come to a point of near collapse. One of the Parthian subject peoples, the Sassanid Persians, overthrew the Parthians in the 220s and established a new empire, claiming cultural descent from the Achaemenid Persians of centuries earlier. This empire, which had the monotheistic Zoroastrian religion at its heart, posed a far more dangerous threat to the Romans than the Parthians had done. The Romans were forced to divert a huge number of troops to the region and to fight fierce battles there. Perhaps the most shameful episode for them came in 260, when the Sassanids invaded the eastern provinces and captured the major city of Antioch. Soon afterwards, they took the emperor Valerian prisoner; he was the first Roman emperor to be captured in war, and he died soon afterwards in captivity (Fig 2.17).

Fig. 2.17 The emperor Valerian submits to the Sassanid king Shapur I. Shapur had this rock carving created in about 270 at Naqs-i-Rustam, near Persepolis, to illustrate the submission of his Roman opponent, who still wears military costume and his general’s cloak.

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As had happened in Gaul, a local ruler, King Odenathus of the Syrian oasis city of Palmyra, took matters into his own hands. After driving the Sassanids out of Roman territory in 262, he led a breakaway of eastern states and formed a new kingdom. After his death in 267, he was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Septimius Vaballathus, but the real power was the boy’s mother, Zenobia (Fig. 2.18). She issued coinage that carried her image and the title Augusta. Under her rule, the kingdom came to control Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt and much of Asia Minor. She is also credited with turning her court into a centre of learning, inviting intellectuals and philosophers to come to Palmyra, amongst them the great literary critic Cassius Longinus. As in the west, Zenobia had popular support because the frontiers against the Persians had been secured. Some order was restored to the Roman empire by the emperor Aurelian (270– 275), a military commander whose nickname was ‘Hand-on-Sword’. Although he abandoned Dacia to the Goths in 271, he managed to reunify the rest of the empire by

Fig. 2.18 In this relief Zenobia is depicted as Ishtar, an eastern goddess of political power, war and love. Standing beside her is her maid, who is portrayed as Tyche, a Greek goddess of fortune.

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defeating the forces of Zenobia in 273 and those of the Empire of the Gauls in 274. Zenobia was captured and spared. She was paraded in Aurelian’s triumph of 274, but thereafter permitted to live as a free woman; she married a senator and settled near Rome. In Rome, Aurelian’s lasting legacy is the huge set of walls built around the city of Rome, 12 miles in length, which can still be seen in parts today. These walls suggest the need to defend the city against possible barbarian incursions. However, when Aurelian was murdered in 275, instability followed for another decade. The five decades of the 3rd century crisis signalled the challenges that the Romans would face in the following centuries. The Roman state had been hampered by internal chaos, and had also been challenged on its borders by new threats. The reality was that the Roman troops on the frontiers had only ever represented a thin line of defence – it is in fact remarkable that the empire had remained so stable for so long. In this context, the two breakaway empires that formed during the period can be viewed as positive developments, which indicated a greater self-confidence in people’s ability to run regional affairs for themselves. Indeed, these empires foreshadowed the kingdoms that emerged after the fall of the Roman empire in the west. For this reason, some historians see the 3rd century as a period of dramatic change and refer to the period from 200 to 700 as ‘Late Antiquity’.

Diocletian and the Tetrarchy Diocletian (284–305), a military officer who had worked his way up from a relatively modest background, made a ground-breaking change to the structure of the empire. Believing that it was now too big to be managed by one man, he divided it into two halves, east and west. Each half was to be ruled by an emperor, known as an ‘Augustus’. Diocletian also tried to solve the succession problem by ensuring that each Augustus had a nominated deputy who would succeed him, known as a ‘Caesar’. In practice, each Caesar was given a large region to govern, so that by 293 the empire was really split into four parts, a structure known as the ‘Tetrarchy’ (a Greek word meaning ‘the rule of four’) (Fig. 2.19). Diocletian became the Augustus in the east, and ruled from Nicomedia in Asia Minor. His Caesar, Galerius, controlled the Danube frontier from Sirmium in Pannonia and Thessalonica in northern Greece. A fellow military commander, Maximian, became the Augustus of the west. In a highly symbolic move, he chose to rule from Milan rather than Rome. This was no doubt to give him quicker access to the borders, but it also signalled the start of Rome’s decline as the centre of imperial power (none the less, Maximian did have a vast baths complex built at Rome in honour of Diocletian). His Caesar, Flavius Valerius Constantius, ruled from Trier on the Rhine frontier. Just as Augustus had done three centuries earlier, Diocletian tried to restore order and morale by promoting traditional Roman religion. He also suppressed other cults, and it was at this time that Christians suffered their last period of persecution in Roman history.

Chapter 2 The Emperors

Fig. 2.19 This sculpture of the four Tetrarchs dating to around 300 is made of valuable porphyry stone to suggest the wealth and power of the four rulers. The Augustus in each pair is denoted by his beard, and he leans towards his Caesar and clasps his shoulder. By putting all four together in a close group, the artist promotes their unity, while their furrowed brows suggest their concern for the empire.

Soldier Emperors The third century crisis gave rise to a different sort of emperor: a proven military commander who did not need to come from an aristocratic background but could rise through the ranks of the army. The Tetrarchs are examples of this: Diocletian came from obscure origins in Dalmatia; Galerius was from a Dacian peasant family – he apparently herded sheep before he joined the army; Maximian was the son of shopkeepers near Sirmium; while little is known of Constantius’ origins in Illyria. The origins of these emperors illustrate too that Pannonia and the Balkans were now a major recruiting ground for soldiers, some of whom worked their way to the very top.

Diocletian developed the Roman imperial system into a far more complex bureaucracy, a process continued by his successor Constantine. For example, by 314 the empire had been restructured into about 100 provinces, twice as many as before. Diocletian also increased the size of the army to about 500,000, and a division in status emerged between troops that moved around the empire and those that remained

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in one place. The mobile troops were dominated by cavalry and held greater prestige. Infantry troops were largely placed in permanent garrisons on the borders. Diocletian’s attempts to solve the economic crisis were less successful; in 301 he established fixed prices and wages to combat inflation, but this proved unenforceable and ended in failure. Diocletian’s reforms brought about a more autocratic style of government. The emperor now became far more remote from the people, and the petition and response model of government introduced by Augustus ceased; emperors now received information through the filters of their courtiers. Historians therefore sometimes judge that with Diocletian came the end of the Principate. Instead, a new term, the ‘Dominate’, is sometimes used to describe the imperial system from this time on. This name indicates absolute rule practised by the emperors, who required themselves to be addressed as domine noster, ‘our lord’.

Date

Event

194–199

Septimius Severus twice campaigns against the Parthians

208–211

Septimius Severus campaigns against the Caledonians in northern Britain

211

Death of Septimius Severus; accession of Caracalla; murder of Geta

212

All free men of the empire granted Roman citizenship

217

Death of Caracalla

218

Accession of Elagabalus

222

Death of Elagabalus; accession of Severus Alexander

235

Death of Severus Alexander

235–284

The empire endures a period of crisis; no fewer than 18 emperors nominated by the Senate

260

The Sassanids capture Antioch

260–274

Breakaway ‘Empire of the Gauls’ formed in Gaul and Britain

262–273

Breakaway Palmyrene kingdom in the eastern empire

270–275

Aurelian restores some order as emperor and builds new walls for Rome

284

Accession of Diocletian

293

Diocletian establishes the Tetrarchy

Chapter 2 The Emperors

Review and Reflect 2.4 1

Research the Kingdom of the Gauls and the Palmyrene kingdom. Why did they not last?

2

Were the reforms of Diocletian essential to the survival of the Roman empire?

V The Fourth Century CE Diocletian resigned in 305 and persuaded his fellow Augustus Maximian to do the same, intending that the two Caesars would take over. However, just over a year later the new system broke down, as once again a struggle over the succession brought civil strife. The new Augustus in the west, Constantius I, died while campaigning in Britain in 306. Under Diocletian’s new system, he should have been succeeded by his Caesar, Flavius Valerius Severus. However, the legions in Britain favoured Constantius’ son, Constantine, and so they declared him emperor. By 311, the tetrarchy system had collapsed completely. In the west, a usurper named Maxentius had been named Augustus by the Senate and Praetorian Guard. Constantine marched to Italy with his troops and defeated him decisively in battle at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome in 312. It was before this battle that Constantine apparently had a famous vision that he would conquer in the name of Christ (see p. 226). Constantine was now the emperor in the west. One of his first moves was to disband the Praetorian Guard, which passed forever into history. In 313, in conjunction with Licinius, the emperor in the east, he approved the Edict of Milan, which announced the toleration of all religions; for the first time, it was legal to worship as a Christian. Constantine soon fell out with Licinius, and came into conflict with him. After a decade of tension and some fighting, Constantine finally defeated Licinius in 324 and reunited the whole empire under his rule. Despite this, the east/west structure established by Diocletian was to re-emerge and to have a far-reaching legacy. After Augustus, Constantine is perhaps the most influential emperor in all Roman history (Fig. 2.20). He continued many of the administrative reforms of Diocletian; in 320 there were at least 35,000 officials working for the imperial government, more than ten times as many as two centuries previously. He maintained Diocletian’s division between the mobile field army and the border army. However, he came to rely increasingly on recent barbarian immigrants to man both armies; many Roman officers of this period have Germanic names. The army was therefore a route for social mobility for barbarians in a way that it had not been previously. This change was the result of the catastrophic civil wars of the 3rd century, after which there were few surviving veterans to train new recruits in the traditional ways. The empire during Constantine’s time was made much more stable and prosperous; he stabilised

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Fig. 2.20 This colossal head of Constantine, about 2.5 metres high, was originally part of a 12-metre statue of the emperor that stood in the 4th century Basilica of Maxentius near the Roman forum. The other-worldly gaze of the emperor perhaps suggests his awareness of the divine.

the currency by basing it on gold coinage rather than the discredited silver coinage. In the distant province of Britain, archaeology shows a greater material wealth and increase in the number of villas during the 4th century. In 324, Constantine made the momentous decision to relocate the capital of the empire to the east: he chose the city of Byzantium on the Bosporus, which had been founded by Greek settlers a thousand years earlier. The city was now enlarged to make it grand enough to be a second Rome. Indeed, when it was formally dedicated on 11th May 330, it was called Nova Roma (‘New Rome’), although it soon became known as Constantinople (‘the City of Constantine’). Constantine recognised that the centre of gravity in the empire clearly lay in the east: two thirds of the population lived there, and it contained much of the wealth. Rome retained its prestige and grandeur as a city, but its days as the centre of political power were finished.

Chapter 2 The Emperors

Barbarians and Romanitas The incorporation of ‘barbarian’ immigrants into the Roman army was to be a major factor over the following century. In 332, Constantine made a treaty with the Goths whereby they were paid to provide forces for the Roman army but to remain in their own regiments. Such forces were known as foederatii, or federates, from the Latin word for a treaty. By the late 4th century, barbarian troops made up the large majority of the imperial army. However, we should now be careful with the term ‘barbarian’. Whereas before the Romans used this word to describe people outside the Roman empire, it now came also to apply to those ‘barbarians’ who had been Romanised to a greater or lesser extent. Some people of barbarian origin, or of mixed Roman and barbarian origin, came to hold great power in the empire. It was this mix of cultures that succeeded the western Roman empire after its fall in the 5th century; this survival of Roman culture in its successor kingdoms is sometimes known by historians as ‘Romanitas’.

From 324, Constantine also began to favour Christianity more openly. Imperial taxes were put into the coffers of the church, bishops became civil servants and could wield great power; the Church became steeped in the titles, rules and regulations of the empire. Moreover, Constantine supported the building of a huge number of monumental Christian basilicas, including the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, and the original Basilica of St Peter in Rome. In 325, he presided over a council of Christian bishops in the Bithynian city of Nicaea, which produced the first orthodox Christian doctrine; this came in the face of various doctrinal disputes between different Christian factions (see p. 226). After this council, ‘Nicene Christianity’ was declared to be orthodoxy, and its rival Arian Christianity to be heretical. None the less, both versions continued to grow and compete with one another. When Constantine died in 337, he left three sons and a nephew all with the title Caesar. By September of that year, his three sons had divided up the empire between them: Constantine II oversaw the western provinces, Constans ruled Italy, the western Balkans and north Africa (although Constantine II was his legal guardian since he was still underage), while Constantius II took charge of the east. The three had their closest relatives killed to eliminate any potential rivals. However, Constantine II and Constans soon fell out, and in 340 Constantine was killed when their forces met in northern Italy. Constans took over the western provinces and promoted Nicene Christianity, in contrast to Constantius II who supported Arian Christianity. The two rulers nearly came to open warfare over the issue, but each finally agreed that they could promote their preferred version in their own half of the empire. It was at this time that many barbarians, including the Goths, were converted to Arian Christianity (see p. 226). Constans grew unpopular in the west, and lost the support of his legions. In 350, one of his generals, Magnentius, declared himself emperor with the support of the troops on the Rhine. Constans was killed as he fled, and Constantius II broke off his war with

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the Sassanids to march east and challenge the usurper. Magnentius was eventually defeated in 353, but at great cost to Constantius’ troop numbers and the stability of the frontiers. Constantius now ruled the whole empire, and during the late 350s it came under more pressure than it had since the 290s. Zosimus, a historian of the period, summarises the pressures facing Constantius, now sole ruler of the empire, as follows: Everywhere [Constantius] saw the Roman empire being dismembered by barbarian incursions: the Franks, Alamanni and Saxons had already taken forty cities on the Rhine and left them in ruins by carrying off countless numbers of their inhabitants and untold spoils; the Quadi and Sarmatians had very boldly overrun Pannonia and Upper Moesia; and the Persians were continually harassing the East, whereas previously they had been inactive. Zosimus, New History, 3.1

Constantius continued to promote Arian Christianity. The many barbarian converts now became more acceptable to the Roman elite, and the number of federates in the Roman army grew. The army thus lost the traditional training and cohesion that had made it so successful. Moreover, there was always a danger of revolt from the federates. In 360, Constantius was forced to campaign against the Sassanids; when he demanded more troops from the legions in the west, they revolted and proclaimed their commander, Julian, a cousin of Constantius, emperor. Constantius died in 361 while marching to face the rebellion. Julian (361–363) was a fierce opponent of Christianity and so became known as Julian the Apostate. He wished to return Rome to its pagan gods, which he felt gave people a more pragmatic focus for their beliefs. His views were no doubt partly born of personal experience; although raised as a Christian, he had seen his father and other family members killed by soldiers loyal to Constantius. Anti-pagan measures had begun under Constantine and gathered pace under Constantius: in the 350s, laws prescribed the death penalty for anyone taking part in pagan ceremonies, while pagan temples were shut down (some were turned into churches); the persecution of pagans by the new Christian elite was every bit as brutal as the reverse had been previously. Yet Julian ruled for just 18 months, and was unsuccessful in his efforts to turn back the clock. In 364, the new emperor Valentinian (364–375) re-established the administrative split in the empire; he ruled in the west and he appointed his brother Valens (364– 378) as his co-ruler in the east. These years were marked by the arrival of a fierce new tribal people into central Europe: the Huns, nomads from the steppes of Central Asia. They inspired terror in all whom they met, and the Roman historian of the later 4th century, Ammianus Marcellinus, reflects the prejudices held against them: The people of the Huns . . . have squat bodies, strong limbs, and thick necks, and are so prodigiously ugly and bent that they might be two-legged animals . . . You cannot make a truce with them, because they are quite unreliable and easily swayed by any breath of rumour which promises advantage; like unreasoning beasts they are entirely at the mercy of the maddest impulses. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 31.2

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In Their Own Words 2.5 1

Read the whole of Ammianus Marcellinus’ description of the Huns in his Res Gestae 31.2.

2

Read Symmachus’ plea, written in 384, for Christian toleration of pagan religion at Relatio 3, and the response of Bishop Ambrose of Milan to his plea in Letters 17 and 18.

3

Research and read some of the Twelve Latin Panegyrics, eleven of which are speeches of praise for emperors, which are dated between 289 and 389.

At some point in the early 370s, the Huns invaded Gothic territory to the north of the Black Sea and the Danube and inflicted devastating losses. By this time, the Goths were divided into two distinct tribal groupings: on the Black Sea were the Ostrogoths, and they were subjected to the Huns for the next 80 years; further west were the Visigoths, and they sought refuge from the Huns within the Roman empire. In 376 Valens allowed 100,000 Visigoths to settle in Moesia as federates of the Roman army. As with other barbarian peoples migrating into the empire in this era, they came not to destroy it, but to share in its benefits. None the less, Roman officials handled the crisis badly and the Visigoths revolted. In August 378, they inflicted a crushing defeat on Roman forces at Adrianople; twothirds of the Roman forces were killed, Valens amongst them. The emperor in the west, Gratian (375–383) now appointed Theodosius I (379–395) as emperor in the east. Theodosius made a settlement with the Visigoths and by 382 they had been returned to their land; they became full members of the Roman army and a major force in it. In 394, Theodosius came into conflict with the newly appointed emperor in the west, Eugenius. He led his forces westwards and won a comprehensive victory. Among his forces were 20,000 Visigoths, led by their charismatic general Alaric. The Visigoths lost half their men in Theodosius’ victory; many survivors felt resentful that their contribution had not been recognised. Theodosius now reunited the two halves of the empire again. His victory was seen by many as a triumph for Christianity, since the conflict had been caused in part by the perception that Eugenius held pagan sympathies. No such claim could have been made against Theodosius, who together with Gratian had returned to anti-pagan policies. In 380 Nicene Christianity was declared the official religion of the empire. In 382 state funding for pagan rites in Rome was withdrawn, and the altar of Victory was removed from the Senate house. In 393 pagan ceremonies were outlawed: the Vestal Virgins were disbanded and the flame in the temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished; pagan religious sanctuaries were closed down, notable amongst them Delphi and Olympia; the Olympic Games, which had been held in honour of Zeus for some twelve centuries, were now banned. Pagan and Jewish buildings were attacked, with the acquiescence of local bishops.

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Date

Event

305

Diocletian and Maximian resign as co-emperors

306

Constantine named emperor in the west by his troops

312

Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge

313

Constantine and Licinius declare the Edict of Milan

324

Constantine defeats Licinius and reunites the empire

325

Council of Nicaea produces the orthodox doctrine of Nicene Christianity

330

Constantinople consecrated as the new capital of the empire

337

Death of Constantine; Constantius II initially co-emperor

353

Constantius II defeats Magnentius and becomes sole emperor

361

Death of Constantius II; accession of Julian the Apostate

363

Death of Julian the Apostate

c. 370

Arrival of the Huns in Europe

376

Valens allows 100,000 Visigoths to settle in Moesia as federates of the Roman army

378

Visigoth federates defeat Romans at the battle of Adrianople; death of Valens; accession of Theodosius I in the east

380

Nicene Christianity declared the sole religion of the empire

382

Theodosius I makes peace with the Visigoths and allows them to be full members of the Roman army

393

Theodosius I defeats the western emperor Eugenius with help from Visigoth forces led by Alaric; pagan ceremonies outlawed

395

Death of Theodosius I; accession of Honorius in the west and Arcadius in the east

VI The Fall Of The Western Empire The death of Theodosius in 395 brought further unrest. In his will, he appointed his 18-year-old son Arcadius as emperor in the east, and his 10-year-old son Honorius as emperor in the west. Both emperors had a powerful court of advisers; in the east one of these was Arcadius’ wife Aelia Eudoxia, who was given the title Augusta and depicted in Roman coinage. In the west, great power lay with Honorius’ guardian Stilicho, a half-Roman, half-Vandal general whose heritage meant that he held the confidence of the barbarian regiments of the army. Honorius’ rule was

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plagued by frequent foreign barbarian incursions into Roman territory in Gaul, Italy and Spain. However, the Visigoths posed the most serious problem. Alaric, angered not to have been given a senior command in the new regime, led his people in revolt and ravaged lands in Thrace and Greece. Stilicho, working for both emperors, came to terms with Alaric, so that the Visigoths were resettled in Epirus in 397. Despite this, they remained restless and in 400 marched to Italy in search of better land. Although they were defeated twice in battle, their invasion had a significant impact: Honorius moved the imperial court from Milan to Ravenna, a city easier to defend because it was surrounded by marshland. He also withdrew the legion XX Valeria Victrix from Britain, a sign that Roman rule there was very close to the end. A key moment in the fall of the empire was caused not by warfare but by weather conditions. On 31 December 406, the Rhine froze over and various foreign tribes crossed in great numbers. Jerome, a leading Christian scholar writing from Jerusalem in 409, shows the despair felt by those within the empire at what followed: I shall now say a few words about our present miseries . . . very fierce tribes have seized all parts of Gaul in countless numbers. All territory between the Alps and the Pyrenees, all territory bordered by the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by the Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Alamanni and . . . even Pannonians . . . The people of Worms, after withstanding a long siege, have been wiped out. The powerful city of Rheims, Amiens, Arras, far-distant Thérouanne, Tournai, Speyer, and Strasbourg have been absorbed into Germany; while the provinces of Gaul – Aquitaine, Novempopulana, Lugdunesis, and Narbonensis – with the exception of a few cities have been ransacked. People have either been killed by the sword outside the walls or by hunger inside them. Jerome, Epistles, 123.16

At this invasion, the defences on the Rhine collapsed. Jerome may be exaggerating in the number of tribes he lists, but at this time the Franks moved into northern Gaul, the Burgundians into central Gaul, while the Vandals, Suebi and Alans moved into Spain. The Roman ruling classes blamed Stilicho, and in 408 Honorius had him executed. Tensions then came to a head between Roman and federate troops – Roman soldiers massacred thousands of federates living in Italy, including their women and children. The federate regiments, whose main loyalty had been to Stilicho, defected and joined Alaric, who now marched on Rome from his base in northern Italy. His aim was still to gain a senior command in the imperial court in order to safeguard his people. Between 408 and 410, he blockaded Rome three times. Finally, in August 410, he sacked the city. He did not wish to destroy it, and his men were told only to loot for treasure. But it was a shattering moment for the people of the empire – the first time that Rome had been sacked for 800 years. Jerome once again captures the sense of trauma:

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My voice sticks in my throat, and choking sobs obstruct my words as I dictate them: the city which captured the whole world has itself been captured. Jerome, Epistles, 127.12

After the sacking, Alaric withdrew his troops to southern Italy, where he died a few months later. His brother-in-law, Athaulf, led the Visigoths back to northern Italy and came to terms with the imperial authorities. Between 411 and 418 they were employed as federates to restore order in Gaul and Spain. They were then given territory in the Aquitaine region and allowed to keep one third of the tax revenues from the surrounding regions; the Visigoths now effectively ran a separate state within the Roman empire. The final collapse of the western empire was slow and painful (Fig. 2.21). In 429 the Vandals migrated into the western half of north Africa, besieging the city of Hippo in 430. In 435, the emperor in the west, Valentinian III , was forced to conclude a peace with them, but the Vandals broke this in 439 by invading the province of Africa and occupying Carthage. This was a death-knell for the western empire; Africa was its most prosperous region, and its loss deprived the authorities in Ravenna of two-thirds of its grain supply. The Vandals also took control of the seas and islands of the western Mediterranean; in 442 Valentinian was forced to recognise the Vandals as an independent state. Despite this, in 455 they sacked Rome far more violently than Alaric had. During the 440s, the empire faced another terrible threat from the Huns, led by their fearsome king Attila. His attacks were initially focused on the eastern empire,

Augustine of Hippo Among those who died during the Vandal siege of Hippo was the city’s bishop, Augustine (354–430), later known as St Augustine. He is one of the most dynamic intellectual figures of early Christianity, who had a profound impact on the development of Christian theology. The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, he gives an account of his laboured conversion to Christianity in Confessions, regarded as the world’s first surviving autobiography. He became a priest in 391, and was made bishop of Hippo four years later. In his early life, Augustine studied Graeco-Roman rhetoric and philosophy voraciously, and was especially influenced by the ideas of the Neo-Platonist Plotinus. This intellectual world influenced his interpretation of Christian theology, and he expounded doctrines such as original sin and the just war theory. An extraordinarily prolific writer, Augustine’s other great work was The City of God God, d, written between 413 and 426 as a response to accusations by pagans that the sack of Rome in 410 had been punishment by the pagan gods for their abandonment in favour of Christianity. It is a seminal work of Christian thought, which engages with issues such as undeserved suffering, free will, predestination, and original sin.

500 km

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Fig. 2.21 The barbarian invasions and successor kingdoms to the western Roman empire in the 5th century CE .

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but in 451 he fell into dispute with Valentinian in the west. He set about conquering Gaul, devastating much of the province, but was defeated by a Roman-Visigoth alliance at the Catalaunian Plains in the Champagne region. This was the turningpoint in the conflict with the Huns, although Attila now focused his attention on Italy, moving down to the Po river and ransacking as he went. None the less, realising that he would be hampered by a lack of supplies, he concluded a peace. When he died in 453 the Hun empire soon collapsed. Despite this victory, the western empire was in its twilight. In 476, disenchanted federate troops, encouraged by the eastern emperor, captured Ravenna and forced the western emperor to abdicate. He was the last emperor of the western empire; ironically, his name was Romulus Augustulus. In his place, the federates declared their leader Odoacer rex Italiae, the ‘king of Italy’. Odoacer’s kingdom lasted just 17 years, after which Italy was taken over by invading Ostrogoths under their king Theodoric. The Ostrogothic kingdom lasted until 540, and retained a great level of cultural continuity with the Roman past. Although Theodoric was born in Pannonia of Germanic origin, he was an Arian Christian who had been educated at Constantinople. As king of the new Ostrogothic kingdom, he appointed to his court Boethius, a great scholar whose own works and translations of Aristotle ensured the transmission of classical learning into the early Middle Ages. The Ostrogothic kingdom is a good example of the reality that, while the political structures of western Europe were now different, culturally much remained the same. The eastern empire lived on, centred on its capital Constantinople. It lasted in some form until 1453, although its territory was much diminished after the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. When Constantinople was sacked by the Ottomans in 1453, its Greek-speaking citizens still referred to themselves as Romaioi – ‘Romans’. However, the eastern empire from the 5th century CE is known by historians as the Byzantine Empire and is conventionally treated as another era of history; the fall of the western empire is regarded as the end of the ancient world.

Why Did the Western Empire Fall? Any attempt to answer this question must take into account one central fact: it was not the Roman empire that collapsed in the 5th century, but its western half. Indeed, the eastern empire went on to flourish in the 6th century, and even reconquered Italy, north Africa and parts of Spain for a time. Hugely impressive public buildings were constructed, including the remarkable Hagia Sophia Basilica in Constantinople, which matched anything built in the Roman empire throughout its history. Therefore, when analysing the reasons for the collapse of the western empire, factors must be identified that were not decisive in the east. Scholars have debated the reasons for the fall of the western empire for centuries, and some today even prefer to talk of a transformation rather than a collapse; they emphasise both the extent of cultural continuity after the 5th century and that the successor states developed institutions

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based on the Roman model. However, there can be no denying there were fundamental changes in political structures when these successor states replaced the fragmenting empire during the 5th century. The fall of the western empire was caused by a complex mix of factors that can be put into two broad categories: internal and external. Most scholars would say that the external factors were highly influential. Specifically, the empire was enormously challenged by large-scale barbarian migrations, such as those of the Goths in the 3rd century and of the Huns in the 4th century; these had a domino effect, causing other peoples to seek land within the empire. A further external factor was the merging together of small tribes on the Rhine and the Danube into large tribal coalitions, such as the Franks and the Alamanni during the 3rd century. However, such external factors worked together with internal ones, both political and economic. Politically, the succession issue never ceased to cause problems – civil wars drained the empire of money and men. Economically, the growth in the number of state employees in the late empire, when there were more soldiers and civil servants, put enormous tax pressures on ordinary people, and one effect of the barbarian invasions was to reduce the tax base of the western empire. All of these factors, and others, created a situation whereby the empire was unsustainable.

Date

Event

400

Alaric and the Goths invade Italy

403

Ravenna becomes the imperial capital of the western empire

406

Various barbarian tribes cross the Rhine

409

The Vandals, Suebi and Alans invade Spain

410

Sack of Rome by Alaric and the Goths

418

The Visigoths are settled in a new kingdom in Aquitaine

429

The Vandals invade western north Africa

435

Valentinian III cedes western north Africa to the Vandals

439

The Vandals conquer Carthage

442

Valentinian III recognises the Vandal kingdom in North Africa

451

The Roman-Visigoth alliance defeats the Huns at the Catalaunian Plains

455

The Vandals sack Rome; death of Valentinian III

476

The last emperor in the west, Romulus Augustulus, is forced to abdicate.

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Review and Reflect 2.5 1

Do you think that the fall of the western empire was inevitable?

2

Which emperor do you think has had the greatest impact on world history?

3

Research the imperial women mentioned in this chapter. How influential do you think they were on the development of imperial history?

Further Reading 2.4 Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Brown, Peter, The World of Late Antiquityy (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971). Heather, Peter, The Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Pan, 2010). Mitchell, Stephen, A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284–641 (Malden, MA : John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2015). Potter, David, Constantine the Emperorr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Running an Empire

3

T

his chapter examines how the Romans administered a large empire that encompassed so many different peoples and traditions. It starts by looking at the role of provincial governors, and moves on to examine the importance of the Roman army to maintaining order. It then examines how the governors and legions worked to maintain order in the province, before describing how Roman infrastructure and technology enabled the empire to be a hub of trade and commerce.

I Provincial Governance 1 The Republican Era From the time when Sicily became the first Roman province in 264 BCE , a province was governed by a consul or a praetor whose imperium was extended for a year or two and transferred to cover the overseas region. As we have seen on p. 40, the governor was therefore known either as a proconsul or a propraetor. In fact, the growth of the empire had some influence on the development of the Roman political system. From the second half of the 3rd century, the number of praetorships started to increase, partly to ensure that there were enough experienced politicians to serve as provincial governors. The number of quaestorships grew too, since a quaestor was sent out with a governor to manage financial affairs in the province. Although a governor was the military commander in a province, he had a very small support staff for his daily business. In addition to the quaestor, he might have one or two deputies who were appointed by the Senate on his recommendation. At the level below them there might be other military commanders. There would also be assistants such as scribes, and a bodyguard of lictors, which was due to him as a 135

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holder of imperium. His staff might also consist of younger men who travelled out to the province with him to gain experience of provincial rule. Such a small team indicates that the governor left the running of most affairs to local elites, who were expected to administer their communities just as they always had, but to work with the Roman authorities in matters such as tax collection and military service. It is hard for us to know with any certainty about the governance of provinces under the Republic, since the literary evidence relies to a great extent on the writings of Cicero. At times he portrays a world in which corrupt governors alienated the local peoples: Words cannot express the hatred, gentlemen, in which we are held in countries overseas because of this scandalous, extortionate behaviour of the people we have sent out to govern them. In all those lands it would be impossible to find a shrine which they have held sacred, a city they have left unviolated, or a home that has proved able to withstand their encroachments. Such men, to satisfy their lust for plunder, search out rich and prosperous cities capable of furnishing them with a pretext – and then deliberately make war on them. Cicero, On the Command of Gnaeus Pompeius, 22.65

These lines come from a speech Cicero delivered to the Tribal Assembly in 66 BCE to persuade them to give sole command in the east to Pompey, and so he had a vested interest in arguing that Pompey would do a better job than the incumbent governors. None the less, his argument could surely not have carried any force if it did not reflect some sort of reality. The system of provincial governance under the Republic had few checks, and so abuses could easily occur. Furthermore, the relatively short time periods of a governorship – normally a year, but perhaps two – gave the governor little incentive to look to the long-term needs of the province. Indeed, a governor had much to gain by using his appointment for his own personal benefit: many no doubt saw their term

Verres In 70, Cicero prosecuted Gaius Verres in one of his most famous cases. Verres had just served for three years as governor of Sicily, and was accused of enormous criminality there. The charges included fiddling taxes, profiteering from Sicily’s rich corn supply, the grooming and sexual assault of young women, and stealing works of art from temples and private houses. Cicero prosecuted the case on behalf of a number of wealthy Sicilians. Although we do not have Verres’ side of the argument, he clearly did not fancy his chances and fled Rome after Cicero’s speech on the first day of the trial. He moved to Marseilles, where he lived in exile until 43. It was in this speech that Cicero first used the phrase O tempora, o mores (‘Oh the times! Oh the customs!’), which is still used today to express shock, sometimes jokingly, at a decline in social standards.

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of governorship as a chance to recoup the vast expenses they had racked up in running for public office. A war against a local tribe might have the double benefit of bringing in more booty for a governor and of allowing him to return to Rome with his status enhanced, perhaps even with a military triumph. The most famous example of a Roman governor using his position to win military glory is Julius Caesar’s conquests of Gaul in the 50s CE . There was some attempt to put a check on the worst excesses. We have seen that in 149 BCE the lex Calpurnia was introduced to enable the prosecution of governors accused of extortion (see p. 50). However, the jury in such trials was originally made up of senators, who were unlikely to convict one of their own in a case brought by foreign provincials. Gaius Gracchus’ attempt to replace these jurors with equestrians in the late 120s shows that some Romans wanted to make the system more transparent, but Sulla returned the right to the senators in 81. Yet even with this law in place, it was quite easy for governors and their associates to get away with what they wanted. Cicero was shocked that Marcus Junius Brutus, the famous assassin of Julius Caesar who was famed for being morally upright, lent money to locals on Cyprus at an illegal interest rate of 48% and had the provincial governor lend him some soldiers to oversee its collection. Cicero himself had a clear idea of a governor’s duties. His first philosophical treatise was written in 59 as advice to his brother Quintus, who had been governor of Asia since 61. It focused on the honesty and integrity with which he felt a provincial governor ought to rule: Let the whole province know that the lives, children, reputations and property of all over whom you rule are most precious to you . . . indeed it seems to me that those who rule over others must in every case regard the good fortune of those whom they govern as the most important issue. Cicero, Letters to His Brother Quintus, 1.1.13, 24

However, in the same letter Cicero admits that it wasn’t as easy as that. The governor was often caught between the desire to be fair to the provincials, and the reality of having to keep on good terms with the tax-collectors in his province. There was no state tax collecting service, and so private tax-collecting companies were usually appointed, especially when the amount of tax due varied – for example, a tax on an annual harvest. The advantage to the state was that these tax collectors, known as publicani and usually equestrians, put in a bid to the Senate for the work, and then paid the state a fixed amount upfront. They were then free to collect the taxes according to their own means, and to charge whatever rate they saw fit in order to maximise their profits. If locals could not afford to pay the full amount, they were forced to borrow money, often from those same publicani at an eye-watering rate. Cicero recognises the problem caused by the publicani in his letter to Quintus, but offers no easy solution for dealing with them: If we oppose them [the publicani], we shall alienate the equestrian order both from ourselves and from our government, an order which has deserved extremely well of us and which has been joined closely to the government by us; but if we

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give in to them in all matters, we shall allow to be ruined completely those people whose safety and interests we should concern ourselves with. Cicero, Letters to Quintus, 1.1.32

For all Cicero’s high-minded talk about the duties of a provincial governor, he was himself very reluctant to become governor of Cilicia in 51, ruing his absence from Rome. He hurried away from the province at the end of his term of office, leaving one of his staff in charge until his replacement arrived. Against this picture of corruption and mismanagement there are indications of a serious attempt by the Romans to run provinces properly. In addition to the lex Calpurnia, a fragmentary record of the compensation law that Gaius Gracchus brought in during the late 120s has been preserved in Urbino in northern Italy. This illustrates how much care, precision and legal thought went into legislating for good governance in the provinces: the surviving text amounts to about ten pages of a modern book. We only have a very small sample size of such prosecutions – just over thirty – but of these almost half resulted in convictions. Such evidence shows that the Romans thought seriously about the best way to rule the provinces that they had won.

2 Provinces under the Emperors Much changed with the advent of the Augustan Principate. Augustus took formal charge of many provinces himself (those provinces where there were significant numbers of troops), and appointed a governor, known as the legatus Augusti, to rule as his deputy in each. The Senate appointed the governors for the other provinces. In either case, the governor was ultimately answerable to the emperor, and the new system did not permit men to use a governorship to promote their own political position at Rome.

Cornelius Gallus The dangers of a governor trying to promote his own image in the new imperial regime is vividly illustrated by the story of Gaius Cornelius Gallus. Gallus was a remarkable man; from a humble background, he became a renowned poet of love elegy who took Octavian’s side in the 30s and became a close associate of his. After Octavian’s conquest of Egypt in 30, Gallus was appointed governor there. The following year he fought a successful campaign against some rebels, and erected a monument to glorify his achievements. Cassius Dio also reports that he also set up many images of himself in the province. As a result, Octavian banned him from Egypt and disowned him as a friend. This private decision had public consequences; soon afterwards the Senate heard prosecutions against him regarding various aspects of his behaviour. Gallus took his own life before he could be convicted. In the new world order, there was only one man who could set up monuments and images of himself in the empire.

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Governors continued to have a very small staff, but a new post was introduced, that of the procurator. He was the chief financial officer of a province, and answered directly to the emperor rather than to his provincial governor. Therefore, he could act as a set of eyes and ears to monitor the conduct of the governor for the emperor. The length of service for these positions varied, but it was usually set at about three years, which ensured a greater sense of continuity than before. Matters of justice were still managed locally apart from the most serious cases (or cases involving Roman citizens), which would be heard by the governor. However, provincials could now appeal directly to the emperor if they felt that they had a justifiable grievance under the ‘petition and response’ model of government. Augustus was assiduous in his attention to such appeals. One interesting example is recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus: The Jews of Asia and those living in Libya in the areas about Cyrene were suffering at the hands of the city authorities in those areas. Even though their kings had previously granted them equality of civic rights, they were now being abused by the Greeks, who were going so far as to confiscate their temple monies and discriminate against them in private disputes. Their sufferings were acute and they could see no end to the malevolence of the Greeks. So they sent a delegation to Caesar to register a complaint about this state of affairs. He confirmed their already existing right of equality of taxation and wrote letters to this effect to the local officials. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 16.160–161

This level of involvement and care relating to provincial matters was unprecedented, and meant that the new system won favour away from Italy. We get a detailed insight into the responsibilities of a provincial governor from the letters exchanged between Pliny the Younger and Trajan when the former was the governor of Bithynia and Pontus from 111 until his death the following year. Pliny no doubt wished to present himself as a dutiful governor in these letters, which he wrote for publication, but they do give extensive detail of the variety of issues he involved himself with. One example of this is the correspondence about how to handle the Christians described on p. 223. In another example, Pliny writes to Trajan to ask about setting up a fire brigade in the city of Nicomedia following a devastating blaze there: There was no state provision for a pump or bucket or, in short, any means of controlling fires. I have now given instructions, and these things will be made available. But you, my lord, must consider whether you think that an association of firemen should be established, confined to a total of 150. I shall ensure that firemen only are enrolled, and that they do not exploit the rights they are granted for any other purpose. It will not be difficult to control such a small number. Pliny, Letters, 10.33

It is interesting to note that there is no empire-wide policy on fire brigades to which Pliny can refer; issues such as this were clearly managed on an individual basis. In reply, Trajan gives clear instructions:

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You have in mind the possibility that an association of firemen should be set up among the citizens of Nicomedia. But we are to remember that the province, and notably these cities, have suffered disturbances through factions of this kind. Whatever title and for whatever reason we bestow on those who join together for the same purpose, they turn into political factions, and that within a short time. So it is better to make provision for the equipment which can be of help in controlling fires, and to advise owners of properties both to make use of this themselves, and if the situation demands it, to deploy for this purpose the bystanders who assemble there. Pliny, Letters, 10.34

If Trajan was engaging in such correspondence over local matters with all his governors, then he was clearly a very busy man.

In Their Own Words 3.1 1 Research Cicero’s speech prosecuting Verres. What are the full allegations that are made against the former governor?

2 Read a selection of letters between Pliny the Younger and Trajan in Book 10 of Pliny’s Letters. What impression do you get of the personal and professional relationship between the two men?

Review and Reflect 3.1 1

To what extent do you think that the republican system of government was ill-equipped to manage an overseas empire?

2

To what extent did the Principate offer a more effective model of government for controlling the provinces?

Further Reading 3.1 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 12. Levick, Barbara, The Government of the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2000). Richardson, John, Roman Provincial Administration (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013).

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II The Roman Army Rome came to dominate the world through military strength and its army was its single most important organisation. However, as the empire grew the army became far more than a fighting force; it kept the peace in the provinces and was the major agent of Romanisation there, not least because it engaged in the engineering projects that transformed many parts of the empire.

1 The Republican Army We can know little for certain about the Roman army in the city’s early centuries, but by 300 BCE it was made up of four legions (each consul commanded two of them). Each legion had about 3,000 heavy infantrymen, 1,200 light infantrymen and 300 cavalrymen. By this time, the contribution of Rome’s allies was also very important; each allied town seems to have provided a regiment of about 500 men and the number of allied soldiers was roughly equal to the number of Roman soldiers. Rome’s success in war can largely be put down to its enormous manpower – it could absorb terrible defeats (as at Cannae in 216 BCE ) and survive to fight another day. Polybius gives us a detailed eyewitness account of the Roman army in the 2nd century BCE . It was constituted each spring and disbanded again in the autumn (since ancient armies did not usually fight during the winter months). All eligible citizens – men between the age of 17 and 46 who had property above the value of 11,000 asses – had to report to the Capitoline Hill on a date set by the consuls. They were then selected based on suitability. Citizens were liable for 16 years’ service as infantrymen or 10 years as cavalrymen although, in reality, they were normally expected to serve for six consecutive years. These soldiers were paid compensation of 120 denarii per annum, which would not cover the loss of their labour on their farmland. Another weakness of this system was that it did not allow men to benefit from the experience gained by fighting together – after one season the legion was broken up. The army changed enormously during the late Republic and the catalyst for this was the appointment of Gaius Marius as consul in 107. Marius’ most important reform was to make the army open to any citizen regardless of property ownership, and for the state to supply men with arms. As we have seen, from this time on poorer soldiers became dependent on their generals to provide them with a share of the booty on campaign, and then with a retirement package of land upon discharge. The legion also now became a permanent organisation that was ready to fight at any time; drilling, training and equipment were standardised throughout the army. Marius is also credited with making a number of structural changes, including creating the cohort as the main sub-division of the legion (the structure of which is described on p. 145); he also introduced the eagle (the bird of prey associated with the god Jupiter)

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as the main standard of the legion. Marius’ reforms moved the army a long way towards professionalism, although this would not come fully until the reforms of Augustus.

The Triumph The pinnacle of Roman military success was a triumph. This was awarded to a general who had won a sensational victory or set of victories: he had to have killed at least 5,000 of the enemy and to have conquered new land. It was the Senate who could grant a triumph, as the event was partially funded by the state. Since republican politics was full of rivalries, a request for a triumph could sometimes be turned down, as Julius Caesar’s was in 60 BCE . Sometimes a lesser triumph, known as an ovatio, was granted. This might happen if an enemy was considered inferior (e.g. consisting of slaves or pirates), or when a victory came with little danger to the Roman army. For example, Crassus was awarded an ovatio after defeating Spartacus’ slave revolt in 71 BCE . The day of a triumph was a public holiday in Rome. The doors of temples were left open so that the gods could share in the celebrations, and the city was draped in flowers. The general camped with his soldiers on the Campus Martius the night before, as he was only allowed to lead his army across the pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome, on the day itself. The next morning the triumphal procession entered the city through a gate only used on such occasions, the porta triumphalis, and walked slowly to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, where sacrifices were made. Crowds, cheering wildly, lined the route. The order seems to have been standardised: the city magistrates led the way, followed by trumpeters, and then wagons of booty from the campaign, as well as paintings of the lands captured and the events involved. Next came priests, leading two white oxen to be sacrificed, and then captives in chains, with their leaders at the head. They were jeered and spat upon by the crowds lining the route – Cleopatra reportedly committed suicide to avoid the humiliation of being paraded in a triumph. Following the prisoners were musicians, who played in the triumphant general, the triumphator. He travelled in a chariot pulled by four white horses. He was dressed in gold and purple, with his face painted red, carrying a laurel branch in his right hand and an ivory sceptre in his left; this attire was the same as the statue of Jupiter in his temple on the Capitoline. Accompanying him in the chariot was a slave, who held a golden, bejewelled crown above his head: the crown of Jupiter. According to one source, the slave also reminded the general: ‘Look behind you, and remember that you are only mortal’. Behind the general marched his soldiers, decked in olive wreaths and shouting io triumphe (‘behold the triumph!’), as well as singing military songs. When the general reached the Capitoline, the sacrifices were made, while the chief captives were led off to the prison to be executed. The nature of the triumph changed with the Principate. Within a few years, the award was granted only to the emperor or members of his family; in an autocracy, it was dangerous to allow anyone else such adulation.

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In Their Own Words 3.2 1 Read Polybius’ account of the republican army at History, 6.19–42. 2 Read about the triumph of Pompey in 61 BCE at Plutarch, Pompey, 45, and about the triumphs of Julius Caesar in 46 BCE at Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 37–39, and Appian, Civil Wars, 2.101–102.

2 The Imperial Army When Augustus became sole ruler of the Roman world in 31 BCE , he had 60 legions at his disposal (nominally, a legion now had 5,000 men, although death and injury would have depleted the numbers during the civil wars). He soon reduced the number of legions to 28, and settled about 120,000 soldiers in colonies. He retained those legions raised by Julius Caesar, as well as some of the best of those that had served Antony. The army now became fully professional; Augustus brought in clear terms of service, rates of pay, and retirement benefits. A legionary soldier now signed on for 25 years and the emperor raised taxes to pay army salaries. He himself effectively became commander-in-chief of all Roman forces: he appointed senior officers, decided where and when soldiers should fight, and claimed all victories as his own, even if he had not been present. In addition, the legions now swore an oath of loyalty to him. At this time, the Roman army numbered about 300,000 (about half of this number was made up of auxiliary soldiers), a huge expense for the Roman treasury. The legionary soldier was paid 225 denarii per annum, although a century later Domitian raised this to 300 denarii; if a soldier was promoted, he would get a pay rise since a centurion was paid much more than a legionary. However, before pay was handed out a number of deductions were made – the legionary was expected to pay for his own food, clothing and equipment, and would also probably pay into a pension scheme that guaranteed him a proper burial when he died. Therefore, a soldier’s takehome pay was much less than the figure given above. If a legionary completed his service with an honourable discharge, he was given a lump sum of 3,000 denarii or an allocation of land, although the latter was later phased out.

The Varian Disaster In 9 CE , three Roman legions and their auxiliary units were wiped out in the Teutoberg forest of Germany by an alliance of Germanic tribesmen. The commander of the Roman legions was Publius Quinctilius Varus, and so it is commonly referred to as the Varian disaster.

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Between 12 BCE and 6 CE , the Romans had conquered the land to the east of the Rhine as far as the Elbe, and incorporated it as the province of Germania. In 6 CE , Varus became the governor of the province. At the start he had 11 legions, but over the next three years 8 of these legions were transferred to crush a revolt in the Balkans. One of Varus’ most trusted advisers was Arminius, whose father, a German tribal leader, had sent his son to Rome as a hostage of good faith in 9 BCE . While in Rome, Arminius received a military education and he became Romanised enough to be given equestrian status. However, when he returned to his homeland, he secretly plotted a revolt; in the years 6–9 CE he established an anti-Roman alliance of tribes that had previously been hostile to one another. In 9 CE Arminius gave Varus false reports of a tribal uprising, and suggested a route for him to take with his three legions to meet it. Arminius himself then left together with the tribal auxiliaries – he claimed that he was going to recruit more tribesmen to the Roman cause, but in fact this was his moment of desertion. When the Roman forces reached the Teutoberg forest, they were not marching in formation and camp followers were amongst them. The route, already wet and muddy, was made worse by torrential rain. The German alliance attacked them, and through a series of clever manoeuvres directed by Arminius, who knew Roman battle tactics well, they inflicted a devastating defeat. Roman fatalities have been estimated at 15,000–20,000; many officers are reported to have taken their own lives by falling on their swords. The three legions – XVII, XVIII and XIX – were never replaced, and so the total number of legions at this point was reduced to 25. The German tribesmen went on to ransack all the Roman positions to the east of the Rhine. After this the Rhine effectively became the empire’s border, something that had a profound effect on the future of Europe, since the lands to the east of the Rhine were never Romanised. Augustus was so shaken by the defeat that, according to Suetonius, he kept banging his head against a wall and crying out: ‘Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions’.

The Structure of a Legion Each legion was given a number, although it wasn’t as simple as numbering them from 1 to 28 because during the late Republic there had been opposing legions with the same number. With the advent of the Principate, the numbering was not changed. This meant that a legion often had a name after it too, which might have been taken from the legion’s origins or to commemorate a fine achievement by that legion. For example, two legions of the Augustan period were IV Macedonica and IV Scythica. The former had been founded in 48 BCE by Julius Caesar and stationed in Macedonia, hence its name; the latter had been founded in 42 BCE by Antony and had likely fought against the Scythians.

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Fig. 3.1 A diagram of a legion showing its divisions of cohorts and centuries.

The legion itself was broken down into a number of different subdivisions (Fig. 3.1). Working from the smallest unit up, these were as follows: ●

The contubernium: a unit of 8 men who shared the same tent and dealt with their own messing arrangements.

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The century: despite the name, this was a unit of about 80 men apart from the 1st cohort, which had 160 men.

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The cohort: with one exception, each cohort consisted of 6 centuries; the exception was the 1st cohort of a legion, which from the 70s CE was made up of 5 double-sized centuries of about 160 men each.

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The legion: the legion was made up of 10 cohorts; the 1st cohort contained about 800 men, while each of the other 9 cohorts was made up of 480 men, a total of about 4,320. In all, therefore, the legion typically had something over 5,000 ordinary legionary soldiers.

In addition to these infantry units, there were other members of the legion. Attached to each one were about 120 cavalrymen, who acted as scouts and dispatch riders. Other numbers were made up by those in the officer command structure.

Command of the Centuries A century was commanded by a centurion. The five centurions of the 1st cohort, known collectively as the primi ordines (‘those of the first rank’), were the most senior centurions. In turn, they were ranked by seniority, with the most senior known as the primus pilus (‘the first spearman’); he was a figure of considerable importance in the whole legion. Centurions were responsible for discipline in the army and they were expected to be very tough – they could beat soldiers with a vine cane, often brutally. A centurion would aspire to become the primus pilus, a position lasting for a year that was usually only open to men over 50. After that, the centurion would retire or be promoted.

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Each century had a number of other officials. The signifer (‘standard-bearer’) looked after the standard of the century, which was the century’s military emblem. It was typically a set of medallions hoisted on a pole, and the signifer carried it into battle. In addition, he was in charge of the century’s pay and savings. The optio was the centurion’s deputy, the tesserarius communicated the passwords, while the cornicen was the horn-player whose main duty was to sound orders to the soldiers.

Command of the Legion The legion as a whole also had a number of senior figures (Fig. 3.2). Some were drawn from the senatorial and equestrian classes, and they served in the army for a much shorter period of time than regular soldiers. The legate, or legatus, was the commander of the legion who was of senatorial rank and appointed by the emperor. He was normally a man in his mid-30s who had probably served some years previously as a tribunus laticlavius (see below). He would spend about three or four years commanding the legion, and then move to a civilian post in the imperial service.

Fig. 3.2 A signifer, a centurion and an aquilifer.

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A Successful Military Career: Gnaeus Julius Agricola We know a great deal about the career of Gnaeus Julius Agricola from a biography of him by his son-in-law Tacitus. He was born to a senatorial family in 40 CE , and at the age of 18 he was sent to the province of Britain as a tribunus laticlavius. When he returned to Rome a few years later, he held various posts in the imperial service. In 70, at the age of 30, he was sent to Britain again as the legate of the XX Valeria Victrixx legion. His command ended in 73, and he became a provincial governor in Gaul. In 77, he was posted back to Britain again – this time as the provincial governor – and remained there until 83. He is unique in our records as the only man to have held three military appointments in the same province.

Below the legate were six military tribunes, one of whom held a more senior status than the other five. He was the tribunus laticlavius, a young man under the age of 25 (but usually aged 18–20) from the senatorial class. He was therefore allowed to wear the broad purple senatorial stripe on his toga (laticlavius meant ‘broad-striped’). His posting to a legion would be the first in his career, and he would usually do one tour of duty lasting one or two years and then return to Rome, where he would continue a civilian career in financial and legal administration. About ten years later, he might return to the army as a legate. The other five tribunes were the tribuni angusticlavi. They came from the equestrian class, and could therefore wear the narrow purple stripe on their togas (angusticlavi meant ‘narrow-striped’). They were typically wealthy, educated men in their 30s, who served as tribunes for a few years. After that, some returned to their home towns, often in the imperial civil service, while others stayed on in the army as commanders of auxiliary regiments. The main duties of these tribunes were to act as staff officers, doing administrative work and overseeing the welfare and daily routine of the troops. The other senior soldier of the legion was the praefectus castrorum (camp prefect). He was the most senior professional soldier in the legion, who was usually a former primus pilus. He was the legate’s assistant, responsible for the legion’s equipment and transport, much like a quartermaster today. In addition to these senior officers was the aquilifer. His rank was below that of centurion but above that of optio. He was always a soldier of the first cohort, and his role was to protect the legion’s aquila and carry it into battle. The aquila was the emblem of the legion – it was an eagle, made of gold, with outstretched wings and set on top of a pole. It was the legion’s most important possession and symbolised its spirit. Soldiers had an almost religious loyalty to it, and losing it in battle was considered both a terrible disaster and a deep disgrace.

Auxiliary Soldiers Auxiliary soldiers were normally recruited from the ranks of non-citizens within the empire, although there are records of recruitment from foreign peoples. The auxiliaries provided the backbone of the cavalry squadrons, while some auxiliary

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soldiers were recruited for their particular capabilities; indeed, certain regions were known for certain skills (for example, archers were often recruited from Syria). The auxiliaries lived in their own forts separate from the legionary fortresses; these forts were smaller than a legionary fortress (described below), but were a key element of Roman control in the frontier areas of the provinces. Service as an auxiliary soldier would have been attractive to a non-citizen for two reasons: it provided a chance for stable employment and, upon retirement, an auxiliary was given Roman citizenship. This of course meant that his children would automatically become Roman citizens too. It seems that auxiliaries underwent a similar level of training as the legionaries, since they had similar fighting capabilities. However, auxiliaries were paid much less – perhaps about a third of the legionary’s rate. Moreover, the auxiliary infantry cohorts often bore the brunt of the fighting in a battle – they were sent in first since it was felt better to lose auxiliary soldiers than the Roman citizens fighting in the legions. The auxiliary troops were formed into smaller regiments separate from the legions. Their infantry units were typically 480-strong, but there were some of nearly double-size at 800. They were also called cohorts, and a cohort of 480 was divided into six centuries. All the auxiliary units were commanded by Roman citizens of equestrian rank. A key type of auxiliary unit was the ala, a cohort of cavalry. An ala was 512 strong, and divided up into squadrons of 32 horsemen each; this squadron was known as a turma. Each ala had a flag and each turma a standard. A third type of auxiliary cohort contained both infantry and cavalry.

The Roman Navy In imperial times, the Romans faced little naval threat from any enemy; the Mediterranean had been cleared of pirates by the military campaigns of Pompey in the 60s BCE and later by Octavian in the early 30s BCE (although during outbreaks of civil war the coast of Italy was not spared from naval attacks – Agricola’s mother Julia Procilla was murdered in 69 CE by men of Otho’s renegade fleet who plundered her estate near the coast of Italy). As a result, the Roman navy played a far less significant role than the army did in the conquest and defence of the empire. None the less, Augustus understood that it was important to maintain a strong navy. He professionalised it, and established three large naval bases: one was at Forum Iulii (modern Fréjus) on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul, to control the coasts of Gaul and Spain; another was at Misenum on the Bay of Naples, which covered the southwest Mediterranean; the third was at Ravenna and this protected the Adriatic coast. In addition, fleets were stationed along major rivers such as the Rhine. The fleets were largely drawn from the ranks of non-citizens in regions of the eastern empire with a strong maritime tradition, such as Greece, Phoenicia and Egypt. They were therefore given the same status as auxiliary units. Sailors were required to serve for 26 years and were given Roman citizenship upon discharge, as well as a sizeable cash payment (there is no evidence that slave labour was used, despite the popular belief that the Roman navy relied on ‘galley slaves’). A fleet was

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commanded by a praefectus, who would be a man of the senatorial class (one famous praefectus was Pliny the Elder, who died in the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 CE – see p. 349). Individual ships were captained by trierarchs, while squadrons of ships were led by navarchs. The marines who worked alongside the sailors were organised into their own centuries and commanded by a centurion and an optio. The main duties of the navy were: to transport land troops and to support land campaigns; to protect coastal settlements; to suppress piracy and support merchant shipping; and to repel any barbarian incursions into Roman waters.

3 The Legionary Soldier Recruitment and Training A legionary soldier had to be a Roman citizen (although in the eastern empire, where there were fewer citizens, citizenship was sometimes granted upon enrolment). An applicant, usually a young man, might bring a letter of recommendation, and he would appear before an examining board of experienced officers. We have an interesting account of the recruitment and training process of a legionary in the 4th century CE from a writer called Vegetius, who makes the following recommendations for what to look for: A young recruit should keep his eyes watchful and his head upright. He should be broad-chested, with muscly shoulders and strong arms, and his fingers should be on the longer side. He should have a flat stomach and a lean bottom. His calves and feet should not be flabby, but rather full of tough sinews. Vegetius, About Military Matters, 1.6–7

Vegetius goes on to comment that interviewers should find out about the trade practised by the applicant – carpenters, butchers, smiths and hunters are named as the most suitable kinds. Along with this interview there often came a period of probation, during which the applicant underwent a careful medical examination. If he was finally accepted into the army, he was given some money to pay for his journey to the legionary fortress, the headquarters of the legion. Upon arriving he took the military oath, which was renewed at the beginning of each year. He was then dispatched to do a period of training. The new legionary would need tough and extensive training before he was ready to serve in the army full-time. He would learn first to march, since regular soldiers were expected to be able to complete a route march of around twenty miles in five hours. Marching drill was therefore a key part of training; it helped develop good discipline, and even a fully trained legionary had to drill once per day. In addition, the trainee built up his fitness and skills set by practising swimming, riding, running and jumping, the latter three wearing heavy packs. The recruit then moved on to weapons training. He would be armed with a wicker shield and wooden sword, each of double weight, and taught to attack a head-high wooden stake. He learned to thrust with his short stabbing sword, which would inflict

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In Their Own Words 3.3 1

Read Josephus’ analysis of the success of the Roman army in the 1st century CE at Jewish War, 3.71–108.

2

Read Vegetius’ description of military training in the 4th century CE at About Military Matters, 1.1.

3

Research and read a selection of the Vindolanda Tablets at: http:// vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/.

more damage on his enemy that the longer slashing sword – an upward thrust would strike into his enemy’s vital organs. The recruit was also given a wooden javelin, which he hurled at the stake, while another training exercise was learning to jump onto and off either side of a horse in full armour. He might also learn to defend himself with his shield, as well as to use it as an offensive weapon to punch an opponent. A final key element in the training was to learn how to construct a camp, a vital task for an army needing to protect itself in hostile territory.

Equipment Roman military equipment changed over the centuries, and varied in different parts of the empire to suit the local conditions. None the less, there were core items of equipment in any era, which the legionary soldier wore over a tunic that reached down to his knees (Fig. 3.3): ●

Helmet. This had cheek and neck guards, and could also have a crest of horse-hair or feathers to indicate the rank or unit of the soldier.

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Plate armour. The most common type is known by scholars as lorica segmentata; made predominantly of iron, it covered the chest and shoulders.

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Shield. This was rectangular and curved. It was made from three sheets of wood glued together. This was then encased in leather, while the front also had a linen covering. Its rim was normally reinforced with bronze. The handgrip on one side was reinforced on the other by an iron or bronze boss. The front of the shield could have a painted design, which might denote the legionary’s unit.

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Sword: The legionary’s sword, the gladius, had a blade between 45 and 50 centimetres long. The soldier used it to thrust at short range, and carried it in a scabbard on the right side of the body.

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Spear: This was typically about 2 metres long (a legionary normally carried two); it was constructed with a long wooden shaft and then an iron head that was typically between 65 and 75 centimetres long. A well-thrown spear could pierce the shield or armour; even if it did not kill the enemy, it was then very difficult to remove since the iron often bent upon impact.

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Fig. 3.3 A Roman legionary soldier.

4 The Legionary Fortress The legionary fortress was the headquarters of the legion (Figs. 3.4 and 3.5). Although no two legionary fortresses were exactly the same, they all shared the same common features; many were originally built in wood, but from the early 2nd century CE they were typically built in stone. A fortress was rectangular in shape with rounded corners, and it was defended all around by a ditch and a wall; there were towers around the perimeter wall. Each side had a fortified gate, and one of the gates on the shorter side was the main gate. From here one of the fortress’ three main streets, the

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via praetoria, led to the main buildings, including the headquarters, the principia (Fig. 3.6). At this point, the via praetoria met the main cross-street of the fortress, the via principalis, which itself ran from one side gate to the other. The third main street, the via quintana, crossed the fortress on the other side of the main buildings. The principia was the central building of the fortress. It was split in two equal parts, one of which was a courtyard space with covered areas around three sides. The other was based around the basilica, a large hall or covered area where many members of the legion could assemble; it had a speaker’s platform for the legate to address his troops. Around the basilica were five smaller rooms including administrative offices and a shrine where the unit’s standards were kept, ranged round a statue of the reigning emperor. To one side of the basilica was the praetorium, the private quarters of the legate. This resembled a Roman villa, and could have luxurious facilities such as central heating and its own private suite of baths.

Fig. 3.4 A plan of a legionary fortress.

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Fig. 3.5 A map of the Roman legionary fortresses in the late 1st century CE .

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Fig. 3.6 A reconstruction of the principia at Novae in the province of Moesia in the Balkans. The room shown in cut-away is the shrine behind the basilica.

The fortress had a number of other buildings. There was a hospital and workshops, while well-designed granaries kept grain cool and dry in all weather conditions. There was also a set of baths to allow the troops to stay clean and healthy, as well as to socialise. There were of course many barracks, which were split up by cohort, and below that by century and contubernium. One contubernium shared two rooms in the barracks – one room was for sleeping, the other contained a hearth and was a living-room and kitchen. A centurion was given his own larger suite of rooms. Outside the fortress there was often an amphitheatre. This had to be large enough to seat the whole legion, and was used primarily for military purposes: training, assemblies and parades. It could also of course be used for traditional gladiatorial shows.

Review and Reflect 3.2 1

How does the structure of the Roman army compare to the structure of a modern army?

2

Why do you think that Roman legionary fortresses were so successful in supporting the work of the legion?

3

Are the same sort of qualities required for a modern army as they were in the Roman army?

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Further Reading 3.2 Bishop, M. C., Handbook to Roman Legionary Fortresses (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military, 2012). Breeze, D. J., The Roman Armyy (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016). Gilliver, Kate, Goldsworthy, Adrian and Whitby, Michael, Rome at Warr (Oxford: Osprey, 2005). Goldsworthy, Adrian, Pax Romana (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2016). Goldsworthy, Adrian, The Complete Roman Armyy (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003). McNab, Chris, ed., The Roman Armyy (Oxford: Osprey 2010).

III Provincial Order It is hard to form an opinion about how local peoples viewed their subjection to the Romans, since we lack their voices in our sources. On one hand, the loss of liberty and requirement to pay taxes and provide troops to a foreign master cannot be downplayed. On the other hand, membership of the empire must have had some benefits. For example, the clearing of the pirates from the Mediterranean will have transformed trade and economic prosperity, while in some places the Romans proved to be better masters than their predecessors: the people of Macedonia paid in taxes to the Romans only half of what they had paid to their Macedonian rulers. Moreover, those who were given the privilege of Roman citizenship were afforded strong legal protections. Furthermore, provincials could leave the defence of their lands to the highly trained Roman army, which non-citizens could join as auxiliaries. The empire also had a unified system of law and order, and the central authorities in Rome were able to help in times of crisis. For example, after a serious earthquake struck the province of Asia in 17 CE , Tiberius sent ten million sesterces in aid and remitted all taxation for ten years. In 79 the emperor Titus also provided aid to the survivors of the eruption of Mt Vesuvius (see p. 351). It is notable that we hear of hardly any ‘independence’ movements of conquered peoples throughout the history of the empire.

1 Eastern Provinces The empire that the Romans won had a clear division in character between its east and its west. When Rome conquered the lands of the east during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE , they found an urbanised civic structure that needed little adjustment – they just grafted themselves onto it. There were long-established trade routes, both

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by land and by sea, and cultural life had been influenced for centuries by peoples such as the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Persians and the Greeks. Indeed, after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 330s and 320s BCE , the whole of Asia Minor, the Levant and Egypt absorbed Greek culture, just as Rome was to do. That is not to say that nothing changed in the east. For example, one aspect of Roman culture that appeared during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE was the shows of gladiators, wild beasts and executions (see pp. 301–313). Some writers express disgust at this, including the Greek Philostratus, who wrote a biography of Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in Athens during the 1st century CE . Philostratus describes how Apollonius banned these Roman shows in his city: There was another failing that he corrected at Athens: the Athenians thronged to the theatre under the Acropolis, intent on the butchering of human beings. Enthusiasm for this was far greater there than it is in Corinth today. Adulterers, rent-boys, burglars, muggers, kidnappers, and people of that sort were being bought for large sums and brought on. They used to arm them and tell them to fight each other. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 4.22

Philostratus goes on to quote Apollonius expressing surprise that the goddess Athena had not left her home on the Athenian Acropolis in disgust at the bloodshed.

The Romans and the Jews The relationship between the Romans and one of their subject peoples in the east, the Jews, is particularly worthy of study. Judaea was frequently a restless province, and it was the scene of one of the most serious revolts in the empire’s history between 66 and 70 CE . Moreover, it was from the Jewish religion that Christianity emerged and grew to shape both the late empire and centuries of European history beyond. The Jews had long been a small but important player in the Near East, living as they did between the larger civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. There was also a sizeable Jewish diaspora, with communities in other cities of the eastern Mediterranean, notably at Alexandria in Egypt. By the middle of the 1st century BCE there was also a sizeable Jewish population in Rome, perhaps around 50,000 (the oldest known synagogue in Europe, dating to the mid-1st century BCE , has been found at Ostia). A key moment in Jewish–Roman relations came in 63 BCE when Pompey conquered Judaea during his eastern campaigns and turned it into a client kingdom of Rome. After besieging Jerusalem, he went into the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum of the Temple, which only the High Priest was allowed to enter. It is therefore no surprise that the Jews favoured his great rival Julius Caesar in the ensuing civil war between the two; Caesar rewarded them by giving them permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The mastermind of this project was Herod the Great, who was installed by the Romans as a client king in 37 BCE . Herod was a lover of Greek culture and his rebuilding of the Temple was the centrepiece of a grand building programme, which also included a theatre and a hippodrome. When he died in about 4 BCE , Augustus

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divided up the kingdom between his three sons. However, they proved incompetent and in 6 CE the emperor annexed Judaea as a minor Roman province, to be governed by a praefectus, a military governor of equestrian rank (he was later known as a procurator). At the same time, Augustus instituted a census to be overseen by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, the governor of neighbouring Syria. Some Jews urged rebellion at this point, arguing that the census implied a status equal to slavery. None the less, Augustus was sensitive to Jewish customs (as the example on p. 139 illustrates), and ensured that Jews in Rome were allowed freedom of worship, as they had been under Julius Caesar. They were not required to offer sacrifices at the imperial cult as long as they were prepared to pray for the safety of the emperor. However, relations in Judaea deteriorated after Augustus’ death in 14 CE , in particular while Pontius Pilate was praefectus between 26 and 36. He angered the local population in a number of ways; for example, he set up Roman legionary standards and gilded shields in Jerusalem, which were seen as idolatrous images, and he used Jewish sacred treasure to fund the construction of an aqueduct. In 37, the new emperor Caligula tried to quell the unrest by appointing Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, to rule parts of Judaea. This Herod was a Romanised Jew: he had grown up in Rome and been educated alongside the future emperor Claudius. Yet Caligula soon made himself unpopular with the Jews: he handled rioting between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria badly, while he tried to set up a statue of himself in the Temple in Jerusalem, something that Herod Agrippa narrowly managed to avert. Upon the accession of Claudius in 41, the new emperor appointed Herod Agrippa the ruler of the whole province, but when he died in 44, Judaea was placed under direct Roman rule again.

The Great Revolt By 66 tensions between the Jews and their Roman rulers had grown so far that the people erupted in revolt. Known either as the First Jewish–Roman War or the Great Revolt, it was largely crushed in 70, when the Romans overran Jerusalem, but some rebels held out at Masada until 73. The immediate causes of the revolt were the actions of the procurator Gessius Florus. He responded to anti-taxation protests by sending soldiers into the Temple to remove 17 talents from its treasury. In the ensuing unrest, Florus had hundreds killed; a number of Jews of equestrian rank were crucified, even though they were Roman citizens and should not have been killed in this degrading way. A major rebellion broke out in Jerusalem and the rebels soon overran the city’s Roman garrison. Cestius Gallus, the governor of neighbouring Syria, advanced with a sizeable force to quell the revolt. His advances were successful until his troops were ambushed at the pass of Beth Horon near Jerusalem. The Jewish rebels killed 6,000 Romans and captured the legion’s standard; they then established independent government in Jerusalem. This sent shockwaves through the imperial administration in Rome. The emperor Nero appointed an experienced general, Vespasian, to put down the rebellion. Vespasian’s son Titus was made his deputy, and they were given four legions.

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Their forces advanced on Judaea in the early summer of 67, slaughtering as they went. The first major action was a 47-day siege at Jotapata in Galilee. Titus led the assault and 40,000 Jews were killed or committed suicide, with 1,200 women and children taken into slavery. Titus then moved through the rest of Galilee in 67 and 68, but military operations were halted when news arrived of the death of Nero. Vespasian sent Titus to greet the new emperor, Galba, and it was not until Vespasian had himself become emperor at the end of 69 that the campaign could be renewed. Vespasian now put Titus in charge of the Roman forces, and they began a siege of Jerusalem early in 70, which lasted for 140 days. For the previous two years the Jews inside Jerusalem had been hampered by civil strife among their rival factions, but they now united to face the Roman siege. As the siege went on the city was progressively destroyed, as Josephus relates: No visitor from abroad who had seen the old Judaea and the handsome suburbs of the city, and now looked on the present scene of devastation, could have failed to groan in dismay at the enormous change which had taken place. The war had defaced every aspect of a beautiful city, and nobody who had known it before would have recognised the place if he were suddenly transported back. Josephus, The Jewish War, 6.7–8

The Romans finally prevailed and sacked the city. Josephus reports that 1.1 million were killed, and another 97,000 taken as slaves. The Romans also ransacked and burnt down the Temple, the heart of the Jewish faith for centuries. In 71, Titus held a magnificent triumph in Rome to celebrate his victories in Judaea. Scenes from this can still be seen on the arch of Titus at the entrance to the Roman forum, which was set up in 82. They include treasures taken from the Temple, such as the Menorah shown in Fig. 3.7. Many Jews were brought to Rome as slaves

Josephus The Jewish commander at Jotapata, Josephus, is one of the most fascinating figures in all Roman history. After the siege at Jotapata in 67, he hid in a cave with 40 other rebels and they made a suicide pact. Josephus proposed that they should draw lots for one man to kill the one next to him until only two were left. Josephus was one of the last two and persuaded his companion to surrender with him. He was then brought before Vespasian and prophesied that the Roman general would become emperor. Vespasian spared his life and kept him as a slave and interpreter. When Vespasian did indeed become emperor in 69, he granted Josephus his freedom and Roman citizenship, and he was renamed Flavius Josephus. Josephus became a loyal ally of the emperor’s family, and acted as an interpreter when Titus attacked Jerusalem in 70. Josephus went on to become the court historian of the Flavian family, and wrote two works that survive today: The Jewish Warr, which recounts the Great Revolt, and Jewish Antiquities, a history of the Jews.

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Fig. 3.7 A section of the triumphal procession of Vespasian and Titus in 71 as depicted on the arch of Titus. The Roman soldiers wear laurel wreaths and carry items pillaged from the Temple in Jerusalem: the Menorah, the seven-branched golden lampstand, and the silver trumpets.

in the aftermath of the revolt, and Jewish slave labour was central to the construction of the Colosseum in the ensuing years. Members of one Jewish sect, the Sicarii, had come into conflict with their fellow Jews and been expelled from Jerusalem before the siege began. They fled to Masada, a large hill top and fortress on the edge of the Judaean desert, and their numbers swelled to 960; they were led by Eleazar ben Ya’ir. The hill top was easy to defend and so, in 72, Roman forces began a siege, completing a ramp onto the hill the following year. When they stormed the fortress, they found that the Jews – men, women and children – had died in a collective suicide. Just two women and five children were found hiding alive. As we have read in Chapter 2, the Great Revolt was not the last major revolt by Jews under Roman rule. In 115, diaspora Jews in the North African province of Cyrenaica rebelled over their treatment by their pagan neighbours and by their Roman rulers; this spread to Egypt, Cyprus and even Babylonia. The revolt was only put down with considerable effort. A third revolt broke out in Judaea in 132, provoked by Hadrian’s banning of circumcision. Hadrian had made the same mistake as various Roman rulers before him in not showing respect and sensitivity to Jewish customs and beliefs.

In Their Own Words 3.4 Read Josephus’ account of the Jewish Revolt in his Jewish War (the sack of Jerusalem is described at 6.229–422 and the siege of Masada at 7.252–406.) Then compare it with Tacitus’ account at Histories, 5.1–13.

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2 Western Provinces In the western provinces the picture was very different. The peoples that the Romans had conquered in Africa and western Europe were largely tribal, and some were also nomadic. In this half of the empire, the Romans instituted a deliberate policy of town planning and establishing transport infrastructure: trade was encouraged by the building of market towns as administrative centres for the outlying regions, and by the building of roads to join them. In Africa over 600 such towns were created, and the arid land surrounding them was often turned into green and productive farmland by complex irrigation systems. These towns were notable for their regular rectangular grids of streets, a pattern based on the legionary camps of the army. Indeed, it was usually the technical experts of the army – surveyors, architects and craftsmen – who oversaw the building operations. One excellent example of such town planning is the archaeological site of Timgad in Algeria. As illustrated in Fig. 3.8, the ruins today show how carefully it was laid out on a grid plan, with a forum, a theatre, streets and blocks of buildings. The suburb that developed off the main core of the town was not able to keep the rectilinear street plan, since the main street led to a neighbouring town on a different angle. Another feature of the towns such as Timgad was the lining of the main streets with columns, which were used to roof over the streets and provide shelter from the heat of the day. In Britain, the same policy of town planning was applied. After the conquest of the southern half of the island in 43 CE , fourteen major towns were built as hubs for tribal areas. One of the earliest was Colchester, founded in 49 by retired Roman

Fig. 3.8 An aerial photo of the archaeological site of Timgad.

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veterans; by 60, it already had a theatre, a Senate House and a temple to the imperial cult (known as the temple of Divine Claudius after the emperor who had conquered Britain). Other towns built in the second half of the 1st century include Leicester, St Alban’s, Canterbury, Winchester, Chichester and Exeter. They all had an impressive range of public buildings, including law-courts, council-chambers, tax offices, baths and even theatres and amphitheatres. The man credited with this policy of townbuilding was the Roman governor of Britain between 78 and 84, Gnaeus Julius Agricola. His son-in-law Tacitus explains Agricola’s policy towards the provincials: Agricola had to deal with people living in isolation and ignorance, and therefore prone to fight; and his object was to accustom them to a life of peace and quiet by the provision of amenities. He therefore gave private encouragement and official assistance to the building of temples, public squares, and good houses . . . Furthermore, he educated the sons of the chiefs in the liberal arts, and expressed a preference for British ability as compared with the trained skills of the Gauls. The result was that instead of loathing the Latin language they became eager to speak it effectively. In the same way, our national dress came into favour and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the population was gradually led into the demoralising temptations of arcades, baths and sumptuous banquets. The unsuspecting Britons spoke of such novelties as ‘civilisation’, when in fact they were only a feature of their enslavement. Tacitus, Agricola, 21

Tacitus’ final comment here shows no little scorn for the provincials who adopt Roman habits. None the less, the passage gives an insight into how the Romans attempted to encourage the local elites to identify themselves with their Roman rulers. These new towns provided a hub for the people in the surrounding countryside. Some large villas of the very wealthy were built there too (these were often the base for agricultural estates), but most people continued to live as peasant farmers, much as they had before. However, it is possible that they had to move from subsistence farming to surplus farming, in order to pay tribute of grain to the Roman authorities. In addition, they now had a much larger trading centre to travel to, with a greater range of goods. Indeed, archaeo-botanists have concluded that the Romans introduced about 50 new types of food and seasoning into Britain, including apples, pears, peas, carrots, celery, coriander, fennel and even chickens. These were not the only novelties that came to the island with the Romans: cats and stinging nettles are just two other things that arrived with them too.

Cultural Diversity There are numerous examples of people travelling and moving to different parts of the empire to live and work, usually as soldiers or merchants. This meant that the empire saw a great exchange of ideas and cultural traditions.

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One example is found in a pair of related tombstones dating to the 2nd century CE and found in the north-east of England. One of them, found at Corbridge, says: ‘To the memory of Barates of Palmyra, standard-maker, aged 68 years.’ It is likely that Barates was a retired soldier who continued to earn money after his discharge by making military standards and flags. The fact that he is from Palmyra in Syria suggests that he was posted to Britain with the Roman army. This posting took him from one end of the empire to the other, a distance of well over 2,000 miles as the crow flies, and many more by road or boat. Twenty-five miles from Barates’ tombstone another was found at the Roman fort in South Shields (Fig. 3.9). This is a striking monument to a British woman called Regina; the inscription says: ‘To the spirits of the dead, and to Regina, of the Catuvellaunian tribe, who died aged 30, freedwoman and wife of Barates of Palmyra, who set this up’. Underneath in Palmyrene script is: ‘Regina, freedwoman of Barates. Alas!’. Regina is portrayed as a good and dutiful wife: she holds a distaff and spindle, and by her left foot is a basket with balls of wool. She also has clear signs of wealth: she is wearing bracelets and a matching necklace, while an open jewel box is by her right foot. How Barates came to meet and marry Regina is unknown. It is possible that Regina was Barates’ slave-girl and that he freed her in order to marry her. Whatever the case, her tombstone is another example of how a slave in the Roman empire could rise to a much higher status. We might also reflect on why Barates chose to add the final dedication in his native script: was this just a personal touch, or were there other Syrians living and working in north-east England who would have been able to read it?

Fig. 3.9 The tombstone of Regina set up by Barates. The Latin and Aramaic inscriptions can be seen at the bottom.

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One problem we have when reconstructing the impact of the Romans on provincials is the lack of evidence from the conquered peoples themselves. We have very little, if any, evidence of how they felt about their Roman masters. However, in one famous passage, the historian Tacitus tries to present the other side of the coin. He imagines a speech delivered by Calgacus, a rebel leader of Caledonian tribes in northern Britain. Part of it runs as follows: Pillagers of the world, they [the Romans] have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder, and now they ransack the sea. A rich enemy excites their greed; a poor one, their lust for power . . . To robbery, butchery and plunder, they give the lying name of government; they create a desolation and call it peace . . . Our wives and sisters, even if they are not raped by enemy soldiers, are seduced by men who are supposed to be our friends and guests. Our goods and money are consumed by taxation; our land is stripped of its harvest to fill their granaries; our hands and limbs are crippled by building roads through forests and swamps under the lash of our oppressors. Tacitus, Agricola, 30–31

Tacitus clearly could not have known the language of Calgacus, and it is remarkable that he tries to give the perspective of the ‘other side’, which is so scathing of Roman imperialism. Yet despite Calgacus’ supposedly rousing words, the Romans went on to record a resounding victory against the rebellious tribes.

The Boudican Revolt In fact, unrest generally happened when the Romans fell out with the local elites whom they relied upon to manage their tribesfolk. One revolt – that of Boudica in Britain in 60 CE – illustrates this well. The Roman attempts to resolve the situation also reveal the combination of pragmatism and brutality they were prepared to show. When Britain was conquered in 43 CE , the Romans already had alliances in places with some British tribes. One such tribe were the Iceni, who were based in the area that today covers Cambridgeshire and Norfolk in the east of England. The ruler of the Iceni in the 50s was Prasutagus, and it was his death that gave rise to the revolt. It is described by two historians – Tacitus and Cassius Dio – although they give different information about its causes. The more detailed source is Tacitus, who was writing just a few decades later:

In Their Own Words 3.5 Read the accounts of Boudica’s revolt in Tacitus’ Annals, 14.29–39 and Cassius Dio’s Roman History, 62.1–12. How do the two differ? How might we account for the differences?

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Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, after a life of long and renowned prosperity, had made the Emperor co-heir with his own two daughters. Prasutagus hoped by this submissiveness to preserve his kingdom and household from attack. But it turned out otherwise, kingdom and household alike were plundered like prizes of war, the one by Roman officers, the other by Roman slaves. As a beginning, his widow Boudica was flogged and their daughters raped. The Icenian chiefs were deprived of their hereditary estates as if the Romans had been given the whole country. The king’s own relatives were treated like slaves. Tacitus, Annals, 14.31

By this time, it was required for all elite Romans and provincials to add the emperor as co-heir to make sure that their wills were accepted. None the less, by naming the emperor co-heir with his daughters, Prasutagus was no doubt hoping to preserve some prestige for his family and independence for his kingdom. In response, the Romans behaved brutally and arrogantly, and it is not hard to discern Tacitus’ tone of condemnation of his own side. The Iceni were not the only Britons with grievances according to Tacitus. The Trinovantes, a tribe based in the area which is now Essex, were incensed by the behaviour of the Romans in Camulodunum (Colchester). They hated the Roman veteran soldiers who had settled there and driven them off their land, and they resented the temple to the imperial cult that had been built in the town. However, Dio’s account, written more than 150 years after the event, mentions nothing of the causes given by Tacitus, even though Boudica still led the revolt. According to him, the reasons for the uprising were financial: Claudius had given sums of money to the leading Britons, and according to Decianus Catus, the procurator of the island, this money had to be returned together with the rest. The confiscation of this money was the pretext for the war. In addition, Seneca, with a view to a good rate of interest, had lent the reluctant islanders 40 million sesterces and had then called it in all at once, and not very gently. So rebellion broke out. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.2.1

As we have seen, the procurator was answerable directly to the emperor in Rome, rather than to the provincial governor. Seneca, portrayed here as a ruthless moneylender, was of course a renowned philosopher (see p. 214), and at this time the tutor and adviser to the emperor Nero. The revolt was led by Boudica, now ruler of the Iceni following the death of her husband (Fig. 3.10). She timed her rebellion well: the provincial governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was away campaigning on Anglesey off the north-west coast of Wales, and the best part of three of the four legions in the province was away in different parts of Wales. Only one legion, IX Hispana, was relatively close to the action. Initially, Boudica was remarkably successful; the towns of Colchester, London and St Alban’s were ransacked and burnt (the archaeological record still shows the ‘burn level’ in all three) and many thousands were killed. However, Suetonius marched his troops back to meet the rebels and brutally crushed them; again, thousands were killed.

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Fig. 3.10 This bronze sculptural group of Boudica and her daughters stands facing the Houses of Parliament in London. It was completed in 1883 by the sculptor William Thornycroft. The story of Boudica became popular during the Victorian era at a time when Britain was ruled by a powerful queen.

Julius Classicianus Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus was a decisive figure in the early history of Roman Britain. Almost certainly a Celt by ancestry, he was the son-in-law of Julius Indus, a Celtic nobleman from the region around Trier on the river Moselle in Germany. During the reign of Tiberius, Indus had supported the Romans in putting down a dangerous rebellion there. It seems that Classicianus may well have been appointed to the post of procurator in Britain because of his knowledge of Celtic tribes. If so, it was a far-sighted appointment, since at this stage in Roman history virtually all members of the imperial administration came from Italy; his appointment to Britain seems to show a determination to make a new start in the province. We know that Classicianus continued in office in Britain until his death; in 1852, part of his tombstone was found on Tower Hill in London, and in 1935 nearly all the rest was discovered. Today, it can be seen on display in the British Museum.

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The Britons’ suffering continued after this battle. For one thing, they had not sowed their fields that year, relying instead on seizing the Romans’ supplies; famine therefore fell upon them. Secondly, Suetonius was hell-bent on revenge. The emperor Nero sent him reinforcements from Germany: 2,000 legionary soldiers to bring the IX Hispana up to strength, eight cohorts of auxiliary soldiers and 1,000 auxiliary cavalrymen. Yet not all Romans agreed with Suetonius’ policy of revenge. In particular, the governor clashed with the province’s new procurator, Julius Classicianus, who had been sent to replace Decianus Catus. Classicianus seemed to understand that the Romans could hope to subdue the province only by working with the native peoples. Tacitus portrays the conflict between governor and procurator as a personal one: Classicianus . . . was on bad terms with Suetonius, and allowed his personal animosities to damage the national interests. For he passed round advice to wait for a new governor who would be kind to those who surrendered, without an enemy’s bitterness or a conqueror’s arrogance. Classicianus also reported to Rome that there was no prospect of ending the war unless a successor was appointed to Suetonius, whose failures he attributed to viciousness, and his successes to good luck. Tacitus, Annals, 14.38

Tacitus’ treatment of Classicianus here seems unfair; perhaps he was unduly influenced by his father-in-law, who may have been more sympathetic to Suetonius. In any case, Classicianus would have seen that the devastation of the tribal lands was having a disastrous effect on the amount of tax being collected for the Roman treasury. Nero sent his freedman Polyclitus to smooth things over between the two men. The freedman concealed the extent of the conflict in his report to the emperor, and Suetonius was retained as governor. Yet, sometime later, when Suetonius lost a few ships on the coast, he was recalled to Rome – this small incident seems to have been seen as a convenient moment to remove him from office. If so, then Classicianus had won the argument. We therefore see here both sides of Roman policy: to suppress revolt ruthlessly, but also to tackle the underlying grievances that caused it.

Review and Reflect 3.3 1

To what extent could it be argued that the Romans brought civilisation to the western provinces?

2

How hard is it for us to reconstruct the gains and losses of Roman rule for provincial peoples?

3

How do Roman approaches to the revolts in Britain and Judaea in the 60s CE compare?

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Further Reading 3.3 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 12. Gillespie, Caitlin, Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). Levick, Barbara, The Government of the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2000). MacMullen, Ramsay, Romanization in the Time of Augustus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). Mattingly, David, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 54 BC–AD 409 (London: Penguin 2007). Stambaugh, John, The Ancient Roman Cityy (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988). Woolf, Greg, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

IV Infrastructure and Transport We have seen that when the Romans established a province, particularly in the western half of the empire, they created the structures of Roman rule. At the heart of these was infrastructure: roads to link places, aqueducts for water supply and buildings such as temples, law-courts and town-councils to enable provincial government. All of these relied on Roman building techniques, which were remarkably innovative and high-tech for their time.

1 Building Techniques The Arch The Romans were famed for their use of the arch, and there is evidence for its use at Rome as early as the 6th century BCE . However, it was in the 2nd century BCE that its use became common, and at this time there was a great increase in the building of bridges with the arch. It was relatively straightforward to build a simple arch: a curved semi-circular wooden frame was placed over two walls or columns to be joined by an arch, and wedge-shaped blocks of stone, cut to size and known as voussoirs, were placed on top of the frame. When the last voussoir, the keystone, was added, the frame could be removed and the voussoirs naturally held each other in

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Fig. 3.11 A simple arch structure.

place (Fig. 3.11). Roman engineers then developed the range of ways in which they could use the arch: a corridor of arches set side by side could form a vault, while a set of identically sized arches arranged in a circle could form a dome. The most famous dome in the Roman world, the roof of the Pantheon, is described on p. 200. The great advantage of the arch for Roman architects was that it allowed large amounts of weight to be supported, and in combination arches could span a huge area. This enabled engineers to design and construct much larger and more varied buildings, many of which were also majestic to the eye, including the theatres and amphitheatres of the empire. Bridges were now commonly built: in 105 the emperor Trajan had a bridge built across the Danube to supply his troops in the new province of Dacia. It was designed by Apollodorus of Damascus, the same architect who designed his forum in Rome (described on p. 107), and was 1,135 metres long (to cross a river spanning about 800 metres), 15 metres wide, and 18 metres in height. There were 20 arches, each with a span of about 43 metres. This bridge only lasted for a few decades, but some of its remains can still be seen. Indeed, more than 500 Roman bridges survive today, some of them almost completely: in Spain there is a half-mile long bridge over the Guadiana river at Mérida, with no less than 60 arches (Fig. 3.12); while at Alcántara the bridge is 183 metres long, with 6 huge arches rising to 45 metres above the river bed. The confident inscription on it remains: pontem perpetui mansurum in saecula (‘I have built a bridge that shall endure for centuries’).

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Fig. 3.12 The half-mile long Roman Bridge over the Guadiana river is still in use today. It is the longest surviving bridge from the ancient world.

Concrete Roman technology and building were advanced most by the development and use of concrete from the late 3rd century BCE . The key ingredient discovered by the Romans was pozzolana volcanic dust, which was abundant in Italy. This could be mixed with a standard lime mortar of sand, builder’s lime and water, to form a cement of great strength. The cement itself could be used as a paste between bricks (as cement is today), but the Romans preferred to mix it with rougher gritty materials, such as gravel, stones or marble chippings, and then leave it to harden into concrete (the Latin word concretus literally means ‘compacted together’). Alternatively, if chippings of terracotta were added to the cement then the resulting concrete was water-proof, and this could be used for things like cisterns. The use of concrete revolutionised Roman building. Wet concrete could be poured into moulds made from wooden planks to produce any shape; the resulting hardened concrete was almost indestructible and so made buildings remarkably secure. Concrete could therefore be used to build vaults and domes, as it was for buildings such as the Colosseum (see p. 305). Concrete, however, is unattractive to the eye, and so the surface was usually faced by one of a number of materials: marble, stone or bricks. These have disappeared on many surviving Roman buildings, leaving just the concrete. Roman brickwork was also of a high standard, and bricks started to be produced on an industrial scale from the 1st century CE , when there was a dramatic growth in the number and size of buildings constructed.

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2 Roads Another key feature of the development of the empire, particularly in the west, was the Roman road system (Fig. 3.16 on p. 173). The building of roads was associated with imperial conquest; wherever the Roman legions conquered, they built roads to help them move around as quickly as possible, and to provide supply lines and trade routes. The first and most important road was the Via Appia, or Appian Way, commissioned in 312 BCE by Appius Claudius Caecus (who also commissioned Rome’s first aqueduct – see p. 25) (Fig. 3.13). The road joined Rome to Capua 132 miles away, and later extensions led it to southern ports such as Brundisium, which themselves opened up trade routes to the eastern Mediterranean. In time, there came to be over 50,000 miles of major roads in the empire. These roads were for public use and toll free. They were therefore a great boon for the peoples of the empire.

Construction Methods Roman roads were constructed with care and precision so that they were strong and long-lasting. Although the surface of a Roman road often had to be repaired, its foundations were so good that they rarely needed further care. The construction would usually start with the digging of a trench, between 1 and 2 metres deep, which was filled with a layer of large stones tightly packed together (Fig. 3.14). Above this was another layer of smaller stones, which were sometimes bound by cement. Above this came the surface, which might consist of gravel, or of small flints compacted together, or of other locally abundant material (slag from iron

Fig. 3.13 Sections of the Appian Way still survive today, such as this one.

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Fig. 3.14 A cross-section of a Roman road.

mines could be used, and this rusted into a very hard surface). In some areas, the landscape required not a trench but a viaduct to be built (e.g. through marshland). In this instance, earth from pits or ditches was piled up into a mound, and the foundation stones were laid on top of this. This embankment was known as an agger, and it could be as much as 15 metres wide and 1.5 metres high. Good drainage was another essential feature of Roman roads. In order to prevent puddles from forming, the surface was designed to slope downwards from the centre to the sides, with a fall of as much as a ratio of 1 in 8. A road was typically 4.1 metres in width (this allowed two carriages to pass with ease), and on either side of the road ditches were dug to allow the water to drain off. At every mile along the way was a milestone (Fig. 3.15). This was a circular column on a solid rectangular base at a height of 1.5 metres. On the base was inscribed the number of the mile relative to the road it was on, while the milestone might have further information about officials who commissioned or repaired the road; milestones sometimes therefore provide valuable historical information.

Fig. 3.15 A surviving Roman milestone in Teano, Campania.

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Roman roads are still known for their straightness, although they did of course have to change direction at times, and so they consist of a number of short straight sections joined together. Where they had to change direction, the next section would join at an angle. This might happen if they needed to pass round hills, or to the side of a valley to make the slope less steep. Scholars are divided as to how Roman engineers planned the route of roads. The traditional view has been that surveyors would move to high points and determine the best route to follow. If there were no high points, or they were in wooded country, their men lit fires and the surveyors watched for the rising smoke, in order to give the direction to follow. However, a more recent view has argued that Roman engineers had the surveying and map-making skills to enable them to plan the entire route of a long-distance road in advance.

The High Street When the Saxons came to England at the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE , Roman roads were of course still in place. When they found an agger rising above the fields, they named it the ‘High Way’. They also used the word ‘streat’ to describe stretches of paved roads, and this is the origin of our term ‘High Street’. In many regions of the former Roman empire, the road and rail systems still follow the original Roman roads.

Travel People travelled either on foot or by horse-drawn vehicles. We know the names of a number of such vehicles, including the cisium, which was a light two-wheeled wagon to carry one or two people and could cover 25 miles in a day. The raeda was a larger, four-wheeled coach, which could hold a few people and their baggage. There were also goods wagons, which might be pulled by horses, mules or even oxen. The wheels on all these vehicles were rimmed with iron, meaning that the roads were in constant need of repair. Augustus used the road system to establish an infrastructure for official government travel. Known as the cursus publicus, it allowed state couriers and high-ranking officials to travel as quickly as possible. Centuries later, the historian Procopius reflects on how the system worked: Within the distance that a man lightly equipped might be expected to cover in a day they [the early emperors] established stations, on some roads eight, on others fewer, but very rarely less than five. As many as forty horses stood ready at each station, and grooms corresponding to the number of horses were installed at every station. Always as they rode the professional couriers changed their horses – which were most carefully chosen – at frequent intervals, and covering, if occasion required, a ten-day journey in a single day. Procopius, Secret History, 30.3–5

BAETICA

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PANNONIA SUPERIOR Sarmizegetusa Viminacium

Vindobona Carnuntum Brigetio Aquincum

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Fig. 3.16 A map of major roads in the Roman empire.

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A messenger could therefore cover a vast distance by changing his horses at every stage. The ‘stage’ that Procopius mentions here has been estimated at about 7.7 modern miles (a Roman mile was 0.92 of a modern mile). This meant that a messenger of the cursus publicus might cover up to 62 miles per day. However, even faster travel was possible in emergencies: Pliny the Elder tells us that when the emperor Tiberius learnt that his brother Drusus Germanicus was near death in Germany, he covered 184 miles in a 24-hour period in a rush to reach him before he died. Every 20 miles or so there were state-controlled service stations where official travellers could stay the night. These were known as mansiones and were maintained by taxes raised locally. They were often built like villas, and guests needed to show an official pass to stay there. Other buildings often grew up around the mansiones. For private travellers there were tabernae, inns where they could stay or eat. Shops and workshops also appeared, so that a settlement often developed nearby. Despite this organised system, travellers were often at risk from bandits. The crime rate in the Roman world was high by modern standards since there were not the resources to police it properly (the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel is a famous example of how dangerous the roads were thought to be). The satirist Juvenal suggests that the best protection against bandits is to travel emptyhanded: When you go on a night journey, though you may only have a few small treasures with you, you’ll take every stirring shadow, each moonlight reed for a sword or cudgel. But the empty-handed traveller whistles his way past any highwayman. Juvenal, Satires, 10.19–22

In Their Own Words 3.6 Read Horace, Satires, 1.5. What can we learn about travel in Italy from this satire about a journey from Rome to Brundisium?

3 Aqueducts In the Mediterranean climate, it was essential to develop ways to supply clean water on a regular and reliable basis, and to distribute it for irrigation to areas that were naturally dry. The aqueduct was the most efficient way to do this. An aqueduct is an artificial watercourse built to convey water. It draws water from a source at a point higher than the required destination (e.g. mountain springs) and then uses gravity to allow the water to flow towards where it is needed. When we think of an aqueduct today, we might think of a spectacular bridge across a valley, but in fact this is just one side to an aqueduct system. The watercourse also had to travel through tunnels

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in hills and mountains in order to ensure that the water was always travelling slightly downhill. We are fortunate to have an ancient Roman account of the aqueducts at Rome by the civil engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus, who wrote a two-book official report on the topic at the end of the 1st century CE . The first Roman aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, was constructed in 312 BCE by Appius Claudius, no doubt following Greek or Etruscan models; another followed in 272, the Aqua Anio Vetus. As the city grew, so did the number of aqueducts, and the water supply allowed land outside the city to be irrigated as well. Some aqueducts were also used to turn water mills. When Agrippa looked to improve the water supply in Rome in the 30s BCE , with the approval of Octavian (soon to be Augustus), three new aqueducts were added to the city, and an administrative board was set up to manage the system. In the time of the emperor Claudius, two further large aqueducts were built, and by the middle of the 3rd century CE , the city had eleven aqueducts. In total, they are estimated to have been up to 500 miles in length, of which just 30 miles were carried above ground. They would have supplied the city with approximately 1 million cubic metres of water a day. The aqueduct was not just visible at Rome, but all across the empire, and indeed it became a status symbol of the Roman Empire. One major aqueduct in Italy was in Campania, built during the time of Augustus, which supplied many nearby cities as well as the Roman naval base at Misenum (see p. 361). Also notable was the Zaghouan aqueduct, which supplied Carthage in north Africa. About 80 miles in length, this was built in the 2nd century CE . It is a masterpiece of Roman engineering: for the final section of the watercourse between Zaghouan and Carthage, it drops

Fig. 3.17 The Pont du Gard over the Gardon river today. It stands at 48.8 metres, and descends just 2.5 centimetres, a gradient of 1 in 18,241.

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only 264 metres in height over a length of more than 55 miles, an average decline of just 0.3%. Some bridge sections of Roman aqueducts survive today, most famously the Pont du Gard at Nîmes in France (Fig. 3.17), and the aqueduct at Segovia in Spain. Both of these illustrate how the Romans used the arch both to create useful buildings and as a statement of Roman power and genius.

4 Trade by Water Despite the excellent road system, most trade routes of the empire were by water, since this was easily the best way of transporting large quantities of goods. Roman traders were evident in every province, and ships were dispatched across the Mediterranean, north to the coasts of Gaul and Britain, and even across the Indian Ocean (for example, it is clear that at Herculaneum large quantities of black pepper were imported from India). Eastern Mediterranean trade routes themselves linked to overland routes all the way to China, while goods from Italy have been found as far north as Scandinavia. Goods transported to Rome arrived at the harbour town of Ostia, located at the mouth of the Tiber about 15 miles from the city. Originally, Ostia was not large enough to host large cargo ships, and so many docked at Puteoli on the north side of the Bay of Naples (see Fig. 7.1 on p. 341), and the cargoes were reloaded onto smaller ships, which sailed up to Ostia. Other cargo ships would sail to Ostia and offload cargo onto smaller boats out at sea. The emperors Claudius and Trajan later had a new harbour built near Ostia, which solved this problem. It was simply known as Portus (‘Harbour’). Ostia itself was a busy urban hub (Fig. 3.18), with large storage facilities such as granaries. From Ostia, cargo was loaded onto barges, which were pulled by teams of oxen up the Tiber to Rome. Here the cargo was unloaded at the city’s port to the south-west of the Aventine hill and stored in huge warehouses until it was ready to be taken to market. The staple imports were grain, olive oil and wine. It is estimated that from the 1st century BCE between 200,000 and 250,000 tons of grain had to be imported to Rome each year to feed the city, while the annual import figures for olive oil and wine are estimated at 20 million litres and 100 million litres respectively. Today, a little hill beside the Tiber in Rome, Monte Testaccio (‘broken pot hill’), 35 metres in height, consists of the broken fragments of 53 million broken fragments of ancient Roman amphorae – pottery jars that could each contain 60 litres of olive oil. These amphorae came almost exclusively from Spain over a 100-year period. Moreover, exotic goods flowed into the city from around the known world. One papyrus of the mid2nd century CE from Egypt lists the goods on a ship that had travelled from India and which was presumably on its way to Rome: the value of the goods was 6 million sesterces, and the cargo included about a hundred pairs of elephant tusks, and boxes of oils and spices. This sense of Rome as the hub of a global trading economy is captured by the Greek orator Aelius Aristides. Writing in 144 CE , he eulogises the city as follows:

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Fig. 3.18 One of many floor mosaics visible around the Square of the Corporations in the heart of Ostia. They portray the variety of trade routes the harbour town was connected to. This mosaic refers to shippers from Sullectum in North Africa, and depicts a lighthouse, two ships, two dolphins and an octopus.

About the sea the continents lie vast and vastly spread, ever supplying you with products from those regions. Here is brought from every land and sea all the crops of the seasons and the produce of each land, river, lake, as well as of the arts of the Greeks and barbarians, so that if someone should wish to view all these things, he must either see them by travelling over the whole world or be in this city . . . So many merchant ships arrive here, conveying every kind of goods from every people every hour and every day, so that the city is like a factory common to the whole earth. Aelius Aristides, Regarding Rome, 11

Review and Reflect 3.4 1

Select one important Roman road and find out how, when and why it was built. Is its route still in use today?

2

Research the building project in Rome commissioned by Trajan and supervised by the architect Apollodorus. In what ways did he make use of Roman engineering skills?

3

Find out about at least one Roman shipwreck that has been discovered in the last ten years. What do we know about the cargo that has been found?

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Further Reading 3.4 Coulston, Jon, and Dodge, Hazel, Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology, 2000). Davies, Hugh, Roman Roads in Britain (Oxford: Shire, 2008). Garnsey, Peter and Saller, Richard, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014). Laurence, Ray, The Roads of Roman Italyy (London: Routledge 1999). Oleson, John, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World d (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Tomber, Roberta, Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepperr (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2008). Trevor Hodge, A., Roman Aqueducts and Water Supplyy (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2002).

Roman Religion

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eligion has been a bedrock of every human society until very recently, and this was just as true in the Roman world as it has been elsewhere. This chapter sets out to examine traditional Roman religion, which was closely linked to the state and to the rituals of everyday life; it then moves on to look at the alternatives that developed alongside or in place of this traditional religion – philosophy, mystery religions and then Christianity, which ultimately became the empire’s official religion.

I The Character of Roman Religion The English word ‘religion’ comes from the Latin religio, which meant something like ‘that which binds together’, and Roman religion bound together all areas of Roman life in a manner that has all but disappeared from modern western society. Where Roman religion was most similar to modern religions was in giving structure to the daily lives of its followers. This is evident in a number of ways, such as: ●

Family life: Religion was prominent in the life of the family, and this is examined in detail on pp. 236–238 of Chapter 5.

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Rites of passage: As today, religion was central to rites of passage such as birth, coming of age, marriage and death; all of these are also described in Chapter 5.

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Festivals: Festivals gave a structure to the cycle of the Roman year, just as modern religions base their year around festivals such as Diwali, Eid or Christmas. 179

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However, Roman religion lacked some of the key characteristics of a religion today, and it is important to be aware of these differences. There are three areas in particular: the lack of a scripture and a moral code, the lack of optimism about the afterlife, and the lack of desire to convert people from other religious traditions.

Scripture and Morality Roman religion had no formal scripture to speak of (although the Sibylline books, described on p. 184, did offer some advice in specific areas). This meant that there was no set of beliefs to which everyone had to subscribe. In fact, for the Romans, religion was about ‘doing the right thing’, such as sacrificing to and honouring the gods properly, rather than ‘believing the right thing’. Perhaps because of this, Roman religion contained no moral code equivalent to something like the Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity. The Romans did not look to their religion to tell them how to behave towards one another; they were only concerned about treating the gods in the right way, so hoping that they would win their favour. Instead, Romans looked to legal prescriptions, such as those found in the Twelve Tables, to guide them on ethics; more educated Romans might also follow ethical beliefs put forward by philosophies, such as those of the Stoics and Epicureans.

The Afterlife At the heart of most religions today is an optimism about an afterlife and, alongside this, a belief that moral behaviour in this life will be rewarded in the next, and that immoral behaviour will be punished. For example, both Christianity and Islam promise paradise in reward for a faithful life; alternatively, Hindus and Buddhists believe in a cycle of reincarnation, whose ultimate goal is release into nirvana. None of this was the case in Roman religion, which inherited the gloomy view about death held by the Greeks, whereby the souls of the dead went down to the Underworld to join the ‘shades below’, ruled over by the god Pluto. In GraecoRoman myth, those who had lived very wicked lives (such as Sisyphus and Tantalus) live in endless torment, while great heroes live in the blissful Elysian Fields; however, the vast majority of souls reside in a place of gloomy shade, pale shadows of their former selves. The point about this view was that it was the present life that mattered. Those who wanted a more hopeful view of death looked elsewhere – to the mystery cults or to Christianity, which are examined later in this chapter. Roman religion, however, aimed to help people live this life as effectively as possible.

Conversion The Romans had no concept of converting others to their religion, and generally held a tolerant attitude towards the religions of other peoples, often believing that they

Chapter 4 Roman Religion

Fig. 4.1 This gilt bronze head from the cult statue of Sulis Minerva at the Roman baths at Aquae Sulis (Bath), one of the largest bathing complexes in the Roman empire.

worshipped the same gods by different names. In this respect, Romans probably looked at other religions in the same way as we look at foreign languages today – the language you speak depends on the culture or country you are born in, but ultimately it fulfils the same purpose as any other. For example, each language might have a different word for ‘mountain’, but they are all describing the same thing. The Romans were therefore usually accepting of other gods, and many foreign gods and cults were introduced into Roman society over the centuries, especially if it was felt that they could help the Roman people. Moreover, the Romans often united their own gods with those of other cultures; an excellent example of this is the building of a shrine in Aquae Sulis (the Roman name for the English city of Bath) to Sulis Minerva – a merging of the British and Roman goddesses of healing (Fig. 4.1). One consequence of this attitude was that there was far less violence and warfare stirred by religion in the Roman world than there is in our world today. The only religions that the Romans found it hard to accept were those, such as Judaism and Christianity, that insisted on exclusivity – claiming that their one god was the only true one. Romans expected all the inhabitants of their empire to worship their gods as well as any others, fearing the anger of their gods if they were not worshipped properly.

The Relationship between Gods and Men The Romans were not expected to ‘love’ their gods, but to ‘honour’ them. Most Romans believed that the world was run by beings far more powerful than them, who

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needed to be treated with reverence and respect. In return, they hoped that their gods would help them in every aspect of their lives, be it health, marriage, work or warfare. The main way to ensure the support of the gods was by offering them gifts; these could come in many forms, but the most important was blood sacrifice – the sacrifice of an animal, which was a common feature of all ancient religions. In offering this gift, a person or group of people hoped that they would secure a god’s favour. This has sometimes been seen as a rather cynical arrangement of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back’ (or in Latin: do ut des – ‘I give that you may give’), but this view does not do justice to the awe in which the gods were held by Romans, who believed that these powerful beings deserved their gifts. A key feature of Roman religion was its role at the centre of the workings of the Roman state. Politicians and generals would never take a major decision without consulting the gods, while there was even a set of priests appointed to ensure that when the Romans went to war, they did so with the gods’ support. At all times, the Romans were careful to ensure the pax deorum (‘peace of the gods’), and to avoid the ira deorum (‘anger of the gods’). Foreigners were often impressed by the devotion to the gods of the Romans, and some, including Dionysius of Halicarnassus, even believed that this lay behind their success in winning such a great empire.

1 Origins and Development As with early Roman history, our knowledge of the early development of Roman religion is limited and based upon writers who lived centuries later. However, Rome started out as a small farming community looking to defend itself, and so it is fair to imagine that its earliest gods were those associated with the core elements of daily life: rites of passage, weather, farming and warfare.

Farming as an Act of Worship The close relationship between farming and religion in early Roman times can be seen in the double meaning of the Latin verb colo, some forms of which have the stem cult-, and which can mean either ‘I till the land’ or ‘I worship’. This suggests that for the Romans farming was in itself an act of worship and a prayer for blessings. Interestingly, the double meaning has survived into English: we still talk of ‘agriculture’ and ‘viticulture’ to describe types of farming; in addition, the word ‘cult’ is used to describe a closed-off group of religious believers. Another word that has come into English via a similar path is ‘pagan’, since ancient religions are often called ‘pagan’ religions. The Latin word paganus meant something like ‘villager’ or ‘countryman’, suggesting that pagan religion had its origins in the worship of country folk.

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One feature of the religion was that it was polytheistic (from the Greek, poly: many, theos: god), in other words it had many gods, each one responsible for specific areas of life. St Augustine, a Christian writer of the late Roman empire who aimed to discredit the traditional religion, mocks this feature in the following passage: For the Romans themselves . . . did not think it proper to entrust their land to any one god. Rather, they entrusted the countryside to Rusina, the mountain terraces to Jugatinus, hills to the goddess Collatina, and over the valleys they set Vallonia.

This illustrates how the Romans saw their gods in every part of nature, with gods and goddesses inhabiting woods, groves, springs and rivers. However, as Augustine goes on to explain disdainfully, it was not just in the countryside that the gods were to be found: Everyone has a single doorkeeper for his house, and, because this doorkeeper is a man, he is quite sufficient. But the Romans have set three gods there: Forculus for the doors, Cardea for the hinges, and Limentius for the threshold. Forculus, then, was not able to guard the door, hinges and threshold all at once! Augustine, City of God, 4.8

A Roman might have countered Augustine’s mockery by arguing that polytheism had clear advantages. In particular, since each god had certain spheres of responsibility, a person knew exactly who to worship in each and every situation. For example, he or she might pray to Ceres for a good harvest, Jupiter for rain, Mars for help in war, Neptune for a safe sea voyage and Apollo for success in a musical contest. Moreover, he or she might feel a close personal link to a god who played an important role in his life (for example, a sailor might feel an affinity with Neptune). Another feature of Roman religion was that the gods were anthropomorphic: in other words, they were represented in human form (in Greek, anthrōpos: human being, morphē: shape). There were countless statues of the gods, all of them portrayed with human bodies. In fact, the gods were ‘human’ in more than their appearance. Roman literature presents gods who had the faults and imperfections of human beings: they could be cruel or kind, helpful or vindictive, and all had their human favourites.

Etruscan and Greek Influence It is hard for us to disentangle early Roman religion from the religion of the Etruscans, and it is clear that the Etruscan religion had a major influence on the Romans, who adopted some of its gods and practices. Some important gods, such as Jupiter, Mars and Minerva, had their origins in Etruscan culture. Moreover, it wasn’t just gods who were borrowed: the first Roman temples were built in the style of Etruscan temples, while the Romans also borrowed beliefs about divination (predicting the future); in particular, haruspicy (described on p. 209) was an Etruscan skill.

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The second influence on Roman religion was the religion of the Greeks. We have seen in Chapter 1 that the Romans had much contact with Greeks from early times, and especially with those who lived in the many Greek communities of Magna Graecia in southern Italy and Sicily. As the Romans became more influenced by their neighbours, they started adopting Greek gods as their own or merging their own gods with their Greek equivalents. Therefore, the great Roman sky god Jupiter was matched up with Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, while the war god Mars was likened to his Greek equivalent Ares, and the agricultural goddess Ceres was compared to the Greek Demeter. This process gathered pace during the 3rd century BCE , when Greek literature and culture were having a profound impact on the Roman world. From the time when Livius Andronicus produced the first Latin translation of Homer’s Odyssey in the 240s, Romans came to learn more about Greek mythology. Early Roman religion had few such stories about the gods (except those relating to the foundation and wellbeing of Rome), since gods were seen merely in terms of their functions and the places they were associated with. Greek mythology captivated Romans, and they soon adopted its stories for their own gods. By the time that Ovid came to write his Metamorphoses at the end of the 1st century BCE , Roman and Greek mythology were almost one and the same.

The Sibylline Books One very important Greek influence on early Roman religion was the Sibylline Books. In Greek religion, a ‘Sibyl’ was a woman with special powers of prophecy, and in southern Italy there was a Sibyl at Cumae, a Greek settlement to the north of the Bay of Naples. Dionysius of Halicarnassus relates how the Sibyl of Cumae sold these books to Tarquin the Proud – although only after the king twice refused the offer and watched her burn three of the nine books each time. He placed the surviving three in a vault beneath the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. There was a special group of priests responsible for interpreting the books who were aided by two Greek translators, since they were written in Greek hexameter verse. The books were not strictly prophecies of the future but offered, in times of crisis, guidance about the religious actions needed to divert or overcome a disaster. Dionysius says that the Senate were the only body who could order the consultation of the books, and that this happened ‘when civil strife grips the city, or some great disaster has fallen upon them in war, or some great prodigies or apparitions, which are difficult to interpret, have been seen by them’. The books frequently recommended the introduction of a Greek deity or cult to the Roman world. One of the earliest examples is the tradition that a temple to Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest (who was later merged with the Roman Ceres), was built on the Aventine Hill in 496 BCE after a devastating famine. The books continued to be consulted throughout Roman history, and we know of consultations until the 4th century CE .

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In Their Own Words 4.1 Read the information Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives about the Sibylline books at Roman Antiquities, 4.62.

II The Roman Gods From the time when the Romans merged their native gods with those of the Greeks, the most important gods were the twelve Olympians – but it should not be forgotten that there were hundreds of others besides, some just particular to one village or region.

1 The Olympians The Olympians took their name from the fact that they were believed to live on Mount Olympus in the north of Greece. However, Olympus was also perceived to be a fictional place in the sky, much in the way that some people today talk about heaven. Like the Greeks, the Romans believed that their gods were both immortal and ageless, meaning that, after their childhoods, each of them was always imagined to be frozen at the same age; Jupiter was always a fatherly figure in a healthy middleage, while Apollo was ever in youthful manhood. There were twelve Olympians, six gods and six goddesses, all of whom belonged to one family. There is much intermarriage within the family (for example, Jupiter is married to his sister Juno), a common feature of all polytheistic systems. Each god was actually responsible for many different areas of life and was given an adjective (known as an epithet) to describe them accordingly. For example, a farmer might have prayed to Jupiter Pluvius (‘rain-giver’) for rain, politicians might worship Jupiter Optimus Maximus (‘best and greatest’ – the god of sovereign power), while a variety of people might have appealed to Jupiter Lapis (‘god of oaths’). Meanwhile Juno could be invoked as Regina (‘queen of the gods’), Lucina (‘goddess of childbirth’), Moneta (‘protector of the Roman mint’) and Pronuba (‘patron of marriage’). Temples were often dedicated to one specific version of the god. For example, Jupiter and Juno were both worshipped in the temple on the Capitoline Hill as rulers, and therefore in their guises of Optimus Maximus and Regina. In the short descriptions which follow, the natures and roles of each god and goddess are briefly outlined. Jupiter was the patriarchal head of the Olympian family (Fig. 4.2). His name is a merging of Iou pater (‘father Ious’ – with Ious being an earlier name for the god), and he is also commonly referred to as Jove. Since he was originally a sky and weather

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Fig. 4.2 This statue of Jupiter dates to the late 1st century CE and is today found in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; the bronze plaster over his shoulder is a modern addition.

god, he is often portrayed holding a thunderbolt; he is also often seen holding a sceptre, the symbol of political power. Jupiter was paralleled with the Greek god Zeus and took on most of the related myths. Many of these refer to his numerous amorous conquests, which caused the jealousy of his wife Juno. In Rome, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill was the largest and most important in the city (Fig. 4.3). It was closely associated with the Roman state; at the start of every year, the new consuls went there to perform a sacrifice, while the Senate always then held the first meeting of the year there. As queen of the gods, Juno was particularly important to women and oversaw both marriage and childbirth. Ironically, her own marriage was unhappy; she suffered the philandering of her husband Jupiter and frequently sought vengeance on his lovers. On the 1st March every year, Roman women held a festival in honour of Juno called the Matronalia, a celebration of motherhood and of women in general. However, Juno had other roles, most notably as Juno Moneta (‘Juno the adviser’), goddess of the Roman Mint, whose duty it was to protect the finances of the Roman empire. In early times, Juno seems to have been a goddess of youthful strength and maturation, and so her name was given to the month of June, when the crops ripen for harvest. Neptune came to be associated with the Greek Poseidon. He was the brother of Jupiter and, as the god of the sea, was particularly important to sailors and fishermen.

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Fig. 4.3 A drawing reconstructing the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill.

The Capitoline Triad The temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill was actually home to what is known as the Capitoline Triad, a group of three vital deities – Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. Such ‘triads’ are a common feature of Indo-European religions, as can still be seen today in Hinduism, in which the three most important gods are the triad of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The Capitoline Triad developed from Etruscan religion; inside the temple on the Capitoline, each deity had their own sacred room. As Roman power expanded to encompass new lands, the central temple of many Roman cities – in Italy and further afield – was often dedicated to this Capitoline Triad (including Pompeii’s main temple – see p. 364).

He was also the god of earthquakes and often depicted with a trident, which he used to shake the earth. As the Roman empire grew, controlling and travelling the Mediterranean was vital for Roman power, and so Neptune was an important deity to appease. He was also linked with horses and so was the focus of prayers and offerings by those going to the races. You can see a famous image of Neptune and his wife Amphitrite on p. 415. Minerva’s name is derived from the Etruscan goddess Menrva, who is believed to have been a goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools and commerce, so that she was naturally linked to the Greek Athena. In Etruscan, Greek and Roman myth, Minerva was believed to have been born from the head of her father, Jupiter. As goddess of wisdom, Minerva’s sacred bird was the owl. She was also worshipped as a goddess of war, and one of her military symbols was the aegis, a goat-skin shield imprinted with the image of a gorgon’s head. As goddess of weaving and handicrafts, she was

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Fig. 4.4 This fresco on the wall of a Pompeian house shows Mars, naked but armed, in a garden scene.

important for artisans and women working in the household, while she was also the goddess of school children. Mars was particularly important to the Romans, since he was believed to be the father of Romulus (Fig. 4.4). Moreover, war was central to the development and security of the Roman world, and so Mars was often regarded as second in importance only to Jupiter. In early times, Mars was also a god of agriculture associated with the Etruscan farming god Maris. The link between agriculture and warfare was because Mars was originally responsible for the protection of cattle, fields and farmers, which had to be defended with arms if necessary. Mars therefore came to be identified with warfare, and thereby with Ares, the Greek god of war. The large exercise ground in Rome where soldiers trained was known as the Campus Martius, the ‘Field of Mars’. Venus was an early Roman spirit of fertility and procreation, and so it was natural for the Romans to associate her with the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite (Fig. 4.5). Venus was particularly important to the Romans as the mother of Aeneas, and she figures prominently in Virgil’s Aeneid. She is often depicted in art with her son Cupid, who could inflame human hearts with passionate desire by piercing them with his arrows. In myth, Venus was famous for conducting an affair with Mars although she was married to Vulcan. Vulcan was linked with the Greek Hephaestus. He was a god of fire and metalworking, who could turn rock into bronze weapons or fine jewellery. Since the

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Fig. 4.5 This large fresco adorns the same wall of a house in Pompeii as Fig. 4.4. It depicts Venus in a shell, accompanied by a nymph on either side. Venus was said to have been born fully grown in the sea off Cyprus, and then to have come to land in a shell.

Romans relied so heavily on the working of metal, Vulcan was very important to them. He was believed to live under Mount Etna in Sicily, and he suffered the humiliation of Venus’ adultery with Mars. According to legend, whenever Venus was unfaithful to him, he would grow angry and beat the red-hot metal so hard that it would cause a volcanic eruption. The god’s festival, the Vulcanalia, was held on 23rd August each year, at a time when crops and granaries were especially at risk of catching fire during the intense heat of summer. Apollo had no obvious equivalent in early Roman religion; the Romans simply adopted him from the Greek pantheon. He was one of the most important gods in the Graeco-Roman world, with a wide range of responsibilities: music, the arts, education, health and disease, prophecy, archery and the sun. He was often portrayed as a beautiful young man with short, curly hair, who carried a lyre or a quiver of arrows. His relationship to the sun is reflected in his common epithet Phoebus, which meant ‘shining’. Every year in the middle of July, the ludi Apollinares, the ‘Games of Apollo’, were held in Rome for eight or nine days. Apollo was particularly favoured by the emperor Augustus, who wished to be associated with him and honoured him with festivals and sacrifices. Diana, originally an early Roman goddess of hunting, became linked with the Greek goddess Artemis and her twin brother Apollo; she therefore also took on the role of goddess of the moon, in which guise she commonly known as Phoebe (the feminine form of Phoebus). However, she is most often depicted in hunting dress, accompanied by animals such as a deer and with a quiver of arrows. Diana’s

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most important temple was on the Aventine Hill. According to legend, it had been dedicated by the sixth king of Rome, Servius Tullius, who was supposedly born a slave. Diana’s cult therefore had a large following among the urban poor and slaves, and the latter could receive sanctuary in her temples. Mercury had the same attributes as Hermes, the messenger of the Greek gods; like Hermes, he is usually portrayed wearing winged sandals and a winged helmet, while carrying the caduceus, a herald’s staff entwined with two snakes. In addition to being a god of travellers, Mercury was also the god of traders and commercial profit; his name is linked to the Latin word merx – ‘merchandise’ (cf. other English words such as ‘merchant’ and ‘commerce’) (Fig. 4.6). The Romans also believed that it was Mercury who escorted the souls of the dead down to the Underworld. As the goddess of the crops and harvest, Ceres (whose name is linked to words such as ‘cereal’, ‘create’ and ‘increase’) was a vital goddess for the Romans. We have seen that her temple on the Aventine Hill in Rome was believed to have been established at the start of the Republic. This was her most important place of worship in the Roman world. The Cerealia, a festival in her honour, was held every year between 12th and 19th April and the worship of Ceres became particularly associated with the plebeian classes, who dominated the grain trade.

Fig. 4.6 This painting showing Mercury and Bacchus formed part of a lararium of the bar of Lucius Vetutius Placidus in Pompeii. In the centre is the Genius (protective spirit) flanked by two Lares (see p. 236); at each end of the painting is a god – Mercury to the left and Bacchus to the right. The support of these two gods was vital to the bar-owner – the former as the god of traders, and the latter as the god of wine.

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The most famous myth about Ceres concerns the abduction of her daughter Proserpina (Persephone in Greek), who was picking flowers in a field one day when Pluto, the god of the dead, on a visit to the earth from the Underworld, fell in love with her and carried her off down to his kingdom below. The distraught Ceres searched all over the earth for her lost daughter and fasted in grief. As a result, the crops of the earth stopped growing and there was a famine until Jupiter intervened and persuaded Pluto to return Proserpina. However, as she had eaten food in the Underworld – some seeds of a pomegranate fruit – she was forced to spend some months of the year with Pluto. Ceres fasted during these months and the crops stopped growing; thus people came to call this season winter. As the goddess of the hearth, Vesta was of vital importance to every Roman family, since the hearth was a home’s source of light, heat and cooking. In addition, Vesta also had a prominent role to play in Roman public life as a protector of the state, as is described on pp. 204–206. The Vestalia, a festival in the goddess’s honour, was held at Rome between 7th and 15th June. There were few myths about Vesta; she was originally one of the twelve Olympians, but she later gave up her place for Bacchus in order to tend to the sacred fire on Mount Olympus. God

Responsibilities

Symbols

Jupiter

King of the gods, sky and weather, travellers

Throne and sceptre, thunderbolt

Juno

Queen of the gods; women and marriage

Peacock

Neptune

The sea, earthquakes, horses and bulls

Trident and dolphin; horses

Minerva

Wisdom, weaving and crafts, war

Owl, aegis, helmet

Mars

War; agriculture

Armour

Venus

Love and beauty

Sea shell

Vulcan

Fire, metal-working, artisans

Anvil and hammer

Apollo

Education, music and the arts, archery, the sun, prophecy

Lyre and bow

Diana

Hunting, the moon, childbirth

Moon, bow and arrows, wild animals

Mercury

Messenger of the gods; travel and trade

Winged sandals, winged helmet, caduceus

Ceres

Agriculture and the harvest

Flowers, fruit and grain, cornucopia

Vesta

The hearth

Fire

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2 Other Important Gods The Romans also adopted Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and theatre, usually calling him by his other name of Bacchus, and associating him with Liber, an early Roman god of fertility, wine and growth. The rites of Bacchus, or Bacchanalia, formed one of the most popular and controversial mystery cults of the Roman world, and are famously, but enigmatically, depicted on the walls of a triclinium in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii (see p. 386). A specifically Roman god was Janus, the god of gates and doorways (Fig. 4.7). While this might not seem a particularly important role, Janus was regarded as the protector of a house, as well as a god of beginnings and endings. This is evident in his physical appearance, since he has two heads which look in opposite directions (i.e. either into or out of a house, or back to the past and forward to the future). It is therefore no surprise that the first month of the year is named after him, since January is a time when people reflect on the past twelve months and look ahead to the year to come (see Appendix 4 to read about the Roman calendar). Janus was worshipped in Rome at the temple of Ianus Geminus in the Forum. According to Roman tradition, the temple’s gates were only closed during times of peace; when Augustus closed them in 29 BCE after his final victory against his rivals, it was for only the third time in Roman history. Pluto was the ruler of the Underworld and the god of the dead. His name is probably derived from the Greek word ploutos, meaning ‘wealth’; in Pluto’s case, his wealth was measured in the vast number of souls he ruled over. He was sometimes

Fig. 4.7 This head from a statue of Janus was found in Vulci, Etruria.

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In Their Own Words 4.2 1

Read Virgil, Aeneid, 10.1–64. What impression is given of the Olympian gods in these lines?

2

Read Virgil, Aeneid, 6.264–751, and Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.1–85. What can we learn about Roman views of the Underworld and the afterlife in these lines?

also referred to as Dis Pater (‘wealthy father’), the name of an early Roman god of the Underworld. There are few myths about Pluto as he rarely emerged from his kingdom below but, as we have seen, on one of the rare occasions when he did, he abducted Proserpina and took her down below to be his wife. He is rarely pictured in art, but his symbol was often the pomegranate, the fruit that she ate in the Underworld. A further category of deities consisted of abstract qualities worshipped as gods or goddesses. So, for example, Romans worshipped as deities concepts such as Pax (Peace), Providentia (Providence), Concordia (Harmony), Fortuna (Fortune), Iustitia (Justice) and Salus (Health and Safety). These deities were very evident in the public religion of Rome; there was a temple to Concordia in the Roman forum, while an aspect of Fortuna, Fortuna Huiusce Diei (The Fortune of the Current Day), had a temple dedicated in the city. Augustus was keen to associate himself and the imperial cult with these qualities; the cult title ‘Augusta’ was attached to the abstract goddesses Providentia, Pax, Concordia and Iustitia.

3 The Cult of the Emperor With the advent of Augustus as the first Roman emperor from 31 BCE, a new cult of emperor worship began to emerge. We have seen on p. 67 that Augustus had his adoptive father Julius Caesar deified in 42 BCE . Soon after his victory at Actium in 31, Octavian dedicated a temple to divus Iulius at the spot in the Forum where Julius Caesar had been cremated. Pliny the Elder also quotes a section from Augustus’ lost autobiography in which the princeps associates a comet that appeared during games he held in July 44 with Caesar’s deification: ‘Coincident with the very days in which I was celebrating my games,’ he wrote, ‘a comet shone for a whole week in the northern sky. It rose about an hour before sunset, shining brightly and clearly visible in all lands. The common people believed it was a sign that Caesar’s spirit had been received into the conclave of the immortal gods, and as a symbol of that event the likeness of a star was added to the bust of Caesar, which we shortly after dedicated in the forum.’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 2.94

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Pliny goes on to record that in private Augustus actually believed that the comet indicated that he himself was under divine protection. The worship of rulers had precedents elsewhere in the Mediterranean world; the Pharaohs of Egypt were worshipped as gods, as were rulers of the Hellenistic World such as Alexander the Great. It was an effective way for rulers to make their subjects believe in the divine nature of their power. Cassius Dio, writing in the early 3rd century CE , emphasises that the imperial cult had the benefit of unifying the Roman world in loyalty to the emperor. However, he is very clear about the limits of imperial divinity: For in the capital itself and in Italy generally, no emperor, however worthy of renown he has been, has dared to do this [i.e. have cults to himself as a living god]; still, there are various divine honours bestowed after their death upon such emperors as have ruled uprightly, and in fact shrines are built to them. Cassius Dio, 51.20.8

So it seems that, although in parts of the eastern empire it came naturally to worship the emperor as a god, in Italy the practice was frowned upon and an emperor could only be deified after his death. In practice, however, we don’t know how

Am I a God? Ancient writers record differing attitudes to the imperial cult by 1st-century CE emperors. Some were respectful and refrained from casting themselves as gods while still alive. However, Caligula apparently wanted to be worshipped as a god, and once apparently berated a Jewish delegation for sacrificing forr him and not to him. None the less, he was so unpopular that he wasn’t deified after death. Other emperors took the whole issue rather less seriously: Vespasian, lying on his erii’ – ‘Woe is me, I think I’m deathbed, is said to have joked ‘vae, puto deus fieri’ becoming a god’.

Review and Reflect 4.1 1

How central to modern religions with which you are familiar are the following: (i) a moral code; (ii) the afterlife; (iii) scripture; (iv) conversion?

2

How does the desired relationship between the Roman gods and humans compare with that of a modern religious believer and their deity?

3

How different do you think it would be to live in a society where everyone followed the same religion?

4

Are there examples in the modern world where political leaders (past or present) are worshipped as gods?

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closely this principle was followed. None the less, the emperor’s genius (meaning something like ‘guardian spirit’) could be worshipped while he was living. When an emperor had died, it was up to his successor to choose whether to deify him or not; therefore, emperors who had died in disfavour with the people or after a coup (such as Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) were denied this by their successors. Alternatively, successful emperors such as Augustus, Vespasian and Trajan were deified by their successors.

Further Reading 4.1 Beard, Mary, North, John, and Price, Simon, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A Historyy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Beard, Mary, North, John and Price, Simon, Religions of Rome, Volume 2: A Sourcebook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Dowden, Ken, Religion and the Romans (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1998), chapters 1–4. Liebeschuetz, John, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). Scullard, Howard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republicc (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), chapter 1.

III Festivals The Romans did not have a seven-day week with two days of rest as we do today. Instead, their calendar was organised in cycles of eight days, labelled A to H; day A was always a market day and therefore a day of rest. Confusingly, this market day was known as the nundinae (‘ninth day’), as it was the ninth day since the last market day counting inclusively. Yet the Romans did not just have one day off in every eight; rather, their year was punctuated with many religious festivals, as well as games for the relaxation and enjoyment of the people. By the mid-1st century CE , there were 159 days in the year that were marked as holidays for one reason or another. About 40 of these days were given over to religious festivals, many of which dated back to the earliest Roman times. They tended to reflect the cycle of the seasons, which were important both to the farmer and to the soldier, who only fought during the ‘campaigning season’ of March to September (the winter months being too harsh to keep an army away from home). So a festival to Mars was held on 1st March, when soldiers were preparing to campaign again, and then in mid-April when the warm weather was beginning to reappear, there was a week-long festival to Ceres, the goddess of the crops. Later in the year, when a farmer had completed all his sowing for the following year, a festival was held to Saturn, the god of sowing.

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A number of festivals have already been mentioned above. In addition, you can read about the festival of the Bona Dea on p. 206, and the Parentalia and the Lemuria on p. 287. Two other major festivals are described below – the Lupercalia and the Saturnalia.

The Lupercalia The Lupercalia took place on 15th February and was intended to purify the city and promote fertility. Its origins are uncertain; even Romans were unsure exactly where its rituals came from. However, it was believed to honour Lupercus, a god of shepherds; his name has clear links with the Latin lupus, meaning wolf, and the festival was also associated with the story of Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a she-wolf. The action of the day centred around a group of noble young men, who were selected as Luperci – priests specifically appointed for the Lupercalia. The Luperci were divided into two teams, each led by a captain. The day’s events started in a cave on the west side of the Palatine Hill known as the Lupercal; according to legend, it was here that Romulus and Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf. In the cave they sacrificed goats and a dog; these were unusual animals for a Roman sacrifice, but they were believed to be very fertile and so were appropriate offerings at a fertility festival. The faces of the two captains were then smeared with the animals’ blood, which was next washed off with wool dripped in milk; at this point, the two young men had to laugh loudly. A feast was then held, which involved the Luperci drinking lots of wine. Now it was time for the public element of the festival. The two teams of Luperci, dressed only in loin-cloths, ran a race around the foot of the Palatine Hill. As they ran, they carried strips of skins from the sacrificed goats, with which they whipped anything in their way – trees, ground, buildings and especially people. This was seen as a way to drive out evil and promote fertility. As one ancient writer points out, young women were actually keen to be struck: They [the Luperci] then cut the goats’ skins into strips and, after that, they run around, naked except for a loincloth, lashing everyone they meet with the strips of goatskin. Young brides make an effort to receive this lashing, for they believe it renders them fertile and will make their labour an easy one. Plutarch, Romulus, 21.3–5

This observation by Plutarch illustrates the extent to which Roman religion was governed by superstition.

The Saturnalia The Saturnalia was held around the time of the winter solstice, which has long held importance for cultures worldwide, since the sun is believed to be ‘reborn’. The festival was originally celebrated on 17th December, but later extended over several

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days. The festival honoured Saturn, who was originally a Roman god of agriculture and sowing, but came to be associated with the Greek god Cronos, who was the father of Zeus and ruled over mankind during its mythological ‘Golden Age’, when all people were equal and lived together in peace and harmony. As a result, the celebrations of the Saturnalia were associated with various ideas: the rebirth of the sun after the winter solstice, the completion of sowing the following year’s crops, and the hope that one day people would again live in peace with one another in a second Golden Age. The holiday began with a great sacrifice at the temple of Saturn in the Roman forum, which was followed by a free public banquet. Daily life came to a halt during the festival; shops were shut, schools were closed, law-courts were deserted and there was a break from politics. The streets were full of strolling crowds, who greeted one another with Io Saturnalia (‘Happy Saturnalia’); unlike at other times, people were allowed to gamble in public. However, the most remarkable aspect of this festival was what happened at home. For it was a tradition of the Saturnalia that masters treated their slaves as equals (at least for one day), and even waited on them at the table – all in the spirit of the Golden Age. People discarded the formal toga, instead wearing party clothes and the soft cap (pileus) normally worn by freedmen, which symbolised freedom. The whole atmosphere was one of feasting and celebration, and this is captured by the following lines from the 1st century CE poet Statius, in which he asks the patron deities of learning – Apollo, Minerva and the Muses – to leave him alone during December, when he does not want to work on his poems: Father Phoebus and stern Minerva, festive Muses too, go far away! I’ll call you back on New Year’s Day. But let’s have unchained Saturn turn up, and December, swollen with so much wine, and laughing Jest and cheeky Wit! Statius, Silvae, 1.6.1–7

In this passage we see ‘Wit’ and ‘Jest’ personified as minor gods, just as concepts such as Pax and Iustitia commonly were. Gift-giving was also a central feature of the Saturnalia. Common gifts included wax candles and doll-like clay figures, a particular favourite of children. The poet

The Saturnalia and Christmas It is not hard to see similarities between the festivities of the Saturnalia and those of Christmas; this is unlikely to be coincidence. When 25th December was set as the date for Christmas by the Church in the 4th century, it probably looked to incorporate various elements of the pre-existing mid-winter festival, including the giving of gifts and the idea of goodwill to all people. Moreover, the more recent British tradition of Boxing Day, which originated in the reign of Queen Victoria, when the wealthy would leave gifts in boxes for their servants and the poor, can be compared to the Saturnalian idea of slaves being waited on by their masters for a day.

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Martial based a whole book of poems on gifts given at the Saturnalia. Some were expensive, others small and humble; they included items such as dice, combs, moneyboxes, toothpicks, balls, perfumes, a parrot, tables, cups, spoons, books and pets. In the following poem, Martial makes fun of a friend, Umber, for recycling to him all the presents that he himself had been given: You sent me at the Saturnalia, Umber, all the presents that the five days had brought you: a dozen three-leaved tablets and seven toothpicks, with which in addition arrived a sponge, a napkin, a cup, half a measure of beans with a wicker basket of Picene olives, and a black flask of Laletanian must. Also came small Syrian figs along with wrinkled plums and a jar heavy with the weight of Libyan figs. I think the gifts, borne by eight strapping Syrians, were scarce worth thirty sesterces in all. How much more conveniently could a boy without any trouble have brought me five pounds of silver! Martial, Epigrams, 7.53

Although this poem is at Umber’s expense, it does give an insight into the sort of small gifts given at the Saturnalia.

IV Temples, Priests and Sacrifice 1 Temples The Latin word templum originally described a patch of land that had been set aside and made holy for the gods. As time went by, the word came more to describe the building situated on this holy ground, but the temple building was usually only part of a larger sanctuary; sometimes these sanctuaries were walled round and the temple building surrounded by a colonnade – the temple of Apollo in Pompeii described on p. 364 is a good example of this. The design of Roman temple buildings was influenced by both the Etruscans and the Greeks (Fig. 4.8). A plan of a typical temple can be seen in Fig. 4.9. It was rectangular in shape and built on a high podium, with steps leading up to the building (perhaps this was done to give an impression of the temple being higher and closer to the gods). In front of the building was a porch area, which led into the main room, the cella. The temple was surrounded by the columns of a colonnade; some of these were free-standing, while others were merged with the outside wall of the cella. Inside the cella would be the statue of the god to whom the temple was dedicated; this might be decorated with gifts from worshippers, such as flowers, jewels, or other precious ornaments. Incense might be burned around the statue. Apart from this, there would be no seats or other furniture, while the room would also be darkened by the lack of windows. The only light would come in through the front door, and the sun might perhaps cause any gold or silver on the statue to glint during

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Fig. 4.8 The temple of Portunus in the Forum Boarium in Rome is one of the best preserved standard Roman temples.

4

3

2

1 Fig. 4.9 Plan of a typical Roman temple: (1) podium; (2) steps; (3) porch; (4) cella.

the daytime. Most temples would also have a store of treasure dedicated to the god, and some temples had an underground chamber or an extra room behind the cella to hold this. A Roman temple building played a different role from a modern place of worship. The temple was believed to be the home of the god, whose presence was represented by the cult statue. No worship took place inside the temple, and the only reason a worshipper might enter the cella would be to look at the cult statue and perhaps to leave a gift or burn incense. The key act of worship for a Roman was a sacrifice; this took place at an altar in the open air outside the front of the temple.

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The Pantheon Not all Roman temples needed to conform to this standard. One of Rome’s most famous, the Pantheon, can still be visited today. It is believed to have been dedicated to all the gods (pantheon meant ‘all gods’ in Greek), and was first commissioned by Marcus Agrippa in the 20s BCE , although this version burnt down in 80 CE . The emperor Hadrian then commissioned a replacement, which was completed in about 125; it is this that survives today. The inside of the temple is one grand circular space, with a spectacular curved and vaulted ceiling, in the centre of which is a central opening to the sky, the oculus. The oculus is nearly 9 metres in diameter, and provides the temple with its only natural source of light. The whole dome is 43 metres in diameter. The temple remains the largest unsupported dome in the world, and has survived so well as it was turned into a church in 609. Engineers still marvel today at how the Romans managed to construct such an extraordinary building, which allowed worshippers to look straight up into the heavens and feel closer to their gods.

Fig. 4.10 The ceiling of the Pantheon today.

2 Priests A Roman priest played a very different role from a modern equivalent. Today, we might expect imams, priests or rabbis to play a pastoral role for their congregation, helping them through difficult personal times and encouraging them in their faith. Yet a Roman priesthood was a purely ceremonial and functional role. Priests were

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not normally attached to particular temples, but merely ensured that various religious rituals were performed correctly. In Rome, priesthoods were closely tied up with politics, and tended to go to the elite, since this was a way for them to increase their power and prestige. There were various different committees, known as ‘colleges’, of priests in Rome, each of which had different functions in the religious life of the state. Many of these colleges were believed to have been introduced by the early king Numa Pompilius, and the main ones are described below.

The Pontifices The ‘college of pontifices’ was the most important group of Roman priests, led by the chief priest, the Pontifex Maximus (‘Greatest Pontiff’). The word pontifex (pl. pontifices) originally meant ‘bridge-builder’ – it is uncertain how it came to be associated with a priesthood. In early Roman history, the pontifices were believed to have been the king’s religious advisers. For most of Roman history, a new pontifex was elected by a vote among the current pontifices. The number of pontifices in the college varied over the years, but the most common number was 15. The pontifices had a variety of duties, which included: ●

the protection of all temples,

●

the regulation of the laws regarding burials and cemeteries,

●

the supervision of the religious calendar,

●

the overseeing of laws regarding wills and inheritance.

Moreover, they were often consulted on points of religious law, and had to keep records in special ‘pontifical books’ of all the religious prodigies that

The Pontifex Maximus The Pontifex Maximus was effectively the high priest of Roman religion, responsible for overseeing the college of pontifices. He had an official residence in the forum, the Domus Publica, which stood between the House of the Vestal Virgins and the Sacra, and he carried out his religious duties from the nearby Regia, or ‘House Via Sacra, of the King’ (see Fig 2.9 on p. 87). The office of Pontifex Maximus was a very prestigious one and therefore coveted by leading Romans during the Republic; it was the only priesthood to be publicly elected, but only a part-time role, and so ambitious men could combine it with pursuing a political or military career. As we have seen on p. 76, with the advent of the principate Augustus assumed the role and the emperor was automatically the Pontifex Maximus thereafter. When Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire in the 4th century CE, the title of Pontifex Maximus was transferred over to the Pope, who is still referred to as the ‘Pontiff’ in English today.

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occurred each year (such as, for example, thunder from a clear sky or statues sweating blood). The college of pontifices also consisted of other priests with separate responsibilities, including the 15 flamines (sg: flamen), priesthoods attached to one particular god so that, for example, there was a Flamen Dialis (of Jupiter) who oversaw the worship of Jupiter. These positions originated in the earliest Roman times and many of the flamines were attached to gods about whom little is known, such as Falacer and Furrina. After the deification of Julius Caesar in 42 BCE , his former lieutenant Mark Antony was appointed to be flamen to divus Iulius, the first new flamen to be created in hundreds of years.

The Augurs The ‘college of augurs’ was the second most important college of priests. Their role was to interpret the will of the gods by looking for signs and omens; the best known and earliest way in which they did this was by interpreting the flight of birds (we have already seen on p. 8 how this skill is central to the story of Romulus and Remus), but they also used other techniques, such as observing thunder and lightning, or watching the behaviour of animals. The process of augury was known as ‘taking the auspices’, and was central to many public and private rituals in Roman life, such as war, business and marriage. Livy gives an account of the confirmation of Numa Pompilius as king according to the auspices. Although this event relates to a legendary past, it no doubt reflects how Romans of Livy’s day practised augury. The passage highlights the use of the augur’s rod, the lituus, which he used to define the region of land or sky from where he would read omens. Numa was seated on a stone, facing the south, while the augur sat to the left, his head covered and holding in his right hand a curved staff without knots which they called the lituus. Then, looking out over the city and countryside, he prayed to the gods and marked out a field from east to west, designating the areas to the south ‘the right’, those to the north ‘the left’. He fixed in his mind a landmark opposite him far off on the horizon; then shifting the staff to his left hand and placing his right on Numa’s head, he prayed as follows: ‘Father Jupiter, if it is heaven’s will that Numa Pompilius whose head I am now touching be king at Rome, I ask you to sanction it by sending us incontestable signs within these boundaries I have fixed.’ He then enumerated the auspices that he wished to be sent. And sent they were: Numa was declared king and descended from the sacred area of augury. Livy, History of Rome, 1.18

Although we are not told what auspices were sent in this passage, it is likely to have been certain types of birds flying in specific directions.

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The Sacred Chickens Romans often took ‘sacred chickens’ with them on military campaigns for the purpose of augury. They would never start a battle without taking the auspices, but waiting for the flight of birds in the sky could waste valuable time if a quick attack was needed. In this situation, the sacred chickens would be released from their cages and pieces of cake dropped in front of them. If they didn’t come out to eat, or flew away, or flapped their wings and cackled, it was taken as a bad sign. However, if they tried to gobble up the cake and bits fell from their beak, it was considered a favourable omen. Some Romans clearly believed in this process more than others. Before a seabattle off Sicily in 249 BCE during the First Punic War, the Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher was so incensed when the chickens refused to eat that he had them thrown into the sea ‘as if they should drink, given that they didn’t want to eat’. When the Romans subsequently went on to lose the battle, the general was tried for impiety and fined.

Other Priesthoods The two other main colleges apart from the Pontifices and the Augurs were the Quindecimviri Sacris Faciundis (‘the fifteen men in charge of conducting the rites’) and the Septemviri Epulones (‘the seven men in charge of feasts’). The former were the guardians of the Sibylline Books, responsible for managing the introduction of Greek rites into Roman religion based on the Books’ recommendation; the duties of the latter involved helping the pontifices oversee arrangements for public sacrifices and the feasts that followed them, particularly at the games. This college of priests was only introduced in 196 BCE , at which time many new public rites had been introduced into Rome. In addition, you can read about the Augustales on p. 280, and we also hear of associations of men formed for specific festivals, such as the Luperci for the Lupercalia. Another important college in earlier Roman times was that of the Fetiales, who were responsible for the rituals involved in going to war. Such rituals had to be performed correctly to ensure that the war was supported by the gods and therefore a ‘just war’. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing for his Greek readership, comments on Roman piety in matters of warfare during the early period of the city’s history as follows: But since the college of the Fetiales is not in use among the Greeks, I think that I ought to relate how many and how great affairs fall under its jurisdiction, so that those who are currently unaware of the piety which the Romans practised in those times will not be surprised to find that all their wars had the most

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successful outcome; for it will be apparent that the beginnings and motives of them all were most holy, and for this reason in particular the gods were supportive of them in times of danger. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 2.72.3

The Vestal Virgins The Vestal Virgins were the only major priestesses in Rome. They were among the most important people in the Roman state, and consisted of six priestesses of the goddess Vesta who tended the fire in her temple in the Roman forum. Vesta was vital to the Roman state, since the fire in her temple represented the symbolic ‘hearth of the state’, and therefore its security; Romans believed that it was a terrible omen for the city if this fire ever went out. The temple of Vesta was one of the most important in the city (Fig. 4.11). It had an unconventional design, being round and smaller than most temples, while inside

Fig. 4.11 The remains of the temple of Vesta in the Roman forum today.

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there was no cult statue but rather the sacred fire (with a hole in the roof for smoke to disappear); according to Roman legend, the flame had been brought from the ashes of Troy by Aeneas and his followers. There was also a store-house in the temple, which contained the palladium, a statue of the goddess Athena also said to have been brought from Troy, and the fascinum, an erect phallus that was believed to symbolise fertility. It was considered a huge honour to be selected as a Vestal Virgin, not just for the girl concerned, but also for her whole family; therefore, the Vestals were normally chosen from senatorial families. When a post became available, the Pontifex Maximus was responsible for selecting a new candidate. She had to be a girl between the ages of six and ten, who was free of physical and mental defects and had two living parents. Once selected, the girl would be removed from her family and took a vow of chastity. She would be expected to serve for thirty years: for the first ten years she was a novice who learnt her trade, for the next ten years she would be performing most of the Vestals’ duties, while for the final ten years she would spend more time teaching novices. The Vestals had certain key duties: to guard the sacred flame and ensure that it never went out; to bake the sacred flour, mola salsa, used at state sacrifices; to attend certain important state sacrifices; and to act as guardians of important documents, such as wills and state treaties (e.g. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony both left their wills in the temple of Vesta for safe-keeping). In return, the Vestals were given a number of privileges: ●

An escort of a lictor to guard them when they went out in public.

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Seats of honour at the games in Rome.

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Freedom to own property and to make wills.

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A palatial residence in the forum next to the temple of Vesta. Three storeys high, it was built around an elegant open-air courtyard with a pool in its centre.

However, should things go wrong, the Vestals could suffer harsh penalties. If they let the sacred flame go out, they were whipped. If a Vestal Virgin was found to have broken her vow of chastity, she was executed by being buried alive (while her lover was publicly whipped to death). Although this punishment was rarely enacted, during the 80s CE the emperor Domitian did sanction this penalty on more than one occasion, including for Cornelia, the chief priestess. Plutarch gives a grim account of the execution of a Vestal in his biography of Numa; although this biography belongs to Rome’s early history, it is likely that he based this account on what he himself witnessed in Rome under Domitian. He describes the procession to the burial site as follows: They place the woman being punished in a litter, cover it over from the outside and fasten it down with straps, so that no cry can be heard outside; then they carry it through the forum. All people stand aside for it in silence and follow it without a sound with a terrible sense of shame. No other sight is more frightful, nor does the city pass any day more hateful than this. Plutarch, Numa, 10.6

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Good and Bad Examples Livy relates two legends from early Rome that offer very different examples of Vestal Virgins. On the positive side is Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus, who as we have seen was believed to have been impregnated by the god Mars. She was therefore thought of as a mother to the Roman people. On the negative, however, there is the legend of a Vestal called Tarpeia, which was told as a warning to the Roman people. During the wars with the Sabines in the time of Romulus, Tarpeia, daughter of a Roman commander, approached the Sabine camp and offered to let them into the city in exchange for ‘what they bore on their left arms’, hoping for the golden bracelets that they were wearing. However, the Sabines crushed her to death with their shields, which were carried on the left arm. The Romans then hurled her dead body from a sheer cliff on the Capitoline Hill, which they subsequently called the Tarpeian Rock – and which became the place of execution for Rome’s most notorious traitors throughout its history.

Plutarch explains that the Vestal is then left entombed but provided with a little food and drink, so that the Roman people might not have to feel to blame for having directly starved her to death. The Vestal Virgins were particularly prominent at festivals that promoted fertility and the health of the city. One example was the Vestalia, the festival of Vesta herself. Another was the woman-only festival of the Bona Dea, held on 4th December. Little is known about the Bona Dea (‘Good Goddess’), but she seems to have been associated with fertility, healing and women. At her annual festival, her secret rites were conducted in Rome by the wife of a senior magistrate, who was assisted by the Vestal Virgins. These rites took place in the senior magistrate’s house, and on no condition were men allowed to be present. Although little is known of what took place, it is believed that the sacrifice of a pig was a central event. This festival of the Bona Dea in 62 BCE had a major impact on Roman politics. The secret rites were hosted in the house of Julius Caesar, the new Pontifex Maximus, by his wife Pompeia. The young aristocrat Publius Clodius Pulcher dressed himself up as a woman and tried to attend, but he was detected and thrown out; since the rites had been tainted, they had to be held again on another day. Afterwards, Cicero refused to give Clodius an alibi and a bitter feud broke out between the two of them. In revenge, Clodius engineered Cicero’s exile in 58. There were even rumours that Pompeia was having an affair with Clodius. Caesar therefore divorced her, not because the rumours were necessarily true, but because, in his words, ‘my wife should be above suspicion’.

In Their Own Words 4.3 1

Read the information Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives about the pontifices at Roman Antiquities, 2.73 and the Vestal Virgins at Roman Antiquities, 2.67.

2

Read Plutarch’s account of the execution of a Vestal Virgin at Numa, 10.

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3 Sacrifice Sacrifice was fundamental to Roman religion, and always accompanied public and private events such as festivals and rites of passage. The principle behind a sacrifice was that a person honoured the gods by giving up something valuable for them; a sacrifice might be offered to ask a god for help (e.g. for an upcoming journey), to thank a god for a benefit received (e.g. a good harvest), or simply to celebrate and honour a god (e.g. at the god’s festival). The most common type of sacrifice was a blood sacrifice – the killing of an animal as a gift to a god or gods. Although this is very uncommon in the modern world, the principle of giving up something valuable still remains. For example, Jews and Muslims fast on Yom Kippur and during Ramadan respectively, while there is a Christian tradition of forgoing something pleasurable during Lent. In addition to blood sacrifice, there were various other ways in which Romans might leave gifts for their gods: ●

Food offerings such as grain, cheese, fruits and cakes were often left on altars or by cult statues, particularly during harvest time when people were giving thanks for their crops.

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Drink offerings (known as libations) such as wine, milk and honey were often poured out to the gods.

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Votive offerings were left in temples. For example, men retiring from their trade might leave the tools that they had worked with – a soldier might dedicate his arms, a fisherman his net, the shepherd his flute, the poet his lyre, etc., as a way of thanking the gods for their support during their working lives.

People believed that by these offerings they bound themselves closer to the gods.

Blood Sacrifice A Roman preparing to make a sacrifice would first go to the temple and arrange a date with the temple officials; he would also need to book the relevant officials such as the popa and cultrarius (see below). On or just before the appointed day, he would go to the market to buy an animal, which would have to be free of any blemishes. The type of animal to be sacrificed (which was always domestic) depended partly on the god involved and partly on the reasons for the sacrifice. The rules were laid down in manuals held by the pontifices, and each temple had a list of which sacrifices its deity would accept. Some of these rules were straightforward: male animals were always sacrificed to gods, and females to goddesses; white animals to Jupiter and Juno, but black animals to gods or souls of the Underworld. After that, rules became more specific to events; as we have seen, goats and a dog were required for the Lupercalia, while, for example, at the festival of the October Horse in honour of Mars, chariot races were held and the outside horse of the winning team was later sacrificed.

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Human Sacrifice Human sacrifice was rare in the Roman world, although it was probably a feature of the religious rituals of the earliest Romans. Indeed, it is likely that gladiatorial combats had their origins in slaves fighting to the death at the funerals of their masters. During historical times, Romans generally saw human sacrifice as barbaric, something that only foreigners would do – the Druids of Gaul and Britain were held in contempt by the Romans for just this practice. However, this is not to say that it never happened at Rome in any form; for example, in 216 BCE , when the Roman army had suffered its terrible defeat at Cannae, the Sibylline Books were consulted and, as a result, two Gauls and two Greeks were buried alive in the forum to appease the gods.

On the day itself, ribbons would be tied to the animal’s tail, as well as to its horns (if it had them); a wealthy man might also be able to afford to gild these. There would then be a procession in which the animal would be led to the altar outside the temple – it was a good omen if the animal went willingly; if it struggled or tried to get away, this was taken as a very bad sign and the process would have to be started all over again with another animal. Once safely at the temple, the ceremony was overseen by a presiding figure; in state sacrifices and at other important moments, this role was taken by one of the pontifices. However, a private citizen would most likely preside over his own sacrifice. There were rules about who else could be present; friends might be invited, but women were forbidden to attend sacrifices to Hercules or Mars, while slaves and foreigners were banned from all but a few blood offerings. All participants made sure they were clean and wearing their best togas; they would also have to wash their hands in holy water before the ceremony began. The sacrifice itself began with a call for silence; the only noise would be the sound of a flute, whose tune was to drown out any unwanted noises (since they were seen to be bad omens). The priest or president would cover his head with the folds of his toga, pour wine on the victim’s head, sprinkle mola salsa on its back, and finally pass the sacrificial knife over its spine. It was at this point that a prayer was uttered, transferring the animal from human to divine ownership. A man with a club, the popa, then stunned the victim with a blow to the back of the head; as the animal fell to the ground, a knife-man, the cultrarius, cut its throat (Fig. 4.12). The animal was then dismembered and its entrails examined by the haruspex (see below). If the omens were acceptable, the ceremony continued with the cooking of the entrails, which were offered to the deity by being burnt in a fire on the altar. The rest of the animal was also cooked, but then shared out amongst the participants for the sacrificial banquet; at large state sacrifices, when a number of animals were slaughtered, the meat was shared out among the people.

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Fig. 4.12 The relief carving on the altar of the Temple of Vespasian in Pompeii. A popa leads a bull to sacrifice, while a priest waits and a man plays the pipes in the background. Behind the priest, another man seems to be holding a basket of mola salsa.

The Haruspex The haruspex was a specific type of priest who examined the entrails (and in particular the liver) of sacrificial animals: he looked for any blemish (in colour, shape or size) that could be interpreted as an ill omen. The image in Fig. 4.13 is a bronze replica of a sheep’s liver discovered in northern Italy; it is believed that this was the sort of tool used by the haruspex to ‘read’ the liver of a sacrificial victim. Haruspicy was an art developed by the Etruscans, and the most respected haruspices still came from the region of Etruria well into imperial times. Although their knowledge was usually taken very seriously, the haruspices were not a formal priesthood at Rome, and they never had official power as the pontifices and augurs did. It seems that some educated Romans did became concerned about the possibility of charlatans using haruspicy for their own profit. Cicero expresses concern that the aristocratic families of Etruria of his day, who had traditionally provided the best haruspices, were neglecting the art and argues that they should be encouraged to study it again ‘in case such a great art should through the weakness of men lose its true religious authority and be subordinated to trade and profit’. Elsewhere, he reports that Cato the Elder wondered how two haruspices could look at each other without laughing knowingly.

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Fig. 4.13 This bronze model of a sheep’s liver was found in Piacenza, north Italy, and is inscribed with Etruscan writing. It is thought to have been used by a haruspex to interpret the omens at a sacrifice.

Beware the Ides of March The famous phrase ‘Beware the Ides of March!’ comes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesarr, but is based upon the records of Roman writers. According to both haruspexx. Suetonius and Plutarch, Julius Caesar’s death was foretold to him by a haruspex. Suetonius says that when Caesar offered a sacrifice a few days before his assassination, the haruspexx Spurinna told him to beware of danger, which ‘would not come later than the Ides [15th 15th]] of March’. Plutarch relates that on the day itself, Caesar was on his way to a meeting of the Senate when he greeted the haruspexx cheerfully as follows: ‘Well, the Ides of March have come’, to which Spurinna replied softly: ‘Yes, they have come, but they have not gone.’ Caesar was killed just a few minutes later as he arrived at the theatre of Pompey.

Instauratio Roman superstition dictated that if any part of the ceremony went wrong, then the whole thing would have to be repeated, together with an additional offering to apologise for the mistake. This process was known as instauratio (‘repetition’).

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There were numerous ways in which a ceremony could go wrong, some of which have already been mentioned – such as the animal refusing to go willingly, or its entrails giving bad omens. Other problems might have been caused by an unwanted noise such as a sneeze, or a small accident. There were also occasions when the animal was not killed cleanly, and managed to run off after its throat was cut.

Prayer At the moment of offering a prayer, the priest or president would turn towards the cult statue in the temple. Prayers were often very legalistic in nature, something that can be seen in advice given by Cato the Elder in his work On Agriculture. Cato discusses how a farmer, who needs to thin a grove of trees, should appease whichever god lives in the grove. His suggested prayer runs as follows: Whatever god, whatever goddess you may be to whom this place is sacred, since it is proper to sacrifice the expiation swine for the taking of this sacred place, therefore, may what I do or what another by my order does be rightly done. Therefore in slaughtering for you this expiation swine I pray with good prayers that you be willing and favourable to me, to my house and household and to my children: wherefore, accept the slaughter of this expiatory piglet. Cato the Elder, On Agriculture, 139

The first line illustrates that the Romans did not always know the exact identity of every deity, and so prayers were often addressed to a ‘god or goddess, whoever you may be’. The prayer then goes on to name the proper offering required in such circumstances – a pig – showing that the farmer is following religious rules carefully. The offering is described as ‘expiation’ since it is meant to appease the potential anger of the deity at the fact that the farmer is going to damage the grove. Following this, although it would normally be the landowner who made the sacrifice, many wealthy Romans lived in the city and appointed a farm manager to supervise their land and the prayer makes allowances for this. Finally, the prayer asks for the favour in return – kindness and support from the deity. When the prayer mentions ‘family’, this means not just his relatives, but the whole of the landowner’s household, including his slaves.

Vows Similar in concept to prayers was the offering of a vow to a god. A person would vow that, if a god allowed something favourable to him to come about, he would give him a specific offering in return. Many vows were at state level: for example, on 3rd January each year throughout the empire vows were made for the wellbeing of the emperor. Many such vows, which could be made at any time of the year, have been preserved from the late 1st century CE . In the following example, recorded on an inscription, the president of the college of Arval Brothers, Gaius Matidius Patruinus, made vows for the safety of Vespasian on 3rd January 78:

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Review and Reflect 4.2 1

How do public festivals in the Roman world compare with those in our society today?

2

Do any modern religions have equivalents to sacrifice, augury, haruspicy or vows?

3

Do you think that the way of sacrificing an animal in ancient Rome was more or less humane than the methods used to kill animals for food today?

4

How does the prayer of Cato quoted above compare to typical prayers of religions with which you are familiar?

With sacrificial victims on the Capitol he fulfilled the vows which the previous year’s president had made and undertook vows for the following year at the dictation of L. Veratius Quadratus in exactly the terms written below: a male ox to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, a cow to Juno Regina, a cow to Minerva, a cow to Salus. Acta Fratrum Arvalium, 44a

One famous example of a vow came from Octavian in 42 BCE . Before the battle of Philippi, he vowed to Mars that he would build a temple to him in Rome if he were to be victorious. Octavian fulfilled his vow (as Augustus) years later when he commissioned a temple to Mars Ultor (‘Mars the Avenger’) in his new forum in the centre of Rome.

Further Reading 4.2 Beard, Mary and North, John, eds, Pagan Priests (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1990). Beard, Mary, North, John, and Price, Simon, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A Historyy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Beard, Mary, North, John and Price, Simon, Religions of Rome, Volume 2: A Sourcebook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Price, Simon, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minorr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Scullard, Howard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republicc (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981). Wardman, Alan, Religion and Statecraft among the Romans (London: Granada, 1982).

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V Alternative Beliefs In time, two developments served to weaken the religious influence of state religion. One was the influx of foreign cults, known as mystery religions, which offered a more spiritual and hopeful religious outlook. The other was a growing scepticism about the gods among more educated people; for them, Greek philosophy had a growing appeal.

Vegetarianism For almost everyone in the Roman world, animal sacrifice was a regular part of life, and only a few small groups, who were typically thought of as outlandish or threatening, refused to practise it. Among these groups was the Pythagoreans, followers of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras who had lived in southern Italy in the late 6th century BCE . They believed in reincarnation, and believed that in killing an animal, they could in fact be killing a dead relative in his or her next existence. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid gives Pythagoras these arguments against sacrifice and meat-eating as follows: Mortals, do not defile your bodies with sinful eating. You have the crops to sustain you, the fruit which forces the branches to bend down under its weight, the grapes that swell on the vine, scented herbs and vegetables that fire can soften; milk’s sweet flow cannot fail you, not honey fragrant with thyme. The earth supplies her riches and nourishing food in lavish abundance; she offers you feasts that demand no slaughter or bloodshed . . . . . . What a heinous crime is committed when guts disappear inside a fellow-creature’s intestines, when greedy bodies throw fat on the flesh of the bodies they’ve eaten, and one living thing depends for its life on the death of its neighbour! Ovid, Metamorphoses Metamorphoses, s, 15.75–90 Being a vegetarian was a brave move: meat was most commonly eaten after animal sacrifice, and so by refusing to eat it, the Pythagoreans were absenting themselves from the expected norms of Roman society. None the less, Pythagoras was not the only philosopher to advocate vegetarianism. The philosopher Porphyry (c. 234–c. 305 CE ) also opposed eating meat on ethical grounds, and wrote an essay that still survives entitled On Abstinence from Food Animal Food. d.

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1 Philosophy From the 2nd century BCE , some educated Romans were increasingly attracted by Greek philosophy, which attempted to examine some of life’s deepest questions (e.g. What is the meaning of life? How should a person live a good life?). Traditionally, the Romans, a very practical people, had disapproved of philosophy, and periodically philosophers were expelled from the city for challenging its status quo. There is a record of this in 161 BCE during the highpoint of the revolution of Hellenisation, while it also happened under emperors. However, by the end of the 2nd century BCE , two philosophical schools from Greece had won a limited but committed following among the educated upper class. These were Stoicism and Epicureanism, both of which promised followers a life free of anxiety and inner turmoil; however, the paths by which this was to be achieved were very different. Stoicism was a system devised by Zeno of Citium, who taught in Athens until his death in 263 BCE (he used to teach at a large ‘stoa’, or colonnade, in the city centre, and his followers were therefore called stoics). Seneca the Younger (see box, p. 215), himself a stoic, is our best source of information about Roman stoicism. It held that there was a guiding spirit in the universe, sometimes called Reason (but also variously Nature, Fate, God, Destiny or Providence). Reason had a plan for the universe, and a person could only be happy if he followed this plan, so bringing him into harmony with the cosmos. This was achieved by living an ethical life, and here the emphasis was on duty, discipline and the suppression of the emotions. Another key element was to accept whatever fate threw at you with a calm mind, as Seneca explains: Why do many hardships happen to good men? Nothing evil can happen to a good man . . . He remains firm and determinedly shapes whatever happens to his own advantage. For he is more powerful than all external events. I am not saying that he does not feel these things, but he overcomes them, and, moreover, he is elevated calmly and serenely to meet what comes at him. He thinks of all hardships as opportunities for learning. Seneca, On Providence, 2.1–2

Stoicism taught that a person was made up of both body and soul; at death, the soul left the body and remained in the atmosphere for some time, before dissolving back into the great spirit of the universe. Epicureanism takes its name from Epicurus, a Greek who taught in Athens until his death in 270 BCE (he was therefore a direct contemporary of Zeno). Little of his own work has remained, and we know about his philosophy mostly from the Roman poet Lucretius (c. 99–55 BCE ), who wrote a poem, De Rerum Natura (‘On the Nature of Things’), which was a sort of philosophical textbook putting forward the Epicurean world view. The basic Epicurean position was that the greatest good in life is pleasure. However, ‘pleasure’ in this context did not mean sensual enjoyment, so much as

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Seneca the Younger One of the leading lights of intellectual Stoicism in the Roman world was Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who is commonly referred to as Seneca the Younger to distinguish him from his father of the same name. Seneca was born to an equestrian family in Corduba, southern Spain, sometime after 4 BCE , but he came to Rome as a child and embarked on a distinguished educational career. He was banished to Corsica in 41 by the emperor Claudius for alleged adultery, and remained there until 49 when Claudius’ wife Agrippina had him recalled to tutor her son, the future emperor Nero. He remained an adviser to Nero when he became emperor in 54, but by 62 he had fallen out of favour and withdrew from public life. In 65, he was forced to commit suicide for alleged participation in a major plot to assassinate the emperor. Seneca left a remarkable legacy as a philosopher and a writer. Most of his prose work is philosophical in nature, and a very important source for understanding Roman Stoicism. For example, it is from a letter of Seneca that we learn of the Stoic idea that all people – Roman or foreigner, slave or free – were equally citizens of the universe and should be treated as such (see p. 277). In this letter, Seneca encourages a friend to behave humanely towards his slaves so as to be consistent with stoic principles (it is notable that stoics never campaigned for the abolition of slavery, which they accepted as a natural condition of the world, but rather that people should be treated well whatever their station in life). However, Seneca himself was far from a model of stoic virtue; although he encouraged simplicity, he himself lived in grand style in Nero’s imperial palace. Seneca’s talents were not just as a philosopher. He wrote a range of Latin tragedies, including titles such as Medea and Phaedra, and is the only known ancient author to write his plays in five acts, as became common centuries later. Seneca had a profound influence on playwrights of the European Renaissance, including Shakespeare, Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Indeed, T.S. Eliot said of him: ‘No author exercised a wider or deeper influence upon the Elizabethan mind or upon the Elizabethan form of tragedy than did Seneca.’

peace of mind and freedom from anxiety; to achieve this, life should be lived in moderation. For example, a person who enjoyed drinking a lot of wine at a dinner party would pay for it the next day with a hangover. The wise Epicurean, by contrast, would drink enough wine to allow him both to enjoy the dinner and to feel well the next morning. Lucretius explains his world view as follows: What a joy it is, when out at sea the storm winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the shore at the heavy stress some other man is enduring! Not that anyone’s afflictions are themselves a source of delight; but to realise from what troubles you yourself are free is joy indeed. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 2.1–4

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How did Epicureans believe that they could avoid life’s troubles? As well as living moderately, they taught that people should avoid politics and public life, dedicating themselves instead to a reflective life of studying philosophy. Another key tenet of Epicureanism was to banish any fear of death. It held that the soul dies along with the body, and so Lucretius and other Epicureans denounced religion, believing that it made people fearful of the gods and of what might happen in an afterlife. In order to achieve peace of mind, a man had to free himself from such concerns: For if men saw that a term was set for their troubles [i.e. death], they would find strength in some way to withstand the hocus-pocus and intimidations of prophets. As it is, they have no power of resistance, because they are haunted by the fear of eternal punishment after death. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1.107–111

In other famous words, tantum religio potuit suadere malorum – ‘religion has been able to stir up such evil deeds’ – Lucretius warns about religion’s capacity to do great harm. However, it would not be true to say that Epicureans didn’t believe in the gods – they simply didn’t believe that they influenced human life in any way.

2 Mystery Cults As the Greek world came into Roman consciousness, a distinct feature of Greek religion became popular in Italy: the mystery cults. The word ‘mystery’ is derived from a Greek word meaning ‘initiation’, and a central element of a mystery cult was that its followers were initiated into its secrets, which were supposed to reveal to them the mysteries of the world. These cults often had a central myth with the theme of death and resurrection; such myths thus gave hope to initiates that they too would live again after death in a blissful afterlife. Other attractions were typically as follows: ●

A code of morality and emphasis on ethical behaviour.

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A close personal relationship with the deity.

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Pastoral guidance from priests.

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Equality for marginalised groups, such as women and slaves.

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Lively and emotional worship, in contrast to state religion.

However, it should be emphasised that such cults were not an alternative to state religion; the former was public, while the latter were private, and an initiate would want to worship all the state gods just as piously as he or she always had done. Since they were by nature secretive, it is hard for us to know many details of the beliefs and worship of these cults. However, there follow brief descriptions of some of those which were most influential.

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The Cults of Cybele and Bacchus Two significant mystery cults came to Rome around the turn of the 2nd century BCE . The first was that of Cybele. In 205, when the Romans were unable to defeat the Carthaginians, they consulted the Sibylline Books, which told them to introduce the cult of the Magna Mater to Rome. Magna Mater (‘Great Mother’) was another name for Cybele, a ‘mother earth’ goddess from Asia Minor who was believed to be the mother of all living things. However, Rome’s rulers were soon shocked when they learnt about the new cult. Its central myth concerned Cybele’s mortal consort Attis, who had been promised in marriage to a king’s daughter; Cybele appeared at the wedding, whereupon Attis, in a maddened frenzy, castrated himself and died; yet Cybele protected his body and resurrected him. To commemorate this, the priests of Cybele’s cult, the Galli, were eunuchs who had castrated themselves upon entering her service. Moreover, her initiates seemed to the Romans to act in a state of emotional frenzy, revelling in shrill and raucous music, a great contrast to the calm and orderly nature of state religion. As a result, the Roman authorities immediately put tight restrictions on the cult, including banning citizens from becoming priests. During the same period, the cult of Bacchus emerged. This cult, in contrast, was not formally introduced to Rome, and it is unclear exactly how it arrived – perhaps it came with natives of the east emigrating to the city, or else with slaves from the Greek cities of southern Italy. Initiates believed that Bacchus was a saviour god who was associated with death and rebirth – most notably in his ability to bring the vine back to life again in the spring, thereby providing wine, which offered its drinkers an ecstatic release from life’s cares. Drinking wine was clearly a central element of the Bacchic cult. The festivals of Bacchus, or Bacchanalia, soon developed a reputation for wild behaviour and drunken orgies, with vicious rumours of corruption and immorality. It is hard to know how much truth was contained in these rumours (similar slanders were made against the early Christians); what is certain, however, is that the Roman upper classes were deeply alarmed by the new cult, which tended to appeal to the lower classes. Believing that it posed a threat to public order, in 186 BCE the Senate introduced severe restrictions: meetings were banned throughout Italy, while sanctuaries were destroyed. However, the private worship of Bacchus was still allowed, and the religion remained popular in Italy for centuries, as can be seen from the wall paintings in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii (see p. 388).

The Cult of Isis Egypt held a deep fascination for Greeks and Romans, many of whom believed that its ancient civilisation possessed special sacred insights; consequently, the Egyptian gods were a source of great interest. This was particularly true of Isis, a central goddess in Egyptian mythology. A loving and compassionate deity, it was said that each summer, when she saw the lands dry and the river Nile short of water, she would

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weep for her people and thereby cause the river to flood, so watering the fields and allowing the crops to grow once more. Another important myth about Isis concerned her brother Osiris (who was often also known as Serapis in the Greek and Roman world), to whom she was married. According to the myth, Osiris had taught the Egyptian people law, agriculture and religion, after discovering them submerged in cruelty; but he was then murdered by his evil brother Set, the god of chaos, who tore Osiris’ body to pieces and scattered the remains over the lands of the earth. Isis collected the remains and brought Osiris back to life; after this, he became a merciful judge of the dead. Isis and the resurrected Osiris then conceived a son, Horus, god of the living. These two myths illustrate why Isis was such a popular goddess: she was seen as a mother-figure, who cared about her people, and provided fertility and the rebirth of the crops. Moreover, the story of her revival of Osiris suggested that she also had the power to bring human beings back to life after death; from this, her followers believed that Isis would give them a happy afterlife. The cult seems to have come to Rome in the early 1st century BCE (Fig. 4.14); at times it was oppressed by

Fig. 4.14 This fresco of Isis worship was found in Herculaneum. A high priest stands at the entrance to the temple and looks down on the ceremony below, which is led by priests with shaven heads. Two symbols of Egypt are visible: the ibis birds, sacred to Isis, and the two statues of sphinxes.

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the state, particularly by Octavian in the 30s BCE since it was the religion of his Egyptian rival, Cleopatra. However, the ban was lifted by the emperor Caligula, and by the beginning of the 2nd century the cult was so integrated into Roman life that a huge sanctuary to Isis and Serapis was built in the Campus Martius area of Rome. The best written account of Isis worship comes in a fantasy novel of the 2nd century CE , The Golden Ass by Apuleius. It is narrated by its main character, Lucius, and his description of a procession of Isis worshippers gives some flavour of the cult’s colourful worship: The saviour goddess’s own procession was getting under way. First came women in shining white attire, proudly displaying the different symbols they bore and garlanded with spring flowers, who strewed the street along which the sacred procession passed with flowers from the folds of their robes . . . others sprinkled the streets with drops of festive balsam and other perfumes. There was also a large group of both sexes with lamps, torches, candles, and every kind of man-made light to do honour to her from whom spring the stars of heaven. Next came tuneful bands of music, pipes, and recorders. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 11. 9–11

Lucius goes on to relate how he himself becomes an initiate of Isis’ cult at Corinth: a priest gives him instructions from the holy books and he has to go through a stage of purification and fasting for ten days, during which he performs daily service in her temple. After this, the day of initiation comes; Lucius is careful not to reveal the secrets of the mysteries, but he does claim that he experiences going down to the Underworld and then being brought back to life again.

The Cult of Mithras The cult of Mithras – or Mithraism – was quite different from that of Isis. One reason for this is that women could generally not take part (although there is some evidence for female involvement in certain cases); secondly, the rites and worship of Mithraism were private and lacked the public celebrations practised by the followers of Isis. Mithras was originally a Persian god but he had little impact in the eastern Mediterranean where many mystery cults took hold. Rather, his cult seems to have developed largely in Italy, where the god assumed a significantly different character from the one recognisable in earlier Persian religion. In fact, the cult of Mithras was really a Roman interpretation of a much older god from a foreign culture. The myth of Mithras told by the Romans is about the eternal struggle between good and evil, and the hero is often linked to the Sun-god, a symbol of good in many cultures. According to this myth, Mithras’s early life was one of hardship and painful triumph. Finally, he captured the primeval bull and, after dragging it back to his cave, killed the animal in order to release its life force for the benefit of humanity: from the bull’s body grew useful plants and herbs, from its blood came the vine, and from its semen all useful animals. Therefore, from the killing of the sacred bull comes life and the victory of good over evil.

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Very little written evidence has survived of the cult, but we can learn from the temples the initiates used. A temple, known as a Mithraeum, was designed to replicate the cave in which Mithras had slain the bull; therefore temples tended to be found underground, in places like caves or crypts. They were dark and windowless, with a main aisle lined by raised benches and a sanctuary at the far end, often in a recess, where the altar stood (Fig. 4.15). The most important icon in the Mithraeum was the tauroctony (‘bull-slaying’), a stone carving depicting Mithras killing the bull, typically accompanied by a dog, a scorpion and a snake. It is thought that these animals represented signs of the zodiac, and astrology seems to have been important to the cult – often astrological signs and stars were drawn onto the roofs of Mithraea. Mithraism was mainly or exclusively practised by men; in particular, it seems to have appealed to traders and soldiers, who were perhaps particularly attracted by its emphasis on truth, honour and courage. Soldiers seem to have spread it around the empire and it is particularly visible on the frontiers, including in Roman Britain (the discovery of a Mithraeum in London caused a sensation in 1954). Initiates seem to have belonged to one particular Mithraeum; records suggest that the number of members would be between 10 and 36; a ritual meal seems to have been a key element of services. There does not seem to have been any religious organisation or hierarchy beyond these individual Mithraea. The goal for initiates was to work up through the seven stages of initiation, each of which had a name: (1) the raven; (2) the male bride; (3) the soldier; (4) the lion; (5) the Persian; (6) the sun-runner; (7) the father. Progressing through these seven

Fig. 4.15 This fresco of a tauroctony survives in the remains of a Mithraeum in Capua, southern Italy.

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In Their Own Words 4.4 1

Read the whole of Ovid’s account of Pythagoras and vegetarianism at Metamorphoses, 15.60–175. How do his views compare with early Hindu and Buddhist beliefs?

2

Read Lucretius’ account of a procession in honour of Cybele at De Rerum Natura, 2.594–632.

3

Read how the Bacchanalia was banned from the cities of the Roman empire at Livy, 39.8–18.

4

Read the whole of Apuleius’ description of Isis worship at The Golden Ass, 11.7–24.

grades was seen to be symbolic of the progression of the soul, leading to immortality. The only account of an initiation we have is from a hostile Christian critic: What travesty then do they enact in the cave with their faces veiled? . . . Some flap their wings like birds, imitating the raven’s cry; some roar like lions; others have their hands tied with chicken guts and are flung down over pits full of water, and then someone who calls himself the ‘Liberator’ approaches with a sword and cuts the above-mentioned guts. What a variety of disgraces for men who call themselves wise. Pseudo-Augustine, Questions on the Old and New Testaments, 113.11

Of the different grades referred to here, it seems that in the first grade, the raven, initiates merely watched on; the most common grade seems to have been the Lion, since we hear most about it; men who progressed higher than this could go on to have an influential and priestly role within their Mithraeum. Mithraism did not survive the ancient world, dwindling after the emergence of Christianity as the state religion during the 4th century CE ; both literature and archaeology indicate that Mithraea were vandalised as the Christians fought for religious exclusivity. As a result, Mithraism seems to have died with the western empire in the 5th century.

3 Christianity In the 4th century CE Christianity emerged as the official religion of the empire, and it went on to define European civilisation for centuries. The story of how a small Jewish sect grew into the official religion of the empire is a remarkable one. We have read on pp. 156–159 about relations between the Romans and the Jews. Judaism was fundamentally different from Roman religion in two key ways: it was

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monotheistic and at its heart were sacred scriptures giving ethical and ritual guidance. Jews also separated themselves from non-Jews by observing special dietary rules and by following their own calendar, with the sabbath as the day of rest. Although the Romans found the Jewish religion very strange, they generally allowed Jews freedom of worship as long as they were prepared to pray for the safety of the emperor. In addition, since Judaism was not a converting religion, there was little danger of it spreading beyond its ethnic group (although there were some converts to the Jewish faith).

A New Religion According to the gospels, Jesus was a Jewish rabbi from the town of Nazareth who was put to death by the Romans in the early 30s CE at the instigation of the Jewish religious authorities, for stirring up religious and civil mutiny. Jesus’ death ought to have dealt a fatal blow to his mission, but his followers, convinced of his resurrection from the dead, were determined to share his message with others. The follower most effective in spreading the new faith was Paul of Tarsus, commonly known as Saint Paul. He held Roman citizenship and is known for his missionary journeys, which took him to various parts of the empire. The first non-biblical reference to Jesus of Nazareth relates to the aftermath of the terrible fire at Rome in 64 CE . According to the historian Tacitus, rumours started to circulate in Rome that the emperor Nero had had the fire started himself; he was quick to look for a scapegoat, and the Christians were an easy target: To suppress this rumour, Nero fabricated scapegoats – and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judaea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome . . . First, Nero had self-acknowledged Christians arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers of others were condemned – not so much for incendiarism as for their anti-social tendencies. Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animals’ skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight. Tacitus, Annals, 15.44

The mention here of ‘shameless activities’ touches on slanders against the Christians that were to re-emerge over generations. For the most part, it seems that they were based on fear and misunderstanding: Christians were suspected of sacrificing babies, whose flesh and blood they ate instead of bread and wine; Christian ritual meals, known as ‘love feasts’, were associated with all sorts of sexual promiscuity, while believers were also accused of incest, since they called each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, even if married to one another.

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In this context, it is not hard to see why Romans would have seen the new religion as subversive and ‘evil’. Moreover, there were other social and political factors that caused suspicion: ●

The Christian refusal to worship the traditional gods would have made many believe that their gods would be angered, so threatening the pax deorum.

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Christians also refused to eat meat from traditional sacrifices (for example, St Paul claims at 1 Corinthians 10 that ‘the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God’), so isolating them from banquets and social occasions.

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Christianity talked about the coming of a ‘new Kingdom’; while this was meant in a spiritual sense, it was open to being interpreted as a plot against the emperor, particularly since Christians refused to worship at the imperial cult.

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Christians tended to meet in private places, so raising suspicions that they might be plotting against the authorities. In contrast, Roman religion tended to be practised in public.

However, despite the threat of persecution, Christianity had a powerful appeal, particularly for those in marginalised groups, such as the poor, women and slaves. As with the mystery religions, the sense of community and equality must have been a strong pull for many. Moreover, Christianity was clear in promising a blissful afterlife to its followers; this meant that many went willingly to their deaths, believing that any suffering would simply be the prelude to eternal happiness. However, it would be wrong to say that Christians were always persecuted until Christianity was legalised early in the 4th century. A good insight into how the Christians were treated by the authorities can been seen in correspondence in 111 CE between Pliny the Younger, the governor of Bithynia and Pontus (a province in what is now northern Turkey) and the emperor Trajan. Pliny wrote to Trajan to clarify what policy he should adopt regarding Christians. Trajan replied as follows: You have followed the right course of procedure, my dear Pliny, in your examination of the cases of persons charged with being Christians, for it is impossible to lay down a general rule to a fixed formula. These people must not be hunted out; if they are brought before you and the charge against them is proved, they must be punished, but in the case of anyone who denies that he is a Christian, and makes it clear that he is not by offering prayers to our gods, he is to be pardoned as a result of his repentance however suspect his past conduct may be. But pamphlets circulated anonymously must play no part in any accusation. They create the worst sort of precedent and are quite out of keeping with the spirit of our age. Pliny, Letters, 10.97

On one level, Trajan’s policy was relatively enlightened, insisting that Christians should neither be hunted out nor convicted on the basis of anonymous accusations, while they should also be given an opportunity to recant. However, the emperor does

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Secret Signs In response to persecution, Christians also became more secretive about their religion. This can be seen in the secret signs that they developed. One was a cross, symbolising the crucifixion, another was a fish: the Greek word for a fish, ichthus, contained the initial letters of the Greek words for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’. Another Greek sign was the combining of the Greek letters alpha and omega (α and ω, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, to show God’s omnipotence. There was also a word square which hid the words Pater Noster (‘Our Father’) twice, while the ‘chi-rho’ symbol spelt out the first two letters (χ, χ,ρ) of the word ‘Christ’ in Greek.

Fig. 4.16 This is the central panel of a large mosaic found at Hinton St Mary, Dorset, and dated to the 4th century CE . It is believed to be one of the oldest surviving images of Christ. Behind his head are the Greek letters chi (Χ) and rho (Ρ), the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ.

also set down the basic legal position that Christianity should be treated as a crime to be punished. This policy prevailed for nearly 150 years, during which time Christianity was never formally persecuted by the Roman authorities, although the door had been left open for local communities to prosecute Christians if they so wished. Consequently, there may have been persecutions at a local level, but while later Christian writers found inspiration in the stories of those who became martyrs for the faith, the numbers in this period were relatively small. The situation changed for the worse during the social and political crisis of the 3rd century described on pp. 116-120. As Rome suffered plague and foreign threats, by

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In Their Own Words 4.5 1

Read Pliny the Younger’s letter to Trajan on the Christians at Letters, 10.96

2

Read Minucius Felix’s account of common accusations made against early Christians at Octavius, 8–12.

3

Read a Christian account of a persecution in Gaul in 177 by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.1.6–16

4

Read the accounts of Constantine’s vision in 312 by Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, 4.5, and Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1.28–29.

249 the emperor Decius chose to persecute Christians as a means to deflect criticism and find a scapegoat for the sufferings of the empire. In the years that followed, there were further persecutions under Valerian and Aurelian, but the worst came under Diocletian, who in 303 instigated a purge of Christians that lasted for eight years.

Official Recognition These 3rd-century persecutions perhaps indicate that Christianity was a growing force that was taken seriously by the Roman state. It had never been just a religion of marginalised groups, since there had always been wealthy and influential figures who at least sympathised with the Christians – for example, Marcia, the concubine of the emperor Commodus, used her influence to achieve the release of Christian prisoners from the mines. One such aristocratic Christian was Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, who was close to her son and must have influenced his own promotion of Christianity. In October 312, when Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge outside Rome, the battle marked the beginning of the emperor’s conversion to Christianity. Many scholars have dismissed the stories of Constantine’s visions as Christian propaganda, pointing out that the emperor continued to promote the state cult and only converted to Christianity on his death-bed in 337. None the less, a few months after the battle, Constantine and Licinius, his co-emperor in the east, signed the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity a legal religion of the empire. As we have read on p. 125, after this he started actively supporting Christian institutions. Scholars still debate the reasons for Constantine’s dramatic switch in favour of Christianity, and no clear motive has been established for such an extraordinarily momentous decision. The emperor also tried to ensure that an orthodox and unified version of Christianity emerged during his reign, in response to rancorous divisions that he saw within parts of the Christian community. For example, in North Africa, in the aftermath of the persecutions of Diocletian, two factions had emerged to

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What Was Constantine’s Vision? The two main sources – the Christian chroniclers Lactantius (c. 240–320) and Eusebius (c. 263–339) – give differing accounts of visions that Constantine was supposed to have had before the battle. Lactantius, writing within four years of the battle, claims that on the night before the battle the emperor had a dream in which he was commanded to ‘inscribe the heavenly sign of God’ on his soldiers’ shields. The next day, they went into battle with a Christian symbol on their shields – either the cross or the chi-rho symbol – and duly won. By contrast, Eusebius relates a version that he claims the emperor himself had told him on oath many years after the battle. Constantine had apparently seen a vision of a cross in the sky before the battle, along with the Greek words that translate as ‘you will conquer in this’. According to Eusebius, Constantine regarded the battle as a Christian victory and put up in Rome a statue of himself holding a cross.

support rival bishops. Constantine favoured one bishop, Caecilian, and declared the other faction, the Donatists (since their bishop was called Donatus), to be heretics. The most significant moment in the institutionalisation of Christianity came in 325, a year after Constantine had reunified the empire and become its sole emperor. He wanted to resolve a serious doctrinal split amongst the eastern Churches over the nature of the divinity of Jesus Christ. A priest in Alexandria, Arius, argued that Jesus could not be equal in status to God, one of the central tenets of the Christian Trinity. Constantine called a council in Nicaea, Bithynia, and personally presided over some of its sessions. The council established a statement that outlined the core Christian beliefs – the ‘Nicene Creed’ is still spoken today in mainstream Christian churches. Arius and his supporters were exiled as heretics. None the less, ‘Arian Christianity’ was to survive and compete with Nicene Christianity for more than 200 years, and Constantine himself was said to have been baptised by the Arian bishop Eusebius. Constantine’s son, Constantius II, was himself an Arian Christian, and it was during his reign that Eusebius sent an Arian Visigothic convert, Ulfilas, to convert the Visigoths. Ulfilas saw that the Bible was translated into the Gothic language, and had quick success with his mission. By the late 4th century, the Visigoths were an Arian Christian people, who did not convert to Nicene Christianity until 589. The second half of the 4th century also saw an intellectual and political power struggle between Christians and pagans. The former gained final victory in the reign of Theodosius I when, in 380, the emperor declared Nicene Christianity to be the only legitimate religion of the empire. In the years that followed, pagans found themselves in the galling position of having to plead for tolerance and the right to worship. One of their leading spokesmen was the Roman statesman Symmachus, whose appeal included these famous words:

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And so we ask for peace for the gods of our fathers, for the gods of our native land. It is reasonable that whatever each of us worships is really to be considered one and the same. We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret. Symmachus, Relatio 3.10

Yet Symmachus’ appeal was too late – his tragedy was that although the Romans had often been accepting of other religions, they had never extended the same tolerance to Christianity. Perhaps if they had done so, history may have been different. As it was, the new religion survived the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410 (who was himself a Christian), and went on to become the established religion of Europe for centuries to come. Vatican City remains the home of the Pope and the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church to this day.

Review and Reflect 4.3 1

What do the words ‘stoic’ and ‘epicurean’ mean in English today? How far have their meanings changed since Roman times?

2

What do you think that the worship of Isis, Mithraism and Christianity offered to Romans that they could not find in their traditional religion?

3

Do you agree with Symmachus that all religious paths are equally valid?

Further Reading 4.3 Beard, Mary, North, John and Price, Simon, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Beard, Mary, North, John and Price, Simon, Religions of Rome, Volume 2: A Sourcebook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Bowden, Hugh, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World d (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2010). O’Keefe, Tim, Epicureanism (Durham: Acumen, 2010). Sellars, John, Stoicism (Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2006). Snyder, Graydon, Ante Pacem. Archaeological Evidence for Church Life before Constantine (Macon, GA : Mercer University Press, 1985). Vermaseren, M.J., Mithras, the Secret God d (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963).

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5

W

hat do we mean by ‘Roman society’? The term could relate to over a thousand years of history, during which time Roman culture spread across three different continents. There would of course be great differences between the way people lived in Rome in the 6th century BCE and the 4th century CE . Likewise, there were probably significant variations in distant parts of the empire at any one point in time; today, we would not expect people in Britain, Portugal and Syria to live according to the same customs. Moreover, people had vastly different life experiences depending on their social status, and we are limited by our sources, which largely give us the viewpoint of the elite male citizen. It is very much harder to capture the viewpoints of the other overlapping groups that made up the majority of Roman society: women, the poor and slaves. This chapter will predominantly focus on life at Rome between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE , although other places and times will also be referred to. These are the centuries when our sources are richest. Roman literature took off during the 1st century BCE , while there was an explosion in the number of stone and bronze inscriptions set up in the late 1st century BCE . Many of these are epitaphs of people of relatively humble stock, both men and women, and so they offer us a much broader glimpse of Roman society.

I Housing and Households The Roman term familia refers to more than the English translation ‘family’ would imply. For in Roman terms, a familia incorporated all the people and property attached to the male head of the family – who was known as the paterfamilias (‘father of the family’) – including blood relatives, slaves, houses, farms and land. The base of this familia was the home – the physical space where the household lived. 229

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1 Living Space The classic image of a Roman house is of something large and well-designed, with an internal garden, decorated with beautiful art, and containing plenty of living space and rooms for entertaining guests. However, this type of house, known as a domus, was only for the wealthy elite. In fact, in a city such as Rome the vast majority lived in apartment blocks; the literary sources suggest that these were often cramped and dangerous, although the evidence from nearby Ostia suggests that they varied in size and quality. An apartment block was known as an insula (the Latin word ‘insula’ literally meant ‘island’; an apartment block was originally a large detached building forming a whole city block). One 4th century CE source records that the city of Rome had fewer than 2,000 domus-type houses but more than 40,000 insulae. Living space was also found elsewhere: the upstairs rooms of some houses were hired out to tenants, while people who worked in shops that fronted onto a street often lived in a small room above the shop, perhaps with many family members.

Insulae Hardly any insulae have survived in Rome itself, and the best evidence can be found in Rome’s port town of Ostia, located about 20 miles away. By the end of the 1st century BCE , these buildings had become so dangerous and liable to collapse that the emperor Augustus was forced to pass a law forbidding them to be built higher than 18 metres: an insula therefore commonly consisted of three to five storeys, although the law was flouted and we hear of insulae six or seven storeys high. Access to the upper floors came from external staircases leading off the street, some of which had impressive doorways, and sometimes from internal staircases as well. From the time of Augustus, insulae were usually constructed of brick-faced concrete; roofs were made of wooden beams covered with flat terracotta tiles; examples of large glazed windows have also been found on the upper floors. Groundfloor rooms that faced onto the street tended to be shops, which often had an upper mezzanine level used for storage or even as living space. At Ostia, a few blocks were clearly designed for wealthy occupants; there are some examples of large apartments that might have two large reception rooms together with a few other smaller rooms, including a kitchen and toilet facilities. However, this was not the standard type, and the city has many more examples of apartments with two to four rooms, both on the ground floor and on upper floors. There is also one interesting example in the insula of Diana of small individual rooms in a communal living area. The insula of Diana (Fig. 5.1) is one of the best preserved and most reconstructed insulae to have survived from the Roman world (it takes its name from a relief depicting the goddess Diana on a wall of the inner courtyard). Built c. 150 CE , its dimensions were about 39 × 23 metres. The south and west walls faced out onto the street while the other two backed onto other buildings, so that they contained no doors or windows. A central, roofless courtyard allowed light into the building, and

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Fig. 5.1 A cut-away reconstruction of the insula of Diana at Ostia.

it contained a cistern that provided water for the inhabitants, since individual apartments did not have their own water-supply. The ground floor contained a number of shops that opened out onto the street on the south and west sides; they each had mezzanines and some also had a small back room. On the other two sides of the floor were apartments, some of which had elaborate decoration – the remains on one wall still show painted yellow panels divided by borders of red and green. The floor also had its own shared toilet facilities, which were probably available to all the tenants. There were three staircases, two external and one internal, which led to the upper floors – the building probably had four storeys in all. On the first floor, only the lowest few centimetres of the walls have survived, but from these we can form a good idea of the layout. On its south and west sides were some fairly large fourroomed apartments, while on the other sides was a communal living area: it consisted of a long corridor off which were small, poorly lit rooms; at one end of the corridor was a larger room that was probably a shared living space. It is also likely that there were communal toilet facilities on this floor too, immediately above the ones below. We can only speculate as to who might have lived in the insula of Diana. Insulae were mainly rental properties owned by the wealthy, who could make a good profit on the rental income. The four-room apartments may have been rented by people who might be thought of as moderately wealthy, and who may have taken out leases of six months or a year. By contrast, the small rooms in the communal area were perhaps rented by the day or week, most likely to people who were passing through the busy harbour city, or working there for a short period of time.

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A number of literary sources mention how unsafe insulae could be. Such sources tend to focus on two concerns: that the buildings were poorly constructed, and so prone to collapse, and that they were likely to catch fire. Juvenal, a satirist no doubt exaggerating for comic effect, characterises housing in Rome in the early 2nd century CE as follows: We inhabit a city largely shored up with flimsy stays and props: that’s how our landlords postpone slippage, and – after masking great cracks in the ancient fabric – assure the tenants that they can sleep sound, when the house is tottering. Myself, I prefer life without fires, without nocturnal panics. By the time the smoke’s reached the third floor – and you’re still asleep – the heroic downstairs neighbour is roaring for water, shifting his stuff to safety. If the alarm’s at ground level, the last to fry is the wretch among the nesting pigeons with nothing but tiles between himself and the weather. Juvenal, Satires, 3.193–202

It is certainly true that, as Juvenal indicates here, the higher up one lived in an insula, the worse the living conditions. There was no running water, and so people on the upper floors had to bring water up numerous stairs, while they were supposed not to tip their waste (including human waste) into the street from a window, but to bring it down instead and dispose of it at street level. If the following joking comment by Cicero in a letter to Atticus is typical, it seems that wealthy property owners were not too worried about providing good living conditions for their tenants: Two of my buildings have collapsed, and the rest are badly cracked; as a result not just the occupants but even the mice have moved out! Cicero, To Atticus, 14.9

Fire was also a very real hazard. The only heating and cooking facilities were provided by braziers, which were dangerously close to the wooden building materials. We hear of one leading Roman who looked upon fires as a lucrative investment opportunity. Marcus Licinius Crassus, the immensely wealthy aristocrat of the 1st century BCE , used to make huge profits by buying up buildings as they were burning down, and those adjoining them, at a knock-down price; he would then have the fires put out, build new insulae out of the burnt-out rubble, and charge high rents for basic accommodation. In fact, Crassus was so intent on making money like this that he even bought more than 500 slaves who were skilled as architects or builders to have on hand.

The Domus Although the number of large domus-style houses in any Roman city was relatively small, they played a disproportionate role in daily life since wealthy men used their

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The Legacy of Vitruvius A Roman writer called Vitruvius, who lived in the 1st century BCE , wrote a work called On Architecture in which he defined the layout and characteristics of his ideal domus. His work has been very influential with archaeologists of the modern era, and for years modern writers have labelled the layout of a Roman domus based on Vitruvius’ account. However, more recently archaeologists have argued against this approach, stressing both that we should not assume that the work of one Roman author speaks for all Roman houses at all times, and that other sources indicate that rooms were used for a variety of functions. Therefore, although the rooms of the domus are named according to the Vitruvian system, we should be careful not to assume too much about what each room was actually used for; the evidence suggests that many rooms could be used in a variety of ways. In fact, this is not so different from today: a modern living room might be used to work, or relax, or eat, etc; while a bedroom is far more than a place where people just go to sleep.

living space to work, greet friends and clients, and conduct politics – as a general rule, there were no offices where people went to work. Our best evidence for the domus comes from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and you can read more about individual houses there on pp. 383–389 and pp. 410–417 respectively. The layout of Roman houses was hugely variable, but as a template it is helpful to examine Pompeii’s House of the Tragic Poet, a relatively small domus located to the north of the town’s forum. Built in its present form at the end of the 1st century BCE , archaeologists originally named the house after a mosaic found there, which they believed showed a tragic poet reciting his work to a group of listeners (it is now understood to be a scene from a play). Figure 5.2 shows the layout of the house. One entered from the street through a grand, three-metre high doorway into the entrance passage, known as the fauces (‘throat’). In its floor was a mosaic of a guard dog with the words cave canem – ‘beware of the dog’. Linked to the fauces on either side were two rooms that also fronted onto the street, and which were used as shops, tabernae; these could either be hired out or run by family slaves, thereby providing an extra source of income for the family. The fauces led into the grandest room in the house, the atrium (Fig. 5.3). In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium – a rectangular pool into which rainwater fell from a specially designed opening in the roof (the compluvium). This was a source of water supply for the house since the impluvium was linked to a reservoir below. Off the atrium were a number of small rooms, cubicula, which may have been used as bedrooms, although the bedroom was not the important private space that it is in our houses today. Also on either side of the atrium was an ala, a recess where ceremonial wax masks of the family’s ancestors might be kept.

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Fig. 5.2 A plan of the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii. Key: F = fauces; T = taberna; A = atrium; C = cubiculum; Al = ala; Ta = tablinum; P = peristyle; Cu = culina; Tri = triclinium.

Fig. 5.3 A view into the House of Caecilius Iucundus in Pompeii from the entrance. The roof has not survived, but the standard layout is clear: behind the grand atrium was the tablinum and then the peristyle. A mosaic of a guard dog is in the floor of the entrance.

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At the back of the atrium was the tablinum, commonly regarded as the master’s study. It might have been lined with books or have contained chests into which family riches or heirlooms were placed. Beyond this was the peristylium (also known as a peristyle), a colonnaded garden that aimed to provide a feel of the country. This was reflected on its back wall, which had a painting of garden trelliswork and foliage. Also on the back wall was a lararium, a shrine to the household gods. On the west side of the peristyle a back door led onto a side street; on the east side were two rooms, a dining room (triclinium) and a small kitchen (culina). The culina was also the location of the house’s toilet, which consisted of a wooden seat over a drain leading to a cesspit. This would probably have been screened off from the rest of the kitchen, but there was no separating door. It was very common for the toilet in Pompeian houses to be found in the kitchen, illustrating the Romans’ limited understanding of basic hygiene. It is clear that rooms could have served a variety of functions. The atrium served as the main reception room of the house, where a master could meet guests and clients, but it was also a key area for storage, as well as for drawing water. In addition, it was quite likely a space where women set up the loom to weave. While some ancient sources describe the tablinum as the master’s study, one refers to the matrimonial bed being located there. The cubicula may have been used for meetings or storage, as well as places to sleep. Moreover, the activities of the house probably spilled over into a number of places. For example, the culina was too small to cope with the preparations for a dinner party, so slaves might have used the peristyle to prepare food, and probably also to do the washing up afterwards. Similarly, it is unlikely that slaves had their own sleeping space, and so they probably lay down in out of the way corners. There are some aspects of life in the house that are especially hard for us to know about. For example, a Roman domus usually had upper floors but these have not been preserved in Pompeii (although Herculaneum does provide some examples). The House of the Tragic Poet has two staircases leading upwards but nothing has survived of the upper floor. The upstairs rooms, which would not have been grand, were probably used for sleeping or storage; they may even have been rented out as living accommodation. We can also only guess at how many people lived in the whole house, but it would almost certainly have included the familia in its widest sense – the nuclear family with some close relatives, as well as the slaves and freedmen attached to the family. The total number may therefore have been twenty or more. One feature of a domus that we do know a good deal about is the art and furnishings, thanks to the preservation of houses in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Wall paintings here often come in vivid colours, most commonly red, orange and blue-green, but also yellows, purples and black. Onto these were painted scenes, frequently taken from Greek mythology; for example, in the House of the Tragic Poet, the atrium was lavishly decorated with six large wall paintings of scenes from Greek mythology. Other common scenes were of country landscapes or gardens, while still-life scenes such as flowers, fruit and animals were also depicted. In many houses, painters represented architectural features such as buildings and pillars, giving the images

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In Their Own Words 5.1 To find out about Vitruvius’ prescriptions for the ideal house, read On Architecture, 6.3–6.

greater perspective and suggesting that the room was more spacious than it really was. In terms of furnishings, evidence from Pompeii and Herculaneum indicates that houses had many of the items, generally made of wood, which we might use in our homes today: tables, chairs, beds, screens, shelves, chests and cupboards. In the House of Venus in a Bikini in Pompeii (named after a statuette of the goddess found there), the contents of a large cupboard were found in the atrium, including bronze jugs and plates, a bronze basin and cake mould, two bronze signet rings and other pieces of jewellery, nine dice and bits of gaming equipment, as well as some coins made of gold, silver or bronze. In other words, a mixture of the sort of day-to-day items that might be stored in a home today.

2 Family Religion The entire familia was bound together by the gods protecting the family – sometimes known as the household gods. These were different from the Olympian gods of state religion, and were predominantly worshipped at a domestic level; it was thought vital to worship these gods properly in order for the family to prosper. There were two main groups of household gods: the Lares and the Penates. The Lares were believed to be the protective spirits of the family’s ancestors, who watched over the entire household, as well as its property and fields. Every house had a special shrine to the Lares, a lararium, which usually stood in a prominent position. The front of a lararium often took the shape of a miniature temple; it was like a small cupboard, with a shelf where statues of the Lares were kept. On its back wall, there might be paintings of the Lares, such as in the lararium in the house of the Vettii, which is shown in Fig. 5.4. Although we do not know how often worship took place, one theory is that the entire familia would gather every morning in front of the lararium and say prayers to the Lares, perhaps also leaving an offering of incense, food or drink. The comic playwright Plautus even begins his play The Pot of Gold with a Lar emerging from the home: So that no one wonders who I am, I’ll explain in a few words: I am the Family Lar of this household here – where you saw me coming out from. For many years now, I have lived in and looked after this house, for the father and grandfather of the present owner. But his grandfather, praying to me, entrusted me with

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treasure in gold – unknown to everyone: he buried it in the middle of the hearth, beseeching me to look after it for him. Plautus, The Pot of Gold, 1–8

This passage, in which the Lar mentions his special task of protecting the family treasure (the pot of gold of the title), gives a good indication of the role of the Lares: to protect the family from generation to generation, so forming a link with their ancestors.

Fig. 5.4 The lararium in the House of the Vettii. Two dancing Lares hold raised drinking horns. Between them is the genius of the paterfamilias who is making a sacrifice. Below is a snake – snakes were often considered guardian spirits of the family.

Home Is Where Your Lar Is Referring to ‘the Lares’ was often just another way to talk about ‘home’. One graffito written on a wall in Pompeii seems to have been written by a Roman homesick for his city: ‘Gladly we came here, but much more gladly do we depart, eager to see again, O Rome, our own Lares’. At times, however, the concept of the Lares could be extended to make them the protective ancestral spirits of a neighbourhood or even of a town or city – one of the temples in the forum of Pompeii may have been dedicated to the ‘Public Lares’ – or the town’s protective ancestral spirits (see p. 364). Lares’

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The second set of gods were the Penates, who were believed to be spirits protecting the larder or store-house of the family (the word Penates is derived from penus, the Latin for ‘store-cupboard’). It might seem strange that such gods were considered so important, but it should be remembered that poverty and starvation were a constant threat for many in the Roman world, particularly in Rome’s early history when the city was entirely dependent on local farmland. In the Aeneid, Virgil also gives the Penates a more public role, similar to that played by the ‘Public Lares’. For when Aeneas escapes from the ashes of Troy, he takes with him statuettes of the city’s Penates, as well as one of Vesta. These he brought to Italy and, when Rome was founded several generations later, they were placed in the temple of Vesta, the symbolic ‘hearth’ of Rome. Vesta herself was also a goddess who was important at both state and family level; as goddess of the hearth, she was responsible for the fireplace from which a Roman family took warmth, light and food. There were two other divinities associated with family religion. One was the genius, or the ‘guardian spirit’ of the paterfamilias. In fact, a genius could be a protective spirit of anything – even a place – but in the family sense it referred to the head of the household. The genius of the paterfamilias was represented in art by a snake, often a symbol of health and prosperity in the ancient world. Such a snake is a key part of the image painted onto the lararium of the House of the Vettii as shown in Fig. 5.4. The other divinity was the god Janus, the god of the doorway, who protected the entrance of the house. A Roman house, therefore, was rich in religious symbolism. Cicero, whose own house in Rome was burnt down by his political enemies while he was in exile, felt particularly strongly about the importance of the home: What is more sacred, what is more inviolably surrounded by every kind of sanctity, than the house of every individual citizen? Within its circle are his altars, his hearths, his household gods, his religion, his observances, his ritual; it is a sanctuary so holy in the eyes of all, that it would be sacrilege to tear an owner from it. Cicero, About His Home, 61.109

3 Food and Hospitality As today, it is very hard to make one statement about how, when and what people in the Roman world ate, since habit differed greatly according to time, place and social status. As a general rule, however, the main meal of the day was the evening meal (cena), while breakfast (ientaculum) and lunch (prandium) were light in comparison. The poet Martial says that he just ate a little bread and cheese for breakfast, while lunch might also include cold meat, fruit or vegetables, perhaps left over from the previous night’s dinner. For the wealthy, a dinner could be a grand event with a number of courses. However, the majority of the population would have eaten far less impressively.

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A Roman Cookbook We still have some Roman cookbooks. In particular, one collection dating from the late 4th or early 5th century CE lists a wide variety of recipes, such as ‘sweet and sour pork’, ‘liver sausage’, and ‘rabbit with fruit sauce’. One of the most popular ingredients was a fish sauce called garum, or liquamen (see p. 380), large amounts of which were shipped all over the Roman empire. The following recipe is for ‘Numidian chicken’; unfortunately, if you want to try it at home, the measurements are not given: Clean the chicken, poach it, and then remove it from the water. Sprinkle with asafoetida and pepper, and broil it. Grind together pepper, cumin, coriander seed, asafoetida root, rue, dates, and nuts. Pour over these: vinegar, honey, liquamen, and olive oil. Stir. When it boils, add starch as a binder. Pour this mixture over the chicken. Sprinkle with pepper and serve. Apicius, Cookbookk, 6.9.4

People living in insulae probably sat on chairs and stools and ate what they could afford. For the poor, this was no doubt based around boiling grain. A typical meal might therefore have been porridge or puls – a boiled wheat dish similar to couscous, which was flavoured with cheese, garlic or herbs; we also hear of the poor eating cheap foods such as beans, leeks or sheep lips. Eating out was also common, particularly as most houses or apartments did not have ovens at home. Many snack bars (thermopolia – see p. 380) have been found at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia, which provided people with hot fast food that was relatively cheap. People would also drink here – apart from the wealthy, most Romans would have had to settle for cheap wine or vinegar; posca, a mixture of vinegar and water believed to be healthy, was popular with soldiers.

Dinner Parties A Roman dinner party was an important social occasion for the upper classes, since it gave the paterfamilias the opportunity to entertain friends and to impress contacts. Moreover, he would also be expected to invite his clients to dinner from time to time. A cena might typically begin in mid-afternoon, and could last for hours. The meal was given in the house’s triclinium, which might be decorated with distinctive floor mosaics or wall paintings to impress guests. The word triclinium literally means ‘three-couch-room’, and the three couches that the guests reclined on were themselves often finely decorated, perhaps with ends of ivory or metal. The seating plan reflected the social status of the guests. Figure 5.5 shows the layout of the three couches, which were divided into ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’; each of the three seats on a couch was also divided into ‘high’, ‘middle’ and ‘low’,

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Fig. 5.5 The layout and seating plan of a triclinium.

working from the right as one looks at the couch. The place of honour was Y, at the low end of the medium couch. This was no doubt because the middle couch faced out towards the entrance to the triclinium and, leaning on one’s left elbow, this usually offered the best view of a garden or works of art opposite. Next to the guest of honour normally sat the host at position X, which allowed him to speak with his most important guest. Also on the low couch would usually be the host’s clients or freedmen. Other guests would recline on the medium and high couches, with the guest of honour perhaps having his clients or freedmen next to him. The food and wine were of course of central importance. The host would first decide on whether to offer local or imported produce. One way to impress guests was to could go for a high-end version of regular fare, for example serving wild boar instead of pig. Wine might be locally sourced, or be imported from somewhere in Greece (the wine from the island of Chios was supposed to be the very best). Sometimes different diners were even served different food and drink, depending on their social status. In the following passage, Juvenal imagines a client being treated like a second-class citizen at his patron’s dinner party: Observe the size of that crayfish: it marks out a platter reserved for his lordship. Please note the asparagus garnish heaped high around it, the peacocking tail that looks down on the guests as it’s brought in, borne aloft for some tall waiter! But you get half an egg that’s stuffed with a single prawn and served in a little saucer, like a funeral offering. His lordship drizzles his fish with the finest oil, but your colourless boiled cabbage (poor you!) will have an aroma of the lamp. Juvenal, Satires, 5.80–88

Not all hosts were as rude. Pliny acknowledges that it would cost too much to give all his dinner guests good wine, but says: ‘my freedmen do not drink the same wine as I do; I drink the same wine as them.’

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The Menu A standard cena had three courses: 1 The gustatio (hors d’oeuvre), which consisted of light appetisers such as eggs, olives or salad-vegetables. This was followed by mulsum, wine sweetened with honey. 2 The cena proper; in simple meals this consisted of a single meat or fish dish (or vegetables). More expensive dinners might have a variety of courses at this stage, perhaps including different meats. 3 The secundae mensae (dessert), which often included fruits, nuts or simply sweet cakes (Fig. 5.6). A slave announced the guests (who wore formal evening clothes – the synthesis) as they arrived. They were led into the triclinium and shown to their places, where they would lie forward on the couch, with their left arm supporting their weight. They would use their right hand to eat: mainly with their fingers, although there might be spoons and knives to help with some foods (the Romans did not use forks). They took their food from small tables in front of them (or in some houses a ledge built into the couch). Slaves continued to supply food, and they would also walk round pouring wine and offering basins of water for diners to wash their hands in.

In Their Own Words 5.2 Read the following accounts of dinner parties from Roman authors: Horace, Satires, 2.8; Petronius, Satyricon, 29–60; and Martial, Epigrams, 5.78 and 11.52.

Fig. 5.6 This still life painting was found in the House of the Stags in Herculaneum. On the left are depicted peaches and a jar of water; on the right is a silver tray with prunes, dried figs, dates and a glass of wine.

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Entertainment Hosts would also want to put on entertainments during or after the meal. One possibility was the comissatio, a formal drinking session after the meal, which would be led by a master of ceremonies, who would either be the host or a guest appointed by him (Fig. 5.7). It was his job to decide the strength of the wine, which the Romans always watered down – perhaps by adding as much as four-fifths of water to one-fifth of wine. He would then fix the number of cups that guests had to drink, and they normally had to be downed in one. Dancers, acrobats and clowns might also entertain the guests at this stage of the meal. These were not the only forms of entertainment. We also hear of guests playing games similar to dice and backgammon, one of which, called ‘knucklebones’, was even played by the emperor Augustus, as he explains in a letter recorded by Suetonius: We gambled like old men all through the meal, and until yesterday turned into today. Anyone who threw the dog [two aces] or a six put a silver piece in the pool for each of the dice; and anyone who threw Venus [when each of the dice showed a different number] scooped the lot. Suetonius, Augustus, 71.2

Fig. 5.7 A fresco from Pompeii depicting a dinner party. Slaves, indicated by their smaller stature, attend to the guests. A man on the right is drunk and being supported by a slave.

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Other hosts with more highbrow tastes might organise poetry recitals or philosophical discussions. Juvenal claims that his dinner entertainment will be cultured: ‘we’ll hear the tale of Troy from Homer, and from his rival for the lofty epic palm, great Virgil’. As today, behaviour probably depended a lot more on the characters of the diners than on their social status. The following couplets written on the wall of a dining room in the House of Sallust in Pompeii make clear the standards one host expected from his dinner guests: Remove lustful expressions and flirtatious tender eyes From another man’s wife; may there be modesty in your expression. [. . .] postpone your tiresome quarrels If you can, or leave, and take them home with you. CIL IV.7698a–c

Review and Reflect 5.1 1

How do Roman insulae compare to blocks of flats in cities today?

2

What types of religious shrines or practices do people use at home today? How do they compare with those of the Romans?

3

What can we learn about Roman society from the way in which the wealthy designed their houses?

4

Why is sharing food and drink so universally important for building relationships between people?

Further Reading 5.1 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapters 3 and 7. Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 8. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), chapter 6. Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Donahue, John, Food and Drink in Antiquity: A Sourcebook (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014). Hales, Shelley, The Roman House and Social Identityy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

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II From Birth to Adulthood This section examines the experience of growing up, from infancy through to childhood, education, coming of age, and life as a working adult. The focus will largely be on the development of boys, although there are some aspects which apply to both boys and girls. A girl’s journey to adulthood is described in more detail on pp. 256–257.

1 The Early Years As soon as a baby was born, a midwife checked for any deformities and it was then laid on the ground. Hopefully, the baby’s father would then lift the baby into the air, symbolically accepting it as his own. Sadly, however, this wasn’t always the case – sometimes a baby was unwanted and its father would have slaves take it away from the house for exposure. If the baby was accepted by its father, then a couch was laid in the house for Juno if it was a girl, or a table laid for Hercules if it was a boy. This was to invite these gods into the house to protect the child in its first days, when the risk of mortality was

Exposure Babies who were unwanted at birth were taken outside the city and abandoned, either to die or possibly to be rescued. There was a variety of reasons why a baby might have been exposed; perhaps the family couldn’t afford to feed another mouth, or it may have been the result of an unwanted pregnancy. It is impossible to know how many babies were exposed in this way, but the number is likely to have been significant. Exposure was often decided on because of the sex of the baby, since girls were seen as a drain on resources. A letter written in 1 BCE by a Roman citizen in Egypt to his pregnant wife illustrates this attitude: I am still in Alexandria. . . . I beg and plead with you to take care of our little child, and as soon as we receive wages, I will send them to you. In the meantime, if (good fortune to you!) you give birth, if it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl, expose it. Papyrus Oxyrhynchuss, 744.G Exposure did not automatically mean death, as some children were rescued and brought up by other people, often as slaves, but sometimes as loved children. Interestingly, a common theme in Roman literature is that of the exposed child who grows up to become great or successful. The most famous Roman example of this is Romulus, who was said to have been exposed with his twin Remus. It was also a common plotline in Roman comedies, such as Plautus’ Casina, which is described on p. 322.

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high. There was particular delight at the birth of a son, as he could inherit the family name and estate; on the other hand, daughters would have to be married off with an expensive dowry. The next ceremony, the ‘naming day’, would come on the eighth day after birth for a daughter or the ninth day for a son. It was a day of religious purification and involved a non-blood sacrifice in the home, together with a party thrown by the family for close friends and relatives, who might bring gifts. However, the most important present was the bulla – a lucky charm, which was believed to ward off evil spirits; the child wore it as a pendant throughout childhood. Young children spent their first years in the home. In early Roman times, when there were fewer slaves, it was the parents who did most of the child-raising. Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE ), who liked to live according to the standards of the ‘good old days’ of the early Republic, was notable for his involvement with his young child: After the birth of Cato’s son, no business, unless it was for the state, was urgent enough to keep him away from his wife when she was bathing the baby and wrapping it in swaddling clothes. She breastfed the baby herself. Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 20.4

This final comment is interesting since in Plutarch’s time of the early 2nd century CE it was usual for mothers to have their children wet-nursed. One writer who was clearly unimpressed with the way in which this custom had developed was this conservative character in a dialogue on rhetoric set in the 70s CE : Long ago, each citizen’s son was reared, not in the chamber of a hired nurse, but in the lap and embrace of his mother, whose greatest glory was to mind the home and to devote herself to her children . . . But today each new born is handed over to some little Greek slave-girl, who is assisted by one or two other slaves, generally the worst and least suited to this serious task. Tacitus, A Dialogue on Orators, 28–29

As today, it seems that there were different theories and arguments about how best to bring up a child; however, it is important to remember that poorer families would not have been able to afford slaves, and so in their case the primary childcare role would have fallen to the mother and other female relatives.

2 Education In early Roman times, there were no schools as we would understand them; instead children simply learnt in their own homes, often from their fathers. They might be taught the basics of reading and writing, as well as their father’s trade; however, it was equally important for them to learn Roman values, such as pietas, and the mos maiorum (see p. 6 and p. 20). Plutarch gives an account of Cato the Elder’s

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attempts to educate his son in the traditional method, emphasising that Cato did not want a slave to teach his son: He undertook his son’s education himself: he taught him reading and writing, instructed him in the law, and acted as his physical trainer; in addition to teaching him how to throw a javelin, fight in armour, and ride a horse, he also taught him how to box and endure heat and cold, and made him a good enough swimmer to be able to force his way across even the turbulent and rough parts of the river [i.e. the Tiber]. He also says that he wrote out his history books by himself in large letters, so that his son would have the chance to profit, in his own home, from familiarity with the history of his ancestors. Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 20.5–7

This example seems exceptional, but the passage does give a flavour of how a father in that era might have prepared his son for adult life. However, as Roman society underwent the process of Hellenisation from the 3rd century BCE , it absorbed many aspects of the Greek education system, which had an emphasis on disciplines such as literature, history, mathematics and philosophy. Although conservative Romans such as Cato were appalled by this, others adapted to it and blended in the new with the old. One such man was Aemilius Paullus, a twotime consul and notable general, and a near contemporary of Cato: He attended to his priestly duties and his sons’ education. He made sure that they received a Greek education, as well as the native, traditional training which he had undergone. This was so important to him that not only did he provide Greeks to teach the boys language, philosophy, and rhetoric, but the sculptors and painters they made use of were Greeks as well, and so were the men in charge of their foals and puppies, and the men who taught them hunting. Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus, 6.8–9

Aemilius Paullus was moving with the times: from the 2nd century BCE onwards, the education system in Rome was based on the Greek model, and consisted of three stages. The first, between the ages of seven and about eleven, was a type of primary school with a teacher known as the litterator; after this, pupils progressed on to a secondary education with the grammaticus, followed by tertiary education at the age of 16 with a rhetoric teacher, who taught them the art of public speaking.

Schools and Teachers There were no schools as we would recognise them – distinct buildings with classrooms, assembly halls and playgrounds – and there was no state education system. School fees were relatively cheap, and so a teacher had to find space wherever he could to teach. This would usually be a room hired in a public place – perhaps at the back of a shop (two early Roman words for ‘school’ were taberna and pergula, both of which really meant ‘shopkeeper’s booth’). The furniture would be sparse,

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Who Went to School? It is hard to know exactly what proportion of children went to school. Education wasn’t compulsory and so parents only sent their children if they wanted to and could afford it. It is likely that the majority of boys attended the first stage of education (although the wealthiest families might provide a private tutor for their sons instead), while a significant number of girls probably attended at least some of this primary stage too. However, the second and third stages were predominantly reserved for the sons of the rich – by the age of 14, girls were getting married and boys from poorer families had started working. The poet Horace speaks thankfully of his father who, although only a freedman, somehow found the money to take him to Rome and send him to the school of a grammaticus called Orbilius: Yet if my faults are not too serious or too many, and if my nature, apart from such blemishes, in other respects is sound . . . then the credit is due to my father. He was a poor man with a few scraggy acres, yet he wouldn’t send me to Flavius’ school [the local primary school] . . . Instead he courageously took his boy to Rome, to be taught the accomplishments which any knight or senator would have his own offspring taught . . . My father himself was the most trustworthy guardian imaginable, accompanying me to all my classes . . . As it is, I owe him all the more respect and gratitude. Horace, Satires Satires, s, 1.6.65ff His father’s investment was of course richly rewarded when Horace went on to be a leading poet in the circle of the emperor Augustus.

perhaps just some wooden stools or benches, while there might be some busts of famous men, but little else in the way of display on the walls. We also hear of teachers meeting their students in public places, such as pavements and squares, where it must have been hard to compete against the surrounding noise. Teachers were badly paid, and so tended to come from the lower rungs of society – sometimes they were freedmen or foreigners. They didn’t need any special qualifications, and in theory anyone could set themselves up in the role. But it seems that a teacher’s life was not easy. Juvenal, once again poking fun at the world around him, shows sympathy for the lot of a grammaticus: What teacher, however learned, however successful gets a fitting return for his labours? . . . [Parents] Demand that the teacher shall mould these tender minds, like an artist who thumbs out a face in wax. Insist on his being a father to all his pupils, responsible for preventing their indecent tricks with each other (though it’s no easy life

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to keep check on all those darting eyes – and fingers) “See to it,” you’re told, “and when the school year’s ended, you’ll get as much as a charioteer makes from a single race.” Juvenal, Satires, 7.215ff

These lines suggest that, as today, teachers had to cope with ‘pushy parents’ with unrealistic expectations of their children, and that there was no comparison between their modest pay and the exorbitant earnings of a top sporting star (described on pp. 295–296). Other writers are less flattering about teachers, often portraying them as boring, strict and all too ready to use the cane – Horace nicknamed his teacher Orbilius plagosus, or ‘Orbilius the flogger’. In the following epigram, the satirist Martial complains about being woken up by a teacher holding an early morning class just outside his block of apartments: What have you got against us, wicked schoolteacher, creature hateful to boys and girls alike? The crested cockerels have not yet broken the silence, but you thunder with your harsh growling and your lashes . . . Dismiss your pupils. Are you willing, motormouth, to be paid the same amount to shut up as you are paid for shouting out? Martial, Epigrams, 9.68

The reason that classes started early in the morning – sometimes before daybreak as here – was so that the teacher could make the best use of daylight, and presumably also because the surrounding area was a little quieter at this time of day. Lessons lasted until at least lunchtime, with some teachers even carrying on into the afternoon. Wealthier pupils would be accompanied to school by their paedagogus, an educated family slave (usually a Greek) who would oversee the boy’s studies – sitting in school with him, helping him with homework and perhaps even tutoring him a little, and probably also carrying his bags around.

The Litterator Lessons with the litterator were limited to three subjects: reading, writing and arithmetic. As he had five whole years to teach his charges to read, write and count, the teaching does not usually seem to have been at all inspiring. There was lots of repetition, with pupils endlessly having to practise writing letters of the alphabet; once this was mastered, they were forced to copy out useful phrases, such as laborare est orare (‘to work is to pray’) (Fig. 5.8). Pupils started by using wax tablets – thin sheets of wood covered with wax, on which they could write with a stilus, an implement with a sharp end for marking the wax and a flat end to rub the marks out and reset the wax (Fig. 5.9). When they had become competent writers, they would be allowed to move on to write with a pen and ink on papyrus, thick reed paper invented in ancient Egypt.

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Fig. 5.8 A 2nd-century CE relief from Neumagen, near Trier, showing a teacher, flanked by pupils, all in fine armchairs, while a late arrival tries to apologise. The students are reading from papyrus scrolls.

Fig. 5.9 A fresco showing Roman writing implements.

The Grammaticus Those children whose parents could afford it moved on to the grammaticus at the age of about 12. The basis of the studies was Greek and Roman literature; until the late Republic there was of course little Roman literature to speak of, but after this writers such as Cicero, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace and Ovid were studied; in particular, Virgil’s Aeneid was a standard text, much as the works of Shakespeare have been in the English-speaking world. In addition, a Roman pupil would also learn Greek at this time. This was considered the language of educated people, partly because Greek civilisation had produced so many great writers – the epic poet Homer, philosophers such as Plato, historians such

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as Herodotus and Thucydides, and orators such as Demosthenes. Moreover, it was also important to learn Greek because the eastern half of the Roman empire was predominantly Greek-speaking; therefore, a Roman provincial official would have benefited from knowing Greek fluently. The teaching style of the grammaticus seems to have been little more inspiring than that of the litterator. Instead of learning to appreciate the themes and stylistic sophistication of great literature, pupils were trained to focus on more mundane aspects such as grammar, figures of speech or the poet’s use of mythology. A typical question might be: ‘How many verbs and nouns are there in this poem?’, while pupils were also expected to learn and recite passages by heart. However, since Roman culture was predominantly oral, where people listened to words much more than they read them, the development of a strong memory was essential, and it seems that this was one of the main focuses of this stage of the education process.

The Rhetor At the age of 16, the privileged few would move on to lessons with the rhetor. He might educate them in many areas, including history, law, music, philosophy and geometry. However, his most important task was to train them in rhetoric, the art of public speaking. This was a crucial skill in a world without the various means of communication that today we take for granted – newspapers, email, the internet, radio, television and social media. A successful public figure in Rome had to be able to speak well in front of a large crowd of people. Pupils learnt to compose speeches, which fell into two categories: suasoriae and controversiae. In a suasoria, a pupil had to argue in favour of or against a particular decision, be it historical or fictional; Seneca gives the following example of a suasoria: Agamemnon at Aulis has been warned by the prophet Calchas that it is against the will of the gods for him to set sail until he has slaughtered his daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon deliberates: should he slaughter Iphigenia? Seneca, Suasoriae, 3

Pupils would have written a speech either in favour of or opposing the sacrifice of Iphigenia. This particular example shows the clear influence of the Greek world on Roman education, taken as it is from a famous moment in the Trojan War story. However, other suasoriae asked pupils to debate events in Roman history, such as: ‘Should Sulla have resigned his dictatorship?’ Conversely, a controversia required a pupil to argue about a particular legal case, which was often hypothetical and unlikely, as the following example illustrates: The law states: a priestess must be chaste and pure. A young woman was captured by pirates and offered for sale. She was bought by a pimp and set up as a prostitute. She persuaded men who came to her to give her the money as a gift [i.e. without any sex act]. However, she could not persuade a soldier who came to her. When he seized her and tried to force her,

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she killed him. She was brought to trial, acquitted, and returned to her family and homeland. She files a petition to become a priestess. Her petition is opposed. Seneca, Controversiae, 1.2

A pupil had to prepare a speech arguing either for or against the woman being admitted to the priesthood. He needed to concentrate not just on a high quality in his arguments, but also on his style of delivery, focusing on areas such as pronunciation, emphasis, facial expression and hand gestures. The training was in some ways like a barrister’s training today, and it is no surprise that many of Rome’s leading politicians were also accomplished lawyers. However, if a passage from the opening of Petronius’ satirical novel Satyricon is to be believed, not everyone approved of rhetoric training. Encolpius, the narrator, has this to say: I’m of the opinion that young men become complete idiots in schools because they don’t see or hear anything of use in everyday life; but rather it is pirates standing on the beach in chains, tyrants writing edicts ordering sons to cut off their fathers’ heads, oracles giving advice that three or more virgins should be sacrificed to stop a plague; and it’s little honey-balls of phrases, produced like a cook sprinkling herbs on food. Petronius, Satyricon, 1

While this is a satirical exaggeration, it would be a surprise if it did not reflect a recognisable strand of thought. Later in the same novel, a freedman takes the argument further, claiming that such education was pointless, and that it was practical education which mattered, which would give a man the skills required to run a successful business: I didn’t learn no geometry or criticism and such silly rubbish, but I can read the letters on a notice board and I can do my percentages in metal, weights, and money. Petronius, Satyricon, 58.7

Although the reader is meant to laugh at this character, his basic argument speaks to a debate still alive today about what purpose education should serve. It is hard for us to know how much progress those pupils who did proceed through school made (there were no exams, and therefore no results for us to inspect), nor

In Their Own Words 5.3 1

Read about Pliny the Younger’s plans to fund a school in his hometown of Comum at Letters, 4.13.

2

Read Quintilian’s description of the grammaticus’ role at Elements of Oratory, 1.4.1–5.

3

Read Cicero’s description of the ideal orator at About the Orator, 1.16–20.

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how much advantage it gave them over those who were less educated. However, the fact that this education system survived relatively unquestioned for centuries suggests that parents felt that it was providing their children with the skills required to make a success of adult life.

Coming of Age Roman boys and girls came of age in different ways. Girls were considered to be adults from the day of their marriage, a ceremony described on pp. 259–261. However, men tended to marry later, and so there was a special ceremony to mark their arrival at adulthood. When a boy reached the age of about 16 a date was chosen, often on a public holiday; 17th March, the festival of Liber was popular. Liber, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Dionysus, was an appropriate god for the occasion – according to the poet Ovid, he was represented as being both a boy and a young man. On this day, the youth would put on the toga virilis (‘toga of manhood’) for the first time. For formal occasions until that time, he had worn the toga praetexta, which had a purple border, whereas the toga virilis was purely white (see Appendix 2 to read about Roman clothing). He would also dedicate his bulla to the household gods. He next set out for the forum with his father, male relatives and friends, where he would be enlisted as a full citizen and his name would be placed on the list of his tribe. The group then headed up to the Capitoline Hill to make a sacrifice, after which they went home for a family party. The youth had entered public life as a young man and full citizen.

3 Working Life As today, there was a huge variety in the types of work in the Roman world. For example, evidence for 54 different trades has been found in Pompeii, and you can read about a number of industries there on pp. 377–382. Much of our knowledge about types of trades comes from archaeological evidence (Fig. 5.10), but we can also get an idea from a passage from Plautus’ The Pot of Gold, in which one wealthy character, Megadorus, bemoans the number of craftsmen and tradesmen demanding payment from him: Here come the cloth-fuller, the embroiderer, the goldsmith, the wool-weaver; the designers of fringes, makers of underwear, inventors of veils, dyers in purple and saffron, sleeve-stitchers, linen-weavers, perfumiers; shoe-makers and slippermakers, sandal-fitters and leather-stainers, all waiting to be paid; repairers, corset-makers, girdle-experts. And when these have been got rid of – in come another three hundred with their bills; the hall full of needlewomen, cabinetmakers, bag-makers . . . Is that the lot? No; more dyers . . . any damned pest with a pocket to fill. Plautus, The Pot of Gold, 507–519

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Fig. 5.10 A marble relief showing a coppersmith’s workshop. On the shelves above are the finished products – buckets, plates and bowls.

The elite of Roman society tended to look down on all forms of trade and business, just as Megadorus does here. Senators were even forbidden to engage in these areas, which were dominated by the equestrians. The wealthiest men made money by owning farming estates and property in the city; this allowed them time to devote themselves to law and politics. However, by the late 2nd century BCE , unemployment had become a serious problem in the city of Rome as its population grew with the influx of poor citizens who had been forced off their land. As we have seen on p. 49, the success of conquest was in part to blame for this, since many slaves had been brought to Italy and given jobs previously held by the free, such as farm labouring. The following witty epitaph on the tomb of a poor man highlights a plight shared by many: All a person needs. Bones resting sweetly, I am not anxious about suddenly being short of food. I do not suffer from arthritis, and I am not indebted because of being behind in my rent. In fact, my lodgings are permanent – and free! CIL VI. 7193a

In addition to hunger and health problems, the text here mentions the problems of rent and accommodation. All the properties available to the poor had to be rented, and there was little sympathy shown to a tenant who fell behind on his payments. Moreover, rental contracts only covered a very short period – perhaps just a

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The Corn Dole The one way in which the state did provide assistance to the poor was with a monthly handout of grain, which could then be used to make staple food such as bread. This was known as the corn dole (or annona, after the Roman goddess of plenty), and almost certainly saved many poor Roman families from starvation. We have seen that it was the tribune Gaius Gracchus who first legalised the provision of subsidised grain in 122 BCE ; in 58 BCE , the tribune Publius Clodius went a step further and made the supply free, and many became dependent on it – Juvenal sneered that all Romans wanted was bread and circuses (see p. 290). However, the amount of grain available each year depended on the weather and soil conditions in the countries producing the grain, such as Sicily and Egypt. In bad years, the shortage of corn in Rome could cause serious social unrest.

month – and so a poor family would always be wondering if their home would be taken from them. Perhaps the key point to be made about the working lives of many Romans is that – apart from the corn dole – they didn’t have the safety nets that exist in much of the western world today: no trade unions, no social security payments, no pension schemes, no workers’ rights. As a result, people held on to jobs as much as they could. For example, Varro, writing in the 1st century BCE , reports that in Illyricum it was common for women to give birth in the fields where they were working, and then to go straight back to work.

Patrons and Clients Fundamental to the social structure of Roman life was the system of patrons and clients, whereby a man would attach himself as a ‘client’ to the service of another wealthier than him. The latter would be known as his ‘patron’, a word linked to the Latin pater and therefore paterfamilias, and it was the legal duty of a patron to give his client the same protection as he would to any member of his family. In the absence of any social security system, it was a network that provided people with some sort of safety net. It had originated as a relationship between free citizens, but freedmen were also automatically bound to serve their former masters as clients. A client was expected to come to his patron’s house every morning at first light and join all the other clients for the salutatio (‘greeting’). He would arrive dressed in a toga and wait his turn in the queue, which was determined according to his social status. When he was called forward, the patron might ask him to do some tasks for him, and in return he might promise to help him with a problem. Most of all, however, the client would hope for a handout, sportula, a word that originally referred to the ‘little basket’ in which food was given. In time, however, it came to refer to a handout

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of cash; by the early 2nd century CE , the typical daily amount seems to have been 6¼ sesterces per head. A client needed to be respectful towards his patron and address him as domine (‘master’); the satirist Martial wrote an amusing epigram in which he forgot to do so and paid for it: I accidentally greeted you this morning by your real name, Caecilianus, nor did I say ‘my master’. Do you want to know how much such liberty costs me? It robbed me of a hundred quadrantes [6¼ sesterces]. Martial, Epigrams, 6.88

However, there were also rules for the patron in return. He was expected to welcome his clients to his house, and to invite them to dinner from time to time. Yet while it might seem that the patron had to give away a lot of time and money, he too benefited from the relationship. For a man’s importance was partly measured by the size of his clientele. His clients would also do favours for him – these might range from odd jobs and bits of business, to accompanying him to the forum in the morning or campaigning for him in an election. It would be wrong to think simply of this relationship in terms of the poor being attached to the rich. In fact, many patrons would also be clients themselves, since the whole of Roman society was a ladder reaching up to the very wealthiest. In one poem, Martial complains about having made the long and wearisome walk to his patron’s house, only to be told that his patron is out visiting his own patron as a client.

Review and Reflect 5.2 1

What are the reasons for infanticide today and how much have they changed since Roman times?

2

What can we learn about the Romans from the way children were educated?

3

How do the attitudes to workers in Roman times differ from those held in different parts of the world today?

4

Why do you think that the patron/client system was so important to Roman society? Does anything like it still exist today?

Further Reading 5.2 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapters 2, 4, 5. Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 8. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapter 8.

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Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Harlow, Mary and Laurence, Ray, Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 2002). Laes, Christian, Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders Within (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

III The Life of Women It is much harder for us to know about the lives of women in the Roman world, since almost all the written evidence comes from men. This means that we usually learn about women from a male perspective – be it in plays, poems, histories or court cases; as a result, our evidence about Roman women is almost entirely based on how men chose to see the women in their lives. A further hindrance is that we generally hear about wealthier women who married into families of a high social status. The majority of women must have lived simple, hard lives of poverty – either in the city or in the country – but these were not the sort of women to interest educated male writers. It is of course very hard to generalise about the lives of women in a civilisation that spanned both centuries and continents. However, if there is one statement that can be made, it is that Roman women were treated as social inferiors by men, just as they have been in the vast majority of societies throughout history. It was accepted without question that a woman’s main purpose in life was to marry and have children, while her other main task was to run the household and oversee domestic chores, such as childcare, cooking, cleaning and sewing. At no stage in Roman history did women have any political rights, while every woman lived under the power of a paterfamilias – usually either her father or her husband.

1 Childhood A different path lay ahead of a baby girl from that of a baby boy. Although some girls did receive basic education in reading, writing and arithmetic from the litterator, they were also taught ‘women’s work’ at home – learning how to spin and to weave, to cook and to manage the house. Moreover, it seems that some young girls were forced into a life of work outside the house, if these two epitaphs are anything to go by:

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In memory of Viccentia, a very sweet girl, a worker in gold. She lived nine years. In memory of Pieris, a hairdresser. She lived nine years. Her mother Hilaria put up this tombstone. CIL VI.9213 and 6.9731

These epitaphs serve to illustrate that, although the ‘ideal’ of Roman womanhood was to manage the household, in reality many women would have had no choice but to find work outside the home from an early age in order to help the family pay the bills. However, even when girls learnt trades as these two did, the most important aspect of their upbringing would have been learning how to be a good wife. Marriage for a young woman was her ‘coming of age’ ceremony, in the same way as a boy first putting on the toga virilis was his. From this moment on, she was part of the adult world. It would be fascinating to know how the onset of puberty was managed for girls. Regrettably, we have very sparse information on this crucial stage when a girl became a young woman. One or two male medical writers do refer to it on occasion, including Rufus of Ephesus, a Greek doctor of the 1st century CE : When they [girls] are older and growth has all but stopped, and when young girls out of modesty no longer want to play childish games to the full, then one must give much more continuous attention to their diet, regulate and moderate their intake of food, and not let them touch meat at all, or other foods that are very nourishing. Rufus of Ephesus quoted in Oribasius, Liber Incertus, 18.10

What is especially interesting here is that modern science has shown a clear link between fat and fertility: too little body fat often hinders a woman’s ability to conceive. Therefore, the desire to restrict a girl who is going through puberty to a low-fat diet could suggest an attempt to suppress a young woman’s fertility until she is married.

2 Marriage From early Roman times, there were three distinct types of marriage. The confarreatio was reserved for wealthier families and involved the solemn offering of a cake of spelt in the presence of the Pontifex Maximus; more common among the plebs was the co-emptio, in which a father sold his daughter to a groom for a nominal (and symbolic) price; finally the usus was similar to a modern common law marriage today – if a couple had lived together for a year, then they could be declared married. Surprisingly, it was not necessary to register a marriage with the state or religious authorities; all that was needed was for a man and a woman to acknowledge that they wished to be married, and they could then just go and live together as husband and

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Cum manu or sine manu? C In the first two types of marriage mentioned here, the legal power over the bride passed from the father to the groom; she was said to come under his ‘hand’, and so the marriage was described as cum manu (‘with the hand’). Such marriages came with a dowry payment to the groom, which he had to return if he wanted a divorce. However, by late republican times, the alternative type of marriage, sine manu (‘without the hand’), had become the norm. In this case, the wife remained under the legal power of her father (or, if he had died, a guardian usually appointed from within her family), and she did not have to hand over a dowry to her husband. The advantage of this was that she would probably have a far greater say in managing her property and affairs; on the other hand, it made divorce much less financially punishing for her husband.

wife. However, in most cases there was ceremony and celebration, the extent of which depended mainly on the circumstances; poor families could not afford lavish ceremonies, while people getting married for the second time (or more) might opt for modest affairs.

Betrothal The Roman institution of marriage was essentially a socio-economic arrangement geared towards the rearing of legitimate children. Today, western society has generally adopted the practice of ‘love marriages’, but ‘being in love’ wasn’t usually on the list of requirements for a Roman match. Marriages were arranged between a bride’s father (perhaps with the help of his wife) and the groom’s family, and parents were always keen to find a match that would maintain or improve their daughter’s social status. It is hard to know how much say a daughter might have had – the following lines from a wedding poem by Catullus suggest that sometimes her influence was small: Young woman, do not fight against such a husband. It is not right to fight against the man whom your father himself gave you to – your father and your mother too. You should obey them both. Your virginity is not completely yours – partly it belongs to your parents. One third belongs to your father, another third to your mother, and just one third to you. Do not fight against your two parents, who have given to their son-in-law their rights along with a dowry. Catullus, Poems, 62.59–65

While these lines might seem shocking to a modern reader, a wise father would have wanted to ensure that his daughter was in favour of the match – but how many fathers were wise in this way we cannot tell. The lack of evidence from women themselves

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means that we can only guess at how many women might have been fearful or unhappy at the prospect ahead of them. Some women were betrothed very young – perhaps even at the age of six or seven – although they would not get married until their mid to late teens. A high price was put on the virginity of a bride, and so families would be keen to marry off their daughters relatively soon after they had reached physical maturity. By contrast, a groom might typically be in his mid-twenties, while Pliny the Younger married his wife Calpurnia when he was in his 40s and she was about 15. Once a betrothal had been agreed, an engagement party, the sponsalia, might be held. Friends and relatives were invited and the husband-to-be would present his future wife with gifts, most notably a ring that she would wear on the fourth finger of her left hand, because the Romans knew that a nerve ran from this finger to the heart. It is interesting that the Romans associated the heart with marriage, even though people didn’t normally marry after falling in love. In a Roman marriage, love was presumably supposed to grow with time and the link between the ring and the heart symbolised this.

The Wedding Ceremony There was a ‘traditional’ wedding ceremony in Roman times although, as has already been observed, we should not imagine that every wedding conformed to this type. The same is true in modern society – while a ‘white wedding’ in church is perhaps considered traditional in a Christian context, there are many types of ceremony, religious and civil, and couples like to add their own touches to the occasion. What follows is an account of the ‘traditional’ Roman wedding ceremony. The superstitious Romans took great care over picking a well-omened date: the second half of June was particularly popular, since Juno was the goddess of marriage. The ceremonies started the night before the wedding, when a bride dedicated her childhood toys to the Lares. That night, she also wore a special dress, the white tunica recta (‘straight tunic’ – so called because it was woven on an upright loom), and a yellow hairnet, the flammeum, both of which she had woven herself. She slept in these clothes, and in the morning girdled the tunic with a belt made of ewe’s wool (which symbolised fertility); this was tied in a tight knot, the ‘knot of Hercules’, which her husband was to untie that night. This knot was another symbol of fertility, since in Greek mythology Hercules was credited with fathering seventy children. The dressing process then continued with the help of the bride’s friends, who no doubt provided advice and moral support too. They made up her hair, arranging it in six tresses and parting by a spear (although the Romans themselves seem to have forgotten the origin of this tradition) (Fig. 5.11). On her head the bride then placed a garland of flowers that she had picked herself, followed by the bright yellow wedding veil, which symbolised her new status as an adult woman who was expected to cover her head in public.

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Fig. 5.11 This fresco from Herculaneum depicts two women on the left watching another woman having her hair styled. They are all elaborately dressed, and so the scene may represent a Roman bride preparing for her wedding ceremony.

In Their Own Words 5.4 Read Catullus, Poems, 61, which celebrates the wedding of Manlius Torquatus and Junia Aurunculeia. How is a Roman wedding ceremony portrayed here?

It was now time for the main ceremony to begin. When the groom arrived at the bride’s house, which had been decorated with garlands, the main religious element took place; to ensure the favour of the gods, the auspices were taken. Either a pig or sheep was sacrificed, and a priest appointed specially for a wedding, the auspex nuptiarum, inspected its insides to look for omens. If they were declared to be good, the marriage contract was signed in the presence of ten witnesses, who ensured that the union had legal validity. A married woman, called a pronuba, would join the couple’s right hands (this was a common sign of good faith in the Roman world, especially in business dealings) (Fig. 5.12). After this, a feast was often held in the bride’s house.

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Fig. 5.12 This sarcophagus found near Rome dates to the 3rd century CE . It depicts the point of a wedding ceremony when the bride and groom join hands under the watchful eyes of the pronuba.

The Procession The bride then went in procession to her new home, an event full of symbolism. She would act out being torn from the arms of her mother to commemorate the seizing of the Sabine women described on p. 9, and was then led by torchlight through the streets by three boys with living parents – one of these would carry a torch lit from the bride’s hearth, the other two would lead the way. The bride herself carried a distaff and spindle to signify her new domestic role, while a noisy crowd would also shout fortuna or talassio (‘good luck’) and tell rude jokes or sing obscene songs to ward off evil spirits. The groom had gone on ahead to his own house, which was also decorated with flowers. Upon arriving there, the bride anointed the doorway with oil and wool, and was then carried over the threshold by attendants; this was to ensure that she did not trip, which would have been a terrible omen for her first entrance to her new house. Inside, her husband presented her with water and fire (in the form of a torch), two of the essential elements of a Roman home. The bride greeted her husband with the words: ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia (literally: ‘where you are Gaius, I am Gaia’; or more naturally: ‘where you go as husband, I go as wife’), and was then presented with the keys to the house. The final stage of the wedding ritual was for the couple to head to their bedroom and consummate the marriage.

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3 The Matrona The bride now became a matrona – a married woman who was expected to run the household. In wealthier families, she was sometimes also called the materfamilias, signifying her authority over the slaves and children of the household (Fig. 5.13). Roman men had a clear idea of how they thought a matrona should behave – and once again, it was based on examples from early Roman history, such as Lucretia (see p. 10). In the following passage written in the early 2nd century CE , Plutarch discusses the ideal relationship between husband and wife: When two voices come together in harmony, the melody is determined by the deeper voice. Likewise, everything that is done in a wise household happens with the agreement of both parties, but displays the husband’s leadership and choices . . . a wife is thoughtless and inappropriate if she looks sad when her husband is in a good mood and wants to have fun, or if she is light-hearted and full of laughter when he is serious; the former behaviour is unpleasant, the latter obnoxious . . . a wife should have no feeling of her own, but should share the seriousness, the light-heartedness, the anxiety, and the laughter of her husband. Plutarch, Moralia, 139D–140A

Fig. 5.13 This mosaic portrait of a woman was set up in a house in Pompeii at the start of the 1st century CE . The woman was clearly an important member of her household and so perhaps the materfamilias.

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The idea that a wife should ‘have no feeling of her own’ seems absurd to us today, but it has been a common view in many cultures throughout history. That said, there was almost certainly a gap between the ideal and the reality of married life in Roman times. A different insight is given in Plautus’ comic play Casina, which revolves around a husband, Lysidamus, trying to cheat on his wife, Cleostrata, with their slave-girl, Casina (the play is described in more detail on p. 322). Cleostrata usually proves to have the measure of her man, as the following lines suggest: Cleostrata: Lysidamus: Cleostrata: Lysidamus: Cleostrata:

Lysidamus: Cleostrata:

Which seedy joints have you been lying around in? Seedy joints? Me? I know more than you think! What do you mean? What do you know? That of all the old men out there, you are the most worthless. Where are you going, you loser? Which joint have you been hanging around in? Where have you been drinking? By Castor, you’re drunk! Look how ruffled your cloak is! May the gods curse us both if I’ve let a drop of wine pass my lips today. Go on then – do as you wish! Drink! Eat! Waste our money! Plautus, Casina, 242–247

Although this is a scene from a comic play, the audience would surely not have found it funny if it was not based to some extent on patterns recognisable to them from their everyday lives.

Duties A woman’s lifestyle depended a great deal on her social position. Wealthy women could be in charge of a large number of household slaves, and responsible for overseeing social events such as dinner parties. Most women, however, lived humbler and harder lives, having to manage childcare and domestic chores, such as cooking, cleaning and weaving as much cloth as possible for the family. Poorer women often also had to work in order to make ends meet – perhaps as nurses, shopkeepers or seamstresses (Fig. 5.14). However, perhaps the most important duty for all women was childbirth. This was a much riskier business in the ancient world than it is today, since healthcare was rudimentary; as a result, there were many miscarriages and stillbirths, while women themselves were in serious danger of dying owing to complications. On top of this, women had to endure the pains of labour without modern anaesthetic drugs. In the following passage, Pliny the Younger writes to Calpurnia’s grandfather to tell him of her miscarriage: I know how anxious you are for us to give you a great-grandchild, so you will be all the more sorry to hear that your grand-daughter has had a miscarriage. Being young and inexperienced she did not realise that she was pregnant, failed

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Fig. 5.14 This relief depicts a female shopkeeper with various animals – the man on the far left carries a piglet, fowl are suspended from a rack, rabbits are kept in a cage, while two pet monkeys are kept as exotic foreign imports.

to take proper precautions, and did several things which were better left undone. She has had a severe lesson, and paid for her mistake by seriously endangering her life. Pliny the Younger, Letters, 8.10

Calpurnia was clearly ill-informed about her gynaecological health and how to recognise the signs of pregnancy. Her miscarriage must have been even sadder for the fact that there was obvious pressure for her to produce heirs, a common preoccupation of Roman families. However, on another level Calpurnia was lucky – many women would not have survived the experience.

Divorce As with marriage, divorce was a private matter between individuals and did not need to be approved by the state or religious authorities. All that was required was for one party to walk away from the marriage – although in practice it was easier for the husband to do this, especially if there were children involved since they automatically stayed with their father. One common cause of divorce was infertility, and it was always assumed that this was the fault of the woman. Divorce was quite common among the upper classes, since marriage was an important way to make political alliances. Sometimes, husbands and fathers forced women to divorce and remarry to suit them – for example, the dictator Sulla had his pregnant step-daughter Aemilia Scaura divorce her husband and remarry Pompey,

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Family Values? There was generally a double standard regarding adultery: it was accepted that men would commit it with slaves or prostitutes of either sex (although not with another man’s wife), while there was revulsion at the idea of a woman sleeping with anyone other than her husband. As we have read on p. 81, the emperor Augustus was concerned both by the decline in moral standards and in the falling birth rate. He therefore passed a series of laws in 18 and 17 BCE , and 9 CE , to make sure that all men between 25 and 60 and all women between 20 and 50 were married. Childless widows were expected to remarry within twelve months and divorcees within six, while the unmarried and childless were penalised by the loss of inheritance rights. On the other hand, women who produced three children were given the legal freedom to manage their own affairs without a male guardian. Embarrassingly for the emperor, he was undermined in these laws by his own daughter, Julia, and her daughter, also Julia, both of whom were exiled for having affairs.

his new political ally. She died in childbirth soon after the wedding. Pompey himself was married five times, including his match with Julia, the daughter of Julius Caesar; although this marriage was politically motivated, Pompey was devoted to Julia until she died. There is little evidence on how divorce impacted on family life since the Romans did not seem to reflect on this much, although Cicero does write to his friend Atticus about the distress of his nephew, Quintus, after he learns the news of his parents’ divorce: I saw that the boy was remarkably upset. He lamented to me as he wept. In fact, I saw in him a remarkable sense of duty, sweetness and humanity. I therefore have all the more hope that things will not turn out for him other than how they should. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 6.3.8

Like Pompey and Sulla, Cicero came from an upper-class family; it is unlikely that divorce was as common at other levels of society, where there was not the need to make political alliances. We should not think that arranged marriages prevented couples from experiencing deep love, and many inscriptions on tombstones testify to the strength of love between husband and wife. For example, the following epitaph was left in Rome by a wife for her husband: Furia Spes, freedwoman of Sempronius Firmus, provided this memorial for her dearly beloved husband. When we were still boy and girl, we were bound by a mutual love as soon as we met. I lived with him for too brief a time. We were separated by a cruel hand when we should have continued to live in happiness. I therefore beg, most sacred Manes, that you look after the loved one I have

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entrusted to you and that you be well disposed and very kind to him during the hours of night, so that I may see him, and so that he, too, may wish to persuade fate to allow me to come to him, softly and soon. CIL VI.18817

It is not clear how Furia hoped to see her husband again – perhaps in a dream or as an apparition. This example was left at Lugdunum (modern Lyon) by a husband of relatively humble citizen status: To the eternal memory of Blandinia Martiola, a most faultless girl, who lived eighteen years, nine months, five days. Pompeius Catussa, a Sequanian citizen, a plasterer, dedicates to his wife, who was incomparable and very kind to him, who lived with him five years, six months, eighteen days without any shadow of a fault, this memorial which he had erected in his lifetime for himself and his wife and which he consecrated while it was still under construction. You who read this, go bathe in the baths of Apollo, as I used to do with my wife. I wish I still could. CIL XIII.1983

As well as providing a tender picture of grief, this inscription is notable for two other insights into their lives: that Blandinia was married at the age of 13, and that the two of them were able to go to the baths together rather than separately, as was normally the custom in the Roman world (see p. 334). There was no doubt a great range in the quality of marriages at every level of society. Many sources give evidence of marriages that were as happy as these two; at the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of stories of cheating spouses and violent and abusive husbands. In other words, as today, it is impossible to make one statement about the quality of Roman marriages.

Politics Women had no political rights at any stage in Roman history – they could neither stand for office nor vote; indeed, the only women with any formal position in public

In Their Own Words 5.5 1

Read the Laudatio Turiae, a eulogy delivered by a husband at the funeral of his wife in the 1st century CE . What can we learn about Roman married life from this document?

2

Read and compare the following letters of Pliny the Younger on marriage: 1.14, 4.19, 7.5 and 8.5.

3

Read St Augustine’s account of domestic violence in his own home in Confessions, 9.9. How common are the attitudes described here today?

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life were priestesses, such as the Vestal Virgins in Rome or such as Eumachia at Pompeii (see p. 365). Therefore, the main way in which women could hope to have political influence was through their male relatives (although at Pompeii it is clear that some women did make their political views known through election advertisements – see p. 375). None the less, there are some examples of women influencing politics at times during Roman history. In 215 BCE , in the aftermath of the catastrophic defeat to Hannibal at Cannae, a law known as the Oppian Law was passed, which heavily restricted women’s rights to purchase and wear luxury items such as jewellery and expensive clothing. It was intended that the money saved should be put towards the war effort. Twenty years later, with the Carthaginians defeated, two tribunes brought a proposal to the Tribal Assembly that the Oppian Law should be repealed. The proposal was keenly debated in the Assembly, and women filled the streets around the forum in order to persuade their menfolk to vote for repeal. The proposal was indeed passed, but Livy records how the behaviour of the women was met with disgust in a speech by the arch-conservative Cato the Elder: My fellow citizens: had each of us, individually, resolved to preserve our rights and standing as a husband with his own wife, we should now be having less of a problem with women as a whole. As things are, our autonomy has been ground down in our own homes by female emotionality, and here, too, in the forum it is being crushed and trodden under foot. Because we have not been able to control our women on an individual basis, we are now frightened of them as a body. Livy, History of Rome, 34.2.1

Regrettably, we don’t have the perspective of any man who voted to repeal the law to set alongside the reactionary views of Cato. An individual woman who is portrayed impressively is Hortensia, who made her name for her skills in oratory. She came from an aristocratic background: her father had been consul and himself a leading orator at Rome. In 42 BCE , the triumvirs were looking for sources of funds (see p. 66). When their proscriptions did not provide them with enough, they placed a tax on Rome’s 1400 wealthiest women. These women were outraged, and chose Hortensia to represent their views to the triumvirs. Appian, a Greek historian of the 2nd century CE , reproduced the speech (in Greek, rather than the original Latin) as he believed she had spoken it, including the following plea: If you claim that you have in any way been wronged by us, as you were by our husbands, proscribe us as you did them. But if we women have not voted any of you public enemies, if we did not demolish your houses or destroy your army or lead another army against you; if we have not kept you from public office or honour, why should we share the penalties if we have no part in the wrongdoing? Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in public office or honours or commands or government in general, an evil you have fought over with such disastrous results? Appian, Civil Wars, 4.32

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In Their Own Words 5.6 1

Read Livy’s account of the repeal of the Oppian Law in full at History of Rome, 34.1–8. What does it indicate about the political and social role of women at this time?

2

Read Sallust’s account of the character of Sempronia in The Catilinarian Conspiracy, 25. How positively does he present her?

Hortensia’s arguments were successful: the following day the triumvirs reduced the number of women to be taxed to 400, decreeing instead that men worth more than one million sesterces should make substantial contributions of their own. With the onset of the principate, it became possible for women to have political influence at the court of the emperor. In Chapter 2, we have met a number of such women: Octavia and Livia, respectively the sister and wife of Augustus; Agrippina the Younger, the wife of Claudius and mother of Nero; Faustina, the wife of Antoninus Pius; Julia Mamaea, the mother of Alexander Severus; and Helena, the mother of Constantine. Moreover, at one stage Zenobia established herself as ruler of a breakaway kingdom in the eastern empire. As ever, we must be aware of the potential source bias in the portrayal of such women. A writer such as Tacitus, for example, often portrays women as scheming and manipulative exactly so as to show up the incompetence of their menfolk.

Educated Women It is clear from the sources that Sempronia and Hortensia were well-educated women. This reflects a trend, which began in the 2nd century BCE , whereby wealthier women were able to become more engaged in intellectual pursuits. One cause of this may have been the increased number of slaves in Roman cities, which allowed wealthy women more time for things like education and leisure. Furthermore, the increase of sine manu marriage provided women with greater freedom from their husbands in their financial affairs. A prominent example of this new type of woman was Cornelia (c. 190–100 BCE ), the daughter of Scipio Africanus and mother of the Gracchi brothers. On one hand, she was a model of traditional Roman values and was often offered as an example of how a matrona should behave. On the other hand, she oversaw the education of her sons – Quintilian, a leading writer on rhetoric, claims that they owed their eloquence to her. After both her sons had been assassinated, Cornelia drew much admiration for her dignity in the face of grief, as Plutarch describes: Furthermore, Cornelia, who is said to have endured all her misfortunes in a noble and principled manner, apparently remarked, on the consecration of the sites of

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her sons’ murders, that now their bodies had the tombs they deserved. She stayed in her house at Misenum, but without changing the way she lived. She had a wide circle of friends and her hospitality meant that she was never short of dinner guests. She surrounded herself with Greeks and scholars, and used to exchange gifts with kings from all over the world. Her guests and visitors used particularly to enjoy the stories she told of the life of her father, Africanus, and were most impressed by how she could mention her sons without sadness or tears. Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus, 19

We can see here Cornelia mixing the old with the new – showing traditional restraint in the face of grief, as well as entertaining important and educated foreigners and enjoying reading and discussing literature with them. By the 1st century BCE , it had become fashionable for elite women to receive an education in music, poetry and philosophy. Indeed, a number of portraits of young women with a pen to their lips survive from this period (Fig. 5.15), while we also hear of women forming literary circles and the poets Catullus and Propertius both praise the lovers they write about partly for their intelligence and wit. Sadly, there is very little surviving evidence of literature from female authors, but we do have a few poems from a woman called Sulpicia, who wrote love elegies during the time of the

Fig. 5.15 This Pompeian fresco portrays a woman wearing a golden hairnet and holding a pen to her lips in one hand, and a wax tablet in the other. Some scholars have identified the woman as the Greek poet Sappho.

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emperor Augustus; six of these survived because they were mistakenly attributed to the male love elegist Tibullus. We know that Sulpicia was a high-status woman – her uncle was Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, an important patron of literature. Her poems focus on her relationship with her lover Cerinthus, including this one, which laments the fact that she must spend her birthday without him: My damned birthday is here, which I’ll have to spend miserably in the boring countryside, and without Cerinthus! What is sweeter than the city? Is a country villa really fit for a girl, and a freezing river in the fields of Tuscany? Messalla, stern uncle, please give your concern for me a rest now – it’s too much. This is not the season to be making journeys. Even if you take me away, if you won’t allow me my free will, I’ll leave my heart and feelings here in Rome. Sulpicia, Poems, 2

It is telling that Sulpicia’s six poems have survived by accident, and it would be fascinating to know how many other female poets have been lost to history. By coincidence, one of our only other extant female poets was also called Sulpicia. She composed satires during the late 1st century CE , of which we have a few fragments. A later Roman rhetoric teacher, Ausonius, stated that she was the equal of Juvenal as a satirist. A third female writer was Proba, an aristocratic Christian who lived in the 4th century CE . She composed a poem of nearly 700 lines based on the life of Jesus, but using exclusively verses of earlier Roman poets such as Virgil in a literary genre called the cento. Fortunately, there are other sources of evidence for female literacy. In Britain, women were writing curse tablets at Aquae Sulis that have survived, while tablets found at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall have preserved records of women dictating letters to scribes. One such letter, shown in Fig. 5.16, was written in about 100 CE by a Roman officer’s wife, Claudia Severa, to her friend Sulpicia Lepidina, also the wife of an army officer. In her case, she is looking forward to her birthday, and invites her friend to a celebration: Claudia Severa sends greetings to her Lepidina. Sister, I happily invite you to be sure and come to our house on my birthday, 11 September, for, if you come, you will make the day more enjoyable by your presence. Say hello to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send their greetings. I shall expect you sister. Be well, sister, dear soul, and so may I be well. And fare well. Vindolanda Tablet, 2.291

The final line here, marked by italics, was written in Claudia’s own hand as an addition at the end of the letter. This line is one of the oldest known definite examples of a woman’s handwriting in Latin.

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Fig. 5.16 The Vindolanda tablet, on which Claudia Severa invites Sulpicia Lepidina to her birthday party. The final part of the letter on the right-hand leaf was written by Claudia herself.

Review and Reflect 5.3 1

Which aspects of a traditional Roman wedding also feature at weddings today? Which aspects seem strange to you?

2

To what extent are male attitudes towards women in ancient Rome still evident in modern society? How widely are they now challenged?

3

How much influence do you think it was possible for a Roman woman to have on politics?

Further Reading 5.3 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 8. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapter 4. Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Fraschetti, Augusto, ed., Roman Women (London: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Gardner, Jane, Women in Roman Law and Societyy (London: Croom Helm, 1986). Harlow, Mary and Laurence, Ray, Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 2002). Laes, Christian, Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders Within (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Lefkowitz, Mary and Fant, Maureen, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).

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Pomeroy, Sarah, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquityy (London: Vintage Digital, 2010), chapters 8–10. Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

IV Slaves and Freedmen Slavery was a fact of life in every ancient society, and only in the last two centuries have serious campaigns of abolition been waged (slavery was only abolished in the British Empire in 1833 and in the USA in 1863). Today, slavery is regarded as inhuman, and we are horrified by the notion of so many people enslaved and by the ways in which they were treated. However, when judging the Romans, we should be aware that there are still practices in every part of the world today that are regarded as ‘enslavement’. In fact, the Romans were rare amongst ancient peoples in offering the prospect of freedom to many of their slaves. Freed slaves held the status of freedmen and had many of the rights of Roman citizens. Thus, to be born or captured as a slave in the Roman world did not necessarily mean that you would end your life in slavery; indeed, by imperial times, a large proportion of the citizen population must have had ancestors who had been slaves. This made Roman society more aspirational and progressive than many others in the ancient world.

1 Roman Slavery Although it is impossible to know exactly how many slaves there were in the Roman world, estimates suggest that by the early imperial period, about 20–30 per cent of the population of Rome were slaves. Cities such as Rome had a higher percentage of slaves than the rural parts of the empire, but it is likely that this figure was about the same throughout the cities of the empire.

Routes into Slavery The Roman slave population increased dramatically from the 3rd century BCE , when Rome started to conquer territories beyond Italy. One estimate suggests that in the early 2nd century BCE the number of slaves arriving in Italy was 8,000 per year; at this point, there were probably 300,000 adult male Roman citizens. In this period, the most common route into slavery was as a captive of war. Captives of war represented big business for the slave dealers, who usually followed closely behind an army ready to jump into action. By the middle of the 1st century BCE , a rough estimate

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would have between 1.5 and 2 million slaves living in Italy, about 20 per cent of the population. Apart from being captured in war, there were other routes into slavery, especially after Roman expansion had reached its limits in the early 2nd century CE . As we have seen, exposed children could be rescued and brought up as slaves, while in a few desperate cases, parents might even sell their children into slavery. Travellers in the Roman world were also in danger from kidnappers, who would sell their captives on to slave traders, while we also hear of Romans trading wine for slaves with foreign tribes such as the Gauls. Convicted criminals could also be enslaved – and perhaps condemned to fight in the games as gladiators. The other main route into slavery was to be born a slave. Any child of a slave mother was automatically classified as a slave, and for many Romans this was the cheapest way of obtaining a new slave – even if it meant feeding an extra mouth with no return for the first few years (Fig. 5.17). Such slaves were known as vernae, and evidence suggests that they often held a higher status in the family than purchased slaves, since they were felt to be easier to manage. Some Romans made a lot of money out of raising vernae and then selling them on – they might spot their talents as young children, then train them up in a specific craft and skill, allowing them to be sold at a considerable profit.

Fig. 5.17 A statue of the 1st century BCE depicting a young slave boy sleeping. He holds an oil lamp in his right hand.

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The Slave Trade Slave markets could be found all over the Roman world; the largest were in big cities such as Rome and Ephesus, although the tiny Greek island of Delos was also famous for its slave market, which could apparently handle 10,000 slaves in one day. However, not all slaves were bought at these large markets – some dealers could set up their own impromptu sales in public places such as a forum, while others might rely equally on private deals. At the slave market, the slaves were displayed on platforms and could be undressed for closer inspection. New arrivals were marked with chalked feet. Slaves wore placards around their necks to advertise their qualities, including their origin, state of health and likelihood of running away. We have comparatively few records of the prices of slaves, but they depended on the age, health and skill level of each individual. The following sales contract, written on papyrus for a female slave in Egypt in 129 CE , illustrates the clinical, transactional treatment of slaves as items of property: Agathos Daemon, the son of Dionysius and Hermione, who resides in the city of Oxyrhynchus, by this document acknowledges to Gaius Julius Germanus, son of Gaius Julius Domitianus, that he accepts as valid the handwritten sales contract which they made concerning the female slave Dioscorous, about twenty-five years old and without distinguishing marks. Julius Germanus took possession of her from Agathos Daemon just as she was. She is nonreturnable, except for epilepsy or external claim. The price was 1200 drachmas of silver which Agathos Daemon received in full from Julius Germanus when the handwritten sales contract was made out. For this amount Julius Germanus paid the sales tax on the aforementioned slave. A warranty on this slave has been given by Agathos Daemon according to all the claims made in the sales contract. Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 95

Similar contracts were found in the archive of Caecilius Iucundus found at Pompeii, which is described on p. 381.

Types of Slave Slave labour was used to do many of the things that machines can be used for today, and so slaves were employed in a wide variety of ways; there were three main types of slave in the Roman world: ●

Domestic slaves lived in the household with the family and performed all the tasks related to it. The wealthiest houses were able to employ individual slaves in roles such as nurses, paedagogi, cooks, gardeners, hairdressers, secretaries and cleaners. However, most households had to make do with their slaves taking on a variety of tasks.

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Industrial slaves were employed in mines, factories, in the galleys and on large farming estates known as latifundia. These slaves often lived and worked in the harshest conditions; slaves on the latifundia would be supervised by an overseer who was probably also a slave, but who might be very harsh on them since he himself would fear demotion or punishment if the farm was not productive enough.

●

Public slaves were owned by the state and performed many roles in a city. Some might work on construction projects of roads or public buildings, while others might be employed to clean public buildings such as temples and baths. Other public slaves had more specific roles, such as maintaining the public aqueducts.

These three types do not cover every type of slave – for example some men were forced to become gladiators, while women might be forced to work as prostitutes for the profit of their masters.

Rights and Treatment In Roman law, slaves were considered to be the property of their owner. They had no legal rights, and any children they had would automatically be regarded as the property of their owners. A newly enslaved individual was stripped of his or her former identity and usually given a new name, often a patronising one such as ‘Epictetus’ (‘extra acquisition’) or ‘Paschousa’ (‘she who suffers’). Even when slaves were involved in law – as witnesses to legal cases – their evidence was only admitted if they had given it under torture, since this was felt to make them more afraid of the law than of their master. However, the way in which a slave was treated depended almost entirely on his or her circumstances. Household slaves who lived with a sympathetic master might hope to have a good relationship with his family, while they were also guaranteed food and a place to live. However, slaves set to work on the latifundia or in the mines usually lived and worked in terrible conditions, nor did they have any personal relationship with their master. In the following passage, a historian describes the conditions of mine slaves in Spain: But to continue with the mines, the slaves who are engaged in the working of them produce for their masters revenues in sums defying belief, but they themselves wear out their bodies both by day and by night in the diggings under the earth, dying in large numbers because of the exceptional hardships they endure. For no respite or pause is granted them in their labours, but, compelled beneath blows of the overseers to endure the severity of their plight, they throw away their lives in this wretched manner . . . indeed, death in their eyes is more to be desired than life, because of the magnitude of the hardships they must bear. Diodorus Siculus, History, 5.38.1

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Such was the awful fate of hundreds of thousands of slaves in the Roman world. This passage is in fact unusual since writers rarely talk about industrial slaves, usually referring instead to the household slaves who are part of their everyday lives. The treatment of domestic slaves varied widely too. Many were victims of repeated domestic abuse – flogging was common, while sources also speak of branding and mutilations such as leg-breaking and eye-gouging; moreover, many would have been sexually assaulted on a regular basis (Fig. 5.18). In fact, physically harming the body was a particularly Roman way of distinguishing slave from free; it was considered disgraceful to attack a free man, but slaves were fair game – as the rhetorician Quintilian put it ‘flogging is disgraceful and fit only for slaves’. It seems that some masters actually took a sadistic pleasure in watching their slaves suffer, as this famous story suggests: Vedius Pollio, a knight of Rome, and a member of the council under the late emperor Augustus, used this creature [the lamprey eel] as a means of proving his cruelty: he threw condemned slaves into tanks of lampreys, not because land beasts were unable to carry out the punishment, but because only with the lamprey could he watch a man being completely torn to pieces as it happened. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 9.39.77

Fig. 5.18 This 3rd-century CE mosaic from Hadrumentum near Carthage shows a scene from a comedy. The smaller figure to the right is a slave who is tied up and pleading with his master, in the centre, not to punish him. A messenger to the left seems to have arrived to stop the punishment.

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In Their Own Words 5.7 1

Read the whole of Seneca’s letter on slavery: Letters, 47. On what basis does he argue for treating slaves with dignity?

2

Read Letters, 3.14 and 8.16 of Pliny the Younger. What can we learn about the varied treatment of slaves from these letters?

At one dinner party, Augustus was a guest of Pollio when a slave broke a crystal glass. Pollio immediately ordered him to be thrown to the lampreys, but the slave fell to Augustus’ knees and begged him to intercede. Augustus was appalled at Pollio’s behaviour, and tried to persuade him to spare the slave, but Pollio refused to renege. The emperor then ordered that all the drinking cups in the house be brought out and smashed in front of him. In this way, Pollio was unable to punish his slave for an offence that Augustus had committed much more extensively. Yet it was not just physical torture that many slaves must have suffered; they must also often have been tortured by fears – for example, a master might threaten to sell a slave’s child on to another owner. Against this depressing picture we can also set examples of good and appreciative relationships between masters and slaves. Cicero had a close and trusting friendship with his secretary Tiro, whom he eventually freed, while Pliny the Younger admits to feeling grief-struck at the death of loyal slaves. Moreover, the philosophy of the stoics taught that all people – slave or free – had a soul and should be treated as fellow human beings. Seneca the Younger endorses this view in the following letter to his friend Lucilius: I was happy to learn from people who had just visited you that you live on friendly terms with your slaves. This is fitting for a man of your good sense and education . . . Some people say: “He is a slave.” But perhaps he is a free man in his soul. “He is a slave.” Will that be held against him? Show me someone who is not a slave: one person is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all of us are slaves to fear. Seneca, Letters, 47.1, 17

Perhaps influenced by these ideas, laws about the treatment of slaves became progressively more humane during the imperial period. Early in the 2nd century CE , the emperor Hadrian passed a series of laws that forbade masters to kill their slaves or to sell them as prostitutes or gladiators, without first going through the courts, while in the late 4th century a law was even passed forbidding owners to separate slave children from their parents. None the less, there are no voices from the ancient world which advocate the abolition of slavery – not even from those who were freedmen or the descendants of them.

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Runaways and Rebellions Masters were always wary of slaves trying to run away. To discourage this, the penalty if caught was harsh. Recaptured runaways might be crucified, burned alive or sent to face wild beasts in the arena. Some masters even had their slaves branded, often on their faces, while others fitted their slaves with metal identification collars, some of which have survived; the inscription on one collar reads as follows: ‘I have run away. Capture me. When you have returned me to my master, Zoninus, you will receive a reward’. In addition, Romans always lived in fear of a slave revolt. At a domestic level, we occasionally hear of slaves who rebel against their master, such as the murder of the ex-praetor Larcius Macedo by some of his slaves. Pliny the Younger tells the story of his murder and the punishment exacted: following Roman law, all the slaves in his household were executed, including those who had had nothing to do with the plot. Macedo was a very cruel master, which may be thought more surprising since he himself was the son of a freedman. A similar story is reported by Tacitus: in 61 CE the city prefect, Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by one of his slaves. His friends demanded that all 400 of his slaves, including women and children, be executed as punishment. The Senate debated the measure and decided to vote for its enforcement. Interestingly, this decision provoked so much unrest in the city that the emperor had to line the streets with soldiers as the slaves were taken to execution. Three large scale slave revolts are also recorded in Roman history, all within 60 years of each other, when the slave population was growing fast: two were in Sicily, in 135–132 BCE , and then again in 104–100 BCE , while the most famous was the revolt led by Spartacus between 73 and 71 BCE (described on pp. 56–57).

2 Roman Freedmen The act of freeing a slave was known as manumission, from the Latin manus (‘hand’) and mittere (‘to send’), so that the word literally meant ‘to send out of one’s hand’ (Fig. 5.19). There were two common ways in which a slave might be legally freed: either the slave and master might appear before a magistrate who would touch the slave with a rod or wand to signal that he was now free, or a master would state in his will that he wished to free some or all of his slaves. We get a fascinating insight into the legal workings of more complicated cases through the separate stories of Lucius Venidius Eunnychus and Petronia Justa in Herculaneum, which are described on pp. 404–405. One of the main purposes of manumission was to offer an incentive to slaves to work hard, in the hope of ending their lives free. During their years of service, some slaves were allowed to earn a small sum of money, the peculium, with which they could eventually buy their freedom from their master. In other cases, masters were more generous and would free their slaves for long service or an outstanding act. Masters who fell in love with slave-girls might free them to marry them (as may have

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Fig. 5.19 A slave being freed, showing his progress from the lowly stoop of a slave to shaking his ex-master’s hand as a freedman.

been the case with Barates and Regina, described on p. 162), while if they had children by a slave-girl, they might free them so as to make them heirs. In a similar vein, a newly freed slave might save up the money to purchase a female slave ‘partner’, so that he could then free her. Other masters had more selfish reasons for manumission. For some, freeing slaves was a way to impress friends, since any man who could afford to free slaves and buy others would appear very affluent. There were also cases of masters who were facing serious court proceedings freeing all their slaves, so preventing them from being tortured and revealing any incriminating evidence. Some heartless masters also freed elderly slaves who were too weak or sick to work anymore – they had no resale value, and so it was cheaper to free them than look after them in old age. Such slaves usually had no means to support themselves and many must have starved to death.

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Rights and Status Upon being freed, a freedman was permitted to wear the pileus, a felt cap symbolising liberty. Freedmen were Roman citizens, but they were not allowed to run for public office or to become members of the senatorial or equestrian classes, even if they made enough money (however, the same was not the case for their descendants, who had the full rights of citizenship). However, in imperial times one public office was established, that of Augustalis, which generally comprised freedmen. There were colleges of Augustales throughout the towns and cities of the empire (there were 21 Augustales in the city of Rome, while provincial cities typically had just 6), and they were connected with preserving the dignity and honour of the emperor. Augustales could display the symbols of a magistrate, including a bordered toga; in return, they were expected to repair buildings, erect statues and pay for public games. They also performed religious duties, and so have sometimes been regarded as priests. Every freedman was still tied to his former master as a client, and required to work for him for a number of days each year. In fact, many freedmen continued to work full time for their former masters – although they were now paid, a master no longer had to provide them with accommodation, clothes and food. Other freedmen went on to work in a variety of fields, such as teaching, construction or slaughtering. A few became highly successful and were amongst the most prominent in their community, such as Gaius Munatius Faustus and Naevoleia Tyche in Pompeii, who are described on pp. 376–377. Such cases were the exception rather than the rule, yet they tended to breed the resentment of some Romans offended by their success and influence; they in turn imagined a time in the past when the city had not been populated by so many people of foreign origin, and longed for it. Such views were famously voiced in a satire of Juvenal, in which Umbricius, a Roman who has become so fed up with city life that he decides to move away, expresses his disgust at the influence of Greek and eastern culture on Rome: “Now let me turn to that race that goes down so sweetly with our millionaires, but remains my special pet aversion, and not mince my words. I cannot, citizens, stomach a Greek Rome. Yet what fraction of these dregs is truly Greek? For years now eastern Orontes [a river in Syria] has discharged into the Tiber its lingo and manners, its flutes, its outlandish harps with their transverse strings, its native tambourines, and the whores pimped out around the racecourse.” Juvenal, Satires, 3.58–65

It is hard to know how common such views were. By the time that Juvenal was writing, it is likely that the overwhelming majority of the citizen population of Rome had some slave ancestors. It was in fact one of the most impressive aspects of Roman society that it was able to give opportunity and hope to so many foreigners (and their descendants) who came to Rome in the lowest social category possible.

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Review and Reflect 5.4 1

To what extent do you think that Roman citizens’ lifestyle and prosperity depended on their slaves?

2

Why do you think slavery has been such an accepted part of life in human history? What aspects of modern society do you think might horrify people in future?

3

Read the “Slavery Today” section at www.anti-slavery.org. How many modern forms of slavery are listed? How do they compare to slavery in ancient Rome?

4

Why do you think that freeing slaves was such a common practice in the Roman world? What benefits might this have brought to Roman society?

Further Reading 5.4 Beard, Mary, SPQR (London: Profile, 2015), chapter 8. Bradley, Keith and Cartledge, Paul, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Joshel, Sandra, Slavery in the Roman World d (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Mouritsen, Henrik, The Freedman in the Roman World d (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Wiedemann, Thomas, Greek and Roman Slavery: A Sourcebook (London: Croom Helm, 1981).

V Death and Funerals Death was far more visibly present in the ancient world than it is in modern western society (Fig. 5.20). In the Roman world, as today, death could come at any time, but there was a much heavier concentration of deaths at certain life stages: in childhood and early adulthood, during childbirth for women, and after the age of 50 (which was considered to be old). Some estimates suggest that about half of children born did not live until their fifth birthday, and so child bereavement would have been the norm for parents. It is worth considering how all this impacted on society – for example, there would have been many more orphans but fewer grandparents, while people would have been much more aware of the shortness of life.

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Fig. 5.20 An allegory of death. Death, represented by the skull, is suspended from the plumb-line of a builder’s level, above a butterfly (symbolising the spirit) and a wheel (symbolising fortune). The arms of the level portray wealth and poverty: on the right, the beggar’s sack, on the left, the royal sceptre and cloth dyed royal purple. The whole image suggests the fragility and unpredictability of life.

Although Romans were therefore much more accustomed to death, this is not to say that they did not feel their grief every bit as keenly as people do today. One famous example of a bereaved parent was Cicero, whose daughter Tullia died in childbirth in 45 BCE , aged in her early thirties. Cicero was transfixed by grief, being unable even to return to his country villa where she grew up because the memories were too painful for him. Instead, he took himself off to another part of the Italian countryside, from where he wrote to his great friend Atticus: In this solitude I go without any conversation, and early every morning I hide myself away in the dense and wild forest, not emerging again until the evening. After you, I have no greater friend than the solitude. In it all my conversation is

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with my books, yet my tears interrupt even that. I resist them as far as I can, but I am not yet equal to the task. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 12.15

Such emotions must have been shared by parents at every level of society, and vast numbers of inscriptions on tombs testify to the grief and love of the bereaved. Cicero himself was in his early 50s when he wrote this, by which time he had seen and experienced many hardships in both his personal and his professional life. Yet the death of his daughter still tears his heart.

1 Funerals The information left to us about funerals mainly refers to those of the elite, and these were certainly grand affairs – even in death, social status and wealth determined how you were treated. However, most funerals were probably much simpler, taking place at night within a day or so of death (the funeral of a child was always held at night and with little ceremony, perhaps so as not to draw attention to a family’s loss). There would probably be a simple procession from the home to a cemetery, where the corpse was cremated or buried. Traditionally, when a Roman was at the point of death, a close relative tried to catch his dying breath with a kiss, and he would then close his eyes and mouth. All present shouted the dead man’s name, and the preparations for the funeral began. The body was washed and anointed to prevent decay, and then dressed in the deceased’s best clothes. A small coin was then placed in the corpse’s mouth; this was thought necessary in order to pay Charon, the ferryman in Graeco-Roman myth who escorted the dead over River Styx in the Underworld. In the case of a rich man, his body would be placed for eight days on a couch in his atrium, feet facing towards the door, and surrounded by flowers, wreaths and candles. During this period, women kept up a lament, beating their breasts and tearing their hair and clothes, while visitors came to pay their respects. Cypress or pine branches were hung outside the house to signify the loss. For the wealthy, the funeral itself would take place on the eighth day after death. Central to the ceremony was the procession either to a public crematorium or to a private burial ground, both of which would be outside the city. As in most ancient societies, it was forbidden to bury or burn corpses inside the city walls to avoid the spread of disease. This meant that tombs and cemeteries tended to develop around the streets just outside the city walls, such as by the Appian Way outside of Rome, and by the ‘Street of the Tombs’ in Pompeii. The procession itself could be a lively affair. Flute and horn players might lead the way playing solemn tunes, to be followed by hired mourning women, who lamented and praised the dead man in song; then might come actors and jokers, including one called the archimimus, who represented the character of the deceased, and imitated his words and actions. Next walked any slaves whom the dead man had liberated,

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Funeral Clubs Romans felt that it was very important to have a proper burial, inheriting the Greek belief that, if a body was not disposed of properly, then its soul would not be able to pass into the Underworld and so would never find rest. For this reason, many poorer Romans joined a ‘funeral club’ – a sort of funeral insurance policy. Members of these clubs paid a joining fee and then a monthly membership subscription. When they died, the club paid their funeral expenses and fellow members attended their funerals. The clubs also served a social purpose for the living, since they held monthly meals, where poorer people could make friends and connections. However, the very poorest citizens and most slaves could not afford membership of these clubs; upon death, their corpses would normally have been removed from the city and placed in unmarked communal graves.

In Their Own Words 5.8 Read Polybius’ account of a typical funeral of a famous man at Histories, 6.53–54. How does such an occasion compare to a state funeral today?

wearing their caps of freedom, followed by the corpse on an open coffin, usually carried on the shoulders of his slaves or freedmen. The dead man’s relatives walked behind the corpse in mourning; sons with their heads veiled, daughters with their heads bare and their hair dishevelled. These relatives carried or wore masks representing the ancestors of the family; these were to symbolise the ancestors honouring the deceased and welcoming him into company of the dead. A particularly prominent man might have a public funeral, in which case his body would be carried in procession via the forum, where his son (or another close relative) would deliver a speech recording his achievements and praising his character. In republican times, such honours were limited to men, but from early imperial times distinguished women could also be given extravagant public funerals. The procession then headed outside the city to the burial ground. In early Roman times burial was common, but by imperial times most people were cremated; the corpse was placed on a funeral pyre and the nearest relative opened and closed the eyes for the final time and kissed the forehead. He then lit the pyre and allowed it to burn. Once the fire had died down, the ashes were gathered in an urn and placed in the family tomb.

Tombs A wealthy family could afford a large and showy tomb – in the areas outside Pompeii there were a whole range of styles, from altars to semi-circular seats and benches,

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Fig. 5.21 These elaborate tombs were set up in the necropolis outside the Nucerian Gate in Pompeii.

and sometimes even walled enclosures (Fig. 5.21). These would house the funerary urns of every member of the family, perhaps including freedmen or even slaves to whom a surviving paterfamilias was well-disposed. Many other families would just do with a gravestone, as today, on which a short epitaph was often left. In fact, as we have seen, epitaphs are a vital source of evidence for life in the Roman world – of the 750,000 inscriptions recorded in Latin, about three quarters are epitaphs. Many of these offer a window into individual lives, such as the following dedication by a widower to his wife found at Rome and dated to the late 2nd century BCE : Stranger, what I have to say is short: stand near and read it through. This is the tomb, not beautiful, but of a beautiful woman. Her parents gave her the name Claudia. She loved her husband with all her heart. She bore two sons – one she leaves on earth, the other she has placed beneath the earth. Her speech was charming, but she conducted herself properly. She preserved her house, she spun wool. I have said my piece. Go now! CIL I.2.1211

The widower here emphasises his wife’s goodness and duty – and seems a little apologetic that he cannot afford a grander tomb. Such epitaphs were normally left by close relatives; however, in the following example, a master pays tribute to a loyal freedman:

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To the spirits of the departed of Marcus Canuleius Zosimus who lived twentyeight years. His patron erected this for his well-deserving freedman. During his life he spoke ill of no one; he did nothing without his patron’s consent. He always had much gold and silver in his trust, but he never desired any of it. At his craft, engraving silver plate, he was the best in the business. CIL VI.9.222

Once again, the honest and dutiful character of the deceased shines through, and it is notable that a patron should have developed such respect and fondness for his freedman.

2 Commemoration After burial or cremation, a dead person’s spirit was believed to go down to the Underworld where it joined the other spirits of the dead, who were known collectively as the Manes (literally: ‘the good’); the spirit was also now worshipped as a member of the family’s Lares, and in wealthy families a bust of the deceased would be made and displayed in the house. Eight days after death, the house was purified and a sacrifice made to the Lares; men were now expected to stop their mourning (hence perhaps Cicero’s sense of shame that he cannot stop crying a month after Tullia’s death), while women were allowed to be in mourning for the period of a year. However, even after this, the family still had a responsibility to attend to their dead. Romans believed that the Manes needed ‘nourishing’ in their graves, so that a meal was often buried alongside a corpse. Furthermore, a son was expected to leave a meal at the tomb of his dead father or mother on the anniversary of death, while wine might also be poured into the earth nearby. If the Manes were not fed like this then, according to ancient belief, they might waste away into nothingness or start plaguing the living. The poet Ovid relates a legend that the early Romans had once been so busy fighting a war that they had neglected the Manes, with disastrous consequences: It did not go unpunished: they say from that ominous day Rome grew hot from funeral fires near the City. I scarcely believe it, but they say that ancestral spirits Came moaning from their tombs in the still of night, And misshapen spirits, a bodiless crowd, howled Through the City streets, and through the broad fields. Afterwards neglected honour was paid to the tombs, And there was an end to the portents, and the funerals. Ovid, Fasti, 2.549–556

Ovid is an educated poet writing of the ancient past, and he even says that he can hardly believe the story; but for many less educated Romans, a superstitious belief in the power of the Manes must surely have been a reality. Honouring one’s ancestors was fundamental to the Roman way of life.

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Festivals of the Dead There were two public festivals in the Roman calendar concerned with appeasing the dead: the Parentalia, where Romans attended to their ancestors, and the Lemuria, a private rite held in each household to appease restless spirits. The Parentalia lasted from 13th to 21st February, during which time temples were closed and no marriages took place. The first eight days were given over to private remembrance, and families would head out to their ancestors’ tombs, where they might decorate the graves with garlands of flowers and leave food and drink offerings such as wheat, salt, wine and milk. On the 21st, there was a public festival of remembrance, while the following day families gathered for a banquet in their homes. This was traditionally the time for family quarrels to be resolved, just as the family was making peace with its dead during the festival. The focus of the Lemuria was different – it was a festival to appease restless spirits, who were collectively known as the lemures. According to legend, it was instituted by Romulus to appease the spirit of Remus, the brother he had murdered. It was therefore a festival to appease all spirits who had a grievance, whether from their lives or because they had not been treated properly in death. It was celebrated in silence, in the home, on three alternate nights – the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. As with the Parentalia, temples were closed and no marriages were held during this period. Each householder had to carry out a private ritual to persuade any spirits not to haunt the household. Ovid gives an account of this strange ritual: He who remembers ancient rites, and fears the gods, Rises (no fetters binding his two feet) And makes the sign with thumb and closed fingers, Lest an insubstantial shade meets him in the silence. After cleansing his hands in spring water, He turns and first taking some black beans, Throws them with averted face: saying, while throwing: ‘With these beans I throw I redeem me and mine.’ He says this nine times without looking back: the shade Is thought to gather the beans, and follow behind, unseen. Again he touches water, and sounds the Temesan bronze, And asks the spirit to leave his house. When nine times he’s cried: ‘Ancestral spirit, depart,’ He looks back, and believes the sacred rite’s fulfilled. Ovid, Fasti, 5.429–444

Again, it is hard to know if educated Romans really carried out this ritual or, if they did, whether they took it at all seriously. However, for the superstitious majority, the warding off of restless spirits must have been deadly serious – just as it still is in many cultures of the world today.

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Review and Reflect 5.5 1

How do you think that the greater regularity of death would have made Roman society different from modern society?

2

Why do you think the Romans placed so much importance on having a proper burial?

3

What similarities and what differences can you find between Roman ceremonies for the dead and those of other societies, ancient or modern?

Further Reading 5.5 Carroll, Maureen, Spirits of the Dead: Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Hope, Valerie, Death in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2007). Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Toynbee, Jocelyn, Death and Burial in the Roman World d (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971).

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hariot racing, gladiatorial shows, plays and baths – these activities are synonymous with the Roman world. One only has to travel through central Rome today to see the prominent position given to venues of entertainment and leisure such as the theatre, the baths, the circus (horse racing track) and the amphitheatre in the ancient city. Together, they reveal a wide spectrum of Roman life, both public and private, for all its good and for all its evil.

The Politics of Entertainment and Leisure The providing of entertainment and leisure facilities in Rome was closely tied to politics. In the republican period, ambitious politicians, usually those campaigning for the aedileship or praetorship, vied with each other to promise ever more spectacular shows, often at public festivals. The magistrate in charge of a show, known as the editor (‘presenter’), was expected to spend a vast amount from his own fortune. At the same time, the venues of these spectacles offered an important space for the people to make their views heard: in a speech in defence of Publius Sestius in 56 BCE , Cicero claims that the three places where the people could make their will known were ‘in public meetings, in the popular voting assemblies, and at the gatherings of the games and of gladiatorial shows’. With the advent of the Principate, the dynamic changed. After Tiberius deprived the people of the right to elect magistrates in the early 1st century CE , the venues of entertainment – the theatre, the amphitheatre and the circus – now offered the masses their main opportunity to make their voices heard. None the less, the relationship between the people and the editor of the shows (now the emperor or his representative) was fundamentally different. The provision of elaborate games was no longer about wooing the electorate, but about keeping the masses entertained, which thereby 289

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helped to prevent civil unrest and to maintain the popularity of the emperor. These venues now provided an emperor with a valuable platform to appear in public: when he attended a spectacle, he could be seen to take his place among his people and to engage with them. Writing in the early 2nd century CE , the satirist Juvenal bemoaned the effect of this change on the political consciousness of the Roman people: There was a time when the people bestowed every honour – the governance of provinces, civic leadership, military command – but now they hold themselves back, now two things only do they anxiously desire: bread [i.e. the corn dole] and circuses. Juvenal, Satires, 10.77–81

Juvenal’s insight was closely echoed a generation or so later by the orator Fronto, who credited the emperor Trajan with showing ‘a supreme understanding of political wisdom’ by providing free grain and shows for the people. It is therefore perhaps no surprise that these spectacles exploded in popularity during the Principate. Augustus himself took the gladiatorial shows to a scale never seen before, boasting in his Res Gestae that he put on eight, with each perhaps costing as much as 720,000 sesterces. Later emperors staged even more spectacular ‘one-off’ shows. In 80 CE , Titus held the opening shows of the Colosseum for 100 days, and in 108 Trajan celebrated his victories in Dacia with shows of 123 days, during which

Infamia Those who performed in public spectacles – actors, charioteers and gladiators – were regarded as being of the lowest social standing above slaves (if they were not slaves already). They had the legal status of being infamis (pl: infames), from which we derive the word ‘infamous’. Infamia, which literally means ‘of bad reputation’, was a legal status whereby the infames were denied the full rights of Roman citizenship: they could be killed with impunity if caught committing adultery, they could be publicly beaten (a practice normally reserved for slaves), and their descendants were banned from marrying into the senatorial class for four generations. Other groups deemed infames included pimps, prostitutes and dancers. In all cases, these people aimed to give pleasure by providing a spectacle through the work of the body. There was a firm social and legal distinction between the viewer, the Roman citizen who enjoyed the spectacle, and the viewed, who was deemed disgraceful and infamis. It was for this reason that aristocratic Romans were so appalled if their emperors took an undue liking to the games and shows. A focal point of the criticisms against Nero was that he enjoyed acting and charioteering, while over a century later Commodus is said to have fought in the gladiatorial arena. By behaving in this way, these emperors were overturning the entire Roman social order.

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In Their Own Words 6.1 1

Read about the games Julius Caesar held as aedile in 65 BCE in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 33.53, Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 10 and Plutarch, Caesar, 5.9. Then compare these games with Cicero’s account of Pompey’s opening games for his Theatre in 55 BCE in Letters to his Friends, 7.1.

2

Read Res Gestae, 22–23. How many different spectacles does Augustus claim to have funded?

3

Read about Tiberius’ reaction to the protests of theatre goers in Tacitus, Annals, 6.13. Then compare it to Caligula’s reaction to the protests of the crowd at the circus in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 19.24–27.

4

Read the accounts of Nero competing as a charioteer and musician in Tacitus, Annals, 14–15, and Suetonius, Nero, 21–25; and of Commodus competing as a gladiator in Dio Cassius, 73.16–17.

10,000 gladiators and 11,000 animals were apparently used. Augustus had also limited the praetors to holding two gladiatorial shows per year, to using a maximum of 120 gladiators, and to spending no more than 100,000 sesterces each time. This ensured that it was the emperor who was primarily associated with the shows. At a local and provincial level, officials were still elected and the staging of spectacles remained a way for local grandees to win popularity with the electorate. The best evidence for this comes from Pompeii (see p. 369), where records reveal a number of political candidates fulfilling election promises by staging shows in the city’s amphitheatre. However, since such officials were representatives of the regime in Rome, by extension they were still promoting the emperor and his regime. Of the four topics covered in this chapter – chariot racing, gladiatorial shows, plays and baths – the baths stand slightly apart, since they did not involve crowds coming to watch a spectacle. None the less, they too became synonymous with political patronage in the imperial period: they grew enormously in popularity from the time of Augustus onwards, and were publicly subsidised for the masses. Moreover, a number of emperors had bath complexes of extraordinary scale and luxury built for the people of Rome, as a means to win support and to promote their imperial ideology.

I Chariot Racing Chariot racing had long been popular in the Mediterranean world. It is recorded on pottery fragments from Bronze Age Greece in the second millennium BCE , and it was

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one of the earliest events in the ancient Olympic Games in the 7th century BCE . In Italy, there are records of it taking place amongst the Etruscans in the 5th century BCE and amongst the Lucanians of southern Italy in the 4th century BCE . Moreover, we have seen on p. 9 that chariot racing features in the legendary tradition of early Rome, since Romulus is said to have chosen a chariot racing event for the stealing of the Sabine women.

1 The Circus Maximus A venue for chariot racing was known as a circus (a word linked to ‘circuit’ and ‘circle’), and the Romans therefore called their chariot racing games the ludi circenses (‘circus games’). The largest circus in the Roman world was the Circus Maximus (‘The Greatest Circus’) in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills near the centre of Rome (Fig. 6.1 and 6.2). In the city’s early days, people had marked out the natural lie of the land as a chariot racing circuit, with spectators sitting on the surrounding slopes. As the centuries passed, the Circus Maximus developed into the largest sporting venue in recorded history. It was often badly damaged by fire, but on each occasion

Fig. 6.1 A reconstruction of the Circus Maximus.

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Rome’s leaders simply took the opportunity to enlarge and modernise it. In 46 BCE , Julius Caesar had it upgraded extensively, developing the seating area (cavea) to give a capacity of 150,000. In the following century, it had grown further to a capacity of about 250,000 – about twice the size of the largest sports venues in the world today (later, a 4th century source even claimed that the capacity had reached 385,000, but this was surely an exaggeration). The Circus Maximus was 600 metres in length and 118 metres across. Down the middle of the sandy track was a narrow dividing embankment, which the Romans called the spina (‘backbone’). At either end of the spina was a turning point (meta), marked by a post originally made of wood; however, early in the 1st century CE the emperor Claudius had each post replaced with three posts of gilded bronze. Along the spina between the metae at either end were various monuments and symbols of the gods: for example, the emperor Augustus set up an obelisk from the time of Rameses II (13th century BCE ) to mark his conquest of Egypt, while there were also statues of gods such as Neptune, the god of horses, as well as seven large wooden eggs (ova), which were lowered to indicate how many of the seven laps of a race had been completed (in imperial times, seven bronze dolphins were also added to do the same job). However, one drawback of such monuments was that they eventually became so numerous that spectators on the lower seats could not see the action on the other side of the track. Another important feature of the Circus Maximus were the starting cages, known as carceres (‘prisons’), which were similar to starting gates used in horse racing

Fig. 6.2 The outline of the Circus Maximus and its spina can still be seen in Rome today.

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today. They were originally built in wood, but were refashioned first in stone in 46 BCE and then, a few decades later under the emperor Claudius, in marble. They were constructed at the curved end of the track to allow a staggered start for chariots (since some cages had a more advantageous starting position than others). There were twelve cages, each one with a spring-loaded starting gate; when the signal was given to start the race, all were released at the same time and the chariots flew out. On the other three sides seating wrapped around the track and consisted of three tiers. The lowest was made of marble and reserved for VIPs: state priests (including the Vestal Virgins), senators and equestrians. The next tier, of stone, was available for anyone – unlike at the amphitheatre, there seems to have been little segregation at the circus, which meant that men, women and children from different sections of society might all sit together; the top tier may have been standing room only. The final aspect of the seating area was the royal box, or pulvinar, which was located on the top tier of the Palatine side of the hippodrome, from where the emperor could be seen by all the spectators (Fig. 6.3). The pulvinar also contained a shrine to the gods. The Circus Maximus was designed with numerous stairways and exits, so that the whole crowd could come and go quickly and safely. Outside the venue, the arches underneath the seating area played host to numerous shops and taverns. According to the sources, this area was frequented by a lively range of people, including cooks, astrologers and prostitutes.

Elephants on the Loose The Circus Maximus could also play host to events that eventually became more common in the amphitheatre. In particular, wild beast shows were often put on until 64 CE , when a moat surrounding the track was filled in as part of the venue’s redesign after the great fire of Rome. This moat had been constructed in 46 BCE , nine years after Pompey had put on a near-disastrous wild beast show, which is a good example of how a politician’s reputation could be damaged if his show went wrong. Pompey sent in armed captives from Gaetulia in North Africa to fight against twenty elephants. The spectacle started well, but then the elephants tried to break out and the iron fence surrounding the track buckled in various places from the impact of the charging beasts, causing terror and chaos in the crowd. What happened next is also instructive. After some time, according to Pliny the Elder, the elephants ‘lost hope of escaping’ and tried to win the sympathy of the crowd by trumpeting loudly as if lamenting. The people did indeed feel pity for the beasts, and cursed Pompey for the show. This story strikes to the heart of the munera: for the show to work, animals or human beings needed to be seen to be deserving of death. Spectators were not supposed to feel pity for them, and so when this happened the spectacle collapsed.

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Fig. 6.3 Spectators watch a race from the pulvinar.

2 Preparing for the Games As with professional sport today, a huge amount of time and money was invested in preparing the horses and charioteers for the races. There were only four teams (known as factiones) who competed in the ludi circenses at Rome – the Reds and the Whites are the earliest recorded factiones, soon to be followed by the Blues and the Greens (the emperor Domitian unsuccessfully tried to introduce two new teams, Gold and Purple). Since as many as twelve chariots could compete in a race, each team might field up to three chariots. There is therefore a natural comparison with Formula One or IndyCar races today, where teams often put out two cars or more, whose drivers might at times help one another. Each team was overseen by an owner. He supervised his team’s set of stables and employed a wide variety of staff, such as stable-boys, trainers, veterinary surgeons, grooms, guards, saddlers, dressers and waterers. His most important employees, however, were without doubt the charioteers (agitatores or aurigae). They could switch teams and owners often paid exorbitant prices to sign up the very best.

The Charioteers Charioteers were of low-born origin – either freedmen or slaves who might be able to pay for their freedom after a few victories. However, as with famous sports stars today, a good charioteer would be able to win great wealth and fame – the prize

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money for one race could be as much as 60,000 sesterces, and the satirist Juvenal complained that ‘a hundred lawyers make only as much as Lacerta of the Reds’. Against this, it should be remembered that chariot racing was a dangerous sport and these men risked their lives every time they entered a race. Moreover, unlike lawyers, charioteers remained infames and so of very low social status. Perhaps the most famous and successful charioteer in Roman history was Diocles from Lusitania (modern Portugal), who first competed in 122 CE. By the end of his 24year career, he had recorded 1,462 wins in 4,257 races. He died at the age of 42, having amassed prize-money of more than 35 million sesterces. Others did not live so long: the brilliant Scorpus died during a race at the age of 26 having won 2,048 victories. Martial wrote him a poetic farewell, something normally reserved for emperors and generals: Let sad Victory break the palms of Idumaea. Favour, beat your breast with merciless hand. Let Honour put on mourning. Grieving Glory, cast your crowned locks on the unkind flames. Ah villainy! Scorpus, cheated of your first youth, you die. So soon you yoke the black horses of death. The goal, always quickly gained by your speedy chariot – your life’s goal too, why was it so close? Martial, Epigrams, 10.50

Elsewhere, Martial relates that gilded busts of Scorpus could be found all over the city of Rome; this rings true, since many images of charioteers have been found on the walls of streets and buildings of excavated cities such as Pompeii and Ostia. Another indication of the popularity of these men comes from a comment made by Suetonius, who says that, before the reign of Nero, charioteers had long been able to get away with ‘cheating and robbing the public for fun’.

The Horses Great care was taken over breeding horses, just as it is in the horse-racing industry today. The animals (usually stallions) were purchased from stud farms all over the

Incitatus If Suetonius is to be believed, Nero wasn’t the only emperor to have an unhealthy passion for the races. One of the slurs made against Caligula, according to the biographer, was that he was a fanatical supporter of the Greens and obsessed with a horse called Incitatus (‘Spurred on’). He is said to have given the horse gifts, such as a marble stall, purple blankets, a collar of diamonds and a troupe of slaves. On the night before the races, he is even reported to have sent out soldiers into the streets near Incitatus’ stables to enforce silence so that the animal’s sleep wouldn’t be disturbed. Suetonius even reports claims that the emperor wanted to ‘award him the consulship’; however, this may simply have been Caligula’s way of insulting the political classes – suggesting that even a horse could do the job better than they could.

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empire, and especially from North Africa and Spain. Horses would start their training at the age of three and be ready to race at five, when they would be transported to Rome on special ships. Supporters kept statistics of the names, breeds, pedigrees and victories of famous horses, and the most successful ones were known throughout the empire – Martial complains that, even though he is well-known as a poet throughout the Roman world, he is less famous than Andraemon, one of Scorpus’ horses. The popularity of horses can be seen today from the many inscriptions surviving on pottery and mosaics; for example, one describes a horse called Victor, which won 429 times, while another records the 386 victories of a horse named Tuscus.

3 A Day at the Races Once the crowds had packed into the venue, the day would begin with an entry parade (pompa) led by the editor of the games. Behind him would come the charioteers and horses, as well as musicians and soldiers, who carried images of the gods and goddesses believed to be present at the races. These images were carried to the shrine in the pulvinar. The races would follow. Each one consisted of seven laps of the track anticlockwise (a distance of about 6.5 kilometres, or 4 miles), and in imperial times there were normally twenty-four races in a day, with each race lasting for about ten to fifteen minutes (Fig. 6.4). Four-horse chariots (quadrigae) were the most common type, but there were also races of two-horse chariots (bigae); occasionally we hear of chariots being drawn by teams of six, eight or even ten horses. As the race approached, the charioteers drew lots for their position in the carceres; once the horses were ready, the editor prepared to give the starting signal. He did this by dropping a white cloth, at which point the gates sprung open. Once the race had begun, tactics were all important. Charioteers would wear a tunic, colour-coded according to their team, and a leather helmet, while they would also carry a whip. They wrapped the reins around their bodies, steering by transferring their body weight from one side to another. If they crashed, they were in real danger of being dragged along by the reins and so they carried a knife with them to cut themselves free. The horses of a four-horsed chariot were also arranged carefully; the two in the middle would be yoked together, but the outside two would simply be joined by a rope to give them more flexibility. The most important horse of the team (and the source of most inscriptions) was the one on the left-hand side, since it acted as the pivot when the horses rounded the metae. A charioteer would not necessarily want to start at break-neck speed, since he needed to pace his horses for the race ahead. While he had to keep an eye on the other chariots at all times, the most difficult bit of the course was rounding the metae; on the one hand, he would not want to go too wide, since this might let in rivals; on the other hand, if he went too close, he risked crashing or being barged into the spina by a team outside him. Most accidents (known as naufragia, or ‘shipwrecks’) happened around the metae.

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Fig. 6.4 This early 3rd-century mosaic was found in Carthage and depicts a chariot race taking place in the circus there. The four chariots represent the four factiones.

Injuries If they survived a crash, charioteers might suffer appalling injuries. In the following passage, Pliny the Elder describes a treatment for injured drivers: Sprains and injuries caused by a blow they treat with the dung of wild boars, collected in the spring and dried. The same remedy is applied to charioteers who have been dragged or injured by a wheel, or severely bruised in any other way; in an emergency it can be used fresh. Some think that it is more effective if it is boiled in vinegar. They say too that powdered and taken with a drink it is a good cure for fractures and strained muscles, while for those injured in a crash it is better taken in vinegar . . . If you cannot get wild boar’s dung, the next best is that of the domestic pig. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 28.237 Horses were just as prone to injury during the races. Sources speak of concussions and broken bones, blows to the eye from an opponent’s whip, tongues cut from snapping on the bit too hard, as well as wounds from flying chariot wheels.

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Fig. 6.5 A mosaic of the 3rd century CE depicting a winning charioteer from the blue team.

When the race was over, the editor presented the winning charioteer with a palm branch, with the payments to him and his team made at the end of the day (Fig. 6.5).

The Supporters Supporters of chariot racing in the Roman world were every bit as fanatical as the most ardent sports fans today. Dio Chrysostom, addressing the people of Alexandria in the early 2nd century CE , makes the following comments about their behaviour at the ludi circenses: [Spectators are] constantly leaping and raving and beating one another and using abominable language and often reviling even the gods themselves and flinging away their own belongings and sometimes departing naked from the show. Orationes, 32.89

As today, many fans wore clothing in the colour of their team and there were surely many arguments between rival supporters. A further cause of the supporters’ intense passion was the massive betting that took place, meaning that the result mattered to many much more than the quality of the spectacle. Indeed, some fans would do anything they could to try to help their team – even to the extent of putting curses on opposing charioteers. Various curse tablets have been found, including this one:

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I call upon you, o demon, whoever you are, and I ask that from this hour, from this day, from this moment, you torture and kill the horses of the Green and the White factions, and that you kill and crush completely the drivers Clarus, Felix, Primulus, and Romanus, and that you leave not a breath in their bodies. ILS, 8753

On one occasion it became a matter of life and death for a fan too. Pliny the Elder records that at the funeral of a Red charioteer a supporter was so devastated that he ‘threw himself onto the funeral pyre’.

In Their Own Words 6.2 1

Read Pliny the Younger, Letters, 9.6. What complaints does he make about spectators at the games? How justified do you think his complaints might have been?

2

Read Ovid’s Amores, 3.2 and Ars Amatoria, 1.135–162, in which the poet suggests that the Circus Maximus was a good place for a young man to flirt with a woman. What might we learn about the ludi circenses from these extracts?

Review and Reflect 6.1 1

In what ways can Roman chariot racing be compared with modern sporting events?

2

Why do you think that the Roman chariot races inspired such a fanatical following?

3

How does the Circus Maximus compare to modern sporting venues?

Further Reading 6.1 Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Futrell, Alison, The Roman Games: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Kyle, Donald, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World d (Chichester: WileyBlackwell, 2015), chapters 13,16. Meijer, Fik, Chariot Racing in the Roman Empire (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 337–345.

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II Gladiatorial Shows It is not clear exactly where gladiatorial combat originated; some sources suggest that it was with the Etruscans, while others believe that it emerged in Campania. In either case, it seems that it was once customary to honour a dead nobleman with two of his slaves fighting to the death at his funeral. In Rome, the first recorded gladiatorial shows took place in 264 BCE , when a certain Junius Brutus had three pairs of gladiators fight to the death in Rome’s Forum Boarium in honour of his dead father. This was described as a munus (pl: munera): a ‘duty’ of remembrance owed to a dead man by his relatives (the word munus is linked to ‘remunerate’). Long after the gladiatorial shows ceased to be associated with funerals, the word munera was still used to describe them. The munera grew in popularity during the 3rd century while the Romans were engaged in their conflicts with the Carthaginians. Holding shows, at funerals or otherwise, enabled elite Romans to show some control over death and to call on divine support at a time of great public anxiety. By the early 2nd century, Rome’s growing empire brought more competition amongst the elite to take credit for victories, and hosting munera became a way to do this. For example, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior celebrated his victory over the Aetolians in 187 BCE with a triumph and ten days of games, which included the first wild beast hunt on record in Rome. Unlike the ludi circenses, the munera were not given any state funding and so a politician had to meet the entire expense for them out of private funds. This did not stop some ambitious politicians from reaching for the stars. In 65 BCE , Julius Caesar as aedile promised the people the greatest shows yet ‒ he provided 320 gladiators and wanted to have more; however, the Senate, scared of his growing popularity, passed a law saying that a citizen could keep no more than 320 gladiators in Rome. When trying to reconstruct the gladiatorial shows, the sources leave us with more questions than answers. Historians must try to put together a variety of forms of evidence, such as images from mosaics and paintings, statuettes, literary references, and weapons and armour that have been preserved (about 80% of which comes from Pompeii), and these can be contradictory or confusing in what they tell us. For example, the gladiatorial helmets found at Pompeii seem too heavy to have been used effectively in a fight (on average, they are about twice as heavy as a legionary soldier’s helmet). It may be that they were meant for display rather than practical use. We must therefore be aware that it is impossible to give a completely clear account of the gladiatorial shows, especially since they were held in so many different locations over about seven centuries.

1 Gladiators Gladiators were drawn from three main sources: prisoners of war (this source was especially common during republican and early imperial times); slaves who had

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committed specific crimes, such as running away; and convicted criminals. In addition, in imperial times there are a few examples of free men volunteering to sign up. They were known as auctorati, presumably men who were down on their luck and desperate for a livelihood; although they became infames, the gladiator schools offered them food and lodging and payment. A gladiator school was known as a ludus gladiatorius. After the revolt of Spartacus in 73 BCE (he originally broke out of a gladiator training school in Capua – see pp. 56–57), legislation was introduced specifying the location, organisation and ownership of the larger gladiator schools. By imperial times, Rome had four schools, all of which were owned by the state and run by agents of the emperor. Elsewhere, a school was run by a trainer known as a lanista (a word linked to the verb lanio, ‘I tear to pieces’, so that lanista describes someone who ‘incites violence’). He would hire out his fighters to a magistrate wishing to fund a gladiatorial show as its editor. Lanistae had the power of life and death over their charges; according to one source, all new trainees had to swear an oath ‘to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword’. The gladiator barracks that have been excavated in Pompeii (see p. 370) could have housed about 100 men; included in the complex was a punishment cell whose low ceiling would have made it impossible for a man to stand up. Training was intensely tough; the men would spend hours practising fighting drills with blunted wooden swords, while they would also be taught how to show nobility at the moment of death. However, since the gladiators were an expensive commodity for their lanista, they needed to be looked after well. They had access to high quality medical care, received regular massage, and were fed on a high-energy diet of foods such as barley, beans, oatmeal, fruit and ash (which was believed to strengthen the body). Gladiators were probably plumper than modern athletes, as extra layers of fat gave them more protection from the slashes of a sword. The gladiators in a ludus knew that they might fight against one another in the munera, since fighters were typically hired from one school. This put them in the position of living, and perhaps forming friendships, with people whom they might be required to kill (or who might kill them). However, close bonds could still be formed, and the group of gladiators in a ludus were even known as a familia (‘family’ or ‘household’ – see p. 229). There are even some examples of epitaphs set up for a fallen gladiator by his former comrades, such as these: The familia set this up in memory of Saturnilos. Robert, 241 For Hermes. Paitraeites with his cell-mates set this up in memory. Robert, 109

Types of Gladiator During the republican period, the names of many types of gladiator – such as Thracian, Gaul, Samnite and hoplomachus – were ethnic, indicating peoples whom

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Fig. 6.6 This 3rd-century CE mosaic found in a villa near Trier shows a lightly armed and heavily armed gladiator fight it out under the watchful gaze of a referee.

the Romans had conquered in war (although the gladiators themselves need not have come from these parts of the world). However, in imperial times, when these peoples had been integrated into the Roman empire, such gladiators were often renamed. The updated names tended to be theatrical and indicate the dress or style of the gladiator. For example, the emperor Augustus passed a decree that the Samnite should be rebranded as a secutor (‘chaser’), since by his time the Samnites of southern Italy were loyal members of the Roman empire. Soon afterwards, the gladiator known as a Gaul was renamed a murmillo (‘fish man’). The name ‘gladiator’ comes from the Latin gladius, meaning a ‘short sword’. However, gladiators did not all use the same equipment: there were various types who were distinguished by their armour, weapons and fighting style (Fig. 6.6). The crowds loved to see different fighters pitted against one another, each one using his distinct skills and weapons. Once again, it is hard to know with any certainty much about the different types of fighters, but they can generally be divided into one of two categories: heavily armed and therefore hard to wound, or lightly armed and nimble. From the evidence available, these are some of the most common types of gladiator:

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Murmillo: A gladiator who was heavily armed rather like a Roman legionary soldier. He had a fish-crested helmet (murmillo is derived from a Greek word for a fish), short greaves, the curved rectangular shield of a Roman legionary, and also the legionary’s gladius.

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Hoplomachus: A heavily armed fighter who was armed like a Greek hoplite – with heavy armour and helmet, carrying a round shield. He was often pitted against a murmillo in a re-enaction of Rome’s wars against the Greeks.

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Secutor: A relatively lightly armed fighter who had a distinctive helmet with only two small eyeholes, so that his face would be protected from a trident thrust – his most common opponent was the retiarius (see below). He also had a greave on his left leg, an arm protector, a legionary-style shield and a gladius.

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Thracian: A lightly armed fighter who wore a crested helmet with a visor, armoured greaves on both legs, a protector on his sword arm and shoulder, a small shield and a curved short sword designed to slash the opponent’s flesh.

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Retiarius: The name meant ‘net-fighter’, and the retiarius was armed with a large net, a trident, an arm guard, a shoulder guard and a dagger. He was the lightest armed of the gladiators, and the only one whose head and face were uncovered. He was therefore more mobile than most but also more vulnerable to serious wounds. He had to avoid fighting at close quarters, trying instead to wait for the opportunity to cast his net and then thrust his trident.

The Gladiators’ Perspective There are only a very few occasions when the sources give a gladiators’ perspective, no doubt because for the shows to work the gladiators needed to be seen as undeserving of empathy. However, one instance comes when Plutarch mentions the behaviour of gladiators at a ‘last supper’ that was held for them the night before a show. He is impressed that, rather than eating all they can, some of the Greek gladiators take the time to ensure that their friends look after their wives after they have gone. In another example, the stoic Seneca is full of admiration for a gladiator who resolves to leave behind such a humiliating life on his own terms: There was lately in a ludus for bestiarii a German, who was preparing for the morning exhibition; he withdrew in order to go to the toilet – the only thing he was allowed to do in secret and without the presence of a guard. While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, which was used for the vilest purposes [i.e. to wipe the bottom], and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus he blocked up his windpipe and choked the breath from his body. Seneca, Letters, 70: 20–27

In the same letter, Seneca speaks of another fighter who, while being transported on a cart to the amphitheatre, allowed his neck to get caught in the spokes as it was

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moving, so ending his life. We cannot know how many such tales went unreported, nor how representative they are of the gladiators’ experience in general. Yet despair must have been a common emotion for many.

2 The Amphitheatre The early gladiator fights were staged in public places such as the forum or a circus. However, in the 1st century BCE , a new type of venue was introduced specifically to hold munera – the amphitheatre. The oldest amphitheatre discovered in the Roman world is that of Pompeii (described on p. 368), which was constructed in the 70s BCE . In Rome, the first permanent amphitheatre was built in 29 BCE . Eventually, there were well over 200 amphitheatres in the Roman empire, and they became a symbol of the Romanisation of the provinces. The name ‘amphitheatre’ originated from the fact the edifice was a doubled-up version of a semi-circular theatre (amphi meant ‘both’, so that ‘amphitheatre’ just means ‘a theatre on both sides’). In fact, in one exceptional case in 53 BCE , a candidate for tribune called Curio the Younger did exactly this. Wishing to put on theatrical entertainment followed by munera and to hold both events in one place, he ordered that not one but two wooden theatres should be set up back to back, with each one mounted on a swivel. In the morning, plays were put on separately, but in the afternoon each theatre was rolled round to create one amphitheatre.

The Colosseum The most famous Roman amphitheatre was of course the Colosseum (Fig. 6.7). It was constructed during the 70s CE on the orders of the emperor Vespasian, although he was to die a few months before its opening in the spring of 80. In fact, the Romans never referred to it as the Colosseum, but as the Amphitheatrum Flavium (‘Flavian Amphitheatre’) since Flavius was Vespasian’s family name. The word ‘Colosseum’ is most likely derived from the ‘colossal’ bronze statue of Nero that stood nearby and had been renamed after the sun god by Vespasian. The statue remained standing until well into the middle ages; by the time it finally fell, the name ‘colossus’ was also being used to describe the amphitheatre beside it. The story behind the construction of the Colosseum illustrates the political nature of the munera. When in 64 CE Rome suffered the worst fire in its history, much of the city was gutted, including the area where the Colosseum would later be built; however, at this time, it was a densely populated and impoverished part of the city. The emperor Nero took all the land in that area for himself and ordered the building of a magnificent palace, his ‘Golden House’, which was surrounded by beautiful gardens and outfitted with a magnificent artificial lake at the spot now occupied by the Colosseum. Following Nero’s suicide in 68 and the accession of Vespasian in 69, the new emperor had much of the Golden House demolished. The lake was filled in,

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Fig. 6.7 A cut away reconstruction of the Colosseum.

and in its place Vespasian ordered a magnificent amphitheatre to be built for the people. He was able to fund much of its construction with the booty gained from his ransacking of the Temple treasuries during the conquest of Jerusalem in 70. The venue was the largest amphitheatre in the Roman world. Built from blocks of hard travertine rock from nearby Tibur, its oval shape had a circumference of 545 metres, while its four-storey walls rose to a height of about 48 metres. There were 80 entrances, four of which were reserved for VIPs. Although no tickets survive, evidence from elsewhere suggests that spectators were given tickets directing them to the appropriate section and row; they accessed their seats via vomitoria (a word linked to our word ‘vomit’), entrance passages that opened out into the tiers of seats, just as one would find at a sports venue today. The vomitoria meant that people could enter or leave quickly, while they also allowed for quick evacuation in case of an emergency. Another remarkable feature of the building was its huge retractable awning, the velarium (a word linked to the English ‘veil’), which could be pulled out to protect two thirds of the spectators from sun or rain. It was supported on poles fixed to the top of the building and hoisted into position with ropes tied to posts outside. The seating capacity was approximately 50,000, and it seems that spectators were seated according to social class (although it is hard to know how strictly the rules were adhered to); the more status you held, the nearer to the action you were. The seating began four metres above the fighting area, with a terrace (podium) where the senators sat; also on this level were special boxes at the north and south ends for the Emperor and Vestal Virgins respectively. Behind the podium there were three main seating tiers; the equestrians sat in the first, while behind them were the ordinary citizens; on the very top tier were those from the marginalised elements of society – women, slaves and the poor.

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Fig. 6.8 The inside of the Colosseum today.

The arena itself was 86 metres by 54 metres in diameter; the ground was covered in sand, which was used to soak up the blood of victims (in fact, harena in Latin meant ‘sand’, and this is the origin of our word ‘arena’). A metal fence ran around its outer limit, while archers also stood by in case any animals escaped. Beneath the arena floor was a hypogeum (literally: ‘underground area’), a subterranean network of tunnels, cages and lifts, where criminals and animals were held before being sent into the arena (Fig. 6.8). Slaves worked down there to provide special effects and send up animals through trapdoors in the arena floor; the conditions for all those trapped in this artificial cavern must have been appalling. The hypogeum was also linked by tunnels to various points outside the arena, so that the animals were not seen by the spectators before they made their appearance in the arena.

Sea Battles Staging fights on water was another form of entertainment associated with the shows. These mock sea battles, known as naumachiae (sing: naumachia), had to be held at a venue large enough to house an artificial lake that could hold enough boats to make the competition interesting. The first formal naumachia in Rome was presented by Julius Caesar as part of his quadruple triumph in 46 BCE ; the historian Appian tells us that there was ‘a naval engagement of 4,000 oarsmen, where 1,000 men contended on each side’. Suetonius tells us that Caesar had a facility built for this in the Campus Martius. In 2 BCE Augustus also staged a naumachia at another specially constructed venue. He claims that 30 warships and a larger number of smaller ships took part. Dio Cassius records that a sea battle between the Athenians and the Persians was recreated, and that afterwards 36 crocodiles were released into the water and slaughtered.

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3 A Day at the Amphitheatre There are a variety of written sources on the munera and, using these, historians have often constructed a programme of events for a day at the amphitheatre. However, we should not think that such a programme applied universally, or even widely. It is unclear from the sources how much of a ‘standard’ programme of events there ever was; indeed, one of the challenges for the editor was surely to provide shows that were somewhat innovative. The shows would have been advertised on billboards in the city beforehand. On the day itself, a match programme might have been provided for spectators, including profiles of the gladiators and a list of matches. The action started early in the morning and ended at dusk, so it was a challenge for the editor to make sure that he provided plenty of variety. The standard programme has the day divided into three parts – the morning primarily involved animals, at midday executions of prisoners took place, while the main event – the gladiatorial show – was held back until the afternoon. What follows will outline this programme, although it should be remembered that this is unlikely to have been a uniform pattern.

Wild Beasts The morning’s show might begin with a mimic gladiatorial battle, where combatants fought with blunted weapons (similar to a fencing match today); this gave the crowd a foretaste of the real gladiatorial events to come later. However, the main action centred around shows involving wild animals. An editor would pride himself on being able to bring the most exotic and dangerous beasts from all over the Roman Empire and beyond. It was clearly a way to impress the spectators, who would never have seen such animals. These animals might have been used in various ways. Some were trained to perform tricks, just as circus animals do: sources speak of teams of panthers drawing chariots, of a tigress tearing a lion to pieces and then going to lick its trainer’s hand, and of elephants bowing in front of the emperor’s box. Another form of entertainment was to set two different types of animal against one another, such as a bear and a buffalo, or an elephant and a rhinoceros. One such fight is related by Martial, who leaves an account of the opening games of the Colosseum in 80 CE . He describes trainers with spears trying to goad a rhinoceros into fighting: At length the fury we earlier knew returned. For with his double horn he tossed a heavy bear as a bull tosses dummies from his head to the stars. He lifted two steers with his mobile neck, to him yielded the fierce buffalo and the bison. A lion fleeing before him ran headlong upon the spears. Martial, On the Shows, 26

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After this may have come the wild beast hunts (venationes) involving a fighter specially trained to fight animals, the bestiarius. Although the wild beasts were very dangerous, the bestiarius’ weapons gave him a significant advantage: they might include firebrands, whips, spears or even bows and lances; he might also be accompanied by a team of hounds. Sometimes, the amphitheatre was decked out to look like a forest, with animals being gradually released from below. At other times the arena was turned into a slaughterhouse, as hundreds of animals were killed in one short period; at the opening shows of the Colosseum, 9,000 animals are said to have been killed over 100 days. A century later, the emperor Commodus even took part in the slaughter himself; he had ostriches released into the arena and took great pleasure in decapitating them by firing arrows – the heads of which had been widened especially for the purpose. Such slaughter was more than just mere entertainment, although the crowds clearly loved what they saw. By introducing all these animals into the arena, an emperor was making two political points – firstly, that the empire had power over nature, just as it did over human beings, and secondly, that by introducing animals from all over the known world, an emperor was demonstrating how far the empire had reached (Fig. 6.9).

Fig. 6.9 A section of a mosaic of c. 200 CE found near a villa near Leptis Magna, Libya. To the left, a man has to pull apart a bull and a bear; to the right, a lion sets upon a condemned man.

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The Animals The range of animals captured for the amphitheatre was extraordinary – we hear of elephants, lions, leopards, tigers, bulls, bears, wild boars, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, buffalo, bison, crocodiles, giraffes, ostriches, camels and many others. These animals had to be captured unharmed (normally in North Africa or the Near East) and then brought back to Rome in cages by sea. In some regions, species were hunted to extinction. One such species was the North African elephant, which Hannibal had famously used in his march across the Alps against Rome.

Executions Two sources record that the events at noon were among the most gruesome of the day: the execution of convicted criminals. Those who had been sentenced to death this way were known as damnati ad bestias (‘condemned to the beasts’) (Fig. 6.9 and 6.10). Such executions were set up to provide entertainment, although Seneca points out that they also had the benefit of making a public example of wrong-doers: The man who oversees the laws . . . deprives condemned men of their life in dishonour and disgrace . . . so that they might be a lesson to all and because, while in life they were unwilling to be useful citizens, certainly the state benefits by their death. Seneca, On Anger, 1.6.4

Fig. 6.10 Damnatio ad bestias.

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In Their Own Words 6.3 1

Read Martial’s account of the opening games of the Colosseum in 80 CE , On the Shows. What can we learn about the events from this?

2

Read about the death of the Christian martyr Blandina in the arena at Lyons in 177 CE in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.1. Then compare it to another Christian account of the amphitheatre: St Augustine’s story of how his friend Alypius was corrupted by the crowd at the arena at Confessions, 6.9.

The style of execution was varied in order to please the crowds. Some criminals were simply let loose into the arena to face wild beasts; they might be daubed with blood beforehand to give the animals a scent for the kill. Some mosaics show people tied to stakes and facing animals such as lions (this was how many Christians were martyred); others show men forced to perform dangerous tasks with the animals, such as using a hook to undo a chain tying a bear to a bull. Other forms of execution tried to amuse the crowd by re-enacting famous myths, albeit with the climax of the ‘myth’ being the death of the ‘main character’ (i.e. the criminal). So for example in the opening shows of the Colosseum the tale of Orpheus was played out: a man was sent out into the arena, which was decked out as a forest, carrying a musical instrument. Like Orpheus, he tried to play some music to calm the animals; however, unlike the mythical hero, the criminal was torn to death by a bear. There is another story of a convict who was forced to act out the death of Hercules by being burnt on a funeral pyre, while others were forced to re-enact the myth of the eastern vegetation god Attis, who castrated himself. Seneca also mentions the ‘midday gladiators’, criminals forced to fight one another. However, there was a twist on the conventional gladiatorial bout: although they were sent out with weapons, they were given no armour. They were made to fight to the death, after which the winner stayed to fight the next opponent, and so it became a game of ‘winner stays on’. Of course, even a man who won a few fights would soon tire and become easy to defeat. The process went on until all the criminals had been killed. Seneca was clearly horrified by the sight: I happened to go to a midday show, expecting there to be something light, witty, and relaxing, which would give people’s eyes a rest from human blood. The opposite was true. All the fighting beforehand was compassionate in comparison . . . now it is pure murder. Seneca, Letters, 7.3

Gladiator Fights The gladiatorial shows began with a parade in which the fighters would march, to the accompaniment of an orchestra consisting of brass and wind instruments and even a

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water organ, around the arena dressed in purple and gold cloaks, before saluting the emperor. When the parade was over, weapons were examined, blunt swords were weeded out, and the fighters moved off to prepare for their bouts. The excitement of the crowd no doubt now reached fever pitch, particularly since many of them had perhaps betted on the results. Most bouts were overseen by a referee who also had an assistant on hand; they carried long staffs to separate the fighters if necessary. A fight between two gladiators might last for as long as 15 or 20 minutes, but when one man could go on no longer, he signalled defeat by raising a finger. At this point, his opponent stood over him and looked for a signal from the editor – to kill or to spare. The editor would listen to the noise of the crowd and make his decision. A gladiator was trained not to flinch in the face of death – he was expected neither to ask for mercy nor to cry out. Cicero was one Roman who admired such nobility at the moment of death: Which gladiator, even of moderate ability, has ever groaned? Which one has ever changed his facial expression? . . . Which one, when fallen and ordered to receive the death blow, has twisted his neck away? Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 2.41

Once a defeated gladiator was slain, an attendant dressed as Charun, an Etruscan underworld deity (who was linked to Charon, the ferryman of the River Styx in Greek mythology), came out and hit his head with a mallet, while another dressed as Mercury Psychopompus (‘Mercury the escorter of dead souls’) prodded the corpse with a hot rod; the body was then removed from the arena, and the throat was cut to

Two Modern Myths It is commonly believed that when the gladiators arrived at the emperor’s pulvinarr, they saluted him with the words ‘Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant!’ (‘Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you!’). However, scholars doubt whether this line was ever used, since the only source for it (Suetonius, Claudius, 21.6) actually refers to the greeting made to the emperor by criminals condemned to fight to the death in a naumachia. Another common belief about gladiatorial combat is that the editorr decided whether a defeated gladiator should live or die by putting his thumb down to indicate ‘kill’, or his thumb up for ‘save’. However, there is no evidence that this was so; the reference to the use of the thumb is found in Juvenal, who speaks of pollice verso (‘with thumb turned’); a later Christian writer, Prudentius, uses a similar phrase. It is left for us to guess how to interpret this; some believe that the editorr might have stuck out his thumb to indicate a sword (and therefore ‘kill’), and kept his thumb hidden to tell the victor to put away his sword and spare his opponent’s life.

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make sure that the man was really dead. In the arena, other attendants raked over the bloody sand as they prepared for the next cycle of death. What was the rate of death amongst gladiators? This is hard to establish with certainty, although some scholars have researched it as carefully as possible, using information such as graffiti from Pompeii that carry fight statistics, and epitaphs for gladiators. This would suggest that the rate of death for gladiators fighting at each munera during the 1st century CE was between one in five and one in six. This rate seems to have gone up to one in four in the following century. However, there are very few tombstones of gladiators over the age of 30, and the median age of death recorded on them is just 22.5. It seems that, even for relatively successful gladiators, the chances of dying young were very high.

Review and Reflect 6.2 1

How do you think the experience of a day at the Colosseum would have been different from the experience of a day at the Circus Maximus?

2

In what ways were politics involved in the events of the amphitheatre?

3

Why do you feel that spectators enjoyed watching so much brutality?

4

Are there any modern public events (sporting or non-sporting) in the world today that could be compared to the events of the amphitheatre?

Further Reading 6.2 Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Fagan, Garrett, The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Futrell, Alison, The Roman Games: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Hopkins, Keith and Beard, Mary, The Colosseum (London: Profile, 2005). Kyle, Donald, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World d (Chichester: WileyBlackwell, 2015), chapters 13–16. Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 351–357. Veyne, Paul, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism (London: Penguin, 1992). Wiedemann, Thomas, Emperors and Gladiators (London: Routledge, 1992).

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III Roman Drama The Romans were unsure as to the exact origins of their theatrical tradition, but it seems certain that it evolved from the ancient Greek world, where European drama (particularly tragedy and comedy) was born in Athens during the 6th century BCE . This new performance medium soon arrived in the Greek cities of Magna Graecia, which were home to many theatres that put on the famous plays of the Athenian stage. The Romans came into greater contact with Greek drama after conquering southern Italy in the early 3rd century BCE , and a key moment in the development of Roman drama came in c. 240, when Livius Andronicus presented a Latin version of a Greek tragedy at a Roman religious festival (Greek plays had always been performed at religious festivals, in honour of Dionysus, the god of acting). The innovation clearly caught the public imagination, since two years later another religious festival created space for dramatic shows. It seems that once the Greeks had brought drama to the Italian peninsula, local communities developed their own versions. Livy records that, as early as 363 BCE, the Etruscans provided dancing clowns at scenic games designed to appease Jupiter during a plague. Moreover, in southern Italy another popular dramatic form emerged, known as the ‘Atellan Farce’ (after the town of Atella in Campania where it originated). This seems to have been a type of travelling street-theatre presenting unscripted country entertainments. It made fun of everyday life, relying heavily on slapstick and buffoonery, with the actors wearing exaggerated masks typically portraying recurring characters (Fig. 6.11). Atellan farces continued to be performed at Rome well into the imperial age.

Fig. 6.11 This 2nd-century CE mosaic found in Rome depicts two theatrical masks. To the left is a mask for a female character, with two flutes leaning on the wall behind. To the right is a male mask with exaggerated features; his crown of ivy and berries suggest an association with Bacchus, the god of the theatre.

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The theatre then became a standard feature of a Roman town. There is evidence for 175 theatres in Italy and Sicily, and for many more across the empire. For example, in the North African province of Africa Proconsularis alone, 53 have been discovered.

1 Organisation Plays were usually put on in the Roman world as part of religious festivals, and they took the name of ludi scaenici (‘scenic games’). After Livius Andronicus, the number of festivals with a theatrical content quickly grew: by about 200 BCE , there were six ludi scaenici attached to major Roman festivals, all of which took place between April and November. From then on, the number of days given over each year to ludi scaenici steadily increased: in 180 BCE , there were about 24 festival days for drama, which had increased to 42 by 44 BCE . The ludi scaenici were paid for in part by the Roman state, and in part by those magistrates responsible for running them (usually the aediles, although one festival was funded by the praetors). Therefore, as with the ludi circenses and munera, in republican times the ludi scaenici offered politicians an opportunity to win popularity. Even in imperial times, magistrates were expected to fund the games. Martial makes fun of this in one of his poems; the fictional Proculeia seeks a divorce in order to protect her dowry when it looks like her husband will be bankrupted by funding the Megalensian Games, at the heart of which were the ludi scaenici: He was a praetor. The Megalensian purple robe [the symbol of the editor] was going to cost 100,000 sesterces, just to give a no-frills show, and the sacrifice for the people would have taken 20,000. This is not divorce, Proculeia: it’s good business. Martial, Epigrams, 10.41

The ‘good business’ here is Proculeia’s decision to divorce her husband before he could ruin them both financially.

2 The Theatre The first major stone theatre in Rome was built when Pompey commissioned a theatre in 55 BCE (although permanent theatres had appeared in cities of southern Italy, such as Pompeii – see p. 367). Before this, theatres were temporary wooden structures, which stood for the period of the festival only; this way, the ruling elite could keep political control of the theatre – without permanent theatres there could be no performances unless they funded and provided the theatrical space. However, by the 1st century BCE , even the temporary theatres had become elaborate: linen

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Fig. 6.12 The remains of the theatre at Sabratha, Libya, with much of the three-storey scaenae frons still in place.

awnings protected the spectators from the sun, the stage-buildings were lavishly decorated and there were seats tiered on scaffolding for the spectators. The new permanent theatres that followed on from Pompey’s original were designed on the Greek model, but with some notable adaptations. For example, a Roman theatre was normally free-standing (rather than built on a hillside) and enclosed on all sides (this was the case for the theatre of Herculaneum, described on p. 398). The back wall of the stage set (scaenae frons) usually consisted of three storeys (although some theatres only had two) and many columns (Fig. 6.12). It matched the height of the seating area (cavea) and attached to it on both sides. The scaenae frons usually had three doors set into an elaborate facade. Each of the doors led onto the stage by a small set of steps. The stage itself (scaenum or pulpitum) was made of wood and set on pillars; the area below it would be used to manoeuvre stage machinery and props. In imperial times, a stage was about 50 by 8 metres, although in the theatre of Pompey it must have been about 90 metres wide. The front wall of the stage was normally a little over a metre high and made of elaborate stone. The semi-circular area at the front of the cavea, known as the orchestra, was normally a seating area reserved for VIPs (such as senators in Rome). Most theatres had awnings to provide shade for spectators.

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The Theatre of Pompey In 55 BCE, one of the three triumvirs, Pompey, financed the building of a theatre on the Campus Martius. In fact, it was a much larger complex than merely a theatre, and included arcades, a temple to Venus and a large portico. It was even used as a meeting place for the Senate in 44 BCE after the Senate House in the forum had burnt down; it was at the entrance to the complex that Julius Caesar was assassinated in front of a statue of Pompey. The theatre itself was massive, with a diameter of about 150 metres. Pliny the Elder thought that it could seat 40,000 spectators, although modern commentators now think that this is exaggerated and estimate a figure nearer to 20,000 – still significantly more than any theatre in the world today (for example, both the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan have a seating capacity of less than 2,500). One of the main legacies of the theatre was that it became a model for many stone theatres built throughout the Roman world during imperial times.

The Audience Since admission to the Roman theatre was free, the audience tended to be drawn from all social classes, and it seems that in most theatres there was a hierarchy of seating: the senators and VIPs would sit in the orchestra, a number of rows behind them were reserved for the knights; beyond this, the further back you sat, the lower your social status. Sources suggest that audiences could either be wildly supportive or brutal in their condemnation. On the one hand, we hear of spectators learning the songs of the theatre and then singing them by heart; on the other hand, there are stories of actors making mistakes and being hissed or booed off stage. In the prologue to Plautus’ Poenulus, the playwright’s comic plea for good behaviour from the audience suggests that spectators were not always focused on the show: Let no worn-out hooker sit at the front of the stage; let neither lictor nor his rods make any sound, nor the usher walk in front of people’s faces, or lead any spectators to their seats while an actor is on stage. Let those who have lazily overslept at home now stand patiently . . . Let slaves not take up seats, but leave space for the free . . . let nurses attend to their tiny babies at home, let none bring any to watch . . . let married women watch in silence, laugh in silence, and refrain from their tuneful chirping here, let them take their chattering and nattering off home. Plautus, Poenulus, 17–34

It is interesting to note here that the jokes only work if audiences are normally made up of a wide variety of spectators: lictors, free men, married women and perhaps also nurses, slaves and prostitutes.

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Roscius Despite their low social status, successful actors could gain both fame and wealth. The most famous comic actor in late republican times was Quintus Roscius. He had been born a slave, and his master had him trained as an actor after observing his talent for mimicry. Roscius managed to buy his freedom, and then earned so much money from his acting that the dictator Sulla elevated him to membership of the equestrians. After this, he acted without taking a salary, so as to avoid acquiring infamis status. Roscius even became a friend of Cicero, who defended him in a lawsuit; the two men used to discuss the overlaps between oratory and acting, and Roscius wrote a treatise (now lost) that compared the two arts.

Actors It seems that in the earliest days of Roman theatre, actors were respected – Livius Andronicus and his contemporaries even acted in their own plays. However, by the 1st century BCE they had come to be held in contempt. Writing in the 30s BCE , Cornelius Nepos compares Rome with Greece, where acting was regarded as a noble calling: In Greece . . . to go on the stage and to make a spectacle to the people was no disgrace; all these things with us are thought to bring infamia, or to be lowly or far removed from decent behaviour. Cornelius Nepos, Preface, 5

By this time, actors were indeed legally infames and subject to severe restrictions; there was even a law allowing magistrates to beat actors if they had not acted well. Actors, called histriones, were typically organised into a troupe under the charge of a troupe leader. By imperial times, they were either drawn from the ranks of slaves or from the lower classes, although they had to be skilled enough to act and sing in a variety of different roles. Competition between the troupes seems to have been fierce – prizes were awarded to troupes or individual actors, and sources tell of how they stationed their supporters throughout the theatre with instructions to applaud at the right moment.

3 Comedy and Tragedy Livius Andronicus and the early Roman playwrights who followed him tried to write both comedies and tragedies, many of which were direct translations or close adaptations of Greek originals. Two other important writers in this period were Gnaeus Naevius, who wrote between about 235 and 204, and Quintus Ennius (239– 169). After them, however, writers tended to focus on either comedy or tragedy.

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Roman Tragedy It is very hard to evaluate Roman tragedy since so little of it survives – we can only really rely on fragments and what other Roman writers have said about it. However, it is clear that Andronicus, Naevius and Ennius all took their tragic writing very seriously and drew heavily on the fine example of Greek tragedy – for example, more than half of Ennius’ plays are set in the Greek mythological world of the Trojan War. In addition to the tragedies modelled on the Greek tradition, these same writers also developed another form of serious play, with its subject centred on Roman history. These plays were known as fabulae praetextae after the type of toga worn in them (see Appendix 2 to read about Roman clothing); only one of them has survived (Octavia, written later and attributed to Seneca), but we do know the titles of some others, including Naevius’ Romulus, Ennius’ Sabines, and Accius’ Brutus, titles which suggest that playwrights were keen to explore themes from early Roman history. Indeed, one school of thought has it that the fabulae praetextae offered the Romans the chance to establish and explore their historical tradition during the 3rd century BCE . The first Roman playwright to concentrate solely on tragedy was Ennius’ nephew, Marcus Pacuvius (220–c. 130 BCE ). He was far more innovative in his choice of subject matter, fond of complex plots (often drawing on specific Athenian tragedies), which often raised deep moral or philosophical issues. His plays were produced on stage long after his death, and he was admired for the quality of his language; writing over a century later, Cicero praised his finely styled and elegant verses and claimed that he was the greatest Roman tragedian. Following on from Pacuvius was Lucius Accius, the son of a freedman born in Umbria in 170 BCE . He was Rome’s most prolific tragic playwright, and we still have the titles of 40 plays. He seems to have based most of them upon well-known Greek myths, and to have enjoyed writing passages with violent and bloody description, such as Thyestes dining on his own sons, or Medea murdering her children. However, as time wore on tragedy came to appeal less and less to the public, and few tragedies were composed after the time of Accius. There are references to tragedies in imperial times, most notably those of Seneca the Younger (eight of which survive – see p. 215). However, it is less likely that these were intended for public performance; instead, they were probably composed for intimate, courtly performances or readings.

Cantica Despite tragedy’s decline, songs sung by tragic singers, which were known as cantica, remained popular among Roman audiences (perhaps as songs from popular musicals are today); at the funeral of Julius Caesar, the crowd started singing a canticum from a tragedy of Pacuvius, which included a particularly poignant line: ‘Have I saved them only so that they can destroy me?’.

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Roman Comedy Much more is known about Roman comedy. The two greatest writers of the genre were Plautus, who came from Umbria and was writing between 205 and 184 BCE , and Terence, who is said to have come from North Africa and was writing in the 160s BCE . Both men wrote plays translated from or based on Greek New Comedy – a style developed in Athens in the late 4th century BCE by writers such as Menander. These plays can be seen as the forerunners to modern sit-coms – their plots were often based around everyday social situations and so they were ‘comedies of manners’ (Fig. 6.13). Since Plautus and Terence relied so heavily on Greek material, their plays were described as fabulae palliatae, or ‘plays in Greek costume’, and all the characters did indeed wear costumes based on the Greek fashion. This consisted of a tunic, over which men usually wore a Greek style cloak (in Latin, pallium), while women wore the female version, a palla. Dress and props could also indicate more about a character to the audience: for example, old men often wore white and carried sticks, pimps were dressed in garish, multi-coloured pallia, a cook held a knife, spoon or some sort of dish, a slave-dealer carried a money-bag, while characters who had travelled long distances (or were about to do so) often wore a wide-brimmed hat, the petasus, which was associated with Mercury, the god of travellers.

Fig. 6.13 This 1st-century CE relief portrays a scene from a Roman comedy in which a father is held back from attacking his son, who has come back late from a party. A slave props up the young man, while a flute-girl plays the pipes in the middle.

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Fig. 6.14 A fresco from Herculaneum showing a tragic actor, to the left, having just taken off his mask. His hair is still tousled and sweaty. To the right, a slave woman has put down the mask and kneels beside it. As here, Roman tragic masks had a raised hairstyle similar to that worn by Roman ladies.

To complete the Greek style of costume, actors wore masks (as did actors in Roman tragedy – Fig. 6.14), and they too were designed to indicate a specific type of character. One ancient writer lists forty-four different types of comic mask: eleven for young men, seven for slaves, three for old women, five for young women, seven for prostitutes, two for slave-girls, as well as several others. All masks were designed to cover the entire front of the head, and were usually light in weight; this meant that they were comfortable to wear, and also enabled actors playing more than one part to remove them quickly off-stage. Hair was also attached to denote character: for old men, it was white or grey (or they were bald), younger characters were typically given dark hair, while for slave characters the colour was red.

Plautus All of Plautus’ plays are believed to be adapted from Greek originals, and this in itself presented the playwright with an opportunity – he was able to keep the

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plays set in Greece, but to add some Roman characteristics. His plays have a variety of plots, but many similar features: love affairs, confusions of identity, conflicts between father and son, or clever slaves who outwit their masters (this theme has long been used of comic writers – more recent examples are Mozart’s Figaro and P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves). However, Plautus developed these plots to appeal to a Roman audience: there are plenty of jokes and puns on Latin words (he was known for his verbal brilliance), as well as references to the audience themselves and the progress of the play, while he made extensive use of stock characters such as the parasite (someone who lives off others) or the lecherous old man. Music was also a particular feature of Plautus’ plays – he wrote many cantica (a feature of comedy too), which often did little to develop the plot, but clearly added great colour to the action.

Terence All six of Terence’s plays have survived. He was more faithful to his Greek models than Plautus, with fewer references to Roman society. He is known for his sympathetic

Casina Casina is one of Plautus’ best-known plays, and its plot gives a good idea of the playwright’s style. It was set in Athens, where Casina had been found abandoned by Lysidamus and his wife Cleostrata, and the couple had raised her as their slavegirl. When the play starts, their son, Euthynicus, has fallen in love with Casina and wants to marry her. However, Lysidamus has his eye on Casina himself, and so comes up with elaborate plans both to get his son out of the city, and to have Casina marry his own slave, Olympio – that way, the old man will be able to have Casina for himself. But Cleostrata is suspicious and wants Casina to marry her slave Chalinus so that she can keep an eye on things. The husband and wife draw lots, and Lysidamus wins. Yet Cleostrata finds out about her husband’s plan to sleep with Casina before the wedding. By way of revenge, she dresses up Chalinus as Casina on the appointed night, and ‘she’ waits in Casina’s darkened bedroom. When Lysidamus makes his move, he soon realises that he has been rumbled: I am burning with the greatest shame . . . nor do I know how to look my wife in the eyes, so utterly am I ruined. All my disgraces are out in the open. Wretched me – I’m a dead man in every way. Plautus, Casina, 937–940 Cleostrata has won, Lysidamus has been humiliated, and life returns to normal. There follows a brief epilogue in which the audience are told that Euthynicus will indeed marry Casina, who was really a free-born Athenian when she was discovered as a baby by her adoptive family. One final irony of the play is that the character Casina never actually appears – only Chalinus dressed up as her.

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portrayal of human relationships, but also used stock characters and boisterous scenes just as Plautus did. Terence used the prologue of his plays innovatively. Whereas other playwrights used the prologue to give an outline of the plot, Terence preferred to leave the events as a surprise for his audience. Instead, he often used it to feud with his critics, and on one occasion complains about how difficult it is to keep an audience’s attention in the face of other attractions; he had three goes at presenting a play called The Mother-in-Law, as his producer Turpio explains in the prologue of the third version of the play: Once more I am presenting The Mother-in-Law, a play for which I have never been able to gain a hearing before, so much has misfortune dogged its progress . . . At the first production, the fame of some boxers, as well as the rumour that a tight-rope walker would appear, the mob of their supporters, shouting, and women’s screaming forced me off the stage before the end. I then decided to follow my old practice with this new play, to prove its worth. I put it on a second time. The first part was doing well when news arrived that there was to be a gladiators’ show. Off rushed my audience, pushing, shouting, jostling for a place, leaving me powerless to hold my own. Today, there is no distraction, all is calm and peaceful. Terence, The Mother-in-Law, 29–43

This gives a clue as to how the theatre was to progress in the coming centuries, as it struggled to compete with other attractions. In the late 1st century BCE , the poet Horace writes with contempt of the audiences of his day: Often even the boldest playwright is made to flee in terror, because coarse illiterates always ready for a fight (greater in number but less in worth and rank), if challenged by their betters at the front, demand bears or boxers right in the middle of the performance: for that’s what delights the rabble. Horace, Epistles, 2.1.182–186

In such a culture, very few new comedies seem to have been written after the 2nd century BCE , although the plays of writers such as Plautus and Terence were still performed well into imperial times. By then, however, the popularity of both comedy and tragedy had been overtaken by that of mime and pantomime.

4 Mime and Pantomime As tragedy and comedy declined in popularity in the late Republic and early Principate, two younger dramatic genres – both of them originating from the Greek east – soon became the staple diet of Roman theatres. These were mime and pantomime. Both names can be confusing to a modern reader – the mime involved actors speaking (unlike modern mime performances), while it was actually the pantomime actor who performed silently; moreover, the Roman pantomime is not

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remotely connected to the modern pantomimes, which are a feature of the British theatre at Christmas time.

Mime When the mime arrived from Greece it wasn’t initially even very dramatic; numerous types of entertainment, including acrobatics, song and dance, jokes, conjuring, were built around a slender plot to create a kind of variety show of sketches and short plays (in some ways, therefore, the mime can be compared to TV sketch shows today). It is first recorded in the Roman world in about 170 BCE , and eventually came to take the place of comedy during the imperial period. It is hard to describe exactly what was presented in the mimes – the form changed over the centuries, while productions seem to have come in many shapes and sizes. The subject matter was often coarse and obscene, with the emphasis on sex, parody of town and city life, and general buffoonery; some mimes were political, others presented scenes from everyday life. We hear of plots involving kidnappings, cuckolds and lovers hidden in convenient chests. Early mimes were unscripted, but from the 1st century BCE there was a move to script them – Decimus Laberius (an equestrian born in 106 BCE ) and Publilius Syrus (a freedman from Syria) were the first writers to make mime a literary genre. The mime could be presented in a number of settings: on its own; as an interlude to another play; or as part of another public or private form of entertainment (by the imperial period, some wealthy Romans were presenting mimes at their dinner parties, and the richest even kept their own troupe of actors). A mime did not need a stage – merely a few props and a curtain for a set, and so it could be put on almost anywhere. Even if mimes were scripted, it seems that the whole genre was given over to improvisation and creative input – one writer even says that dogs could appear on stage. A mime might be accompanied by acrobats, singers and dancers. Moreover, women could perform in the mime itself alongside men, in contrast to all other forms of drama. The actors do not seem to have worn special costumes: one source suggests that their clothing is indistinguishable from that of the spectators, while another speaks of a multi-coloured jacket. They performed barefoot and without masks, meaning that facial expression was central to the act (unlike other dramatic genres). The actor would use his face to mimic a range of emotions and perhaps even a variety of characters. A touching epitaph for a certain Vitalis, a mime actor of the 5th century CE , gives a sense of his art: What is the point of this random and tricky world if it has no fun? At the sight of me, frenzied rages suddenly fell away, and the deepest grief would laugh when I arrived. No one was allowed to burn with biting worries, nor be dragged off by the uncertainties of life’s wheel of fortune. My presence conquered all fears and an hour with me was a happy one. With movements, words, and my

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tragic voice too, I pleased and lifted sad hearts in various ways. I put on facial expressions, and I made my characters talk in ways such that you would have thought that many people were speaking from just one mouth. Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, 5.13655

As this passage suggests, the mime aimed to give its audience a release from the stresses of daily life. It was clearly popular throughout all levels of Roman society. Indeed, as the emperor Augustus lay on his deathbed, he is said to have asked whether he had ‘acted the mime of life believably’.

The Politics of the Mime The mime also often reflected the mood of the politics of the day. During the Republic, it was often critical of the government; for example, in 46 BCE Julius Caesar compelled Decimus Laberius to act out his own mime on stage – a source of shame for a man of his equestrian rank. Laberius got his own back by including the line: ‘He whom many fear must himself fear many’ – a clear warning to Caesar about the dangers of his power. When Caesar was indeed assassinated two years later, Cicero judged the public mood by how they reacted to political references in the mimes. However, the arrival of the Principate muzzled freedom of speech, and so mimes after that tended only to criticise opponents of the emperor. It is telling that the mime most often played between 30 and 200 CE was the story of Laureolus, a real-life bandit leader who, after a successful career, was captured and crucified. The moral of the story here was clear: under a good government, the wicked are punished and the authorities will always ultimately succeed.

Pantomime As tragedy declined, pantomime seems to have taken its place. A pantomime was essentially a form of ballet, but one in which all of the parts were played by a single actor (in Greek, pant- signified ‘all’) (Fig. 6.15). A pantomime actor might be accompanied by a musician, a group of musicians or even a singer, but the actor himself, like a ballet dancer, neither spoke nor sang. As with mime, pantomime could take place in the theatre, in other public places, or at a private performance; pantomime actors were often attached to wealthy patrons. A pantomime actor was always male, although the accompanists could include women. According to the sources, pantomime was developed in the eastern Mediterranean before being introduced to Rome in the 20s BCE with the support of the emperor Augustus. In its early days at Rome, the two greatest proponents were Pylades from Cilicia and Bathyllus from Alexandria, and each founded pantomime schools in their own name which survived long after their deaths. Both men were involved with the Augustan court: Bathyllus was on close terms with Maecenas, while Pylades

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Fig. 6.15 This carved ivory plaque found at Trier is one of the only images of an ancient pantomime actor. Dating to the 5th or 6th century CE , it shows the actor holding the masks of three characters in one hand and a lyre in the other.

performed at Augustus’ dinner parties. The two men were great rivals, but there was an important difference between the two, since Bathyllus developed comic pantomime, while Pylades, a freedman of Augustus, focused on acting scenes from Greek mythology, and Greek tragedy in particular. In time, it was the tragic pantomime of Pylades that gained most popularity at Rome. During a performance, a pantomime actor had to show great versatility to play all the roles – male and female, young and old – in a series of solo scenes that might require him to change into and out of a variety of costumes and masks (pantomime masks differed from other theatrical masks in having closed mouths and greater visual beauty). This was a very demanding art, for which a pantomime actor underwent extensive training. Writing in the 2nd century CE , the satirist Lucian left a detailed description of a pantomime act as follows: In general, the dancer undertakes to present and enact characters and emotions, introducing now a lover, now an angry person, one man afflicted with madness, another with grief, and all this within fixed bounds. Indeed, the most surprising thing is that within the self-same day, at one moment we are shown Athamas in a frenzy, at another Ino in terror; presently the same person is Atreus, and after a little Thyestes . . . yet they are all but a single man. Lucian, On the Dance, 67–68

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All four of the names mentioned here are characters from Greek mythology. pantomime was the only way in which Greek mythology. Lucian then goes on to describe the actor:

– Athamas, Ino, Atreus and Thyestes – Indeed, a later source claimed that the the common people learnt the stories of musical support given to the pantomime

The dancer has everything at once, and that equipment of his is varied and comprehensive – the pipes, the panpipes, the tapping of feet, the clash of cymbals, the melodious voice of the actor (a secondary role), the harmony of the singers. Lucian, On the Dance, 67–68

Indeed, although the pantomime actor was clearly the star of the show, the accompanying music and dance was elemental to the performance. Sources mention musical instruments as diverse as cymbals, tympana, pan-pipes and the lyre. Furthermore, a crucial element of the sound was the rhythmic clacking produced by the scabellum, a percussion instrument usually attached to a musician’s shoe, which produced a sound similar to that of a modern tap-dancer.

Pantomania Within a few years of its introduction to Rome, pantomime had attracted a passionate following. In fact, it seems that the many theatres that sprung up in the Roman world under the emperors were primarily showing pantomime performances. Pantomime actors themselves started to have their own fan clubs, and the rivalries between these fans became so bitter that they often led to violence. In 14 and 15 CE , riots broke out between members of rival factions; they became so serious that several soldiers, a centurion and a tribune were left dead on the streets. As a result, the emperor Tiberius ordered that all pantomime acts had to take place in the theatre and that unruly spectators could be punished with exile. Senators were banned from visiting pantomime actors at their homes, and equestrians were banned from crowding round them in the streets. Some years later in 56, after similar outbreaks of violence, the emperor Nero was forced to banish the pantomimes and some of their supporters from Italy. However, he was a fan of the pantomime and could not do without them, so he called them back again in 59. These stories indicate another interesting aspect of the pantomime actors: although they were of the lowest social status, their fame and popularity often meant that they became closely associated with elite Romans, including with the imperial family. The emperor Caligula reportedly had a close and perhaps intimate relationship with a pantomime actor called Mnester. Caligula’s successor Claudius eventually had his own adulterous wife Messalina and her various lovers executed – among them Mnester, who may actually have been innocent. Some decades later, a similar fate befell Paris, one of the leading pantomime actors of his day, who was executed by Domitian for allegedly having an affair with the emperor’s wife.

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In Their Own Words 6.4 1

Read Horace, Epistles, 2.1.156–213. What can we learn of Horace’s views of the Roman theatre from these lines?

2

Read Pliny, Letters, 7.24, about the death of a wealthy old woman, Ummidia Quadratilla, who kept a troupe of pantomime actors. How favourably is she presented?

3

Read Apuleius’ account of a pantomime performance at The Golden Ass, 10.30–32.

5 The Legacy of the Roman Stage The Roman theatre has influenced the European theatre from the time of the Renaissance, which began at the end of the 14th century CE . As the plays of Roman authors were rediscovered, they came to be performed once again; moreover, these plays influenced new works that were being produced. We have already read on p. 215 of the influence the gruesome tragedies of Seneca had on Shakespeare, and they were also copied by other playwrights of the era such as Christopher Marlowe. Roman comedy too cast its spell. Shakespeare would certainly have read the plays of Plautus and Terence at school (even though he was said to know ‘small Latin and less Greek’). His play The Comedy of Errors is based largely on combining Plautus’ Menaechmi and Amphitryo, while many other of his plots use ideas from comedy, such as stock characters – the most famous of these is Falstaff, who appears in three plays as the ‘boastful soldier’, based on the lead character in Plautus’ play Miles Gloriosus. In France the comedies of Molière owed much to Plautus and Terence – his play L’Avare is based on Plautus’ Pot of Gold, while in Italy, a form of improvised drama involving recurring characters, the Commedia dell’arte, evolved with close similarities to Atellan farces. Therefore, like the Latin language, Roman drama never really died but simply evolved into newer forms.

Review and Reflect 6.3 1

Which type of Roman drama would you have enjoyed most and why?

2

Why do you think that mime and pantomime became so popular throughout the Roman world?

3

In what ways could Roman drama be political?

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Further Reading 6.3 Beacham, Richard, The Roman Theatre and its Audience (London: Routledge, 1991). Boyle, Anthony, An Introduction to Roman Tragedyy (London: Routledge 2006). Hall, Edith and Wyles, Rosie, eds, New Directions in Ancient Pantomime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Marshall, C.W., The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedyy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Moore, Timothy, Roman Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Shelton, Jo-Ann, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 346–348.

IV The Baths The baths of the Roman world were far more than a place where people simply went to keep clean. In fact, they were more like a cross between a modern gym and spa. The costs of the baths were low – it was actually in the interests of the state to subsidise them, since most people did not have bathing facilities at home and so public baths helped ward off disease. That said, it is hard to know exactly how hygienic the water was – it was not chlorinated, and the surviving bath houses suggest that there was poor drainage from the tubs. The Roman doctor Celsus, writing in the early 1st century CE , generally considered the baths conducive to good health, but did warn against exposing open wounds to the water to avoid getting gangrene. For much of Roman history, the baths were a fundamental part of daily life. By the 4th century CE there were many hundreds of bath houses in Rome. Moreover, during the 2nd century CE there was a dramatic growth in the number of baths in other parts of the empire. One writer of that period, Aelius Aristides, claimed that the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor had ‘so many baths that you would be at a loss to know where to bathe’.

1 Origins and Development Bathing was common in the Greek world, although the Romans took it to new heights. From the 3rd century BCE the wealthiest Romans built for themselves private bathing suites in their houses and country villas. At this stage, however, the Romans were a modest culture and did not approve of public nudity (nor of the culture of the ancient Greek gymnasium, where men would exercise naked). For example, Seneca,

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no fan of the public baths, compares the austere republican-era bathing suite of Scipio Africanus’ large villa to the extravagant bathing habits (as he saw them) of his own society in the mid-1st century CE : There is . . . a small bath-house, shrouded in darkness in the old-fashioned way: our ancestors thought that a hot room for bathing had to be dark. And so I took great pleasure in comparing Scipio’s standards and our own. In this corner that ‘Terror of Carthage’, the man to whom Rome owes the fact that it has been captured only once in its history, washed a body tired out from work on the farm . . . He stood beneath this dirty roof, and that shabby floor supported him. But today who would put up with bathing in this manner? A man thinks himself poor and dirty unless the walls shine with large and expensive orbs . . . unless the vaulted roof is covered in glass, unless stone from Thasos, which once was a rare sight even in a temple, is set around the swimming pools, and unless silver spouts pour out water. Seneca, Letters, 86, 4–6

In the same letter, Seneca claims that Romans normally only had a bath once a week in Scipio’s day; on other days they just washed their arms and legs. However idealised Seneca’s views are of the ‘good old days’, it is certainly the case that most Romans of his day seem to have been in love with their baths. After the first public baths appeared in Rome in the 2nd century BCE , their popularity grew steadily during the following century. A dramatic increase in the number of bathing facilities in Rome then took place during the Augustan period and continued during the 1st century CE . By the 4th-century, one source could state that there were 867 bath complexes in the city. At first, these baths (known as balnea) were privately owned and run, although the entrance fee for the public was reasonable. However, by the onset of the empire, grand and lavish public baths (known as thermae) began to be constructed by emperors for the people. The first of these, built on the Campus Martius, was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa early in the reign of Augustus; in the following 150 years, Nero, Titus and Trajan would also have complexes built at Rome; however, the most lavish thermae appeared in later imperial times: those of Caracalla (completed in 216) and of Diocletian (305). The thermae were so grand that there were only a few of them – just 11 of the 867 listed in the 4th century.

2 A Visit to the Baths As there were so many bath houses in the Roman world, no two of them were designed in exactly the same way. One can easily see variations just between the different baths in Pompeii and Herculaneum, which are described on p. 371 and p. 408, respectively. However, there were some rooms and spaces that were universal to bathhouses. Arriving at the baths, a visitor would first have to pay the entrance fee; in early imperial times, this seems to have been a quadrans, the smallest coin. He (or

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Fig. 6.16 The palaestra of the Central baths of Herculaneum.

she – women’s bathing is discussed below) would then head to the changing room, or apodyterium (from the Greek apo + duo = I take off), where he would leave his clothes in one of the niches along the walls (although he might leave on some light clothing for the exercise ground). The visitor would then head to the exercise ground to work up a sweat. This area was known as the palaestra, a word borrowed from the Greeks, which originally meant ‘wrestling-ground’ but came to refer to a place where many sports were practised (Fig. 6.16). Sources speak of various games being played there: trigon was played by three players, each posted at the corner of a triangle, who threw balls at each other without warning, catching in one hand and throwing with the other; harpastum (‘snatch-ball’) was another popular game, perhaps a bit like ‘piggy in the middle’, in which one player had to seize a ball stuffed with sand from others holding on to it and throwing it around. Some writers speak of men fencing against a post, others of men wrestling with one another, while there even seems to have been a form of tennis played with the hand. Some expert ball players even became celebrities with the masses – one inscription survives from a statue dedicated in the 2nd century CE of a famous ball player called Ursus; it begins as follows: I am Ursus, the first Roman who played with a glass ball properly with my opponents; the people praised me with wild shouting in the baths of Trajan, in the baths of Agrippa and Titus, and often also in the baths of Nero (if only you believe me). CIL VI.9797

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It is interesting to note here that the inscription mentions all of the grandest thermae of Rome at that time. After exercising, the visitor would head back to the apodyterium and remove the rest of his clothes in preparation for the bathing process. The number and quality of bathing rooms would depend on the size and status of the bath house, but all baths had three fundamental rooms: the tepidarium (‘warm room’), the caldarium (‘hot room’), and the frigidarium (‘cold room’). More extensive bath houses might have had other facilities, such as two hotter rooms for sweating: a laconicum, with dry heat like a modern sauna, or a sudatorium, with wet heat like a modern steam room. There might also have been a swimming pool (natatio) – however, this would not have been used for exercise, since there was no culture of swimming laps in the Roman world; bathers would simply have got in to relax and freshen up. We cannot be sure about the order in which a bather typically visited these rooms – if indeed there was any norm. It is generally assumed that bathers finished in the frigidarium to cool off, but there doesn’t seem to have been a clear rule about visiting the caldarium or tepidarium first – in some sources, we hear of people starting in the tepidarium and then heading to the caldarium, so building up a sweat slowly, while others would choose the hottest room first and ease down before arriving in the frigidarium. It is unlikely that there was any absolute pattern to the process, and people were free to choose the order as best suited them.

Fig. 6.17 This strigil and oil flask was found in Roman London.

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If a bather had brought his slave, then he would be entrusted with an oil flask, towel and a curved implement called a strigil (Fig. 6.17). After heading into one of the warm rooms, the slave then rubbed olive oil all over his master’s body (soap was not known to the Romans, so olive oil was used instead). The hot atmosphere of the room opened up the pores of his skin, allowing the oil to penetrate thoroughly; the bather might move between the caldarium and tepidarium at this stage. After some time, he ordered his slave to scrape the oil (and dirt) from his body with the strigil, and then headed for the cold plunge-pool of the frigidarium, where the cold water closed the pores of his skin.

The Hypocaust A few baths in the Roman world were heated (partially at least) by natural hot springs; the most famous example are the baths at Aquae Sulis (Bath). However, in most baths the Romans used a system of artificial heating known as a hypocaust (in Greek, hypo = under, caust = burn), whereby the floor was raised above the ground by pillars, called pilae, and spaces were left inside the walls so that hot air and smoke from a nearby furnace (tended by slaves) could pass through these enclosed areas. The caldarium and sudatorium would be placed closest to the furnace, since they required the most heat.

Fig. 6.18 The remains of a hypocaust in Venosa, southern Italy.

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3 The Culture of the Baths The baths were part of everyday life for free Romans of all classes. Men would work in the morning and then instinctively head for the baths in the early afternoon – the 8th hour seems to have been a popular time (see Appendix 4 for hours of the day). Baths typically opened at midday and closed at sunset, but presumably one could find bath houses that kept other hours. A bell would ring to signify that the baths were open for business, although the public were often allowed to use the palaestra before the baths themselves were available. Once in the complex, many people would stay there for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go home for dinner. The baths were also popular with women, but it is unclear exactly when they used the facilities (Fig. 6.19). The earlier bath houses, such as the Stabian baths in Pompeii, were built with separate sections for men and women. However, by imperial times this was less common, and men and women must either have bathed at different hours (with women presumably bathing in the morning when men were at work), or else there was mixed bathing. In truth, both practices were probably common at different times and in different places. However, by the early 2nd century CE mixed bathing had clearly become popular, since a series of scandals forced the emperor Hadrian to pass a decree banning men and women from bathing together. It seems that in a large city like Rome different bath houses went in and out of fashion. According to Seneca, a popular bath house would soon lose its regulars whenever a newer complex with more impressive facilities opened up, while the 4thcentury CE historian Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that it was common in his day to

Fig. 6.19 This 4th-century CE mosaic, known as the ‘bikini mosaic’, was found in a villa in Sicily and shows women exercising in a variety of ways.

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make polite conversation with a stranger by asking him which set of baths he used. Some writers could be damning in their views about respective baths; the satirist Martial comments to his friend: ‘unless you bathe in the little thermae of Etruscus, Oppianus, you’ll die unwashed!’. It is Seneca who gives us one of the most famous descriptions of a bath house in full swing in another letter to his friend Lucilius. He wrote this while living above a bath house in the resort town of Baiae in the Bay of Naples, and complains about the types of people who disturb him: some exercising loudly, others playing ball games, some singing, some drunkards and even thieves caught in the act. The following lines give a flavour of his frustrations: Think of the hair remover, continuing giving vent to his shrill and penetrating cry in order to advertise his presence, never silent unless it be while he is plucking someone’s armpits and making the client yell for him! Then think of the various cries of the man selling drinks, and the one selling sausages, and the other selling pastries, and all the ones hawking for the catering shops, each publicizing his wares with a distinctive cry of his own. Seneca, Letters, 56.2

Seneca’s portrayal of life at the baths is confirmed by other sources. It seems that bathers with irritating habits such as singing in the bath were a common phenomenon. For example, we hear from Martial of a certain Fabianus, who used to go around making fun of bathers with hernias – although he got his comeuppance when he ended up with a hernia of his own. Moreover, thieves seem to have been an ever-present menace. Masters often brought slaves with them to keep watch over their valuables, while in some baths a public slave was even appointed to watch the apodyterium. However, these measures don’t always seem to have been effective. In the baths of Aquae Sulis in Britain, numerous curse tablets have been found asking the gods (and particularly Minerva, the patron goddess of the site) to avenge thefts; the following is a good example: Solinus to the goddess Minerva: I give to your divinity and majesty my bathing cloak and tunic. Do not allow sleep or health to him who has done me wrong, whether man or woman, whether slave or free, unless he reveals himself and brings these goods to the temple. Tab.Sulis, 32

In Their Own Words 6.5 1

Read Seneca’s full description of Scipio Africanus’ bath house in Letters, 86.1–12, and then compare it with Lucian’s description of an impressive bath house in the 2nd century CE , in his short essay The Baths.

2

Read all of Seneca’s complaints about the baths at letter 56.1–2. How exaggerated do you think his description might be?

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Regrettably, we have no record of whether Solinus ever did recover his clothes, or indeed if the curse worked. Another feature of Seneca’s description is the food and drink on offer, and evidence from Pompeii and Herculaneum suggests that bars and taverns were commonly found in and near the baths. Many people would have taken a lunchtime snack while bathing; in Herculaneum a graffito on the wall of a bar near the entrance to the Suburban baths gives an idea of what was on offer (all the prices are in asses): ‘Nuts, drinks: 14; hog’s fat: 2, bread: 3; meat, for three: 12; sausage, for four: 8’. Elsewhere, we hear stories of men who used to get drunk at the baths, although most authors seem to disapprove of this. Nevertheless, the epitaph of a certain Titus Claudius Secundus famously celebrates the pleasures of life as follows: Baths, wine, and sex ruin our bodies, but what makes life living except baths, wine, and sex? CIL VI.17938

It seems likely that – as here – some Romans put all three of these things together. There is evidence that sex was on offer at the baths; for example, a number of erotic frescoes have been discovered in the apodyterium of the Suburban baths in Pompeii, while other sources record the presence of prostitutes at or near bath houses. However, this was just one aspect of life at the baths, and it is clear from the sources that their primary purpose was as a place for people to wash, exercise and socialise, and that most people went solely for these reasons.

A Dinner Invitation The baths were also seen by some as an opportunity to latch onto their social superiors, hoping to get an invitation to dinner (a dinner party would normally begin in the late afternoon after a trip to the baths). The satirist Martial grumbles about one such character: To escape Menogenes in the public baths and around the private baths is not possible, try what device you will . . . He’ll collect from the dust and bring back the flabby windball, even if he has already bathed and already put on his slippers. If you take your towels, he’ll say they are whiter than snow, though they be dirtier than a baby’s lap. As you comb your scanty hair with the split ivory, he’ll say you have arranged the locks of Achilles. He’ll fetch you an aperitif with his own hands from the dregs of a smoky flagon and continually wipe the moisture from your forehead. He’ll praise everything, admire everything, until after enduring a thousand annoyances you say: ‘Come to dinner.’ Martial, Epigrams, 12.82

Despite Martial’s sneering attitude in this passage, he writes elsewhere of trying himself to procure a dinner invitation at the baths.

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Review and Reflect 6.4 1

In what ways can the Roman baths be compared to modern gyms, spas or Turkish baths?

2

Why did the baths become so fundamental to Roman society?

3

How sympathetic are you to Seneca’s complaints about the baths?

Further Reading 6.4 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapter 7. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapter 6. Connolly, Peter, The Ancient Cityy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Fagan, Garrett, Bathing in Public in the Roman World d (Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, 1999). Yeg ül, Fikret, Bathing in the Roman World Yegü d (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

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I

t is a great paradox that the tragedy that struck Pompeii in 79 CE has proven such a blessing for the modern world. The city, which was destroyed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption together with Herculaneum, now presents for historians, students and tourists alike a treasury of information about Roman life. Indeed, had the city not been rediscovered, our knowledge of the Roman world would be infinitely poorer. Above all, the story of Pompeii is a very human one, giving us extraordinary insights into the lives – and deaths – of many ordinary people who lived during the high point of the Roman Empire.

Frozen in Time? It has often been said that Pompeii is a time-capsule, capturing a moment of everyday life ‘frozen in time’. However, this is really not the case. While there are signs of daily life stopped in its tracks – such as the 81 loaves of bread found in a bakery oven, or the meal of fish and eggs left on a table in the Temple of Isis – there are a number of reasons why we should not think that the remains of Pompeii reflect a moment in everyday life with complete accuracy. First, the majority of the city’s population managed to escape from the eruption, taking many household valuables with them; second, the preceding earthquakes and eruption itself caused enormous disruption and damage, such as destroying the upper floors of buildings; thirdly, most of the organic materials – such as wooden furniture, foodstuffs and clothes – have perished; and finally, there is considerable evidence for tunnelling and looting of the site in the years after the eruption, as treasure hunters came to remove what they could for profit. Therefore, while Pompeii gives a remarkably vivid insight into life in the Roman world, we should be careful not to think of it as a city perfectly reflecting everyday life.

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I The History of Pompeii Pompeii did not start its life as a Roman city. While a walled site existed from the 6th century BCE , it was not until 89 BCE that it came to be fully under the control of Rome. Ironically, however, the nature of Pompeii’s survival makes it hard for us to know about its long history in detail – the remains of 79 CE have been considered so important that archaeologists have generally been reluctant to damage them by digging down further. Moreover, Pompeii’s history before the 1st century BCE is rarely mentioned in the literary sources. Nevertheless, there are enough literary and archaeological sources for us to piece together something of Pompeii’s past.

Location It is not hard to see why Pompeii was such an attractive site for a settlement. The region of Campania was blessed with flood plains and natural harbours, and the fertility and beauty of the region were well known in ancient times. Pliny the Elder, who died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE , described the region as one of ‘happy and blessed delightfulness’ and ‘invigorating, year-long healthiness’, while Florus, a welltravelled historian writing early in the following century, made this judgement: Of everything not just in Italy, but in the whole world, the region of Campania is the most beautiful. Nothing is more temperate than its climate: indeed, its spring flowers blossom twice. Nothing is more fertile than its land; consequently, there is said to be a competition between Liber and Ceres. Nothing is more welcoming than its sea . . . Here are the mountains that befriend the vine. Florus, Epitome, 1.16

The land around Vesuvius was outstandingly fertile owing to its volcanic soil, so it is hardly surprising that Liber and Ceres, the deities of wine and food-produce respectively, are described by Florus as being in competition. Fields beneath the mountain were capable of producing three or four crops per year and ancient writers tell us that spelt, wheat and millet were popular, as well as fruit and vegetables. Moreover, the slopes of the mountain provided orchards for olives and grapes; many varieties of wine were produced, some of high quality, others less so. The region was also famous for the perfume made from the roses that grew there. There were a number of cities around Vesuvius, all of which benefited from the natural resources of the area; these cities were connected by a good network of roads (Fig. 7.1). Pompeii in particular benefited from its proximity to water; not only was it close enough to the sea to have its own harbour, but a river, the Sarno, also ran inland past the southern end of the city (the eruption of 79 changed the landscape to such an extent that the Sarno today flows much further to the south, while the city is further from the sea). The Pompeians were able to control the trade up and down the river, as the geographer Strabo writing in the early 1st century CE , explains:

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Capua

Acherrae

Nola

Mediterranean Sea Cumae

Neapolis Puteoli

VESUVIUS

Herculaneum Misenum Oplontis

Nuceria Pompeii

Stabiae Salernum

PITHEKOUSSAI Surrentum Tyrrhenian Sea

0

10

20 km CAPREAE

Fig. 7.1 A map of the Bay of Naples showing the road network connecting the nearby towns and cities.

Nola, Nuceria and Acherrae [all inland towns] have as their port Pompeii on the river Sarno, which transports goods in both directions. Strabo, Geography, 5.4.8

With all these natural advantages, it is no surprise that Pompeii developed into a busy and flourishing city, which benefited both from the local natural resources and from the ready access to trade routes both locally and across the Mediterranean.

Early Pompeii Historians have often looked to another quotation from Strabo to explain which peoples had inhabited both Pompeii and Herculaneum in early times: The Oscans used to occupy both Herculaneum and Pompeii next to it, past which the River Sarno flows. Then the Etruscans and the Pelasgians, and after that, the Samnites; these peoples were also thrown out of these places. Strabo, Geography, 5.4.8

Most scholars now doubt the order Strabo gives here, although it is clear that Pompeii in its earliest days was influenced by three groups: the local Italians, who spoke

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An Ancient View of Vesuvius Vesuvius had not erupted for many centuries before 79 CE , and the people who lived in its shadow had no idea of its lethal threat, even though some writers of the period show an awareness of its volcanic character, comparing it with Mt Etna in Sicily. On the contrary, they seem to have felt blessed by the mountain, if we are to believe the evidence of a fresco found in the House of the Centenary. This depicts Bacchus, the god of wine, standing by a mountain (presumably Vesuvius); all around there are symbols of fertility – grapes, a wild animal, birds, a snake and plants growing abundantly. If this painting is anything to go by, the Pompeians seem to have associated the mountain with their god of prosperity and festivity, and were thankful for its gifts. It seems they had no idea what awaited them.

Fig. 7.2 This fresco from the House of the Centenary seems to depict Bacchus beside Vesuvius with many signs of fertility.

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Pompeii – What’s in a Name? No one knows for certain where the name ‘Pompeii’ comes from. One theory is that it derives from the Greek word pompa, ‘procession’, and that the city was founded by Greeks in a grand religious procession; a variation of this idea has the Greek hero Heracles founding the city while processing back from Spain after his tenth labour. Alternatively, some historians have tried to link it to the Oscan word for ‘five’, pumpe, suggesting that the city was formed out of five smaller villages. Unless we find out much more about the early history of the city, the origin of its name is likely to remain a mystery.

Oscan (the regional tongue and a cousin language to Latin); the Etruscans; and the Greeks of Magna Graecia (here called ‘Pelasgians’), who first moved into the Bay of Naples in the 8th century BCE , founding a trading post on the island of Pithekoussai (today called Ischia), and two cities at the northern end of the bay: Cumae and Parthenope (later renamed as Neapolis – modern Naples). While there may have been a small settlement on the site of Pompeii from the 8th century, the first evidence of an urbanised settlement dates to the first half of the 6th century, when the first city walls were built – these marked out the limits beyond which Pompeii never grew. It is also from this time that the first written evidence emerges, in the form of inscriptions written in Etruscan, a language yet to be fully deciphered. It is impossible to know whether at this stage Pompeii was a Greek, Etruscan or local Italian settlement, or even a mixture, since the archaeology suggests influences of all three cultures. It is also unclear what the character of the settlement was like at this stage. Most agree that the focal point was the network of streets in the south-west corner which is sometimes known as the ‘Old City’. Two important later temples – the temple of Apollo by the Forum, and the Doric Temple in the Triangular Forum – had their earliest origins in the 6th century, even if they were completely restored or rebuilt in subsequent centuries. Hundreds of offerings dating to the 6th century have been found at the Doric Temple, including terracotta figurines that clearly represent the goddess Minerva. There was also plenty of farming within the walls at this time, mainly on smallholdings (in fact, there was still some farming within the walls in 79 CE ), but it is not clear how developed the street and building patterns were before the 3rd century BCE . Indeed, no building of the rediscovered city can be dated to earlier than this time.

Samnites and Romans Strabo also tells us that the Samnites followed these three peoples, and this is likely to be correct. As we have seen on pp. 22–23 the Samnites were mountain-dwelling

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people of the Apennines, and those of Campania, whose native language was Oscan, seem to have moved down into the plains in the 5th century to win better land for themselves. By the end of that century they had become dominant in the whole region, including at Pompeii. It is likely that Pompeii was part of a Samnite league of towns at this point, with Nuceria as its leader. The archaeological evidence from the 5th and 4th centuries is sparse, however, and it seems that Pompeii suffered a decline in trade and population at this time. Towards the end of the 4th century, a rising power from central Italy was making its presence felt – Rome. After defeating the Samnites for good in the early 3rd century, the Romans took control of Campania, so that Pompeii and the other cities of the region were absorbed into the sphere of Roman influence and given the status of ‘allies’. As we have seen on p. 22, this would have allowed the Pompeians to retain some power over their own local affairs, but they were now required to supply forces for the Roman army and to follow Rome’s foreign policy. During the 3rd century the city started to take on the urban features that we can recognise today. It stayed loyal to Rome during the Punic Wars against the Carthaginians, and may even have prospered from the ship building industry that grew up in the Bay of Naples. Moreover, it remained unscathed during Hannibal’s invasion of Italy between 218 and 204, unlike the nearby towns of Capua (which defected to Hannibal and was brutally punished by the Romans) and Nuceria (which remained loyal to Rome but was sacked by Hannibal). This may have made Pompeii something of a refuge for the dispossessed of the region; from the end of the 3rd century, there is evidence of substantial expansion in housing. The city developed enormously during the 2nd century. This was the period when Hellenisation was bringing about huge cultural changes in Rome, and the same pattern is evident at Pompeii. Trade routes to the east opened up; there is some evidence for a greater variety in the Pompeian diet, with cumin and pepper among the new imports. Family names found at Pompeii are also attested in major Greek trading centres, such as the island of Delos. At this time, significant new public buildings were developed or constructed anew: a gymnasium along Greek lines was added to the Stabian baths, the large theatre dates to this period, and a Greek-style lawcourt by the forum was set up. The change is also visible in religious practice: towards the end of the 3rd century, a sanctuary to Dionysus was established by the city’s magistrates, while in the 2nd century the sanctuary of Apollo next to the forum was remodelled in Hellenistic fashion, with a stone temple replacing an earlier wooden one. The language of the city in this period was still Oscan, and numerous inscriptions and graffiti have survived from the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE . These writings can tell us more about the character of the city at this time. It was governed by two main bodies, a popular assembly and a council, at the head of which were magistrates. One inscription indicates that the Pompeians had incorporated Greek words for measurements into the Oscan language, while an extravagant private house, the House of the Faun (described on pp. 384–386), indicates the extent to which the town’s elite wished to associate themselves with Hellenistic culture.

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Date

Event

BCE 8th century

Small settlement at the site of Pompeii

6th century

City walls built at Pompeii; archaeology suggests influence of Greeks, Etruscans and local Italians

5th–4th centuries

Samnites dominant at Pompeii

Late 4th century

Pompeii becomes allied to Rome after the Samnite Wars

Late 3rd century

Substantial increase in housing at Pompeii

2nd century

Significant urban development of public buildings, many in the Hellenistic fashion

91–89

Pompeii besieged by Sulla during the Social War

80

Pompeii becomes a full Roman colony; at least 2,000 Roman veterans are settled

20s

Aqua Augusta aqueduct built to serve the Bay of Naples

CE 59

Riot in the Pompeian amphitheatre

62

Huge earthquake devastates the region

79

Eruption of Mt Vesuvius

A Roman Colony When, in 91 BCE , many allied cities in southern Italy joined together in revolt against Rome to demand full Roman citizenship, Pompeii abandoned its traditional loyalty to Rome to side with the rebels in this Social War. In 89, the city was besieged by the Roman general Sulla – Oscan painted notices can still be seen in the city giving directions to locals defending the walls, and artillery balls have been excavated in the houses adjoining the city walls. Pompeii soon capitulated and was fortunate not to be pillaged, as Herculaneum was. As we have read on p. 54, although Rome defeated the rebellious allies, it had little choice but to award their peoples citizenship in order to ensure long term stability in Italy. None the less, the Roman state took its revenge on the Pompeians in 80 BCE by turning their city into a full Roman colony, settling at least 2,000 of Sulla’s veteran soldiers there, together with their families (Sulla’s nephew was put in charge of the operation). This was a sizeable group for a city whose population perhaps only numbered around 10,000 beforehand, and the new colonists occupied all the key political posts in the years that followed. Tension ensued between the old and the new Pompeians. The new status of colony brought a number of changes to the character of the city, including a new name: Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum (‘The Cornelian Colony of Pompeii, under the divine protection of Venus’); the words Cornelia and Veneria are both linked to Sulla: he belonged to the Cornelian family, while Venus,

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who now became the protective goddess of the colony, was Sulla’s patron goddess. Other key changes were as follows: ●

Language: Latin replaced Oscan as the official language.

●

Politics: Pompeii’s political structure was changed to mirror that of Rome itself.

●

Construction: Major new buildings were constructed, including the amphitheatre, the Forum baths, and the covered theatre.

Despite this upheaval, within two generations the old and the new leading families were mixing and inter-marrying. The city remained relatively unaffected by the civil wars that were played out during the middle of the 1st century; indeed, at this time Cicero bought a villa near to the city as a place to escape from the troubles of his day. Moreover, after the establishment of the Augustan Principate, Pompeii benefited from the peace that followed: the city’s walls were no longer vital for defence, and many buildings began to grow up on them; in addition, a new aqueduct was built to serve the Bay of Naples, radically improving the city’s water supply. The city flourished economically at this time owing to the safe trade routes crisscrossing the Mediterranean: material excavated from the site indicates that wine was imported from as far afield as Sicily, Greece, Turkey and the Near East, while olive oil came from Libya and Spain, and high-quality pottery from France, Cyprus and northern Italy.

The Earthquake Pompeii therefore entered the 1st century CE as a city prospering from the Roman empire. We hear little about it in the historical records until 59 CE , when there was a riot in the amphitheatre (see pp. 369–371). Three years later, in February 62, the whole region of Campania was hit by a terrible earthquake, which the philosopher Seneca described in a letter to his friend Lucilius. We can be sure that Seneca wrote this soon after the event, since he died in 65, although he misdated the year of the disaster to 63. It is interesting that in the letter he chooses to describe the location and character of Pompeii to Lucilius, suggesting that the city was not well known to most Romans. We can glean further evidence about the earthquake from a number of inscriptions and reliefs found in the town; most famous are the marble reliefs that adorned the lararium of the house of Caecilius Iucundus, about whom you can read more on p. 381. In one of them, the temple of Jupiter is clearly being shaken to its foundations (Fig. 7.3), while in the other the Vesuvius gate is shown collapsing. Elsewhere in the city, an inscription that refers to an earthquake (presumably this one) was found over the main entrance to the sanctuary of Isis. The earthquake did significant physical damage to Pompeii and major reconstruction was required in the subsequent years. Rebuilding was in fact still

ongoing when Vesuvius erupted 17 years later; however, these building works were probably in response to more recent tremors, which must have hit the city as the

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In Their Own Words 7.1 1

Read Cicero’s description of conflict between native Pompeians and Sulla’s veterans (Pro Sulla, 60–62) (this and many other sources from Pompeii and Herculaneum can be found in Cooley and Cooley, 2014 listed in the Further Reading on p. 348). What can we learn of the tensions between the two groups from this passage?

2

Read Seneca’s comments on the earthquake of 62 at Natural Questions, 6.1.1–3, 10, 12; 6.27.1; 6.31.1. What information does he provide about the event and its effects?

volcano came closer to erupting. There is some evidence for these in the ancient sources; both Tacitus and Suetonius relate that in 64 CE a theatre in Naples collapsed in an earthquake as the emperor Nero was performing there; moreover, in his account of the eruption, Pliny the Younger makes the following comment: For many days previously there had been earth tremors, less alarming because frequent in Campania; but that night they grew so strong that it seemed everything was not so much being moved but being overturned. Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.20.3

The people of Pompeii didn’t realise that these earthquakes and tremors were a warning sign until it was too late. Instead, Pompeians carried on with their lives just as they always had.

Fig. 7.3 One of the reliefs from the House of Caecilius Iucundus which depicts the earthquake’s effect on the temple of Jupiter in the forum.

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Review and Reflect 7.1 1

How similar was the development of Pompeii as a city to that of Rome?

2

How important was Pompeii’s location in its development into a prosperous city?

Further Reading 7.1 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapter 1. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapters 1, 3, 9. Cooley, Alison E. and Cooley, M.G.L, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), chapters 1, 2, 3. Cooley, Alison E., Pompeiii (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003). Foss, Pedar and Dobbins, John, The World of Pompeiii (London: Routledge, 2007). Ling, Roger, Pompeii: History, Life, and Afterlife (Stroud: Tempus, 2005). Zanker, Paul, Pompeii: Public and Private Life (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1998).

II Destruction and Rediscovery In 79 CE Vesuvius exploded back into life after centuries of lying dormant. The traditional date for this eruption, based on the account of Pliny the Younger, is 24th August, although some scholars think that it may have come slightly later in the year (one suggestive piece of evidence is that the remains of autumnal fruits have been discovered in the ruins). The Romans knew what volcanoes were – Mt Etna in Sicily had periodically produced small-scale eruptions – but it seems that few realised that Mt Vesuvius was also a volcano, let alone a potentially active one. Indeed, in the days, weeks, and even months beforehand, local people were not able to recognise what today we would clearly understand to be warning signs of an imminent eruption: as well as the earth tremors mentioned by Pliny, wells dried up and springs stopped flowing; rumblings were heard in the mountains and animals behaved strangely.

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1 The Eruption The volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 was – as far as we are aware – the first ever to be recorded in writing by an eyewitness, the 17-year-old now known to us as Pliny the Younger (62–113 CE ). He was staying at Misenum, 18 miles (30 kilometres) west of Vesuvius, the main port of the Roman fleet in the region, where his uncle, Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE ), was the fleet’s commander. The Plinys were a remarkable pair: the uncle, as well as being an admiral in the navy, was a great scholar who wrote an encyclopaedia of the natural world in 37 books, which survive for us to read today; as we have seen, the nephew went on to become a consul and provincial governor, and his volumes of letters have proved to be a valuable historical resource for later generations (for example, see pp. 139–140 and pp. 223–224). At the request of the historian Tacitus, Pliny the Younger wrote two letters about the eruption roughly 27 years after the event. By a turn of fate, Pliny’s letters have survived for us to read today, while that portion of Tacitus’ Histories has not. The first letter tells of the death of his uncle at Stabiae, where he had landed after an unsuccessful attempt to rescue people stranded around the Bay of Naples; in the second letter, Pliny relates his own experiences of the eruption from his vantage point at Misenum. Reading these letters gives a first-hand insight into the bravery, panic and horror witnessed during those fateful hours.

The Plinian Stage According to Pliny the Younger, the eruption began in the middle of the day with a column of hot gas and pumice bursting into the sky to a height of up to 20 miles (30 kilometres – about three times the cruising altitude of an aeroplane today). Pliny’s description of this moment remains famous: A cloud was rising from (the) mountain . . . its appearance can best be described by comparing it to an umbrella pine, for carried up to a very great height as if on a tree-trunk, it began to spread out into various branches. Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.16.5–6

In Their Own Words 7.2 1

Read Pliny the Younger’s two letters to Tacitus at 6.16 and 6.20. What variety of reactions does he relate of the people mentioned in the letter?

2

Writing in the early 3rd century, Dio Cassius gave his own account of the eruption at 66.21–24. How does this version differ from that of Pliny? How believable do you find it?

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Fig. 7.4 This umbrella pine stands in the ruins of Pompeii today, with Vesuvius in the backdrop.

The umbrella pine is still a common sight in the bay of Naples area today, and the analogy makes it easy for us to imagine what Pliny saw (Fig. 7.4). However, for a long time his account of its shape was not believed, and it was only in the 20th century that volcanologists were able to confirm that it does fit a particular type of eruption – one that they now call ‘Plinian’ in his honour. On the day of the eruption, it was Pompeii’s misfortune to be downwind of Vesuvius. The cloud plunged the city into darkness, while pumice, ash and rock fragments began to fall to earth, accumulating at a rate of about 15 centimetres per hour. However, these conditions did not prevent people from moving around the city, and it seems that most Pompeians chose to flee at this point – for one thing, very few skeletons of pack animals have been found, while there is also plenty of evidence of people taking belongings and valuables with them. Some Pompeians, however, chose to stay in the city in the hope that the calamity would pass. By evening, roofs were beginning to collapse under the weight of the volcanic deposit, and it must have been progressively more difficult to move through the streets. Those remaining must have faced the same dilemma that Pliny the Elder’s party faced later on that night at Stabiae, whereby they were not sure whether to stay inside or head out into the open. In their case, they put cushions on their heads to protect themselves from falling rocks, and headed out to the seashore.

The Peléan Stage In the early hours of the morning there was a lull in the eruption. At this moment, some Pompeians, believing that the worst was over, tried to make their escape. In fact, it was

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The Eruption by Numbers It is difficult to imagine just how massive was the force of nature unleashed by Vesuvius in 79 CE , but these statistics might help you try: it is estimated that the initial eruption sent ash, rock and pumice stone (known collectively as tephra) into the air at a speed of 1,400 kilometres per hour, breaking the sound barrier and reaching a height of up to 30 kilometres. At this point, the volcano was sending out tephra at a rate of 150,000 tonnes per second, although this went up to 180,000 tonnes per second during the night. Perhaps most astonishingly, based on a comparison with the eruption of Mt St Helens in the USA in 1980, the size of the initial explosion has been likened to that of a ten-megaton bomb – 500 times greater than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

really an indicator of a new and more awful stage to come. As the volcano lost energy, the eruption column started to collapse, bringing about two linked phenomena, known collectively as nuées ardentes (‘burning clouds’): ground surges of hot gas and volcanic debris, which travel at speeds of between 100 and 300 kilometres per hour and at temperatures ranging between 100 and 400 degrees Celsius. These are swiftly followed by pyroclastic flows: dense flows of hot, fragmented volcanic material, lubricated by trapped gas and air; although a flow is slightly less rapid than a surge, it too can heat up to 400 degrees Celsius. This stage of a volcanic eruption is sometimes known as Peléan, after the eruption of Mt Pelée on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1902, during which the nearby city of Saint-Pierre was engulfed in a matter of moments, with almost all of its 28,000 inhabitants killed. There were six nuées ardentes in all. The first and second hit the nearby town of Herculaneum in the middle of the night (see pp. 396–397), but Pompeii remained untouched (these first surges might account for the shaking buildings experienced by Pliny the Elder’s party at Stabiae). A few hours later, at about 6:30 am, the third reached and knocked down parts of Pompeii’s northern wall, but the city itself remained standing. However, its luck ran out within an hour, when it was enveloped by the last three nuées ardentes; the sixth was particularly severe, covering the entire site and destroying the walls of the tallest buildings. The northern end of the city was buried to a depth of 1.8 metres; in the south, the depth was only 60 centimetres, and it is possible that some structures were still partially visible.

The Aftermath The biographer Suetonius tells us that in the aftermath of the eruption Titus, who had been emperor for only a few months, sent a commission of senators to the Bay of Naples to organise the relief effort. A relief fund was set up and the estates of those who had died without making a will were immediately donated to it. Nearby cities such as Nola, Naples and Capua were given special privileges to help resettle survivors.

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In the days and weeks after the eruption, it seems that some people tried to dig down into the buried site of Pompeii to retrieve valuables. Some of these people were almost certainly looters, who were looking to make a quick profit from any valuables they could find. Soon, however, the site became overgrown and forgotten. Pompeii became a city buried in the past.

The Victims About 1,150 bodies have been found in the ruins of Pompeii so far (394 in the pumice level, 653 in the ash level, and about 100 bodies whose find-spots and condition were not documented). Even allowing for the unexcavated areas of the city, this number is not a high percentage of the city’s population, which may have been around the 10,000 mark, or even more. It seems therefore that most did manage to get out of the city in the hours after the volcano exploded. Most of those who remained probably chose to do so. Of the 394 bodies discovered in the pumice level, 345 were found sheltering inside buildings, the other 49 in outdoor locations. In most cases, we can only speculate at how they died: those inside were probably crushed under falling roofs, or sealed in rooms by the rising levels of ash and pumice; those outside may have been trampled to death in the crowded streets, killed by collapsing buildings, or even struck by large rocks falling from the sky. Even if people did manage to get out of the city, they were still far from safe: 48 bodies have been found near the Sarno river, and many more are likely to lie undiscovered in the area outside Pompeii. More still no doubt drowned trying to escape over the choppy sea. Of the 653 bodies found at the levels of the nuées ardentes, most have been discovered in the layer between the fourth and the fifth surges; the latest research suggests that they died instantly of thermal shock from exposure to temperatures of more than 250 degrees Celsius. 319 of the 653 were discovered in outdoor areas; after the third surge, these people must have decided that they had no choice but to make a break for it. Archaeologists have been able to piece together the tragic last moments of some of the victims, as one modern scholar does here: One group of four, found in a street near the forum, was probably an entire family trying to make its escape. The father went in front, a burly man, with big bushy eyebrows (as the plaster cast reveals). He had pulled his cloak over his head, to protect himself from falling ash and debris, and carried with him some gold jewellery (a simple finger-ring and a few earrings), a couple of keys and, in this case, a reasonable amount of cash, at almost 400 sesterces. His two small daughters followed, while the mother brought up the rear. She had hitched up her dress to make the walking easier, and was carrying more household valuables in a little bag. From Pompeii, by Mary Beard

Personal details such as these allow us to reflect on events from the family’s perspective. Why had they waited so long before trying to escape? Were they worried that their daughters would not cope with the journey? Were the keys a sign that they

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held out some hope of returning? Where were they planning to go when they left the city? This is just one poignant story for us to ponder among many. Others include the following: ●

A group of 13 men, women and children whose bodies were discovered at the southern end of the city in a market garden. They were clearly trying to escape from the city, and so the garden is now known as the Garden of the Fugitives (see Fig. 7.5 on p. 356).

●

In the house of Julius Polybius were found the remains of 13 people (including a number of children), assumed to be the owner, his family and his slaves. One of the women, a girl in her late teens, was nine months pregnant (the bones of her foetus were also recovered). Perhaps the whole family had chosen to stay because of her heavy pregnancy.

●

The bodies of a number of people have been found in the triangular forum, crushed under falling columns.

●

In one large house, a dog was left tethered in the atrium. As the ash and pumice level rose, it twisted and pulled on the chain to try to get itself free, but was eventually buried alive.

The final word about the experience of escaping the disaster zone belongs to Pliny the Younger. Misenum itself was hit by the outer edge of the final surge, although fortunately it had lost its power and heat at that point and left only a thick deposit of ash. Nonetheless, it must have been terrifying for the inhabitants, and Pliny vividly describes the scene as people fled the city: You could hear women screaming, babies wailing, men shouting: some were calling out for their parents, others for their children, others for their wives or husbands, and trying to recognise their voices; some lamented their own misfortune, others that of their relatives; there were some who in their fear of dying prayed for death; many raised their hands to the gods; more still concluded that there were no gods and that this was the world’s final and everlasting night. Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.20.14–15

2 Rediscovery The buried city of Pompeii was not brought to light again until the middle of the 18th century, although there were one or two near misses before then. For example, in 1592, an architect called Domenico Fontana was excavating a canal through the raised fields north of the River Sarno. The diggers came across some ancient ruins, but buried them without investigating further. Nearly a century later, in 1689, an inscription with the word Pompei was found in the same area by workmen digging a well; however, it was decided that this referred to the Roman general Pompey, and so the site was once again ignored.

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Early Excavations In the early 18th century, there was great interest in the newly discovered site of Herculaneum, which intensified when the Bourbon royal family from Spain took control of Naples and Sicily in 1734. The new King, Charles VIII, was keen to fund the excavations, but merely for selfish reasons – he wanted any treasure found from the site to be removed for his own private collection. He appointed a military engineer and mining expert called Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre to take charge of operations, but he had little experience of archaeology. In 1748, trial digs were made for the first time at the site of Pompeii. All in all, Alcubierre was a disaster for Pompeii. He was not interested in preserving the site, but simply in looting it of treasure for his paymaster. Many of the works of art that he removed have been lost forever; in addition, when digging in the site, he knocked down walls carelessly, often destroying frescos in the process. Further long-term damage was done to the buildings by the way in which they were filled in again – this was often done poorly, so that they were susceptible to damage from sunlight and damp. One strident critic of Alcubierre was the German art historian and archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who in 1762 summed up his efforts as follows: This man, to use an Italian saying, had had as little to with antiquities as the moon has to do with crayfish, and, through his inexperience, he was guilty of much damage and of the loss of many beautiful things.

Naming the Ruins The names used today for places in Pompeii do not date back to ancient times. As we do not know what the Pompeians called places in the city, archaeologists have made up their own names. In many cases, houses are named after a piece of art found there (e.g. the House of the Faun, after the dancing faun found in its atrium); in other instances, a house was called after the person or people supposed to have lived there (e.g. the House of the Vettii, after the two Vettii brothers) or after something related to the owners (e.g. a set of surgical instruments were found in the House of the Surgeon). Some names are more curious and unconnected to the ruins; for example, the ‘House of the Silver Wedding’ was discovered in 1893, the year in which the then King of Italy, Umberto I, celebrated his silver wedding with his wife Margherita. The same principle was used to name many public areas of the city. The main shopping street, the Via dell’Abbondanza (‘the Street of Abundance’) took its name from the decorative motif on one of its fountains, while the gates were generally named after the places to which they led (e.g. the Herculaneum gate, the Sarno gate, etc.)

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Fortunately, in 1750, a Swiss architect, Karl Weber, was appointed as Alcubierre’s deputy. Although he had a strained relationship with his boss, he brought important innovations to the process, especially by trying to excavate the site systematically and to keep written records, including plans, maps and a list of artefacts. In 1763, an inscription was found that read reipublicae Pompeianorum (‘to the community of the Pompeians’), and at last it was known for certain that the buried city was indeed Pompeii. Inconsistent progress was made over the following century; between 1801 and 1815, the site benefited from being under the control of Napoleonic France; Napoleon’s sister, Caroline, became joint ruler of Naples, and invested heavily in the excavations from her own personal income. However, after the Bourbons regained control of the region in 1815, funding dried up again. It was not until Italy was unified as a country in 1860 that Pompeii was to get the attention it deserved.

Giuseppe Fiorelli In 1860, the majority of the various regions of Italy were unified into one nation for the first time since the fall of the Roman empire. Italy’s political leaders wanted Pompeii to be a showcase for the new country, and to provide a direct link back to its famous past. In 1863, he appointed Giuseppe Fiorelli director of the excavations, a man who was to have a profound effect on the site and who remains Pompeii’s most famous archaeologist. Fiorelli immediately made many important improvements to the archaeological processes at the site: ●

Digging: He insisted that excavations were always done from above, so that excavators no longer dug sideways through walls. He also cleared away the mounds of waste that were littered around and built roofs over the excavated buildings in order to protect them from the sun and rain.

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Recording: To make record-keeping easier, he introduced a system of triple-numbering; the site was divided into nine regions, each of which was sub-divided into blocks (insulae); each individual entrance within an insula was then numbered. For example, the main entrance to the house of Menander is listed as I.10.4 (region 1, insula 10, entrance 4). His journals then recorded exactly what was found, and in which room of which house, using this system. They are absolutely crucial for our understanding of many parts of Pompeii.

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Artefacts: Items could no longer be removed for private collections; where possible, they were either left in situ; otherwise, they were taken to the Naples Archaeological Museum, while replicas were left in their place.

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Funding: He opened the site to the general public for the first time, and introduced an entrance fee, which paid for caretakers.

Fiorelli’s most famous contribution to the site, however, was his idea of the plaster casts, and the way in which they were created became known as ‘Fiorelli’s Process’. He realised that dead bodies had been sealed in volcanic ash by the eruption. In time,

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Fig. 7.5 These thirteen plaster casts were created from the shapes of bodies found in a garden at the southern end of the city. The area is today known as the Garden of the Fugitives, since it is assumed these people were making a run for it when they were hit by one of the pyroclastic avalanches.

these bodies rotted but cavities were left behind. Whenever a cavity was found, Fiorelli had plaster of Paris poured in and left it to set. Once it was dry, excavators could chip away around the plaster, which would reveal an exact replica of the person in the moment of death (Fig. 7.5). This discovery gave chillingly detailed information about how people died in the eruption and what they were doing in their last moments. The process could be used for any organic material which rotted to leave a cavity: as well as animals, it has been used to get replicas of wooden shutters, doors, furniture, and even root cavities to find out what plants the Pompeians grew in their gardens.

Modern Pompeii The excavation of the site continued throughout the 20th century, although there have been times of difficulty, such as during World War II (see text box below), another eruption of Vesuvius in 1944, and a major earthquake in 1980, which caused serious damage. To date, about a third of the city remains unexcavated, but the priority is to safeguard what has been brought to light, which remains fragile and prone to crumble (none the less, conservation sometimes requires the excavation of buried buildings, and in 2018 some remarkable discoveries were made as a result). In

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1997, the site was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but this has not stopped it from suffering structural collapse in places. In 2010, the site witnessed the partial collapse of two excavated houses – the House of the Gladiators and the House of the Moralist. In 2014, three more major collapses in three days were caused by heavy rain. There are over 1,100 individual structures to maintain, and more than 100,000 square metres of wall paintings to preserve, all of which is very expensive. One of the major threats to the site today is its popularity – about 2.5 million visitors come each year, posing serious danger to its conservation. Consequently, only about 30 per cent of the site is fully open to the public. There is also the looming threat that Vesuvius will erupt again at some point in the future.

World War II In August and September 1943, Pompeii found itself in the middle of a war zone for the first time since 89 BCE ; the allies dropped more than 150 bombs on the site, believing (incorrectly) that German soldiers were hiding in the ruins. Some key buildings in the city were hit, including the temples of Jupiter and Apollo, the gladiator barracks, the amphitheatre and the House of the Faun. In addition, the temple of Dionysus just to the south of the city was uncovered by one such bomb crater.

Review and Reflect 7.2 1

Find out about the eruptions of Mt Pelée in 1902 and Mt St Helens in 1980. How can they help us understand the eruption of Vesuvius in 79?

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Research the different volcanic characteristics of Mt Vesuvius and Mt Etna. Why might these differences have prevented Romans from understanding how dangerous Vesuvius was as a volcano?

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Archaeologists have a saying that ‘to dig is to destroy’. What do you think this means? What have been the negative consequences for Pompeii in its excavation?

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What ethical arguments might there be for and against putting on public display the casts made by Fiorelli’s process?

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Further Reading 7.2 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), Introduction. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapters 1, 2. Cooley, Alison E. and Cooley, M.G.L, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), chapter 3. Cooley, Alison E., Pompeiii (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003). Dwyer, Eugene, Pompeii’s Living Statues (Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, 2010). Foss, Pedar and Dobbins, John, The World of Pompeiii (London: Routledge, 2007). Lazer, Estelle, Resurrecting Pompeiii (London: Routledge, 2009). Ling, Roger, Pompeii: History, Life, and Afterlife (Stroud: Tempus, 2005). Zanker, Paul, Pompeii: Public and Private Life (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1998).

III The Layout of Pompeii Pompeii was well designed, with gates and main roads leading to the key areas inside and outside the city. Within its walls, the civic centre was the forum in the south-west, while there were also entertainment areas to the south (the ‘theatre district’) and the south-east (the amphitheatre and large palaestra), while a number of bathing facilities were dispersed around the city. The layout of the city can be seen in Fig. 7.6.

1 Gates and Streets Seven gates were located strategically at different points along the city walls. Each one connected to a key point in the surrounding region: the Sarno and Marine gates led to the river and harbour respectively; the Vesuvius gate to the farmland beneath the mountain; the names of the others – Herculaneum, Nolan, Nucerian, and Stabian – all indicate the cities to which roads led. Pompeii was therefore easily accessible for the many traders and travellers who came and went. Two of the gates, the Herculaneum and the Marine, were designed with separate entrances for vehicles and for pedestrians. In common with burial practice throughout the Roman world, the cemeteries of Pompeii lay just outside the city, usually along the roads leading out from the gates. The most elaborate series of tombs is found just beyond the Herculaneum gate, so that the road has been named the ‘Street of the Tombs’. There is another significant necropolis outside the Nucerian gate to the south of the city. These tombs were

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usually built for the families of the wealthy, and their inscriptions can tell us a great deal about the lives of those who are buried. Apart from the south-west corner, referred to as the ‘Old Town’, Pompeii’s streets were laid out on a grid system; this made it easy for visitors to find their way around, and also allowed the maximum number of buildings to be fitted into a confined space. There were three key ‘artery roads’; two are on the east-west axis (a Roman street on this axis was known as a decumanus) – the Via dell’Abbondanza (becoming the Via Marina to the west of the forum) and the Via di Nola (becoming the Via della Fortuna and then the Via delle Terme as its heads west); the other artery road is on the northsouth axis (a Roman street on this axis was known as a cardo) – the Via Stabiana (becoming the Via Vesuvio to the north). The Via dell’Abbondanza was the city’s main shopping street, with numerous bars, inns and other small shops. The streets themselves were mostly straight and paved with blocks of basalt (volcanic rock). They were slightly elevated in the middle so that water would run to the edges, while on either side were high pavements (on average, more than 30 centimetres above street level). This design was essential because the city was regularly inundated with rainwater and overflow from the public fountains – there was little underground drainage unlike in other Roman towns (including Herculaneum). The situation was made worse by the fact that people tipped their sewage out into the streets. The high level of dirty water in the streets explains why there are so many stepping stones across the Pompeian streets – 316 have been found in all, about 20 times more than in any other Roman city (Fig. 7.7). These stepping

Fig. 7.7 Stepping stones across a Pompeian street. The ruts of the cart wheels that have passed between the stones are still clearly visible.

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Graffiti One feature that brings Pompeii vividly to life is all the graffiti that has survived. Like today, this was often scrawled on walls by ordinary people, and could refer to any aspect of everyday life. The following examples give a flavour: Virgula to her bloke Tertius: you’re a dirty old man. CIL IV 1826 Chios, I hope your piles irritate you so they burn like they’ve never burned before! CIL IV 1820 Vilbius Restitutus slept here alone and all the time longed for his Urbana. CIL IV 2146 Atimetus got me pregnant. CIL IV 3117

stones were spaced so as to allow carts to pass with their wheels fitting between them, and the ruts caused by these carts are still visible today. Although the ruts cannot tell us the direction of travel, ironically the evidence from bad driving can: there are about 600 examples of marks left by carts’ wheels on the kerbstones, stepping stones and other small guard stones, many of which have allowed archaeologists to piece together the various one-way systems that were in place – about 80% of Pompeii’s streets were single lane only. The pavements were typically bordered by high walls. On main streets, walls often had colourful facades, painted in reds, yellows or blues, and the wall space could be used in various ways: for electoral slogans, for marking out religious shrines, and even for painting good luck symbols such as phalluses; some people put up ‘for rent’ notices, or even just random graffiti, while shops and bars might advertise themselves with distinctive signs (rather like pub signs today), perhaps showing goods on sale or the gods who protected their business.

2 Water Supply For much of Pompeii’s history, people relied on wells or rainwater to provide them with water. The former were inefficient since they had to be dug to a great depth, while the water from them tended to contain sulphur. Rainwater offered a cleaner and easier option (when it fell), particularly in atrium houses where it could be stored in cisterns, which drained off water that fell into the impluvium. However, a great leap forward came during the 20s BCE , when Marcus Agrippa, the right hand man of the emperor Augustus, commissioned the building of an aqueduct, the Aqua Augusta, in the Bay of Naples, primarily to supply the fleet at Misenum. It was one of the longest

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Water Hygiene How hygienic was Pompeii’s water supply system? In truth, people must have had to contend with various health hazards on a daily basis. First of all, the pipes were made of lead (which the Romans did not realise was poisonous); secondly, they often leaked and the water supply could be contaminated with the dirt and waste washed away in the street; thirdly, the water stored in the castellum aquae or the water towers could easily become stagnant and so a breeding ground for disease; finally, the communal nature of the public fountains (used by animals as well as people) meant that bacteria and germs were easily transmitted. As is still the case in many parts of the world today, access to clean water was a rarity.

aqueducts in the Roman world, 86 miles in all. It was fed by the springs in the hills inland, and served many towns in the region, including Pompeii, as well as the naval base at Misenum. It has been estimated that the daily flow of water into Pompeii alone may have been 6,480,000 litres. The Pompeian branch of the aqueduct led to a water storage facility, the castellum aquae (‘water castle’), which was located at the highest point of the city, just inside the Vesuvius Gate (about 43 metres above modern sea level). Here, the water was filtered and then distributed in the city via one of three ducts, which probably supplied different areas. It travelled downhill into the city by force of gravity, flowing through a network of lead pipes laid at the edge of roads, just below the surface (in order to make repairs easy). These pipes led to towers dotted throughout the city (14 have been discovered); each one regulated the water pressure by storing water in a lead tank on its top; water was then released to service the local area, and in particular the public fountains. These fountains were a vital resource, since most houses did not have running water; more than 40 have been found, and it is estimated that almost all Pompeians lived within 80 metres of one. Indeed, the water supply was prioritised to the public fountains first, then to public buildings and finally to private houses.

3 The Forum Pompeii’s forum was located in the oldest part of the city, close to the Marine gate in the south-west. It was the city’s civic centre, about 150 metres long and 40 metres wide, with important religious, commercial, legal and political buildings (although in some cases the exact identification and purpose remains uncertain) (Fig. 7.8). While a modern visitor can still get an idea of what the forum would have looked like, it is hard to recapture the sheer splendour of the place. At its centre was a paved open square, around which ran a double colonnade in white marble. To the north end was the imposing Temple of Jupiter, flanked on either side by two grand ceremonial arches.

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During the day, the square came to life; evidence for this comes from a series of frescos in the Estate of Julia Felix, which portray forum scenes. In some are traders who have set up temporary stalls – an ironmonger, a cobbler, a man selling cloth and another selling pots and pans; elsewhere, people have come to the forum to read public notices. The square was also presumably a place where friends came to meet, chat and shop, while politicians and public figures might have made speeches here; the whole area was pedestrianised, with blocking stones preventing vehicles from the adjoining streets from entering.

Statues Another feature of the square was its statues of important public figures; visitors today can still see the bases of these – 57 in all, 16 of which could have supported a man riding a horse. Those honoured with these statues would either have been important members of Pompeian society, or else members of the imperial family.

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Religious Buildings The temple of Jupiter at the north end of the forum was the most important in Pompeii (Fig. 7.9). First constructed in the second half of the 2nd century BCE , it was given a significant makeover after the city became a Roman colony. At this point, the temple became a capitolium, modelled on the Capitoline temple of Jupiter in Rome (see p. 186), and dedicated to the Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, who each have their own rooms in the temple. When it was excavated in the 18th century, a colossal marble head of Jupiter was discovered. On the west side of the forum stood the walled sanctuary of Apollo. The first building on this site can be dated to the 6th century BCE , although the complex visible today was first constructed some 400 years later. The temple is surrounded by a portico, on each side of which was found a bronze statue – one of Apollo and the other of his sister Diana, both of them posing as archers. Beside the temple was a sundial, which was donated by two magistrates. On the other side of the forum was a sanctuary that was probably dedicated to worshipping the emperor – now known as the temple of Vespasian. Although it takes its name from Vespasian, the emperor who died shortly before the eruption, it may date back to the time when Augustus was emperor. A marble altar with an impressive frieze of a bull sacrifice taking place can still be seen in situ today (see Fig. 4.12 on p. 209). Further north was the area known as the sanctuary of the Public Lares, who were the guardian spirits of the city, and it was once thought that

Fig. 7.9 A view across the forum square to the ruins of the temple of Jupiter.

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this was where they were worshipped. However, this identification is now disputed, and the purpose of the building remains unclear.

Commercial Buildings The forum was also the business centre of Pompeii, containing buildings concerned with various trades and industries. To the north-east was the Macellum, a rectangular market selling food and drink. Its centre was open-air and contained a circular building holding a pool of water with fish for sale. To the west and the north side were porticoes, where stalls may have been set up, while there were shops along the south side (as well as a suite of three halls, which may have housed statues of prominent Pompeians or the imperial family). Some of the surviving frescos indicate the goods sold there, including fish, bread, poultry and wine. A little further south was the grand Eumachia Building, which had an elaborate entrance and was surrounded by porticoes. Its purpose is unclear, although as it was the largest building in the forum it must have played an important role in civic life. It takes its name from Eumachia, a public priestess (possibly of Ceres), who came from a wealthy and influential Pompeian family. Over each entrance to the building was the following inscription: Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess, in her own name and that of her son, Marcus Numistrius Fronto, built at her own expense the chalcidicum [porch], crypt, and portico, and dedicated them to Augustan Concord and Piety. CIL X.810

It is interesting to see a woman playing such an important role in the public life of the city, both as a priestess and as a benefactor wealthy enough in her own right to fund such a huge development. There have been various theories about what her hall was actually used for; the most common is that it was a guildhall for the fulling industry (described on p. 378), based mainly on the fact that a statue of Eumachia (Fig. 7.10) was set up inside the building with the following inscription: To Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess; the fullers (set this up). CIL X.813

However, the evidence for such a use is inconclusive; other theories have suggested that the building may have been used as an additional marketplace (perhaps even as a slave market), as a multi-purpose hall, or even as a meeting centre for Pompeii’s College of Augustales. Ultimately, there is not enough evidence to be sure of any of these. To the north of the Temple of Apollo were two other commercial sites: the Weights and Measures Table and the Granary. The former was used to check the accuracy of the measures of the forum traders. The table has 9 holes, each one equal to a specific measure and with a mini trapdoor at the base. A hole would be filled to the brim, the trapdoor released, and the exact amount fell into a pot below. The granary

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Fig. 7.10 The statue of the priestess Eumachia set up by the fullers.

next door may have been used as a warehouse market to store cereals and pulses, but it seems not to have been in use at the time of the eruption, since it was lacking a roof and the walls had not been plastered.

Political and Legal Buildings The main political and legal buildings of Pompeii were found at the southern end of the forum. To the south-west was the Basilica, one of the city’s most impressive buildings. Constructed in about 100 BCE , the main entrance had five grand doors fitted with wooden shutters. Inside, steps led up to a grand hall, which was surrounded by huge columns, the bases of which can still be seen today. It is likely that important legal cases were heard in the Basilica; at its far end was a raised podium, the tribunal, from where a magistrate might have presided over disputes (although the view to the platform would have been obscured by a large statue). Alternatively, it may have been used to hold auctions, since the Basilica probably also doubled up as a commercial centre where people met to talk business or sign contracts.

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At the south end of the forum were three large offices, usually referred to as the Municipal Offices, where it is assumed that the magistrates worked, the Council met, and the public archives were kept. However, there is no conclusive evidence to support this – archaeologists base this view on what they would normally expect of a Roman city. To the east of these offices was an open-air meeting hall called the Comitium; it has often been thought that this was a polling station where people went to vote, although in fact the whole forum may have been used for this purpose.

4 Entertainment The Theatre District Pompeii also had its own theatre district, centred on two theatres at the southern end of the city. The large theatre, with an estimated capacity of 4,000 in its final form, was first built in the 2nd century BCE when the city was coming under the influence of Hellenistic culture (Fig. 7.11). It was extensively modified at the end of the 1st century BCE , when two brothers from a prominent Pompeian family, the Holconii, commissioned a new upper section of seating supported by vaulted passageways. To commemorate their gift to the city, the two had the following inscription set up prominently in two places near the stage:

Fig. 7.11 The Large Theatre, with the gladiator barracks in the background.

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Marcus Holconius Rufus and Marcus Holconius Celer [built] at their own expense the crypt, boxes, and theatre seating. CIL X 833, 834

The inscriptions indicate how the wealthy of Pompeii tried to win favour and prestige by paying for public services. These two made absolutely sure that everyone knew about their endowment – both the inscriptions were well over six metres long. Drama was popular in Pompeii, to judge by the many mosaics, paintings, and other works of art – as well as graffiti – found relating to the theatre. However, we have little direct evidence for the type of shows put on; it is likely that they reflected the pattern elsewhere in the Roman world, which you can read about on pp. 314–328. To the side of the large theatre was the smaller covered theatre (so called since it was roofed over), sometimes also known as the Odeon. It was constructed in the 70s BCE , funded by two wealthy colonists, and could seat around 1,000. It may have hosted performances more intimate than full scale plays, such as poetry recitals or public speaking competitions. There is a theory that it was also used as a council chamber for the city’s newly settled colonists. Below the large theatre was a colonnaded portico, which may originally have been designed as a gymnasium or simply as a meeting area for spectators; however, after 62 CE it was turned into a barracks for gladiators. To the south-west of the large theatre, a monumental staircase led up to what is known as the ‘triangular forum’, at the heart of which was the ‘Doric’ temple (so named after its architecture), which may have been dedicated to Minerva and Heracles. There was a close link between drama and religion in both the Greek and the Roman world, and two other temples were also located nearby – one to Isis, the other generally believed to be to Asclepius, the god of medicine. A palaestra, built in the Samnite era, was the other building in the district.

The Amphitheatre Pompeii’s amphitheatre was built in about 70 BCE and is the earliest amphitheatre discovered in the Roman world (Fig. 7.12). It seems that the building was closely connected with Pompeii’s new status of colony, since its construction was privately funded by the colonists Gaius Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Porcius, the same two who had commissioned the covered theatre. It is difficult to arrive at an exact figure for the capacity of the seating-area, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to in excess of 20,000. Even at the lower estimate, this was significantly more than the citizen population of the city, and so it is likely that many outsiders came to Pompeii to watch games. The seating itself was divided into three levels, with the Pompeian elite sitting closest to the action. There were also special boxes for the city’s magistrates, and an awning to protect spectators from the elements. The amphitheatre therefore had many of the features later evident in the Colosseum at Rome, even though that was built 150 years earlier.

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Fig. 7.12 The amphitheatre of Pompeii today.

As in Rome, putting on shows was the duty and privilege of aspiring politicians, who hoped to win support and popularity by providing the common people with spectacular entertainment. Games seem to have taken place all year round, and the sponsor of the games, the editor, would advertise the forthcoming spectacle on walls around Pompeii. Many of these painted notices have survived for us to see today; they were typically done by professional sign-writers, and promoted the forthcoming spectacle. The following is typical: 20 pairs of gladiators of Decimus Lucretius Satrius Valens, perpetual priest of Nero Caesar, son of Augustus, and 10 pairs of gladiators of Decimus Lucretius Valens, his son, will fight at Pompeii on 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 April. There will be a regular hunt and awnings. CIL IV 3884

It is interesting that the father has included his son in the process – presumably he was trying to ensure that the family’s political influence continued into the next generation. Next to the amphitheatre was a large palaestra, complete with a swimming pool at its centre. As well as being a public exercise ground, this may have been a place where gladiators warmed up before a bout; alternatively, on days when shows were being held, it was perhaps a place for spectators to congregate and wait before entering the amphitheatre. In 59 CE , Pompeii made news in the wider Roman world when a riot broke out between locals and visiting spectators from the nearby city of Nuceria, resulting in

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The Gladiators of Pompeii Two locations have been discovered where it is believed gladiators were housed. The first is a converted house simply called the House of the Gladiators, where more than 100 graffiti have been found relating to gladiatorial combat. Various types of fighter are mentioned, including the murmillo, retiarius, secutorr and thracian. In some cases, fighters have scrawled graffiti to show off their successes in the arena – or with women. In the following example, the gladiator Celadus did both: The girls’ heart-throb, Thracian gladiator Celadus, belonging to Octavus, fought 3, won 3. CIL IV 4342 After the earthquake in 62, the colonnaded portico behind the large theatre was also converted into a gladiator barracks. It had about 30–40 cells on two floors, as well as some communal living quarters. Archaeologists found here 15 richly decorated bronze helmets, as well as shin-guards, shoulder-guards, daggers, and other weapons. The bodies of 18 people and 2 dogs were also uncovered in one of the rooms during excavations.

serious injury and loss of life. It was an incident major enough for the Roman historian Tacitus to mention in his Annals. Tacitus relates that the Roman Senate banned the city from holding games for two years, and exiled the sponsor of the games, Livineius Regulus. Other sources suggest that the city’s leading magistrates, the duoviri, were removed from office. It seems that the ban was lifted by the emperor Nero in 64, while even before this time it was only gladiatorial contests that were banned, since advertisements do survive for wild beast hunts. In a remarkable correspondence of archaeological and literary evidence, a fresco of the riot has survived in the House of Actius Anicetus. As you can see in Fig. 7.13, it shows fighting both in the stands and outside the arena. Although it is not clear why it was painted, one theory is that it was intended to be a show of triumph after the defeat of the Nucerians.

In Their Own Words 7.3 Read Tacitus’ account of the riot at Pompeii at Annals, 14.17. What do we learn about the event from this passage? How does it compare with the evidence in Fig. 7.13?

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Fig. 7.13 The famous fresco depicting the riot at Pompeii’s amphitheatre. An awning is depicted on the far side of the arena, while the large palaestra is evident to the right.

The Baths The city had three main sets of public baths, the Stabian baths, the Forum baths and the Central baths (see pp. 329–337 to read about Roman bathing in general). In addition to these, there were a number of private bath houses, including an upmarket suite of baths at the estate of Julia Felix, and the large Suburban baths located just outside the Marine Gate; moreover, the wealthiest houses had their own small sets of baths. The Stabian baths were the oldest set of baths in the city (Fig. 7.14). They offer a fascinating insight into the development of bathing habits in the Roman world, since formal public bathing in Italy originated not in Rome but in Campania, following Greek practices. Archaeology indicates that in the 5th or 4th centuries there was a palaestra (exercise ground) at the site, as well a number of small rooms that contained Greek-style hip-baths (i.e. small baths that people sit in up to their hips). By the 3rd century, immersion baths had replaced the hip-baths, and an extension to the building followed, as did a portico attached to the palaestra. During Pompeii’s building boom of the 2nd century, the baths were extended significantly to provide separate facilities for men and women. The women’s section was less

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Fig. 7.14 A drawing reconstructing the Stabian baths in full swing.

impressive than the men’s, and the entrance was off a side street at the other side of the site. At some point in the 2nd century, a small sundial was set up by the main entrance and paid for out of public money raised by fines. It can still be seen in the Naples Archaeological Museum, as can its Oscan inscription. The greatest transformation of the Stabian baths came during the 80s BCE when a hypocaust was introduced for the first time – this is the earliest known hypocaust in Italy (before this, bath houses were heated by braziers). The baths reached their final form later that century with the construction of the aqueduct in the Bay of Naples; at this point a new wing was added to the buildings, while the palaestra was extended and a swimming pool was added alongside it. The remains of the rooms show that they were beautifully decorated with painted stucco walls, floors of glazed tiles, and statues. However, at the time of the eruption, these baths were still undergoing repairs following the earthquake of 62, and only the women’s section of the baths was fully operational. The Forum baths were built just to the north of the forum in the years after Pompeii became a Roman colony in 80 BCE . This seems to have been a project intended to emphasise the newly Roman status of the town, something illustrated by the fact that the baths were paid for with public money, as this inscription records:

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Lucius Caesius, son of Gaius, duumvir for lawsuits, Gaius Occius, son of Marcus, and Lucius Niraemius, son of Aulus, duumvirs, undertook the construction at public expense in accordance with the wishes of the town councillors, and approved it. CIL X 819

The Forum baths were more cramped for space than the Stabian baths. In the Augustan period a smaller women’s section was added, while the complex also had a small palaestra and a public latrine. The Forum baths had no hypocaust and were heated by the old system of braziers. The final set of public baths were the Central baths, although these were still under construction in 79 CE and were never used. They took up the space of an insula, but only had one set of baths, so there was not to be a separate women’s section. Some of the ground had been excavated to create space for a large swimming pool.

Review and Reflect 7.3 1

How well designed was the city of Pompeii? How does it compare with that of a modern city with which you are familiar?

2

How does the method of supplying water in Pompeii compare with that in different parts of the world today?

3

How common today are incidents similar to the riot in Pompeii? Why do you think that some sports fans sometimes behave like this?

4

How much do you think we can learn about the life of Pompeii from its forum and its entertainment facilities?

Further Reading 7.3 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapter 2. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapters 1, 2. Cooley, Alison E. and Cooley, M.G.L., Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014). Cooley, Alison E., Pompeiii (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003). Foss, Pedar and Dobbins, John, The World of Pompeiii (London: Routledge, 2007). Ling, Roger, Pompeii: History, Life, and Afterlife (Stroud: Tempus, 2005). Poehler, Eric, The Traffic Systems of Pompeiii (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). Zanker, Paul, Pompeii: Public and Private Life (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1998).

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IV Politics and Industry There is much evidence to show that politics and industry went hand in hand in Pompeii, not least because the various trades formed guilds, which campaigned for election candidates who promised to favour them in turn. As in any political system, a key concern for voters was to promote a thriving economy.

1 Pompeian Politics From 80 BCE , Pompeii’s political system was based on the system of government at Rome. Each year in March, all adult male citizens could vote for the city’s magistrates; in addition, there was a city Council, modelled on the Senate in Rome. The main political bodies were therefore as follows: ●

The two duoviri (singular: duumvir) were the most important magistrates. They presided over meetings of the city Council, and ensured that its decrees were carried out. They also managed public funds and oversaw legal cases, both criminal and civil. Every five years, the duoviri were given special powers to update both the citizen roll of Pompeii and the list of Council members; these duoviri were known as quinquennales (‘five-yearly magistrates’); to be elected as one was a mark of great prestige.

●

The two aediles were junior magistrates primarily responsible for maintaining the streets, public buildings and markets. Becoming an aedile was an essential step for an ambitious Pompeian politician, since no man could become a duumvir unless he had previously served as an aedile.

●

The Council was made up of about 100 councillors, known as decurions. Membership of the council was usually limited to ex-magistrates, who served for life. The council had a wide range of powers and was the city’s main legislative body. Decurions were given certain privileges, including the best seats at the theatres and the amphitheatre.

To be a magistrate or a decurion, one had to be a free-born male citizen of good character, with a certain level of wealth, and live in Pompeii or its immediate surroundings. We can get a unique insight into election campaigns in the Roman world through the election notices, or programmata, which are painted on walls all over the city. Over 2,800 such notices have been found, most of them carefully painted by professional sign-writers in red or black on a white background. They tend to relate to election campaigns in the last years of Pompeii’s life, and in particular to the election of March 79.

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The programmata normally indicate a candidate’s personal qualities, rather than making any specific promises or offering a manifesto (Fig. 7.15). This one was found behind the wall of the Basilica: I ask you to elect as aedile Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus, a young man worthy of every reward, worthy of public office. CIL IV 706

One fascinating aspect of these messages is that a number of them are set up by women – either on their own or in company with their husbands. Indeed, more than 50 programmata have been found that contain a woman’s name as a supporter, such as the following: We ask for Cn. Helvius Sabinus as aedile. Caprasia votes for him. CIL IV 923

Of course, Caprasia couldn’t literally vote for Helvius Sabinus, but it is interesting that she thought it worth publicly declaring her support for him – she presumably believed that this would have some positive influence on the male electorate. Sometimes, a guild of traders gathered together to put their support behind a certain candidate, as here: All the fruit-sellers with Helvius Vestalis call for Marconius Holconius Priscus as duumvir for lawsuits. CIL IV 202

Fig. 7.15 This election notice on the Via dell’Abbondanza translates: ‘I beg you to elect Lollius, suitable for roads and public sacred buildings.’ Every word apart from ‘Lollium’ is shortened to its first letter and interspersed in the letters of the name, so that it reads: L Od Lv La Is Vp M ovf (short for: Lollium dignum viis aedibus sacris publicis oro vos faciatis).

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Not all the notices were serious. The following is a parody of the type of message above, in which trade guilds supported a candidate: All the late drinkers ask you to elect Marcus Cerrinius Vatia aedile. CIL IV 581

Needless to say, there was no such guild as the ‘late drinkers’ – it is really a joke, suggesting that the only people likely to vote for Vatia are drunks coming out of the pub late at night! Poor Vatia seems to have been the butt of such jokes, since other notices list as his supporters the ‘little thieves’ and ‘all those asleep’. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is no record of his ever having been elected.

Freedmen and Freedwomen in Public Life One tomb gives an insight into the status that freedmen and freedwomen could attain in the public life of the city (Fig. 7.16). In the 60s CE , the freedman Gaius Munatius

Fig. 7.16 A set of drawings showing the sides of the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche and its most important imagery.

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Faustus had a tomb built outside the Nucerian gate for himself and his wife, the freedwoman Naevoleia Tyche. However, after Munatius’ death, Naevoleia, who had inherited his wealth, had a far grander tomb built outside the Herculaneum gate. She clearly wanted to promote even more their combined wealth and the influence that Munatius had wielded in the city. The new tomb, made of marble, took the shape of a raised altar and was located within an enclosure. On one side was sculpted an image of a ship, on the opposite side a ceremonial seat and footstool. On the front was carved a detailed scene showing some sort of public ceremony, with an inscription and an image of Naevoleia above it. The inscription runs as follows: Naevoleia Tyche, freedwoman of Lucius, for herself and for Gaius Munatius Faustus, Augustalis and Country District Dweller, to whom the town councillors with the consent of the people decreed an honorific chair for his merits. Naevoleia Tyche had this monument made in her lifetime for her own freedmen and freedwomen and for those of Gaius Munatius Faustus. CIL X 1030

We can establish a number of details about the life of Munatius from this tomb. The image of the ship suggests that he made his money through shipping; he clearly became an influential figure in the city, and the public ceremony may even depict a distribution of money or grain that he made to the people of Pompeii. Moreover, he served as an Augustalis (see p. 280) and the town council awarded him a ceremonial seat for his services to the city – this was most probably to be used at public games or performances. It is also fascinating to see a freedwoman projecting such a powerful image of herself on the tomb, which draws attention to her own wealth and status in the city: as well as the image of her depicted above the main scene, the inscription itself emphasises that she is the one who commissioned the tomb. We learn too that she herself has other freedmen and freedwomen as her clients. Clearly, Naevoleia the freedwoman was able to play a significant role in Pompeian society.

2 Industry The economy of Pompeii seems to have been booming in its final years: as well as the commercial buildings of the forum, more than 600 privately owned shops have been excavated. In common with other cities around Vesuvius, the Pompeian economy was based around agricultural produce (particularly grapes, olives and cereals) and the fishing industry. Many villas supporting farms have been found outside the city, while there were also market gardens within the walls. However, there was a wide variety of trades, as is indicated by the following list of all the occupations recorded on graffiti, inscriptions and wax tablets discovered in the city:

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Architect Baker Banker Barber Bath-attendant Builder Carpenter Carriage-driver Chicken-keeper Clapper-beater Cloak-seller Cobbler Cushion-seller Doorman

Dyer Engraver Farmer Felt-worker Fisherman Fruit-seller Fuller Furnace-stoker Gem-cutter Goldsmith Grape-picker Guard Herdsman Innkeeper

Lupin-seller Miller Money-lender Mule-driver Ointment-seller Onion-sellers Outfitter Painter Pastry-cook Pig-breeder Porter Priest’s attendant Prostitute Rag-and-bone man

Sauce-makers Scorer Scribe Soothsayer Spinner Surveyor Tanner Theatre official Waggoner Weaver Wine-seller Wool-worker

The Fulling Industry Fulling – the washing and dyeing of wool, and manufacture of cloth – must have been an important industry in Pompeii. Four large fulleries have been uncovered, while there were several smaller ones, as well as six dye-shops; in addition, wool-sellers and fullers figure prominently in programmata and inscriptions while, as we have seen on p. 365, the fulling industry may have had its own guild-hall in the forum. However, the truth is that we cannot know the extent and significance of the industry. The most famous fullery is the Fullery of Stephanus on the Via dell’Abbondanza, which gives us a good idea of how the cloth treatment process worked. After checking the cloth for faults and removing any fluff, workers trod it in urine to stiffen it; it was then washed with fuller’s earth or other cleansing agents to remove grease. The workers would most likely be slaves; a famous fresco seems to show young children being made to do this work. After this it was stretched and beaten to even it out, next rewashed and rinsed in large vats, then removed again, and combed, brushed and trimmed, to bring up the nap. At this stage, white cloth was bleached by laying it out on a cage over burning sulphur and brimstone; dye was added if required. Finally, the cloth would be put in a press for finishing.

Taxed Relief Ordinary Pompeians were asked to help the fulling industry by urinating in pots left outside the fulleries – urine is rich in ammonia, which is a powerful cleaning agent. The emperor Vespasian soon devised a cunning plan to benefit from this: he taxed the collection of these pots, thinking it unfair that the fullers got this resource for free. As a result, the locals nicknamed the pots (and public urinals generally) Vespasianii, as a token of what they thought of the emperor and his tax – and the word still means ‘public urinal’ in Italian today.

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The wool wasn’t just produced for regular clothing. It could also be stiffened in vinegar to produce felt, which was used to make items such as hats, cloaks, slippers and blankets.

Baking Bread The remains of more than 30 bakeries have been excavated, suggesting that most people went out to buy their bread rather than baking it at home. Some bakeries used their own mills to grind grain into flour (Fig. 7.17). The mills followed a standard pattern in two halves. The top half of the mill rotated by means of an attached wooden frame. Grain was poured into the top of the mill, which was turned either by a donkey or by a slave. The bottom half was a cone shape, with a lead trough, in which the ground grain, now flour, was collected. The flour would then be kneaded into circular loaves, often marked into eight sections, and then baked in a large adjoining oven that was very similar to a modern Italian pizza oven. At its bottom was a hole used for storing spare fuel, above which was a large semi-circular opening, where the fire was kindled. When the oven was hot enough, the fire was put out and the bread inserted, using a large wooden-handled long spade. A metal sliding door was then shut across the opening, and the bread was baked by the heat inside the oven. These ovens had a huge capacity: in one large bakery, that of Modestus, 81 loaves were found preserved by the volcanic ash. Many of the loaves of bread that have been preserved in Pompeii have their owner’s stamp on them – this could advertise that the bread was from a reputable baker, or that it had a particular recipe.

Fig. 7.17 The remains of a bakery. On the right-hand side are four grinding mills, with a large oven behind them.

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Fast Food As a city that lived on trade, Pompeii had a thriving hospitality industry. There is good evidence for inns, stables, and snack bars dotted throughout the city, in particular close to the main gates and along the main streets. Fast food seems to have been a way of life – it would have served the city’s many visitors, as well as the many Pompeians who didn’t have the time or facilities to cook at home. A snack bar is conventionally known today as a thermopolium (although there is no evidence that this is what the Romans called it); they are easily recognised by their masonry counters with jars inset – these are known as dolia, and would have contained dry products, such as nuts, fruits, grains and perhaps vegetables. A bar might also sell wine and hot food, and many of them had seats and tables for people to come and sit. The Via dell’Abbondanza has a number of thermopolia. One of them, the thermopolium of Lucius Vetutius Placidus, contains the famous painted lararium that can be seen on p. 190. A little further down the street is the thermopolium of Asellina. Asellina was one of four women named on electoral notices outside the bar, and it is believed that she may have been a waitress there. The bar’s counter has four dolia; beyond it is a small oven, with a bronze container built in for heating water. Wine jars were stacked against the wall behind the counter, while two jugs were found, one in the shape of a rooster, the other of a fox. At the back of the bar, a wooden staircase led up to rooms above. In this case, therefore, the bar doubled up as an inn for travellers. Graffiti and wall paintings in the bars and inns of Pompeii give us an idea of what went on there. One bar has a series of paintings with the ancient equivalent of cartoon captions; they show men fighting over payment for drinks, arguing about a game of dice and talking about women. The graffiti are revealing, and sometimes amusing.

Fishy Business One delicacy Pompeii was known for was its fish sauce, called garum or liquamen. Pliny the Elder gives a vivid (and rather revolting) description of how it was produced ‘from the guts of fish, and anything else which would have been discarded, steeped in salt; in other words, it is the fermentation of decaying matter’. We can only guess at what these ‘other parts’ were – probably fish blood, intestines and gills. None the less, the end result was very popular, and was much like the Thai Nam Pla fish source that is popular worldwide today. If Pompeii was a centre of the garum industry, then in the 60s CE Aulus Umbricius Scaurus was the city’s ‘Mr Fish-Sauce’. It is estimated from the number of pots that bear his trademark that he produced about 30 per cent of the garum in the whole region, while one garum container bearing his trademark has even been found in southern France. None the less, a Pompeian still had more than the local fare to choose from – there is evidence that some garum in Pompeii had been imported from Spain.

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The following guests staying at inns were clearly unimpressed with the quality of service they had received: We pissed in the bed, I admit, and we’re bad guests, but if you ask why, it was because there was no chamber-pot. CIL IV 4957 I hope you get punished for your lies, innkeeper; you sell water and keep the pure wine for yourself. CIL IV 3948

Finance In 1875, a hugely important discovery was made in the House of Caecilius Iucundus, when 153 partially legible documents were found stored in a wooden box. These were wax tablets that contained information about the business dealings of a certain Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, who seems to have been a cross between a banker, an auctioneer and a money-lender. Although the wax had long since disappeared from the tablets by the time that they were discovered, traces of what was written remain where the stylus had gone through the wax and marked the wood below. These tablets represent a goldmine for our understanding of the Pompeian economy, since they tell us what was being bought and sold, when and for how much. The majority (137) record transactions, usually auctions, which Iucundus carried out on behalf of other people; typically, he would profit from both parties by charging commission to the sellers and lending money at interest to the buyers. Most of these documents are ‘receipts’ from the seller, acknowledging that Iucundus has paid them the amount raised at the auction, less his commission. The following, for a sale of a slave in 54 CE (the exact date is unclear in the text), is a typical example: 1,567 sesterces – the sum of money which is due for payment, as contracted with Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, by 13 August next, for the auction of Nimphius, slave of Lucius Iunius Aquila, less commission – Lucius Iunius Aquila declared that he has received this sum, in cash, from Lucius Caecilius Iucundus. Transacted at Pompeii on 29 May (or 28 June), in the consulship of Manlius Acilius and Marcus Asinius. CIL 6.3340.7

As well as slaves, diverse commodities are recorded on other tablets, including boxwood, linen, fixtures and fittings, and a mule (it is a sad reminder of how cheap a slave’s life was that the mule was sold for 520 sesterces, about a third of the price of Nimphius). The document gives us other useful information: ●

The amount: 1,567 sesterces is not atypical – of the 44 exact and approximate sums known, the range is from 342 to 38,079 sesterces (although only three sales fetched more than 20,000) and the median is about 4,500. Iucundus’ commission seems to have varied between 2% and 7%.

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Witnesses: On another page of the document is a list of witnesses – each document seems to have been witnessed by up to ten people. The lists tell us something of Pompeian society, since witnesses seem to be listed in order of their social status, while women are not present at all – not because they were illiterate, but because they were not legally allowed to sign.

In addition to these private transactions, a further 16 tablets record agreements between Iucundus and the Pompeian authorities, with whom he had a contract to collect taxes (taking a profit himself), and he also rented out (and perhaps sub-let) from them public properties, such as a farm and a fullery.

Who Was Caecilius Iucundus? We know very little of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus apart from what is revealed in the tablets. It is not clear where his auctions took place, or if he operated from an office away from his house. The house itself shows signs that he was wealthy, with elaborate paintings and artwork; in the atrium was found a bust of a middle-aged man, with thinning hair and a prominent wart on his cheek; it is just possible that this is Iucundus himself. The dates of the documents tell us a little more. The first to carry his name was signed in 27 CE , although most of them cluster around the years 54–58; it is not clear why these particular documents were preserved rather than those from other periods of his career. One final clue comes from the latest recorded document, dated to January 62 CE . This was just one month before Tacitus’ dating of the earthquake, which was commemorated on the lararium in Iucundus’ house. Why do the records stop then? Might Iucundus have been killed in the disaster? We will probably never know.

Review and Reflect 7.4 1

How democratic was Pompeii as a city?

2

What industries and occupations from the table on p. 378 still exist today? Do others have modern equivalents?

3

What similarities are there between the ancient and modern approaches to the cloth industry and the baking industry?

4

How do ancient snack bars and inns compare with their modern equivalent?

5

Why are the wax tablets of Caecilius Iucundus so important for our understanding of life in Pompeii?

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Further Reading 7.4 Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapters 5, 6, 7, 8. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapters 5, 8. Cooley, Alison E. and Cooley, M.G.L., Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), chapter 3. Cooley, Alison E., Pompeiii (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003). Foss, Pedar and Dobbins, John, The World of Pompeiii (London: Routledge, 2007). Ling, Roger, Pompeii: History, Life, and Afterlife (Stroud: Tempus, 2005). Zanker, Paul, Pompeii: Public and Private Life (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1998).

V Houses Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, a leading scholar on Pompeii, has described the city as having ‘an interlocking jigsaw of large, medium and small houses’. These ranged from small one- or two-roomed residences, to grand houses (domus). Sometimes, these were divided up and developed into smaller apartments. However, it is hard to know in detail about the humbler living spaces in the city, such as apartments and rooms for let. Pompeii does not have any insulae; the apartment blocks that have been discovered in Rome and Ostia described on pp. 230–231, while many single rooms or apartments must have been above shops or on the first floors of houses, and so have not survived. The following painted advertisement, found on the wall of a building to the north of the forum and dating to a year or so before the eruption, suggests the variety of facilities available: To let from 1st July next in the Insula Arriana Polliana, now owned by Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius: shops with upper rooms, quality apartments, and houses. Lessees contact Primus, slave of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius. CIL IV 138

Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius was a well-known public figure in Pompeii. He had been one of the duoviri in 55 CE , and had sponsored public games on at least three occasions. We can see here that he also made money out of his property portfolio. Pompeii is of course famous for its domus, and we have already read about the House of the Tragic Poet on pp. 233–236. These houses offer a fascinating insight into the private lives of some of Pompeii’s leading individuals and families. As is the

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The Gardens of Pompeii Until the 1960s, little research or thought had gone into understanding the gardens of Pompeii. However, during the 1960s and 1970s an archaeologist called Wilhelmina Jashemski dedicated herself to systematically studying this field. She used Fiorelli’s process to create plaster casts of root cavities, enabling her to identify the types of plants growing in gardens; soil contours were analysed to reveal planting beds and irrigation channels; moreover, the remains of flora and fauna were also examined. All this evidence was set alongside the garden scenes depicted on wall paintings of Pompeii. As a result of Jashemski’s research, it became evident how important gardens were to the economy and recreational life of the city. She estimated that about a fifth of the land inside the walls was given over to gardens or cultivated areas at the time of the eruption. Even the smallest houses had garden areas, and many also had garden scenes painted on their walls. Horticulture flourished in particular after the construction of the aqueduct in the late 1st century CE – the more regular supply of water now meant that people didn’t have to choose plants and trees that could survive with only a limited amount of water. Some gardens were very formal and intricately laid out, and the wealthiest houses that had their own water supply could install jets and pools; other gardens were more informally laid out, but often included trees bearing fruits or nuts; furthermore, some houses even had their own kitchen gardens – a clear link back to the time centuries earlier when all houses would have had their own vegetable patches.

case today, no two houses were exactly the same; there were individual designs and layouts, while each family clearly chose to decorate their living space according to their tastes. Even among these houses there was a spectrum of size and scale. The largest house within the city – and perhaps the best-known one today – was the House of the Faun. Its works of art alone are remarkable, and its extraordinary example of elite wealth makes for fascinating study.

The House of the Faun This house, which takes its name from the statue of a dancing faun found in its impluvium, covers an area of almost 3,000 square metres and occupies an entire block. It was built at the beginning of the 2nd century BCE , and then reconstructed later in the same century when its famous mosaics were set in place. At the time of the eruption, the house had changed little and it is thus a classic example of the ways in which Hellenistic culture influenced Pompeii. Since the layout is so huge and extraordinary – comprising two front doors, a back entrance, two atria, two peristyles, a large exedra (summer reception room) and four dining rooms – it is worth studying its plan carefully to understand where all these were located (Fig. 7.18). There would also have been an upper floor at the front of the

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K

J

F

F

E

D F

H

F

C

G

B L

L A

L

L

Fig. 7.18 The layout of the House of the Faun. Key: A – main entrance; B – main atrium; C – tablinum; D – peristyle; E – exedra; F – triclinia; G – second entrance and atrium; H – passage to large peristyle; J – large peristyle; K – posticum; L – tabernae.

house. Outside the main entrance to the house the word ‘HAVE ’, or ‘Greetings’ was inscribed on the pavement. Entering from here into the main atrium, a visitor would initially have seen the classic layout of a house – at the back of this atrium was the tablinum, beyond which was a peristyle. However, beyond this was a grand summer room, and then a second, huge peristyle, which may have been converted from an original use as a working garden. As if all this wasn’t enough, the house seems to have had four triclinia, perhaps one for each season of the year. The second entrance and atrium may have been used as private quarters for the family, while any house guests could also have used it to come and go without disturbance. Beyond this atrium, a passage led right through to the large peristyle; running alongside it was a stable, a small set of rooms for bathing, and the kitchen. At the back of the large peristyle was a back entrance to the house, called a posticum, where tradesmen and slaves could come and go without fuss. The two small rooms next to it may have been used by a gardener and a doorman.

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The Alexander Mosaic The house’s masterpiece was the mosaic covering the floor of its exedra. This depicts Alexander the Great defeating Darius III of Persia in battle in the late 330s BCE ; it is believed to be a copy of a famous Hellenistic painting of the 3rd century BCE . The mosaic measures 2.7 x 5.12 metres, and it has been estimated that it is made up of at least one and a half million tesserae, the tiny stones used to make mosaics. After defeating the Persians, Alexander went on to conquer Egypt and found the port city of Alexandria, the epicentre of learning and culture in the Hellenistic world, and it is believed that the mosaics in the house were produced by skilled Alexandrian craftsmen.

Fig. 7.19 The Alexander mosaic found in the House of the Faun.

The house displayed an extraordinary art collection. Entering the main atrium, a visitor would immediately see the statue of the dancing faun in the impluvium; set into the floor in front of this was a mosaic displaying two tragic theatrical masks, surrounded by flowers and fruit. Other mosaics decorated key rooms such as the triclinia, including one of Dionysus riding a tiger, another depicting a variety of sea-creatures (possibly a clue to the sort of food served there). At the back of the small peristyle, in front of the exedra, was an elaborate mosaic of Nile animals, including ducks, snakes, crocodiles and a hippopotamus. Perhaps to highlight these works of art, the painting on the walls of the house was quite plain and old-fashioned, with painted plaster giving the impression of blocks of marble of varying colours.

The Villa of the Mysteries There was much life outside the walls of Pompeii. Numerous villas (large country houses) have been found in the surrounding region, many of which operated as

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working farms. These produced or cultivated goods such as wool, wine, olive oil, nuts, small animals and birds, hams, cheeses, beans, vegetables and fine flours. However, not all villas were constructed primarily for farming – some were luxury properties for the wealthy elite, including Cicero, and Poppaea, the second wife of the emperor Nero, who may have lived at the enormous villa that has been excavated at Oplontis. The most famous surviving villa near Pompeii is the Villa of the Mysteries, located about 250 metres from the Herculaneum gate off the Street of the Tombs (Fig. 7.20). It was first built in the 2nd century BCE , although it was modernised and extended soon after Pompeii became a Roman colony in 80 BCE . It became a luxurious suburban villa decorated with remarkable art work, in particular its famous set of frescos, which are commonly believed to depict an initiation into the Mysteries of Dionysus, from which the villa takes its name. Little is known about the possible owners of the property before 62 CE , although after this it was probably owned by the Istacidii, one of Pompeii’s wealthiest families. In these years, the villa was in the process of being turned into a large winery and it seems that it lost some of its elegance. The main entrance, from the east, led straight into a peristyle (rather than the atrium, as in most city houses). Beyond this was the atrium, which in turn led into a tablinum. To the south of the peristyle was the kitchen, and next to it a small suite of baths built around a small second atrium. On the north side of the peristyle, a corridor led to the torcularium, a room used for pressing grape must and making wine. The grapes were brought in here for treading in a basin, after which the must was crushed repeatedly under a heavy press, with a ram’s head, which has been reconstructed for tourists to see today. The villa had a large wine cellar for storing its produce.

F M

E

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Fig. 7.20 The layout of the Villa of the Mysteries. Key: A – main entrance; B – main atrium; C – tablinum; D – peristyle; E – exedra; F – triclinia; G – second entrance and atrium; H – passage to large peristyle; J – large peristyle; K – posticum; L – tabernae.

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Since the villa was built on a slope, an artificial base was built on the west side to create a level foundation. This is known as a cryptoporticus, and it sustained terraced gardens, as well as more reception rooms. Among these was the room sometimes known as the Hall of the Mysteries, although it may also have been used as a triclinium. The Hall of the Mysteries is famous for the paintings on the walls, which wrap round three sides. No one has been able to prove conclusively the meaning of the scenes depicted, but the most common theory is that they represent the stages of initiation of a woman into the mystery cult of Dionysus (see p. 192); another theory holds that it is not the cult of Dionysus, but another female cult. The scenes can be divided into three stages (Fig. 7.21): firstly scenes of preparation, where women are involved in ritual readings and making a meal; secondly, scenes of Dionysus and the rituals associated with him; and thirdly, the adorning of the bride, observed by another woman – perhaps the moment at which the initiate had completed the process. It is noticeable that this room is found in a property located outside the walls of Pompeii, since Roman law banned people from taking part in the mysteries of Dionysus inside towns or cities; equally interesting is the fact that women feature so prominently in the scenes, and some have thought that the owner of the villa may have been a priestess of the cult. Ultimately, however, we cannot be certain and it is likely that the purpose of the room will, appropriately enough, always remain a mystery.

Fig. 7.21 The first scenes and the start of the second scenes of the paintings in the Hall of the Mysteries.

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Review and Reflect 7.5 1

Research other large houses of Pompeii, such as the House of Menander, the House of the Vettii or the House of Octavius Quartio. How is each one distinct, and how has it been designed to suit its inhabitants?

2

Find out about the Estate of Julia Felix in Pompeii. What variety of services were on offer there? What do we know about Julia Felix herself?

3

How much do you think we can tell about the owners and inhabitants of the House of the Faun and the Villa of the Mysteries from what has been discovered by archaeologists?

Further Reading 7.5 Allison, P. M., Pompeian Households: An Analysis of the Material Culture (Los Angeles, CA : University of California, 1984). Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), chapter 3. Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapters 6. Cooley, Alison E. and Cooley, M.G.L., Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), chapters 1, 2, 3. Cooley, Alison E., Pompeiii (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003). Foss, Pedar and Dobbins, John, The World of Pompeiii (London: Routledge, 2007). Jashemski, Wilhelmina, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1993). Wallace-Hadrill, A., Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1994).

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lthough smaller and less well known than Pompeii, Herculaneum is an extraordinary archaeological site in its own right. Furthermore, since it differs in a number of ways from its larger neighbour, it provides us with clues and information about life in a Roman town that we do not get at Pompeii, and it also sheds further light on the discoveries at Pompeii. One scholar has described the relationship between the two sites as follows: Of course, any one site may be taken as representative, to some extent, of the Roman world and Roman civilisation in general. But seeing from the viewpoint of a single site brings a loss of perspective. It is like looking with one eye. Put Pompeii and Herculaneum together, and it is like looking through two eyes . . . It is because they are both similar and different that they give us a more threedimensional view. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Herculaneum: Past and Future, p. 288

Two examples of how Herculaneum is different are immediately evident to a visitor: there are no stepping stones for crossing the streets; and there are no cart ruts in the streets themselves. We are therefore challenged to examine why these differences exist. It is questions such as these, and many others, that make Herculaneum such an interesting and exciting site for students of the Roman world.

I History, Destruction and Rediscovery 1 History Herculaneum lay right at the foot of Vesuvius, about 3.7 miles from the volcano (see Fig. 7.1 on p. 341). The walled town was bounded on either side by a small river and 391

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sat on the edge of a spur of volcanic rock that met the sea. It was smaller than Pompeii, occupying an estimated area of 20 hectares (50 acres) at the most, in comparison with the 66 hectares (157 acres) of its larger neighbour (Figs. 8.1 and 8.2). At the time of the eruption, the town’s population is estimated to have been 4,000, perhaps about a third of that of Pompeii.

Fig. 8.1 An artist’s impression of how Herculaneum may have looked in the 1st century CE .

Fig. 8.2 A view across Herculaneum today, with the modern town visible beyond the site.

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Sources suggest that it had a similar history to that of Pompeii; in particular, Strabo wrote that both cities had been influenced by Oscans, Greeks, Etruscans, Samnites and Romans. However, it has been very hard to track the early history of Herculaneum, as there has been even less digging below the 79 CE ground level than there has at Pompeii. Indeed, archaeologists have traced no sign of inhabitation earlier than the 4th century BCE . It seems likely that the earliest settlement was an Oscan-speaking Samnite town that, like Pompeii, was a member of a Samnite league of towns headed by Nuceria. None the less, it must also have had close contact with the Greek settlements on the north side of the Bay of Naples, notably Neapolis (Naples), which was nearby. This may explain the name ‘Herculaneum’, meaning ‘Town of Hercules’: since the Romans were influenced by Greek culture and came to associate themselves with the Greek mythological tradition, it is perhaps not surprising that at some point the people of Herculaneum would have wished to link themselves to Greece’s greatest hero. It has also proved much harder to uncover the Samnite history of Herculaneum than it has at Pompeii. Just one Oscan inscription has survived, as opposed to the dozens at Pompeii, because much of the town was renovated and rebuilt in the 1st centuries BCE and CE . However, it seems that Herculaneum was flourishing during the 2nd century BCE , as in this period two large houses, the house of the Wooden Partition and the Samnite house, were constructed. As in Pompeii, major changes came after the Social War of 91‒89 BCE , during which Herculaneum sided with the rebellious Italians. Although defeated and pillaged, the town was not, unlike its larger neighbour, turned into a colony afterwards, probably because there was no space to settle army veterans within its walls. As with other Italian towns and cities, the inhabitants of Herculaneum were given full Roman citizenship in the aftermath of the conflict, and the official language of its civic institutions was changed from Oscan to Latin.

Hercules Hercules (or Heracles in Greek) was the ultimate strong man of Greek mythology, who had to complete twelve labours to atone for having murdered his wife and children in a fit of madness. He then became a god after his death. During the period of Greek migration around the Mediterranean and Black Seas between the 8th and the 6th centuries BCE , Greeks often worshipped Hercules as the founding deity of a new settlement. Hercules’ tenth labour involved him travelling to the region of Spain to steal 50 cattle from the three-headed giant Geryon. After achieving this, Hercules is said to have led the cattle back through Italy to Greece in a triumphal procession and to have stopped at the site of early Rome. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing in the 1st century BCE , records that Herculaneum took its name from Hercules, since on his way back to Greece the hero found a safe anchorage for his fleet there. The evidence of wall paintings suggests that Hercules was indeed an important deity in Herculaneum.

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During the 1st century BCE , Herculaneum established itself as one of the fashionable seaside resort towns on the bay of Naples. Since the development of Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli) as a major harbour of the Roman empire in the 2nd century BCE , the bay had grown popular with the wealthy elite of Roman society, who bought or built luxury summer villas along the bay. The best-known villa near Herculaneum is the Villa of the Papyri, described on p. 416, which was almost certainly owned at one point by Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar and consul of 58 BCE (Cicero wrote a speech, Against Piso, viciously denouncing his conduct as a public official). In the town itself, large houses with spectacular views were built over the sea wall above the shoreline. The Augustan period saw major building developments in the town, including the theatre. A number of these projects were funded by a leading public figure and benefactor Marcus Nonius Balbus (see text box), who was an associate of the emperor Augustus (Fig. 8.3).

Fig. 8.3 One of the statues of Marcus Nonius Balbus riding a horse is today found in the Naples Archaeological Museum.

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Marcus Nonius Balbus One prominent public figure in Herculaneum was Marcus Nonius Balbus, a leading benefactor of the town during the Augustan period (although he was actually originally from the nearby town of Nuceria). Balbus had an impressive career in politics at Rome, first as tribune in 32 BCE , when he was a firm supporter of Octavian in his struggle against Antony. Indeed, as tribune he used his veto against one of the consuls of that year, Sosius, who as a supporter of Antony was trying to bring in measures against Octavian. As a reward, Balbus went on to become a praetor, and then the governor of the province of Crete and Cyrene. Despite these achievements, Balbus was a relatively minor player among the aristocratic elite at Rome. At Herculaneum, however, it was a different matter. Here, he could play the sort of role as public benefactor that Augustus was playing on a far grander scale at Rome. Balbus funded a number of building projects, including of the Basilica, the gates and the walls. In return, he basked in public recognition. Many statues of him have been found in the town, including two of him riding a horse, while statues of his entire family were also discovered in the Basilica. An inscription carved on a funerary altar next to the Suburban baths records the gratitude of the town council for Balbus’ gifts to the town; in return, they awarded exceptional honours to his memory. His ashes (still in situ when the site was excavated) were enclosed in a base on which was placed yet another statue of him, erected next to the funerary altar. In the story of Balbus, then, we have a good example of the important role that wealthy and influential men could play in their home towns.

We hear little of Herculaneum in the history books until the earthquake of 62 CE . In Seneca’s letter about this event (mentioned on p. 346), the philosopher reports that: Part of the town of Herculaneum too fell down and even the structures that remain are unstable. Seneca, Natural Questions, 6.1.2

Although Herculaneum suffered significant damage, restoration may have proceeded much faster than at Pompeii and the buildings seem to have been in relatively good condition in 79. This may be because the smaller town required less repair work; alternatively, it may have had a larger number of wealthy residents who were prepared to help fund the necessary repairs. Indeed, two inscriptions found in the town record that the Emperor Vespasian paid for two rebuilding projects in 76. One amusing graffito that can be dated to the 70s CE suggests that Herculaneum remained a place visited by the Roman elite. On the wall of a latrine in the House of the Gem, the following is still visible in Latin: Apollinaris, doctor of the emperor Titus, had a good crap here. CIL IV 10619

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Titus became emperor in June 79 CE , and so this may have been written in the very last months of the town’s life, although Titus was actually first described as ‘emperor’ alongside his father Vespasian as early as 70. Whichever is the case, it seems likely that a ‘royal doctor’ was in the town in the years before the eruption, using the facilities just as everyone else had to. We may even speculate as to who wrote the graffito: Apollinaris, or perhaps more likely an amused slave who had to clean up after him.

2 Destruction Herculaneum’s location meant that it was not destroyed in the same way as Pompeii, as described on pp. 349–353. Since it was not downwind of the eruption, it avoided the shower of volcanic material during the initial Plinian phase; in fact, by the time that the pyroclastic surges and flows began in the early hours of the morning following the eruption, it had probably received only a light covering of pumice, rock fragments and ash, perhaps about 15 to 20 centimetres. In one way, however, this might have been even more frightening for the inhabitants, since they would have been able to see clearly the size and power of the eruption column. Once the Peléan stage began, the town’s proximity to the volcano meant that it stood no chance. It was directly in the path of the pyroclastic surges and flows: the

Fig. 8.4 A view down to the excavated ancient shoreline of Herculaneum. The volcanic rock that submerged the town can be seen to the right and beyond.

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first surge probably killed anyone still in the town, while the second overwhelmed it; ultimately, Herculaneum was buried to a depth of up to 23 metres (about four times as deep as at Pompeii), while the flows pushed the coastline out by about 400 metres, where it remains today (Fig. 8.4). The manner of Herculaneum’s destruction means that its state of preservation is different from that of Pompeii in two important ways: ●

Upper Storeys: A higher proportion of upper storeys have survived, probably for two reasons: first of all, the roofs were not subject to the heavy build-up of volcanic material during the Plinian phase, which caused many upper floors in Pompeii to collapse; secondly, Herculaneum was on a steeper incline than Pompeii, so that the terraced layout of the town offered some protection and support from the surges and flows as they fell upon the site from a higher angle.

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Carbonisation: Organic materials such as wood, cloth, papyrus and foodstuffs have been preserved to a far greater degree by carbonisation, since the temperatures of the surges and flows at Herculaneum were significantly higher than at Pompeii and sealed the town in an oxygen-free environment.

Both of these features – an upper storey and carbonised material – are found in the House of the Wooden Partition, which is described on p. 411. However, as this modern writer on Herculaneum makes clear, not all the organic material found in the town has been preserved in carbonised form: The pyroclastic flow played strange tricks. For all its force and massive volume and high temperatures it was unpredictable. In some spots it was hot enough to carbonize wood and foodstuffs; in others, hot enough merely to scorch cloth and bread. And in still others wood, rope, eggs, and even fishnets appear essentially unharmed. Joseph Jay Deiss, Herculaneum: Italy’s Buried Treasure, p. 18

As Deiss suggests here, it seems that the various surges and flows had different effects on different areas of the town. Some of them were so hot that they instantly carbonised any organic material in their path, while others seem to have been much cooler, and so simply formed an air-tight seal around any material, perfectly preserving it as it was. Therefore, once again we should resist the temptation to see Herculaneum merely as a smaller version of Pompeii. Not only did the town have a somewhat different character, but it was destroyed in a different way, and so it has lessons of its own to teach us.

3 Rediscovery Herculaneum was explored before Pompeii. In 1709, in the town of Resina, which lay on top of the site, a peasant woman was digging a well when she came down onto ancient ruins. She brought to the surface a large quantity of ancient marbles; these

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The Theatre of Herculaneum In the sorry history of the early excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, the looting of Herculaneum’s theatre is perhaps the saddest story of all. Built in the Augustan era, it was relatively large – estimates suggest a capacity of between 1,300 and 2,500 people – and the way in which it was buried meant that it had been preserved almost fully intact along with its decorative features, uniquely for a Roman theatre. However, for almost 40 years, first d’Elboeuf and then Alcubierre quarried it remorselessly, removing its polychrome marble, stuccoes, and bronze and marble statues. By 1739, the entire stage had been cleared of decoration. If these early diggers had preserved the theatre, rather than plundered it, then without doubt it would have been considered one of the archaeological wonders of the modern world. As it is, what we have left is important structurally, but leaves us guessing a great deal about how the surviving decorations would originally have been displayed.

soon came to the attention of the Austrian Prince d’Elboeuf, who was constructing a villa nearby and wanted marble to decorate it. He ordered the well to be widened and tunnels to be dug: as much marble as possible was to find its way to his villa. Without realising it, workmen started to ransack the theatre of Herculaneum. As at Pompeii, the early incursions into the town were entirely devoted to treasure hunting, causing the loss of many valuable works of art. The work in Herculaneum followed a different pattern from that in Pompeii. Very little of the site was uncovered until the 20th century; instead, the early explorers dug a network of tunnels into the buried town – thanks to their accurate mapping, we know a good deal about the unexcavated areas. However, after attention turned to Pompeii in the middle of the 18th century, progress in Herculaneum was fitful. One major problem was that the site was much harder to excavate, since it was buried so much deeper than Pompeii. In addition, it lies underneath a modern town, whose residents have understandably never been keen on being moved to allow the past to be uncovered. Most of what can be seen today was excavated between 1927 and 1961 under archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri, who took over when the Italian government, led by Mussolini’s fascist party, wanted to reclaim the nation’s Roman heritage. Maiuri is the person who had the greatest impact on creating the site of Herculaneum as we now know it. Under his direction most of the site visible today was excavated, with a team of workers who dug, reconstructed and then presented the Roman buildings to visitors. In particular, his method was innovative in two important ways: ●

Display: He was keen to present the remains in such a way that original artefacts were displayed within rooms to illustrate aspects of daily life in the Roman world, something which had rarely been done before.

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Conservation: He made sure that workers regularly checked the site and conducted maintenance and conservation work when necessary.

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The Herculaneum Conservation Project By the year 2000 the excavated part of Herculaneum was in a sorry state. Owing to a series of complex reasons, including a lack of regular maintenance and underfunding for conservation work, decay was evident in all areas, with structures collapsing, plaster surfaces crumbling, mosaics disintegrating and weeds and plants growing in and around the buildings. The site seemed doomed to a second death – slower, but equally destructive. In 2001, the Herculaneum Conservation Project was established in an attempt to reduce the decay to a minimum. Launched by the Packard Humanities Institute in partnership with the local heritage authority and the British School at Rome, the Project has set about repairing the damage in various ways, including conserving decorative wall paintings and mosaics, repairing and erecting roofs, improving the drainage at the site by opening up the original Roman sewers, and even clearing the ruins of pigeons, whose excrement causes corrosion. Good progress has been made and Herculaneum is now in far better condition. However, like all archaeological sites, the site is fragile and will require continued high-quality care in the years to come.

However, since 1961, with one or two notable exceptions, there has been little significant progress. Today, it is estimated that the excavated area of 4.5 hectares – four complete and four partially excavated blocks – represents only about 25% of the site. The rest lies buried under the modern town of Ercolano (which had previously been called Resina). In 1997, the site was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with Pompeii.

The Skeletons along the Ancient Shoreline One notable moment of progress came in March 1982, when archaeologists became concerned by the level of flooding in the Suburban baths (which had already been excavated). They decided to dig a trench beneath the complex to channel off water, and dug into what had been arched storehouses along the seafront – these are conventionally referred to as ‘boathouses’, even though the Roman boats that have been found would have been too big to fit into them. Soon one skeleton was found, followed by another, and then more still. By 2002, more than 350 skeletons had been found in this area, most of them huddled together in the boathouses. It was an extraordinary and gruesome find. What had happened to these people? Before 1982, it had been assumed that almost everyone in the town had managed to escape, since only 32 skeletons had been found. Amongst these were the bones of a baby still lying in its cradle, and a boy still lying in bed, with a chicken lunch on a

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nearby table. We can only guess at why they had been abandoned in the town – perhaps they were considered too weak or vulnerable to be evacuated. Yet the people in the boathouses seem to have been awaiting rescue. Indeed, it is interesting to make a link here with a part of Pliny’s letter about his uncle’s rescue mission. Initially, Pliny the Elder had planned to sail into the bay simply to take a closer look at the phenomenon: As he [Pliny the Elder] was leaving the house he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Tascius, who was terrified of the imminent danger (for her villa lay at the bottom of the mountain and there was no escape except by boat). Pliny, Letters, 6.16.8–9

Rectina must have lived very close to Herculaneum; presumably she sent a horseman to Misenum with the message, and hoped for rescue for her whole household and perhaps other local people too. There would not have been enough wheeled transport for them all, while the earthquakes would have made travel by land very hazardous, which explains why she felt that the only escape was by sea. Archaeologists have found only one boat on the Herculaneum shoreline (Fig. 8.5), and it is possible that at some point the wind direction and sea conditions allowed all the other boats to sail out of the town, and away to the south, but not back into the

Fig. 8.5 This boat was excavated almost fully intact, with its wood carbonised. It would have been about 9 metres long and over 2 metres wide, and was manoeuvred by three pairs of oars. It looks much like a gozzo, a traditional fishing boat still used in the seas off the Italian coast.

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harbour again. Pliny’s letter tells us that his uncle was forced to sail south to Stabiae, having failed to reach land further north, no doubt due to the pre-tsunami effect of the sea that accompanied the eruption: We watched the sea apparently sucked out and driven back by the earthquake. Certainly the shoreline had advanced and stranded many sea creatures on dry sand. Pliny, Letters, 6.20.9

Anyone left in the town would have waited for many hours to be rescued, in vain. Either the first or the second surge would have reached the boathouses and caused instant death by thermal shock. The people would have heard the pyroclastic surge come screaming down the hillside at an enormous speed; when it hit them at a temperature of between 400 and 500 degrees Celsius, their organs vaporised, while there is evidence of teeth shattering and brains boiling and bursting through skulls – in some cases, cracked skulls have been blackened on the inside. Moreover, the bones were exposed to such high temperatures that the DNA has degraded (which, from an archaeological perspective, has prevented us from gathering information such as how many of these people were related to one another or what ethnic groups they belonged to). Not all the skeletons were found inside the boathouses. One woman had clearly been thrown down onto the beach from the terrace above – her skeleton shows a smashed skull, a crushed pelvis and a thighbone that had been jerked up to her collar bone, all of which is further evidence of the force with which the pyroclastic surge arrived.

Dr Sara Bisel’s Research In June 1982, Dr Sara Bisel, an archaeologist and anthropologist, was called to the site to examine the emerging skeletons. In all, she worked with 139 Herculaneans – 51 males, 49 females and 39 children. She was able to gather a variety of evidence, both from the condition of the bones themselves and from the artefacts found alongside them. As a result, she tried to interpret what sort of lives these people may have led, although her approach has come in for criticism on the grounds that she has over-interpreted the evidence in a number of cases. In particular, it has been argued that she was too specific about the age, social class and character of some of the skeletal remains. None the less, what she discovered about these people was very interesting, and a few examples are given below: ●

The ‘Lady of the Rings’ (Fig. 8.6): One woman was named after the two gold rings found on her left hand, both of which were set with gemstones; she was also wearing golden bracelets and earrings. Tests on her bones revealed that she was in her 40s, 157.2 centimetres tall, and well nourished; she also had perfect teeth. She had probably given birth to two or three children. It seems likely that she was a wealthy member of Herculaneum society.

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The ‘Soldier’: This skeleton was given its name because it was found lying with a sword attached to a belt – although there is no other evidence that he was indeed a soldier. Beside him were carpenter’s tools, such as chisels and an adze. He was aged around 37, 174.5 centimetres tall, and had a particularly strong right forearm, possibly suggesting years of work as a carpenter. He had a huge nose and three of his front teeth were missing, although not from tooth decay – perhaps they had been knocked out.

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A Group: Perhaps most poignant were a large group of twelve who may have belonged to the same household: three men, four women, four children and a baby. The baby was wearing jewellery, which led Bisel to speculate that she may have been from a wealthy family. However, she was being cradled by a young woman in her teens, whose bones showed signs of malnutrition and overwork. Bisel suggested that she may have been a family slave entrusted with looking after the baby in those final hours.

The skeletons of Herculaneum represent a rare treasure trove for archaeologists, since Romans practised cremation in this period – this was therefore the first significant sample of a cross-section of a Roman population from the 1st century CE . They also represent a unique example of a ‘healthy’ population – whereas most skeletons in cemeteries are of people who died of disease or of old age, the Herculaneum skeletons were all killed by a single accident and offer a snapshot of the living population in 79 CE . A further 150 or so skeletons are still undergoing analysis.

Fig. 8.6 The ‘Lady of the Rings’ skeleton.

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Review and Reflect 8.1 1

In what ways does Herculaneum give us archaeological information that is not available at Pompeii?

2

Find out about the work of the Herculaneum Conservation Project at www.herculaneum.org. How much danger is the site in at the present time?

3

Many of the boathouses today are on display, with all their skeletons, for modern visitors. What do you think might be the ethical arguments for and against such a display?

Analysis of 36 relatively complete skeletons of the original 139 reveals that the average height in men was 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm) and in women 5 feet 1.5 inches (156 cm), which is not dissimilar to the modern population in the Naples area. In general, they had good teeth, perhaps because the local water supply contained high levels of fluoride, while the Romans never discovered sugar; however, there was a strong build-up of tartar on some of the teeth, suggesting that bad breath must have been an issue. Other skeletons give hints as to injury and illness. Five showed some sort of bone trauma, but had recovered remarkably well – a testament to the high quality of Roman surgery. A further seven skeletons (five adults and two children) contained levels of lead high enough to cause poisoning and even brain damage. This information would tie in with the use of lead pipes to channel the water supply, while lead was also used in crockery such as pots, plates and cups, as well as in some medicines.

The People of Herculaneum Two other fascinating sources give us a rare insight into ordinary life. The first is a large public inscription set up on six marble panels found near the Basilica Noniana. Although these panels have survived only in fragmentary form, they list up to 500 male inhabitants of the town. The second is the discovery of various dossiers of wooden tablets in the town recording legal transactions (they are similar in nature to the tablets of Caecilius Iucundus at Pompeii). These reveal a great deal about everyday legal matters in the town, and also give us a further set of records of citizen names, since it was the Roman practice for at least seven people to witness every legal transaction. Taken together with the skeletons and other information from the town, ranging from statues and portraits to human waste, it is not surprising that one leading scholar has said: ‘It is hard to imagine any other ancient population that can be known in such close-grained detail.’

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The marble panels found near the Basilica Noniana are thought most likely to have been a list of all the male citizens of the town. The sections of the panels that remain suggest that in total there may have been 1,200 names, a reasonable estimate for the adult male citizen population. Some names are inscribed in ink rather than carved, suggesting that they were the newest on the list and that the engraver had yet to add them. Of the six panels, one lists freeborn citizens, just over three list freedmen (who of course had the rights of citizenship), and just under two list a further group. This is thought to be made up of men promoted to full citizenship: some would formerly have been ‘Junian Latins’, slaves who had been freed before the age of 30 (at which point they could attain full freedman status), and others would formerly have been ‘unofficial freedmen’ – slaves who had been unofficially freed by their masters. If these proportions are representative, then only about a sixth of the male citizen population was freeborn, suggesting the social mobility of Roman society at this time. A further indication of this is that nearly half the names are of Greek origin – a high number even in an area with a long tradition of Greek settlement. The dossiers of writing tablets were found in eight different houses and there are at least 160 separate documents in all – carbonisation has allowed their preservation. Two particularly interesting legal cases emerge from these documents. One relates to a certain Lucius Venidius Eunnychus, who lived in the House of the Black Hall. He was a freedman, but one in the lesser category of ‘Junian Latin’, which did not give him the full rights of citizenship due to a freedman. In such cases, a man could be upgraded to full citizenship if he had a legitimate child who survived until the age of one. Thirty-nine documents were found in his house, three of which pertain to his application for full citizenship: the birth certificate of his daughter, dated to 24th July 60 CE ; a record of a meeting of the town council in the Basilica Noniana on 25th July 61, when she had reached her 1st birthday (the details of the meeting have not survived, but it is assumed that his formal application for full citizenship was received then); and a record of a document that shows that the town council of Herculaneum sent four representatives to Rome to present the case to the praetor, who approved the application for citizenship and published this on a bronze tablet in the Forum of Augustus at Rome on 22nd March 62. Confirmation of Eunnychus’ new status comes from the fact that his name is found on the list of citizens on the marble panels. The second case relates to a woman called Petronia Justa who, like Venidius Eunnychus, wished to establish her legal status of citizenship. In her case, she claimed to have been born a free woman, since her mother was a slave who had been freed before she was born. Petronia had been brought up by her mother’s former owners, Petronius Stephanus and Calatoria Themis. After the death of Petronius, Calatoria evidently claimed that Petronia had been born before her mother had been freed, and that she was therefore of the status of Junian Latin and still had obligations to Calatoria. This would also have meant that Petronia could not enter into a legal marriage with a Roman citizen. Petronia took the matter to court, and 18 tablets found in the House of the Bicentenary relate to the case. They date to 75/76 CE , and are largely made up of witness statements: ten in favour of Petronia, three in favour

Chapter 8 Herculaneum

In Their Own Words 8.1 Read the evidence from wax-tablets on the cases of Venidius Eunnychus and Petronia Justa in Cooley and Cooley, 2014, pp. 213–218. What can we learn about the process of Roman law from these documents?

of Calatoria. Other documents show that the case could not be resolved by the court in Herculaneum and so the legal proceedings were transferred to Rome. The case seems to have been unresolved at the time of the eruption in 79.

II Layout and Housing Since the southern end of Herculaneum is all that has been excavated, we can form only a partial picture of its layout. However, what has been uncovered gives us a varied picture of life in the town.

1 Layout Streets The excavated area is the lower end of the town as it slopes down to the sea. As Fig. 8.7 shows, it consists of three main streets (cardines) heading north-east up the hill, with two streets crossing at right angles (decumani); a third decumanus is known from 18th-century tunnel excavations. The streets, houses and shops uncovered are similar to those of Pompeii and other Roman sites. One notable difference from Pompeii is that Herculaneum has lower pavements and a lack of stepping stones for crossing the streets. This is because it had a far better drainage system – an expertly constructed, large sewer system that ran under the town’s streets – and so there was no need to prevent people from having to step into the streets. As in Pompeii, there was a sophisticated water supply: a number of public fountains have been found, as well as one water tower, and lead pipes have been found just beneath street level. However, it seems that Herculaneum was not supplied by the Aqua Augusta, since at Pompeii the water from this left thick deposits of limescale on the pipes, which is not present at Herculaneum. It therefore is likely that Herculaneum had its own local supply of water. Another curiosity about the streets of Herculaneum is the absence of wheel ruts in comparison with Pompeii, which can only mean that there was far less traffic. This would tie in with the impression that Herculaneum was a quieter town,

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to the Theatre

16

9 1

3

15 7 4

6

5

2

8

13 to the Villa of the Papyri

11

12

N

10

14 0 5 10 15 20 25

50

Fig. 8.7 A plan of Herculaneum. Key: 1 – College of the Augustales; 2 – Central baths; 3 – House of the Bicentenary; 4 – House of Neptune and Amphitrite; 5 – Insula; 6 – Palaestra; 7 – House of the Black Hall; 8 – House of the Wooden Partition; 9 – Upper Aula; 10 – House of the Stags; 11 – House of the Gem; 12 – Suburban baths; 13 – Terrace; 14 – Temple to Venus; 15 – Basilica Noniana; 16 – Basilica.

and that its economy was more localised, with less importing and exporting of goods.

Public Buildings As yet, no forum has been found in the town. The main public buildings so far uncovered in the town are centred around the main decumanus, the decumanus maximus, which lies at the north end of the excavated area. The importance of this

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street is indicated by the fact that it was blocked off to traffic. Entertainment facilities were nearby: close to its west end was the Theatre, while to its east was the Palaestra, surrounded by a portico, and with a swimming pool at its centre. This was a space for people to exercise, and presumably also to meet, talk and perhaps even study. It was first built in the Augustan era, and then extended in the middle of the 1st century CE . To the north of the Palaestra was a large public hall, known as the Upper Aula, which had a series of grand rooms above it that looked out on the Palaestra. Along the decumanus maximus three significant public buildings have been found, although only one of them has been fully excavated. This is known – probably misleadingly – as the College of the Augustales. It is a large hall, with four central columns supporting an upper floor. At one end is a large shrine area richly decorated with painted scenes, including two large frescos depicting Hercules (Fig. 8.8): in one he is bargaining with Achelous for the hand of Deianira, in the other he is shown as an immortal in the company of Juno and Minerva. The building was originally believed to be a hall where the Augustales would meet, based largely on an early theory that the names on the marble panels were a list of the city’s Augustales. However, since this list contains far more names than one would expect for this exclusive priesthood, it may be instead that the hall was a place where the town council met – indeed, three graffiti in the entrance use the word curia, the Latin word for a council. To the west of the College of the Augustales is the Basilica Noniana. We can be fairly sure that this is the Basilica that Marcus Nonius Balbus declared that he had built in one of his inscriptions, since a number of statues of Balbus and his family members were found here. It is likely that the Basilica Noniana was the place where

Fig. 8.8 The shrine area of the College of the Augustales.

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citizenship was awarded and recorded. As we have seen, a legal document found in the town records that Venidius Eunnychus was promoted to full citizenship in this building, and the building may have housed the marble panels containing the roll of the town’s citizens. Opposite the Basilica Noniana, still unexcavated is a large building named, again misleadingly, the Basilica. The 18th-century excavators of the site tunnelled into this building and decided that it must have been the town’s Basilica, and so the name has stuck, even though they were mistaken in their identification. The largest and most important building of the three, it was a porticus: a large open public space surrounded on all sides by porticoes (in design it is similar to the Eumachia building in Pompeii described on p. 365). This type of building became common in Rome during the Augustan era. The walls at each end of the Basilica were decorated with beautiful frescoes, many of which depicted scenes from Greek mythology (Hercules, Theseus and Achilles all feature). There were also statues of various members of the imperial family past and present, including a marble of Titus in a central niche, with niches on either side of it displaying colossal bronze statues of Augustus and Claudius respectively. There were also bronze statues of Flavian imperial women. Although the exact purpose of this building is not yet certain, it is clear that it was a key public space in the town. Three sets of baths have been uncovered in the town. Near the centre was a complex known as the Central baths, which was built in the late 1st century BCE (Fig. 8.9). It had separate bathing areas for men and women, both of which were heated by a central furnace (like the Stabian baths in Pompeii); unfortunately for the women, their baths did not have a frigidarium. These baths also have their own palaestra (see Fig. 6.16 on p. 331). To the south-east of the site were the impressive Suburban baths, which look out over the ancient shore. These seem to have been built in the Augustan period, and then later extended after 62 CE . The extension included a second caldarium with its own furnace, which warmed a pool that had space for twenty people. We also know that the baths suffered damage before 79 due to the rising of the sea in that area. In the 1990s, a third set of baths was partially uncovered to the north-west of the excavated area. These seem to have been built after 62 CE , and a flight of marble steps led down from them to the sea, through an area that had pools, fountains and gardens. At the southern end of the town, right above the sea, is a terrace. On its west side two small temples to Venus have been found. The larger of the two seems to have been first built in the 2nd century BCE , and then to have been redeveloped in the Augustan period, and again in the 70s CE . This last redevelopment was funded by a freedman and freedwoman, Aulus Furius Saturninus and Vibidia Saturnina. When they dedicated the temple, they also made a donation of 54,000 sesterces to public funds. Along the terrace to the east was a large funerary altar and equestrian statue of Marcus Nonius Balbus, which the town council decreed in his memory as recognition of his service to the town. Other public buildings have yet to be discovered. An inscription suggests that there was a capitolium (a temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva). Two other inscriptions

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Fig. 8.9 The men’s apodyterium in the Central baths. The marble basin at the far end was used to wash the hands and splash the face.

indicate that there was a temple to Magna Mater, and a macellum, which would have been the main market, as at Pompeii. Moreover, it is highly likely the town would have had a temple to its patron god Hercules. For such a small town, Herculaneum had an impressive set of public buildings.

Industry There seems to have been little large-scale industry in Herculaneum, perhaps because of its restricted hinterland. Compared to Pompeii, there is less evidence for industries such as fulling (just one fullery and two dye-shops), wine-making or the production of garum. However, even in the relatively small part of the town that has been excavated, a number of thermopolia have been discovered, as well as a jewel maker’s and a lead workshop (Fig. 8.10). The economy of Herculaneum was clearly more locally based, and the farmland outside the town was productive: the local wine was valued, while Pliny the Elder mentions the ‘Herculaneum Fig’ as a specific type found in Italy. The woods on Vesuvius were also used as a natural resource. Fishing also seems to have been important to the town, since a large number of nets, hooks and other fishing gear have been found by excavators. Herculaneum’s harbour has yet to be located, but is likely to have been to the south-east of the town.

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Fig. 8.10 A thermopolium in Herculaneum.

It is believed to have been the first safe port of call after Naples, and was open all the year round, unlike smaller harbours in the bay, which were only open in the summer.

2 Housing Herculaneum had a range of houses just as Pompeii did, with grand mansions set alongside humbler dwellings. However, while Pompeii contains some enormously wealthy residences indicating some very rich inhabitants, there was also a large number of poorer residences. This is less the case at Herculaneum, although the town does preserve for us one example of the sort of insula typical of Rome and Ostia (see p. 230), but which does not exist at all at Pompeii. This had three floors: the ground floor had ten shop units, a number of which had staircases leading up to the first floor. The rooms on the first floor were generally linked to the shops below, and were laid out similarly. The second floor is less well preserved, but the layout of one apartment has been traced, which seems to have had a set of rooms set around a central space. Underground beneath the insula was a large cesspit, which has proved to be an archaeological gold mine (see box, p. 411). One piece of evidence that the average level of wealth at Herculaneum was higher than that at Pompeii comes in the much higher percentage of houses decorated with polychrome marble, a clear sign of wealth in the Roman world. In addition to this, on the walls of some houses are white marble panels with relief sculptures on Greek

Chapter 8 Herculaneum

Waste Disposal As part of the Herculaneum Conservation Project’s work, the town’s sewers have recently been excavated, allowing them to be used again to help drain the site. During their work, archaeologists came across one part of the town’s sewer network under the insula block that is more like a huge septic tank, into which chutes from the latrines and kitchens of the shops and simple apartments above emptied waste. Since this septic tank had no outlet, slaves would have been made to empty it from time to time and to take the contents to fertilise the surrounding fields, no doubt a revolting task. However, a huge amount of organic waste and refuse had collected inside it at the time of the eruption, a large proportion of which was human excrement. As a result, the bones, shells and seeds of the food that the people above were eating has been preserved. This has given us fascinating information about the local diet: eggshell fragments, poppy and fig seeds, olive pits, fish bones and scales, pig, sheep and bird bones, and a particularly high number of chicken bones; those with more exotic tastes were also eating sea urchins. Also preserved was evidence of the herbs used to season the food: coriander, fennel, dill, mint and poppy. In addition, one of the most expensive and luxurious ingredients found in the sewer was black pepper. In Roman times black pepper was imported all the way from India and would have taken months to get to Italy. This evidence from the Herculaneum sewer is another example of how the eruption of Vesuvius has allowed us to learn about the small details of daily life in the region.

lines, something absent from Pompeii. One of the most impressive houses, the House of the Stags, overlooked the sea and must have had a fantastic view across the bay to the islands of Capri and Pithekoussai. The main room of this house had a floor consisting of 368 separate pieces of marble; of the 240 that survive, there are 82 different motifs (Fig. 8.11). Two other houses, the House of the Wooden Partition and the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, give us particularly good information about certain aspects of Roman house design. These two are described below, as is the Villa of the Papyri outside the town, which offers a tantalising possibility for archaeologists.

The House of the Wooden Partition This house was once very big, but it seems that in the middle of the 1st century CE some rooms on the street sides were converted into shops – a large clothes press was found in one of these. Moreover, an upper floor was added in the same period; this had a separate flight of stairs as its entrance, and suggests that the upper rooms were used as a separate apartment (Fig. 8.12).

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Fig. 8.11 A section of the polychrome marble floor in the House of the Stags.

J

J J F H J

A

D

G E

C

B

J

Fig. 8.12 Plan of the House of the Wooden Partition. Key: A – main entrance; B – cubiculum; C – ala; D – atrium; E – triclinium; F – tablinum; G – peristyle; H – triclinium; J – tabernae.

The house’s east facade is one of the best preserved of any in Pompeii or Herculaneum; indeed, what we can see today on its ground and first floor level is probably almost the same as what people saw in 79 CE (Fig. 8.13). Outside the front door are the benches where clients would wait to meet their patron in the morning; above these, small windows look onto the street, while the wooden cross beams are still in place, albeit carbonised. Entering into the house through the front door, one finds a typical wealthy domus, laid out in the classic atrium–tablinum–peristylium form. The impluvium was decorated with marble, while a marble table placed in front

Chapter 8 Herculaneum

Fig. 8.13 The facade of the House of the Wooden Partition.

of it remains in place today. To the back of the house, a triclinium was found beyond the peristyle. However, the item of most interest is the ‘wooden partition’ from which the house takes its name (Fig. 8.14). It is assumed that this was used as a screen to separate the tablinum from the atrium, giving the paterfamilias some privacy when required. The partition was originally made of three beautifully panelled double doors, although the middle panel was sadly hacked through by early tunnelers. Thankfully, the other two panels have survived in carbonised form, together with their hinges and bronze lamp supports, each in the form of a ship’s figurehead. Another carbonised relic can be seen in a small room off the atrium – a bed or couch that stood on legs shaped by a lathe.

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Fig. 8.14 The atrium of the House of the Wooden Partition, with the partition still in situ.

The House of Neptune and Amphitrite This house was a more modest, but still relatively luxurious, residence (Fig. 8.15). It was reconstructed in the second quarter of the 1st century CE . Since its front wall was destroyed by the eruption and has been only partially reconstructed, visitors today can see directly into the shop at the front. This was probably owned by the family and run by a house slave. It has a counter, a hearth, a sink and some amphorae of wine,

E D

A C

F B Fig. 8.15 A plan of the House of Neptune and Amphitrite. Key: A – main entrance; B – taberna; C – atrium; D – tablinum; E – courtyard; F – triclinium.

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as well as a low mezzanine level, which was probably used either for sleeping space or for storage. The back part of the shop was closed off by a wooden partition. Walking through the front door of the house, a visitor entered the atrium, which contained an ornate lararium. The house also had two upper floor areas; one was at the back, perhaps reached by a ladder in the courtyard, and consisted of two simply decorated rooms. The upper floor at the front and side of the house, which was reached by a staircase inside, is much better preserved. It consisted of eight rooms, one of which was probably a triclinium, while there was also a kitchen and a bedroom. Since both upper areas were accessed from inside the house, it seems that they were used by the family. The house’s focal point was its courtyard at the back, which may have been used as a triclinium. Here, the owners have made up for the fact that there was no room for a peristyle or garden by creating outdoor scenes in a set of wall paintings along with stunning water features. On the back wall was a large mosaic of Neptune, the god of the sea, and his wife Amphitrite, both depicted on a gold background (Fig. 8.16). Surrounding them were intricate floral designs in red, blue and gold. On the adjoining wall was a nymphaeum, a monumental fountain, with scenes of the countryside: deer being chased by hounds, garlands of fruit and flowers, peacocks. In the centre of the room was a small marble column forming a fountain feature. The idea here is simple – if the owner of this house could not afford space for a real garden, then he was going to reproduce one artistically with a riot of brilliant colours, pictures and water.

Fig. 8.16 The Neptune and Amphitrite mosaic.

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The Villa of the Papyri In 1750, a magnificent villa was discovered just outside Herculaneum and partially excavated (Fig. 8.17). Terraced over four different layers down to the sea, it had a bath complex and library, with floors of marble or mosaic, as well as several large garden areas with pools surrounded by fountains and statues. However, for all its stunning beauty, the villa is most famous for the papyri from which it takes its name. There were around 1,800 carbonised papyri scrolls in all, the majority of them found in a room along with busts of three Greek philosophers – Epicurus, Hermachus and Zeno – as well as one of the orator Demosthenes. Scientists have been able to unravel and interpret some of the scrolls, and three quarters of them are works of Philodemus of Gadara (a city in what is today Jordan), an Epicurean philosopher of the 1st century BCE . Modern science has recently added to the process, as x-ray techniques are now able to ‘virtually unroll’ the surviving texts. The reason that the villa is believed to have been owned at one time by Julius Caesar’s father-inlaw, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, is that he was a prominent patron of Epicurean philosophy at this time and on friendly terms with Philodemus. It is hard to think who else in the Roman world would have a library with so many of his works. Although Philodemus tells us a good deal about Epicurean philosophy, archaeologists and classicists had hoped that the library would contain some of the famous lost books of ancient writers. For example, on the Greek side, the Athenian tragic playwrights Aeschylus and Sophocles are each said to have written more than

Fig. 8.17 The Getty Villa in Malibu, California, was built in the 1950s, and was inspired as a reconstruction of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. Today it is a museum that holds thousands of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities.

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100 plays, but we have just seven by each. On the Roman side, we have seen that only 35 of the 142 books written by Livy in his History of Rome have survived, and the lost books could tell us a great deal about other periods of Roman history. Many ancient libraries had both a Greek and a Latin section, and so it is hoped that rooms with both Greek and Latin texts lie unexcavated. At this stage, archaeologists have decided not to risk exposing any more of the building until they can guarantee the conservation of what has already been excavated. This may change in the future – but only if appropriate techniques for excavating without negative impact on the town are found. If the villa is eventually excavated, it may illuminate information about the Roman world never yet known.

To dig or not to dig? The Villa of the Papyri therefore perhaps offers enormous potential for teaching us much more about wealthy and literate Romans and their world. There are many archaeologists, historians and papyrologists who would like to see excavations extended specifically to investigate whether there is a second library with Latin texts waiting to be found. However, other archaeologists have been equally strong in their opposition to excavation at the villa. This may seem a strange position for the profession to take, but they argue that what has already been excavated has suffered greatly owing to a lack of adequate maintenance and conservation. Until the excavated site can be properly cared for in the long-term, they believe, no more should be exposed, so that it remains safe and stable for future generations to uncover. They also point out that further excavation of the villa and other buried areas of Herculaneum could only be done by destroying the medieval town centre of Ercolano and many important historic buildings that lie along the so-called “Golden Mile” of 122 18th-century villas.

Review and Reflect 8.2 1

How does the layout of the excavated area at Herculaneum compare to that of Pompeii?

2

What can we learn about life in Herculaneum from the public areas of the town?

3

In what ways can evidence from housing in Herculaneum give us a distinct insight into life in the Roman world?

4

Should the Villa of the Papyri be excavated? What might be the advantages and disadvantages of such a course of action?

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Further Reading 8.1 Berry, Joanne, The Complete Pompeiii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), chapters 1, 2, 5. Cooley, Alison E. and Cooley, M.G.L., Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014). Deiss, Joseph Jay, Herculaneum: Italy’s Buried Treasure (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985). Jashemski, Wilhelmina, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1993). Roberts, Paul, Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (London: British Museum Press, 2013). Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Herculaneum: Past and Future (London: Frances Lincoln, 2011). Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1994). Wilkins, John and Nadeau, Robin, eds, A Companion to Food in the Ancient World (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), chapter 10.

Appendix 1

Roman Currency Values T

he Romans started using coinage as the city expanded and they came into contact with the Greeks of southern Italy in the 4th century BCE . The system of coinage started from the smallest coin, the quadrans, and progressed as follows: 4 quadrantes 2 asses 2 dupondii 4 sestertii 25 denarii

= = = = =

1 as 1 dupondius 1 sestertius 1 denarius 1 aureus

The relative values of these coins were reflected in the metal used to mint them: an aureus was made of gold, a denarius of silver, a sestertius and a dupondius of bronze, while the as and the quadrans were minted in copper. Both ancient and modern authors use the sestertius as the main unit of currency, and it has the shorthand HS (in the main text, a sestertius is known by its English form, sesterce). The name of each unit also had a logic: a quadrans was a quarter of an as, which in turn meant a ‘unit’; dupondius meant ‘double weight’ (duo + pondus – which gives us the English word ‘pound’), since it was twice the value of an as; sestertius originally meant ‘two and a half’, since in early Roman times it was two and a half times the value of the as; in the same way, the denarius (‘containing ten’) was originally ten times the value of the as; aureus simply meant ‘golden’.

Values It is almost impossible to give an exact value of Roman coinage in modern money, partly because values changed so much from place to place over the centuries. However, sources do give evidence for values in the 1st century CE as follows: 419

420

Roman Currency Values

Entry to the public baths:

1 quadrans

A loaf of bread in Pompeii:

1 as

Day’s wage for a labourer in Pompeii:

4 sestertii

Annual pay of a Roman soldier in the time of Domitian:

1200 sestertii

Membership of the equestrian class:

400,000 sestertii

Membership of the senatorial class:

1,000,000 sestertii

The Legacy of the Denarius The Romans introduced a single European currency long before the Euro appeared in 2002. Moreover, the name denarius has lived on in many countries once ruled by the Romans. The ‘dinar’ is the unit of currency in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Serbia. Moreover, the Italian word denaro, the Spanish dinero, the Portuguese dinheiro, the Slovenian denarr and the Catalan dinerr are all derived from denarius and all mean ‘money’ in their respective languages.

Appendix 2

Roman Clothing

Men’s Clothing The tunic was the basic garment for all men. It was a type of long shirt, made of linen or wool, formed of two widths sewn together. It was slipped over the head and fastened round the body with a cord. At the front, it came down to the knees, but usually fell a little lower at the back. The toga was the most famous form of Roman dress (Fig. 9.1). All freeborn Roman citizens had the right to wear it, although in practice it was a very cumbersome item and so was only used ceremonially or by members of the upper classes, particularly senators and magistrates performing public duties. It was made of fine wool, semi-circular in shape, and draped over one shoulder and wrapped around the body, falling down to the mid-shins or ankles. The toga was a symbol of the Roman people – in Virgil’s Aeneid, Jupiter talks of the future Roman race as Romanos, rerum dominos, gentemque togatam (‘Romans, masters of the world, the toga-wearing race’). Of the various types of toga, the most important were as follows: ●

The toga virilis (‘toga of manhood’) was worn by the ordinary Roman citizen. It was plain white and first worn by a youth at his coming-of-age ceremony (see p. 252).

●

The toga praetexta (‘bordered toga’) was worn by magistrates, and by boys who had not yet reached adulthood.

●

The toga candida (‘whitened toga’) was a toga bleached white with chalk and worn by candidates for public office – the idea being that a dazzling white toga would suggest their virtue and honesty. The Latin for bright white, candida, meant that politicians seeking election were known as candidati, from where we get the English ‘candidate’. 421

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Roman Clothing

Fig. 9.1 A drawing of a man wearing the toga and a woman wearing a stola and palla.

There were other forms of clothing too – including underwear and shoes, while for formal dinner parties a long garment, the synthesis, allowed guests to recline comfortably (see p. 241). The synthesis was colourful, a loose tunic plus a matching short wrap.

Women’s Clothing The tunic was the basic garment for all women, constructed as above, fastened around the waist with a cord. Some married women wore an overdress, the stola, which was suspended from slip-like straps and fell down to the ankles; a woman usually also wore an undertunic under her tunic and stola. If she went out, then she would wrap a rectangular woollen wrap, the palla, around her shoulders and often over her head (Fig. 9.1). At dinner parties, women would wear the synthesis as men would. No respectable woman would ever wear a toga, which was a sign of disgrace: some literary sources speak of women working as prostitutes or caught in adultery being forced to wear it as a mark of shame.

Appendix 3

Roman Names

Citizen Men In the Republic, aristocratic Roman men developed a custom of having three names, as follows: praenomen (pl: praenomina)

nomen (pl: nomina)

cognomen (pl: cognomina)

Usage

A personal name, equivalent to a first name today; used amongst close friends and family.

The name of the man’s Roman clan, gens, and the most important name; used in more formal conversation (often with the praenomen)

The name of the branch of the clan to which a man belonged (clans were so large that they were sub-divided). Used in more formal conversation as an alternative to the nomen.

e.g.

Marcus

Tullius

Cicero

There are fewer than one hundred praenomina on record. Moreover, in practice aristocratic Romans only used about 15 common praenomina (and the first son was usually named after his father). In written Latin, these common names are abbreviated as follows: A. Ap(p). C. Cn. D. L.

Aulus Appius Gaius Gnaeus Decimus Lucius

M. M’. N. P. Q. Ser.

Marcus Manius Numerius Publius Quintus Servius

Sex. Sp. T. Ti.

Sextus Spurius Titus Tiberius

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A man could also be given a further cognomen for a number of reasons: to denote a particular achievement (e.g. Publius Cornelius Scipio took the name Africanus after his victories over the Carthaginians); an adoptee took on his adoptive father’s name, but added the adjectival version of his original nomen as a cognomen (e.g. Gaius Octavius Thurinus became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus after being adopted by Gaius Julius Caesar – he later of course added the name Augustus); a nickname simply stuck and became formalised (e.g. Sulla’s full name was Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix. ‘Felix’, meaning ‘Lucky’ was simply a name that became attached to him).

Citizen Women All daughters of Roman citizens took the feminine form of their family nomen. Therefore, a man from the Julius gens called all his daughters Julia, a man from the Cornelius gens called all his daughters Cornelia, etc. If a family had two daughters, then they were distinguished by the terms maior and minor (‘elder’ and ‘younger’); if there were more than two sisters, then they were called prima, secunda, tertia, etc. In public, an unmarried woman was known by her name and the possessive form of her father’s cognomen (e.g. Tullia Ciceronis – Tullia [daughter] of Cicero); a married woman was known by her name and the possessive form of her husband’s cognomen (e.g. Clodia Metelli – Clodia [wife] of Metellus). From the time of the late Republic, exceptions to this rule became more common among aristocratic families. Some elite women came to have two names, taking the feminised forms of her father’s nomen and cognomen (e.g. Livia Drusilla, the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusillus). Moreover, from the time of the emperors, daughters could be given names that had greater meaning for the family. For example, Nero Claudius Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder (see p. 95) named their three daughters Agrippina, Drusilla and Julia Livilla, each name referring back to a distinguished recent male ancestor.

Slaves As we have seen on p. 275, slaves were given names by their masters – they had no choice what they were called. Often, they were given names that related to where they were from or a distinguishing feature of their looks or character.

Freedmen and Freedwomen A freedman took the praenomen and nomen of his former master, who was now his patron, and he kept his slave name as a cognomen (if a woman had freed him, he took her father’s praenomen and nomen instead). Therefore, when Cicero freed his slave Tiro, he gave him the name Marcus Tullius Tiro. Freedwomen took the feminine form of their master’s nomen plus their slave name.

Appendix 4

Roman Time

Hours of the Day The Romans mainly used sundials and water clocks to tell the time. However, these were far less precise than modern clocks, and so time in the Roman world was much more fluid – there would be no way, for example, that people would be able to agree to meet at exactly 10:15. As we do today, the Romans divided their day into 24 hours, although they did not have 24 equal units of 60 minutes. The Roman day had 12 hours of daylight, counted from sunrise to sunset, and 12 hours of night, from sunset to sunrise. This meant that the length of the hours changed slightly every day – hours of day were short in winter and long in summer, with the opposite being true for the hours of night. At the winter solstice, when the day had only 8 hours 54 minutes of light, the length of each daylight hour was about 45 minutes, while by the summer solstice this had lengthened to about 75 minutes. The only days when the hours of day and night were of an equal length, and actually 60 minutes, were the spring and autumnal equinoxes. Romans adjusted their timekeeping according to the time of year – it was common to go to the baths at the eighth hour in winter but the ninth hour in summer. The day started at the beginning of the first hour – which in midwinter would be at about 7:30 am, while in midsummer it would be nearer to 4:30 am.

Months of the Year From early Roman times, the annual calendar had consisted of at first ten, then twelve, months fitted into a 355-day year. However, this was an inefficient system since an extra ‘intercalary’ month had to be fitted in, usually every other year, so 425

426

Roman Time

that some years were longer than others. In 46 BCE , Julius Caesar oversaw the reorganisation of the calendar, creating a year of 365 days, with a ‘leap year’ inserted every fourth year that included an extra day in February. This was known as the ‘Julian calendar’ and, after a few small adjustments by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, became the one we use in the modern world today. The Romans did not count the days of their months from 1 to 28, 30 or 31 as we do. Instead, they had three points in the first half of the month from which they numbered their days: ●

The 1st day of the month was known as the Kalends (from the verb ‘to call’, since originally a new month was ‘called’ at the arrival of a new moon), from which the English word ‘calendar’ is derived.

●

The 5th day of the month (or the 7th in March, May, July and October) was called the Nones (‘ninth’, since the Nones was always nine days before the Ides, counting inclusively).

●

The 13th day of the month (or the 15th in March, May, July and October) was known as the Ides (from the Latin idus, meaning ‘half division’, i.e., of a month).

The days of the month would be named according to which of these three dates was next to fall in the calendar. For example, the 1st of January would be known as the ‘Kalends of January’, but the 2nd of January would be called ‘the fourth day before the Nones of January’ – since the Romans counted inclusively. Until the late Republic, years were always named after the annual consuls so that, for example, 205 BCE was ‘the year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus’. However, in later times, some annalists

Naming the Months According to the literary tradition, until 713 BCE the Romans had a ten-month annual calendar. The first four months were Martius, Aprilis, Maius and Iunius – Martius and Iunius were named after the gods Mars and Juno, while Aprilis is probably derived from the Latin verb aperire, ‘to open’, since this is the time of year when the flowers and plants ‘open up’; Maius was named after the Greek goddess Maia, a fertility goddess associated with the Roman Bona Dea. The names Septemberr, Octoberr, Novemberr, of the other six months – Quintilis, Sextilis, September, Decemberr – simply meant ‘fifth’, ‘sixth’, etc. King Numa is credited with introducing a further two months at the beginning of the year – Ianuarius (from the god of entrances, Janus), and Februarius (named after a verb meaning ‘to purify’, since February was a month of purification). In the second half of the 1st century BCE , Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed Iulius and Augustus after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar respectively. No attempt was made to rename the final four months of the year, which were now out of line with their place in the year – as they still are today.

Roman Time

preferred to record years from 753 BCE , the traditional date of the foundation of the city. Under this system, 205 BCE would have been dated as 549 AUC (Ab Urbe Condita – ‘from the foundation of the city’).

The Festival Year For most of Roman history, there was no seven-day week with two days of rest as we have today. Instead, the Romans had a day off every eight days for a ‘market-day’. This was known as the nundinae, meaning ‘ninth day’ since, counting inclusively, each market day was held on the ninth day after the previous one. In addition, the Kalends, Nones, and Ides were always rest days, as were various other ‘festival days’ that were set aside each month – some of these were given over to worshipping gods, while others were for games such as chariot racing, drama and gladiatorial shows.

427

Glossary aedile A magistrate elected annually during the Republic, responsible for city maintenance, markets and public games; originally a plebeian office, later extended to patricians (known as curule aediles) Asia Minor The western two thirds of modern Turkey, which the Romans took control of during the late Republic auctoritas ‘Influence’, the ability of an individual to affect political decisions through strength of character augur A state religious official who could ‘read’ the flights of birds, interpreting them as divine favour or disapproval of major decisions of state Augustales Roman public officials connected to preserving the worship and honour of the emperor, largely drawn from the ranks of freedmen auspicium The consultation of the gods about state decisions, which could be sanctioned by senior magistrates auxiliaries Soldiers who fought in the Roman army but were not Roman citizens censor One of two magistrates of the Republic elected every five years, responsible for the census of Roman citizens, the list of senators, and public morality Centuriate Assembly (Comitia Centuriata) A voting body of all citizens, organised into 193 voting ‘centuries’ determined by wealth, responsible for electing consuls and praetors client kingdom A foreign state that was self-governing but would work in Roman interests as a junior partner 428

clients Citizens who were bound by loyalty to a wealthy patron to support him in all his public interests (e.g. in elections) in return for support and resources consul One of two annually elected chief magistrates in the Republic, the highest elected political office of the cursus honorum Curia The assembly house of the Senate, whose meeting place in the Roman Forum was later named after its builder (Curia Julia, originally built by Julius Caesar) cursus honorum The ‘course of offices’, the ladder of magisterial offices that politicians of the Republic tried to climb damnatio memoriae The process whereby the names and achievements of deceased individuals deemed to have been hostile to the Roman state were formally removed from public monuments dictator A magistrate of the Republic chosen by the Senate in a time of national emergency with absolute power for a period of up to six months domus A large private house in a Roman town or city duoviri The two senior magistrates in a Roman town, modelled on the consuls at Rome Epicureanism A popular school of philosophy, adopted from Greece, which advocated living for pleasure, and did not believe that the gods were active in human affairs equestrians (Latin: equites) Members of the second rank of the aristocracy, for which there was a wealth qualification of 400,000 sesterces from the time of Augustus

Glossary

Etruscans The dominant civilisation in central Italy between c. 800 and c. 500, which had a significant influence on the development of Roman civilisation genius A type of divinity which was a cross between a guardian spirit and a soul, often the ancestor or founding member of the family haruspex (pl. haruspices) A Roman priest who read omens from the entrails of sacrificed animals imperial cult The worship of the genius of the emperor or his family and ancestors. imperium The power granted to the senior magistrates of the Republic allowing them to command the Roman people imperium proconsulare maius Literally ‘power greater than that of a proconsul’: a power that confirmed that Augustus had the ability to overrule any provincial governor infamis (pl. infames) A person who, because of their profession or conduct, held a very low social and legal standing in Roman society, including actors, gladiators and prostitutes insula A block of flats in a Roman town or city Lares The Roman family’s household gods, representing the spirits of the family ancestors legion The largest unit of the Roman army, numbering about 5,000 men magistrate An elected official of the Roman Republic Magna Graecia ‘Great Greece’, the Roman name for the region of southern Italy and Sicily where there were many cities founded by Greeks Manes The spirits of the dead novus homo ‘New man’: the first member of a family to gain the consulship

optimates Literally ‘the best people’, individuals who saw themselves as the defenders of the established aristocratic order in the late Republic Parthian Empire An empire lying to the east of the Roman Empire, centred on what is now Iran paterfamilias The male head of a Roman household, including wife, children, slaves and livestock patricians Families whose ancestry could be traced to the early days of Rome when they formed a ruling aristocratic group patron A man of significant social standing able to offer resources (financial, legal or simply food) to his clients in return for loyalty Plebeian Assembly (Concilium Plebis) A voting body of plebeian citizens organised into the thirty-five tribes of Rome, responsible for electing the tribunes of the people; it could also pass legislation plebeians The vast majority of Roman citizens, all those who were not patricians. pomerium The sacred boundary of the city of Rome pontifex (pl. pontifices) A Roman priest in charge of protecting temples, regulating religious law and overseeing the religious calendar Pontifex Maximus The chief priest in Roman religion, the role was conferred on Augustus in 12 BCE and thereafter held by the reigning emperor populares Roman politicians of the late Republic who aimed to secure power by appealing directly to the common people for support potestas Official political power, typically held by all Roman magistrates praetor Originally, the chief magistrate of the Roman Republic; later the second highest magistrate of the Roman Republic after the consul, elected annually, primarily responsible for the administration of justice; a title also given to commanders of the armies Praetorian Guard The cohorts of soldiers who protected the emperor at Rome during the Principate

429

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Glossary

princeps “The first man”, a republican title used to distinguish the leading and often most senior member of the Senate; later employed by Augustus to define his role in his new system of government, which effectively made him the first emperor Principate The system of government created by Augustus in 27 BCE , a monarchy veiled by the traditions of the Republic proconsul An ex-consul who served as a provincial governor propraetor An ex-praetor who served as a provincial governor proscription A process by which the Senate published a list of men considered to be enemies of the state; any man on the list could be killed with impunity, and the killers could keep part of his estate as a reward quaestor A junior magistrate of the Republic responsible for managing a wide range of responsibilities, including supervising financial and minor legal affairs and assisting provincial governors; holders of this office became members of the Senate Republic The system of government that existed in Rome between 509 and 27 BCE Senate The council of ex-magistrates that advised the magistrates and the people

during the Republic, and the emperor during the Principate; terms of office were for life unless expelled for moral or political reasons Stoicism A popular school of philosophy, adopted from Greece, which maintained that moral virtue is the only true form of happiness; all human conditions like health, political power, wealth and pleasure are secondary and subject to divine providence or fate Tribal Assembly (Comitia Tributa) A voting body of all citizens organised into the thirty-five tribes of Rome, responsible for electing the junior magistracies Tribune of the People One of ten officials of the Republic elected annually from the plebeian order to act as a check on the senate and magistrates tribunicia potestas The power of one of the ten tribunes, it was conferred on Augustus as part of his political reforms, and held by emperors thereafter triumph A special celebration of a successful military campaign in which a conquering general would ride through the streets of Rome with his spoils of war paraded behind Vestal Virgins Public priestesses responsible for the cult of the goddess Vesta at Rome

Sources of Quotations All translations by the author unless stated below. Numbers in bold refer to page numbers.

Chapter 1 (From Kingdom to Republic) 6 ‘Aeneas is . . .’ Homer, Iliad, 20.302–308, trans. A.S. Kline, The Iliad: Poetry in Translation, https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Iliad20.php; 8 ‘From a . . .’ Livy, History of Rome, 1.6–7, trans. T.J. Luce, The Rise of Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 10–11; 9 ‘Turn your . . .’ Livy, History of Rome, 1.13, trans. T.J. Luce, The Rise of Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 18; 10 ‘These rulers . . .’ Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (London: Profile Books, 2015), p. 100; 13 ‘The Etruscan . . .’ Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), p. 36; 23 ‘If we . . .’ Plutarch, Pyrrhus 21.9; 25 ‘If he . . .’ Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (London: Profile Books, 2015), pp. 142–143; 27 ‘L. Cornelius Scipio . . .’ CIL VI 1285, trans. Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), p. 328; 30 ‘Setting out . . .’ Livy, History of Rome, 21.35; 39 ‘Cato used . . .’ Cicero, On the Republic, 2.2, trans. James E.G. Zetzel, Cicero: On the Commonwealth and On the Laws (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 33; 46 ‘There can . . .’ Polybius, Histories, 1.1.5, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert, The Rise of the Roman Empire (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), p. 41; 56 ‘These lists . . .’ Plutarch, Sulla, 31, trans. Rex Warner, Fall of the Roman Republic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 97–98; 58 ‘But what . . .’ Plutarch, Pompey, 45, trans. Rex Warner, Fall of the Roman Republic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), pp. 208–209; 59 ‘Let us . . .’, Catullus, Poem 5; 63 ‘I came . . .’ Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 37; 63 ‘He [Cicero] was . . .’ Plutarch, Cicero, 39; trans. Rex Warner, Fall of the Roman Republic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 363; 66 ‘May fortune . . .’ Appian, Civil Wars, 4.11, trans: John Carter, Appian: The Civil Wars (London: Penguin, 1996), p. 214; 67 ‘How I wish . . .’ Cicero, Ad Familiares, 10.28.

Chapter 2 (The Emperors) 75 ‘In my sixth . . .’ Augustus, Res Gestae, 34, trans. B.W.J.G. Wilson, LACTOR 17: The Age of Augustus (London: KCL, 2003), p. 34; 77 ‘Of the achievements . . .’, Augustus, Res Gestae, Introduction, trans. B.W.J.G. Wilson, LACTOR 17: The Age of Augustus (London: KCL, 2003), p. 27; 77 ‘He seduced . . .’ Tacitus, Annals, 1.2, trans. Michael Grant, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 32; 84 ‘I found . . .’, Suetonius, Augustus, 28, trans. Robert Graves, The Twelve Caesars (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 61; 89 ‘Now turn . . .’, Virgil, Aeneid, 6.788–795, trans: David West, The Aeneid (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 137; 90 ‘While Caesar . . .’ Horace, Odes, 4.15, trans. David West, The Complete Odes and Epodes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 130; 91 ‘She [Diana] stood . . .’ Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.187–203, trans. David Raeburn, Metamorphoses (London: Penguin, 2004), pp. 101–102; 96 ‘So much . . .’ Suetonius, Gaius, 22, trans. Robert Graves, The Twelve Caesars (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 161; 97 ‘Crowds surrounded . . .’ Suetonius, Claudius, 431

432

Sources of Quotations

10, trans. Robert Graves, The Twelve Caesars (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 189; 100 ‘He [Nero] had . . .’ Tacitus, Annals, 14.14, trans. Cynthia Damon, Tacitus: Annals (London: Penguin, 2012), p. 281; 100 ‘The death . . .’ Tacitus, Histories, 1.4; 103 ‘And whatever . . .’ Law on the Powers of Vespasian: ILS 244, trans. M.G.L. Cooley, LACTOR 20: The Flavians (London: KCL, 2015), p. 144; 104 ‘In those . . .’ Tacitus, Agricola 2; trans. H. Mattingly, The Agricola and The Germania (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 52; 108 ‘But when . . .’ Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 16.10.15, trans. Walter Hamilton, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354–378) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. 101–102; 110 ‘He always . . .’ Augustan History, Life of Antoninus Pius, 9.10, trans. Anthony Birley, The Lives of the Later Caesars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p. 104; 111 ‘Our history . . .’ Dio Cassius, Roman History, 72.36; 111 ‘Do not . . .’ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.17, trans. Robin Hard, Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 26; 114 ‘Be of . . .’ Cassius Dio, Roman History, 77.15; 126 ‘Everywhere [Constantius] saw . . .’, Zosimus, New History, 3.1, trans. Ronald T. Ridley, Zosimus: New History (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1982); 126 ‘The people . . .’ Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 31.2, trans. Walter Hamilton, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354–378) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. 411–412; 129 ‘I shall . . .’ Jerome, Epistles, 123.16; 130 ‘My voice . . .’ Jerome, Epistles, 127.12.

Chapter 3 (Running an Empire) 136 ‘Words cannot . . .’ Cicero, On the Command of Gnaeus Pompeius, 22.65, trans: Michael Grant, Cicero, Selected Political Speeches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 67; 136 ‘Oh the times! . . .’ Cicero, In Verrem, 2.4.55; 137 ‘Let the . . .’ Cicero, Letters to His Brother Quintus, 1.1.13, 24; 137 ‘If we . . .’ Cicero, Letters to Quintus, 1.1.32 139 ‘The Jews . . .’ Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 16.160–161, trans. B.W.J.G. Wilson, LACTOR 17: The Age of Augustus (London: KCL, 2003), p. 302; 139 ‘There was . . .’ Pliny, Letters, 10.33, trans. P.G. Walsh, Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 254; 140 ‘You have . . .’ Pliny, Letters, 10.34; trans. P.G. Walsh, Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 254–255; 142 ‘Look behind . . .’ Tertullian, Apology, 33.4; 144 ‘Quinctilius Varus . . .’ Suetonius, Augustus, 23; 149 ‘A young . . .’ Vegetius, About Military Matters, 1.6–7; 156 ‘There was . . .’ Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 4.22, trans. Barbara Levick, LACTOR 18 (London: The London Association of Classical Teachers, 2002), p. 58; 158 ‘No visitor . . .’ Josephus, The Jewish War 6.7–8, trans. Martin Hammond, Josephus: The Jewish War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 305; 161 ‘Agricola had . . .’ Tacitus, Agricola, 21, trans. H. Mattingly, The Agricola and The Germania (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 72–73; 162 ‘To the . . .’ RIB 1 1065; 162 ‘Regina, freedwoman . . .’ RIB 1 1171; 163 ‘Pillagers of . . .’ Tacitus, Agricola, 30–31; trans. H. Mattingly, The Agricola and The Germania (London: Penguin, 2003), pp. 80–81; 164 ‘Prasutagus, king . . .’ Tacitus, Annals, 14.31; trans. Michael Grant, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p.328; 164 ‘Claudius had . . .’ Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.2.1, trans. Y. and D.W. Rathbone, LACTOR 11 (London: The London Association of Classical Teachers, 2012), p. 35; 166 ‘Classicianus . . . was . . .’ Tacitus, Annals, 14.38, trans. Michael Grant, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973); 168 ‘I have built . . .’ CIL II 761; 172 ‘Within the . . .’ Procopius, Secret History, 30.3–5, trans. G.A. Williamson and Peter Sarris, Procopius: The Secret History (London: Penguin, 2007), pp. 120–121; 174 ‘When you . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 10.19–22, trans. Peter Green, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London: Penguin, 1998); 177 ‘About the . . .’ Aelius Aristides, Regarding Rome, 11, trans. Charles Behr, P. Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works Vol 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1981), p. 75.

Chapter 4 (Roman Religion) 183 ‘For the Romans . . .’, ‘Everyone has . . .’ Augustine, City of God, 4.8, trans. R.W. Dyson, The City of God Against the Pagans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 152– 153; 184 ‘when civil . . .’ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 4.62.5; 193

Sources of Quotations

‘Coincident with . . .’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 2.94, trans. B.W.J.G. Wilson, LACTOR 17: The Age of Augustus (London: KCL, 2003), pp. 180–181; 194 ‘For in . . .’ Cassius Dio, Roman History, 51.20.8, trans. Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 349; 194 ‘Woe is . . .’ Suetonius, Vespasian, 23; 196 ‘They [the Luperci] cut . . .’ Plutarch, Romulus, 21.3–5, trans. Pelling, Scott-Kilvert, The Rise of Rome (London: Penguin, 2013), p. 36; 197 ‘Father Phoebus . . .’ Statius, Silvae, 1.6.1–7; 198 ‘You sent . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 7.53, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial: Epigrams Volume 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 121; 202 ‘Numa was . . .’ Livy, History of Rome 1.18, trans. T.J. Luce, The Rise of Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 24; 203 ‘As if they . . .’ Suetonius, Tiberius, 2.2; 203 ‘But since . . .’ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 2.72.3; 205 ‘They place . . .’ Plutarch, Numa, 10.6, trans. B.W.J.G. Wilson, LACTOR 17: The Age of Augustus (London: KCL, 2003), p. 231; 206 ‘My wife . . .’ Plutarch, Julius Caesar, 10; 209 ‘in case . . .’ Cicero, On Divination, 1.92, trans. Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 113; 210 ‘Well, the . . .’, ‘Yes, they . . .’ Plutarch, Julius Caesar, 63; 211 ‘Whatever god . . .’ Cato the Elder, On Agriculture, 139, trans. Andrew Dalby, On Farming (Totnes: Prospect Books, 1998), p. 197; 212 ‘With sacrificial . . .’ Acta Fratrum Arvalium 44a, trans. M.G.L. Cooley, LACTOR 20: The Flavians (London: KCL, 2015), p. 27; 213 ‘Mortals, do . . .’ Ovid, Metamorphoses, 15.75–90, trans. David Raeburn, Metamorphoses (London: Penguin, 2004), pp. 597–598; 214 ‘Why do . . .’ Seneca, On Providence, 2.1–2; 215 ‘No author . . .’ T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays (London: Faber and Faber, 1951), p. 65; 215 ‘What a joy . . .’ Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 2.1–4, trans. Ronald Latham, Lucretius: On the Nature of the Universe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1951), p. 38; 216 ‘For if men . . .’ Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1.107–111, trans. Ronald Latham, Lucretius: On the Nature of the Universe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1951), p. 12; 216 ‘Religion has . . .’ Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1.101; 219 ‘The saviour . . .’ Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 11.9, trans. E.J. Kenney, Apuleius: The Golden Ass (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 200; 221 ‘What travesty . . .’ Pseudo-Augustine, Questions on the Old and New Testaments, 113.11; 222 ‘To suppress . . .’ Tacitus, Annals, 15.44, trans. Michael Grant, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 365; 223 ‘You have . . .’ Pliny, Letters, 10.97, trans. Betty Radice, The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), p. 295; 227 ‘And so . . .’ Symmachus, Relatio, 3.10, trans. R.H. Barrow, Prefect and Emperor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 41.

Chapter 5 (Roman Society) 232 ‘We inhabit . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 3.193–202, adapted from trans. Peter Green, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 19; 232 ‘Two of . . .’ Cicero, To Atticus, 14.9; 236 ‘So that . . .’ Plautus, The Pot of Gold, 1–8; 237 ‘Gladly we . . .’ CIL IV 1227, trans. JoAnn Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 328; 238 ‘What is . . .’ Cicero, About His Home, 61.109, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 207; 239 ‘Clean the . . .’ Apicius, Cookbook, 6.9.4, trans. JoAnn Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 84; 240 ‘Observe the . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 5.80–88, trans. Peter Green, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London: Penguin, 1998), pp. 29–31; 242 ‘We gambled . . .’ Suetonius, Augustus, 71.2, trans. Robert Graves, The Twelve Caesars (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 91; 243 ‘we’ll hear . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 11.180–181, trans. Peter Green, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London: Penguin, 1998), pp. 91–92; 243 ‘Remove lustful . . .’ CIL IV 7698a–c, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 104; 244 ‘I am . . .’ Papyrus Oxyrhynchus, 744.G, trans. Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 54; 245 ‘After the . . .’ Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 20.4, trans. Robin Waterfield, Roman Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 27– 28; 245 ‘Long ago . . .’ Tacitus, A Dialogue on Orators, 28–29; 246 ‘He undertook . . .’ Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 20.5–7, trans. Robin Waterfield, Roman Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 27–28; 246 ‘He attended . . .’ Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus, 6.8–9,

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434

Sources of Quotations

trans. Robin Waterfield, Roman Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 46; 247 ‘Yet if my . . .’ Horace, Satires, 1.6.65ff, trans. Niall Rudd, Horace: Satires and Epistles (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), pp. 68–69; 247 ‘What teacher . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 7.215– 216, 237–234, adapted from trans. Peter Green, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 61; 248 ‘What have . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 9.68; 250 ‘Agamemnon at . . .’, Seneca, Suasoriae, 3, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 115; 250 ‘The law . . .’ Seneca, Controversiae, 1.2, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 116; 251 ‘I’m of . . .’ Petronius, Satyricon, 1; 251 ‘I didn’t . . .’ Petronius, Satyricon, 58.7, trans. J.P. Sullivan, Petronius: The Satyricon (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), p. 74; 252 ‘Here come . . .’ Plautus, The Pot of Gold, 507–519, trans. E.F. Watling, The Pot of Gold and Other Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), p. 30; 253 ‘All a . . .’ CIL VI 7193a, trans. Peter Jones and Keith Sidwell, The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 148; 255 ‘I accidentally . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 6.88; 257 ‘In memory of Viccentia . . .’ CIL VI 9213; trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 151; 257 ‘In memory of Pieris . . .’ CIL VI 9731, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 151; 257 ‘When they . . .’ Rufus of Ephesus quoted in Oribasius, Liber Incertus, 18.10, trans. Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence, Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 57; 258 ‘Young woman . . .’ Catullus, Poems, 62.59–65; 262 ‘When two . . .’ Plutarch, Moralia, 139D–140A; 263 ‘Cleostrata: Which . . .’ Plautus, Casina, 242–247; 263 ‘I know . . .’ Pliny the Younger, Letters, 8.10, trans. Betty Radice, The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), p. 218; 265 ‘I saw . . .’ Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 6.3.8; 265 ‘Furia Spes . . .’ CIL VI 18817, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 48; 266 ‘To the . . .’ CIL XIII 1983, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 46; 267 ‘My fellow . . .’ Livy, History of Rome, 34.2.1, trans. J.C. Yardley, The Dawn of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 141–142; 267 ‘If you . . .’ Appian, Civil Wars, 4.32, trans. Maureen B. Fant, Mary R. Lefkowitz, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), p. 180; 268 ‘Furthermore, Cornelia . . .’ Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus, 19, trans. Robin Waterfield, Roman Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 114–115; 270 ‘My damned . . .’ Sulpicia, Poems, 2; 270 ‘Claudia Severa . . .’ Vindolanda Tablet, 2.291, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 267; 274 ‘Agathos Daemon . . .’ Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 95, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 164–165; 275 ‘But to . . .’ Diodorus Siculus, History, 5.38.1, trans. C. H. Oldfather, Diodorus of Sicily, Volume 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912), pp. 199–201; 276 ‘Vedius Pollio . . .’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 9.39.77, trans. John F. Healy, Pliny the Elder: Natural History (London: Penguin, 1991), p. 132; 277 ‘I was . . .’ Seneca, Letters, 47.1, 17; 278 ‘I have . . .’ CIL XV 7194, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 177; 280 ‘Now let . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 3.58–65, trans. Peter Green, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 15; 282 ‘In this . . .’ Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 12.15; 285 ‘Stranger, what . . .’ CIL I.2.1211; 286 ‘To the . . .’ CIL VI 9.222; 286 ‘It did . . .’ Ovid, Fasti, 2.549–556, trans. A.S. Kline, Ovid, Fasti: Poetry in Translation, https://www.poetryintranslation. com/PITBR/Latin/Fastihome.php; 287 ‘He who . . .’ Ovid, Fasti, 5.429–444; trans. A.S. Kline, Ovid, Fasti: Poetry in Translation, https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/ Fastihome.php.

Chapter 6 (Roman Entertainment and Leisure) 289 ‘in public . . .’ Cicero, Pro Sestio, 106; 290 ‘There was . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 10.77–81, trans. Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), p. 33; 290 ‘A supreme . . .’ Fronto, Elements of History, 18; 294 ‘lost hope . . .’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 8.7; 296 ‘a hundred . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 7.113–114, trans. Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford:

Sources of Quotations

Blackwell, 2006), p. 199; 296 ‘Let sad . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 10.50, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial: Epigrams Volume 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); 296 ‘cheating and . . .’ Suetonius, Nero, 16; 296 ‘award him . . .’ Suetonius, Caligula, 55; 298 ‘Sprains and . . .’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 28.237; trans. H.A. Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972), p. 210; 299 ‘[Spectators are] constantly leaping . . .’ Dio Chrystostom, Orationes, 32.89, trans. J.W. Cohoon, Dio Chrystostom (London: Heinemann, 1951); 300 ‘I call . . .’ ILS 8753, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 344; 300 ‘threw himself . . .’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 7.53; 302 ‘to be burned . . .’ Petronius, Satyricon, 117; 302 ‘The familia . . .’ Robert: 241, trans. Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), p. 149; 302 ‘For Hermes . . .’ Robert: 109, trans. Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), p. 149; 304 ‘There was . . .’ Seneca, Letters, 70, 20–27, trans. Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), p. 148; 307 ‘a naval . . .’ Appian, Civil Wars, 2.102; trans. Horace White, Appian: Roman History, Volume 3 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1913); 308 ‘At length . . .’ Martial, On the Shows, 26, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial: Epigrams Volume 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); 310 ‘The man . . .’ Seneca, On Anger, 1.6.4; 311 ‘I happened . . .’ Seneca, Letters, 7.3; 312 ‘Hail, Emperor . . .’ Suetonius, Claudius, 21.6; 312 ‘with thumb . . .’ Juvenal, Satires, 3.36; 312 ‘Which gladiator . . .’ Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 2.41; 315 ‘He was . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 10.41; 317 ‘Let no . . .’ Plautus, Poenulus, 17–34; 318 ‘In Greece . . .’ Cornelius Nepos, Preface, 5; 319 ‘Have I . . .’ Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 84; 322 ‘I am . . .’ Plautus, Casina, 937–940; 323 ‘Once more . . .’ Terence, The Mother-in-Law, 29–43, trans. Betty Radice, Terence: The Brothers and Other Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), pp. 92–93; 323 ‘Often even . . .’ Horace, Epistles, 2.1.182–186; 324 ‘What is . . .’ Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, 5.13655; 325 ‘acted the . . .’ Suetonius, Augustus, 99; 325 ‘He whom . . .’ Macrobius, Saturnalia, 2.7; 326, 327 ‘In general . . .’, ‘The dancer . . .’ Lucian, On the Dance, 67–68, trans. Eric Csapo and William J. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995), pp. 383–384; 329 ‘so many . . .’ Aelius Aristides, 15.232; 330 ‘There is . . .’ Seneca, Letters, 86, 4–6; 331 ‘I am . . .’ CIL VI 9797; 335 ‘unless you . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 6.42; 335 ‘Think of . . .’ Seneca, Letters, 56.2, trans. Robin Campbell, Seneca: letters from a Stoic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), pp. 109–110; 335 ‘Solinus to . . .’ Tab. Sulis, 32, trans. Roger Tomlin, from Garret G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 37; 336 ‘Nuts, drinks . . .’ CIL IV 10674; 336 ‘Baths, wine . . .’ CIL VI 17938, trans. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 308; 336 ‘To escape . . .’ Martial, Epigrams, 12.82, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial: Epigrams, Volume 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

Chapter 7 (Pompeii) 340 ‘happy and . . .’, ‘invigorating, year-long . . .’ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 3.40; 340 ‘Of everything . . .’ Florus, Epitome, 1.16, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 229; 341 ‘Nola, Nuceria . . .’ Strabo, Geography, 5.4.8, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 11; 341 ‘The Oscans . . .’ Strabo, Geography, 5.4.8, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 11; 347 ‘For many . . .’ Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.20.3, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 47; 349 ‘A cloud . . .’ Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.16.5–6, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 45; 352 ‘One group . . .’ Mary Beard, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (London: Profile, 2010), pp. 4–5; 353 ‘You could . . .’ Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.20.14–15, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 48–49; 354 ‘This man . . .’ Letter and Report on the Discoveries at Herculaneum, Introduction, Translation and Commentary by Carol C.

435

436

Sources of Quotations

Mattusch. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011); 361 ‘Virgula to . . .’ CIL IV 1826, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 102; 361 ‘Chios, I . . .’ CIL IV 1820, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 102; 361 ‘Vilbius Restitutus . . .’ CIL IV 2146, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 102; 361 ‘Atimetus got . . .’ CIL IV 3117, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 102; 365 ‘Eumachia, daughter . . .’ CIL X 810, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 141; 365 ‘To Eumachia . . .’ CIL X 813, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 141; 368 ‘Marcus Holconius . . .’ CIL X 833, 834, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 89; 369 ‘20 pairs . . .’ CIL IV 3884, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 69; 370 ‘The girls’ . . .’ CIL IV 4342, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 89; 373 ‘Lucius Caesius . . .’ CIL X 819, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 152; 375 ‘I ask . . .’ CIL IV 706; 375 ‘We ask . . .’ CIL IV 923, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 174; 375 ‘All the fruit-sellers . . .’ CIL IV 202, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 132; 376 ‘All the late . . .’ CIL IV 581, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 132; 377 ‘Naevoleia Tyche . . .’ CIL X 1030, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 198; 381 ‘We pissed . . .’ CIL IV 4957, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 232; 381 ‘I hope . . .’ CIL IV 3948, trans. Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), p. 232; 381 ‘1,567 sesterces . . .’ CIL VI 3340.7, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 280; 383 ‘To let . . .’ CIL IV 138, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 264.

Chapter 8 (Herculaneum) 391 ‘Of course . . .’ Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Herculaneum: Past and Future (London: Frances Lincoln, 2011), p. 288; 395 ‘Part of . . .’ Seneca, Natural Questions, 6.1.2, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 39; 395 ‘Apollinaris, doctor . . .’ CIL IV 10619; 397 ‘The pyroclastic . . .’ Joseph Jay Deiss, Herculaneum: Italy’s Buried Treasure (New York: Crowell, 1966), p.18; 400 ‘As he . . .’ Pliny, Letters, 6.16.8–9, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 46; 401 ‘We watched . . .’ Pliny, Letters, 6.20.9, trans. Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 48; 403 ‘It is hard . . .’ Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Herculaneum: Past and Future (London: Frances Lincoln, 2011), p. 125.

Appendix 2 (Roman Clothing) 421 ‘Romans, masters . . .’ Virgil, Aeneid, 1.282.

Sources of Illustrations 1.1 Alphanidon / Wikimedia; 1.2 James Renshaw; 1.3 Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo; 1.4 Steffen Hammer / 123rf.com; 1.5 Christophel Fine Art / Contributor / Getty Images; 1.6 Bloomsbury Academic; 1.7 DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI / Getty Images; 1.8 Bloomsbury Academic; 1.9 DEA PICTURE LIBRARY / Getty Images; 1.10 Miguel Hermoso Cuesta / Wikimedia; 1.11 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Getty Images; 1.12 Jastrow / Wikimedia; 1.13 Photo 12 / Contributor / Universal Images Group / Getty Images; 1.14 Bloomsbury Academic; 1.15 Bloomsbury Academic; 1.16 PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy Stock Photo; 1.17 Bloomsbury Academic; 1.18 Classical Numistmatic Group; 1.19 Granger Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo; 1.20 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty images; 1.21 Classical Numistmatic Group; 2.1 Carole Raddato / Wikimedia; 2.2 Asier Villafranca / shutterstock.com; 2.3 Image from The Rise of Imperial Rome AD 14–193 by Duncan B. Campbell © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 2.4 Cortyn / shutterstock. com; 2.5 From the Via Labicana, Rome / Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia; 2.6 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty Images; 2.7 Bloomsbury Academic; 2.8 James Renshaw; 2.9 Bloomsbury Academic; 2.10 De Agostini / G. Roli / Getty Images; 2.11 Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG, Auction 100, lot 658; 2.12 James Renshaw; 2.13 Bloomsbury Academic; 2.14 Araldo De Luca / Contributor / Getty Images; 2.15 Granger Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo; 2.16 Image from Rome at War: Caesar and His Legacy by Adrian Goldsworthy, Kate Gilliver & Michael Whitby © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 2.17 Eric Lafforgue / Art in All of Us / Contributor / Getty Images; 2.18 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty Images; 2.19 Ruggero Vanni / Getty Images; 2.2 Jean-Christophe BENOIST / Wikimedia; 2.21 Image from Rome at War: Caesar and His Legacy by Adrian Goldsworthy, Kate Gilliver & Michael Whitby © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 3.1 akg-images / Peter Connolly; 3.2 Image from The Roman Army from Caesar to Trajan by Michael Simkins © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 3.3 Image from The Roman Army edited by Chris McNab © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 3.4 OCR; 3.5 Image from The Roman Army edited by Chris McNab © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 3.6 Image from Roman Legionary Fortresses 27 BC ‒AD 37 by B. Duncan Campbell © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; 3.7 James Renshaw; 3.8 Brian BRAKE / Contributor / Getty Images; 3.9 Tombstone of Regina (stone), Roman (2nd century AD ) / © Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums / Bridgeman Images; 3.10 Paul Walter / Wikimedia; 3.11 Encyclopaedia Britannica / UIG / Getty Images; 3.12 Xurxo Lobato / Contributor / Getty Images; 3.13 Richard Nowitz / Getty Images; 3.14 DEA PICTURE LIBRARY / Contributor / Getty Images; 3.15 DEA / A. DE GREGORIO / Contributor / Getty Images; 3.16 DS28 / Wikimedia; 3.17 Image Source / Getty Images; 3.18 James Renshaw; 4.1 Universal History Archive / Contributor / Getty Images; 4.2 Print Collector / Contributor / Hulton Archive / Getty Images; 4.3 akg-images / Peter Connolly; 4.4 James Renshaw; 4.5 James Renshaw; 4.6 James Renshaw; 4.7 DEA / G. NIMATALLAH / Contributor / Getty Images; 4.8 Lipnitzki / Contributor / Getty Images; 4.9 James Renshaw; 4.10 James Renshaw; 4.11 Wknight94 / Wikimedia; 4.12 James Renshaw; 4.13 DEA / M. CARRIERI / Contributor / Getty Images; 4.14 Universal History Archive / Contributor / Getty Images; 4.15 Carole Raddato / Wikimedia; 4.16 Granger Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo; 5.1 akg-images / Peter Connolly; 437

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5.2 James Renshaw; 5.3 James Renshaw; 5.4 DEA / W. BUSS / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.5 Bloomsbury Academic; 5.6 Leemage / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.7 Print Collector / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.8 Bettmann / Contributor / Getty images; 5.9 WolfgangRieger / Wikimedia; 5.10 DEA / L. PEDICINI / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.11 DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.12 DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.13 James Renshaw; 5.14 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.15 DEA / G. NIMATALLAH / Getty Images; 5.16 Fæ / Wikimedia; 5.17 James Renshaw; 5.18 DEA PICTURE LIBRARY / Contributor / Getty Images; 5.19 DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI / Getty Images; 5.20 Leemage / Getty Images; 5.21 Mondadori Portfolio / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.1 akg-images / Peter Connolly; 6.2 Education Images / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.3 Print Collector / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.4 Print Collector / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.5 PHAS / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.6 Print Collector / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.7 akg-images / Peter Connolly; 6.8 James Renshaw; 6.9 © Livius.org / René Voorburg; 6.10 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Getty Images; 6.11 DEA / G. NIMATALLAH / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.12 Eye Ubiquitous / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.13 Leemage / Getty Images; 6.14 Leemage / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.15 bpk / Antikensammlung, SMB / Ingrid Geske; 6.16 James Renshaw; 6.17 Heritage Images / Contributor / Getty Images; 6.18 Alice Wright; 6.19 Yann Forget / Wikimedia; 7.1 After R. Ling, Pompeii History, Life and Afterlife (2005); 7.2 DEA / L. PEDICINI / Getty Images; 7.3 DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty Images; 7.4 James Renshaw; 7.5 AFP / Stringer / Getty Images; 7.6 Courtesy E. Poehler, Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project, 2019; 7.7 James Renshaw; 7.8 After R. Ling, Pompeii History, Life and Afterlife (2005); 7.9 James Renshaw; 7.10 Araldo De Luca / Contributor / Getty Images; 7.11 James Renshaw; 7.12 Photo by Victor Ovies Arenas / Getty Images; 7.13 DEA PICTURE LIBRARY / Contributor / Getty Images; 7.14 akg-images / Peter Connolly; 7.15 James Renshaw; 7.16 DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / Contributor / Getty Images; 7.17 James Renshaw; 7.18 After W. Jashemski, The Garden of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (1993); 7.19 Universal History Archive / Contributor / Getty Images; 7.20 After S. Nappo, Pompeii (2005); 7.21 DEA / L. ROMANO / Contributor / Getty Images; 8.1 Louis S. Glanzman / Contributor / Getty Images; 8.2 James Renshaw; 8.3 James Renshaw; 8.4 James Renshaw; 8.5 James Renshaw; 8.6 Jonathan Blair / Getty Images; 8.7 Bloomsbury Academic; 8.8 James Renshaw; 8.9 Alastair Thorley; 8.10 James Renshaw; 8.11 James Renshaw; 8.12 Deborah Blake; 8.13 James Renshaw; 8.14 James Renshaw; 8.15 Deborah Blake; 8.16 James Renshaw; 8.17 Joe Sohm / Visions of America / Contributor / Getty Images.

Index Accius, Lucius 36, 319 actors 318 administration 84–5, 97–8, 120–2, 123 Augustus 78 Crassus, Marcus Licinius 57 Pompeii 344, 346, 374–7 Pompey 57 provinces under the emperors 138–40 provincial governance 50 republican era 135–6 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 54–5 Tetrarchy, the 120–2 Vespasian 103 Adoptive Dynasty. See Nerva-Antonine Dynasty adultery 83, 265 aediles 39, 40, 374 Aeneas 4, 5–7, 64 Aeschylus 416–17 Aetolian League 34 afterlife, the 180, 223 ager publicus (public smallholdings) 49, 50 Agricola, Gnaeus Julius 147, 161 agriculture 161, 182, 340 Agripinna the Younger 97, 99 Agrippa, Herod 157 Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius 68, 69, 84–5, 92, 361 Alamanni, the 118, 126, 129, 131, 133 Alans, the 129 Alaric (king of the Visigoths) 127, 129–30 Alcubierre, Rocque Joaquin de 354, 398 Alexander the Great 27, 386 alimenta (nourishments) 104–5 Alimentus, Cincius 4 Alleius Nigius Maius, Gnaeus 383 alliances 20, 23–4, 52, 54 alphabet 14 amphitheatres 305–7, 368–71 amphorae 176 Amulius 7 Andronicus, Livius 314, 318 animals (in the amphitheatre) 310 anthropomorphism 183 Antinous 108 Antoninus Pius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 104, 110 Antony, Marc (Marcus Antonius) 64–9, 73, 83, 202 Apollo 185, 189, 191 Apollodorus of Damascus 107, 168 Apollonius of Tyana 156 Appian Way, the. See Via Appia Apuleius 101

Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass) 101, 219 Aquae Sulis (Bath) 181, 333 aqueducts 174–6, 361–2 aquila (emblem of the legion) 147 Ara Pacis Augustae (the Altar of Augustan Peace) 79, 81 Arabia Petraea 108 Arcadius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 128 archaeological evidence 3 early Republic, the 24–8 early Rome 16–19 Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians 13–15 prehistoric Italy 11–13 archaeology artefacts 355 conservation 398–9 digging 355 display 398 funding 355 Herculaneum 393, 398–417 Pompeii 354–7 recording 355 arches 87, 167–9 architecture. See construction Arian Christianity 124, 226 Arminius (chieftain of Germanic tribe) 144 armour 150 army 27, 32, 48, 129 Augustus 79, 81, 143 auxiliary soldiers 143, 147–8 barbarians 125, 126 centurions 145–6 Constantine I 123 Diocletian 121–2 equipment 150–1 fortresses 151–4 Imperial army 143–8 legionary fortresses 151–5 legionary soldiers 149–51 legions 144–5, 146–7 Marius, Gaius 54, 141–2 recruitment and training 149–50 regiments 148 republican army 141–2 Septimius Severus 112, 114 triumph, the 56, 142–3 art 234–6 Ascanius 6, 7 Asia Minor 4 assemblies of citizens 19, 39, 43–6 Atellan farces 314, 328

439

440

Index

Athaulf (king of the Visigoths) 130 Attalus (king of Pergamum) 51 Attila (king of the Huns) 130–2 auctoritas (force of character) 75 augurs, the college of 202 Augustales (public officials) 280 Augustine of Hippo, Saint 130 City of God, The 130 Confessions 130 Augustus, an 120 Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus aka Octavian) (emperor of the Roman Empire) 65, 98, 212, 424 army 79, 81, 143 building programme 82, 84–8 constitutional settlements 74–6 cult of the emperor 193–4 as emperor 77–84 gladiatorial shows 290, 291, 307 gods 193 imperium proconsulare maius (imperium greater than a pro-consul) 75–6 Judaea 156–7 literature 88–92 morality and religion 81–4, 265 navy 148 pax Augusta 79–81 Praetorian Guard, the 81 Principate, the 73–93 provinces 138–9 Res Gestae Divi Augusti 75, 77 slavery 277 succession 92, 94–100 tribunicia potestas (tribunician power) 76 Varian disaster 144 Aurelian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 119–20 auspicium (consultation of the gods) 41 auxiliary soldiers 143, 147–8 Bacchanalia, festival of 192, 217 Bacchus 190, 192 cult of 217 Balbus, Marcus Nonius 394–5, 407, 408 ballet. See pantomime Bar Kokhba, Simon 109 Bar Kokhba revolt 109 Barates (tombstone of) 162 barbarians 20, 125, 129–33 Alamanni, the 118, 126, 129, 131, 133 Alans, the 129 Boudican revolt, the 163–46 Burgundians, the 129, 131 Franks, the 118, 126, 129, 131, 133 Gauls, the 21–2, 60, 98, 118, 120, 273 Gepids, the 129 Germanic tribes 116–18, 144 Goths, the 116–17, 119, 125, 127, 131 Herules, the 129 Huns, the 126–7, 130–2 Marcomanni, the 118 meaning of term 125 Ostrogoths, the 127, 131, 132 Palmyrans, the 119, 120 Pannonians, the 129 Persians, the 126

Quadi, the 126, 129 Roman army 125 Sabines 9, 20 Sarmatians, the 126, 129 Sassanid Persians, the 118–19, 126 Saxons, the 126, 129, 131, 172 Suebi, the 129 Vandals, the 116, 129, 130, 131 Visigoths, the 127, 129–30, 226 Basilica, Herculaneum 408 Basilica, Pompeii 366 Basilica Noniana, Herculaneum 407–8 Bath (Aquae Sulis) 181, 333 baths 329–37, 371–3, 408, 409 baths of Caracalla 115 Bathyllus 325–6 bestiarius (wild beast fighter) 309 betrothal 258–9 birds, religion and (augury) 202–3 Bisel, Sara 401 blood sacrifice 182 Boethius 132 Bona Dea festival 206 Boudican revolt, the 163–6 bread 371 breastfeeding 245 bridges 168–9 Britain 97, 129, 160–6, 172 Brutus, Junius 301 Brutus, Lucius Junius 10 Brutus, Marcus Junius (the Younger) 63, 64, 137 building. See construction Burgundians, the 129, 131 Burrus 99 Byzantine Empire 132 Byzantium 124 Caecilius Iucundus, Lucius 381, 382 Caecus, Appius Claudius 25 Caesar 120 Caesar, Gaius Julius 60–5, 156, 193, 206 ‘Beware the Ides of March!’ 210 calendar reorganisation 426 Commentaries on the Gallic War 59 gladiatorial shows 301, 307 Laberius, Decimus 325 veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) 63 Caesarion (Pharaoh of Egypt) 63, 68 calendar, the 425–7 Calgacus 163 Caligula (Gaius) (emperor of the Roman Empire) 96–7, 98, 157, 296, 327 Callistus 97–8 Calpurnia 263–4 Campania 340 Campania aqueduct 175 Campus Martius 317, 330 cantica (songs) 319, 322 Capitoline Triad, the 187 Caracalla (emperor of the Roman Empire) 114–15 Caroline (queen consort of Naples) 355 Carthaginians 18 Punic Wars 29–34 castellum aquae (water towers) 362

Index Catiline 58 Cato the Elder (Marcus Poricus Cato) 33–4, 37 constitution 39 family 245–6 On Agriculture 33, 211 Origines 33 women 267 Cato the Younger 60, 61 Catullus 59 Celsus 329 censors 40–1 censuses 83, 98, 157 Central Baths, Herculaneum 408, 409 Central Baths, Pompeii 373 Centuriate Assembly (Comitia Centuriata) 44–4 centuries 145 centurions 145–6 Ceres 190, 191 chariot racing 291–300 charioteers 295–6, 297, 298 day at the races 297–300 horses 296–7, 298 supporters 299–300 teams 295 Charles VIII (king of Naples and Sicily) 354 childbirth 263–4 childhood 244–52, 256–7 Christianity 123–4, 126, 127, 221–7 Augustine of Hippo, Saint 130 secret signs 224 Christmas 196 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 58, 59, 63, 66–7 exile 61, 67, 206 family 265 governors 136–8 grief 282–3 home, the 238 Philippics 67 Pompeii 346 Roscius, Quintus 318 slavery 277 Cicero, Quintus Tullius 265 Cimbri, conflict with 53 Cincinnatus, Lucius Quinctius 20 Circus Maximus 292–5 cisium (wagon) 172 citizen’s assemblies. See assemblies of citizens citizenship 21, 54, 115, 280 citizenship without the vote 24 civil service 97–8 civil war 55, 61, 68–0 Classicianus, Gaius Julius 165, 166 Claudius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 97–8, 327 Cleopatra VII (queen of Egypt) 63, 68, 69, 73, 142 client kingdoms 58 Clodius Pulcher, Publius 61, 203, 206, 254 clothing 147, 252, 259, 280, 421–2 Greek 320–1 Oppian Law 267 cohorts 145, 148 coinage 25, 26, 44, 419–20 Aeneas 64 Agrippina the Younger 99 Antony, Marc 58

441 Brutus, Marcus Junius 65 Caesar, Gaius Julius 64 Cleopatra 68 Constantine I 123–4 Nero 99 Colchester 160–1 College of the Augustales, Herculaneum 407 colonies 24 Colosseum, the 103, 305–7 comedy 318, 320–3 coming of age ceremonies 252 Comitium, Pompeii 367 Commedia dell’arte 328 commemoration 286 Commodus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 111–12, 290, 309 concrete 169 Conflict of the Orders 20–1 Constans (emperor of the Roman Empire) 125 Constantine I (emperor of the Roman Empire) 123–5, 225–6 Constantine II (emperor of the Roman Empire) 124, 226 Constantinople 124, 132 Constantius I (emperor of the Roman Empire) 120, 121, 123 Constantius II (emperor of the Roman Empire) 125–6, 226 constitution 19, 38–9, 46–7 First Constitutional Settlement 74–5 Second Constitutional Settlement 75–6 US constitution 47 construction 16, 59 (see also housing) aqueducts 174–6, 361–2 arches 87, 167–9 Augustus 82, 84–8 bridges 168–9 building techniques 167–9 Caracalla 115 concrete 169 Constantine I 124 eastern empire 132 Hadrian 108 Herculaneum 394–5 Jerusalem 156 Pompeii 344, 346, 361–2 roads 170–4 town planning 160 Trajan 107–8 Vespasian 103 consuls 19, 39, 40 contio (public meeting) 43 controversia (rhetorical argument) 250–1 contubernium, the 145, 154 cookbooks 239 Corinth 35 corn dole 254 Cornelia 268–9 Council of Pompeii 374 Crassus, Marcus Licinius 56, 56–7, 60, 61, 232 crime 174, 310–11, 335, 352 cult, double meaning of 182 cults cult of Bacchus 192, 217 cult of Cybele 217 cult of Dionysus 388 cult of Isis 217–19 cult of Mithras 219–21

442

Index

cult of the emperor 82, 193–5 mystery cults 216–221 cultural diversity 161–2 culture 156, 161 baths 334–7 cum manu (with the hand marriage) 258 Curio the Younger 305 currency values 419–20 curse tablets 270, 299–300, 335 cursus honorum (course of honours) 39 cursus publicus (official government travel) 172, 174 curule aediles 40 Cybele, cult of 217 Dacians, conflict with 107 damnatio ad bestias (condemned to the beasts) 310 damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory) 98, 103, 114–15 dance. See pantomime David, Jacques-Louis Intervention of the Sabine Women, The 9 death and funerals 180, 281–8, 301, 313 (see also tombs) Decius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 116, 225 denarius, legacy of 420 Diana 189–90, 191 dictatorship, the 40, 55-6, 63-4 Didius Julianus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 112 dies atra (black day) 22 dinner parties 239–43, 324, 336 Dio, Cassius 94 Universal History 94 Diocles, Gaius Appuleius 296 Diocletian (Emperor of the Roman Empire) 120–22, 123, 225 Dionysus, cult of 192 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 4–5 Roman Antiquities 4–5 Dis Pater 193 divorce 264–6 domestic slaves 274, 276 Dominate, the 122 Domitian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 102, 103–4, 205, 327 domus, the (house) 230, 232–6 Donations of Alexandria 68 drama 35, 305, 314–28, 416–17 actors 318 Atellan farces 314, 328 audiences 317, 323 comedy 318, 320–3 legacy 328 mime 323–5 pantomime 323–4, 325–7 politics 315 Pompeii 368 theatres 315–17 tragedy 318–19 Drusus, Marcus Livius 52, 54 Drusus Julius Caesar 95 duoviri (magistrates) 370, 374 early history 3–5 archaeological evidence 11–19

literary tradition 5–11 early Republic, the 19 archaeological evidence 24–8 literary tradition 19–24 earthquakes 346–7, 395 economy 59, 111, 116, 381–2 Edict of Milan 123, 225 editors (presenters) 289, 308 education 245–52 women 268–71 Egypt 63, 73, 194, 217–18 Elagabalus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 116 d’Elboeuf, Prince (Emmanel Maurice de Lorraine) 398 elections 43–4, 374–6 elephants 294 empire building 60–2, 116–18 Ennius, Quintus 318, 319 Annals 36 entertainment 242–3, 289, 369–70 baths 329–37 chariot racing 291–300 drama 35, 305, 314–28 gladiatorial shows 290, 291, 300–13 politics 289–91 Epicureanism 214–16 Epicurus 214 epitaphs 285–6 equestrians (equites) 43, 44, 51, 78–9 Etruscans, the 10, 13–15, 17, 183 Eudoxia, Aelia 128 Eugenius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 127 Eumachia 365, 366 Eumachia Building, Pompeii 365 Eunnychus, Lucius Venidius 404 excavations 354–7, 398–417 executions 310–11 expansion 58 exposure 244 external challenges 20, 21–4, 116–18 fabulae palliatae (plays in Greek costume) 320 fabulae praetextae (historical tragedy) 319 fall of the western empire 128–33 family 229 breastfeeding 245 childhood 244–52, 256–7 coming of age 252 divorce 264–6 marriage 257–61 matrona 262–71 paterfamilias (father of family) 229, 238 religion 236–8 values 265 work 252–5 farming 161, 182 fasces 41 fascism 41 Faustinianiae 110 festivals 186, 189, 190, 191, 195–8 Bacchanalia 192, 217 Bona Dea 206 of the dead 287 Lemuria 287 Lupercalia 196

Index October Horse 207 Parentalia 287 plays 315 politics 289 Saturnalia 196–8 Vestalia 206 year, and the 427 Fetiales, college of the 203 finance 381–2 Fiorelli, Guiseppe 355–6 fires 99, 222, 232, 305 fire brigades 84–5, 139–40 first century CE 94–105 Flavian Dynasty 102–4 Julio-Claudian Dynasty 94–101 Nerva-Antonine Dynasty 104–5 year of the four emperors 102 First Constitutional Settlement 74–5 First Jewish-Roman War 157–9 First Triumvirate 60–2 fish sauce (garum) 380 five good emperors, the 104 flamen/flamines 202 Flavian Dynasty 102–4 Florus, Gessius 157 foederati (federates) 125, 129 Fontana, Domenico 353 food 213, 238–41, 336, 379–81, 411 fortresses 151–4 Forum Baths, Pompeii 372–3 forum of Julius Caesar 88 forum of Rome 86–8 fourth century CE 123–8 Franks, the 118, 126, 129, 131, 133 freedmen 272, 278–81, 376–7, 424 freedwomen 377, 424 Frontinus, Julius Sextus 175 Fullery of Stephanus 378 fulling industry 378–9 Fulvius Nobilior, Marcus 301 funeral clubs 284 funerals 283–6 furnishings 236 Gaius (Caligula) (emperor of the Roman Empire) 96–7, 98, 157, 296, 327 Galba (emperor of the Roman Empire) 100, 102 Galerius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 120, 121 Galli, the 217 Gallus, Cestius 157 Gallus, Gaius Cornelius 138 games 242, 331, 369–70 Garden of the Fugitives 353, 356 gardens of Pompeii 384 garum (fish sauce) 380 Gauls, the 21–2, 60, 98, 118, 120, 273 genius, the (divine spirit) 82, 190, 238 geography 16, 116–17 Gepids, the 129 Germanic tribes, the 116–18, 144 Germanicus 95 Geta (emperor of the Roman Empire) 114–15 Getty Villa, California 416 gladiatorial shows 290, 291, 300–13

443 amphitheatres 305–7 fights 311–13 gladiators 301–5, 311–13, 370 myths 312 programmes 308–13 gods 181–2, 185 (see also religion) of abstract qualities 193 Apollo 185, 189, 191 Bacchus 190, 192 Capitoline Triad, the 187 Ceres 190, 191 Diana 189–90, 191 Dis Pater 193 Janus 192 Juno 185, 186, 191 Jupiter 185–6, 191 Lares, the 190, 236–7 Liber 252 Mars 188, 191 Mercury 190, 191 Minerva 187–8, 191 Neptune 186–7, 191 Olympians, the 185–91 Penates, the 238 Pluto 192–3 Proserpina 191 Venus 188, 189, 191 Vesta 191, 204, 238 Vulcan 188–9, 191 Goths, the 116–17, 119, 125, 127, 131 governors 135–40 Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius 51–2, 137, 254 Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius 50–1 graffiti 361 grammaticus, the (secondary teacher) 247–8, 249–50 Granary, Pompeii 365–6 Gratian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 127 Great Revolt (of Judaea), the 157–9 Greeks, the 13, 34 (see also Magna Graecia) alphabet 14 culture 35–7, 59, 249–50, 314 education 246 influence. See Hellenisation language 249–50 religion 184 Hadrian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 104, 108, 277 Hadrian’s Wall 108 Hamilcar Barca 30 Hannibal 30–2, 33 haruspex, the 208, 209–10 Helena, Saint 225 Hellenisation 4, 35–7, 59, 280 drama 314, 320–1 education 246 Pompeii 344 religion 184, 216 helmets 150 Herculaneum 339, 351, 354, 391–418 Basilica 408 Basilica Noniana 407–8 Central baths 408, 409 College of the Augustales 407 destruction 396–7

444

Index

earthquake 395 Herculaneum Conservation Project, the 399 history 391–6 House of Neptune and Amphitrite 414–15 House of the Stags 411, 412 House of the Wooden Partition 393, 397, 411–14 housing 410–17 industry 409–10 layout 405–10 Palaestra 407 people of 403–5 public buildings 406–7 rediscovery 397–405 skeletons 399–403 streets 405–7 Suburban baths 408 temples 408–9 theatre 398, 407 Upper Aula 407 Villa of the Papyri 394, 416–17 waste disposal 411 Hercules 393 Herod the Great 156 Herules, the 129 High Street, origin of term 172 Hippias (tyrant of Athens) 10 Holonicus Celer, Marcus 367–8 Holonicus Rufus, Marcus 367–8 Homer Iliad 6, 89 Odyssey 6, 35, 89, 184 Honorius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 128, 129 hoplomachus gladiators 304 Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) 90, 247, 248 Ars Poetica 90 Carmen Saeculare 90 Epistles 90 Epodes 90 Odes 90 Satires 90 horses 296–7, 298 Hortensia 267–8 horticulture 384 hospitality 239–43, 380–1 hours 425 House of Actius Anicetus, Pompeii 370–1 House of Caecilius Iucundus, Pompeii 234, 346, 347, 381–2 House of Neptune and Amphitrite 414–15 House of the Faun, Pompeii 344, 354, 384–6 House of the Gladiators, Pompeii 357 House of the Moralist, Pompeii 357 House of the Silver Wedding, Pompeii 354 House of the Stags, Herculaneum 411, 412 House of the Surgeon, Pompeii 354 House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii 233–5 House of the Vettii, Pompeii 237, 238, 354 House of the Wooden Partition, Herculaneum 393, 397, 411–14 House of Venus in a Bikini, Pompeii 236 housing 230–6, 253–4, 383–9 gladiators 370 Herculaneum 410–17 Pompeii 383–9 Huns, the 126–7, 130–2

hygiene 362 hypocaust 333, 372 hypogeum (underground area) 307 Iceni, conflict with 162–6 Ides (13th/15th day of the month) 426 imperial civil service 97–8 imperial cult 82, 193–5 imperium (command) 41, 45 governors 135–6 imperium proconsulare maius (imperium greater than a pro-consul) 75–6 imports 176 Incitatus the horse 296 Indus, Julius 165 industrial slaves 275–6 industry 377–82, 409–10 infamia (of bad reputation) 290 innovations 13–14 instauratio (repetition) 210 insula of Diana 230–1 insulae (apartment blocks) 230–2, 410 Isis, cult of 217–19 Italian allies 24 Italy 11–13, 41, 54, 132 355 Janus 192 Jashemski, Wilhelmina 384 Jerome, Saint 129 Jerusalem 156 Jesus of Nazareth 222 Jews, the 156–9, 221–2 civic rights 139 revolts of the 108–9, 157–9 Josephus 94, 158 Jewish Antiquities 158 Jewish War, The 158 Judaea 109, 156-9, 222 Jugartha 53 Julia 265 Julia Augusta. See Livia Drusilla Julia the Elder 83, 92 Julian calendar 426 Julian the Apostate (emperor of the Roman Empire) 126 Julio-Claudian Dynasty 94–101 Juno 185, 186, 191 Jupiter 185–6, 191 Justa, Petronia 404–5 Juvenal 101 Kalends (1st day of the month) 426 Kingdom, early 10–11, 17 Kitos War 108 Laberius, Decimus 324, 325 Lady of the Rings, the (Herculaneum) 401 land crisis 49 land reform 50–1 lanistae (gladiator trainers) 302 Lares, the 190, 236–7, 286 Late Antiquity 120 late Republic 48–71 Caesar, Gaius Julius 60–5 Crassus, Marcus Licinius 56, 56–7, 60

Index culture 59 First Triumvirate 60–2 Gracchi, the 49–53 land crisis 49 Marius, Gaius 53–4 military manpower crisis 49 Pompey 56, 57–9 population growth 49 Second Triumvirate 65–9 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 54–6 latifundia (farming estates) 49 Latin League, the 20, 22 Latin status 20 Latin war, the 22 Latium 6, 16 Laureolus 325 legal system 25 legates 146 legionary fortresses 151–5 legionary soldiers 149–51 legions 144–5, 146–7 legitimacy, birth 83 leisure 289–300 politics 289–91 lemures (restless spirits) 287 Lemuria festival 287 Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius 56, 59, 65, 67, 68 lex Calpurnia 50, 137 Liber 252 Licinius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 123 lictors 41 literary tradition 4–5 early Republic, the 19–24, 28 as inspiration 5 kingdoms, early 10–11, 18 origin legends 5–10, 18 literature 35–6, 59, 101, 416–17 (see also drama) Augustus 88–92 love elegies 90, 269–70 women 269–71 litterator, the (primary teacher) 246, 248–9 Livia Drusilla 83–4 Livius Andronicus 35 Livy (Titus Livius) 4, 19, 90, 417 Longinus, Gaius Cassius 64 love 258, 265–6 love elegies 90, 269–70 Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) 101 Pharsalia 101 Lucius Veras (emperor of the Roman Empire) 110–11 Lucretia 10 Lucretius 214–16 De Rerum Natura 59, 214–16 ludi scaenici (scenic games) 315 ludus gladiatorius (gladiator school) 302 Lupercalia festival 196 Lycortas 46 Macedo, Larcius 278 Macedonia 34–5 Macellum, Pompeii 365 Macrinus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 115 Maecenas, Gaius 88, 90 magister equitums 40

445 magistrates 27, 39–41 Magna Graecia (Great Greece) 13, 23 (see also Greeks, the) Magnentius, Flavius Magnus 125–6 Maharbal 32 Maiuri, Amedeo 398 Mamaea, Julia 116 Manes (spirits of the dead) 286 mansiones (service stations) 174 manumission 278–9 Marcomanni, the 118 Marcus Aurelius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 101, 104, 110 Meditations 101, 111 Marius, Gaius 53–5, 141–2 market days 427 marriage 257–261, 265–6 Mars 188, 191 Martial 101, 198, 248, 297, 336 Epigrams 101 masks 321 matrona (married woman running a household) 262–71 Maxentius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 123 Maximian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 120, 121, 123 medicine 298, 329 men clothing 421–2 freedmen 272, 278–81, 376–7, 424 names 423–4 menus 241 Mercury 190, 191 Messalina 97, 327 midday gladiators 311 middle Republic, the 29 Milan, Edict of 123, 225 military equipment 150–1 Milo, Titus Annius 61 mime 323–5 mine slaves 275 Minerva 187–8, 191 Mithras, cult of 219–21 Mithridates (king of Pontus) 54, 58 Mnester 327 Molière 328 L’Avare 328 Monte Testaccio, Rome 176 months 425–6 naming 426 morality 81–4, 180, 265 mos maiorum (customs of our ancestors) 20 mosaics 386 Munatius Faustis, Gaius 376–7 munera (duty of remembrance) 301 Municipal Offices, Pompeii 367 murmillo gladiators 304 music 319, 322, 327 Mussolini, Benito 41 mystery cults 216–221, 388 mythology 184, 327, 393 gladiators 312 Naevius, Gnaeus 36, 318 names 423–4 naming days 245

446

Index

Narcissus 978 naumachiae (sea battles) 307 navy 29, 148–9 Neptune 186–7, 191 Nero (emperor of the Roman Empire) 99–100, 222, 290, 305, 327 Nerva (emperor of the Roman Empire) 104–5 Nerva-Antonine Dynasty 104–5 Nicene Christianity 124, 127, 226 nobiles 42–3 Nones (5th/7th day of the month) 426 Nova Rome (New Rome) 124 novus homo (new man) 43 nuées ardentes (burning clouds) 351 Numa Pompilius (king of Rome) 10, 202, 426 Numidia, conflict with 53 Numismatics. See coinage Octavia, Claudia 99 Octavia the Younger 83 Octavian (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus aka Augustus) (emperor of the Roman Empire) 65–9, 73, 212, 424 (see also Augustus) Octavius, Marcus 51 October Horse festival 207 Odenathus (king of Palmyra) 119 Odoacer (king of Italy) 132 Olympians, the 185–91 Olympic Games, the 127 Oppian Law 267 optimates (the best men) 52 Optimus 52 origin legends 5–10 Ostia 176, 177 Ostrogoths, the 127, 131, 132 Otho (emperor of the Roman Empire) 102 Ottomans, conflict with 132 ovatio (lesser triumph) 142 Ovid 90–1, 286 Amores 90 Ars Amatoria 91 Epistulae ex Ponto 91 Fasti 91 Heroides 91 Metamorphoses 91 Remedia Amoris 91 Tristia 91 Pacuvius, Marcus 36, 319 paedagogus (educated slave) 248 pagan, etymology of 182 paganism 126, 127, 226–7 palaestra (sports ground) 331 Herculaneum 407 Pompeii 369 Pallas 978 Palmyrans, the 119, 120 Panaetius of Rhodes 35 Pannonians, the 129 Pantheon, the 85, 200 pantomania 327 pantomime 323–4, 325–8 papyri 248, 416

Parentalia festival 287 Paris (pantomime actor) 327 Parthian Empire, conflict with 108, 110, 118 paterfamilias (father of family) 229, 238 patricians 20–1 patron/client relationship 16, 43, 254–5 Paul, Saint 222 Paullus, Aemilius 246 pax Augusta (Augustan peace) 79 pax Romana (Roman peace) 79 Peléan stage of volcanic eruptions 350–1 Penates, the 238 Persians, the 126 Persius Flaccus, Aulus 101 Pertinax (emperor of the Roman Empire) 112 petition and response model 78 Petronius Arbiter, Gaius 101 Satyricon 101 Pharnaces II (king of Pontus) 63 philanthropy 105, 110, 155, 351 Philip V (king of Macedonia) 34 Philodemus of Gadara 416 philosophy 214–16 Phoenicians, the 13 Pictor, Fabius 4 pietas (sense of duty) 6–7 Pilate, Pontius 157, 222 Piso, Gnaeus Calpurnius 95 Piso, Lucius Calpurnius 394, 416 plague 110 plate armour 150 Plautus 36, 320, 321–2 Amphitryo 328 Casina 263, 322 Menaechmi 328 Miles Gloriosus 328 Pot of Gold 328 plebeian aediles 40 Plebeian Assembly (Concilium Plebis) 44, 45 plebians 20–1, 289–90 plebiscita (plebeian assembly laws) 21, 45 Pliny the Elder 101, 149, 349, 400 –1 Natural History 101 Pliny the Younger 101, 139–40, 223, 259, 277 Vesuvius eruption 349–50, 353 Plutarch 101 Parallel Lives 101 Pluto 192–3 Poeni (Carthaginians) 29 poetry 59, 88–92, 101 political structure 38–48 Augustus 78 Crassus, Marcus Licinius 57 Pompeii 344, 346, 374–7 Pompey 57 provinces under the emperors 138–40 provincial governance 50 republican era 135–6 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 54–5 Tetrarchy, the 120–2 Vespasian 103 politics drama 315

Index entertainment and leisure 289–91 mime 325 women 266–8 Pollio, Vedius 276–7 Polybius 35, 46, 47 Histories 46 polytheism 183 pomerium, the (religious boundary of Rome) 8 Pompeia 206 Pompeii 339 amphitheatre 368–71 Basilica 366 baths 371–3 Comitium 367 commercial buildings 365–6 construction 344, 346 destruction 346–7, 348–53 earthquake 346–7 eruption 349–53 Eumachia Building 365 finance 381–2 food 379–81 forum 362–3 freedmen and freedwomen 376–7 Fullery of Stephanus 378 Garden of the Fugitives 353, 356 gates 358–9 gladiators 370 gardens 384 graffiti 361 Granary 365–6 history 340–8 House of Actius Anicetus 370–1 House of Caecilius Iucundus 234, 346, 347, 381–2 House of the Faun 344, 354, 384–6 House of the Gladiators 357 House of the Moralist 357 House of the Silver Wedding 354 House of the Surgeon 354 House of the Vettii 237, 238, 354 House of Venus in a Bikini 236 housing 383–9 industry 377–82 language 343, 346 layout 358–73 Macellum 365 Municipal Offices 367 name 343 naming places in 354 one-way systems 361 plaster casts 356 political and legal buildings 366–7 politics 344, 346, 374–7 rediscovery and excavations 353–7 religious buildings 364–5 riot 369–71 as Roman colony 345 sanctuary of Apollo 364 sanctuary of the Public Lares 364–5 statues 363 streets 358–61 temples 343, 364 temple of Jupiter 364

447 temple of Vespasian 364 theatre district 367–8 trade 340–1, 346, 363, 365–6, 377–82 Via dell’Abbondanza 354, 360 victims 352–3 Villa of the Mysteries 386–9 water supply 361–2 Weights and Measures Table 365 World War II bombing 357 Pompeius, Sextus 68 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) 56, 57–60, 61–2 Judaea 156 marriage 264–5 theatres 317 wild beast show 294 Pont du Gard 175, 176 Pontifex Maximus 60, 201 pontifices, the college of 201–2 Poppaea Sabina 99 populares (those favouring the people) 52 population 49 Porcius, Marcus 368 Porphyry 213 On Abstinence from Animal Food 213 Porsenna, Lars 11 Postumus, Gaius Latinius (Emperor of the Gauls) 118 praefectus castrorum (camp prefect) 147 praefectus urbi (prefect of the city) 78 Praetorian Guard, the 81, 97, 123 praetors 19, 39, 40, 135 Prasutagus (king of the Iceni) 164–5 prehistoric Italy 11–13 priests 200–6, 209–10, 217 primi ordines (those of the first rank) 145 primus pilus (the first spearman) 145 Principate, the 75, 122 Proba 270 proconsuls 40 procurators 139 programmata (election notices) 374–6 proles (offspring of men without property) 44 proletarii (men without property) 44 Propertius 90 propraetors 40 proscriptions 55–6, 66 Proserpina 191 provinces, the eastern provinces 155–9 governance 50 infrastructure and transport 167–77 provincial order 155–66 republican era 135–38 under the Emperors 138–40 western provinces 160–6 Ptolemy Xiii (king of Egypt) 63 puberty 257 public slaves 275 publicani (tax collectors) 137–8 Punic Wars 29–34 Pylades 325–6 pyroclastic flows/surges 351, 396–7, 401 Pyrrhic victory, a 23 Pyrrhus (king of Epirus) 23

448

Index

Pythagoras 213 Pythagoreans, the 213 Quadi, the 126, 129 quaestors 39, 40, 135 Quinctius Valgus, Gaius 368 Quindecimviri Sacris Faciundis (the fifteen men in charge of conducting the rites) 203 raeda (coach) 172 Ravenna 129 rebellions, slavery 56, 278 regiments 148 Regina (tombstone of) 162 religion 81–4, 179–85 (see also Christianity and gods) afterlife, the 180, 223 anthropomorphism 183 Constantine I 123–4 conversion 180–1 cult of the emperor 82, 193–5 Edict of Milan 123, 225 families 236–8 family life 179, 236–8 festivals 179, 195–8 Julian the Apostate 126 Lucretius 216 moral code 180 mystery cults 216–221 origins and development 182–5 paganism 126, 127, 226–7 philosophy 214–16 polytheism 183 Pompeii 344 prayer 211 priests 200–6 relationship between gods and men 181–2 rites of passage 179 sacrifice 207–12, 213 scripture 180 temples 198–200 Theodosius I 127 vegetarianism 213 vows 211–12 Remus 7–8 Republic, the 11, 19 administrative and political structure 38–48, 135–6, 138–40 retiarius gladiators 304 rex (king) 11 Rhea Silvia 7 rhetor, the (rhetoric teacher) 250–1 rhetoric 250–1 roads 170–4, 341 Roman Forum 86–8 Roman numerals 14 Roman revolution 48 Romanitas 125 Romulus (king of Rome) 4, 7–9, 10, 244, 287 Romulus Augustus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 132 Roscius, Quintus 318 Sabine Women, the 9 Sabines, the 9, 20 sack of the Gauls 21–2

sacred chickens 203 sacrifice 207–12, 213, 260 blood 182, 207–9 human 30, 208 Sallust 59 Samnites, conflict with 22 sanctuary of Apollo 364 sanctuary of the Public Lares 364–5 Sarmatians, the 126, 129 Sassanids, the 118–19, 126 Saturnalia festival 196–8 Saturnina, Vibidia 408 Saturninus, Aulus Furius 408 Saxons, the 126, 129, 131, 172 Scaura, Aemilia 264–5 schools 246–52, 302, 325 Scipio Aemilianus 34, 35, 46 Scipio Africanus (Publius Cornelius) 32, 36, 330, 424 Scipio Barbatus, Cornelius Lucius 27 Scorpus 296 sea battles 307 second century CE 106–14 Second Constitutional Settlement 75–6 Second Triumvirate 65–9 Secundus, Pedanius 278 secutor gladiators 302 Sejanus 95–6 Senate, the 10, 19, 39, 42–3 Augustus 78 violence 51, 52 senatus consulta (decrees of the Senate) 42 senatus consultum ultimum (final decree of the Senate) 52 Seneca the Younger 99, 100, 101, 164 baths 329–30, 334, 335 gladiators 311 Medea 215 On Anger 100 On Clemency 101 On the Blessed Life 101 Phaedra 215 Pompeii 346 slavery 215, 277 Stoicism 214, 215, 277 tragedies 319 Septemviri Epulones (the seven men in charge of feasts) 203 Septimius Severus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 112, 114 Sertorius, Quintus 56 Servian Wall 25, 26 Servius Tullius 10 seven hills 16, 26 seven kings, the 10 Severan Dynasty 114–16 Severus Alexander (emperor of the Roman Empire) 116 sex (at the baths) 336 Shakespeare, William 328 Comedy of Errors, The 328 shields (of a legionary soldier) 150 shopping centre 107 Sibylline Books 184, 203, 217 Sicarii, conflict with 159 Sicily 136 signifers (standard bearers) 146 sine manu (without the hand marriage) 258, 268 slave markets 274

Index slavery 49, 162, 190, 272–8 civil service 97 names 424 navy 148 runaways and rebellions 56–7, 278 Seneca the Younger 215, 277 social class 13, 16, 306 conflict 20–1 dinner parties 239–40 education 247 marriage 257 pantomime actors 327 patron/client relationship 16, 43, 254–5 theatres 317 work 253 Social War 54, 345, 393 society 229 (see also slavery) childhood 244–52, 256–7 coming of age 252 death and funerals 281–8 education 245–52 family religion 236–8 food and hospitality 238–43 freedmen 272, 278–81 housing and households 229–36 women 9, 14, 83, 196, 256–71 (see also Vestal Virgins) working life 252–5 Soldier, the (Herculaneum) 402 soldier emperors 121 Sophocles 416–17 Spartacus 56 spears (of a legionary soldier) 150 SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) 46 Spurinna 210 Stabian baths, Pompeii 371–2 Stilicho, Flavius 128, 129 Stoicism 35, 214, 215, 277 street gangs 61 suasoriae (rhetorical argument) 250 Suburban baths, Herculaneum 408 Suetonius, Gaius 94, 99 Vita Caesarum, De 94 Suetonius Paulinus, Gaius 164, 166 Sulis Minerva 181 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 53, 54–6, 264, 345–6, 424 Sulpicia (composer of love elegies) 269–70 Sulpicia (composer of satires) 270 swords (of a legionary soldier) 150 Symmachus 226–7 Syrus, Publilius 324 tabernae (inns) 174 tablets 248, 270–1, 381–2, 403–5 (see also curse tablets) Tacitus, Cornelius 94, 99, 103 Annals 94 Histories 94 Tarentum 23 Tarquinius, Sextus 10 Tarquinius Priscus, Lucius (king of Rome) 10 Tarquinius Superbus, Lucius (king of Rome) 10, 11 tax 267–8, 378 tax collectors 137–8 teachers 246–52

449 temples 183, 185, 193, 198–200 Caesar Julius 86, 193 Ceres 190 Concordia 193 Demeter 184 Diana 18, 189–90 Divine Claudius 161 Fortuna 193 Herculaneum 408–9 Ianus Geminus (Janus) 79, 192 Jerusalem 156, 157, 158, 159 Jupiter 346, 347, 362, 364 Jupiter Optimus Maximus 186, 187 Mars 88, 212 Mithraism 220 Pantheon, the 85, 200 Pompeii 343, 346, 347, 357, 362, 364, 368 Vespasian 209, 364 Vesta 204–5 Terence 36, 320, 322–3 Mother-in-Law, The 323 Tetrarchy, the 120–2, 123 Teutones, conflict with 53 theatres 315–17, 367–71, 398, 407 (see also amphitheatres and drama) Theodoric (king of the Ostrogoths) 132 Theodosius I (emperor of the Roman Empire) 127, 226 thermae (public baths) 330 (see also baths) thermopolia (snack bars) 239, 380, 409, 411 third century CE 114–23 crisis 116–20 Diocletian and the Tetrarchy 120–22 Severan Dynasty 114–16 thracian gladiators 302 thumbs up/down myth 312 Tiberius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 92, 95–6, 155, 174, 327 Tibullus 90 time, measuring 425–7 Timgad 160 Titus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 102, 103, 155, 157–9, 290, 351 toga, the 421–2 tombs 27, 284–6, 358, 359, 376–7 town planning 160 trade 161, 176–7 Pompeii 340–1, 346, 363, 365–6, 377–82 tragedy 318–19 Trajan (emperor of the Roman Empire) 104, 106–7, 139–40, 223–4, 290–1 Trajan Decius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 116 Trajan’s Column 107–8 Trajan’s Markets 107 travel 172–4 Trebonnius Gallus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 116–18 Tribal Assembly (Comitia Tributa) 41, 44, 45 tribes. See barbarians tribune angusticlavi (military tribunes) 147 Tribunes of the People 21, 41 tribunicia potestas (tribunician power) 76 tribunus laticlavius (senior military tribune) 147 Trinovantes, the 164 Triple Triumph 73–4 triumph, the 56, 142–3

450

Index

Trojan War 5–6 Twelve Tables, the 25 Tyche, Naevoleia 376–7 Ulfilas 226 Umbricius Scaurus, Aulus 380 Upper Aula, Herculaneum 407 urban poor 51, 84 urban settlement 13, 16, 160 Valens (emperor of the Roman Empire) 126, 127 Valentinian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 126 Valentinian III (emperor of the Roman Empire) 130–2 Valerian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 118 Vandals, the 116, 129, 130, 131 Varian disaster 143–4 Varus, Publius Quinctilius 143–4 vegetarianism 213 vehicles 172 Veii, conquest of 21 velarium (awning) 306 Venus 188, 189, 191 vernae (born slaves) 273 Verres, Gaius 136 Vespasian (emperor of the Roman Empire) 102–3, 157–9, 305–6, 378 Vespasiani (public urinals) 378 Vesta 191, 204, 238 Vestal Virgins 7, 127, 204–6 Vestalia festival 206 Vesuvius 342, 348–51, 396–7 Via Appia 25, 108, 170 Via dell’Abbondanza (the Street of Abundance) 354, 360 Via Traiana 108 Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii 386–9 Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum 394, 416–17 Vindex, Gaius Julius 100 Vindolanda tablet 270–1 violence (against slaves) 276–7 Virgil (Publius Virgilius Maro) 88–9

Aeneid, The 6, 89, 238, 249 Eclogues 88 Georgics 88 Visigoths, the 127, 129–30, 226 Vitalis 324–5 Vitellius (emperor of the Roman Empire) 102 Vitruvius 233 On Architecture 233 volcanic eruptions 342, 348–51, 396–7 vomitoria (entrance passages) 306 voting 43–4, 374–5 Vulcan 188–9, 191 wall paintings 235–6 war ritual 203–4 washing 333 water supply (see also aqueducts) 233, 361–2 Weber, Karl 355 wedding ceremonies 259–61 wedding processions 261 Weights and Measures Table, Pompeii 365 western empire, fall of the 128–33 wild beast shows 294, 308-11, 369-70 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 354 wine, 241, 242 women 9, 14, 83, 196, 256–71, 365 (see also Vestal Virgins) baths 334 clothing 422 drama 324 freedwomen 162, 376-7, 405, 424 names 424 politics 375 work 254, 256–7, 263–4 work 252–7, 263–4 Year of the Four Emperors 102 years, naming 426–7 Zaghouan aqueduct 175–6 Zeno of Citium 214 Zenobia (queen of Palmyra) 119–20, 268