Scotland.

I'm off back to Scotland for the summer (two months-ish) where I'll be living and working in Edinburgh (teaching) before buggering off back here to CZ.

I don't know how much I will be able to post (depends on how busy I am - but it's looking hectic now), although I will try to post whenever possible. I doubt I'll be doing many classically related things, sans a visit to my old university (Glasgow) and maybe a quick peek at the numismatic collection (providing my lady isn't too against it!).

I haven't had a great deal of time to read anything new, and much of the classical news kicking around touches on things I've basically written about before - pedestrian finds "sexed up" to get funding, nobody having a genuine clue where Cleopatra's tomb is, but having a damn good time telling everyone they do anyway and other bits and pieces - and so I've found it difficult to write anything about them.

Apart from random ruminations, the only things I've done recently that can be tangibly related to the classics are: read Beard and Henderson's "Classical Art" (although I got sunburnt while doing so, and as a result my feelings for the text have slid down somewhat); I watched the entire first season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand - which I totally dug. It was very entertaining and blood thirsty to a fault.

I was surprised how good it was, to be honest. I expected it to be absolutely trash, but Spartacus was well cast and John Hannah was sensational as he practically chomped away at the scenery. Throw in the completely OTT sex scenes intertwined with unbelievable violence (taken so far that it becomes comical, pretty much) and it was a great show. I'm looking forward to the prequel and the eventual sequel very much.

I also (re)watched HBO's Rome for the umpteenth time (I really can't recall, but it's definitely 6 times, minimum) and I enjoyed it as much as I always do. I was a bit cerebral with my attack on the depiction of Agrippa last time I watched it, but he still rankles with me. It's just such a wonderful show. I always have a distinct sadness when it's over, for the protagonists (fictive as some are and a mix of fictive and real as others are) always feel like friends come the end of 22 hours viewing and not only do we depart from listening to their tale, but they are all in fact dead and died some 2000 years ago. I suppose it's a mixture of feeling quite close to them (as bizarre as it sounds) and then immediately realising the distance between us is enormous.

Anyway. I hope the very few that stumble across this post have a wonderful summer.

Old Shoes.

Not especially insightful this one, I imagine. Anyway, here I go.

A news story caught my eye this week - that of the bloody old shoe! (read it here). Essentially, some archaeologists found a 5500 year old leather shoe in a cave in Armenia preserved under heaps of sheep dung (finds don't get much more interesting than that, do they?!).

Anyway, you're perhaps wondering how I'm going to squeeze a classical angle out of this and here it is: finds like this always remind me that the ancient world wasn't that ancient. It's often a bit of a mental challenge for me to remember that very little changed in everyday life for a few millennia (until the 19th and mostly 20th century) and that the ancients lived relatively similar lives to people alive just a few hundred years ago (stress on the "relatively").

I'm always surprised when I see artefacts from ancient homes - shoes, mirrors, hair clasps, cups - the lot. Something in my mind always associates the ancients with being truly ancient. Finds like this remind me that the Romans had shoes quite similar to modern leather shoes and they're really not so distant as they seem.

Perhaps this post betrays my own stupidity, but I always find keeping a firm chronology in my head (and understanding that time matters) can be rather difficult. It's rather easy to clump the whole of antiquity to together, even though there are some 500 years or so between the beginning of the classical period and the death of Augustus, for example. A lot happened, and a lot changed.

Like I mentioned before - everyday life hadn't changed too much during that period, and so perhaps it's unfair to compare that five hundred years to the same period between the 1500s and now, where life has changed significantly, but nevertheless, it's vital to remember that antiquity is not a single period but rather many linked ones.

That's my ramble over for today. It's insanely beautiful weather here in Plzen and I plan to try to enjoy it with several beers from this wonderful place.

Lepidus: Unfairly Treated?

I'm currently reading Lepidus: The Tarnished Triumvir by Richard D. Weigel, and I gotta say, I dig it.

Marcus Aemelius Lepidus has always seemed like a rather fascinating character to me, he's all over accounts of the Late Republic, but he's nearly always given short thrift. He's relegated to the sidelines of the struggle for supremacy that engulfed the Late Republic and nobody really seems to really care what he's up to.

Maybe that's why, then, I kinda looked for a book such as the one I'm reading at the moment. Weigel argues that Lepidus is unfairly treated in most accounts of his life, as well as modern commentaries, owing to two central factors: he irritated Cicero and he challenged Octavian (later Augustus).

I'll put a fuller review up here once I've finished reading the book, but it's certainly an interesting topic. Especially so as I am re-watching HBO's Rome and the somewhat cerebral and "sidelined" Lepidus makes a mandatory appearance (as he does so frequently) but he is ever so slightly mocked, derided and essentially made unimportant.

Spartacus Blood and Sand: Not so bad after all?

Surprisingly the most recent low budget recreation of the ancient world, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, is actually pretty damn good.

I saw the first season in full a while ago (from U.S TV) and I was surprised how fun and interesting it really this. The teaser trailers made it look ultra low budget, faux stylistic and a little silly, and while that's all pretty much true - they've actually managed to make a pretty decent TV show that gets better as the first season goes on. That seems to be the consensus among many people - it's surprisingly not bad and it gets better episode by episode.

I'm a huge fan of the BBC'S I, Claudius and HBO's Rome, both of which are immensely well done shows that capture the essence of the classical world in different yet interesting ways. I suspected Spartacus would be a cheaply done 300 in episodic form - entertaining enough but missing something. I suppose I was wrong.

The show basically chronicles the rise of Spartacus and his reasons for initiating the servile rebellion. Since we know very little of the real Spartacus (such as one can now exist), most of this element of the show is fictive. The context it's set in (late Republican Rome) is, of course, not fictive, and the show does reasonably well in rendering the period in which Spartacus operated.

It's been remarked that the moral behind Spartacus' rebellion (betrayed by a Roman, his wife in slavery) is quintessentially modern in conception, which is true I think, but it does give some pathos and motivation to the character (despite said motivation being very similar to that of a certain Maximus Decimus Meridius, give or take).

It seems the show has been popular enough to continue, although they are making a prequel (which has to be entirely fictional) owing to the lead actor, Andy Whitfield, developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as opposed to a sequel.

If the sequel is made, I wonder how they'll characterise the defeat of Spartacus at the hands of Crassus, and if it'll essentially be Kubrick's Spartacus all over again. There is some mileage in romanticising characters who face the nefarious might of the Roman state and are unceremoniously crucified along the Appian Way, but it's curiously modern. I'm supporting the Romans here - and history does too. Despite the several servile wars - they were all crushed - slavery continued for centuries and Spartacus is nothing more now than a figure fit for embellishment in low budget TV shows. Kind of sad, really.

That idea, though, is ever so slightly cerebral, which I can be guilty of, and it really shouldn't take too much away from enjoying this show!

In other business, I'm reading a book about the ancient novel and I'll hopefully put something up about that soon.

Should the Colosseum Even Be Open?

It was reported this week that some "chunks" have fallen off the Colosseum in Rome (link). As ever, the show continues and the Colosseum remains open.

Should it be? I know there is a feeling that classical sites must be opened so that the millions of tourists that visit each year can spend 15 seconds of confused wonder snapping endless photographs for their Facebook pages (do people only go on holiday now so that they can let other people know about it via social networking?), but I'm not sure I hold to it.

Many classical sites desperately need some repairs (the Italians, especially, care more about marketing and flare than genuine care - although I'm generalising, of course) but they remain open, even when "chunks" are falling off of them.

I believe that the physical remains of the classical world that we have left must be preserved not to merely service the tourist industry, but to remind people of the glory of the classical past, its wonders and what it has given to us. At the moment it seems to be a numbers game, and that's rather sad.

My proposal, then, would be to make sites such as the Colosseum (those which can be damaged by constant visitation, or need repairs due to unavoidable decay) harder to visit. People can mill around outside, but make the process of actually visiting more complicated. Not elite, nor difficult, just harder. My hope would be that then only people who truly wanted to visit and are willing to appreciate what they're looking at would bother sorting it all out.

Visiting Rome now seems like an exercise in ticking things off a list for most tourists. In some ways that is similar to the Romans who simply had to see the wonders of Greece, but I hazard a guess that the modern tourist does it with much less reverence than their Roman predecessor. The process has been cheapened, somewhat, and I wish that rot could be reversed.

Again, I don't want to sound elitist at all - the remains of the classical world are our heritage, but given that we're unable to appreciate that (on the whole) something else needs to be done.

An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean - A lecture series by Robert Garland (Part Four).

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates. I'm just terribly busy. I suppose that's a familiar story for most people around the holidays.

Nevertheless, I've finished Garland's lecture series and this post is about the final section (lectures 30-36) which cover the growth of Christianity and how the Roman Empire dealt with both it and Judaism.

In many respects the final section chronicles the dissolution of the integrated culture Garland is at pains to emphasise. Rome becomes less and less the focal point of the Empire, and eventually the capital is moved East to Constantinople and the Empire eventually splits into a Latin speaking West and a Greek speaking East.

The greatest strength of this chunk of lectures is that Garland illustrates perfectly the cultural milieu that Christianity originated out of - the complexity of the relationship between the monotheistic Jews/Christians and the polytheistic Romans; the deep relationship early Christianity had with Greek philosophy and much more.

In some respects, then, Christianity is the ultimate synthesis of Greek and Roman culture and is essentially the poster boy for Garland's series of lectures. Christianity took the intellectual ideas of the Greeks (their great strength) and was propagated under the rule of the Roman Emperors (ruling, after all, was the Roman's job).

The final lectures cover the "fall" of the Roman Empire, but Garland, sensibly I think, stresses that "fall" is the wrong word and that Gibbon's famous work "Decline and Fall" speaks more to his particular ideas than what actually happened. Garland urges us to consider it much more of a "change and upheaval" and a gradual process.

Nevertheless, the Roman Empire, as it existed in the reign of Augustus and his successors, did cease to exist and the cultural legacy of Rome would move eastwards (to the Greek speaking world, somewhat ironically) and endure for another millennia.

I was rather sad as the lectures finished. I think they're really rather superb. Garland argues consistently and eloquently for an understanding of an integrated culture and he chronicles how it arose, flourished and how it all panned out over the 36 lectures - no mean feat. It's an interesting angle to take and I think it's thoroughly worthwhile.

Studying either Greece or Rome in isolation misses something essential about both cultures and Garland has remedied that in these lectures. For providing a different perspective, I've found it invaluable. I recommend them heartily!

On an unrelated note, the Saturnalia is coming up (a forerunner of Christmas?) and so Merry Saturnalia to all!

An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean - A lecture series by Robert Garland (Part Three).

I've been listening to Garland once again (I'm now finished the entire lecture series, but I plan to post about it in four parts, as they are broken down by Garland in the opening lecture).

The last section covers the full birth of Greco-Roman culture following the reign of Augustus and covers the whole spectrum of literature (Epic, tragedy, comedy, satire, history, the novel and more) as well as art, science technology and architecture.

All in all it's another fascinating series of lectures. Taken as a thematically related group, the lectures of literature are incredibly interesting - Garland outlines the origin of a particular genre, take Epic for example, and discusses how it evolves over time and is hugely important in the development of an integrated Mediterranean culture.

Epic, being one of the prime examples, has it's origin with Homer's Iliad - a tale which is very much at the root of the Greek character and is almost handed over to Rome as part of Greece's heavy cultural legacy. Rome appropriated the style and in Vergil found an artist skilful enough to take the art form and make it Roman (as Roman as it could be - maybe Greco-Roman is a better term!).

The same goes for the other genres. Garland managed to highlight the intricate links each has to Greece and Rome and how it's evolution over time into it's latter incarnation is very much illustrative of an integrated culture.

Garland is at pains to show the differences between Greeks and Romans and simultaneously how they formed such an interconnected and integrated culture (it's a paradox truly difficult to explain), and I found his discussion of architecture and science most interesting on this topic.

He mentions how the Greeks had an overwhelming focus on temples and religious areas, and their predisposition was to private spaces, while the Romans were quite the opposite and invested great energy into public spaces. I'm not sure how much I buy into this notion (the Greeks built many public areas too) but he argues convincingly regarding how the Greeks and the Romans conceived very differently of how to build a temple.

Science-wise, Garland makes the interesting point that the Greeks were the intellectual and speculative scientists while the Romans were much more practical - and that division seems to lie at the heart of how we depict the two cultures right up until today. The Romans' business was ruling the world, as it's put, while the Greeks could concern themselves with science.

Garland's lecture on science was actually one of the most useful to me. He highlighted the fact that our modern concept of science totally fails to work in the ancient world, and instead all was philosophy - or rather intellectual enquiry. There were no specifically defined disciplines like we have today. Garland manages to highlight the various cultural differences that make it difficult for us to understand the ancients - this is one such difference and how they conceived of work, another. I think he's to be appreciated for that.

Somewhat related is his nice habit of using modern phrases or terms to explain a certain quotation of situation he's describing. He'll often put something in the vernacular for us, so to speak.

On the flip side, he rarely references modern culture in relation to Greco-Roman culture, bar on a few occasions (he speaks of Harold Pinter in the philosophy lecture, which I enjoyed) and in some respects I think that it's missing. It may reflect simply my age/taste, but I'd like more of such things nonetheless.

Finally, the strength of the series remains in Garland's ability to expose the sheer amount of connections and interconnections between Greece and Rome (they truly are legion) and this part of the series illustrates that well. Coming out of these lectures, I was acutely aware of the cultural heritage passed not only through Greece to Rome but also to us and how it's not as simple as A-B-C but much more akin to evolution in it's slow ebb and flow.

I'll be posting about the last chunk of lectures soon. The topic for them is the rise of Christianity and the eventual splitting of the Empire into East and West.

Rome's (concise) Blue Guide.

Following my post on Rome's Blue Guide, those nice folks from Somerset Books (who publish the Blue Guides) sent me a copy of the brand new concise Blue Guide to Rome.

Generally, I love the Blue Guides - nothing comes close for the tourist who desires a "cultural" guide. My old (and not especially travel-handy) guide to Rome has had such heavy use that it's all held together by sticky tape - yet it's a testament to it's quality that it holds up ever strong, despite the beating it's taken.

First impressions of the new concise guide were very positive. The most noticeable thing is the reduction in size (it is, after all, a concise guide), to much more handy dimensions and weight. Although it was no real chore to crack out the weightier bigger brother of the concise guide - the new one will be much easier to use when "on site" in Rome.

The quality of the production is the next thing that jumps out at you. The cover is sturdy, tactile and pleasing to the touch. The pages remain glossy and smooth ones used in all Blue Guides, and the printing on them is clear and easy to read.

The contents of the guide are, as they back cover says, a "distilled" version of the full guide, which is essentially true - all the most important places to visit are included, while some of the periphery sites (maybe an unfair term) are not present.

The organisation follows a similar pattern to the full guide - in discussing a geographical area and everything of interest in it, followed by the next, adjacent, part of the city. For me it's the best and only way to organise the content - because it allows one to find a particular area of the city and see everything of interest within it.

The introduction is brief and omits much of the information found in the full guide, but that's really no problem for a concise guide. The biggest chunk is taken up by a historical sketch of the city, which is a newer version than that included in the full guide. There is little difference between the two - save length, and in my opinion both are well written and informative.

As mentioned in my previous post, the full guide is a little outdated now (primarily because of the new entrance procedures to the Forum Romanum, Colosseum and Palatine Hill). The new concise guide has all of this updated - which is essential in my opinion because the new procedure is quite different, and requires a bit of planning to pull off successfully (avoiding queues, busy periods etc).

The section of the guide on the Forum and it's surroundings is as excellent as before, but it is bolstered by the addition of several small colourful images which help break up the written descriptions a little. This applies also to the sections covering Ostia and the Via Appia - wonderful photographs add much to the guide.

I was also very happy to see that the EUR has now been incorporated into the main body of the guide. I know it may not be an especially aesthetically pleasing area, but it is aesthetically interesting and the Square Colosseum and the Museum of Roman Civilisation are especially fascinating (not least for the enormous model of Rome in the 4th Century).

One of the most useful new features is that each section has a little box featuring places to eat. It's brief, but a very nice addition, and conforms to the guides aim of being useful "on site".

Overall, then, the concise guide is just as excellent as it's bigger relation, and by my reckoning, it's still the only guide you really need. It's excellently written (by Alta Macadam) and the quality of the book's production itself is second to none.

The new size means that it somewhat supersedes the bigger version as THE guide to take on a trip to Rome. My personal plan is to take both and have the concise version "on site" and the larger version in the hotel room - having every cultural angle covered, so to speak.

As the new concise guide answers all my (admittedly minor) criticisms of the full guide, I must concede that I can find no real fault with it. Obviously it lacks the depth of the bigger version, but that's it's intention and can hardly be considered in a bad light. The price is also exceptionally fair, and I can offer no real complaints of any form.

My recommendation: If you're going to Rome - take it!

Note: Many thanks to Mr Tom Howells from the publishers of the Blue Guides for being so generous in providing me with a copy - I will be using it extensively on my next visit.

Here's a picture of my well thumbed full guide and the new concise guide, so that you may see the size difference:

An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean - A lecture series by Robert Garland (Part Two).

During my Scottish sojourn I managed to listen to the next chunk of my Robert Garland lecture series (lectures 12-19, although personally I think 20 should be included too), which focus on the consequences of Roman hegemony over Greece for both cultures, and ergo that's what I'm going to ramble on about today.

Like I mentioned in a post below, I lost my notes for this post on a Prague to Paris flight, so it will be somewhat briefer than I had initially envisaged.

In many respects this part of the series is where it all really get's going - the entire premise can finally be fully discussed. The lectures preceding number 12 take a very wide view of Greek and Roman history (linking them together almost from the off), leading right up until the Roman conquest but this, though, naturally precludes the period of full blown Philhellenism that comes after said occupation. This is where an understanding of Greco-Roman culture can really begin, I think.

Garland covers a range of topics, starting with philhellenism and hellenophobia (literally love for all thinks Greek and fear of those things), before covering the two languages, leisure, sex, religion, Greeks in Rome and Romans in Greece and the Hellenism of Augustus.

Like the previous lectures, Garland retains a depth of analysis and thickness of research that makes for wonderful listening. I especially liked his discussion of various concepts such as "leisure" and "work" and how they differed between Greece and Rome, but also how the very nature of the words in their respective languages mean very different things than they do to us today. It really allows one to get "inside the head" of a Roman or Greek, and that's no mean feat.

The topical nature of each lecture gives a really great overview of Rome and Greece as now integrated cultures, and how they influenced each other in quite profound ways. That said, one of the central thrusts of the lectures is that despite their history being integrated, they are vastly different. The typical flow of each lecture discusses how it's topic relates to Greece and how it then relates to Rome, and the passing of cultural information between them.

In some respects I think the term "Greco-Roman" undermines the idea of an entirely integrated history, for it has a clear division within it.

For me the best lecture in the series is the final one (that I've added to this chunk of lectures myself, although I don't recall that Garland does) on the Hellenism of Augustus. Garland argues that Augustus (when he took that moniker) "ruled" in a manner very similar to the Greek dynasts of the past, insomuch as he needed Greek models for his autocracy (the Romans had none), and he copied Greek forms of artistic representation (the Augustus Prima Porta is a far cry from the somewhat weedy, spotty Augustus we hear of).

In this way, Augustus was the full genesis of Hellenism - he took Greek ideas and Romanised them (or vice versa - how the cultures interacted truly is rather complex), and from his reign forward, I think it's fair to really consider them integrated cultures rather than merely closely related.

To use Garland's terminology, those living under Augustus could be considered "Mediterranean Men" - that is to say "people with a shared vision and living under similar conditions". This notion is one that only really begins to make sense under the rule of Augustus and afterwards, and I think it certainly has a great deal of mileage.

These lectures, then, take us from the Roman conquest until a point where Greece and Rome are intricately connected as one entity (although with distinct parts, so to speak), and the form a central part of Garland's arguments - that the two cultures should be studied together, not in isolation. Thus far, I agree with him. The series has been incredibly interesting, and considering Rome and Greece together in the same story very worthwhile.

The next part of the series covers the full birth of Greco-Roman culture after the reign of Augustus, and I'll be posting about it in the future sometime.

Classics: A Love Affair.

This post is a bit soft, so I apologise in advance.

I love a bit of classics. The classics bug, so to speak, bit quite some time ago, but took absolute hold when I first read Tony Perrottet's Route 66.A.D - which is a bit of a travelogue through the ancient sites of the Mediterranean - West to East. There's such a lust for history and fable in Perrottet's book, that I was absolutely enthralled and mesmerised by everything the ancient world had to offer.

Since then, I've been studying classics academically and privately with great intensity.

In many respects this blog is an opportunity for me to express the many classics-related thoughts I have each day. There is always something from antiquity rumbling about in my head, and this blog has allowed me to get it out there, even if very few people actually read it.

I like almost everything aspect of ancient history - but I suppose Roman history is where my real passion lies, although I'm also pretty interested in Greece and everything related to it. The characters and these impossibly complex societies and cultures which existed have caught me in their snare.

To me, the Greeks and the Romans kick-started the modern (Western, at least) world, and I can't imagine any single aspect of that modern world which cannot be enlightened by a study of the ancient world which gave genesis to it. That's what keeps me coming back for more.

Many textbooks or scholarly works now begin with a justification of classics as a discipline, and in many respects that's quite a shame, because I think it needs no justification. That said, I realise not everyone has been bitten in the same way that I have been.

It's been said that only a human being can study the classics and love it, and with not a hint of pretension (OK, maybe a little!) I think that's quite true. I believe there is a reason the study of the ancient world was so important for so long for everyone, regardless of career. I'm not necessarily putting myself in that group, but I do feel hugely indebted to the classical world for the development of my character and ultimately how I define myself, both through it's achievements but also the things it got wrong.

Like I said a bit of a soft post, but one I felt like making. If anyone does read this, I'd very much like to hear why you love the classics so much.

An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean - A lecture series by Robert Garland (Part One).

A few weeks ago I got my hands on a series of audio lectures by Prof. Robert Garland via TTC (the teaching company) and I've been listening to them quite attentively as I go about my daily business (I travel around a fair bit, and they're on my cellphone's music player).

The name of the lecture series is Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean and as the name suggests, the essential thrust of the course is to consider Rome and Greece (or Romans and Greeks) together, and not in isolation, as is perhaps common (he makes the simple yet valid point that most scholars of the ancient world consider themselves either Greek or Roman historians, and that should not be the case).

The course follows a loosely chronological path, but it is heavily affected by thematically driven discussion. Garland, in the first lecture, divides the course into 4 chunks, each following each other chronologically, give or take, but being distinct in matters of focus.

Lectures 1-11 cover general topics of life in the Mediterranean and the history of political interaction (and re-action) between Greece and Rome right up until Roman hegemony was established over the Greek speaking world in the 2nd Century B.C.E. Lectures 12-19 consider the repercussions of the Roman conquest and especially their relationship with one another, in cultural and political terms.

Lectures 20 - 29 cover the birth of what we refer to as Greco-Roman culture, taken from the reign of Augustus onwards and the final chunk of lectures, 30 -36, discuss how the Roman Empire dealt with the growth of Judaism and Christianity (two religions with great ties to Greece) and how the relationship between the Greeks and the Romans evolved during this period, until the Empire split into a Latin speaking West and Greek speaking East.

Thus far I've only listened to part one, and ergo that's all I'm talking about today.

Generally speaking, I've really enjoyed the lectures so far. Prof. Garland has such an obvious enthusiasm for the subject that it's infectious, and there is a didactic quality to his voice in a positive manner that makes listening a pleasure - definitely making any trip across town by tram or trolley bus much more enjoyable!

The first 11 lectures cover a quite disparate amount of subjects, all the while leading up to the mid 2nd Century B.C.E when Greece was finally conquered by Rome. Garland's aim, like I said, is to present Greek and Roman history as intricately connected, and not as separate entities.

He's immensely successful in doing this. My own experience of studying the ancient world is very much that the Greeks came first and the Romans second, when in fact it is much, much more complex than that. Garland overcomes that by considering them together - the opening 11 lectures illustrate this perfectly.

He discusses a variety of aspects to life in the Mediterranean that both Greeks and Romans would share, and how the respective systems were perhaps different - he covers political organisation, trade, law and order, slavery and "human rights", religion and their encounters throughout the 1st millennia B.C.E, right up until Rome has Greece totally overpowered. The result is that we are left with a holistic (ὅλος) understanding of Mediterranean culture during this period, and how it was truly Pan-Mediterranean. That is to say, there is something essential missed by studying just Greece or just Rome.

One of the greatest strengths of the series is the sheer depth of research involved. Garland quotes the ancient authors frequently, and modern scholars too (Erich Gruen, who's research I like very much indeed, get's the most mentions, I think), and this all adds to the texture of the series and it's intellectual weight. Almost every 30 seconds Garland drops in an interesting titbit, or story, making the lectures very easy to engage with.

Garland also stresses the understanding of everything in context (he mentions in the first lecture how different Greek and Roman culture is to ours), and as such he does not shy away from laying out straight the horrendous nature of Roman and Greek slavery, nor the human cost of Roman warfare. There is, however, no real judgements being made here, these things, after all, just were, and Garland remains much more interested in how the Greeks or Romans thought of such things as opposed to how we feel - which is to be applauded.

It's very hard to find any criticisms of the series. Although they're perhaps aimed at an interested member of the public, the depth does presuppose some knowledge of the ancient world, and I'd find it very hard to recommend them entirely to a beginner, although they're still of such high quality that any intelligent listener could benefit from them. Given that they're not exactly narrative history, but rather focused on the Greece/Rome relationship, it might be said that they are best suited to already knowledgeable listeners. Nevertheless, the integrated approach has much going for it, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Wine Sodden Gauls - Who's To Blame?

As a bit of a follow up to my previous post on Roman wine, I read today in the Telegraph that Professor Paul Cartledge at Cambridge has posited the theory that the Ancient Greeks actually introduced wine to Gaul and it wasn't the Romans as is commonly believed (although, I'm sure Cartledge is not the only scholar aware of the Greek influence here, despite the news reports). (The news piece from Cambridge is here).

His study claims that Massalia (Marseilles), founded unambiguously by Greeks (and which prior to the Romans was a bustling trading centre owing to it's location on the coast, and the rivers allowing goods to be transported inland), became a centre for the spread of viticulture among the tribes of Gaul.

He rests the theory on the notion that (i) Massalia survived because Greeks arrived and integrated themselves into the area (thereby introducing Greek ideas and tastes) and (ii) that evidence of amphorae found in Celtic sites indicate that there was a wine trade quite some time prior Roman domination of Gaul. Seems all quite plausible to me that it was the Greeks what did it because the foundation of Massalia certainly pre-dates Roman expansion into Gaul and provides more evidence than the notion that the Etruscans introduced wine to the area.

The Telegraph article also mentions that Cartledge is currently involved in a revision of what constituted "Ancient Greece", with the belief that it covered a huge geographical area, from Spain to Georgia, which is much greater than how it is usually considered as covering roughly the same area as Modern Greece. Establishing the Greeks as a major influence in bringing wine to the Gauls seems to be a facet of this. This partly explains why this is all being treated as entirely new - Cartledge has a new book! (although I doubt it's his fault).

There is no doubt that Roman expansion certainly increased the spread of viticulture (and the availability of wine) in Gaul, but it's rather fascinating to think that initially it game from Greece through Massalia, although it certainly makes sense considering the period in which Massalia was founded (around 600 B.C.E - well before Roman expansion into the area), and that Greeks, who drunk wine, were the ones that settled there.

If the Greeks did bring wine to Gaul, then I suppose they should receive the blame for all the drunken Gauls marauding around the country drinking undiluted wine and selling people into slavery for a single amphora. The Cambridge news story adds the funny titbit that:

"Travelling up the river might even have constituted the original booze cruise"

which suggests the pretty funny image of a load of smelly barbarian Gauls shouting at nearby women as their wine laden boats floated along the river.

The idea that Greece covered a much larger area than people assume, also seems to me a pretty sound one. "Greece" was not a nation as we conceive it, but rather a people linked by language. Greece was a "nation" of individual city-states, and so the notion of "Greece" as a geographical expression does not really work. The upshot is that essentially this expression "Ancient Greece" to mean some kind of nation, means that any place in which "Greeks" (i.e. Greek speakers) were could be considered "Greece".

So then, we can blame the Greeks for wine sodden Gauls, but also thank them for wonderful modern French wine. Balances out, I think.

Suetonius and Wishful Thinking.

The past few days have seen a few interesting archaeological developments in Rome and it's environs. There was a flurry of news when it was announced that Nero's famous rotating dining room, mentioned by Suetonius, was found on the Palatine hill in Rome, and there has been considerable wordage on the discovery of a "luxury" amphitheatre in Portus, near Rome.

Both of these discoveries are interesting in themselves, although much research remains to be done. The fascinating thing is how both discoveries have become headline, attention grabbing news, despite significant doubts regarding exactly what has been found.

Touching on similar themes to my Vespasian's villa post, it's quite important to ask - are these discoveries really what they're purported to be? The answer is maybe, but can't really be put any firmer than that.

Mary Beard has questioned the validity of both identifications on her blog (here and here), and I think there is significant mileage in asking if said identifications are correct. Her thoughts about the "utter tosh" written about the amphitheatre seems spot on to me, considering that the dig leader, Simon Keay, was always careful to say that the possible history of the amphitheatre is all postulation at this stage.

Why exactly do (some) archaeologists and the media sensationalise each discovery? Does everything need to be instantly related to a historical figure in case funding is immediately cut, or the University loses out on some much needed publicity? As for the media, they need a story - Joe Public does not care about the discovery of a Roman dining room, but label it Nero's and it's newsworthy.

The identification of the amphitheatre so far seems tenuous at best. Beard points out that we have no idea what the surrounding buildings are, despite their current identification as an "Imperial Palace", and so it's a bit of a non sequitur at this stage to have the amphitheatre down as a private entertainment complex of the Emperors.

Nero's rotating dining room is a somewhat more complex question. The existence of the dining room is only known via Suetonius' Life of Nero and there is considerable debate regarding what the Latin describes exactly (Beard's readers make some useful comments below her post on this topic) for example; does the room fully rotate, or does the ceiling rotate, and what exactly would it mean to an ancient Roman for the heavens to move?

Location wise, it's in roughly the right place - Nero's Domus Aurea covered huge swathes of land in the centre of Ancient Rome, but there is considerable doubt as to how the Golden House actually looked. Beard adds that there is the "terrible temptation" to equate finds on the ground with the literary descriptions of Roman writers, and that seems to be at least part of the case here.

It's probably right to be a bit sceptical about the whole affair thus far, but the pictures provided could plausibly be the described dining room, and there seems to be a fair suggestion that some mechanical device has been unearthed that was used to rotate the room. All in all, maybe a bit early to call it Nero's rotating dining room (if one existed), despite the surety apparent in almost all news reports of it's discovery.

That said, it remains an incredibly interesting find, and I look forward greatly to see if it genuinely is what it's claimed to be. The questions it has raised over the nature of archaeological work, the reporting of it and the politics behind such things, however, will no doubt continue to be asked as each new discovery is immediately sensationalised lest it be ignored.

I think that with the need to find a new Pompeii, and for each find to be elevated to "special" and "visitor worthy" status so quickly after it's discovery, there is a danger that real archaeological work, the nitty gritty of digs and research will be somewhat undermined, or that anything not immediately associated with a famous figure or event will be passed over as not being worthy of publicity. That, without doubt, would be a great shame.

Update: I realised the project leader for the amphiteatre, Simon Keay, has commented on Mary Beard's post and says the following:

"Mary, you are right of course. While I was very concerned to put across a tempered report of our discoveries, as the official press release makes clear, many of the press reports have indeed delivered more esoteric and imaginative interpretations of what I said. This is inevitable in any publicity as you know. Nevertheless the coverage it gives us is still very valuable as it is often the only way that many of us can provide the public at large with some idea of what it is that we do, and also in this case to give prominence to a world class site that is otherwise unknown and very hard to get into the public eye" - Simon Keay.

Keay gives a sound reason for the sensationalist reports, and it's easy to sympathise with him. He seems to be taking a pragmatic attitude, and I suppose the stresses of being a Project Leader mean that the saying all publicity is good publicity rings quite true.

Rome's Blue Guide.

During my undergraduate degree, I was required to spend a minimum of three weeks travelling around the ancient sites of the Mediterranean. Prior to departure, the classics department recommend the purchase of the Blue Guide to Rome for anyone planning a visit to the eternal city. Sufficed to say I bought it and have been using it ever since.

Styled as a cultural guide (I dislike that term, but as far as it's useful and can be applied - this is the book for it), it's a weighty 624 pages of in depth information about all the cultural treasures of Rome. I've used it 4 or 5 times in visits to Rome, and it's been totally invaluable. So much so that my copy is now dog eared and held together by sticky tape.

The main author is Alta Macadam, who lives in Florence and has a rich history of living and working in Italy. She is supplemented, on history, art history and architecture by Nigel McGilchrist, Charles Freeman and Mark Roberts - all of whom have huge experience of Rome, academic history and Italy more generally. The result of such informed persons writing the guide means that it's general intelligence, cultural awareness and depth is unparalleled by the more popular lines of travel guides.

On matters of organisation: the guide opens with a short but scene-setting introduction, followed by a concise and relatively academic historical sketch of the city from it's foundation to it's present day state. It's top heavy with regards the classical period, but it offers a good overview of the city's history over some (almost!) 3000 years. This historical sketch also has a nice section on the Popes, which is very useful.

The following main body of the guide is divided by geographical area, each of which roughly confines to the hills of ancient Rome (an illustration opens the guide showing each area pg.5). Given the scope of the guide, organising itself geographically was the only viable option, and it works well throughout.

The content itself is marvellous. Macadam has a deep and passionate relationship with the city, and knows it inside out. The depth of cultural commentary and information is excellent, and throughout the guide the aim is not just to signpost and introduce the sites of Rome, but to give them context, a story and set them into the extravagant history of the city.

The areas covering the ancient sites are detailed and interesting - highlighting the history and significance of each monument, area or ruin. There is no "look at this, move on and look at this" style advice suitable for the modern "go to say I've been/seen" tourist, but rather really chunky pieces of information for most sites of interest to the classical visitor. Often little coloured boxes are inserted that give some historical background relevant to the area being discussed - topics include Roman Gods and worship, Obelisks and the Triumph - each of them inherently useful.

The guide is also complete with wonderful illustrations (my favourite being the Carvaggio pair that are in Santa Maria Del Popolo), but not so much as to appear a picture travel book. The images capture something of the stark majesty of the paintings themselves, and add a lovely gloss to any reading of the guide.

Extensive guides to both Ostia and Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli are to be applauded - as many guides have them simply as an addendum - whereas they're an essential part of this one, which is no less than they deserve. Centrale Montemartini, a subsidiary museum (of sorts) of the Capitoline museums, also gets much deserved page space. It's an absolutely wonderful museum, which is often overlooked.

One the flip side, though, there is very little mention of anything remotely related to the E.U.R, and one gets the impression that Macadam dislikes the suburb, and the fascist ties of Rome's past more generally so much that they fall by the way side. That's not to say that the E.U.R is not ugly - it is! - but it holds the so-called Square Colosseum, which is an interesting monument, and also the Museo Della Civiltà Romana which hosts full plaster casts of Trajan's column and also a miniature, to scale (1:250), replica of Rome under the rule of Constantine, built by Italo Gismondi. Both of these attractions are worth the journey out to the E.U.R alone, but they get frightful little mention (they're relegated to a small appendix near the end of the book).

Besides the huge amount of information for the traveller interested beyond the superficial levels, I think the real strength of the work lies in it's awareness of Rome as a truly eternal city, one with so many layers they're difficult to see all at once. In the guide Rome is, at once, the heart of a great classical empire, the home of the Popes, a medieval beacon of research and civilisation, a Papal city state and the capital of a united Italy - and she is, of course, all these things and more.

The guide itself gives the reader a flavour of Rome's embarrassingly rich cultural heritage through it's content, and this in reinforced with little snippets of information or quotes from famous visitors - Goethe, Keats and Shelly among many, many others. In essence, one gets a taste of the city, and can begin to piece together the myriad of things Rome actually is. That, to my mind, is the highest achievement any guide can aim for.

The current 2006 edition is a tad outdated, especially with regards to visiting the Forum, Palatine and Colosseum, but that's not a significant problem, nor really the fault of the author or this guide - it cannot be updated constantly. Most of the information is still relevant, but in Rome, of all cities, any visitor should be aware of the irony contained in the idea of Rome's constancy, but her ever changing face.

In summation, if you're visiting Rome and want a "cultural guide", there really is nothing that compares.

Syme and an "Augustan Party".

The following is a little edited version of an essay I wrote during my masters on the topic of whether or not the term "Augustan Party" is useful when talking about the period of Rome's history when The Divine Augustus (Son of the Divine Julius Caesar!) was Princeps.

The essay title was initially:

“Can we usefully talk about an Augustan Party, and if so, of whom did it consist and why did they support Augustus?”

Although, as was my terrible habit, I didn't necessarily answer the question. I think what comes is best considered a review/brief analysis of Ronald Syme's "The Roman Revolution" and the ideas therein, specifically with reference to an "Augustan Party".

Generally, as with the other old essays posted here, I'm quite happy with it. It contains some phrases that I wouldn't use now, a notion which can be applied to several aspects of it's style (i.e. I wouldn't employ them now) but I'm quite happy with the content, and while I'd perhaps posit something a little different now (Syme did, afterall, publish some follow up works, such as "the Augustan Aristocracy" which showed his views had evolved somewhat), I think it's an OK (if not first rate) essay on an interesting topic.

I do apologise for how lengthy this is. In the event that anyone does read it, I hope it was not too painful.

______________________

In 1939 Ronald Syme released a book entitled “The Roman Revolution”. Unapologetically and somewhat abrasively, he set out to challenge the conviction that the Augustan Age was one of overwhelmingly successful cultural, social and political change, smoothly implemented and controlled. This view, Syme rightfully claims, I think, is “simply panegyric” (Syme, Preface, pg.8) and he then sets out to prove Augustus as despot and tyrant. The impact of Syme’s work cannot be understated, indeed the difficult questions about exactly how Augustan power was manifest have been coloured by his work since its release. One of the specific claims that Syme makes is that there existed an “Augustan Party” that oversaw the successful change from Republic to Principate. Syme dedicates a chapter to the topic, arguing for the existence of such a party on the basis of German scholarship on the prosopography of the period. It’s the aim of this short essay to discuss Syme’s assertion that there was a “Party of Augustus”, to see whether that term is useful or not and if so, to consider whom it consisted of and why they supported Augustus.

Syme begins by saying that the “modest origins” of the Octavian faction are betrayed by its founders name [Syme, pg.349]. Although he’s not too clear at this juncture what exactly he means, the fact that Octavian was provincial in origin comes full circle by the end of the chapter. Nevertheless, Syme is attempting to illustrate that Octavian and his party come from somewhat humble backgrounds, indeed Syme makes mention that prior to his marriage to Livia, only one supporter of his faction comes from a Consular family (Cn. Domitius Calvinus) [Syme, pg.368]. This talk of Octavian’s origin crops up later when Syme attempts to justify his view of latter Augustan policy, and so it’s worth bearing in mind for the time being. Syme moves on to a commentary of the senatorial purges of 28 B.C under the Consulship(s) of Octavian and Agrippa. Syme, quite reasonably, considers this a preparatory move for the coming restoration of the state in early 27. B.C. Dio tells us that some two hundred “undesirables” had retirement firmly suggested to them. [Dio, 52.42.1]. Syme considers it clear, and most modern scholarship agrees, that this purge was very much dealing with the three hundred senators that had sided with Antonius prior to Actium, or at the very least the ones from that group that were unrepentant [Syme, pg.349]. Those left, Syme says, were the “Caesarion partisans and successful renegades” [Syme, pg.350]. He claims they were aware of the true purpose of Augustus’s reforms and the irony therein [Syme, pg.351]. The damage done to the aristocracy was to be healed by the creating of a new one, which Syme goes on to discuss.

One of the central tenets of Syme’s conception of an “Augustan Party” is the new role of the Equestrian order in public affairs. He considers promotion into and above the order to have been made vastly easier during the Augustan age [Syme, pg.352], with the primary justification for such promotions being military service. He illustrates the process by hyperbole when saying “sons of knights, knights themselves and finally Thracian and Illyrian brigands became Emperors of Rome” [Syme, pg.352]. “The Roman Revolution”, Syme contends, “opened up a path of promotion, which the new state perpetuated, for the common soldier” [Syme, pg.353]. He makes mention that it was feasible to be promoted or to gain Equestrian status through finance prior to the Augustan period, but that there was no organised and established dynamic for promotion from Centurion to Equestrian posts [Syme, pg.353]. Syme tells us that promotion to the Equestrian ranks happened in two ways [Syme, pg.354]. Firstly, that a soldier or soldier’s sons earned the rank through military service – he uses an example, from Suetonius’s live of the Divine Vespasian [Sue. Div. Vesp. 1] that illustrates how Vespasian’s grandfather was a Pompeian veteran who had a son that was of Equestrian status, and whose son, in turn, became Emperor. The second mode of promotion was through being a freedman. Augustus was to employ a great deal of freedmen as secretaries, especially in financial duties [Syme, pg.354]. The natural step up from this process was that the “choice flowers” of the Equestrian ranks could be promoted to the senate (Syme, pg.354). Syme thus labels knights as the “cardinal factor in the whole social, military and political structure of the new State” [Syme, pg.355]. Under Augustus, then, Syme considers the Equestrian order somewhat divorced from the murky politics it may have engaged in during the Republic (primarily in tax gathering and the various dishonesties arising from it) and granted it a new “dignity and usefulness” [Syme, pg.355]. For Syme this part-stratification of the Equestrian order under Augustus was manifest in the practice of giving the Latus Clavus (a mark of senatorial birth) to promising young Equestrians (notably among them, although he decided not to pursue such an end, was the poet Ovid). The result was that loyalty and service now allowed the able of humble origin to “ennoble their family for ever” [Syme, pg.359]. Thus this process allowed Augustus to ensure that the senate was filled with “good, opulent men from the colonies and municipia” [Syme, pg.359]. These men, Syme claims, were the “backbone” of the Augustan faction [Syme, pg.359]. This order of promotion and senatorial establishment reverberated into the provinces as it was now possible to truly make something of oneself - an early Roman incarnation of the American Dream, to put it in crude terms. Syme concludes his chapter by going back to the beginning. He asserts that Augustus was no more than “a small town bourgeois, devoted and insatiable in admiration of social distinction” [Syme, pg.368]. The upshot of Syme’s argument here is that Augustus desired to have the old aristocracy support him, but when it was obvious that would not happen like he may have imagined (many of them were dead, many had supported Antonius) he set about re-creating the aristocracy, outsourcing it, so to speak, and developing it into a new body that owed everything to the system he had set in place.

Thus, this was Syme’s conception of an “Augustan Party”. In search of a balances narrative, I’d now like to pass over the question regarding the veracity of Syme’s argument, assume it sound for the time being, and consider the departure question of who was in this party and why did they support Augustus?

The striking point of Syme’s argument is that initially Augustus had few supporters, indeed the “Augustan Party” was a deliberate creation to fill this gap. The period of civil strife prior to the Augustan Age had much depleted the traditional aristocratic talent pool, leaving any Augustan Party rather empty. As mentioned earlier, Syme considers this problem solved by Augustus’s streamlining of promotion into and above the Equestrian class. The rub of this very deliberate act, Syme contends, was to create a new aristocracy, a group of “novis homines” that would have standing in the Empire yet also support Augustus. It’s perhaps a little crude, but Syme’s sentiments can be echoed by saying that the Augustan party initially contained no-one of real note and eventually contained everyone, with “everyone” representing, of course, the elite only. In summation, then, Syme considers the Augustan Party to comprise of the new aristocracy. This new body consisted of senators and equestrians that owed their status to him. The make up of this new aristocracy, and indeed the creation of it, was very much a product of the depleted aristocracy of the late Republic, Syme claims:

“The old families had been decimated by a generation of civil wars: the sons of the slain were found willing to make their peace with the military dynast. Augustus bent all his efforts to attaching these young ‘nobiles’ to his person, to his family and to the new system” [Syme, pg.368].

Syme is typically interested in depicting Augustus as tyrant, but nonetheless I think the make up of the Augustan Party, that Syme advocates, is now somewhat clearer: Able soldiers capable of promotion to equestrian rank; equestrians themselves capable of achieving senatorial rank through loyalty and service and also, interestingly, the new generation of the old aristocracy - now unable to rely on their forebears and instead reliant on Augustus for status, and so the party consisted of, Syme says, “diverse elements, the most ancient Patrician houses and the most recent of careerists” [Syme, pg.368]. Still, it is important to stress that, for Syme, the aristocracy was new, and was an Augustan creation. He did not force the elite to join his party, but rather created a new elite altogether that was inherently Augustan from its very conception. Syme is also at ends to point out that this new aristocracy was able to rely heavily on the provincial elite for its numbers, a fact that he attributes to Augustus as the “small town bourgeois” [Syme, pg.368] orientated towards his own class. The question thus arises of why These men allowed their crafting into an Augustan party - why did they support him? Syme’s answer is a natural continuation from his argument regarding who was in the party. This new created “Augustan Party” owed its aristocratic status to Augustus, he is, as Syme argues in a later chapter, the “master of Patronage” [Syme, pg.369ff]. That, then, was the reason they supported him - he had been the arbiter of their fate and it was thanks to him that their status has been gained. As Syme states:

“The Princeps controlled access to all positions of honour and emolument in the senatorial career, dispensing to his adherents magistracies, priesthoods and provincial commands. The Quaestorship admitted a man to the highest order in state and society, the cons ululate brought nobility and a place in the front ranks of the oligarchy” [Syme, pg.369].

This situation is how Syme articulates the support for the Augustan Party - they supported him because their status and livelihood depended on it. Syme very much emphasises the dynamic of patronage. Augustus assumed the role of patron to the members of his party and so their dependence on him ensured their support. Although on a grandiose scale compared to earlier times, Augustus was the most powerful patron there had ever been and so the patron relationship as an explanation for support for the Augustan Party remains a fruitful one.

In the almost 70 years since the release of “The Roman Revolution” the concept of an “Augustan Party” has rightfully been debated. The scholarly force and abrasiveness of Syme’s account has ensured its legacy, but nonetheless many have taken issue with his arguments for the existence of any kind of “Augustan Party”. These criticisms cover a vast amount of interpretations of Syme’s work from the veracity of prosopography, to the overwhelmingly Tacitean distaste he has of the Principate. Having discussed Syme’s chapter, it’s now my intention to discuss these criticisms and attempt to see whether or not Syme’s term “Augustan Party” remains a useful one.

One of the most interesting criticisms of Syme is that the context he was writing in (the so-called Inter-War period, between the Two World Wars) has very much coloured his account. This is, of course, the nature of any writing, but the distinction here is that the atmosphere of the 1930s is so very overt that it in someway affects his arguments for the existence of an Augustan Party. One of the startling things read into The Roman Revolution is that Syme’s portrayal of Augustus metamorphosis into “gambler and terrorist, into the most exalted father of the fatherland, Augustus Pater Patriae, invoked comparisons with the dictatorships of Mussolini and Franco, Hitler and Stalin” [Galsterer, pp.2-3]. One doesn’t need to look far to find terms associated heavily with that period, either. For example Syme labels Augustus’s rise to power as being based upon “the seizure of power and redistribution of property by the revolutionary leader” [Syme, pg.2]; he constantly refers to Augustus as the “military dynast” or “tyrant”. On the surface, it’s not difficult to see the parallels between the use of these terms and the atmosphere the book was written under. Syme consistently argues for a picture of Augustus as dictator and despot, which very much broke from previous tradition. When one considers why he perhaps places such vast emphasis on Augustus as negative, it is possible that he was being swayed by his understanding of tyranny, dictatorship and despotism in 1930s Europe. The consequences for this, if it is indeed a just criticism, are that his understanding of how the political process worked during the Augustan age is based heavily upon how the same processes worked in 1930s Europe, which at best leaves Syme guilty of anachronism and at worst throws his entire conception of an Augustan Party into jeopardy. For example, it has been argued that Syme eschewed the old methods of historical interpretation (those based on ideology and constitutions) because they had been dominant in the political discourse that followed the First World War, and instead focused on the individual, as increasingly it was the individual that dominated the world stage – Hitler, Stalin etc. [Galsterer, pg.4]. His goal here would be to reconstruct Augustan politics based on the players involved in it.

The shift of emphasis he employed here is not problematic in itself, but if it was a move influenced by the political processes of the 1930s then it becomes problematic. To elaborate: understanding Augustan Politics with a framework used to understand 1930s European politics is to anachronistically apply a method that is detrimental to the veracity of ones understanding. I think it’s easy to sympathise with this criticism. The 1930s was an immensely thick period of ideology and politics in Europe, and elements of it do seem manifest in Syme’s approach to the Augustan period. Nevertheless, use of such a method by Syme does not necessarily preclude it being useful. The shifted emphasis to the individual in Augustan politics that Syme employed has proven widely influential. It has facilitated discussion regarding the Augustan political processes that might not have happened to the same degree otherwise. For example, his contentions have forced serious discussion on how Augustan politics truly worked. As he stated was his intentions, he has provoked discussion and criticism [Syme, preface, pg.9]. Strictly, then, the criticism is valid. Syme does seem to have allowed 1930s politics to have permeated his work, especially in how he conceives of an Augustan party through emphasis on the individual. While the criticism may call his reasoning into question, it leaves his argument standing. His use of modern political processes to understand Augustan ones is a useful exercise, and as such the idea that an Augustan Party existed remains a useful one.

Closely connected is the criticism of prosopography as a discipline. Syme makes his debt to prosopography clear:

“It will at once be evident how much the conception of the nature of Roman politics here expounded owes to the supreme example and guidance of Münzer: but for his work on Republican family-history, this book could hardly have existed” [Syme, preface, pg.8].

Prosopography is the study of individuals in a collective sense that can facilitate historical understanding that would otherwise be hidden. The method is heavily based on the scant evidence we have for individuals, inscriptional and literary, although usually the former. This method features heavily in Syme’s work, and his whole basis for an Augustan Party is argued upon the evidence prosopography provides. Generally speaking, Prosopography is a useful field. It allows one, as it did Syme, to consider a collective group of individuals and perhaps come up with some historical insight. Syme uses prosopography to paint a picture of Augustan politics as large and connected political family – a party, so to speak. Syme’s employment of prosopography allows him to identify the individuals of Augustan politics and to interconnect them, that is to say that he uses prosopographical evidence to establish a Party for Augustus. As Syme says in the opening line of his chapter on the topic:

“The modest origins of the faction of Octavianus stand revealed in the names of its foundation-members: and subsequent accessions have been indicated from time to time. It grew steadily in numbers and in dignity as Caesar’s heir recruited followers and friends from the camps of his adversaries until in the end, by stripping Antonius, it not merely swallowed up the old Caesarian party but secured the adhesion of a large number of Republicans and could masquerade as a national party” [Syme pg.349]

This is a clear statement of how Syme uses prosopography. He analyses the extant evidence of individual careers and ties their achievements into their involvement in an Augustan Party. An example is that Syme conceives the Augustan party to have only one supporter from a consular family before Augustus marries Livia [Syme, pg.368]. The method at work here is somewhat hidden, but Syme has used prosopography to look for links between Augustus and consular families and came to the conclusion that few links existed prior to his marriage. The problems of how Syme incorporates prosopography into his arguments are vast. Firstly, prosopography is a method that can only be as useful as the evidence it utilises. Although we have much inscriptional evidence, there is easily as much that is lost to us. The gaps could indicate conflicting evidence, but that is unknown to us. Furthermore, prosopography is notably divided in veracity along Republican/Imperial lines [Galsterer, pp.10-11]. An example is that we have almost no inscriptional evidence for the career of Marcus Crassus, the Triumvir and large character of the late Republic, prior to his Spanish proconsulship in 72/71 B.C, despite the fact that he likely spent time climbing the cursus honorum prior to that [Galsterer, pg.10]. On the converse, we know every office held by the Senators Iulius Severus and Lollius Urbicus during the 2nd century A.D, despite them being much more minor characters [Galsterer, pg.10]. That the Augustan age falls right on the “crossroads of republican and imperial prosopography” [Galsterer, pp.10-11] presents us with a problem, for the prosopographical evidence could be somewhat lacking in one respect, but present in others. As such, any argument based on the prosopographical evidence we have for the Augustan age would be tainted. Syme’s argument very much loses some veracity owing to this problem, for if the evidence is lacking then his argument will similarly be left wanting.

Related is how Syme interprets the prosopographical evidence. Much has been made of the “mechanical” [Galsterer, pg.11] understanding of the evidence. Galsterer makes the useful point that “if a Fabius had married an Aemilia and was consul together with a Sempronius Gracchus, this should indicate an alliance among the Fabii, Aemilii and Sempronii. Moreover, if, two generations later, a Fabius and a Sempronius Gracchus were once again colleagues, this would indicate that such an alliance had continued through all this time” [Galsterer, pp.10-11]. Galsterer admits that this may be an overstatement, but I think the rhetorical force of his objection remains quite strong. The lateral way that Syme interprets the prosopography that allows him to conjecture for the existence of an Augustan party is questionable. The work of Christian Meier, “Res Publica Amissa” specifically, has further rejected the idea of straight links between individuals, for Roman politics is far too complex for such alliances, and indeed the factional theory altogether, to endure. An offshoot of this is that Syme overlooks individual agency in order to see the “mechanical” prosopographical links, when indeed the role of the individual and their personal aims and political alliances was surely important in following Augustus. Furthermore, another fault of the prosopographical approach is that it is very much elite oriented. The nature of the evidence it uses – inscriptional – means that other elements of society are excluded because they are not the subject of inscription. On this occasion one of the most obvious omissions is the rank and file of the army. The fact that much of Augustus’s power was military based – and Syme stresses his role as military dictator – makes the omission of the army rank and file as a central element of any Augustan Party somewhat suspicious. Syme does make mention of the army in how he conceives of promotion through the Equestrian class, but that emphasis lies on how such promotion develops a new aristocracy – the army in general is very much left out in “”The Roman revolution”. Syme has remedied this to an extent is more recent work, the “Danubian Papers” specifically, but how the army fits into the conception of an Augustan Party is still not clear.

The criticism of Syme’s use of prosopography is quite convincing, I feel. The problems presented by limited evidence and questionable methods of interpreting that evidence leave Syme’s idea of an Augustan Party quite damaged. That prosopography, as he admits himself, underpins his entire argument means that any weakness in it necessarily means a weakness in his argument itself. In light of this, it would seem that the term “Augustan Party” is somewhat misleading, and not especially useful for really describing Augustan Politics.

Related, again, is the overwhelmingly Republican character of the work. Syme admits himself that Tacitus, Pollio and Sallust are his main literary sources and inspirations, all of them “Republican in sentiment” [Syme preface, pg.7]. The Tacitean quality of the work has been recognized by many. Michael Comber, for example, called Syme and Tacitus the “two great Roman historians” [Comber, pg.214] in an article on the topic. The problem that this presents is that Syme is liable to fall into the same limitations and overt prejudices of those historians, Tacitus especially. As the most Republican of men, Tacitus was very distasteful of the entire Principate, Tiberius most notably. His lack of zeal of the Augustan Age also shone through in the opening parts of his “Annals”, as he briefly describes Rome being subjugated by the first Emperor. The negative focus on Augustus, and the Tacitean method more generally, that Syme readily adopts has some consequences for his argumentation. Syme would have us believe that Augustus created for himself such massive prestige in the lamentable absorption of every available power that the only available career path for the aristocracy was under his aegis. It was through the necessity of his support that the Augustan Party developed. Tacitus found this situation incredibly saddening. A familiar vein running through his works, from the Annals to the Agricola and the Dialogus is that the men of the Republic could be great owing to their skills and talents, which they received great acclaim for. All great men under the Principate were subservient to the greatest man – the Emperor. The Tacitean, and consequently Republican, character of Syme’s work presents a quandary. It obviously creates a very strong bias, but that hardly makes Syme’s theories less powerful, no more than they do that of Tacitus. Rather, I think, they present the historian with something to keep in mind while reading Syme. He wanted his work to truly jostle the established order, and the abrasive qualities of his writing often have one questioning how bias he truly is, yet the quality of his work still shines through these possible indiscretions. The criticism of his work having a Republican bent, much like the criticism that the 1930s permeated much of it, is very much something to be aware of, but ultimately leave the edifice of his theory still standing. The usefulness of the term “Augustan Party” is somewhat affected, to its detriment, by this fact, for it now holds within it not just the influence of the 1930s political process, the problems of prosopography but now also the possible Republican bias inherent in conceiving of its existence.

Assessing whether or not Syme’s use of the term “Augustan Party” is useful is notoriously difficult. The sheer impact of Syme’s work on the topic has lead to his being called “The Emperor of Roman History” [Bowerstock, pp.8-13]. The term can be misleading. For example, using the term “party” seems to be being used somewhat anachronistically, for it relies somewhat on an understanding of more modern political processes. Syme’s characterisation also suffers the same criticism for it seems very much informed by the ferment of 1930s Europe, where Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini dominated the stage. As a consequence, Syme is unapologetically Republican in sentiment, using Tacitus very much as a base and such bias in his assumptions makes one question them. Furthermore, the serious problems that his reliance on prosopography presents are difficult to overcome. The nature of the method as being based on very limited evidence, in scope and possibly number, and also the “mechanical” interpretations that reading prosopography laterally provides have called Syme’s reliance on it into question. These criticisms are quite strong, and as such they make Syme’s conception of an Augustan Party quite weak. In this sense the use of the term “Augustan Party” is certainly not useful, for they make understanding Augustan politics even more difficult than they may be initially. In some respects, though, Syme’s use of the term has been resolutely useful. Much of this reasoning lies in the fact that Syme’s work has been so influential that even in parts where he errs, the sheer fact that he unapologetically posited a theory on the topic has forced the hand of historians ever since to truly think about Augustan politics. It’s been remarked that:

“a classic work is a classic precisely because of its lasting value and its ability to offer at least partial answers to questions that one would not originally foresee” [Galsterer, pg.2].

That sentiment seems very apt when applied to Syme’s work. It’s a testament to how important, and indeed how useful, his use of the term “Augustan Party” is when discussion over it is being set as an essay – almost some seventy years since the book was initially released in 1939. In this respect, then, it’s very easy to consider the “Augustan Party” a useful term, for it has spurned discussion over the intricacies of Augustan politics no end. In concluding, then, it seems that the answer is, as with all elements of Augustan Rome, not entirely simple. In some aspects the term is not useful at all, and indeed is quite misleading, however in another it is vastly useful, stimulating fervent discussion. Thus, the only conclusion I can come to in reference to the departure question is that it’s a little useful and a little misleading, and in some ways that dichotomy altogether renders itself quite useful in the scope of Roman historiography.

_________________

Bibliography:

Ancient:

Cassius Dio, “Roman History”

Suetonius, “Life of Vespasian” in his "Lives of the Caesars"

Modern:

Bowerstock, G, “The Emperor of Roman History”, New York Review of Books (1980) pp.8-13

Comber, M, a review of Luce, T.J and Woodman, A.J, “Tacitus and Tacitean tradition”, Journal of Roman Studies (1996) pp.214-215

Galsterer, H, “Syme’s Roman Revolution after 50 years”, in “Between Republic and Empire”, Ed. Raaflaub, K.A and Toher, M, Oxford (1990)

Syme, Ronald, “The Roman Revolution”, Oxford (1939)

Syme, Ronald, “Danubian Papers”, Bucharest (1971)

_________________

On another note, I'm currently reading some work on Classical Athens and the role of the "bad citizen", which I'll post about soon, I hope.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Where Art Thou?

I've recently been watching the HBO/BBC TV series ROME (perhaps for the 6th or 7th time, I must admit), and as I mentioned in my "future plans" post, I intended to discuss the portrayal of Marcus Agrippa and how he differs from the historical Agrippa. Therefore, that is the topic I will discuss today.

I should preface this by saying I very much like Rome. I think it's a well written show, with excellent acting, dialogue and set design. Generally the departure from historical fact does not bother me whatsoever, as I can understand why it's done. One such exception is with the character of Agrippa (played by the Irish actor Allen Leech). My plan here is to list the differences between the character in the TV show and the historical Agrippa (as much as one exists), and then discuss why the writers chose to depict Agrippa as they did.

SO...the differences! There are a great number. First of all, let's consider Agrippa's family. In the TV show both Agrippa and Octavian make mention of his "low plebeian" status. It is conjectured (realistically, I believe) that Agrippa's father was a certain Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, and that they were a family of Equestrian rank.

There is a rather strong focus on Agrippa's low status, as it's used on several occasions to drive forward the narrative. My personal feelings are that it's overemphasised, in order to support the characterisation of Agrippa as a "loyal Lieutenant" and not much else. Plebeian he may be, but he was to ascend to the highest ranks of Roman public life, and he was after all, of sufficient birth to be educated alongside Octavian (which is how they became friends).

Further to this, there is no mention of Agrippa's marriage to Caecilia Pomponia Attica (daughter of Cicero's friend, Atticus) in the early 30s (very much in the shows timeline), and as an offshoot of this there is, of course, no mention of their child born soon after the wedding (Vipsania Agrippina). In the show Agrippa is very much unmarried throughout.

Somewhat related is an affair, depicted in the TV show, between Agrippa and Octavian's sister, Octavia. This is entirely fictional, and serves only as a dramatic device in the show. Although the love affair is finished by Agrippa after Octavian finds out (an example of his being the ultimate Loyal Lieutenant), there are hints that their feelings continue throughout the 30s B.C.E, and again there is no single mention of that fact that the historical Agrippa was both married and a father.

On the topic of his public life, the show, again, fails to mention almost anything. He remains the loyal lieutenant of Octavian, but seems to hold no public office himself. The historical Agrippa entered the Senate as a Tribune of the Plebs (perhaps 43.B.C.E), and served both as Consul (37.B.C.E) and Aedile (33.B.C.E) during the timeline represented by the show, but he is not shown to explicitly hold any of these offices.

On the topic of his character and his abilities, again the character of the TV show differs greatly from the historical Agrippa. It's a well documented fact that Agrippa was an excellent General, and it was through his leadership that Octavian and his armies could establish sole control over Rome. At Mutina, and more specifically Actium, it is Agrippa's military genius that won the day. In the show, he is seen briefly at Mutina, and he's nowhere near Actium (the only mention of him is by a newsreader in Rome reporting the battle).

Agrippa as a great General is barely seen in the TV show, and one must ponder why (more on this later). A few fleeting mentions to his celebrated military talents are all he gets.

The difference in character is perhaps the most striking thing of all, however. The historical Agrippa, through virtue of his accomplishments, was a commanding General, respected and forceful magistrate and strong leader. The Agrippa on the TV show, is rather meek, somewhat bumbling, a little insecure and nothing more than a loyal servant of Octavian. It's also difficult to escape the notion that he's also a little "boyish", in both manner and appearance.

On the topic of the later, Allen Leech does not strike the same robust figure that the busts of Agrippa suggest that he was. While this is not necessarily a hindrance (James Purefoy is not the bull-like man Antony is said to have been, but he plays the role superbly), in combination with the meekness of the portrayal, it's hard to ever believe that the character is Agrippa.

Given the legion of differences, I now ask the question: why?

The matter of Agrippa's family is perhaps the easiest to answer. The series omits many historical figures for the sake of simplicity and smoothness of narrative (Crassus, although dead when the series begins, is never mentioned, Octavia's husband Claudius Marcellus, and their three children, are never never seen, Brutus' wives are never seen - Claudia Pulchra, nor Porcia Catonis, and these are just some of the many historical figures not in the show).

Given the immense complexity of Roman families, allegiances, marriages and so on, it's quite reasonable to expect, for the sake of a cohesive story, that many of them will never appear. Agrippa's family is never mentioned primarily because they were considered "extra". They do not serve the storyline and would therefore just confuse matters, and so they were omitted.

The affair with Octavia was invented for similar reasons, I think. This time is does serve the story (it's dramatic and when Octavian finds out it helps give him leverage in forcing Mark Antony to leave Rome, for Octavia was his wife and she was cheating on him with a "low born Pleb").

As regards Agrippa's public career, his offices are never mentioned for a few reasons. The foremost is that Agrippa plays the role of Lieutenant, and in most cases he's simply an advisor to Octavian, in that respect the character needs no office of his own, for he's not the focus. In most ways it doesn't matter what office Agrippa holds, for his role in the TV show remains the same.

Further to this, is that the second season (the timeline when Agrippa would hold the offices of Tribune of the Plebs, Consul and Aedile) plays thick and fast with history - the many events of the early 30s and squashed or skimmed over somewhat, and so Agrippa's consulship and activities of this time are given short thrift.

The character's lack of great military abilities can also be partly explained in this way. Many of Agrippa's achievements are not mentioned in the show - it basically goes from Caesar's murder, through Philippi and then jumps very much to the later 30s and the struggle between Octavian and Antony near it's conclusion. Agrippa's defeat of Sextus Pompeius in the seas around Italy, as well as his time fighting the Germanic tribes while Governor of Transalpine Gaul are never mentioned - and so there is no opportunity to focus on his military acumen, other than brief mentions after Mutina and Actium (which are relegated from importance because the series cares more for Octavian/Antony and their power struggle than what the "Loyal Lieutenant" Agrippa is up to.

Related to this is why he's depicted as a somewhat meek and bumbling character. Without need for focus on his military achievements, but unable to really remove him from the picture, what role can Agrippa really play? The only answer is really that of advisor, and so immediately he's relegated from the status of the historical Agrippa. Again, though, why so meek? I have a few ideas, but it's still not especially obvious.

Perhaps most obviously, he plays a lover to Octavia, and his bumbling "I would tear down the skies if you asked me to" act allows a certain amount of sympathy to be felt for him, and as a consequence the love affair. He is acutely aware of his lower status throughout the relationship, and this is brought to the fore when it's used to coerce Mark Antony into leaving Rome. In essence, he plays a character who knows his social position and has no ideas beyond his station.

Another idea I've considered is that the character was designed to play foil to Gaius Maecenas, as they both advise Octavian (Maecenas being the darker, more inclined to lies style of advisor and Agrippa the excessively loyal and honest type). I'm not sure how much mileage this idea has, but I think it's valid enough.

After discussing it with my girlfriend a little, she made the interesting observation that Agrippa is required to fill the role as the only "purely nice and honest" character in the show. This may be a case when the most obvious solution is the best one, and as a mode for explaining the very different Agrippa it works very well.

Overall, I think his meekness is a result of his role in the show (a fiercely loyal and honest Lieutenant, not equal to Octavian) and the need for him to be a sympathetic character in both his love for Octavia (a women well above his social status, and he knows it) and his contrast to the more nefariously depicted Maecenas as advisor(s) to Octavian.

It's worth at this point conceding that the creator of the show (Bruno Heller) never intended the show to be 100% historically accurate, but that the aim was to show:

"Much more about how the psychology of the characters affects history rather than simply following the history as we know it".

In this respect, Agrippa is merely a facet of this. He is changed so considerably so that the character's psychology may fit the requirements of the narrative. To me, the change is so drastic, and it's perhaps simply a result of there being too many other psychologies driving the show forward, and so Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was changed so that his could fit in somewhere.

The show's historical advisor, Johnathan Stamp, adds that the series was more about "authenticity" than "accuracy", but I think in the case of Agrippa especially neither category is fulfilled. The character is definitely not an accurate portrayal of the historical Agrippa, but accuracy has not been sacrificed and authenticity retained, for there is nothing authentic about the character of Agrippa in the show - he's almost pure creation.

I should say that I'm not altogether annoyed by the character of Agrippa in the show (historical accuracy does not always need to be the primary aim of such shows), but simply that I find the vast difference between the character and the historical figure to be curious, and so I was interested in exploring those differences and the reasons for them. In actual fact, I rather like Allen Leech as an actor, and the role of the "new" Agrippa is actually rather likeable in most ways.

I also think it's wise to realise that this small analysis is tainted by the notion that it's impossible to know the "real" Agrippa anyway, and that perhaps commenting on his character is a false enterprise from the off. Nevertheless, I think the historical Agrippa we can infer, grasp or leap at is so substantially different form the character of the TV show, that this endeavour remains thoroughly worth it.

In summing up, I think all I can say is that the driving force behind writing this article was the feeling that the character Agrippa is just not Agrippa. One conjures an image of all classical figures that is quite unique (the Caesar in my mind may be different from the one in in yours, and this in turn is hugely important in the "reception" of historical figures), and so my Agrippa, based on my studies of him and the period more generally, mixed with my own imagination, leads me to believe nothing but the conclusion that "this" Agrippa is an imposter.

Two events of note...

On the 24th of August 79.C.E Mount Vesuvius erupted, sealing the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum (among others) under volcanic ash, essentially "pausing" everyday Roman life, which would give us, almost some 2000 years later (1748), one of our most important windows into Roman society. It's difficult to overestimate how important they are to us.

Among the victims was the Elder Pliny, writer of the huge Natural History encyclopedia. Interestingly his nephew, Pliny the Younger (a prolific letter writer) wrote a letter to his friend, Tacitus, detailing the events of that day and his uncle's activities, which has survived. Conventionally numbered Letter 6.16, it ends with the rather haunting line:

"When daylight returned on the 26th—two days after the last day he had seen—his body was found intact and uninjured, still fully clothed and looking more like sleep than death".

August 24th (this time in 410. C.E) was also the date in which Alaric the Goth sacked Rome, setting the Western Empire ever more on it's doomed path. It had been almost 800 years since Rome had been subdued, causing St. Jerome to say (in a letter labelled Letter CXXVII):

"My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance. The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken".

His words here go somewhere to explaining the magnitude of these events. Rome - traditionally founded in 753 .B.C.E, Master of the world from at least the mid 2nd Century, had fallen.

Arguably the latter event is the more important for where we find ourselves now, but I wonder how many people know of Pompeii, but couldn't say when the Western Empire fell, or who was behind it.

Interestingly, Vesuvius is getting some news coverage, while the sack of Rome gets very little.

On This Day: Vesuvius Erupts.

I should note that the exact date of Vesuvius' eruption is still up for debate. August 24th is usually the accepted date, but some varying versions of Pliny's letter, and also some archeological evidence (clothes, among other things) suggest it was somewhat later - perhaps as much as two months.

Lucan's "Pharsalia".

The following is an (almost) unedited essay written during the honours years of my masters. The topic is Lucan's "epic" poem Pharsalia, which covers the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. The focus of the essay (the set question, in actual fact) was as follows:

“What difficulties do you think Lucan faced in writing an epic on recent history and how well do you think he coped with them?”

Generally speaking, I still quite like the essay, although re-reading it, I'm not all that convinced I answered the question specifically, but rather gave a summary of scholarship on the topic. In that respect it's not an exceptionally original piece, but I do recall giving it some serious thought, and the Pharsalia remains one of my favourite works of literature from the classical world.

Despite some faults (which I've decided not to rectify), I think it's an interesting topic, and my short essay goes someway to discussing it.


___________________________


The difficulties that faced Lucan in the conception and production of his Civil War were, to my mind, legion. Writing a little more than a century after the civil war fought between Caesar and Pompey, Lucan would be presented with the problem of crafting a work of rhetorical ars about such a well known, pivotal and relatively recent period of history. If and how Lucan reconciled art with historical fact is the subject of this short essay.

It is my hope to summarise at least some of the quandaries Lucan faced in crafting his epic poem and to generate a personal opinion on how well he dealt with them. To do this I intend to utilise modern scholarship, which, given the indecisive nature of Lucan and how to conceive him (artist? Rhetorician?), is at times problematic. Nevertheless, I believe wandering the minefield of theories and perhaps never finding an ideal one brings one closer to the poem, a mode of understanding I hope will become clear as this essay progresses.

One of the most obvious problems Lucan encountered would be how to write an epic - not a historical treatise - on such a recent period of history and one so well known, no less. Reconciling his artistic vision with historical fact would be a major hurdle.

Frederick Ahl in his excellent work Lucan: An Introduction posits the idea that Lucan overcomes this problem with the simple but elegant solution of sticking to the history (Ahl, pg.71). Ahl understands Lucan’s narrative as following the history for a reason, namely that his adherence to historical fact gives his non-historical embellishments (such as his characterisation and unique rhetorical colouring of events) some force (Ahl, pg.70).

Ahl goes on to say that Lucan makes the decision not to dispute the history to suit his ends because he has other avenues available that allow him to retain his vision. Ahl believes that Lucan uses an exploration and embellishment of motive to communicate his message instead. Conceding that he can’t deny history that has became canon to reinforce his pointed message about, for example, Caesar, Lucan can re-examine Caesars internal and personal motives. Doing so allows an air of legitimacy to surround Lucan’s embellishments in his characterisation of Caesar as a destructive force (Ahl, pg.70).

Ahl continues by declaring:

“History is the raw material of the Pharsalia, not its purpose…It allows Lucan to give the semblance of reality to what he describes, a factual underpinning of his vision which makes the vision itself very hard to refute… [It’s] as much a means to an end as is Virgil’s use of myth…Thus Lucan’s rejection of certain epic conventions both enhances the illusion of fidelity to fact and at the same time allows the poet to manipulate fact to his own ends” (Ahl, pg.72)

So for Ahl Lucan is presented with a problem in deciding to write about the civil war, for it is such a recent chunk of history. Furthermore the enormous effect of it has ensured that it remains well known. Colouring this accepted historical narrative with his specific vision was Lucan’s aim and Ahl thinks to do so he retains the historical (public) fact and instead decides to explore the personal (private) motives of his protagonists in order to serve his vision. For example rather than re-telling the battle of Pharsalia with Caesar a monster he makes the internal motives of Caesar speak to his destructiveness and monstrosity.

As a coping mechanism I must concede that this is quite an interesting one and certainly with some merit. Focusing on the motives of his protagonists (which are open to embellishment and conjecture) - instead of the changing the history to explain how destructive the civil war was and how the evils of Caesar and the ineffectiveness of Pompey that lead to it - is an intelligent strategy. Given the overwhelming portrait of civil war as unnatural and monstrous without any absolute departures from historical fact apparent in the civil war it seems fair to understand Lucan as overcoming this particular problem quite well.

There are, however, some parts of the text where Lucan embellishes the history. The necromancy of book 6 for example serves a literary purpose but lacks a historical basis. It’s clear he uses this prophetic narrative for a purpose - to hint at the future - and in doing so doesn’t deny the history but rather festoons it with artistic force and verve - all ultimately to serve his purpose.

It can be charged that he manipulated his historical characters to fit his ends, making them essentially of his own invention. To counter this I feel Ahl would say something along the lines of he wasn’t denying the historical characters but rather focusing his attention on one aspect of their personas - Caesars malevolence, Pompey’s indecision in the face of it and the moral fortitude of Cato. Doing this allows him to create characters in his vision that have roots in historical fact - a parallel use of characterisation to fit his purposes. I think this is a nice move from Lucan - he can simultaneously confirm the historical Caesar - or an aspect of him - while fashioning his own credible version.

Related to my preceding point, but a bit more pragmatic, is the question of how Lucan could keep the reader interested in something so well known long enough to communicate his bleak vision?

His primary mode of overcoming this is his use of apostrophe, paradoxical epigrams and literary stalling. Susan Braund in her introduction to her translation of the work explains Lucan’s use of delay or obstacle (Braund, pg.47). She uses the opening to the poem as an example, arguing that the criticism Lucan receives for the constant reiteration and paraphrasing of Civil War is Bad in the introduction is invalid for the stalling provided by such use of language is exactly the desired effect. Forcing pause gives the reader a reason to consider what Lucan is saying and to feel its impact more roundly.

Similarly, as Braund continues, his use of paradoxical maxims such as the infamous “mighty structures collapse in on themselves” (Lucan, 1.81) force pause and reflection. As she concludes: “Lucan uses this technique to make the audience stop and confront the issue. He has no interest in wafting us swiftly, mellifluously along” (Braund, pg.48).

This stalling pervades his use of imagery to: “Rising from the ocean more slowly than eternal law summoned him” (Lucan, 7.1). Here the slow dawning of the sun symbolises Lucan’s desire for the reader to stop and consider the coming horrors - in this case the Battle of Pharsalus. M.P.O Morford in The Poet Lucan: Studies in Rhetorical Epic agrees with Braund’s assessment of Lucan’s use of apostrophe, in particular emphasising its rhetorical basis (Morford, pg.70).

I think this conflict between epic story and Lucan’s desire for us to truly think about it - between stalling and telling, so to speak - further symbolises the poem as civil war itself - something I intend to talk about later and a line of argument supported by Jamie Masters in his Poetry and Civil War in Lucan’s Bellum Civile.

Arguably this may be modern deconstructionist folly but I still consider it an attractive argument. In providing a vision of the civil war that reflects the history but forces a reappraisal of it on his own terms Lucan as succeeded in tangling with recent history through epic to quite some degree.

How to grapple with this epic tradition was yet another problem that Lucan had to overcome. With Virgil having set the standard of epic how was Lucan to deal with this ideal?

Given his pervading motif that the civil war was a human fault and its responsibility was mans, using the Gods as a mechanism for propelling his narrative was troublesome because human responsibility becomes diminished. Furthermore, unlike Virgil, Lucan deals with the recent past and this presented the question of how he could insert Gods into a historical narrative so close in chronology to himself and so far away from the age of myth that Virgil wrote about?

The short answer is that he removes them completely. That is to say he removes the divine machinery that normally permeates epic and instead leaves the emphasis for moral responsibility on human shoulders rather than simply the will of the Gods. Indeed the civil war is famously bereft of any divine machinations. Ahl argues that Lucan “had to expel the Olympians from Pharsalia to achieve the picture he desired, to bring moral issues to the foreground” (Ahl, pg.69).

W.R Johnson in the interesting study Momentary Monsters also considers Lucan’s ejection of the Gods as skilful and required (Johnson, pg.9). Ahl and Johnson reach a point of collusion in that they both consider Lucan’s heavy use of fate and fortune as a replacement for the Gods (Ahl, pg295; Johnson, pg.16-17).

Ahl interprets the use of fate and fortune as a way to explore moral positions (Ahl, pg.295). With the Gods now gone the narrative of history can be attributed to men. As the characters make choices to court fate/fortune or surrender to them then we glimpse their moral interior. For example, Caesar willingly courts fortune making the moral choice his and the responsibility for the consequences his too.

I’m not sure how much to trust in Ahl’s assessment here. Even if Caesar is to court fate or fortune the moral decision still seems somewhat external to him as fate is immutable. It’s almost as if Ahl’s argument seems sound but becomes shaky when the difficult notion of fate is introduced. Nevertheless the basic argument remains an attractive one to me even if it becomes bogged down at points.

A more solid, I think, approach comes from Johnson. He too considers fate and fortune as replacing the tradition divine machinery of epic but considers the effect of doing so to be slightly different.

Johnson posits the theory that Lucan replaces the divine machinery with a broken machine (Johnson, pg.16-17). This broken machine is Lucan’s confusing use of fate and fortune. Johnson believes that Lucan has no set system for the two, indeed they remain as liquid throughout the poem.

Johnson uses an example from book two to illustrate his point:

“..and bound himself in fates eternal chain; or whether fickle fortune leads the dance; nothing is fixed and all things come by chance”

Johnson asks if fate can be lead by fortune and if chance rules all the how are we to conceive of fate and fortune? He concludes that the poem contains “an erratic, violent feeling that oscillates between the two poles of fortune and fate and finds no equilibrium” (Johnson, pg.8).

Johnson considers this conflict central to the poem, arguing that it is symbolic of the poem as a civil war itself: it is unsure which side to pick and what definitions to go for and as a consequence is torn by the two (Johnson, pg.16-17).

I find Johnson’s argument quite remarkable. Perhaps it is to wander in with the goggles of modern scholarship but the explanation of Lucan’s dropping of the Gods out of necessity and replacing them with such an eloquent but paradoxically discordant system renders itself quite believable to me.

That said, dropping the Gods from the epic equation still leaves Lucan with some other problems. Ahl argues that the rejection of the Gods means that Lucan is left with no traditional way of explaining the natural forces, nor how his characters take on certain moral tones and traits based upon their grappling with them.

Ahl continues by using the example of Cato in the desert in book nine as an illustration of the problems this causes. Lucan needs to stress the Herculean stoicism of Cato as a foil to the overwhelming destructive force that is Caesar and so he must find a method that excludes the Gods. For example, Cato cannot battle a dragon or a serpent to display his virtue for this use of myth would undermine Lucan’s seemingly apparent aim of making the civil war the full responsibility of man.

Ahl suggests that Lucan’s answer in putting Cato under the peril of snakes, and how his virtue eventually ensures he lives, is a little contrived, he claims that they were “real enough to have zoological names [but] fanciful enough to be preposterous” (Ahl, pg.74). In other words: just a little too much fantastic for the tone Ahl detects elsewhere in the poem.

Ahl believes that Lucan has fallen between two extremes (Ahl, pg.72). In annihilating the divine propaganda of Caesar (divine heritage etc) and rejecting the Gods from his epic he’s caught in a catch 22. This is because he can’t use such techniques to elevate Cato. So he deals with the problems posed by having no Gods, but it’s not perfect. The snake episode reads as a little forced.

So it seems to me that Lucan’s rejection of the Gods as an answer to the problem of how to lay responsibility for the war at the feet of men works in some respects for his epic, but not in others. Although Ahl concedes that Lucan usually overcomes the hurdles of having no Gods (Ahl, pg.74), he still occasionally fumbles. As he was bucking a well established tradition I think it’s not unrespectable to say that his inventiveness is occasionally a little flat.

Although this short essay means much must be excluded there is another theory I wish to discuss: that of Jamie Masters in his Poetry and Civil War in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Masters put forward the - intrinsically modern - theory that Lucan dealt with his subject matter by allowing his poem to be consumed by it. That is to say: the civil war becomes civil war and in that sense Lucan transcends the problem of writing about such recent history by recreating it in the present of the text.

Masters thinks that Ahl has smoothed over Lucan’s politics a little too much and see the poem as a little more jagged. He construes it as about civil war but also a civil war itself (Masters, pg.10). He considers Lucan fraught with allegiances that give rise to conflict within the text.

Masters claims that “Lucan is Caesarean in his ambition but Pompeian in his remorse. The Pompeian in him condemns Caesar but the Caesar in him condemns - kills - Pompey” (Masters, pg.10).

Masters figures this conflict as being illustrated by Lucan’s ambition to tell the story of a bloody civil war (in this analogy, the Caesar) yet reluctant to explore it - fond of apostrophe and weak in the face of evil (the Pompey) (Masters, pg.10).

So, in essence Lucan responds to dealing with recent history by playing it out metaphorically within his epic.

It’s a challenging theory that Masters submits, for sure. The problem I have with it is that it is quite blatant in its reading between the lines, so to speak. It puts motive and purpose into Lucan that is perhaps not as evident as Masters would like. Nonetheless it’s an interesting idea and if we accept it as being Lucan’s aim then it’s quite masterful as a technique to overcome the problems of writing epic on such a recent period of history. Whether to tow this line or merely consider it a product of modern scholarship imposed on Lucan I’m genuinely unsure.

Shadi Bartsch in the study Ideology in Cold Blood: a Reading of Lucan’s Civil War, raises the point that more modern scholars tend to ascribe the belief to Lucan that his civil war was civil war and that the poem, for them “preserves the unconventional premises of its subject matter: evil without alternative; contradiction without compromise; civil war without end” (Masters, pg.259, Bartsch, pg.6-7).

In essence this school of thought considers Lucan to have no ideology, making him a sort of nihilist. Whether to believe this or the other side Bartsch mentions is a difficult question for they believe he has an ideology: that man is at fault for the civil war. Like much with Lucan the conflict here is difficult to resolve. Bartsch thinks trying to understand the poem through a juxtaposition of these two ideas is the way forward (Bartsch, pg.7).

I think sitting on the fence is a sensible position here, despite my thoughts that the latter camp seems the more attractive owing to the problems posed by deconstructionist modern scholarship (I think it imposes a will upon Lucan that I can’t comfortably agree with). Nevertheless, I think adopting either position still render Lucan an able manipulator of his troublesome subject matter.

These, then, are some of the main problems I believe Lucan encountered in writing about the civil war. To the greater extent I consider him to have coped with them quite well. He grappled with recent history by sticking to it and exercising his puppetry of his characters behind the scenes, in the realms of motive and morality, to communicate his vision. In the process he pragmatically dispensed of any epic tradition that couldn’t accommodate him - the rejection of the Gods being an example.

Johnson argues this problem (or criticism) of rejecting epic tradition comes primarily from the fact that Lucan is not Vergil (Johnson, pg.85) and indeed “epic changed in terms” (Johnson, pg.87). In Johnson’s eyes flying in the face of epic convention is not strictly a problem for Lucan as it was a required step, not a fault. Nevertheless I think he overcomes the problems it still poses quite well. I believe it best to agree with Ahl when he says “successes outnumber failures” (Ahl, pg.74) and consider Lucan’s ability to cope with writing an epic on recent history resilient, steely and, in general terms, quite successful.

_____________________

Relevant bibliography:

Ancient:

Lucan, "Pharsalia", alt.title: "The Civil War", trans. Braund, Susan, H, Oxford (1999)

Modern:

Ahl, F, "Lucan: an Introduction", Ithaca (1976)

Bartsch, S, "Ideology in Cold Blood: A Reading of Lucan’s Civil War" Harvard (1997)

Johnson, W.R, "Momentary Monsters", Ithaca (1997)

Masters, J, "Poetry and Civil War in Lucan’s Bellum Civile", Cambridge (1992)

Morford, M.P.O, "The Poet Lucan: Studies in Rhetorical Epic", Oxford (1967)