About Ancient / Classical History

428 A.D.

2009-07-05T08:24:34Z

As Princeton University Press' press release says, 428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire, by Giusto Traina, is "a sweeping tour of the Mediterranean world from the Atlantic to Persia" in which the reader meets several important figures of the last half-century of the Roman Empire in the West.

428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire starts with Traina's current main interest, Armenia, which had just lost its independence by forcing out the last king. Armenia, a Christian country, was now part of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire rather that the Christian Roman one. This allowed Christianity to spread further east, providing future refuge for Christians who didn't believe what Rome and Constantinople mandated, but that's in the future. For the Roman Empire, 428 is not much of a pivotal year, but a lot was happening and interesting people making news. Simeon Stylite was credited with producing miracle cures from his increasingly high pedestal -- making the reader wonder how he performed basic functions since the pinnacle was too tiny even to sit. The Sassanid Persian king of the time was the legendary, powerful Bahram V, known as the Onager, who may have made deals with the tribes besetting the Roman Empire. Two powerful Roman women, Pulcheria and Galla Placidia, exerted their influence, bringing the very capable Aetius to the political forefront, which is connected to what I especially appreciated in 428 A.D. -- the integration of the Vandal sack of north Africa into the flow of migrations and Roman imperial policy.

The idea of covering a year intently is a great one. It's on the order of television series that show the interconnection between myriad, seemingly unrelated events. However, if you're looking for earth-shaking events in the Roman Empire, you might prefer another year.

The book is a translation of a 2007 Italian edition (428 dopo Cristo. Storia di un anno). There were several places where I wish my Italian were good enough to check the references. Sometimes I wasn't sure which "Empire" was under discussion, and at other times, I couldn't follow the play of pronouns.

Macedonians, Slavs, and Greeks

2009-07-03T08:49:06Z

Alexander the Great Mosaic
Public Domain

The question of whether Alexander the Great was a Greek still stirs up controversy today. Mary Beard has written about it in her Times Online column, A Don's Life: Was Alexander the Great a Slav?. The contention that Slavs were Macedonians is only one of the issues Beard takes to task -- one that seems far simpler to answer. As to the Macedonian=Greek equation, as Beard indicates, there is a substantial following among Classicists who make that connection. Mary calls the founding story of the Macedonians from the Argives a myth.
What do you think?

Don't Be Insulted When Someone Calls You...

2009-07-02T22:13:13Z

CC Flickr User themonnie

... an ass. Just assume your would-be detractor is saying you're a wild one, known as an onager. One of the renowned Sassanid Great Kings, Bahram V was known as Bahram the Onager. As Giusto Traina explains in 428 AD, the epithet signified that Bahram was powerful and great, because the onager itself was the fastest animal in the desert and could produce such intense bursts of speed that when the Greeks invented a siege machine that launched large stones, they named it the onager (according to Traina).

I think it was actually the Romans (before those living in the Roman Empire might be known as Greeks) who named the device onager. If you have more information about this device of siege warfare, please post in the comments.

This Day in Ancient History - Valentinian III

2009-07-02T08:55:57Z

On this day in 419, the future Roman Emperor Valentinian III was born in Ravenna, the capital of the Western Empire [see Rome]. The most noteworthy event in his life was the invasion of Africa by the Vandals. Valentinian was only 10 at the time, but he'd already been emperor for a few years. Valentinian's life was dominated by two major figures, his mother Galla Placidia, and his Master of the Soldiers, Aetius.

Wordless Wednesday - The Delphic Oracle

2009-07-02T08:56:27Z

Temple of Apollo at Delphi
CC Flickr User borderlys

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday

The Silk Road Combined Trade, Adventure, and Culture

2009-06-29T22:28:44Z

To me the Silk Road conjures up a Hollywood image of spitting camels, tents folding up in the sand storm, mirages of oases, and luxury goods worth murdering for. Crossing the desert with only a vague idea of where the next source of water is takes a brave soul today, but before overhead planes, cellphones, and decent maps, it must have been even more intimidating. I suppose that's most of why I find the silk road -- even up to the time of Marco Polo in A.D. 1280 -- fascinating. But there is more. Recent books lead me to believe that the great Steppe nomads bred with locals, adapting a creole that became the Indo-European languages of Europe, the Mediterranean, and India. Through their dependence on horses and the war chariot, the nomads may have carried their idea of writing even further -- all the way to China. This language traffic was done along the roads used for trade, since the Scythian warlords could hope to buy the loyalty of their followers with exotic presents. In addition to trade and language, the traffic running from roughly Syria to Afghanistan to India to China allowed the very different people to share other aspects of their culture, including those little "bugs" that lead to pandemics. Read more about the Silk Roads.

Taklamakan Desert along the Silk Road CC Kiwi Mikex at Flickr.com

How to Say Someone Kicked the Bucket in Latin

2009-06-30T08:22:32Z

Just as it's inappropriate to wish an actor good luck before going onstage -- instead, you tell him to break a leg -- so we have many other speech taboos and semi-taboos. Instead of saying "God be with you" we use the euphemism "Good-Bye". I don't know know whether this is because of a taboo against taking the Lord's name in vain or something else, but our language is sprinkled with these niceties. Rarely do people confront one another with the stark fact that someone died. Instead, you may hear so-and-so "passed" or "passed away." With the recent spate of celebrity deaths, a list on my site has achieved some popularity, perhaps because people are looking for novel ways to say that FF, MJ, etc. have died. I refer to a list of Roman ways to say someone died: Latin Death Words.

Also see:

In the ancient world there were many memorable deaths. Attitudes towards death were probably as varied as they are today. Suicide was an accepted Stoic noble way out, which certainly seems preferable to some of the other horrible, violent deaths like the multiple-stabbing assassination of Caesar, crucifixion, and the pouring of molten metal down someone's throat. Among the more peaceful, but not literally Stoic (like that of Seneca), was that of Socrates. Although given the then equivalent of a lethal injection, a cup of poison hemlock, Socrates died giving comfort to those around him and asking that an odd personal debt be paid on his behalf. Jowett's translation of Plato's Apology tells what Socrates said to those friends who would very soon witness his death:

Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again.

We'd probably couple Socrates with Homer in that list.

Some Messy Deaths:

Photo of Socrates CC Alun Salt at Flickr.com

Chat About Horace

2009-06-27T16:05:01Z

Maecenas
PD Horace, by Wm Tuckwell (1829-1919). London: G. Bell & sons. 1905.

The next Roman History Book Chat is scheduled for July 1, 2009. Chat details are in the forum, but the discussion will focus on the work of the poet Horace, using English translations. One of the important people in Horace's life was his patron, something I imagine a lot of modern writers wish they had. There were two main patrons of the arts during the age of Augustus, but the one who helped Horace was Maecenas. To those familiar with Agrippa and the help he provided Augustus in his rise to power, Maecenas should also be familiar, since he was there, too, fighting in battles and serving Augustus' interests back at home. Maecenas is said to have advised Augustus to make Agrippa his son-in-law. Maecenas also wrote Latin literature, although probably not very well.

Why Name an OS After Loki?

2009-06-25T20:18:48Z

According to Appleinsider's Apple naming Leopard point release after ancient gods, Loki is the name of the next release of OS X (10.5.8.). The last ancient deity to be invoked to serve Apple's purposes was Juno. That makes sense. Juno is a majestic goddess. In Rome, she's even associated with keeping money safe (see Juno Moneta), so she seems a good choice, but Loki? He's a trickster god. Isn't that just asking for trouble?

Marble Titus Head Found

2009-06-25T12:53:59Z

CC Flickr User euthman

A 2nd century A.D. marble head of the Roman Emperor Titus was found by archaeologists outside of Naples, at a site near Pozzuoli. The photo of the newly discovered marble head shown in MSNBC's article, Marble head of Emperor Titus found, is missing its nose, has a dented eyebrow, and is wearing a laurel crown.

Titus ruled the Roman Empire at the time of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in the summer of A.D. 79, and for another 2 years beyond. For those familiar with the Robert Harris novel about Pompeii, it may seem slightly ironic that the head of Titus was found in an ancient water tunnel. The article comments that the emperor was very generous with Vesuvius survivors.

Map with arrows pointing to Rome and Naples, from Italy - Reference Map of Ancient Italy, Southern Part. From The Historical Atlas, by William R. Shepherd, 1911.