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Title
Pub. Date
Duration
A Campaign in No Way Memorable
07 août 2025
00:56:04
392 BCE, the year that went down in history for “a campaign in no way memorable”. Ah, that Livy, he paints quite a picture, doesn’t he?
All About the Consuls
The campaign in question involved our consuls for the year. Yep, consuls! The plebeians were still in a blissful mood after receiving some of the land from Veii in the previous year and so they didn’t fight for military tribunes.
The consuls took care of a few domestic matters, such as holding the Great Games promised by Camillus during the siege against Veii and dedicating the temple to Juno (another of Camillus’ promises).
Once the gods had been satisfied, the Romans were off to fight the Aequians at Mount Algidus in the titular “campaign in no way memorable.” Come on Aequians, put up a proper fight! The decisive victory (and possible capture of the city of Liphoecua) earned the consul Valerius a triumph as he slaughtered so many of the fleeing enemy. His colleague, Manlius, was given the lesser honour of an ovation. Guess he didn’t kill as many men who were running away in terror! You can’t reward that kind of behaviour in Ancient Rome.
Kicking the Romans when they were really down
War found the Romans again in 392, this time with the Etruscan people of Volsinii and the Sappinates (which we presume was near Volsinii). The Romans could not respond with their typical vigour as they were hit by a horrific plague. Famine and pestilence were rampant in their part of the world, thanks to drought and a heatwave. These are the same environmental crises and disease mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus for the previous year, which goes to show how the dating for this period is a tad confused.
With the Romans too ill to fight, they send angry messages to their new enemies that they will get their revenge… just as soon as they can stop vomiting.
Good Censors are like Waffles
No one was immune from the pestilence. Censors had been elected in 393 BCE, but now one of those elected, Gaius Julius, died in office and was replaced with Marcus Cornelius. Spoiler alert, but we are only a couple of years away from the Gallic sack of Rome. This happened in the same lustrum as events such as the death of Gaius Julius. Livy asserts that the way he was replaced caused issues with the gods, and that the Romans would ensure the partner of deceased stepped down from office and two brand new colleagues would be placed in office in the future. This may not be accurate, but it certainly shows that the Romans were committed to the idea of collegiality.
The Scourge of the Plague
When the consuls also fell ill, they decided the Romans needed some fresh auspices. It was time for an interregnum! The consuls stepped down from office, and power was shared amongst the interreges until military tribunes with consular power were elected.
We know what you’re thinking – why interreges? This was a position created to deal with the transfer of powers between kings. It’s interesting that the Romans continue to use this position long into the Republic. The last time we saw interreges was only a few years earlier in 396 BCE.
We do mention a couple of Latin terms in this episode, so here is your handy glossary in case you need it!
· The pomerium – the sacred boundary of the city. This was religious in nature. The pomerium set the bounds within which the auspices could be taken.
· Reference to the lustrum – a lustratio was a purification ceremony. The lustrum condere was conducted at the end of a census by one of the censors.
Cleopatra was released in 1963 and has gone on to herald the end of the golden age of the historical epic in Hollywood. Known as one of the most expensive films to ever be made, its troubled production and the on screen connection between Taylor and Burton have both cemented its place in cinematic history.
A Troubled Production
We have a look at some of the issues that led to production delays and there were a lot! From tricky weather conditions, Taylor’s health troubles, to issues with the script, there wasn’t an issue that this film didn’t face in the journey to release. Dr Rad delves into the details of the factors that influenced the production including:
the monetary problems
the challenges into Twentieth Century Fox in this period
the increasing pressure to write and shoot for Mankiewicz
and Taylor’s public aura in the early 1960s
A Foray into Roman and Egyptian History
The historical pedigree of Cleopatra is based on a few different sources including credit given to Plutarch, Appian, and Suetonius! The impetus for the film was also based on the book published in 1957, The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero. There’s a depth of references throughout the film that have support in the ancient sources. Dr G considers:
the representation of Ptolemy and his advisors
The divided representation of Cleopatra as a savvy politician and a seductress
The burning of the library of Alexandria
The history of where Alexander the Great’s body ends up after death
Things to listen out for
The life and significance of Caesarion
The importance of Mankiewicz in bringing this project to life
Shifting to French hours
What’s up with Mithridates?
Caesar’s winding journey through the Mediterranean
We’re still in the year 394 BCE and we’ve seen Camillus has had a run in with the Falsican Schoolmaster. In this episode we move on further into the action of 394 BCE and look at 393 BCE as well. Is Camillus learning how to keep a low profile? He is praised from his success over the Faliscans and he doesn’t rush for a triumph this time. But the challenge remains, that Camillus’ forgotten vow to Apollo might be about to bite him on the bottom.
A fateful voyage!
Rome is pretty intent on fulfilling Camillus’ forgotten vow to Apollo and this means a boat trip is in order. But sailing to Greece is not for the faint hearted, especially when you have such precious cargo as a golden bowl in tow. Tune in for adventures on the high sea!
War with the Aequians
The Aequians, a thorn in Rome’s side? Yes indeed. Do our sources agree? Of course not. It’s Diodorus Siculus against Livy, duking it out with Siculus having just a mention of trouble, while Livy comes packing details. We take you through the chaotic details. The conflict centres in the town of Verrugo but watch out for mention of Tusculum as well.
New Year, New You?
It’s time for the Roman census! We also see a return of the consulship in 393 BCE! The tussle about moving some of Rome’s population permanently to Veii is back on the agenda. There’s a faction in favour of a move to Veii and a faction against. Our sources seem to position this as a patrician/plebeian divide, but it might be more confusing or complicated than that.
More Aequians on the Horizon…
Somehow, the Aequian forces, that were absolutely devastated in 394 BCE are BACK baby but their appearance seems only a flash in the pan compared to Rome’s troubles at home. There’s tribunes of the plebs to worry about, factional infighting over what to do about Veii, and some trials to contend with as well. It’s an exhausting time to be in Roman politics! Enter scene right: Camillus… How important was the tribune of the plebs right of veto? The question is raised in Livy’s narrative.
Things to listen out for
Special legates - fancy!
Pirates on the Mediterranean Sea!
A fine of 10, 000 asses!
What’s going on the tribune of the plebs and the veto?
A break from the pattern of the gens? Shock and horror
Livy getting confused?
7 iugera to be allocated to every Roman and provision to procreate
In this episode, we continue to follow the adventures of that most amazing of Romans: Marcus Furius Camillus! This is one of his real shining moments of virtus.
Although the Romans have just conquered Veii, there was tension on those mean city streets. The patricians and plebeians were locked in a disagreement over what they should do with this new territory.
However, Camillus had military matters to attend to. He was placed in charge of subduing Veii’s allies, the Faliscans. This was no easy task as the enemy was well-prepared and the city of Falerii was easily defended.
Camillus was making some headway, but it looked as though this conflict was going to turn into another length siege. Boo!
School for Scandal
Fortune sided with Camillus as the leading school teacher in Falerii decided to betray his people. He was in charge of the children of all the most important families in town, and what better way for kids to get exercise than to be marched right into the Roman camp?
We don’t want to give too much away, but what Camillus does next will make you swoon like a love-sick teen. Oh, and it also gave us our next idea for a T-shirt, so thanks Camillus! You sure are a swell guy!
Our PlayersMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 401, 398, 386, 384, 381
L. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat) Cos. 413, 409, Mil. Tr. c. p. 407, 405, 398, 397, 395, 391
C. Aemilius TI. F. TI. N. Mamercinus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 391
L. Valerius L. f. L. n. Poplicola (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 389, 387, 383, 380
Sp. Postumius – f. – n. Albinus Regillensis (Pat)
P. Cornelius -f. -n (--------) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 397 or 395
[?] Catlus Verus
Tribunes of the Plebs
Q. Pomponius
T. Sicinius
A. Verginius
Legates, Ambassadors
L. Valerius Potitus (Pat) Cos. 393, 392, Mil. Tr. c. p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398
L. Sergius (Fidenas) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 397
A. Manlius (Vulso Capitolinus) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 405, 402, 397
For the uninitiated, Fulvia is one of the more notorious characters from the Late Roman Republic. If you’ve heard of her, it is probably as the wife of Mark Antony – the one he first cheated on with Cleopatra. What an honour.
However, in this episode, you will get to hear why Dr Draycott thinks she is so much more than that. Join us to hear all about Fulvia’s other husbands, her many children and the rhetoric that destroyed her reputation.
Dr Draycott
Dr Jane Draycott is a historian and archaeologist and is currently Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are extensive and include: displays of extraordinary bodies in the ancient world; the depiction of the ancient world in computer games; and domestic medical practice in ancient Rome.
It’s 395 BCE and we explore the events that are the result of the epic year of 396 BCE. The Romans ended 396 BCE on a high with their military success against the southern-most city of the Etruscans, Veii. But is all well in the Roman world? That may depend on which god you talk to…
An incomplete victory?
The defeat of Veii leaves the northern peoples - the Capenates and Faliscans - open to Rome’s wrath. Their resistance to Rome means that war is on Rome’s agenda. This may also explain why we see military tribunes with consular power.
A great time for some Roman colonising?
Despite the threats to the north, Rome seems intent on setting up a new colony down south towards Volscian territory. Does Rome really have the resources to spare for such an endeavour after a ten-year siege and problems north of Veii? Well, historians have some questions about that!
What’s up Apollo?
Camillus’ glorious leadership in taking Veii seems to be undermined by the his vow to Apollo which he had apparently forgotten. This creates real problems as the 10th portion to be offered to Apollo was not collected when the booty was distributed and now people OWE the gods… Will Camillus’ reputation emerge unscathed?
Things to listen out for
Is Veii more attractive to the plebeians than Rome? Scandal!
A proposal to send half of Rome’s population, patricians and plebeians to Veii - a classic case of Porque Lo Nos Dos?
Some very grumpy patricians playing the ‘Romulus’ card
Blaming Titus Sicinius for putting ideas into the plebeians’ heads
Connections with Greek history…
A beautiful golden bowl!
Drama in Sicily including an appearance from Magon the Carthaginian
Our Players Military Tribunes with Consular Power
Publius Cornelius P. f. A. n. Cossus (Pat)
Publius Cornelius - f. -. N. Scipio (Pat)
Kaeso Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat). Previously Military Tribune with Consular Power in 404, 401.
Lucius Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat). Previously Consul in 413, 409 and previously Military Tribune with Consular Power in 407, 405, 398, 397.
Quintus Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat). Previously Military Tribune with Consular Power in 402, 398.
Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Lactucinus Maximus (Pat). Previously Military Tribune with Consular Power 398.
Rounding out our trilogy of special episodes on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, we are joined by gladiator expert, Alexandra Sills.
Alexandra holds a BA in Classical Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London and a MA in The Classical Mediterranean from the University of Leicester. Alexandra’s MA dissertation was awarded the Mark Pluciennik prize in Archaeology & Ancient History. Alexandra has published outreach articles for Bad Ancient and Working Classicists and recently published an academic article entitled ‘The Tropification of Hollywood Heroes Thrown Into the Arena’ forMelita Classicain 2023. Alexandra’s current research focuses on gladiators in the ancient world and their reception on film and television. We’re thrilled to have her on the show to discuss all things gladiators.
We start with a history of the development of the gladiator in the Roman world including:
The Etruscan evolution
The Julius Caesar effect and the subsequent influence of Augustus
The osteo-archaeological evidence for gladiators
Are there things that Gladiator II gets right from the perspective of the ancient evidence? We discuss the possibilities with Alexandra.
Things to listen out for:
The nobility of the screen gladiator versus the infamia of gladiators historically
The contrast between the crowd of spectators in the ancient world and in cinematic representations
We return for the final instalment on the fall of Veii in 396 BCE.
In our previous episode, we witnessed the actual conquest of the great Etruscan city.
Now it’s Camillus’ time to bask in the glory!
He's a Real Trip
Camillus has managed to secure victory for Rome, and one of the advantages now that it’s all over is that sweet, sweet booty. Everyone knew that Veii was wealthy, but Camillus is staggered (pun intended) by the number of captured spoils. As he offered detailed thanks to the gods, he stumbled. The Romans were a superstitious bunch, so although Camillus tried to gloss over this trip, it was seen as an omen. Camillus, and perhaps Rome herself, were destined to take a mighty tumble. Foreshadowing!
But that all lay in the future. Camillus had to decide how to divvy up the booty. He tried to take the sensible path and consult with the Senate, but he failed to please most of the populace with his choices. Ingrates!
This Lady IS for Turning!
The fate of Veii’s tutelary deity, Juno Regina, was an even more delicate matter. The Romans hoped they could persuade her to switch her allegiance and residence to Rome. Juno agrees to make the move and was initially established in a new temple on the Aventine. That little minx!
This is the first example of the ritual of evocatio, which we sometimes see pop up when Rome conquers Etruscan cities. This may have something to do with the fact that the rite probably originated in Etruria. We wish we knew more about this fascinating practice, but as usual, we have more questions than answers. The religious calendars of Rome indicate that the cult of Juno Regina did begin at around this time, so this may lend some support to our historical narrative. Either way, Veii has now not only been conquered, but stripped of divine protection. OUCH.
Celebrate Good Times, Come On!
Back in the city, the Romans are thrilled with this military victory.
Camillus was mobbed by crowds upon his return. No one will be surprised to hear that Camillus was awarded a triumph. EVERYTHING about it was OTT. Not everyone thought this triumph was in good taste. After such an important victory, Camillus was eroding those warm fuzzies in record time. That is, of course, if we can believe the details. It’s hard to know what the norm was for a triumph in the early 4th century BCE.
Camillus ignored the haters, and busied himself with all the vows and promises he had made to various deities. There were temples to build for Juno and Mater Matuta, and then there was also the matter of gifts to Apollo. Camillus had pledged one tenth of the booty seized. The pontiffs decided that this needed to come from the people, who were less than impressed with a request to return some of their share of the spoils.
The Year That Had Everything
The year wrapped up with peace being secured on multiple fronts. Perhaps after seeing Veii’s defeat, the Volscians and Aequians decided to sue for peace themselves.
396 BCE truly was an epic year. We think you’ll agree once you’ve listened to all parts of our trilogy that it deserves to be known as ‘The Year That Had Everything’.
WARNING! This post and episode both contain spoilers!
We are back to discuss Gladiator II, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s smash hit Gladiator (2000). Gladiator II is set in the joint reign of Caracalla and Geta. These emperors were brothers in real life, but not the creepy twins shown in the movie. However, let’s not get caught up in historical detail! After all, Lucilla should have been executed by Commodus in the first film if we were sticking to the facts.
In Gladiator II, we learn that Lucilla’s precious son, Lucius Verus, was hidden away in the provinces after Commodus’ death and became alienated from the imperial family. He clearly inherited the military skills of his real father (Maximus or Russell Crowe), as Lucius is something of a local hero in his new home.
But no one can resist the power of Rome forever. After a military defeat, Lucius ends up in the arena and spends the film wrestling with his past, his trauma and the corruption of Rome. Just like his dad!
Whilst Lucius Verus is the hero of this film, as is so often the case in movies about Ancient Rome, the villain steals the show. Macrinus (Denzel Washington) is a master manipulator, skilfully playing a dangerous political game. Will the ghost of Maximus past allow Lucius to finally set Rome on a virtuous path? Or is Rome doomed to be dominated by corrupt politicians?
And boy, do we have a treat in store for you all! We were privileged to talk to a giant in the field of classical reception, a man who has spent many decades studying Roman history on film.
Martin M. Winkler is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Classics at George Mason University in Northern Virginia. His research interests include classical mythology, Roman history, classical literature, the classical tradition, and classical literature, history and myth on film. Professor Winkler’s list of publications is long indeed, but we will cite a few of our favourites. The Roman Salute: Cinema, History and Ideology (2009), Ovid on Screen: A Montage of Attractions (2020) and most recently, Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination (2024). Professor Winkler has edited and contributed to volumes on the films Troy (from 2004), Kubrick’s 1960 Spartacus, and importantly for today, Ridley Scott’s original 2000 Gladiator.
We hope that you enjoy our conversation with Professor Winkler in which we discuss:
The characters of Maximus and Lucius Verus
The aesthetic of Gladiator II
The representation of the army and praetorian guard in the sequel
The Fall of Veii is finally upon us – or perhaps we should say it was finally upon them! After a shameful defeat early in 396, the Romans decided to appoint a dictator. It is time for a Republican hero to burst into the spotlight. Welcome to the stage, Marcus Furius Camillus!
Episode 159 – The Fall of Veii: Part II
A Hero is Born
Camillus is a legendary figure of Rome, possibly in more ways than one. He was held up as an exemplar for generations. Even the emperor Augustus was a fangirl. We have mentioned him before, but it is his service as dictator during the siege against Veii where we get to see him shine for the first time.
Bronze Sculpture of Marcus Furius Camillus ca. 1st century AD from the Capitoline Museum. Courtesy of Ancient Times Blog Spot.
The Fall of Veii
The appointment of Camillus restored a sense of optimism to Rome and people were literally queuing up to serve under him. With suspicious ease, Camillus dealt with Veii’s allies, the Faliscans and Capenates, before turning his attention to breaking the siege once and for all. Through clever use of tunnels and military distractions, the Romans defeated their enemy – at last!
Rome has been engaged in almost constant warfare with neighbouring towns and cities for an exceptionally long time, but it is hard to overstate the importance of this conquest. Not only was Veii a wealthy and serious rival, but this acquisition also doubled the size of Rome’s territory. To quote Camillus as he surveyed the battlefield, “Cha-ching!”
However, Camillus made some promises to the gods both before and after this final battle, promises that will have various impacts for our hero and for Rome….
Stay tuned for the next instalment on 396 BCE!
Things to Look Out For:
The ongoing presence of the vanilla bean plebeian, Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus
A bootylicious face-off between Licinius Calvus and Appius Claudius
The resurgence of Mater Matuta
Allusions to the Trojan War
The discovery of the ancient version of BDE (BRME – Big Roman Masculine Energy)
Livy constructing history before our very eyes!
Our Players for 396 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
L. Titinius L. f. M. n. Pansa Saccus Mil Tr. c. p. 400
P. Licinius P. f. P. n. Calvus Esquilinus Mil. Tr. c .p. 400
P. Manlius Sp. f. C. n. Capitolinus Mil Tr. c. p. 400
Q. Manlius A. f. Cn. n. Vulso Capitolinus? (Pat)
Cn. Genucius M. f. M. n. Augurinus Mil. Tr. c. p. 399
L. Atilius L. f. L. n. Priscus Mil Tr. c. p. 399
Dictator
M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil Tr. c. p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381
Master of the Horse
P. Cornelius P. f. M. n. Maluginensis (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 397, 390
Interreges
L. Valerius (Potitus) (Pat) Cos. 393, 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401. 398
Q. Servilius Fidenas (Pat)
M. Furius Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381
Need to catch up on the first part of 396 BCE? Check out Part One on the Fall of Veii!
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 5.18-23.
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus, 14.90.1, 14.93.2-3; Fasti Capitolini; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 12.13-16, 13.1-3; Plutarch, Life of Camillus, 5-8; Pliny, Natural History, 33.111; Appian, Ital. 8; Florus, 1.17; Valerius Maximus 1.5.2, 1.8.3; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 17.21; Eutropius, 1.20; Augustine, City of God, 2.17; Orosius, 2.19.1-4; Zonaras, 7.21.
Bernard, Seth. “Rome from the Sack of Veii to the Gallic Sack.” In Building Mid-Republican Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190878788.003.0003.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Bruun, Patrick. “Evocatio Deorum: Some Notes on the Romanization of Etruria.” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 6 (1972): 109–20. https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67073.
Gowing, Alain M. 2009. “The Roman exempla tradition in imperial Greek historiography: The case of Camillus in Feldherr, A., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Kraus, C. S. 2020. ‘Urban Disasters and Other Romes: The Case of Veii’ in Closs, V. M., Keitel, E. eds. Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination (De Gruyter), 17-31.
Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley).
Smith, Christopher, Jacopo Tabolli, and Orlando Cerasuolo. “Furius Camillus and Veii.” In Veii, 217–24. New York, USA: University of Texas Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.7560/317259-030.
Our music is provided by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of Orange Free Sounds.
Automated Transcript
Dr Rad 0:15 Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad and
Dr G 0:33 I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:58 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am Dr G
Dr Rad 1:06 and I am Dr Rad,
Dr G 1:08 and we are in the middle of what is a chaotic time for ancient Rome. It's the year 396, BCE, and oh, boy, are they not having a good time, as far as we can tell so far,
Dr Rad 1:26 indeed, 396 is a very big year for Rome. However, the start of it was not great. Mm,
Dr G 1:33 not great at all. It seems like there were some reversals in the field. There were some poorly planned ambushes and some confusing dealing about with Father Son combinations in the military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 1:48 Yeah. Just for those who didn't listen to our last episode A) I'd probably go and do that, because this is a bit of a narrative that we're building here. However, we're dealing with the end of the siege of Veii, an Etruscan city just to the north of Rome. Rome has had a somewhat complicated relationship with over the years, extending all the way back. And whilst the ancient sources make reference to the fact that, oh yeah, there was this truce from the second big conflict between Rome and of Veii, and it run out, and then there was a king, and he was a bit of a douche bag. And not only did the Romans not like the king of A, but the Etruscans didn't like the king of Veii, and that's why all of this happened. In spite of that, as Dr G rightly pointed out in our previous episode, it's probably really about resources, trade influence in the region, because these are two increasingly important places, I would say, in the previous century that we've been looking at. Now we're entering a whole new century.
Dr G 2:54 It does seem like they is the Southern tale of Etruscan influence in the fifth century, BCE. And so the big power base that is through central to North Italy is the is a true area, the Etruscan people, and Rome is now this sort of growing player in the center of Italy. And they seem to want a slice of the Etruscan pie. They've decided maybe they has to go to make way for the growth of Rome itself into a grander place.
Dr Rad 3:28 And we've got some allies of ve who have realized that a growing Rome is no good for them. That's true,
Dr G 3:37 and Rome itself has been cultivating a whole bunch of their neighbors into being, variously allies or enemies, depending on how they've been treating them to the east and to the south. So there is a kind of a sense that there are a couple of blocks of power developing. The Etruscan block has been around for a long time, and it seems like maybe it might be on the wane in various ways, particularly when it comes to this southern edge where Rome is butting up against it. But there's also this sense that there are now growing disputes amongst Rome and her other neighbors, some of which are turning violent. The Volscian The Aequians, have been long on the radar. But there's also the
Dr Rad 4:22 turning violence.
Dr G 4:25 There's also the Hernicians and the Latins that seem to have come together with Rome. Now, before we get too much further into the action of this year, I want to hark back to something that came up a couple of episodes ago now, where you were talking about the Roman electoral process and the concept of the praerogativa. Yes,
Dr Rad 4:49 this is how Calvus was apparently chosen for election to be one of the military tribunes with consular power in 396 even though he was not running for said election.
Dr G 4:59 How. Could it be possible to get elected in when you're not even running? Well, no, the power of the praerogativa may be the answer to this question. Now we don't know too much about it. In this very early period, like many things to do with ancient Rome, we only become more sure about stuff when we hit about the mid to late third century BCE. So we're about 150 years away from having any good information to work with.
Dr Rad 5:28 So probably be in our 60s for the time we get to that.
Dr G 5:31 But those problems aside, this comes out of the concept of the comitia centuriata, which is this idea that some voting took place in a military style setup, where people were organized into centuries at some point in Rome's history, the idea of the electoral centuries deviates very wildly from the military setup. That's not our problem right now. We don't know what's going on, really, but we have this group, the comitia centuriata. They all turn up in their little groups. In their centuries, they head to the Campus Martius, and they get involved in a voting thing. Now, the prey rogativo Part of this is a invention that we don't know when it starts, but it is an innovation where they change who gets to be the first entry to vote. And it used to be the case that it always followed the same order. You would start with the equestrians, strangely enough, and then you'd get into the other groups. But with the concept of the prerogative of what you could do is that you could have a nominated group from one of the higher echelons of society be the first one to vote. It was kind of like a lucky draw, but only the best of the best got to be put into the draw to be selected in the first place, and then they would kind of set the tone for how the rest of the vote should go. Now it wasn't the case that all the other centuries, necessarily immediately would fall in line with what was voted for by that first group that was chosen as the prey rogativo. There seems to be some ideas that come to us in our very much later sources of the Republic like Cicero, that there was a bit of an omen component to all of this. So it was read as a bit of a sign of how the electoral result was going to go. So there was a persuasive factor in it that for the Romans would have been quite important, because they hold a lot of importance in things that relate to the gods and omens and signs. But that didn't necessarily seal the deal. But if you had a group that came out and decided that they wanted somebody in to be voted, like this situation with calvis, who hadn't been nominated, hadn't put themselves forward, hadn't canvas or any of that sort of thing, that could really turn the tide for something, because all of a sudden everybody like, yeah, we need that guy, yeah. Why wasn't he running? And that might have a cascading effect. I
Dr Rad 8:05 think it definitely did. Everyone decided they wanted a taste of that vanilla bean plebeian.
Dr G 8:13 And so this is how you might get somebody voted in who didn't stand for a position, absolutely,
Dr Rad 8:19 unfortunately. Dr G, he hasn't got much longer in this position that we're talking about. We did list our magistrates in the previous episodes. By the way, everyone I know you're used to us listing out who all the magistrates are. So if you want to know the full details, please go and listen to the previous episode.
Dr G 8:36 I was going to say, I'm not going to put myself through that again. Yeah,
Dr Rad 8:40 definitely not. It's way too much Latin for anybody to have to repeat. So we were up to this point in my narrative of Livy, where a rumor had gotten out of hand after the Romans had suffered a military reversal in the field against these allies of they, the Faliscans and the Capenates, who, by the way, were not themselves Etruscans, but were allied with they, because they were geographically and presumably politically tied to they, and they understood that the Romans were going to be coming for them, so they had managed to secure this success. Everyone's panicking in the city. Women are praying. The Romans feel like it really is time for Veii tofall because they've done everything that the gods wanted them to do. They have drained that stupid album Lake, which had too much water. They have also made sure that the issue in the previous year where you had the magistrates elected improperly, that's been resolved. So they've repeated whatever rituals or held whatever festivals or sacrifices needed to be held again, so they're ready. They're like now is the time God's to show us that you've been paying attention. Have you been paying attention to all the things that we have done to please you? And it turns out, Dr G. That maybe they just have, however, before we get to that moment, it's time for a dictator to be elected. Because clearly, with one military Tribune with consular power, dead in the field, and the other one disgraced, because this defeat is so embarrassing, you need someone with real chutzpah.
Dr G 10:20 Well, it does make sense, because everybody in Rome, as we noted in the previous episode, is in a bit of a panic. People have rushed to the temples being like guards, help us out. People have run to the walls of the city to look over and be like, can I see the enemy approaching? Like, is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Etruscins. So that level of panic is the kind of thing that sets the stage up really nicely for the ultimate panic move that Rome has, which is put a dictator in charge, and
Dr Rad 10:56 are you ready to meet him? Dr G my name is Marcus Furius Camillus, father to other people with a similar name, related to people who are Spurius Furius and
Dr G 11:08 I will have my vengeance
Dr Rad 11:12 in this life all the next. I'm part of the Furii clan, but I'm always very calm. Actually, I
Dr G 11:17 feel like we could both be a pretty good Russell Crowe. Maybe we should do that one time.
Dr Rad 11:21 Well, Rusty, if you're listening, love to have you on the show, mate. Let's collaborate. So Marcus Furius Camillus is part of our favorite gens, the fury eye, however, lacking the praenomen that we prefer.
Dr G 11:37 He is no Spurius. That's true, he's
Dr Rad 11:39 no Spurius. But you know what, it seems like, the ancient Romans didn't care as much about the alliteration of their names as we did, because he is definitely, I'm gonna get a limb, the most famous of the Furii clan. I'm not gonna go into all the details about him right now, because that will obviously unfold as we go into this. But the whole fall of a that is about to happen very much tied up with this particular figure.
Dr G 12:04 You've given away the game too soon. I'm
Dr Rad 12:06 sorry, but I feel like I've said it at least 100 times by now, everyone should know. So there's a few important elements to the story of the fall of a which, as we've said, is so crucial to the way that the Romans view their own history. They say this is such a big thing that happens to them, and Camillus is a part of that. Now, we've talked in the previous episode about the fact that people like Livy are writing much later. They're building on a variety of sources. You know, family Chronicles, epic poetry, archeology, presumably like some remains and stuff that they see around and one of the things that they would probably have seen people like Livy. I mean, when I say they there's a statue of Camillus that was erected and still around, I would say, in his time period. And Camillus actually becomes a really important figure for the way that the Romans think about themselves and what makes a virtuous citizen. You know his story has huge resonance throughout the ages. He's someone who inspires later, people like the scipios, who we'll hear about during war with Carthage, Sulla and even your favorite Dr G Augustus, yes. So
Dr G 13:18 Camillus ends up having this incredible reputation. That means that he has a type of fame that within Roman society is pretty rare. It's ongoing. People refer back to him. He gains a whole bunch of prestigious kind of epithets that are associated with him. This is the start of his journey in some respects that we're going to be looking at in this particular episode. And I think it's going to be the culmination of his career as a whole, which I reckon we'll we'll do a wrap up episode where we we look at all of that in detail, because this is going to be part of his story, but not the whole of it. And this is the start of the sorts of things that will make his reputation. But it's not like he gets off to like a fantastic start now, obviously it is an amazing thing to be made dictator. That doesn't happen to most Roman politicians. There is only a select group of these people that end up in this role, and the idea of the dictator is really a product of need. So Rome has found itself in a desperate situation. They think that everything is looking terrible, and they turn to a single individual and say, can you take charge of everything? Carte blanche while you're in power, look after this problem and solve it for us. And they choose Camillus in this moment. And it would be amazing if we knew what it was about Camillus that made him the preferred choice. And maybe Livy talks about this, but certainly none of my sources reveal that to me.
Dr Rad 14:57 I was going to say I'm so glad you asked.
Dr G 15:01 I've set you up so well, gonna give you
Dr Rad 15:03 a bit of foreshadowing here about Camillus, there is a bit of doubt about whether he actually existed
Dr G 15:10 or, Oh no, he's
Dr Rad 15:13 one of those people. Look, I think a lot of people agree that he is a historical figure. However, like with a lot of things from this time period, including the fall of they he's been so mythologized, and there have been so many layers added to him, including, again, by Augustus, the fact that Augustus is like, hey, who am I going to put in my gallery of heroes when I'm working on the forum of Augustus, I know. I'll put Camillus in there. It's hard to untangle all of those different layers, because we don't see a clear emergence where the Romans are gradually adding things. So it's really hard to know exactly who Camillus was, where he came from, but certainly the fall of they has become an important part of his great story as a citizen of Rome. I think I would say that in the scholarship, most people think that this particular part of his story, this fall of a part of his biography, is probably one of the earlier events that are attached to Camillus and his legend. So whether that makes you feel more secure or not, dear listeners, let us know.
Dr G 16:30 Can I tell you some of the things related to this incident that come up in the source material that I have so you can verify against what Livy might be telling us. So it seems that he becomes dictator. And I don't have heaps of details about how that comes about, but I suspect it's the usual way. And then he's basically in charge of the siege of they and that that seems to be the main thing that he has to take care of. They're like, solve that problem for us, buddy. Yeah, it's only been 10 years that have been great to have a solution. And he's like, Sure, I'm your man. And then I get a various sort of combination of things where he either deviates from that plan slightly and does some things with the Faliscans, or he remarkably
Dr Rad 17:18 Dirty.
Dr G 17:20 He does something for Faliscan. I don't know if you're into that sort of thing, but, uh, yeah, something's going on there. And I can talk about a bit more of that detail later if it indeed fits in this year. And that's the other thing that I'm struggling with with my source material, is I'm not sure what sits in what year for some of this stuff. But the other story that gets told about the siege of Veii is that he wraps it up quite quickly with a series of tunnels.
Dr Rad 17:44 How dare you ruin the end of my story. I'm sorry, Livy, you're totally on path. I don't have much information either about why Camillus is the one who's chosen. However, lest we forget, Dr G he was one of the elected magistrates for this year, and he is from the Furii who have been very much a part of our narratives for the past 100 years. So one can only assume it's because he is part of a fairly prominent, influential, powerful Roman Gens. I will say one thing I have noticed whilst reading about Camillus, and made me reflect, because, as I say, he is held up as this Roman general par excellence. He is the fatalis Dux, the fateful leader, the one who comes when Rome needs it the most and turns things around in a really spectacular fashion. It made me realize that, like with movies, often the good guys are more boring than the villains. I mean, look with Roman history, as we talked about, because certain families are thought to have certain character traits. Sometimes it just feels like you're meeting the same person again and again, because they seem to be very similar to each other if they're from the same family, like with the happiest Claudius of the world that we have met, but there's still something kind of fantastic about how evil those sorts of people are in our minds, by our standards, whereas someone like Camillus, I don't get a strong sense of his character. And maybe this is because he's been a little bit mythologized. Hmm, maybe it's also because the Roman virtues for someone to be considered an exemplar, because Camillus definitely becomes an exemplar. So that's where the Romans tell a story about a person and hold it up so that other Romans can learn from their example about how to behave politically, how to behave as a citizen, how to behave militarily, because that's part of their whole idea of citizenship. And being a good Roman, Camillus is definitely one of those. And it's been a little while since I feel like we've had one of these figures who is an exemplar for others to follow well,
Dr G 19:48 but it's not like he is a clean, straight laced exemplar that you can just hold up and be like, Look at this heroic figure who does everything right, because he seems to get. Whole bunch of things wrong.
Dr Rad 20:01 Well, does he or did the Romans get it wrong and then they felt really bad about it? No, wait
Dr G 20:05 for it. I mean, I I assume that Livy would have this story about Camillus. But part of the problem for Camillus with the siege of they and however he takes it and the complexities of this tunnel system are outside of my source material, but I'm excited that they're there, because I always think tunnels are highly unlikely in the ancient world as a system. But you know, how long does it take you to dig a tunnel? I don't know. And how many tunnels did you have? I don't know. Have they been working on them for nine years? And it's just that Camillus finished the tunnels. I don't know that could be believable, but there is this story that is also told in companion with this story about how great he is, and how he is this sort of exemplary leader, where he seems to have a bit of a mixed relationship with the gods.
Dr Rad 21:02 Should we save that for later in his story? I
Dr G 21:06 don't know. I mean,
Dr Rad 21:09 look, I tell you what I'm gonna say, let's save it, because I think I know what you're going, where you're gonna go, and that's like the end of the narrative that Livy gives me. Oh, you reckon okay. I reckon so. I reckon so. Look, I do think I know what you mean, and I'll just say at this point in time that, yeah, you're right. But Roman examples, I don't think have to be perfect. It's more that, I suppose it's more that they are thought to teach something important in at least the majority of their life. And look, I think his failings also say something that's important too. It's not that they can't make mistakes. To me, they tend to be a little bit robotic, almost in the way that they behave. But anyway, we will see. So we have our dictator Camillus, who we will go into later. We also obviously need a master of the horse, every dictator's assistant,
Dr G 21:58 Yeah, gotta have somebody to do the paperwork. I mean, exactly.
Dr Rad 22:02 Can't expect the dictator to do it. He's got way too much to do. We've got Publius Cornelius Scipio. Now this is a name that might ring some bells to people. So the scipiones come from the malukinensis, that horrible name that we hate to say. And he is actually listed in the Fasti as Publius Cornelius Maluginenses. Now, what does that say to you? Dr G,
Dr G 22:28 that says to me that the scipios are trying to borrow his story from later on. Yeah, they decided they wanted to hop on that bandwagon. There might be two branches of that family. And yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure. But I mean, the Cornelii are a very exceptional, well known foundational partition family as well. So yeah, the layers of the way that these families will then branch out is going to become important to understanding how Roman political structures operate, because it the family thing is huge. So, yeah,
Dr Rad 23:01 look, it's not impossible that there is somebody from this family at this point in time which will become a very big deal. But we don't have someone that we feel super confident about from this family until the 350
Dr G 23:17 I was gonna say, I feel like, yeah, it's too early for scipiones. This
Dr Rad 23:21 is the general feeling, but nonetheless, here they are again, potentially showing us that the analysts or Livy are using sources from this family, and that's how they end up in earlier periods than they perhaps should be. How convenient? Yes, with the dictator, chosen master of the horse, chosen Rome, apparently, like they've had a makeover. They're feeling wildly optimistic. All of a sudden, their morale is through the roof. I mean, Rome is just literally bursting with possibility at this moment in time. Dr, G, it's
Dr G 23:56 a quick turnaround. It's the like the highs and the lows. Rome is having a very emotional roller coaster ride right now. They've they've had that huge dip where they're like, the ambush and the tragedy, and now they're like, and now we've got the best guy in as dictator, and it's going to be great. I
Dr Rad 24:12 love the way that the Romans work. Now the first thing that Camillus does as dictator is he decides he needs to dish out punishment for anyone who ran away from the encampment at they during all that horrible panic. Oh, no, yeah. He's like, you found that scary? You found the Falsicans and the Capenates coming at you scary. I'll show you scary, my friends. So he deals with that situation because he can't have cowards, right? Certainly not involved in a siege. Can't have that, Okay, fair enough. He also needs to set a levy. Gonna need some troops, obviously. So he sets a levy. He then rushes out to they, because He wants to spread that optimism to the encampment in front of they. Then he's back to Rome. Him for the levy, which he had set before he left. He's just zipping all over the place. And because Camillus is so amazing, there are no problems at all with this Levy. In fact, everyone is super keen to get in line and serve Camillus. I was
Dr G 25:15 gonna say this is why they made him dictator, because obviously he's charismatic, and it's like, it's hard to resist. And you're like, sign me up if I have to die, I want to die under Camillus, exactly
Dr Rad 25:27 what the Romans are feeling at that point in time. In fact, not just the Romans. Dr G, the Latins and the Hernicians, who you alluded to earlier, also said, Rome, we're totally behind you in this my friend, Sign me up. What a man and Camillus gives official thanks to their allies in the Senate. He's like, thanks very much, guys. Presumably this means that there were envoys who had been sent from the Latins and hanisians who made some sort of official presentation. Got my slideshow here. Sorry, the PowerPoints just on the on the fritz. Just wait one second. So
Dr G 26:02 this is the location of Veii. This is Rome. And as you can see, we just down here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to send some of our men up to Rome, and then they're going to join with Rome, and then they're all going to move north, you see, and that's how we're going to do it.
Dr Rad 26:16 Bob's your uncle, mate, sweet as. Camillus' also makes some large promises. Dr G he says that there will be great games, not just games, great games celebrated if they is taken, and this is apparently in pursuance of a senatorial decree, which seems anachronistic, because we don't think the Senate issued senatorial decrees at this moment in time. But let's ignore that and pursue our narrative. He also says that he will restore and rededicate the Temple of Mater Matuta, which had been originally set up by my favorite King Servius Tullius. Yes,
Dr G 26:58 yes. Now this does come up in some of my source material as well. So this also is Plutarch, who also insists that the master of the horse is Cornelius Scipio, which I did nothing with in my notes originally, because I was like, yeah, that's not a thing. But now that you've mentioned it, I can, I can confirm that that is an idea that continues. But yes, this idea that there will be a dedication to the Goddess mata matuta and the great games is something that Plutarch definitely goes into. And Mater Matuta herself is a pretty ancient kind of deity. So she's known in Italy. She's known in Rome. And the matuta name has a couple of different meanings, the idea of in the right moment. So she's the mother of the right moment. This is also translated as the good mother. And so there's this sense in which she is also has bears resemblance to later Christian figures as well. So she's often depicted holding a child with a solar disc around her head. And might be giving some people some imagery. How
Dr Rad 28:11 suspicious,
Dr G 28:13 and we know that she has an archeological record that goes back to at least the seventh century BC. So there's some votive offerings that are found in Latium that are connected to her. Hers is one of the oldest temples that we know about archeologically in Rome as well. So her temple is right near the forum boarium, which, if you've been to Rome, or you plan to go, is right across the road from where you've got the guy that you can put your hand in the Mouth of Truth, the Mouth of Truth just across the road. And there's a very impressive circular temple there that you can see that's to Hercules Victor, which is a much later temple. But below that there are some foundations for a temple to mata matuda, so she's considered quite ancient, even within the archeological record of Rome. So for Camillus to heart, back to her, there is some good evidence to suggest that that's not a crazy thing to do, that she is a goddess that the Romans are already very interested in and have been interested in for a long time. And maybe this is a moment of potential renewal for her cult, which is kind of exciting.
Dr Rad 29:25 Of course, it's not crazy. It's Camillus that we're talking about here. He's going to do everything to inspire the Romans and make sure that they get this amazing victory, which is right there, Dr G, right
Dr G 29:40 so close, so close, we can almost see it. We
Dr Rad 29:43 can almost see it. So Camillus and his army, freshly gathered, march out. They fight those darn Faliscans and Capenates in the country of the Nepesine, which I believe refers to the town of Nepi which. If you were going to Italy nowadays, would be known as nepi and as you might expect, is to the north of Rome. Everything's to the north of Rome at moment.
Dr G 30:10 I mean that. I mean that, obviously this is their big deal at the moment, everything to the north.
Dr Rad 30:16 So as you would expect, Camillus is very prepared. He has thought things through, unlike titanius and gaucius from the previous year. And so everything goes to plan. The Romans completely trounce the enemy. They take their camp. They take loads of booty. And I can't emphasize enough loads of booty. How
Dr G 30:40 big is the booty? A lot.
Dr Rad 30:42 Yes, exactly. It's very, very impressive. Most of it is given to the quaestor, though not directly to the soldiers. That's going to become an important detail later. I think remember
Dr G 30:55 this detail, the quaestor has all the booty
Dr Rad 30:59 they're off to find ve itself, and this is where they start to take a different approach, because Camillus is a genius. So previously, because it was a siege, you've got men on both sides, and they're constantly engaging in minor skirmishes. 10 years of minor skirmishes. Oh god, yeah, I'm gonna throw this at you, and you're gonna throw a stick at me, and I might throw something sharp and pointy, and
Dr G 31:29 your mother smells of elderberries.
Dr Rad 31:31 Yeah. I don't know what a skirmish looks like in a siege, but you know, particularly between the town walls, where the Romans have set up this. Okay, that's obviously where the action has been concentrated for the past 10 years, but we can all say it's not really going anywhere fast. So Camillus says to the people who are assembled there, no one is to fight unless I personally give you a specific order that you are allowed to fight. So no fighting whatsoever. I don't care what names they call you. I don't care if they're giving you the stink eye. I don't care if they spit in your general direction. Not happening.
Dr G 32:08 All right, so if the population of they were to decide to make an attack under these circumstances, are the Romans just to lie down and let it happen to them?
Dr Rad 32:20 Look, these are questions I don't have time for. Look, I presume if they were attacked, obviously, that would be a different story. But he means no more skirmishing. Just lay low. You don't need to fight. Just walk away. Just walk away.
Dr G 32:35 Don't think you're in charge of this siege. And start your own skirmishes because you're feeling in a bad
Dr Rad 32:40 mood. Instead, it's time to dig, send down 30 feet of rope. Now this is what is where we come back to what you were talking about, the tunnels. The plan is they're going to dig a mine that will take them right to the Citadel of they and for those of you who don't watch enough fantasy stuff, or aren't into ancient warfare, when we're talking about the Citadel, we're talking about the heart of they also
Dr G 33:08 don't think too hard about this from a geographic perspective, because the city of they, as we know, is sitting on a plateau of tufa. So it's going to take some time to hack away at the sheer rock that this city is sitting on to create a whole series of tunnels.
Dr Rad 33:26 Camillus is way ahead of you. Dr G, he has a plan. Okay? He knows that in order to get through this as quickly as possible, he needs someone to be digging at all times. So he splits the men into six groups, and each group has to work for six hours at a time, and then they rotate. So that way the digging is happening day and night, night and day.
Dr G 33:52 This is a Okay. So we've got a workforce that is operating 24/7, for however long it takes to cut through all of that rock. Yep, cool.
Dr Rad 34:05 And now this is an interesting point, because we've been talking a lot about tunnels when it comes to things connected with Veii. So obviously we've talked about the tunnel that was built in order to drain the excess water from the Alban Lake, which apparently needed to happen in order for the Romans to secure victory against Veii, and that would be the moment when they became vulnerable, the vulnerable Veieans, that's right. Yep. We also, lest we forget, Dr G had a tunnel mentioned in a previous conflict with Veii when Fidenae was the bone of contention back in the 430s or the 420s who knew when that was taking place? But definitely earlier than this. I
Dr G 34:49 think the thing to keep in mind here is that once Livy has introduced the idea of tunnels into his narrative, it's just going to keep going. So. Once we have this concept of tunnels being used for military purposes, everybody gets excited, and now you can use them all the time. It seems challenging. Like Veii is a city that is sitting in a reasonably hilly area. It is a volcanic area. It gets its water not just from the nearby river, but also from the spring systems, which are endemic in this region of Italy because of the volcanic activity. So there is a lot of natural sort of water courses that are happening underground. You could follow some of them potentially and open them up more. That might be a way to build some tunnels, but it does seem like a tricky business. I'm not saying that the Romans aren't capable of it, but I do have some questions, and I'm not sure that we've seen archeologically that there's any evidence for tunnels underneath they although I'm happy to stand corrected, please atroccologists, get in touch with us and help us out with this thorny question of the siege of Veiiand the tunnels that are apparently associated
Dr Rad 36:04 with it. Well, I can't class myself as an Etruscanologist. However, it is possible, as you've said, that this seems to be part of the narrative in multiple ways. And we know that there is actually some sort of tunnel with the Alban Lake situation. So there is some proof there. It's possible that, obviously this became an older part of the story, that people like the analysts and then Livy had to weave the narrative around it and incorporate it somehow. It is an entirely out of the question, because we know that the Greeks did use siege mines. So for example, there is one used at the siege of platea by the plateans. So that does happen. We do also know that there are these things, these cuniculi, which are drainage tunnels, which are found throughout the landscape in this area. It is possible that rather than, say, digging it, which, as you say, might be tough, maybe the Romans found a drainage tunnel that had been blocked up or closed off, and they just emptied it, and that's what they were doing. However you are quite right. I believe that at the moment, we haven't found one where you might expect to find one. So there definitely are some questions about this, but I don't want to discredit Camillus, because the Romans certainly think he is the ants pants.
Dr G 37:32 Yes, I was going to
Dr Rad 37:34 say the bee's knees. Yeah, as you say, it's all very quickly turned around. You know, Camillus can tell that victory is near because of his genius digging program. They're digging for victory.
Dr G 37:48 They're digging, yeah,
Dr Rad 37:51 and he knows that he is getting very close to being able to seize they. And he also understands just what this will mean for Rome. This is such a big deal. They is really their only big competitor in this region, as we've talked about, in spite of the political reasons that we're given for this conflict, there's an awful lot of other stuff at stake here too. So Camillus knows that this is going to be really, really big. In fact, he's expecting that there will be more booty in the capture of a wealthy Etruscan city like they then. The Romans have perhaps ever captured before, if you put everything that they've done all together,
Dr G 38:25 especially considering they're often like just exchanging booty and finding refining their sandals that they lost last time, this would be a chance to actually acquire new stuff.
Dr Rad 38:35 I'm telling you, you know, laundry markers could have changed everything for them. Now, thinking ahead, because Camillus is a planner, as we know. He's no titanius organucius. He's worried about, what is he gonna do with all this booty? What are you gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?
Dr G 38:54 That's a good question. What is he gonna do? Well,
Dr Rad 38:57 he understands that the soldiers might turn against him if he's not seen as being generous enough to them with this booty. So there's obviously an expectation that, given that they have put aside their weekend plans to help him conquer they there is an expectation that they will be rewarded for their efforts. However, the Senate might be angry if he's too generous to the average soldier. Now I should say Livy actually says the fathers, but as we know, he uses these terms very interchangeably, so I'm presuming he means the Senate, because he immediately writes to the Senate and says, Look, victory is getting near. It's going to be amazing. What should I do with all the stuff that I'm about to capture so brilliantly? The Senate had different opinions, and this is where we get into my favorite part of this narrative. We go back to our friend old puble. Licinius calvis, Oh, Mr. Moderate himself, all right, Mr. Moderate himself, who was apparently too old to be magistrate, and yet his son says to him, Dad, I want you to take the floor. Hmm, why would this happen? You ask good question. Dr, G, there is absolutely no reason why this would happen. It would be extremely odd for someone who is not a magistrate and a plebeian to boot, randomly be asked to be the first to speak on such an important matter over all the patrician senators who apparently are staring daggers at him right now. Why is he considered so senior in the Roman state right now that after being the first plebeian military Tribune with consular power, after coming out of nowhere in 400 all of a sudden, four years later, he gets elected without running for office when he doesn't want to do it. He's like, Oh, take my son. And everyone's like, Yeah, cool. And then in a moment of great, important public debate, and his son's like, Dad, I want to hear from you. Everyone's totally fine with this look. I
Dr G 41:12 think I am incredulous, and I hear the incredulity in your voice as well. So I think we're on a similar sort of emotional wavelength here. But I also wonder about the nature of what characterizes the Senate, because this is true. Age is definitely a huge factor. Of considerable years
Dr Rad 41:36 old and his memory's going asides going exactly
Dr G 41:38 this is guy's bit deaf, having trouble seeing doesn't seem like he's up to the gig. Is old enough that he feels like he should nominate his son to do most of the work. But when push comes to shove, his son is like, actually, I think my dad needs to take the floor and have something to say. There is a very conservative tradition amongst the senators about who gets to speak and when. Sure, and we know a lot of that from later periods of history, not so much this period. But if this group of fathers, which for so long we just assumed was all patrician, but as it has turned out now, seems to have always had at least one Levy.
Dr Rad 42:23 It's this guy and his family the whole time, the
Dr G 42:28 whole time, maybe they've been there for a while. So he may actually be in a position of quite seniority within the context of the Senate itself, and often asking the oldest to speak first is less about monetary capacity or other ways that you might measure somebody's worth within the context of Roman society, and is actually that idea of the fathers and the wisdom that comes from your elders. And potentially, this is what's going on for calvis In this moment, where they're like, he is really old. Maybe he's got something to say.
Dr Rad 43:08 Look, I hear what you're saying. I totally get it. You're right. He is very elderly. But the idea that there aren't equally old patricians who I mean, think about all the times we read out the list of magistrates and we're like, oh yeah, this guy's had about eight. You know, I just find it hard to believe that the one military tribuneship With consular power that he's held somehow makes him outrank everyone else. Just considering that we had not heard of this guy up until a few episodes ago. It just seems so funny. And again, it kind of indicates that Livy must be leaning on Licinius Macer or Macer, depending on your preference, as a source who wrote about his family's achievements when he was writing his work. So I just kind of feel like that maybe has something to do with it. On top of which, as we said last time, most of our sources, apart from Livy, agree that the dad is the one who's the magistrate. So this would indicate that if he's the one who's speaking first, he's speaking, because he's an old magistrate in power. That would make sense this whole idea that his son held the office in his place. And then thought, You know what, this is my moment to shine, but Dad, you take the floor.
Dr G 44:27 Look. I could still believe that. To be honest, the idea is not so much that Calvus is not the preferred candidate in flavor of his son. He's delegated some of the job to his son. He may still very well be the magistrate, and even if he's not, and technically, his son is fulfilling the role. Everybody knows that it was Calvus The elder that people wanted in the position, so they're still going to defer to him, because he's got all of the cache. That has been built up through everything else. We're missing the incidents that's Yeah,
Dr Rad 45:07 totally. Anyway. Look, there are some questions. There are some questions clearly, but we will proceed.
Dr G 45:12 And like many things, we do not have the answers. So
Dr Rad 45:17 Licinius Calvus Senior, he stands up and he says there should be a public proclamation issued where anyone who wants some of the spoils that are going to come from, they need to get up and go to the camp at Vay right now. That's the way you stake your claim. You get up and you go, wow. Strange system. But okay, I guess it dips. It's basically ancient Roman. Dibs.
Dr G 45:42 We are not carrying it back for you. You won't have to go yourself
Dr Rad 45:47 too much stuff. It's a wealthy city like come on, guys, unreasonable. Now our old friend Appius Claudius is now going to take the floor in opposition to Calvus. For those of you who haven't listened to the past million episodes that we've released, appias Claudius, the Appii Claudii, they're known for being Uber patricians, very conservative. So no shock that this particular Appius Claudius thinks that this is an outrageous suggestion, far too generous, not at all fair. In fact, indicates that this dude is too old. He's gone crazy, lost his marbles. No. Thank you.
Dr G 46:25 This is a bullock suggestion. Yeah.
Dr Rad 46:27 Now, you know, I hate to side with someone from this family with my natural leftist leanings. However, once again, there is a little bit of sense to what he says, If we believe this whole narrative, which is that Rome has been going through a lot of warfare lately. In case no one's noticed there's a siege going on, that's kind of why we're having this conversation. The Treasury is drained because of all this conflict. They should instead use whatever booty comes from the capture of a to pay the soldiers once again. Dr G, they the siege of a it all comes back to this question of military pay. Okay,
Dr G 47:09 well, that would make more sense in many respects, absolutely, let's pay the people who have done the job.
Dr Rad 47:15 On top of which he actually points out that this would be of benefit to the plebs, because, whilst they're not getting the booty in their pocket immediately, it would mean that less war tax is required to fund military pay, which apparently is something else that exists at the moment, and we've had discussions about the reality of that, but I'm not going to get into it again. So everyone would benefit in one way or another, if they just were sensible and put the booty in the bank.
Dr G 47:45 All right. Well, okay, so that means somebody's definitely going to have to carry it from they to Rome, because how did it? Can't just stay in Veii. That's not how gaining wealth works. It's all based on the physical stuff you've you've got to move it.
Dr Rad 48:00 Look, I hear your practical sense coming through. Miss Virgo, but I don't think that this is what Appius Claudius is most worried about. His big concern is that lazy city slicker types are going to swoop in and take the rewards won by others and the real fighters, the real heroes, Dr G the men who've been on the front lines would miss out. So this is another very important point that he makes, that noble fighters from Rome always are the least greedy, and therefore they're going to miss out if the Romans don't take some sensible steps here. Wow.
Dr G 48:41 This is just a moment where Rome is like, we're about to be more successful than we've ever been, and we do not know how to handle that.
Dr Rad 48:50 Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's their lottery day, and they're like, oh my god, we're gonna be millionaires. What do we do? A new house. We put in a pool.
Dr G 48:57 I need a financial planner. They haven't even won yet. They're getting well ahead of themselves. It's
Dr Rad 49:04 a shoe in Dr G. I mean, this is the funny thing, right? After a 10 year siege, I love the fact that everyone keeps saying, Oh, they're trying to build it up to be like the Trojan War. Like this is nothing like the Trojan War in the sense that it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point in time. We all know it's really hard to tell the story of the siege of a without giving away the ending, because we all know where it's going, because they knew before it happened that it was going to happen. But anyway, now Livy is doing his thing here, where he has very contrasting speakers. You know, Calvus, obviously, is our vanilla bean plebeian, very moderate. Appius Claudius, once again, going in hard like his family always does, being able to play the plebeians like a fiddle and the patricians, to be fair, everybody loves a good speech from one of the Appian Claudius. However, Licinius comes back. Licunius Calvus comes back with another attack. He's. Says, Look, this money is going to cause huge problems. Let's be honest, the plebeians are going to arc up if we don't look after them, and it's going to lead to them making outrageous demands, like laws that might be to their benefit outrageous. Why not take this moment to get the plebs on side by being very generous. They are extremely tired. We can all see that they've been very cranky every morning. They're not in a good mood. They're teary all the time.
Dr G 50:32 10 years of a siege will do that to you? Yeah.
Dr Rad 50:36 They're also broke, after so many years of having to pay this apparent war tax, which obviously is paid by everybody. It's not just something that's peculiar to the plebeians. However, obviously it's toughest for the poorer people who are apparently the plebeians, at this moment in time to pay this particular war tax. It would mean so much to them as well, in a symbolic sort of way, if they were able to take something from the enemy rather than have decisions made for them and then be divvied up to them, is some form of payout or some sort of benefit, it would mean more to take it with their own hands, to be like, Aha, I'm taking this vase, and I don't care What you have to say about it, person from Veii, you're my enemy. The Senate would also come away from this looking like the coolest dudes. They'd be Mr. Popular all over the place, and we could all use a little bit of that.
Dr G 51:38 Goodness me, what a time to be alive as a Roman watching.
Dr Rad 51:44 I feel like I have to tell you where this debate ends up.
Dr G 51:47 Please do. I mean, I have some details, but I'm just not even sure where they fit at this point in time. So I'm really waiting for the end of this debate so I can figure out what to tell
Dr Rad 51:55 you next. I told you, this is a long 396, it's a big year. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm enjoying it. In the end, they go with Licinius, and a public proclamation is made that if you want a payout, you need to go to they and get it yourself. Oh, boy,
Dr G 52:12 after Appius Claudius was so reasonable and everything
Dr Rad 52:14 I know. Look, I have to admit, there is something annoyingly pragmatic about what he says, and that was the case the last time we had a big speech from somebody from this family. I can't actually remember if it was the same guy. It probably was. Wasn't that long ago. So lots of Romans do indeed hit the road and go to the camp because they want to get their pair out.
Dr G 52:35 I want my booty. They open the walls.
Dr Rad 52:39 Now, I know we are getting to a bit of a long point with this episode, but we're so close to they actually falling I feel like I have to take you there. Dr G, take me there. I'm ready. So in the camp Camillus Is there, like a good general and a good Roman, he takes the auspices to make sure that everything is in their favor now. Dr G, do you want to tell us a bit about why he'd be doing this. What are the auspices?
Dr G 53:01 Well, it's very important you can't undertake any military action without consulting the gods first. So the auspices is when you look at the patterns of bird movements, generally speaking. So if you have been in Europe, you will have probably been lucky enough at some point to see a muration of starlings. For instance, the patterns that these birds make when they move around the sky can be incredible. Now, it's not just starlings that you might be interested in. It could be eagles. It could be vultures, whatever's out there, but reading and interpreting those signs gives you an indication of maybe how the gods are feeling whether it's a good time to do a bit of an attack where it's time to open up those tunnels and burst out of your Trojan tunnels, slash horse, is it time? Nobody knows. So consulting the birds can really help with something like that. So Camillus undertaking that duty, it does make sense. As a dictator, there is a sense in which there is a religious element to the role, and he could be very well in charge of looking after that side of things as well. So he may have some people on hand to help with the interpretation, but definitely he would be allowed to lead something like that, and it would be important for him to do so in the eyes of everybody from the Roman side, to make sure that everything is okay for going ahead with whatever happens next.
Dr Rad 54:29 Well, he clearly got the green light from the birds, and so he goes out, prepares the soldiers. He also chooses this moment to make a vow. Now, I know you're going to want to jump in on this, but I'm I'm just going to tell the narrative and then we can unpack it later. So he makes a vow that he was led by Pythian Apollo. So probably because of the connection the Romans have had in recent years with this whole siege the lake Delphi. And with this God on his side, he is going to be able to conquer they and as a token of his appreciation, he is going to send Apollo the most gigantic box of Lindt chocolates. No, I'm just kidding. He's going to send a tithe of whatever spoils he captures to Apollo. He also asks Juno, a very important goddess in ve to switch sides and come and live in Rome once they have totally trashed the city where she currently is hanging out. And he promises he would set up a really lovely temple with a white picket fence and a slide in the backyard, if she would agree to come over.
Dr G 55:44 He's like, hey, girlfriend, you want to come over to my place? Forget these guys.
Dr Rad 55:49 Yeah. Now there's a moment that we're going to have to talk about with that later, but for now, I'm going to proceed. So Camillus now makes his advance against fair that much anticipated moment. He's many soldiers on his side, because the Romans could not be more enthusiastic about this. And they attack. They on every side. However, this is not the key to victory. Dr G, this is a mere distraction from the real attack, which is, of course, through the tunnels. That's right, we've seen the Romans do this many times, where they have a distraction and then the real thing going on elsewhere. This is a popular military tactic. Now the people of they did not know that the odds are totally stacked against them at this point in time. Of course, we know that there's been an old soothsayer from they who's totally betrayed his people by telling the Romans everything, maybe under torture, to be fair, but they don't know that. They don't know all the stuff that the Romans know at this point in time. They don't know that the Delphic Oracle has said that they is going to fall. They don't know that the gods had been made these promises if they switched sides and desert them so they have no idea of what is coming. They also have no idea about the mine. Apparently, all that digging was incredibly quiet. They had silences on their pickaxes. So they just do what they would normally do. They run to the ramparts. They've got their weapons. They're wondering why? All of a sudden, after being pretty Quiet on the Western Front for a while, No, I shouldn't say that pretty quiet on the Northern Front for a while, the Romans are being incredibly energetic in their attack. They're like, Oh, what is going on? That's been very, very tame, and now all of a sudden it's like, they're mad men, and we're being attacked on all sides, what is going on. Now, I do love this next part, because Livy tells me specifically, and I quote my translation at this point, men introduce a tale. For those of you who love historiography, this is history being made before our eyes. People, this is Livy telling me that he doesn't believe this story for a second, but he's going to include it anyway, because it's become a part of the folklore of the fall of they, and that is that the king of they, the douchebag that barely started all of this, just because he wasn't very well liked, was making a sacrifice. Now, the Romans in the mine have dug so deeply into they that they can actually hear what is going on, because they haven't broken through the wall yet. But you know, they can hear it. They hear the soothsayer that is with the king say that whoever cut up the innards of the animal that he's about to sacrifice would win this war between Rome and they. So they instantly seize their mermaid. They're like now, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. They break through the wall, they grab the entrails, they race back through the mine, and they present Camillus with the entrails so that he can be the person who cuts them and wins the war. Sounds tasty and not at all slippery. I know delightful, just the kind of thing you want to hear before a meal. However, Livy knows he's talking about something that happened a really long time ago, and I love what he says about it. He says this story more fit to be displayed on the stage that delights in wonders than to be believed. It is worthwhile neither to affirm nor to refute. He's like, You know what this is for the movies. I'm not even gonna talk about it. It's not worth my time. What
Dr G 59:31 a tricky moment in Roman history, bursting in on a sacrifice. And, yeah, you know, stealing the entrails.
Dr Rad 59:41 You can see why. You know, I said in the previous episode that this part of Livy, where he's talking about the fall of Veii is often something that people like to capture. This is where I think you can get that sort of cinematic feeling from Livy, even he knows it. Let's get back to reality in the mind filled with soldiers and all of us. Sudden, they break through into the temple of Juno, which was on the Citadel of a which was their target point. So all of a sudden they are attacking some of the people from they from behind. You know, they're not expecting this. Obviously, they had no idea that the mind was there. Even though the Romans can hear them, they can't hear the Romans naturally intriguing others. Others race off to break down the gates. Women and slaves inside, they are apparently throwing stones and tiles at the Romans from the roof, and some of the Romans then retaliate by attacking them with fire. Interesting little detail there. We do know some things about roof tiles. They are often thrown.
Dr G 1:00:41 They can be deadly. Yeah, those things are
Dr Rad 1:00:44 heavy. The horrific sound of war fills the air. Women are screaming, children are crying, men are shouting. It did not take long for soldiers to be thrown over the walls of their city and the gates of they to be opened. The Romans are able to storm this enemy city. Battle is taking place literally everywhere. It's
Dr G 1:01:14 happening in the streets. Now, the weakness of the tunnel coming from within, it's not looking good for they
Dr Rad 1:01:21 and so Veii is taken. Dr G, it falls, just like we knew it always would, thanks to that trait of this there and the lake and the Delphic Oracle. And as it all starts to wind down, because the Romans have secured their victory, Camillus has his heralds proclaim that anyone without weapons will be spared, because, being an all round nice guy, he wants to prevent a lot of unnecessary killing from taking place. So those without weapons handed themselves over. The Romans, however, now turn their eye to the really important part of this mission, and that is booty, and that might be a good place, I think, to pause, because they has now fallen, but there's a whole lot of stuff that we're going to need to unpack about that next episode, I think. And as we get into the question of booty,
Dr G 1:02:18 yes, I think so. Now, one of the things that is common in the sources that I have is a prayer that Camillus makes to the god Jupiter, amongst others. And I'm not sure about where that happens in this timeline either, because it hasn't come up in Livy's account yet. So there is this one thing about Camillus journey this far as dictator and into the heart of they, which I think is worth mentioning because it's going to start to have some consequences for him. And this is the moment where he offers a prayer to the gods, and in the moment of doing so, he makes some promises, like, I want this to all go really well. I'll do whatever is needful to make sure that the gods are kept happy. I'm willing to accept personally any blame for stuff that doesn't go well with this whole situation. So as dictator, and also fulfilling that kind of religious service function in this role, he's really trying to make sure that everything gets pulled off really nicely. And the weird detail that continues to come up about this moment is that, as he's doing this whole prayer thing and being like, let's make this whole situation as great as possible. I'll make this as good as I can. I'll do whatever is needful. I'll make the sacrifices. I'll give you the things later, if as long as we can pull this off, God's help me out. At the end of the prayer, he has a bit of a fall down. He has, yeah, he stumbles. So he has this moment where he's like, I'm going to make this go as as well as I can be in right relationship with the gods. But the moment where he turns around, because apparently he's veiled his head, which is a very traditional and appropriate Roman thing to do in this context of addressing the gods, to appear veiled as he turns around, slipping seems to be a pretty bad sign about how all of this is going to work out, either for Rome or for him, and I feel like that leaves us with another little bit of a cliffhanger, even though we seem to be in a really successful moment for Rome and its siege of a which seems to be in the midst of concluding now in a very successful way for the Romans. But this little religious stumble is perhaps going to be a problem for old mate Camillus. Yes.
Dr Rad 1:05:00 Now look, you are totally right in Livy's account. It's when he's looking at all the booty that the Romans have just gathered after they've finished the fighting part of this evening's entertainment, and he it's just more than he could ever imagine. And that's when he starts doing that thing where he gives thanks to the gods. And it is an interesting prayer, and it is one, I think, that repeats in Roman history. We might talk about that a bit again another day. But it's certainly that idea that he says, Look, if any of the gods or any other men thought that he was being given too much good fortune and would get jealous of him, then he would personally sort that out and deal with that, hopefully without damaging his own prospects and life, and without any damage to Rome itself and the Roman people, which is a really weird thing to say, if you think about it, it's not that. He's not just saying thanks for the booty he's making this really weird thing. And as you say in Livy's account, he does fall over, which everybody sees as an omen, apparently. But I agree with you. I think it is more indicative of the fact that in Camillus' life there are going to be some low lows as well as some high highs. Oh
Dr G 1:06:18 boy. Well, strap yourselves in. Listeners, Camillus, wild ride has only really just begun, it would seem, oh
Dr Rad 1:06:26 yes. And so, dr, G, I think it's time for the partial pick.
Dr G 1:06:37 Okay, the partial pick? Well, Rome, let's see how you stuck up against your own credentials. We have five categories of which they can earn up to 10 golden eagles in each one. So if Rome is being as Rome as it possibly could be, they could end up with 50 golden eagles. So let's see how they go. Okay,
Dr Rad 1:07:00 so for this part of 396, military clout. Dr, G, what do you reckon? Wow.
Dr G 1:07:06 I mean, top notch military clout. I mean, they're wiping the floor. They're taking a whole city. It's all going really well. There's tunnels, there's wall assaults. Everybody's having a great time. People sign up willingly to the levy.
Dr Rad 1:07:21 Going, great, go to the plebs. Insight,
Dr G 1:07:25 it's basically as good as it could be. Yeah, I feel like, you know we're we're nine or 10 territory here. I think
Dr Rad 1:07:31 so too, because, you know, it's not just they obviously remember, Camillus has dealt with the Faliscans and Capenates with zero trouble. I mean, so little trouble. We don't even get an account of what exactly happened. We just get told that it's done dusted. Well,
Dr G 1:07:44 I might be able to tell you some more details about what happened, at least with the Philistines next episode. Oh, yeah.
Dr Rad 1:07:50 No, that. We'll get to some stuff about them. But I mean, the the initial, the initial, putting them in their place, that's just effortless, done
Dr G 1:07:57 and dusted. Yeah, yeah. Military clout, 10 out of 10. Golden Eggs.
Dr Rad 1:08:03 Remember the last time we did that? In fact, I don't know if we've
Dr G 1:08:06 ever given a 10. Yeah, this is impressive stuff. The second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 1:08:13 Okay? I feel like this is not as good. I mean, we do have the Latins and Hernicians coming to Rome and saying, Whatever you do Rome, we're there for you. And Camillus being like, Thanks, guys. I tip my hat to you. I tip my laurel wreath,
Dr G 1:08:31 yes, but it's not at all clear that the Romans necessarily went out of their way to source that support in this particular instance, or whether the Latins and hanushe came to Roma, were like, Well, looks like you could use some help. Or, you know, so it's not the details of it is not clear. So the idea, the central question here is, how much negotiation is being employed by the Romans in order to reach their goals? And since I'm not sure about that, but they do have some help, so we have to assume there's some negotiation, even though we don't know what it was. Then maybe we're looking at like a four or five.
Dr Rad 1:09:11 Oh, wow. That's way more than I was going for. I was gonna give them like a two.
Dr G 1:09:16 I'm clearly having a good day where I'm being very generous.
Dr Rad 1:09:20 You know what? You've been infected by Camillus spirit, just like the Romans were. You're feeling wildly optimistic. I am being way too generous.
Dr G 1:09:29 Well, how about a three then, okay, three, it is expansion. Yes.
Dr Rad 1:09:35 I mean, this is a really big deal. We will talk about this, I'm sure, multiple times. But just to give the listeners some sort of perspective, dr, G, now that they falls under Roman control and remains there, estimates vary a little bit, but we're thinking that this basically doubles the territory of Rome, maybe even more than double, maybe adds like another. 60% to what they currently possess. It's a really, really big deal. They is a very prosperous Etruscan city.
Dr G 1:10:07 This is a massive moment. So yeah, if you think about it on just a scalable level, like Rome, is nothing like this sort of Imperial Rome that you see in popular film and things like that. This is a small city state that controls adjacent areas that are local to the city, and that's true for all of their neighbors as well. So Veii is its own city state, and they have more of a connection to a true area than they do to the Latins or the Romans or anybody like that. So this is effectively doubling, if not more, as you say, the capacity of Rome in terms of what they control, because they've now taken a whole major other city, yes. So this is huge, off the charts, massive in terms of expansion,
Dr Rad 1:10:59 yeah, and an Etruscan one at that. I mean, come on, we know that taking land is obviously going to mean a lot for the Romans, because we've had these ongoing issues of debt, and we've had questions about public land, which, look, they're probably anachronistic, but they're being raised so in the narrative that we're dealing with, this would definitely be a big deal. Plus, as you highlighted in the previous episode, its resources, its influence in the area. I mean, they don't really now have another major rival in this Tiber Valley area. Yeah,
Dr G 1:11:33 Yeah, it's pretty impressive. So in terms of expansion, I think we're also looking at a nine or a 10.
Dr Rad 1:11:40 Let's give them a nine. I think.
Dr G 1:11:45 Are they ever going to expand as much, percentage wise, upon themselves as they I was
Dr Rad 1:11:50 gonna say yeah, there are Yeah. There are some other victories and expansions that are obviously going to be very important. But in terms of percentage, I feel like this is a big one. This is huge, okay, so maybe 10, yes, proportionally, it's all proportional. Rome, don't get too
Dr G 1:12:07 my Camillus enthusiasm continues, indeed, all right, that leads us to the category of virtus. Ooh.
Dr Rad 1:12:18 This is a bit of a tricky one, because Camillus is obviously a very impressive, important figure, as the Romans think of him. But would you say we've really seen an act of virtus? Dr, G, no, yeah, I don't think so either, not in this moment I think comes later in his career.
Dr G 1:12:38 Yeah, it's not like so for Camillus to be participating in, like a classic virtus moment, we'd expect things, something like leading from the front, so him actually popping out of the tunnel first, for instance, could have been a thing. It wasn't he clearly sent people ahead. Other things that might constitute weirdos for him is him facing off with the king of they and having a one on one combat. We don't hear anything about something like that happening. So whoever that guy is, he seems to really fall off the radar. And we don't get that sort of really personalized commander on commander thing that you would also definitely classify as a weirdos moment. So yeah, in that sense, like it's not that Camillus isn't doing a great job. He clearly is. He's encouraging everybody. But those things aren't considered traditional Roman weird tours. No,
Dr Rad 1:13:32 exactly. And also, I'm not so sure I subscribe to this idea of the king of a I mean, he pops up at the beginning of this story to get this war started, pops up at the end. We never really get much information about him, apart from everybody hates him. Who is this guy? Well,
he ain't no Lars Tolumnius, that's for sure
Yeah, okay, so not really. And surprisingly, even though we get this very cinematic description of the fall of a in Livy, where, again, he's probably going for a bit of an epic moment there. We don't get anyone who is singled out for their achievements, which I find surprising. I feel like that would surely have been a moment for somebody in Roman history, but maybe they just don't want to detract from Camillus. You know, this is his moment
Dr G 1:14:19 to shine, yeah, yeah, like kimberlius have his moment in the sun. And the other point where you might potentially have some weird to us is in the senatorial chamber with the speech exchanges and how those go down depending on what people say. But it sounds like it's a very reasonable debate, and it's not the sort of one where people start showing off their scars or anything like that. So we're not getting into like big masculine Roman energy there, either. We're just getting some exchanges of opinions, which seems pretty standard for the day. Yeah, so I'm gonna say zero for virtus, because I'm not seeing any clear examples. I'm
Dr Rad 1:15:00 not, but you did just give me a great idea for a T shirt. It's not BDE, it's B, R, M, E,
Dr G 1:15:10 well, you know, I'm happy to make more T shirts. And our last category is the citizen school.
Dr Rad 1:15:18 Well, I do feel like there's some things to celebrate here, even though normally, you and I would say that wartime is probably not a fantastic time to be wartime Rome not a great time. They seem to be extremely excited about this one, and it goes very well for them. As I say, it's almost effortless in spite of all the mining. And then also the people who weren't even involved in the siege get told to grab their stuff and head on out to the camp and, you know, take some spoils for themselves.
Dr G 1:15:57 Line up, get yourself a piece of a
Dr Rad 1:16:02 I love to think of they as being like the Berlin Wall is these days. You know how people say, you know, I have a piece of the Berlin Wall. I feel like that's what people in Rome would be saying, they, Oh, my, my great grandfather still has a piece of they. You know, he still has some jewelry that he wrestled out of the hands of a crying woman. This
Dr G 1:16:22 bowl came from the temple in Veii, you know? Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:16:26 pretty much I feel like that is something that you would be trading in if you were a dealer of antiques in Rome. So
Dr G 1:16:35 everybody has the potential to increase their wealth slightly. And so part
Dr Rad 1:16:40 of it to be part of history. Dr, G, yeah.
Dr G 1:16:43 Oh, it's great. Yeah, fantastic. Sack of a city, get in there constructed
Dr Rad 1:16:49 before our very eyes. I mean history, not the city. The city is being torn down before our very eyes. I
Dr G 1:16:54 was like, kids do not do as the Romans did. No, not cool. Okay, so, but on the citizen score level, as far as the Romans are concerned, this is a great time to be a Roman citizen. You've got this real opportunity. It seems like the fighting was pretty easy in the end, they just needed that little push off the edge, which was the tunnel system. And once that happened, it was like a house of cards, and now it's booty Central, so probably at least a five, if not more, I
Dr Rad 1:17:24 think probably more. I reckon we have to go an eight for this one. I mean, not a 10, because obviously people are still dying, but I feel like it has to be an eight. Everyone seems very excited. There's not a whiff of tribune of the plebs in this entire account. Yeah,
Dr G 1:17:42 they're not even listed as magisters for the year. That's how unimportant they are, yeah.
Dr Rad 1:17:47 And I mean, we've also got, you know, a plebeian hero as magistrate, or his son as magistrate, speaking up and winning against Appius Claudius, although, once again, it seems like class loyalty is bit of an issue, because he is talking about the fact that, hey, let's get the plebs on side, and they've been doing it tough, clearly not associating himself. I think with that particular group of people, it
Dr G 1:18:13 does sound like there's a lot of unbelievable things that are happening for this year. I'm happy for it to be an eight. Let's do it. Fantastic.
Dr Rad 1:18:19 Well. Dr, G, hold on to your hat. The Romans have actually got over 25 Golden Eagles. For the first time in a really long time. We're at the grand total of 31 golden eagles. Oh,
Dr G 1:18:36 my goodness, that is massive. I know we haven't even
Dr Rad 1:18:41 talked about the whole year. I mean last episode, because we only did the very beginning of the year. They only got one. But if you add that one, it's 32 so far and counting. For 396, BCE, very impressive,
Dr G 1:18:52 Rome, after what feels like a real sort of a desert scape of partial picks for the last few years, they're making a resurging comeback Absolutely,
Dr Rad 1:19:05 and we haven't even finished this year yet. Dr, G, I still have so much more to tell you.
Dr G 1:19:12 Well, I look forward to our next episode together.
Dr Rad 1:19:15 Indeed, you
music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buying us a coffee on ko fi, in return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say hello, hello, hello to Hannah, Dillon, Karl, Aether and Not who are enjoying. Their one year Patreon anniversary with us. Thank you so much for being a part of our partial band. However, if you spent all of your money in the post Saturnalia sales, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.
We are super excited for this conversation. Owen Rees is the founder of the website badancient.com and we’ve been lucky enough to write a couple of articles over there on some misconceptions about the ancient Romans. So when we heard that Owen had a book coming out, we absolutely wanted to have a chat.
Special Episode – The Far Edges of the Known World with Owen Rees
The Far Edges of the Known World is coming out through Bloomsbury Press February 2025 and is all about what’s happening beyond the traditional centres of power that are the focus of historians such as Greece and Rome. What becomes clear in this conversation is that the written sources produce a focus on the centres of power for historians and that the archaeological record is critical to appreciating what’s happening in areas that weren’t the centre.
We start with a little bit on Ovid’s poor attitude to being in Tomis on the Black Sea and what that reveals about Rome BUT also reveals inadvertently about that society. There are generalisations about what place is where to navigate – where was Libya or India really? There's also plenty of scope to dip into the particulars of the archaeological record. To get a sense of the breadth and depth of Rees’ work we have a chat about:
Ancient Sudan and what is happening through the cataracts along the Nile beyond the sway of Egypt. This includes thinking about the Kushites as well as the nomadic peoples of the region
The limits of the ancient language and then our contemporary loaded terms ‘civilisation’ and ‘barbarian’
The fascinating city of Olbia, which seems to have been a meeting point between the Greeks and the Scythians resulting in a unique cultural nexus that feels effects of changing geopolitics when it comes to the Macedonians, the Persians, and the Romans
Things to listen out for
Women? In military forts? Shocking stuff!
Vindolanda and it’s amazing cache of letters of everyday life
The nomadic Medjay being paid to police other nomadic groups
The way that conquest can produce redefinition of self – case in point Rome and Briton
The challenges of the British accent when it comes to Ancient Rome on screen
A penchant for trousers
The development of coinage in Olbia
The challenges of writing a book about the edges of the world
Author of The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of the Ancient Past, Owen Rees
Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome
Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad
Dr G 0:33 and I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:50 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr G
Dr Rad 0:58 And I am Dr Rad
Dr G 1:00 And we are very excited to sit down today with Owen Rees to talk about his new book ‘The Far Edges of the Known World'. Even the title sounds very impressive. I'm like OoOoo. Owen Rees is an ancient historian. He held a Leverhulme early career fellowship at the University of Nottingham, and is a lecturer in applied humanities for Birmingham Newman University. He is the founder and lead editor of the website badancient.com which brings together specialists to fact check common claims. I'll say that again, which brings together specialists to fact check common claims made about the ancient world. We are absolutely thrilled to talk with Owen about his new book, ‘The Far Edges of the Known World, which is published by Bloomsbury Press. Welcome Owen.
Owen Rees 1:57 Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Dr G 1:59 An absolute pleasure. So to get us softly into this topic, because I feel like this topic is actually huge, I'm wondering what sparked your fascination for this idea of borders and edges when it comes to the ancient world.
Owen Rees 2:16 Yeah, it's a valid question, because it's not really talked about a lot, or when it is talked about, it's often in terms of conflict. So especially in the Roman Empire, we think hard borders, conflict and wars generally. So I mean, put it simply, it bugs me that the ancient world is always done from cultural centers. So every time we talk about ancient history, we talk about Athens, we talk about Rome, Alexandria, places like this. And that's all fascinating and interesting stuff, but I'm always struck with the kind of question in my head of, well, what about everyone else? What's everyone else up to? And how do these highfalutin ideas that people are coming up with like Plato and the like. How does that play out for, shall we say, normal people around the world? So first of all, it was to kind of get away from the obvious stories and the obvious narratives of the ancient world, ones that you know, we've all read, listened to and watched and kind of grew up with. I suppose another aspect was I was I was really interested in the idea of the ancient world being the whole world. You know, we often talk about, we study the ancient world, we love the ancient world, but all we really talk about is the Mediterranean, or the Mediterranean basin, really. So, you know, Egypt, Italy, Greece, maybe a bit of Turkey
Dr G 3:39 Guilty as charged.
Owen Rees 3:41 Yeah, we all do it. We all do it. And I just, I wanted to move away from that. And I mean, ultimately, I think it also played into an obsession of mine, which is, I love underdogs. I've always loved underdog stories from, you know, sort of watching films growing up in England, you know, watching films like Zulu, and I find the Zulus much more interesting than than the British forces, you know, sort of watching westerns. And it was never the cowboys I was that interested in. My siblings used to always take the mick that I always supported the losing side, but I always just found their stories more interesting, and I found their cultures more interesting. So that's kind of like underpinning, shall we say, of what interested me in this. But otherwise it's from a historical point of view. I hate inconsistencies. And what you often find when you read about Roman culture, Roman law, Greek culture and Greek laws, is they stop applying the further away you get from Greece, from Rome. I mean, a classic example from the Roman period is the idea of the imperial army, in particular, soldiers. It's illegal for soldiers to marry, not allowed to marry, and this has influenced the way archeologists have studied numerous. Forts and numerous sites over the years. And if anyone had ever thought early on to look at places like Egypt, for instance, we have loads of evidence in the Greek language that Roman soldiers are married, and then it turns out they're just not married in the Latin language. So you get this lovely interplay of an accepted rule breaking and almost like, Okay, well, we can't officially say it, but of course you are. And as a result, like studies of Roman thoughts over the past 20 years have started realizing that perhaps you know, evidence of women or children in forts doesn't need to be explained with strange excuses. And actually, maybe they were supposed to be there.
Dr G 5:46 What. What are the women doing there?
Owen Rees 5:50 I know, what is this chaos?
Dr Rad 5:53 There's a keep out sign, very clearly on the door.
Owen Rees 5:59 So it was, yeah, it was just, I think looking at the board has just challenged a lot of what I grew up thinking I knew about the ancient world, what other people taught me about the ancient world. And I just found that really interesting. The way I often sell it to other people is from a more general point of view. If you look at the ancient world and only look at the center, you are basically committing the cardinal sin of a traveler who goes to London and thinks they've seen Great Britain, you know, goes to Sydney and so think they've seen Australia, and you just haven't. You've seen something amazing. You've seen something flamboyant and spectacular and culturally fascinating, but you have not seen everything, and you have not seen anything close to everything. And so that was kind of what inspired the idea of the book in the first place.
Dr G 6:49 Oh, that is really cool.
Dr Rad 6:50 It is. And so for people who would like to pick up a copy of your book, you're going to take them to places across Africa, the Caucasus, and Asia. But as Roman historians, we're very aware that there are the very serious limitations when it comes to the way that Roman perspectives can be imposed, and the kind of world that is created from Roman sources. So what were the challenges that you encountered when researching these edges of the world? And how did you tackle those challenges?
Owen Rees 7:21 Oh, there were quite a few. I'll be honest with you, I suppose the biggest. I'm a historian by background. So my main bread and butter are written sources, you know. So I think Herodotus, think Plutarch, you know, people like this. This is, this is where I spend my time. When you start going to the edges of the ancient world, there's a lot less of it, and those written sources are either less interested in what's going on at the edge or have a very skewed perspective of what's going on at the edge. So first thing I had to embrace very early on was that archeology was a much closer friend than sort of the standard historical text I'm used to working with. So that's the first thing, but the second thing, this kind of opens up opportunities. So we don't have large narratives from all these kind of sites. I There are no large narratives coming out of Ukraine in the ancient period that just aren't but what there is alongside the archeology in some of these sites are fascinating written sources that don't appear anywhere else. So oddly enough, whilst we we obsess over Greece and Rome, our best evidence, in terms of the amount of evidence and in terms of what it tells us about everyday life, comes in the Roman period from two places, really, to my mind, one is Vindolanda. So that's a Hadrian's Wall in the north of England, where we have surviving written tablets from a fort. So we have a remarkably large cache of letters, basically, and notes from a Roman fort telling us what's going in and out, telling us what's happening. It's really boring, but it's really fascinating at the same time. And that's what I love, because, you know, life isn't always exciting. So you know, there's lovely letters of people complaining they haven't been sent socks, and things like this. It's just amazing. If you haven't seen it, anyone listening, you gotta have a look. They're great fun. But the other site, well, the site I look at, but actually it's the entire region of the Faiyum region in Roman Egypt. So when Egypt is on Roman control, you've got the Faiyum Oasis, which is to the west of, or southwest of what is now modern Cairo. Amazing place to go. And we have just a remarkable amount of papyri. So you know, the written paper from Egypt just stored in people's houses whilst they kept them safe. So these are, like people's personal archives, really. So it's documents that they want to keep safe, things that are important to them. Some of them are like contracts. Some of them are personal letters between like themselves and their mother or their father, who might have died by that point. Some of them are just sort of family papers. So we've got all this amazing evidence just sitting there telling us about normal people, normal life, everyday life. So whilst I had to get away from this idea that history has to be grand narratives to write this book, what I get to really embrace is those small personal narratives and those little snapshots and stories of just normal people. And that's just something we don't really get to hear much about in the ancient world. But going back to, like your point on Roman writers and the world they're building us. This is such an important point, because often when they talk about the edge of the world, one the really vague, and this is infuriating. I had to, I had to work with a map illustrator, and they were like, you mentioned Ethiopia as a region. Where is it? And I was like, south in Libya. And they're like, Okay, so the country of Libya, no, Libya is a random continent. Kind of makes up most of Africa at this point, but doesn't include Egypt most of the time. And they're like, so where is Ethiopia in that? I'm like, to the south, like, where that's that's all they tell us. So, you know, you got the it's the same with you mentioned the Caucasus. The Greeks and Romans talk about Scythia, which is very vaguely north of the Black Sea, and to the east. And that's kind of it. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be, depending on what you're talking about and who you're talking who you're talking about. So they do talk about these things in general terms, because often what they're talking about is very, very far away land. So when they talk about skiffia, they mean very far away to the north and the east. When they talk about Libya, they mean very far away to the south. When they talk about Ethiopia, they talk about even further away to the south. India is my other favorite, because we think of India. India is a very clear place. The Romans, the Greeks, knew about India. They went to India. They traded with India. They must know what India is when they talk about it, and they do not. Sometimes, it includes Arabia the Arabian Gulf. Sometimes they're talking about much further east than India, you know, the unknown lands of Southeast Asia, Vietnam, maybe even China. Sometimes. So they're not always, they're not consistent in their terminology at all. And I suppose the final point, really, when dealing with this is Roman writers in particular, if they're talking about the borders, it's usually to make a point about something else. And so we're always stuck with that question, how accurate a reflection are we getting about the place they're talking about? Some of these things can be overcome with archeology. Some of these things can be overcome with other evidence. Some of it has to be left kind of open ended. Ovid is a good example of this, and his description of a town called Tomis, where we don't have loads of evidence about Tomis, but we know he's wrong, but how wrong we're not quite sure, but definitely incorrect.
Dr G 13:31 Yeah, I was going to say you've led me straight to this idea of Ovid's perception of Tomis on the Black Sea, where he gets exiled to because he's clearly not having a good time. He is most upset to be here, and he believes it's probably the worst place ever, at least that's the kind of impression you get from the letters that he writes back to the city, being like, please, please, please, guys, this exile needs to end. I cannot stand another minute here, but it seems to be at least in the way that you're describing it, is that maybe it's quite jarring for him because he doesn't get to live the life that he prefers or is used to anymore. It's not so much that he doesn't understand the place, it's just that it's not something he wants to experience. So I'm wondering like, is Ovid a bit emblematic for some of these problems we get with our bigger written sources when it comes to thinking about the edges of things?
Owen Rees 14:27 Yeah, I think is he is indicative of the issue I may so much so he bookends my book for a reason. He really sums up not only the problem we have with Roman writers, Greek writers, Egyptian all these different people. But also, I think he's indicative of the problem historians have where we're so stuck on focusing on what's not going on, or what it doesn't look like, much like he does, we kind of miss it for what it is. But Ovid's, Ovid's a fascinating guy. He comes off a bit badly in my book. I think I went for him a little bit because he's held up in this kind of canon of Roman writers, and he is a moany so and so. But I think you're right. I think what he's moaning about is things not as they are, but also it's because he wants to go home. So so much of his poetry, so much of his letters, are about convincing people to petition on his behalf, send me home from his exile. So he portrays it in the most horrific ways. And if you read this, you just think, why would anyone ever go there? It is a nasty place. It's constant war, constant freezing. They can't even grow grapes. They don't speak Greek properly, which is laughable, because it's a Greek city. You know, he's moaning about all these things, and it's just fantastic, is this idea of I'm too good for this place? That's kind of how he presents it. But on the same token, I'm not always 100% convinced. That he's reflect not just the reality of the town, but his own reality in that town. So for instance, we know he brags at one point of writing a poem in a local language. So we get this idea he is learning local languages. He doesn't need to know the local languages. Greek is a standard language. He learns like a Gatic language, but he's not in learning. He's mastered it enough to do his poetry. We know he serves in the militia. One of the things he moans about, they made me do military service, which I got out of him Rome. So there's no doubt he's actually getting quite involved in the community around him, but he will never let on these in any way enjoying it, or any way settling in. But the other thing it's the interesting one, something we get a lot at the borders when people from the center so these kind of figures go there is this idea of being forgotten, this idea of no one will know what's going on, because no one really understands the edges, and if I'm there, they'll forget me. And Ovid has this kind of paranoia that he'll be forgotten, and that mediocre poets in Rome will be remembered better than he will. And of course, that's we know in hindsight, that's not true at all. So his greatest fear of being left at the edge just doesn't come true in the slightest, if anything, his time in exile are, I mean, I think some of his best work, I don't think every academic would agree with me there, but they're certainly, historically, the most interesting pieces of work he does. So yeah, Ovid, absolutely, he is emblematic of a lot of the issues where we're seeing, but not just from the ancient world itself, but also from our own perspective.
Dr Rad 17:46 As podcasters from Sydney, we kind of get that feeling, always, you know, our timing is just always off. We're always, you know, in another day, in another time zone. It's,
Owen Rees 18:02 Yeah, but you'll never be forgotten. You know, remember that.
Dr G 18:05 That's the dream.
Dr Rad 18:07 We are writing the most epic podcast known to man, so… In scale, I mean in scale. So turning our attention away for a moment from the Romans and their world and their perspective, you also take the reader through some of the details of the borders that emerge in parallel to the cataracts along the Nile River in ancient Sudan. Can you take us through some of the details of the edges of the world as conceived in ancient Sudan?
Owen Rees 18:35 Yeah, it's an interesting one. So for the cataract. So we're talking about these kind of insurpassible parts of the Nile cataracts. So they're basically heavy rapids. There's boulders and stones. It's just sort of harder to get through. It's not just like a direct route, shall we say. And further south from these cataracts, you enter what's generally thought of as Nubia, the lands of Nubia and during, I mean, this is like second millennium, well out of our wheelhouse for Greek and Roman historians. But second millennium BCE, where Egypt, you know, has built its pyramids, have all this beautiful monuments, and the pharaohs have well and truly established themselves on the throne. But to the south, in Nubia, we have a another kingdom called the Kushite kingdom, who are growing a fascinating place. The archeology of this area and this sort of Kingdom and the towns they build are absolutely phenomenal, but like, there's no written texts to work with. So unfortunately, it's one of the kind of curses of living at the edge. Your story is told by your enemies, and Egypt is the the writer of the history of the Kush. To put this in context, they generally refer to the Kush as the ‘wretched Kush'. That's their name for them. So that kind of gives you an idea of the storyline we're getting. So Egypt keeps trying to push its influence further and further south, moving up the Nile, and it does this by building a series of forts along the cataracts, really. I mean, you can see this as expansion. You can see this is imperialist expansion. That's certainly what it becomes later in the New Kingdom. But at this point, I'll often visualize this as almost creating a buffer zone. So they're trying to create an area where the Kush are pastoralist people by origin. Even though they're now building their towns and stuff, they still have sort of this semi-nomadic underpinning to their life. So movement around is quite a common thing, and sedentary cultures, urbanized cultures, generally, do not like nomadism because it doesn't abide by the rules of borders and things like that still true to this day, let's be honest. So they build these forts, and they create this kind of middle ground within it. And what I found fascinating about this is we have a perfect example of stretch of land where the two cultures kind of mash and mesh and intermingle. And rather than look at the Egyptians from their perspective further north, and rather look at the Kush from their perspective further south, I was fascinated by what was going on here, in this in this middle ground, in this buffer zone, and ultimately what we get is Egyptian garrisons, settling, raising families. And kind of setting themselves up in just normal life. It's just normal garrison life. It's not always very exciting. There's generally a lot of raiders, bandits, but also just trade. So it's that, it's that snapshot of the everyday, which I love. But we also get some lovely characters and some lovely events for anyone who's, if you fans of ‘The Mummy'?
Dr G 22:09 Ooo yeah
Dr Rad 22:09 Ah yes
Owen Rees 22:11 Yes, what do you take me for? But also, I've just, I've just got into Assassin's Creed Origins, so I'm obssessed at the moment with the Medjay
Dr G 22:21 Yeah, beautiful. I love that game.
Owen Rees 22:23 Yeah, brilliant game. And they're brilliant characters in ‘The Mummy', where the Medjay first kind of appear at this border as a group. Historians aren't 100% sure who they are in terms of ethnicity, but the general consensus at the moment is that they are one of the nomadic Nubian groups floating about in this region, in this area. So they're not Kush, and they're not Egyptian, they're this nomadic group, or one of many nomadic groups, and they're called the Medjay, and they turn up in the the fort records, basically, of people moving about, and this is where we first start to see them used as like a rudimentary police force. And to give you an idea of the kind of complexities of what's going on and the lack of simplicity of us versus them, the Medjay who form part of this nomadic Nubian group are often policing other nomadic Nubian groups in the area. So they're like enforcing Egyptian rules on it, because ultimately the fort brings food, it brings money, well, it brings support, it brings income of some sort. And so it makes more sense for them to look to the Egyptians for basically work. So we get individuals like this, but also we see in the force themselves. We mentioned them earlier with the Roman forts, but we get these, these people. They're called women
Dr G 23:54 What?
Owen Rees 23:55 And they do, they do exist in history.
Dr G 23:57 Again? What's going on?
Dr Rad 23:59 Just break this down for a second. Wo-men. I think I might have heard of them, yeah.
Owen Rees 24:05 Have you heard of them? My academic background is military history, and you'd be amazed. Well, you won't be amazed how many books to where they don't appear.
Dr G 24:16 It's incredible.
Dr Rad 24:17 We sympathize, we sympathize, yeah.
Owen Rees 24:19 And at the forts, what we see is Nubian women, even possibly Kush women, entering the forts and living in the homes of Egyptian soldiers and men. There's no reason to not presume that they've actually intermarried. So again, what we see, you know, away from the narratives of the Egyptians, where there's ‘wretched Kush' and they can't be trusted in the region, and they should all be killed because they're animals, we see the borders soldiers who are supposed to be kind of enforcing that and epitomizing that ideology, marrying them, living with them, having kids with them. And I just, I just find that amazing. I find it beautiful. I just think it's, it's a fascinating inversion of what we expect.
Dr Rad 25:07 It's almost as though when people actually get to know each other instead of believing what they're told. They actually find that humans are quite similar and they can get along with,
Owen Rees 25:22 I mean, you said it not me. I don't want to get in trouble.
Dr Rad 25:25 These are the kind of mind blowing ideas that people come to the Partial Historians for, you know,
Owen Rees 25:30 This is it
Dr G 25:32 Oh, boy.
Owen Rees 25:34 This is it. This is beautiful stuff. It is beautiful stuff, um, but like, within the sort of historical narrative. I mean, ultimately, Egypt goes through its own periods of chaos. And during that chaos, we see the borders fluctuation. So during one of those periods of chaos where Egypt has basically an incursion from the north, the Kush push further north and actually take control of a lot of these fortifications.
Dr G 26:00 Uh oh
Owen Rees 26:01 Now, yeah. To put this in kind of perspective, these forts are enormous, like they're absolutely amazing in size, in scale. I mean, really, we see nothing like it in the ancient world until, like the Roman structures, 1000s of years later, in terms of fortifications on the borders, and in terms of the investment that goes into it, there's nothing quite like them, but the Kush basically walk into them, because the Egyptians have to focus on what's going on further north. And again, you're like, Okay, so the Kush have pushed north taking control. This is going to be a bloodbath. Are they even going to keep the forts. What's going to go on? There is no archeological evidence that there is any destruction.
Dr G 26:47 Wow
Owen Rees 26:48 At all. So it very much creates this impression they just kind of walk in. And we even have examples of Egyptians at the forts who keep their jobs.
Dr G 26:59 What?
Dr Rad 27:01 Now that's the kind of job security that I envy.
Owen Rees 27:05 Exactly, exactly. I mean, from a pragmatic point of view, if you've got an infrastructure in place and they're happy to stay in place, there's no need to change it. So you know, as long as they're not leaving and they're not constantly out to try and get you and to try and overthrow you. Why wouldn't you keep them in place?
Dr Rad 27:22 Is Elon Musk listening?
Owen Rees 27:22 You're gonna get me in a lot of trouble! So, yeah, so we, so what we basically see is people go right, like my dad was here under the Pharaoh. I'm now here under the Kush happy days. Let's just keep going. Because ultimately, what happens, this is what I love about the borders. What happens at the border is that's life. Life isn't what happens to the south or to the north. Life is what's going on there and then. And you know, they're not going to uproot themselves if they've got family there, if they've got lineage there. If they you know, they've been there six, seven generations. This is their home. This is their homeland. It's at that point where you see where loyalties really lie. Now, that's not true of all the sites I talk about in my book, and that in itself, is interesting because it gives you an idea of how, I don't know how deep people will put their roots when they come to the edge, you know, how do they see their time there? But at the fault, we see quite these kind of thoughts. We see quite clearly people that's home. So, you know, why would they leave just because another king is asking for tax rather than the previous king who was asking for tax? You know, it's that kind of perspective. So I think that was it really. I wanted this kind of fortification, boundary, these barriers. I wanted to look at it rather than through a lens of conflict and through a lens of imperial or political power. I wanted to see it through everyday life. I wanted to see it as normal and just how life went on even in places like this.
Dr G 29:04 I love this sense of pragmatism about daily life that is coming through and is a real thread through this whole book, actually, because it's kind of like, what sort of decisions do you make when you're not the powerful person, when you're not the person writing the laws? And you find yourself, you know, well, I've been sent to this for it, and I guess I'll figure out life from here. And, you know, opportunities come along, you make some friends, you meet a girl, it's kind of nice, and all of a sudden your family's been there for like, two or three generations, and you're like, Oh, it's good here. You know, we're these kind of people now.
Dr Rad 29:38 I think it also speaks to the universal human hatred of moving.
Dr G 29:45 There's nothing worse than having to pack up all those boxes.
Dr Rad 29:49 I hate it, and I'm glad to know that people in the ancient world hated it too.
Owen Rees 29:56 Well. There we go. They are just like us,
Dr G 29:58 So similar. And you touched on this idea of language with this idea of the ‘wretched Kushite', and I think this leads us really nicely into thinking about these really loaded terms that we tend to get when we think about the center versus the edge, and that idea of the ‘civilized' center and the ‘barbarian' edges. And these sorts of terms are hugely problematic, obviously been repurposed in terrible ways throughout all of human history, even recently. And I'm interested in how a study like yours can help us combat this sort of us versus them dichotomy that comes through in that kind of language use?
Owen Rees 30:41 Yeah, I think it ultimately, it rips it apart. Absolutely rips it apart. It shows it for what it is, which is a rhetoric of privilege, basically from the center, because they can think like that, because the only I mean classics, classical, Athens for fifth, fourth century. Athens, a good example of this, if you are Plato, living in, you know, walking around, Athens the only barbarian, one of the better word, the only foreigner you will meet is predominantly either a trader or an enslaved person. That's pretty much it. So you can have these kind of views, you know, of foreign peoples, because it doesn't really affect you day to day. But when you look to the edges, where, you know, like we were talking about you, you end up marrying these people. You end up living with these people. These people become your friends. These people become your colleagues. These people become your network for trade. You just can't you just can't think like that, or you can't internalize all those beliefs of well, you can definitely internalize your belief of your own superiority, but you can't really internalize the belief of their innate inferiority in every way. So the idea that the barbarian person is intellectually inferior, morally inferior in just every single possible way, it just doesn't make day to day feasible. So the distinction very much kind of falls apart when they live side by side. So we we see this in particular in the book or two sections on Greece, the Greek world and the Roman world. And it just falls apart time and again as you look at it. I mean, ultimately, barbarianism as a construct and civilization as an idea are usually. They usually appear in the ancient world to justify something or to garner support for something. So think about, you know, the anti-Gaul rhetoric just before Caesar's invasion. Think of the anti-Persian rhetoric after the Persian Wars in classical Athens. It's all to justify things that are either happening or are going to happen or have happened. So you've got to see it for the ideological rhetoric is what I find quite interesting about it is, if you, if you take it at face value, it kind of counters a lot of stories we tell ourselves about our own history, maybe not Australia.
Dr G 33:11 Oh, I think definitely Australia.
Dr Rad 33:13 Oh I don't know about that
Owen Rees 33:15 I'll leave that with you, but a classic one in Britain. So British British history. One of the key parts is the Roman invasion. We don't talk about ourselves as an invaded imperial opponent. We don't talk about stuff like that. So what we inherit, in terms of the ancient history from Roman period, is that we take the role of the Romans, which is quite odd when you think about it, because we were not the Romans.
Dr G 33:49 I don't want to say that this is a classic English move, but
Owen Rees 33:55 It definitely is. But what we don't talk about, for instance, and I love this, doing the research for the book is just how much Britain is a backwater of the ancient world, just how looked down on, just how how much it is looked down on, like to the point where, before the Roman expansion, really, the Greeks aren't even convinced it's real, because it just sounds so horrific.
Dr Rad 34:19 It rains ALL the time
Owen Rees 34:24 I know, and it's not wrong, so we know that. But the other thing is, ultimately, it's the edge of the world. I mean, even the early Roman, sort of early Roman, imperial writers talk about it as literally, the edge of the world. So it gets to this point where, okay, we accept it probably is real. But God, no human would live any further than that. And it's just, it's just amazing. So you know, what we inherit as British people is this story from the Roman perspective, about Roman power. What we don't inherit is the Roman perspective on Britain itself, which is like this is not a very great place to be, very great place to be. And I just love that. I love that I love not only the history of the ancient world, but also how the ancient world is translated into the modern day, and what bits of it we like to choose and what bits of it we like to ignore. But in terms of the barbarian civilization, yes, I mean, the ancient world is the foundation of it. To this day, you've kind of alluded to it already. I've said it outright. Britain has, for a long time considered itself the inheritor of the Roman Empire. You know, if it's not Britain, it's Napoleon. If it's not Napoleon, and it's bloody the Third Reich. Everyone wants to be the Roman Empire. Everyone wants to be the harbinger of civilization, shall we say, and make themselves the inheritor of what they consider the lineage of civilization. And when you look at the edge of the world, you just kind of see how ridiculous an idea that really is.
Dr Rad 36:00 I think somebody needs to Hollywood that, because I don't know if you noticed, but the Romans always have British accents.
Dr G 36:10 This does – as a side note – this does weird out my Italian husband, he cannot watch HBO's Rome because he is thoroughly baffled by the representation of Romanness through the English accent.
Owen Rees 36:24 Well, did you see the whole complaint about Denzel Washington and Gladiator 2, having basically the New York accent, I think it's the New York accent
Dr Rad 36:33 I think he talks like Denzel
Owen Rees 36:36 Yeah he does, it's his voice. And I just love it, because people are like, this is the wrong accent. And everyone's like, you mean British, don't you? You mean he hasn't got a British accent, which is just ridiculous. Yeah, fair point.
Dr Rad 36:48 Yeah, well, look, you know, I have to defend it, because that's what Kirk Douglas was going for with his whole casting thing. He had real issues with certain people he wanted to cast you didn't have the right accent. He was like, Oh, the British versus American accent. It's so important, it must be preserved at all costs, regardless of acting ability. Moving on, though, we really loved the chapter on the city of Olbia, which was located in what is now Ukraine. Olbia draws influences from many peoples, and the result is a layered culture. Can you take us through some of the key moments in olbia's ancient history as a city at the edges?
Owen Rees 37:30 Me, yeah, so we're looking at, literally at the very edge of what is now Crimea, and it's set up as a marketing a market city, basically, to kind of capitalize on the trade of the Black Sea and to try and push Greek trade further north into what is Scythia. So the land of the Scythians, this elusive conglomeration of various nomadic, semi-nomadic and static groups that the Greeks aren't 100% sure who they are. And Olbia goes through – like the history of Olbia is just fascinating. I fell in love with the city whilst writing about it, because, basically: it sets itself up, has to deal with the Persian expansion in the region, survives the Persian Wars, but we don't know how, in what way. We don't know if it sides with the Persians. We don't, we don't know what it did to get by. It then has to deal with ancient Athens expansion in the Black Sea. That's when the city becomes democratic, because Athens doesn't really give you a choice with this. It then basically, can't we cope with being democratic? So it relies a lot on the patronage of rich individuals. It then has to deal with the expansion of Alexander, Alexander the Great, the Macedonians. It survives that it looks to Scythian kings for one of a better term for support and for protection over time. But in the end, it's abandoned for a period. We're not a hundred percent sure why. It just kind of stops being a useful place to be. Too much conflict in the area is not worthwhile. And then, interestingly, some of the Scythian groups actually implore Greeks to come back and re establish it. So Olbia is re established, and that's when we get the Romans interacting with it. And there's a beautiful moment where one of our Roman writers is complaining because he goes there meets a Greek guy, young lad who's Greek, is very bad, apparently, and is dressed like a Scythian which is a fascinating moment, because the Scythians wear the most effeminate of clothing known to the ancient Mediterranean.
Dr Rad 39:51 Is it pants?
Owen Rees 39:52 It is pants, it is trousers, and he's described wearing them. He also described as holding a cavalryman's sword as well. Very unusual, very unexpected, and it's just the perfect encapsulation at Olbia of what's going on, which is Greek people clinging to Greek identity, but adapting and embracing Scythian or local traditions as well. And we see this in a few ways. So we see in the coinage. Coins are not always the most exciting of things, but they tell us a lot. And at Olbia, they tell us an amazing story where the first coins we see at Olbia aren't round coins like drachma and things like that. They're actually shaped like arrowheads and dolphins. There's a lot of speculation as to why it might be related to cult of Apollo. These are two symbols of Apollo in the region, but there are also two symbols that relate closely with the culture of the non Greeks in the region. Let's call them Scythians, who put a lot of stock in archery as their sort of military prowess. And the dolphins is a local symbol because of the population in the Black Sea. So there is an argument that's been made that this is possibly evidence of them trying to get local groups to embrace a financial system that they don't have. So Olbia, the Greeks at Olbia are creating a monetary system that they can relate to and use in some way, which in itself, is interesting. So by the time we get proper coinage, so the kind of round drachma in Olbia, what we see are symbols that relate to Scythian culture. So we see a distinctive bow. We see a distinctive bow case imprinted on the coins. We also see a particular axe, the sagarius, which is not Greek. The Greeks are not interested in it. This is about this is clearly about giving a iconographic marker, an image that the Scythian groups or the local groups in the area understand what it is. And I just find that amazing. And it kind of feeds into something Herodotus, so the father of history tells us about the region and about the city. He describes a group living near Olbia. In his list of Scythians, he gives a long list of different Scythian groups, and in it, there's one which he describes as Greek-Scythians, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think of it through the perspective of barbarians and Greeks and separations. So what does he actually mean about this? And so it was, you know, maybe they're living more of a sedentary agricultural life, maybe saying, well, that's going on, but maybe it's because Greece and Scythians are actually intermingling and living together and marrying and intermarrying. And this is actually supported by a later inscription at Olbia, which talks about a group called the ‘mixellenes', literally the half Greeks who live just outside of Obia. So we have this kind of archeological verification, corroboration, really, of what Herodotus is talking about, yes, Greeks and Scythians. This isn't pie in the sky hippy nonsense. These people are actually living together, marrying, intermarrying, raising families like this is reality. This is what's going on. And to kind of come back to both your points earlier, this contrast this with the center to this point is Athens. In Athens fifth century, fourth century. Plato has a little mini rant in one of his works about intermarriage, and he refers to a group called the ‘mixebarbaroi'. So the half barbarians, and I think this perfectly encapsulates the difference between the center and the edge. So in the center, if you intermarry with foreign peoples, you're a half barbarian. At the edge, if you're intermarry with other people, you're half Greek. Don't get me wrong, you're still not Greek, you're still not quite us, but it just gives you that inverted perspective that you see at the edge. If we only listen to Plato, you would think that was all there was.
Dr G 43:52 I do like this idea that not only is there sort of, like fine, sort of definitions within this, because that speaks to like people trying to like, find their identity and position themselves in particular ways. And Herodotus seems to be picking up on that as well. But you've mentioned a couple of times now that when we get out into this sort of really eastern section, that there is a sense from people from the center that the Greek is spoken differently, for sure, and the idea that the accent is shifting, and that maybe the language is bringing in loan words and things like this from the surrounding areas. And it's not that they're not speaking Greek, but it's not, it's not the Greek of the center, for sure, by the sounds of it. And to tie this back into thinking about your own journey as an author, this book takes us through heaps and heaps of places, and I feel like the thing that you would want to do to prepare to write for this book is to do a lot of travel and get to these edges and really, really come to grips with it from in the topographical sense, you know, just feel what it's like to be in these places as well, because that would also decenter you as an author from your position in your natural center. And I'm interested in the sort of challenges that you have found in writing this book when it comes to that kind of thing.
Owen Rees 45:22 Yeah, this book was not pitched at a good time for what I wanted to do, because you're right, I had, I had real plans to be a jet setting historian. I was going to live my dream since I was a kid. I was going to go around the world, go to all the ancient sites and just write stories about them. It was going to be amazing. The first planned trip I had. So I've got chapter on ancient Vietnam, and I was like, It's the one place I've never been. I've never been anywhere like it. I've got to get to Vietnam. And I planned out the entire trip, and then the COVID lockdowns happened.
Dr G 45:54 Noo
Owen Rees 45:56 Yeah. So that was great. So that scuppered that plan. It scuppered my plans to go to Ethiopia. It scuppered my plans to go to Morocco. I had ambitions, and every time lockdown was lifted, I was like, Okay, I probably won't get to Vietnam. Now, let's try Ethiopia. Okay, next lockdown. I won't get to Ethiopic Morocco. That's just down the road a bit. Let's try that next lockdown occurrence. By the time all restrictions were lifted, my deadlines were looming, so I had to readdress my expectations and my ambitions. So I was like, fair enough. I won't be able to get to that. I've got to look but I've got to look nearer to home to get to some of these sites. I'll go to Ukraine. I've got two chapters in the book. I'll go to Ukraine. As I came up with that plan, Putin, tanks crossed the border. So that's scuppered that plan. Another idea was I'll get to Israel. That was a terrible idea, Sudan, that was never going to start. Basically everywhere I wanted to go, either terrible things that were happening started happening, or, in hindsight, went on to happen. So that was that was a bit of a problem.
Dr G 47:15 Sounds like you're a powerful figure, Owen on world history and current affairs.
Speaker 1 47:21 You don't want to appear in my books, but I'll tell you that. Tou don't, you don't want to be named in my books.
Dr Rad 47:25 It seems like not a coincidence that all these places you wanted to go are still areas where sometimes you can't.
Owen Rees 47:35 Yeah, there is something to be said for the edges of the world haven't changed that much in our own perspective, and that in itself, is very interesting, and we do not have enough time to explore that one. But yeah, it is interesting just how many of these places are still considered these sort of no go places or problematic places or difficult places, rightly or wrongly, they still hold these reputations. And as you can kind of see, some of these reputations go back 1000s of years. I mean, to get around it, I ended up having to rely on a massive network of historians around the world, archeologists around the world, many of whom I've never met, never spoken to. And bless them, they were so supportive and so helpful, because, yeah, we were all in the same boat. Anyone who wanted to write about any of these places, we were in the same boat. We couldn't travel. So as a result, I was able to tap into that and be sort of fed and guided to a lot of the cutting edge research. So a lot of academics were bored during lockdown, and so anyone who spoke to them about their own work got very excited. And so there was a lot of zoom calls because they wanted to talk to anyone, and they were like, have a look at this draft that I'm publishing in two years time. Have a look at this draft of stuff I've just found when I was last in Vietnam and all this kind of stuff. So the book, one of the things I liked about putting this book together was it was fed by a lot of the very, very current research coming out. And from my perspective, from your perspective, and all the amazing work you do, I think part of our job is to kind of translate that for the public and feed it to them in some way. So I love the idea that we're not, you know, I'm not feeding them a narrative that's been around for 10, 15, years in academia. Some academics will read some of this stuff and not know that's been discovered yet, not know it's come out, which is just beautiful, because I think the public should be, you know, as much of the forefront as everyone else.
Dr Rad 49:38 Absolutely. And that segues nicely into a question we thought we used to sort of wrap things up, which is, what questions or ideas would you like to leave listeners with when it comes to them thinking about the boundaries and the edges of the world?
Owen Rees 49:57 I suppose I'd love for you to be left with the same question that started the book. I don't like to think I've answered it, because it was an open ended question, but ultimately, my first question when it came to this book was, okay, we know Greece, we know Rome. What else is going on? So I talk about, I think it's 13 sites around the ancient world. I could have picked a completely different 13. And I just, if this book is to inspire anything, I want it to inspire inquisitiveness. There are lots of works, lots of podcasts, lots of documentaries about these other places. They're just not the big, famous ones that everyone's kind of reading and watching and listening to. So kind of, you know, follow your inquisitiveness, because ultimately, that's what history is. I mean, history literally means inquiry. It is to be inquisitive. It's not to tell narratives and have answers. It's to ask questions and to keep exploring. And that includes people who just love history. You know, it's not just academics and scholars. So I suppose the other thing, which I'm glad you two picked up on as well, so it's we read a lot about ideas in Rome, in Egypt and Greece and all these places. Lot of ideas. How does that play out in reality? How does it play out in the other sides of the world? You know, it's all well and good thinking. You know, what life is like in London? What's it like in rural Scotland? You know, as for the British example. So kind of, yeah, follow your own interests, follow your own inquisitiveness, follow your own questions. And I suppose the final thing for this, and we kind of touched on it at the end. Does any of this stuff sound familiar? You know, we're talking about life at the edge. We're talking about all these regions. We're talking about all these regions. We're talking about conflict, but we're talking about fear of foreigners, which is very easy to say when we live in the urban center, fear of migration, fear of movement of peoples, fear of nomadism. In Britain, we one of our most persecuted ethnic groups, or sort of ethnic minority groups, are the Gypsy, Romany and traveler community, the antithesis of sedentary life, constant movement. You know, we can get very focused on why people don't like them right now, but actually, are we hearing a lot of the same themes, a lot of the same ideas from 2000 plus? I mean, even easier 4000 years ago, are we just rehashing the same fears and the same concerns, and when we start to realize why they did it in the ancient world, you can then start to ask questions of rule. Is that why we're doing it now? You know, ancient history has a currency in the modern world. It has a pertinence in the modern world. And I think books like this kind of encourage us to ask those questions and to look a little deeper at our own, our own perspectives, as you both kind of rightly pointed out with me.
Dr Rad 52:50 No, well, I mean, I think this is the thing in that we've talking talking a lot about barbarism and civilization and those sorts of ideas as teachers of ancient history, I'm sure we've all encountered I know I have plenty of students who look at the past and say, Oh, how ridiculous they were. So backwards. We've got all the answers now, and I constantly have to ask them now. I'm like, Okay, if we have all the answers, then why is it this time period that's facing an existential crisis in the form of climate change, which people are still actually taking the time to argue about. I mean, do we have all the answers? If we do, I'd love to have a look at them.
Dr G 53:32 Please show me that book.
Dr Rad 53:33 Yeah, exactly. So when people, when people do, say to you, when they encounter something that's very strange about the ancient past, obviously, there's nothing wrong with laughing at the way that humans behave at any time period or in any place. But it is that idea that a lot of people have that now is the best and the past has to be there for the worst, so…
Owen Rees 53:53 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the other thing, I suppose, one of the other drivers of this book, so you mentioned in my introduction, my lovely introduction, by the way, appreciated that where I run this website, badancient which is website dedicated to kind of debunking a lot of misconceptions about the ancient world. Now this isn't just pyramids being built by aliens and things like that. It's also perspectives. So we get asked questions from not a naive perspective, not even an ill informed perspective, but a narrow perspective. And the answer isn't that you're wrong about a question about Roman culture or Egyptian life or anything. It's not that you're wrong, but it's that you're only giving an answer based on life for 5% of the people. A classic example would be if you look at the Egyptian evidence, I mentioned in Roman Egypt all these amazing papyrus papyrological evidence we have. We've got a lot of it, which shows independent women living normal independent women lives. But you know, it's the classic, isn't it? If you pick up any ancient history. Book about Greece, Rome, Egypt, anything like that, you'll generally get this impression that women may stay at home, women have no autonomy, women have no authority, and there is some truth to bits of that, but we shouldn't limit their potential in our own storytelling of them and our own narrative of them when the evidence shows us differently. So in there's a lovely village called Karanis, which is a very poor village in Faiyum in Roman Egypt. And we have evidence of women running businesses. We have evidence of women living entirely independent of men. In one of the census records, we have all female households. So Roman history tells us there has to be a male guardian at all times. It has to be a son, if it's not a father, if it's not a husband, but we have census records. Well, that's just not true. There are still legal issues. They have to officially have a guardian. But that doesn't look the same in normal life. You know, it's a paperwork issue rather than an everyday issue.
Dr G 55:58 That's fine, you make a statue, you call it a dude, and you'll be like, that's the man, don't worry about that.
Dr Rad 56:03 I'm thrilled to hear that Destiny's Child would have been very at home in this place.
Owen Rees 56:11 So yeah, so it's – completely lost your train of thought – But ultimately, this is this is it. So when we have our laughing moments in the classroom or in conversations about the ancient world ago. They're very backwards, they're very this, they're very that. Yes, we got to ask questions about ourself. Yes, we can ask questions about how different are we really with a lot of these topics. But the other question is always worth asking, which is, well, how much of that is just an elite male perspective of what they think life should be like. Because on the edge of the world, evidence tells us differently.
Dr Rad 56:45 Yeah. I mean, if we had only left behind the blog of someone who was part of, like, a, you know, men's rights group, and that was it for for you know, a lot of civilization, I think our perspective on what was happening now would be quite different.
Owen Rees 57:02 Yeah, I love the idea that Aristotle was just a blogger, really angry blogger, in the basement of his mom's house,
Dr Rad 57:10 and that Pliny the Elder was just a kook.
Owen Rees 57:14 No one took him seriously.
Dr G 57:16 He was all over the trivial details, that's for sure.
Owen Rees 57:21 That's right, it belongs on Reddit.
Dr G 57:24 Well, thank you so much for joining us, Owen, this has been a real treat, and I'm very excited for people to get your book ‘The Far Edges of the Known World' into their hands and to get their eyeballs on the page and to do as much exploration of this kind of topic as they can, because there is so much fun to be had. I think, in coming to grips with like, what is life actually like when we don't just read elite men.
Owen Rees 57:59 There's the tagline, yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this.
Dr G 58:12 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes over at partialhistorians.com. We offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-Fi for one off or ongoing donations, or Patreon, of course. Our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire', is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire'.
396 BCE is finally here! Rome and Veii have been locked in a competition for space and resources for quite some time and it seems like the tide is about to turn. The year 396 BCE is perhaps one of the most significant years for Rome’s history in the early republic. Given the events at play, this episode is considering how the year begins and it might not be quite the thrills you might expect…
Episode 158 – The Fall of Veii – Part I
What’s going on with Rome’s magistrates?
The situation with Roman magistrates in 396 BCE is quite complicated. We spend some time considering some of the challenges we face with the evidence. There seems to have been some problems with the military tribunes which leads to a changing of the guard. There also seems to be great fondness for the plebeian military tribune with consular power, Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, but is he really fit for public duties? We consider the details.
The challenges of our sources
While Livy is providing plenty of narrative material for 396 BCE, every other ancient source seems only interested in some of the big ticket events and not the finer details of family politics in Rome. How can we reconcile these different accounts? We’ll try our best!
Success is not assured…
Rome gets off to a bad start in 396 BCE with a botched Roman ambush led by Genucius and Titinius. After waiting so long with the siege business, it seems a couple of the military tribunes with consular power decide that a little bit of action might be preferable. But things do not go according to plan… it’s only a matter of time for panic to set in among the citizens.
Things to listen out for
The gradual Etrurian retreat from Campania in favour of the north
The emphasis in the annalist tradition on the TEN years of conflict between Rome and Veii and the questions that might be asked about this
The apparent lack of broader support for Veii from Etruscan city-states further north
Rome’s fondness for building up their enemies in their histories and other written evidence
Chronological issues with the source material? Shock! Horror!
Does Livy have a penchant for family histories? Licinius Macer is worth a mention
Periander as Greek inspiration for Calvus?
Homeric parallels!
Igor taking a short break
Our Players for 396 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Lucius Titinius L. f. M’. n. Pansa Saccus
Publius Licinius P. f. P. n. Calvus Esquilinus (Mr Original Plebeian in the role according to Livy)
Publius Maelius Sp. f. C. n. Capitolinus
Quintus Manlius A. f. Cn. n. Vulso Capitolinus? (Pat)
Gnaeus Genucius M. f. M. n. Augurinus
Lucius Atilius L. f. L. n. Priscus
Dictator
Marcus Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat)
Master of the Horse
Publius Cornelius P. f. M. n. Maluginensis (Pat)
Interreges
Lucius Valerius (Potitus) (Pat)
Quintus Servilius Fidenas (Pat)
Marcus Furius Camillus (Pat)
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy, 5.18.2-12
Dr G reads Dionysius of Halicarnassus 12.13-16 and 13.1-3; Plutarch Life of Camillus 5-8; Diodorus Siculus 14.90.1; 14.93.2-3; Valerius Maximus 1.5.2; 1.8.3; Pliny Natural History 33.111; Appian Ital. 8; Florus 1.17; Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 17.21; Eutropius 1.20; [Aurelius Victor] De virus illustribus 23; Augustine The City of God 2.17; Orosius 2.19.1-4; Zonaras 7.21
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Smith, C. 2019. ‘Furius Camillus and Veii’, in Taboli, J., Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 219-224.
Sound Credits
Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Additional sound effects from the BBC Sound Library,
Partial Reconstruction of a Temple at Veii – Photo credit to ArtSupp.
Automated Transcript
Lighted edited for our wonderful Australian accents.
Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad
Dr G 1:05 and I am Dr G and I am so excited for this episode, because we are hitting a bonanza of a year. It is 396 BCE and oh boy. After a long time of not a lot happening, except people sitting around in a siege. I think something might be about to happen, Dr Rad.
Dr Rad 1:26 I think you might be right. Dr G, oh, it's been 10 long, wintry years.
Dr G 1:31 Yeah, look, I've grown a whole fur coat in that period of time, and it's not going away.
Dr Rad 1:38 Oh, Dr G, this is a big year. And you know, I was saying to you the other day off mic, that it feels a bit like our podcast journey sometimes oddly mirrors that of ancient Rome, because during the early republic, due to locations of recordings being switched around and issues with microphones, etc, etc, we had some ups and downs in terms of our experimentation with the show, and I feel like we've got it all sorted out just in time for 396 which you could kind of see as one of the most important years in early Republican history, I think.
Dr G 2:16 This is a massive time, so we're building the hype, and I don't think that this is something that we're over hyping at all. This is actually going to be an exceptional time in Rome's history, and the Romans know it as well. Just to put that out there, maybe a little bit too much, they are well aware, and when they write their histories about this time period, there is a great consistency to the sorts of things that they talk about. So I'm looking forward to delving into that. But perhaps we should do a bit of a where are we at recap, before we dive in.
Dr Rad 2:54 You read my mind, I was going to say I know we did talk. I know that every time Veii has come up, we have talked about the relationship between Rome and Veii, but this is the last time that we're probably going to really need to do this, and it is the end of the big conflict, the big feud. So I do think a recap is in order.
Dr G 3:17 Veii? Who are you and why do you exist?
Dr Rad 3:22 Why are you so far south? Why can't you be further north, like all the rest of the Etruscan cities?
Dr G 3:27 Well, the thing about Eturia as a kind of a group of people is that they used to be much further south than they appear to be by the time we get into Roman history proper. So as far as we're aware, there's good evidence for the Villanovan culture, which is the precursor to Etruscan culture. Archeologically, as far down as Campania, which is, you know, the Amalfi Coast, Naples, Positano, Pompeii, Herculaneum…
Dr Rad 3:57 All the gorgeous places to go on holiday.
Dr G 3:59 Exactly. And so Etruria actually extended right through the region where Rome has sort of popped up like a little city state mushroom. And now we're dealing with what is a legacy of kind of a fallout of many centuries of Etruscan retreat out of the south and the more substantial investment that they've had in their northern places of influence, so all the way up to what is now modern Milan, for instance.
Dr Rad 4:30 Yes, this is true, and we have seen some really interesting dynamics between the Etruscans and the Romans over the centuries. If we go back to our beloved regal period, Dr G, although we don't know exactly what was going on with those last few things, with those last few kings.
Dr G 4:48 Oh, those guys
Dr Rad 4:49 Yeah, those guys, those things, yeah, those things, the kings, we certainly know that there's obviously an interesting relationship between Etruria and Rome at that time period. Was it an invasion? Was it a hostile takeover? Did the Romans welcome them with open arms? We'll never know.
Dr G 5:11 But there's certainly lots of parallels in terms of the cultural exchange that seems to have gone on between early Romans and the Etruscans, and the fact that this rivalry between Rome and Veii has taken the shape that it has is mostly to do with their proximity to each other and the competition for local resources. So one of the things that has been a source of conflict is control of the salt pans at Ostia as the river hits the Mediterranean Sea, there's been competition about that they used to control it. Rome eventually seems to have taken over. Veii is pretty unhappy about that. And then we do see increasing violence across the fifth century BCE, where the archeology suggests that there is ongoing raiding across both sides, and a lot of that agricultural land that sits in between these two places, which are a mere few kilometers away from each other, has produced this sort of escalation in violence across the century. And now here we are at the moment of a siege, which has been taking place for years now. Rome's been sitting outside the gates of a being like hand over the keys, and the Etruscans inside. They are like, Not on your life.
Dr Rad 6:33 Well, this is the thing ,Veii is fairly well positioned in terms of the you know, this speaks to the fact that the Romans couldn't just waltz in and take it. And so there's probably no doubt that there was really a lengthy siege between Rome and Veii at this moment. However, was it a neat little 10 years as Livy wants us to think, Dr G?
Dr G 6:57 Well, I think that's debatable. There's obviously a lot of incentive to draw that Trojan War comparison that I think Livy explicitly references as well at some point. So, yeah, good times for the Romans.
Dr Rad 7:13 Yes, exactly. Yeah. So there's some questions about the exact length of this siege, but a lengthy siege, I think would be an order, given how well positioned Veii is, and we have seen conflict throughout the early republic with Veii, Dr G, just a quick reminder of some of the biggest hits.
Dr G 7:33 Yes, please.
Dr Rad 7:34 483 to 474. That's when we had the first conflict between Rome and Veii. And the Romans weren't always beaten, but that was, of course, the time period where there was a fairly significant defeat with the fabulous Fabians, where we had a family that was almost entirely wiped out when they tried to take on they on behalf of Rome.
Dr G 8:00 Yeah, so we get this sense that we've got elite families acting as local war bands in the region, and presumably they is touching on Fabian interests in the area. But Cremera is a sad day for the Fabians. And fabulous or not, they mostly don't make it through.
Dr Rad 8:21 Exactly. So doesn't end that well for Rome on that particular point, because that becomes a pretty infamous moment in Roman history. However, when we get to the 430s we have another conflict with Veii, and this, of course, involves the possession of Fidenae, which is tossed backwards and forwards between Roman ve throughout the years. And this is where we get the murder of those Roman ambassadors at Veii. And then in the conflict that ensued, we see the king of Veii, Lars Tolumnius, slain by Cossus.
Dr G 8:58 Stabbed right through the groin. Yeah, what a time to be alive. So Fidenae, as far as we understand it from the archeological record, seems to also have been a mostly Etruscan populated area. So Rome has this real incentive as a sort of buffer zone, to take Fidenae, try to re populate it with Romans, colonialism, colonialism… and to create that sort of buffer point for themselves so that they can easily move forward towards they so the competition is really hotting up between these two by the time we get to what happens with Fidenae, and then also the devastation of they losing a king. And this feeds into a broader understanding of how are the Etruscans running themselves. And one of the narrative features of Rome's conversation about the Etruscans is that the Etruscans have a group of 12 kings, and that's kind of the leadership circle that runs everything. But it seems like what we can tell from the Etruscans is that there are a loose collection of city states that share some cultural interests. They have different leaders within the particular city states themselves who come together to talk about things. Now, whether that number is precisely 12 or some other number which isn't quite as pretty from a Roman perspective, I don't know.
Dr Rad 10:36 This is the big question. And then, of course, we've got the final conflict, the 10 year – asterix asterix – siege of Veii which is coming to an end in this particular year. Now, the interesting thing is that in this 10 years, we have seen they been continually rebuffed by its Etruscan sister, states, Sister cities. And this is something that the Romans, I think, find a bit puzzling, as well as modern scholars like ourselves. But I think that speaks to what you were just saying. The Etruscan cities are not a country or a nation in the way that we would understand it. In fact, even the way that they are represented in our sources might be a little bit questionable. We have these regular meetings where they all come together and they talk about matters that concern the Etruscan community. And this is where they says, Hey, I think I've got some remnants camped on my doorstep, little help. And the Etruscan saying, No. What some scholars have theorized is that maybe this collection was actually more religious in nature, or something along those lines, but it's been painted as more of a military or political alliance because the Romans maybe wanted to build up the nature of the threat that they were facing in taking on Veii.
Dr G 12:04 Okay. This is a classic Roman literary trope, which, like listeners, need to be aware of, because the Romans will do this at every opportunity. There is nothing more satisfying than winning against a very worthy opponent. So it's not cool to, like, just beat up your neighbors and be like, I did it, and everyone like you're a bully. So it's much better if you can be like, Look, these guys were aggressive. They're a really potent force to have to deal with. They've got lots of friends in the north, but they're not chipping in because they know these guys are on the wrong side of things, and they should just be bowing down to Rome at this point. So it produces a kind of narrative that allows Roman citizens to feel good about the violence that they do to other people. And I suppose if this was a more modern period in history, you might start to think of this as a kind of like military nationalism. This is not how the ancient Romans would have thought about it, but it certainly has that kind of quality to it where it's about justification. It's about being proud of the violence that you're able to do, and that means that the enemy has to be worthy of being conquered in the first place.
Dr Rad 13:25 Absolutely. And what you just highlighted there again is that there have been all these supernatural signs as well that things are about to happen. The game is afoot, Dr. G.
Dr G 13:37 The gods are watching.
Dr Rad 13:40 We've seen in previous years, you know, the Romans needing to consult the Sibylline Books to go to the Delphic Oracle. We've seen the flooding of the Alban lake and the fact that the Romans need to, you know, fulfill a certain act in order to, in order for Veii to fall, you know, they've, we've seen them also trying to get the gods back on side. There's been various things that they've had to do in terms of the spiritual world. And it's possibly that actually what people like the later analysts had to work with, and the analysts of the people that Livy and Dionysus are working from, we presume they might have actually been working from probably your favorite source, Dr G, priestley records, who were keeping track of these big religious moments and developments which supposedly happened at around this time, and that might be part of that important skeleton that they're working from. And then lean into epics a little bit.
Dr G 14:36 Just few details here and there. That's fine,
Dr Rad 14:38 Yeah, just yeah. We'll add in like a massive hero, and I'll throw some Trojan war on top. You know, nothing, nothing too crazy.
Dr G 14:47 Get it all in there. Yeah, let's make this a rousing read as well as an exciting time for the gods.
Dr Rad 14:55 All right, Dr G, so here we are. I think it's time to actually dive in to 396. In the grand tradition of our podcast, please tell me who were the magistrates in this most momentous of years.
Dr G 15:46 Oh, this year is full of names. My God, there are so many. First of all, we've got military tribunes with consular power. Naturally, there's six of them. Chaotic times, Siege of Veii times. This is now pretty standard for them to have so many in the field. First of all, we've gotLucius Titinius Pansa Saccus, previously military tribune with consular power in 400 BCE.
Dr Rad 16:17 Not an accident. I'm going to come back to that.
Dr G 16:22 Look, I put it to you that we've got quite the cohort of plebeians, and this guy is the first of many. He is accompanied by Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, also military tribune with consular power in 400.
Dr Rad 16:42 The first plebeian one apparently.
Dr G 16:46 Apparently, except he serves with a whole bunch of others. Apparently,
Dr Rad 16:51 Shhh, your reality is ruining it.
Dr G 16:54 I'm sorry that Livy got something wrong. I really am.
I think we might have to, though. Okay, well, you can keep that position for now. We also have Publius Maelius Capitolinus, previously military tribune with consular power in 400 also a plebeian. That's three for three.
Dr Rad 17:21 Seeing a pattern here, seeing a pattern here,
Dr G 17:24 Quintus Maelius Vulso Capitolinus, now unfortunately, big brackets, patrician, then we have –
Dr Rad 17:33 There's bound to be at least one.
Dr G 17:35 You know, they can't help themselves, can they?
Dr Rad 17:36 Yeah.
Dr G 17:37 Gnaeus Genucius Augurinus, previously, military tribune with consular power in 399. Also notably a plebeian. And finally, last, but definitely not least, Lucius Atilius Priscus, also previously military tribune with consular power in 399. Also plebeian. So that's five of the six plebeians.
Dr Rad 18:06 But there are so many question marks we're going to get into this. But there are a lot of question marks about these names and who these guys are.
Dr G 18:12 And also like, does it matter if it's also the year where you get a dictator?
Dr Rad 18:17 Yes, let's roll him out. Dr G, who is our dictator for this year?
Dr G 18:23 Hold your breath, everybody. This is going to come as a massive surprise. Our dictator this year is a guy called Marcus Furius Camillus. Wow.
Dr Rad 18:32 The crowd goes wild! Now you know what? Our listeners might not be super excited to hear his name. Dr G, because whilst he's been around for a little while now, he has always kind of just been there, you know.
Dr G 18:47 Just hanging about, not, not hugely distinguishing himself, although he's done some things previously, military tribune with consular power in 401, and 398, so he's had a couple of rounds in The top gig, but now he's being given like a really special job dictator. And boy, we'll see how that goes for him. And he is joined by the master of the horse. So what happens when a dictator gets selected? The Senate usually decides that things have gotten out of hand in really particular ways. It might be a religious way. It might be a military way. There is a problem that needs to be solved. They require a dictator, somebody to take up all of the reins of power for a really finite period of time to solve this particular issue, whatever it is. And when that person is decided upon, and they accept the position and be like, Sure, I'll be dictator. Usually, the first thing that they do is select an offsider to be like their kind of like other person to be in charge of stuff. Now, the role of the master of the horse is something that I think we should definitely devote an episode to in the future, because there's some complexity there. But for now, it's sounds like a guy with a horse, very exciting. And this year we have Publius Cornelius Maguginensis.
Dr Rad 20:11 A mouthful.
Dr G 20:13 So he says. Previously, military tribune with consular power in 397. So everybody in these sort of top gigs has been around traps recently, but we also have some intereges. Oh, so finally, we're on to the last magistrates of this year.
Dr Rad 20:34 Are you sick of all this Latin?
Dr G 20:36 It's a lot, it's a lot, and they're all names. And you think to yourself, and after a while, you're like,Lucius this Marcus that? And it's like, look, we put them in here because we know the names. And apparently there's lists of these names, and you'll be surprised how little they're referred to in any of the actual source material. So it is kind of incredible, but we have three interreges which means that we've got a situation where at some point the cohort of magistrates that we have in power have to come out of power. And it seems to be not just related to the dictatorship, it may be related to other things as well. And there needs to be a new set of people decided upon. So you've got to have some interim people to look after that situation. And the interreges are those people. And we have Lucius Valerius, possibly Potitus brackets. We also have Quintus Servilius Fidenas, and also stepping into a second role for the year, Marcus Furius Camillus.
Dr Rad 21:38 Hmm.
Dr G 21:39 Hmm. What could it all mean?
Dr Rad 21:41 Curioser and curioser. Well, Dr G, I think I can clear up some of your questions around these magistrates. Oh, please allow me to use Livy,
Dr G 21:52 Please. I mean, that's the one source I haven't read.
Dr Rad 21:54 All right. So in order to understand why we have so many magistrates, and some of the details about these magistrates, we do need to backtrack a little bit to what I told you at the end of last episode, so you might remember that. Well, I'm going to call him, I guess, can I call him Calvus? Publius Licinius?
Dr G 22:15 You could. You know this, this very moderate plebeian who's completely okay for the patricians because he's such a mediocre individual.
Dr Rad 22:26 Exactly, yes, I feel like Calvus is a name that kind of distinguishes him. So that guy, the guy that was the first official military tribune with consular power in 400 BCE, the end of last episode, when they were organizing the elections for the next year. He was brought in even though he wasn't running for the position, because the Romans looked around and thought, You know what? We need someone moderate right now, things are a little tense in the city, between patricians and plebeians. This whole situation with they there's been that whole lake issue. We need someone moderate who's going to calm everything down. You know what? We'll bring him back, and we'll get the band back together, military tribunes with consular power, 400 BC, it's your time to rock and roll.
Dr G 23:18 It's retro.
Dr Rad 23:19 Only one slight problem with that, Dr, G, and you already highlighted it in your list of magistrates.
Dr G 23:25 And what is that problem?
Dr Rad 23:27 That they're not all from 400 BCE.
Well, this is the issue. Livy tells us that this is what happened that he was brought in. And they were like, yep, we'll bring back his whole little gang, because that worked really well. Let's go with a tried and true recipe here. But the names do not match. Some of them do, sure, but not all of them.
Dr G 23:55 These people
Dr Rad 23:56 Problem number one. Now the interreges come into the story because, of course, they were holding power because, you might recall, there was an issue with the previous set of military tribunes with consular power, so they were holding power until the next elections were organized, and that's why we have some interreges listed.
Dr G 24:16 Oh, okay, so they're actually related to whatever happened in 397
Dr Rad 24:21 Yes, this is probably something we should probably mention quickly. The Roman year doesn't function in the same way that our current calendar year works, where we say we begin in January and end in December. Technically speaking, Dr G and I have been misleading you somewhat. Listen in that there's always kind of two of our years that make up a Roman year because they end at a different time. So it might be September, for example, that the Roman year ends in terms of when new magistrates are coming in. And the Romans, of course, date their years by the magistrates. They don't know who Jesus is; they don't care at this moment in time, and so they just don't have the same system that we have. So yes, basically, as far as we can tell, there was an issue where the previous group of military tribunes with consular power, there was some problem with the way that they were inaugurated. I'm going to say
Dr G 25:19 yep
Dr Rad 25:20 And as a result, they had to have some interreges, and they had to organize a new set coming through. And this is where we had Calvus being mentioned as being someone who would be good for the job. So look, that is where we are at.
Dr G 25:33 Safe pair of hands. Get him in there.
Dr Rad 25:36 Exactly. Now, Calvus himself is pretty chuffed, as you can imagine, to have been brought up as the leader of this dream team. We are Dream Girls. Yeah, we'll make you happy. Yeah, yeah. However, there's a problem, there's a problem, yeah, there is a problem, yeah, in spite of the exhilarating soundtrack to this year, Calvus is getting on in years. You might remember when we first talked about him as military tribune with consular power in 400 we talked about the fact that he'd apparently served in the Senate for like yonks, and we were shocked that he'd just been in the Senate. This little plebeian guy never heard of-
Dr G 26:19 Just hanging out there-
Dr Rad 26:19 Yeah, he is the one. So he seems to be an elderly man by this point in time, okay? And he doesn't feel like he's actually physically up to the job. He actually details all the different ways that he's not up for the job. He's got issues with his sight, his hearing is worse. I sympathize. And just generally, physically, he's just about for he even says his memory is bad. I mean, I think we're dealing with Joe Biden here.
Dr G 26:52 It's a tough time. Yeah, look, look, put that guy in charge. You know, the one with the white hairover there. It'll be great.
Dr Rad 27:00 Well, it would make sense as a senator, given where we think that word comes from, something to do with old men. However, he has a plan, because he doesn't want to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. And after all, he knows why he's being singled out, and he doesn't want to ruin that for Rome, given that everyone seems to be on board. So he suggests, Hey, did you know I have a kid, Calvus 2.0 I like to call him the new and improved model. He has exactly the same values as me because I raised him. And as we all know, in ancient Rome, anybody has children, their children turn out to be exactly the same as them. That's why all their families have exactly the same characteristics. It doesn't even matter if you're talking about the grandfather or the son, they'll basically be the same person.
Dr G 27:54 Yes, so this is a way in which Roman families work very differently from the way we think of modern families. So the politics of the ancient Roman family seems to be really grounded in upholding familial tradition. So you gotta toe the line. If you don't, you're just not gonna progress with your career in any particular way, like your family won't put you forward for things. We start to see this really particularly later on in the Republic. But I suppose what Livy might be suggesting here is that there's some retrojection of those sort of ideas. Those ideas come from somewhere, and the natural sort of conservatism of the Roman family structure is on full display here.
Dr Rad 28:42 It is. And what is even more shocking than the fact that this guy was chosen for this highly contested office without putting himself forward and seemingly being on his last legs, everyone agrees that, yeah, we'll just take the sun. That's fine. We'll take the discount model we want. We want him. We want a bit of that interesting. Okay, yes, now this is where I do have to highlight a possible problem with Livy's source material, and it pains me to say it, Dr G.
Dr G 29:14 Well, I'm glad you're confessing to it, because it sounds like a problem to me as well, and I was going to mention as such. So please. What's the problem here?
Dr Rad 29:25 I shall atone for him. Shame. So Livy is drawing on, obviously, a bunch of earlier sources, which we unfortunately don't often have, or if we do have any of them, it's very fragmentary, hard to put together. We do know, though, that one of his sources that he switches around between is from a family chronicler called Licinus Macer or Macer, depending on how you like your C's. Now the name says it all, Dr G, these two guys that we're talking about, if I give them their full name, they are, of course, the Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus – that's the dad Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus – Licinius, it's right there. It seems like maybe one of Livy's sources might have been trying to add a little bit of pixie dust to his family history, perhaps.
Dr G 30:19 Ah yes. So Licnius Macer is obviously part of the broader Licinius gens, and there's a real incentive in terms of Roman family politics, to build the gens history up in various ways. So we are caught in a pretty tricky position, because we know that there is incentive in our source material to put together a certain perspective for us.
Dr Rad 30:48 absolutely it is the curated Instagram of ancient Rome, these family histories which have snuck into our source material.
Dr G 30:57 Well
Dr Rad 30:57 Dodgy.
Dr G 30:58 What else did Livy have to work with? I mean, this is the real trouble.
Dr Rad 31:01 Well, yes. I mean, if we look at the Fasti and we look at other sources, they all list the father as the magistrate for this particular year. So it's interesting that we do have this embellishment where the Romans are like, yeah, cool, just flip your son in, yeah, you're basically the same person because you're related, right?
Dr G 31:20 Yes. So the Fasti Capitolini was produced quite a bit later, as far as we assume. But yes, they do mention the father holding the position for the second time.
Dr Rad 31:32 Yes
Dr G 31:32 Not the son, which would be distinguished with a different sort of ligature.
Dr Rad 31:38 Yeah. So obviously, there are huge issues with the lists of names for this year, given that Livy's telling us, oh yeah, they got all the guys from 400 and then the father was like, No, take my son. And everyone was like, yeah, cool, sure. And none of this seems to be reflected in the records of names that we have. The names do not match up with the narrative that Livy is giving us. Now it is possible that they're trying to perhaps imitate another story from Greece, with this whole father son dynamic, that of Periander, who was the second tyrant of Corinth and ruled from around 627, to around 587 BCE, there was a whole shindig with him possibly stepping aside for a son, didn't really work out that well, but it might be that they're trying to draw on other examples here. We don't know what's going on, but this is what academics have noticed in terms of the way that the source material is developing and the kind of narrative that might be being laid over the bare bones that they would have had to work with.
Dr G 32:45 Look to me, all of this is really fascinating, because, as you know, I don't have a lot of Dionysus, of Halicarnassus right now, who was-
Dr Rad 32:54 What? This is brand new information.
Dr G 32:58 I've got a little bit, but I don't have him in the fulsome way that I would really like to be able to offer a counter narrative to what Livy is doing. But because this year is so significant, I actually have heaps of sources for this year. But you know what? None of them care about anything to do with these military tribunes, fathers, sons or otherwise, it is not on their radar. It is not the centerpiece for this year at all. And so I'm really grateful that Livy is providing a little bit of embellishment and detail, because this is making up for a more fulsome story, which I had no idea existed because I didn't have to read Livy in order to prepare for this episode.
Dr Rad 33:39 This is why you have to read all the primary source material, children.
Dr G 33:44 Let this be a lesson to you all. Now, as a good ancient historian, I would if I was studying this period for real, not within the context of this podcast, which is also studying for it, for real in another way,
Dr Rad 33:56 I was going to say – what? This isn't for real? Am I in The Matrix?
Dr G 34:00 But let's say, If I was writing an academic paper, obviously I would have also read Livy
Dr Rad 34:04 Sure
Dr G 34:04 But because that's not what we're doing here, because we're reading different
Dr Rad 34:08 We have a schtick
Dr G 34:09 Yeah, we're reading different primary source material. That's part of the process with this. So it creates these really interesting gaps for me at times, and this is definitely one of them, like I had all of this list of names that I got from Broughton. Love Broughton always thankful for the work that Broughton has done here, compiling these massive lists of magistrates for every year throughout all of the Republic. And I had this list, and then I had the source material. And look, I have excerpts from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Valerius Maximus Pliny the Elder, Appian, Florus, Aulus Gellius, Eutropius, the anonymous but pseudo Aurelius Victor, Augustine, Orosius, and Zonaras. I have. All of these sources. And you know what? None of them mention this controversy with father and son as military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 35:07 Well, quite frankly, you just look lazy, now.
Dr G 35:12 What are they not telling me?
Dr Rad 35:13 I do appreciate all that different source material, because I have read… Livy.
Dr G 35:18 The suppression of information here is profound.
Dr Rad 35:24 Now let's get on to some action, because I think this is what your sources want us to get to. So Titus and Genucius some of our military tribunes with consular power, they are sent to deal with the allies of Veii. Now I know I just said that the Etruscans were later-dazing the people of They, however, not all Etruscans turned their backs on the people of Veii. We do have people from nearby cities, the Faliscans and the Capenantes, who decided that, oh, I guess if Veii falls,that means that we're probably next on Rome's plans of expansion. So we probably should help them out. So they do have some allies from up north, Titanius and Genucius are very keen to wipe the floor with these guys. However, their enthusiasm might have led them astray, Dr G.
Dr G 36:19 Oh, no, what have they done?
Dr Rad 36:21 They didn't spend quite enough time planning everything out, and they decide that they're going to launch straight into an ambush without following all the possibilities through. Now what ends up happening is that Genucius dies fighting bravely at the front of this battle. In fact, he dies in front of the standards, Dr. G.
Dr G 36:48 Oh, that's terrible news. Okay, of all of the places to die, that is from a sort of divine perspective, the worst.
Dr Rad 36:58 However, it is kind of admirable in the sense of it shows his bravery. So even though the Romans are going to be really irritated by the fact that they just launch in without much forethought, they forgive him because he's dead.
Dr G 37:15 Ah, okay, because he led from the front, so presumably his wounds are also at the front.
Dr Rad 37:22 Hell yes, they are. Actually, it doesn't specifically say, but I would presume so definitely, the point is being made here that he was brave and he was trying to do the right thing, even though completely missed that.
Dr G 37:34 And the kind of commander that is willing to put themselves at risk in the front line is you could view this as being, like, quite silly, because obviously the army needs its commander, and if you lose the commander, the army will probably fall apart, because they won't know what to do anymore. Because you need somebody strategic maybe. But from a Roman perspective, this is a huge courage as well. Like, this is the sort of thing where it's like, you can really rally the troops if you lead from the front and get them into it, if they weren't really sure about what was going on and be like, run in.
Dr Rad 37:34 Yeah, just try not to die in the process.
Dr G 38:08 Yeah.
Dr Rad 38:08 That tends to be a downer.
Dr G 38:09 Don't do a Genucius, because it's risky if you die.
Dr Rad 38:15 And there are some questions again, about the nature of this death, because there is another conucius from 362 BCE, who dies in a suspiciously similar fashion, Dr G.
Dr G 38:28 So, looking forward, in another sort of 40 years, we're going to have a similar moment. Okay.
Dr Rad 38:35 We might, we might.
Dr G 38:37 I sense problems with the chronology.
Dr Rad 38:40 Yes. Now Titinius, of course, is still alive, but the men all around him are thrown into chaos. Things are unraveling fairly quickly in this scenario, not ideal, so Titinius decides to gather all the men around, and he says, You know what? I feel like it's too much of a risk to fight our enemy on level ground. So I would imagine like some sort of open plain where everyone can see everybody. It's open season.
Dr G 39:10 There's nowhere to hide.
Dr Rad 39:11 It's wabbit season. Yeah, so things are not going particularly well, and the Romans do not feel great about this, and Titinius is going to cop all of the flat, because he is the one that's left alive after this defeat. Very disgraceful. The Romans back in the city as well are panicking, as we see so often, because rumor of what is going down has reached them, which, again, sort of shows you just how close these things must be happening. Even though they sound very grand, they're obviously not that far away, in that rumour can get back to the city pretty quickly in time enough for people to start tearing out their hair.
Dr G 39:55 All right. So, yeah, Rome's not in a great way. They're not feeling the vibe. They're having a bit of a panic. Okay, goodo.
Dr Rad 40:00 Now even worse, perhaps, there is, of course, the military encampment before they where the Romans are besieging the city. They also hear that there's been a pretty catastrophic defeat, and one of the Roman magistrates has been killed again. Not a morale booster. No, not what you want to hear in 396 BCE,
Dr G 40:03 No, not after you've been at this siege for so long.
Dr Rad 40:05 No. So they've heard that the Capenantes and Faliscans have won, killed the commanders and slaughtered the whole army, and that the remnants of their enemies are now coming for them, backed by all the men of Etruria.
Dr G 40:45 Oh, okay, well, that's a real turnaround for the books, because last I heard, Etruria was not coming.
Dr Rad 40:52 Look, it's another good lesson for our listeners, Dr G, in that rumors can get out of hand really quickly. Yeah. So in Rome, they've heard that all of the same things. So they've heard all of that, plus they've heard that the encampment before they of their fellow Romans is also being assaulted, and that, you know, there are going to be more people sent from their enemy towards the city itself. Okay, so their camp is under siege. They're going to be attacked next and again, not far away. So time is a ticking.
Dr G 41:28 It seems like the panic is really setting in, and it's becoming a bit contagious, isn't it? And everybody's story is worse than the last story, and people are believing everything that they hear regardless.
Dr Rad 41:40 It does seem that so we have this scene in Livy where the Roman citizens are racing to the walls. The women of Rome are running to the temples to pray for the protection from the gods, and they want instead for the gods to back Rome. Trash Veii. What is with this? What is with this turning of tables? Not appreciated gods of Rome. Thank you very much.
Dr G 42:03 We started this violence. We need to win to end it, not lose.
Dr Rad 42:08 Exactly. And they're like, look, we'll make sure that all the sacred rites are fully renewed. We'll make sure that all the signs are dealt with. We'll deal with all the stuff you want us to deal with. Just please, please, make sure our city stays strong and our enemies are defeated.
Dr G 42:29 Okay, that's, it's a big call.
Dr Rad 42:30 Now if this is ringing any bells it should. Once again, we have a bit of Homeric additions being inserted here. This is potentially meant to remind readers of what happened when Hector went out to battle. So it's meant to be drawing on the Iliad basically.
Dr G 42:53 Interesting.
Dr Rad 42:54 Yeah. So panic in the city, women in temples. You know? Prayer happening? People at the walls.
Dr G 43:02 Yeah, everything's getting to its sort of climactic moment, isn't it?
Dr Rad 43:08 It really is, yes. So this is perhaps the moment to pause and just talk a little bit about what Livy's actually drawing on here. So we've already talked about the priestly records, the family chroniclers, maybe drawing on later incidents in Roman history to make sense of the bare bones, and not Livy directly, perhaps also obviously his sources, the earlier analysts and that sort of thing. But we may also even have other sources, like Ennius, who I know you've spoken about a little bit before.
Dr G 43:40 Yes, so Ennius writes an epic of Rome's foundation and early history, and his text becomes the preeminent school text for many centuries. So it's only really displaced by Virgil's Aeneid, and that takes a while. So there's a good couple of 100 years where Ennius is the go to text, to learn, to study poetry, but also to learn about Rome's history. So it would make sense for Livy to be drawing upon it, for sure.
Dr Rad 44:19 Yeah, and this is exactly it we so we've got Licinius Macer. He's probably also drawing on someone called Valerius Antius, again, someone we don't have much of, but we know was a major source of Livy. But he is also drawing on these epic traditions, which would come from ennius, would come from Homer. And this passage, apparently was also then later copied by other Greco-Roman writers because they found it, you know, very inspirational scene. I think it would be like them seeing a really intense part of a movie, you know, a scene that really resonates with them and gives them a strong visual. And so they go back to it as a reference point. And they're doing their own version of something later on. So that particular passage is actually meant to be kind of iconic, I suppose.
Dr G 45:08 Mmm0mmm. Ah interesting. So, yeah, we're getting more into like, what is history and is it just literature in another form.
Dr Rad 45:19 Indeed, indeed. Now, of course, the Romans need to make sure that their relationship is square with the gods if they want to see any success against Veii, and want to make sure they escape this terrible fate which seems to await them right now, enemies of the gate, although they're not really in this rumored so water obviously had to be drawn off the Alban lake. And we know that potentially, this actually did happen, because we've got those remnants that we've talked about before, of, you know, the tunneling and that sort of thing. We don't know exactly when that happened. Does it line up with these accounts? But there's some sort of record there which is interesting, giving some archeological backing to our literary accounts. There does seem to have also been some issues with games, or some sort of festival that the Romans were meant to have held at this point in time, which would be again, connected with the gods. It sounds like, Oh, what a great moment to kick up your feet and have a great time, but that's not, obviously what it's about. And you would know more about this than I would with its religious connections, things like games and festivals.
Dr G 46:24 Well, sure, if it had cropped up in any of my sources, I would be able to tell you something about it. I mean in general terms, I assume this is going to be a reference and correct me if I'm wrong to one of the sort of Pan Latin get togethers, where people of a Latin background gather in certain locations to do some shared ritual stuff. So you have to send people out of the city, which obviously, in this at this point in time, sounds like it would be quite dangerous. Maybe it's not the time to have a festival where you send some delegates.
Dr Rad 47:01 The Festivus for the rest of us.
Dr G 47:02 Yeah, look, everybody's running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Is now the time other people would definitely argue, within the context of the city, that it is more important than ever to send a delegation to something that might be a collective kind of festival, precisely because everything seems to be in a very delicate balance, not in favor of Rome.
Dr Rad 47:28 Yes, and this is exactly why they're like, Oh, crap. We really should have dealt with that water situation on the Alban lake before all of this went down. And they talk about games and a Latin festival. So I think you're 100% on the money. Part of the issue, apparently, is that, from later sources, standpoints, they tend to use terms like Ludi and Feriae. I don't know how to say that actually properly. And that, now that I read, now that I'm saying it out loud, I've just been reading it all this time, they are both things that involve people having holidays in ancient Rome, but they're not necessarily, obviously, exactly the same thing that happened at exactly the same time. When we talk about Ludi or games later on, we are talking more about public games. You know, by the time we get into the period that's better documented. But that's not necessarily what's happening at this moment in time. We don't necessarily see games being attached to festivals this early, from my understanding, so there might be a bit of confusion there, but certainly there's some sort of, you know, festival connected with the gods that the Romans realized. Well, we better hold them again, because the gods are clearly not on our side right now, not with enemies at the gate. No, thank you. And so they're dealing with basically everything they possibly can. They're trying to put out all the fires to make sure that they are protected.
Dr G 48:53 Yep, fair enough. Send the delegation. Do the games? Do the festivals? Go to the sweet locations and do some sacrifices.
Dr Rad 49:01 Yes, and now that this is all taken care of, that the Romans think very smugly to themselves, it is time for Veii to die. Mwahahahahaha.
Dr G 49:14 Oooo boy. Okay? Well, in that case, I think as as horrifying as it's going to sound, I think this might be the moment to pause and to wrap up this episode, because I leave it on this cliffhanger, because things are about to happen and wow, what a build up.
Dr Rad 49:35 Absolutely. I mean, it shows that 396 didn't necessarily start off that well for the Romanshowever, trust us, listeners, we're building to a climax.
Dr G 49:49 Ooh, boy
Dr Rad 49:50 yeah, fun is us here with us. All right. Dr, G, well, that means it is time for the Partial Pick.
Dr G 49:58
(bird noises)
Dr Rad 50:01 Tell us how the Partial Pick works, Dr G.
Dr G 50:03 Well, we are raiding Rome against its own sort of measures of success. Now, I don't, I don't anticipate Rome's gonna do great right now, but let's give it a whirl and see. So we've got five categories, and within each category there are 10 Golden Eagles up for grabs. So the golden eagles are like the fancy things that might sit on top of your standard and
Dr Rad 50:34 Before you die in front of it.
Dr G 50:35 Before you die in front of it, yeah, or before you lose it, you know, all of those kinds of positive things. So the first category is military clout.
Dr Rad 50:45 Right. Well, so far in 396 the Romans have had a disastrous defeat.
Dr G 50:51 Yeah, they've gone for what an unplanned ambush that has led to the death of one of the military tribunes with consular power, and then the other one copping all of the blame for whatever happened next, which doesn't seem great.
Dr Rad 51:08 And the Romans themselves don't even seem to really know what is going on, because there's such chaos amongst his forces. So, yeah, not looking good.
Dr G 51:17 Look, I feel like we can't give them much of a score. It's probably I, I'd be inclined to maybe give them a one for the fact that they're still holding out at the siege area of Veii
Dr Rad 51:29 sure, yeah, well that's the thing. They haven't actually lost any territory or anything. They just were trying to take care of the allies of Veii It did not work.
Dr G 51:40 Yeah, yeah, they've suffered some military defeats, but we haven't heard anything particularly negative about what has happened outside the gates of Veii. I mean, there's been some sort of panic stations in Rome, but it sounds like they're operating on rumor rather than fact. So I'm willing to give Rome one.
Dr Rad 51:58 Fair enough, that is one.
Dr G 52:00 One point. So far so good. Our second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 52:08 I feel like there is not much diplomacy going on, given that they're trying to ambush their enemies. It sounds like there is no diplomacy going on. That's a zero from me.
Dr G 52:20 All right? Expansion.
Dr Rad 52:23 No, not yet. Not yet. We're tiptoeing closer, ever closer.
Dr G 52:31 Foreshadowing. Okay, so that's a zero. Virtus?
Dr Rad 52:37 Okay, now, as disastrous as this whole plan was, I feel like maybe is dying at the front of his forces is an example of virtus, and that's why the Romans are like, Well, you're a bit of an idiot, but we love you, buddy.
Dr G 52:56 It's sad and tragic, but thanks for doing it the right way.
Dr Rad 53:01 Exactly if you're gonna go out, glad you went out in style.
Dr G 53:04 Yeah. So this is where, like Roman value systems are really quite different from anything that we would be accustomed to. Because when I hear about somebody leading from the front, I think very foolish, but I think the Romans think, Wow. What a man.
Dr Rad 53:23 They do. They hear that Salt'n'Pepa, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr G 53:29 And look, if he'd come back alive, that would have been chef's kiss from a Roman perspective.
Dr Rad 53:36 Yes, exactly, leading from the front. Glorious win.
Dr G 53:41 Yeah.
Dr Rad 53:41 All would have been good.
Dr G 53:42 You can't beat anything like that. He would have been a star player for years to come as a result of that. It's just a real tragedy that he went and died instead.
Dr Rad 53:51 Yep, and left his teammate out there, going, what am I going to do now?
Dr G 53:57 Yeah, like guys, I thought we were a team, but you've left me all by myself.
Dr Rad 54:06 Poor Titinius.
Dr G 54:08 Indeed. So the last category is the citizen score. Was this a good time to be a citizen of Rome?
Dr Rad 54:17 Sounds pretty panicky. Sounds pretty sweaty.
Dr G 54:19 It sounds like everybody's scared and rushing to the temples, doing some prayers, rushing to the walls, being like is the enemy at the gate. Oh God!
Dr Rad 54:31 They're keeping eagle eyes out. They're definitely feeling paranoid and not unjustifiably, whilst we're laughing at the fact that this rumors got completely out of hand. You can understand why they would think that if the Romans have just had a catastrophic defeat, it's not out of the question that the remnants of the Faliscans and Capenantes will eventually make their way there. I mean, why wouldn't they, in some senses?
Dr G 54:57 Well, exactly. So there is a justifiable fear that the army that has just won over the Romans on the field will proceed to then March on Rome. And really, Romans sort of set themselves up for something like that, because if you've been besieging one of your neighbors for the last decade, maybe you've given your neighbors some ideas about how they could treat you.
Dr Rad 55:25 So look, it might be mythologized. Maybe the Romans were actually in the bath with a cup of tea and a scented candle burning, and they weren't panicked at all. But even if we strip away the Homeric elements, I think it would make sense for the Romans to be feeling the pinch right about now.
Dr G 55:43 Definitely. So, in this sense, and particularly when we also have to account for the facts that people who had died on the battlefield also very likely to have been Roman citizens of some kind, then this is not great, not great news at all.
Dr Rad 55:59 So is that a zero?
Dr G 56:00 I think so.
Dr Rad 56:02 Wow. We really built up this episode, and now the Romans are here with just one out of 50 Golden Eagle.
Dr G 56:07 We are not done with 396.
Dr Rad 56:10 No, I was gonna say, I feel like we should maybe add that one eagle to the other eagles that they may or may not win for themselves down the track.
Dr G 56:22 Ooo that is, that's a big call. I think we can argue about that one when we get there.
Dr Rad 56:26 All right, all right. I look forward to it, Dr G.
Dr G 56:30 Likewise. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com – We offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-Fi for one or four ongoing donations or Patreon, of course. Our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire', is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire'.
Special Episode - Gladiator II with Dr Lindsay Steenberg
06 févr. 2025
01:16:47
WARNING! This post and episode both contain spoilers!
In case you somehow missed it, the hotly anticipated sequel to Gladiator (2000) hit the cinemas in November 2024. Gladiator II follows the story of Lucius Verus, the child of Lucilla and the hero from the first film, Maximus. Nope, we did not know that was a thing either.
Poster for Gladiator II, Source: https://deadline.com
After being separated from his imperial family following the death of his uncle (the Emperor Commodus), the adult Lucius ends up in the arena. His owner is Macrinus, an actual historical figure who served as emperor briefly in the third century CE. The film follows Macrinus and Lucius as they navigate the complicated political world of Rome under the Emperors Caracalla and Geta. Will Lucius be able to rid Rome of corruption, once and for all? (Dramatic music)
Joining us today to discuss the film is the delightful Lindsay Steenberg.
Special Episode – Gladiator II with Dr Lindsay Steenberg
Dr Lindsay Steenberg is currently a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University where she co-ordinates the graduate programme in Popular Cinema. Her research interests are violence and gender in postmodern and postfeminist media culture. If you like true crime, you should definitely check out her back catalogue. Whilst Dr Steenberg has published widely and regularly presents at conferences, our particular point of connection is her interest in gladiators. She is the author Are you not entertained? Mapping the Gladiator Across Visual Media, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2020.
We hope that you enjoy our conversation as we unpack:
Arena action scenes
The naumachia scene from Gladiator II
Macrinus’ role in this film
Gladiators and celebrity
Historical inaccuracy on screen
Our vision for Gladiator III: Tokyo Drift
Sound Credits
Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.
Dr Lindsay Steenberg's book Are You Not Entertained? Mapping the Gladiator Across Visual Media. We recommend it!
Automated Transcript
Dr Rad 0:00 Hello. You're about to listen to a special episode of the partial historians, which is all about gladiator two, a movie set in the reign of Caracalla and Geta
so
Dr G 0:12 so we are warning you in advance that this conversation will contain spoilers if you have not yet gone to the cinemapost haste, my friends get there soon and come back and listen. Or if you don't care about spoilers, and in fact, you thrive in an environment where you know all of the details before you see a thing, please continue listening and enjoying.
Dr Rad 0:35 And it pretty much turns out as we all expected. Dr G Maximus came back to life and married me in the future, just as I always wanted. Finally, a New Zealand man finds his Australian bride, that's right, and now on with the show you.
Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 1:10 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 1:15 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr rad and
Dr G 1:25 I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Join
Dr Rad 1:36 us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Hello and welcome to another special episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr rad,
Dr G 2:00 and I'm Dr G
Dr Rad 2:02 And we are super excited because we're going to be talking about another gladiator movie today. Dr G, just when you thought you couldn't get enough,
Dr G 2:10 I can't get enough. That's why I'm here, exactly. And
Dr Rad 2:15 we are super lucky to be joined by an expert, an international expert, Dr Lindsay Steenberg is currently a senior lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, where she coordinates the graduate program in popular cinema. Her research interests are violence and gender in post modern and post feminist media culture. If you like true crime, you should definitely check out her back catalog. Whilst Dr Steenberg has published widely and regularly presents at conferences, our particular point of connection is her interest in gladiators. She is the author of, are you not entertained? Mapping the gladiator across visual media, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. Being astute listeners, I am sure that you have all correctly guessed that she is here to discuss gladiator two with us, which was at time of recording, just released in cinemas. Welcome Dr Steenberg,
Lindsay Steenberg 3:15 thank you so much for having me and for giving me the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subject matters gladiator movies, you're
Dr Rad 3:23 in good company here. You know, it's one of the things I think that we do the most around here. So look, we are so keen to talk a little bit about gladiator two with you, and also the aspects that you have looked at in your work. So we thought we might start off with the part that people probably remember most vividly when they see a gladiator film, particularly a Ridley Scott gladiator film, and that is, of course, the arena sequences. So please tell us what is often the function of the arena in Gladiator films.
Lindsay Steenberg 3:54 Okay, again, favorite subject matter within my favorite subject, yeah. So I've spent more time than really any human should, thinking about arena fights. And I can say that when it comes to the almost the genre of gladiator movies, they're the most important part. You can't have a gladiator movie if there's not any gladiating So I have spent quite a bit of time over quite a few different films, looking at the kinds of conventions, the way that the arena works. Why we keep going back there again and again? So in terms of what the function is really, it kind of defies the logic of a lot of action movies, which is, it isn't just story or spectacle, it's both at once. So you get them in a handy little place. The Arena fights almost a movie within a movie, it has a beginning, it has a middle, it has an end. You enter the amphitheater. You have some looking around to see what's there, some spectacle over architecture and bodies. You get the quality violence in the middle. And then you sort of exit the amphitheater, and that's the end of your of your. Little mini film within a film, they often are great places where you come to understand how power works in the film itself. It's a nice little structure. I mean, if you think about the way an amphitheater is designed in that in that oval kind of shape, it means everybody can see everybody else. So the kind of layers of the way that the looking works. It's like we in the cinema are looking at the amphitheater. The people who are in the audience are looking and being looked at. You've got the sort of authority figure sitting there watching, and we're watching them. Then you've got the people down on the sands doing their thing. So it really it becomes a way to further the plot, to show who's good, who's bad, who's skilled, who's dead. It also sort of provides an opportunity to raise the stakes of the plot. So you've got sort of Concerned Women are often there in the audience, rarely on the sands, and they can kind of look and look worried, or look very desiringly at the gladiators on the sands as well. That's a bit of a spectacle, in that sense, as well. And then the Gladiator, of course, is looking at the audience as well. And that's why you get are you not entertained? He's judging us for watching him. So it kind of does all of that at once, very economical kind of spectacle,
Dr G 6:10 a bit like an ancient panopticon where viewing is happening in all directions.
Lindsay Steenberg 6:15 It absolutely is. And that and the sort of really seamless functioning of power works. You know, you don't have to work for it. The shape almost guarantees that. And you know, the movies love that. They love that shape. You can do some amazing things just with a nice little pan across the audience with a nice aerial establishing shot to see the shape of the amphitheater, so you can see, see deliberately, the way that power works in a very spatial sense. I
Dr Rad 6:39 must admit, I do love a good camera pan around the arena. It's
Lindsay Steenberg 6:45 got to be done. It's it's hard to tell who that gaze belongs to when you do the full kind of almost 360 probably to the gladiators on the sand. But it just get lets you see questions what the spectacle is. Maybe it's the audience. Because if you've seen, if you've seen the stars show Spartacus, the crowds and theaters are as much they're frequently naked. One wonders why? Well, I guess one does,
Dr Rad 7:10 yeah, they kind of
Lindsay Steenberg 7:12 look around and they're like, oh yes, look at the audience. So, you know, you get to do everything with that 360 pan.
Dr G 7:17 I think this sets things up really nicely, because you you've described it as this sort of miniature film within a film. And I do love that that kind of MIS on a beam aspect of it, and that leads us really nicely into thinking about what some of the conventions might be for these arena sequences. What are audiences expecting, and where have those expectations come from in cinematic history?
Lindsay Steenberg 7:39 Oh, I've got stuff on this. Let me tell you, it is a kind of mise en a beam. And one scholar describes it as a mise en spectacle. So, you know, a spectacle within the spectacle of the film. So the kinds of conventions that you get, it's really interesting. As somebody who studies film, I hate saying that, like, oh, it's universal. It's always the same. Because films, you know, reveal a lot about the time and place they were made and the time and place they're watched. But a gladiator fight is remarkably consistent. So the conventions are really, really sticky. We really like them. We're not giving them up as to where they came from. It's a little bit hard, you know, there's a there's a myth that may have basis in fact that when Ridley Scott was going to make the original gladiator film. Someone showed him a picture of the painting pelica verso, which has a gladiator waiting to kind of decide if he for the Emperor, decide if he's going to die. And it's, you know, so this neoclassical, sumptuous painting, and someone held it up and said, I want to make this painting into a movie. And that was how they kind of worked. So like in the Colosseum with those conventions. So the way the sort of typical, the typical arena fight goes is that you always want to have the pre fight sequence down in the backstage area, bonus points if it's in that nice little basement beneath the trap doors, kind of area that's very exciting. It always it often sounds really similar, like there's like whisperings of gladiators in the corner, this kind of metallic clangings, and then you have that beautiful from the dark tunnel into the amphitheater sequence. It's often sort of backlit, so you can see the outline, the silhouette. And then all of a sudden, you get the spectacle and that pan of of the arena and who's watching and who's there, the way that I sort of tend to shorthand describe what are the conventions of a gladiator fight. Are from the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. So Tina Turner's there, Mel Gibson's there,
Dr Rad 9:29 two men into. One man leaves, two men enter, one man leaves. You know, how
Lindsay Steenberg 9:33 do you do a gladiator fight? That's it. That's what you do. It's just two men enter. That's the scenario. That's the setup. But within that, of course, there's nuance, there's always a moment where the camera is going to spend a little extra time looking at the gladiator who wants you to have time to enjoy that he is part of the spectacle. You know, you're going to have a moment where, if the gladiator fight is between more than just one versus one, you're going to have a moment where the men bond, you know, where Maximus is like, you know, if any of you. Been in the army. Stick with me the same in the second film, like, Okay, guys, we're going to do this together. So you get the bonding, the Brotherhood of the gladiators. You sort of do that. You get that moment of the salute, which I know historians, it makes them a bit itchy, because it never happens, but Hollywood says it did, and apparently we love that. We want the gladiatorial salute. I noticed that in the second gladiator film, they don't really do that. I think they're sidestepping. They're trying not to get them themselves into some historical trouble. But the we who about are about to die, salute you is, is part of so many gladiator movies that we really like that, that part. So you normally get the salute before or the presentation of the gladiators before the fight. The fight is interesting because I am currently also writing a book now on fight scenes, so I spend a lot of time watching fighting. There's not as much fighting in an arena fight as one might expect. A lot of it is talking, planning, staring at rhinoceros, thinking about what you're going to do next, you know, giving a nice little speech to the crowd. How very dare you watch me staring at the Emperor? So, you know, the actual percentage of sword on shield action is quite small because it's, it's a narrative spectacles, whether as well as a violent spectacle. So you'll always get that talking the moment of sort of dialog in there. And then, of course, you always have the thumbs up or the thumbs down again. I think it's something that makes historians itchy, but it's something that Hollywood says, Yep, we want it. We want thumbs up, we want thumbs down. It's really easy and where it all comes from. I mean, I've probably, I've probably watched more gladiator movies than than most humans. Any human it comes from. The beginning of cinema, you get these kind of biblical or historical epics that were made in Italy. I mean, Hollywood loves a biblical epic. So you know, right down, even in the in the silent era, or the early era of cinema, that you still got these kind of conventions. You still would have somebody fighting animals inside of an amphitheater. You would still get the thumbs up, thumbs down. So it's, I'd say, that the gladiator fights on screen are as old as cinema, so they often involve Pompeii. That's that's a place we like to fight, and
Dr Rad 12:07 we like it when the volcano erupts during a gladiator we
Lindsay Steenberg 12:11 really do. If you can get gladiators fighting for their lives behind the volcano exploding, we get disaster movie. We get action movie. It's all
Dr Rad 12:17 happening exactly, and what are they going to do to finish the fight or run?
Lindsay Steenberg 12:21 I think you'll find both. They're running, fighting what's happening, and
Dr Rad 12:27 they should grab their romantic interest as they leave, because you
Lindsay Steenberg 12:31 don't want to leave her. I mean, you do. A lot of ladies have been killed in Gladiator movies. They Yeah, in movies that were we watch now. Sometimes she doesn't even get a name. Maximus, wife has no name. She she's the dead wife, the murdered wife who who prompts him to vengeance. That didn't always used to be the case in an old Italian pedlum film, you often had the ladies had names. But in the millennial sort of moment, it was all about the sort of the gladiators trauma rather than any kind of romance. It seems that, you know, after Maximus, there's no love story anymore. We've abandoned that which is one sadness and violence. We want
Dr Rad 13:14 those Wistful glances. You
Lindsay Steenberg 13:16 know, so much wistful yeah,
Dr Rad 13:18 now I am so curious to ask you now what you thought about the arena sequences in Gladiator two. Because I must admit, I really quite liked the first gladiator film, and I remember when it initially came out, there was a lot of talk, obviously, about the way that they'd staged those arena sequences, particularly the ones that involved the Tigers and that sort of thing. And there is a really curious thing that Dr G has often picked up on, which is the picking up of the arena sand and the rubbing between the hands that Maximus and now Lucius does spoilers, everybody. But yeah, so we'd love to know what you think. Yeah, we'd love to know what you think about the arena sequences in Gladiator too.
Lindsay Steenberg 14:01 I mean, I was, I was in it for the arena sequences. That's what I was there for. So glad that there were sharks involved. It was, I don't know too much, I think it was delightful. In terms of the arena sequences. I did do the kind of slightly nerdy film thing. I brought a notebook to the cinema hoping that no one would notice, because I wanted to count the arena sequences, because in the original film, there's five arena sequences, and they range from that first one in North Africa, where he fights in that wooden structure, and it's quite sort of homespun, I guess, the amphitheater, and then up into the logical Yeah, just a little a baby, baby amphitheater, and then he goes to the Colosseum, and part of the shock and awe of that fight is the structure, the architecture itself, like this is Rome. So I was quite curious to see how many there would be and where, and they echo each other so closely. We get the first fight sequence with Lucius and this terrifying CGI, apes, monkeys.
Dr G 14:58 Yeah, we. CGI baboons
Lindsay Steenberg 15:01 aliens. Like, why didn't they have fur? I find
Dr G 15:05 it was a shocking choice. It
Lindsay Steenberg 15:07 was such a strange choice. And I find monkeys very frightening. So I was like, Whoa, I would I'd rather they would be, yeah,
Dr Rad 15:12 they were frightening, but also so unreal, like, so unrealistic for the first fight, like you said, like the first film. It seemed right that we started off in that sort of humble, provincial setting. Yeah, with this one, it feels like we started too big and
Lindsay Steenberg 15:28 and then with a with a strange, almost science fiction element. So yes, what I think marked the Coliseum or the the amphitheater fights of the first film was the combination of this digital spectacle like the crowd generation software was state of the art at the turn of the millennium, and people were really impressed with it, but it was also that it was rooted on the sands in that authenticity of like face punching action. So this in that fight, I thought, okay, here we're going to get that lovely combination of digital augmentation, but authentic, like corporeal authenticity. And then I don't know, crazy bald monkeys came, so I was sort of like, okay, I'm willing to I'm it was okay. But then that they was, soon as they got back to Rome, I felt okay. We can recall, we can recover this the arena fights were pretty spectacular. I'd say the choreography of the violence within the amphitheaters was probably more nuanced. It speaks to a franchise based American cinema that demands very sophisticated fighting. It doesn't just want your John Wayne walk up, punch a guy in the face and leave no it doesn't want that thing that they used to do in sort of Hollywood swashbucklers, where you sort of gently slice somebody, they bend over and they die. They wanted to have that kind of brutal realism, and it did deliver. So I haven't, I haven't crunched the numbers on the density of the violence, but I suspect if it follows the pattern that all other Hollywood movies do, there will be more violence, Less talking, more fighting. And I would say that kind of I loved the naval battle, probably just for the spectacle rather than, I don't know where the boats were gonna go. It was a pretty tight space,
Dr G 17:08 a tight space with artificial islands. So where were
Lindsay Steenberg 17:13 they gonna go and the sale? Did they need a sale? They didn't need a sale. But, you know, they crashed together. And we did get some some fighting there. And it, I kind of it felt like the sequel to 300 which was sort of 300 but in water, this was sort of like Gladiator, but in water speed. So I felt like that's, that's what they were doing, like now it's not safe to get in the water. The sharks were great. I loved them, and so were the kind of battle they had the rhinoceros, which I have to admit, I I felt very emotionally attached to that Rhino, and the little sad noises it was making, oh, poor Rhino. And then Pedro Pascal brings his mustache into the amphitheater for some quality, sort of like Oedipal father surrogate son kind of moment. And it that that sort of like that was a good kind of way to wrap up a narrative moment, but make it violent so that you get plot moved lots of violence. And then, of course, it was a little disappointing that Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal didn't fight each other in the Colosseum, but I understand that they wanted to fight in water and beyond Rome, so I forgave them for that. I just kind of wish they'd brought it back into the Colosseum for the final point. Oh, that
Dr G 18:25 would have been a moment, yeah, because it did feel like the river sequence, if we can call that body of river, is maybe the smallest tributary of the Tiber I've ever seen. It
Lindsay Steenberg 18:37 was a modest, little, very
Dr G 18:39 modest, yeah. I'm like, Guys, are you sure this is where
Lindsay Steenberg 18:44 you want to have your final fight? Yeah, I
Dr Rad 18:46 think you put your finger on something there. I actually was not that enamored of Lucius as a character. I think that you did a good job in the action sequences. There was enough brawn there and everything. But I must admit, I found Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington much more compelling to watch. And I agree. I would have loved to have seen them come together rather than what we actually got, which is, of course, is Lucius and Macrinus coming together after his confrontation with his stepfather. I'm going to call
Lindsay Steenberg 19:22 him Pedro Pascal, is the surrogate dad we all didn't know we needed. Yeah, he's always picking up something like whether it's a little Yoda or, you know, video game character,
Dr G 19:34 finding the child in all of us along the way. I want to hone in for a little moment on the nomarchia sequence, because I think this is one of those things that as a lover of Roman history, even though I'd be I'm very willing to pick up on the detail. I was super excited that this was something that was included in this film, because I feel like it's highly unlikely that I'm going to get to see a sea battle. People in the Colosseum, again, in any film in my lifetime. And I'm interested in your assessment on how well Ridley Scott is bringing that idea to life, and how his conception of it sort of compares to some of the ancient evidence we have for this kind of thing happening. Well,
Lindsay Steenberg 20:18 I was very excited about it as well, and it has been the foremost question that I've been asked, you know, by colleagues, by students, just interested, friends, going there, they didn't flood the Colosseum, how that's so unrealistic, and they kind of see it as this way over the top spectacle. And when I say no, they they did. This was a thing that happened. There were naval battles. People watched them. People are a bit astonished. Now, I
Dr G 20:41 can't, I can't
Lindsay Steenberg 20:43 testify to any evidence that sharks were involved. I think they're sort of quite how did they transport the where was the tank? There's many, many of this would mean
Dr G 20:52 that the salt the water in the Colosseum would need to be salt water. It seems very unlikely. A
Lindsay Steenberg 20:58 little tricky, a little tricky, but the fact that it's within the realm of possibility, I think that is something that is I was like, Yes, I want to see this. I want, I want all that CGI has to offer to bring this spectacle to me. Because I have seen naval battles in other gladiator films. I think I can only recall one I looked at my list before speaking to you, there is a 19 I've wrote it down, 1962 film called The Last Days of Herculaneum, or the destruction of Herculaneum, depending on the translation and they have, they stage a naval battle. Our hero is going undercover as a gladiator for reasons we we don't need to know. There is a lot, it doesn't matter. But he goes and they have this, and it is a low budget Italian- French co-production. So this is the days of those cheap muscle men, Italian films, which are kind of joyful and really fun to watch. And he goes and there's a pond, and they stage a full sort of canoe battle with, you know, all the finest that you know, homespun low budget gladiator movies had to offer. So I found that was one of the most memorable gladiator moments that I recall out of all the Italian movies that I watched, Steve Reeves, the former Mr. Universe, Breaking Chains and stuff and throwing trees. I'm like, no, no, I was in it for that pond battle. That was great. It was slightly awkward as they all tried to fight on tiny boats, but that sort of shows you the what if you just got together, grabbed a camera and some rafts and tried on the pond, versus Ridley Scott's imagining of all the tools and the toys and the spectacles and the islands and the sharks and the arrows and the fire. So I, sort of part of me, wanted it to be even more over the top. We're here. We're on the water. Let's make it happen. I mean, we know that it's a possibility, so let's just roll with that. But I expect he had to sort of temper his his shock and awe vision to be able to still tell a story, because it's hard to make the human element stand out in that kind of a naval battle. Naval battles, I think, are often quite tricky in terms of staging a fight scene. You have to be on the two sides. If they're just shooting at each other from their opposite boats. That's a different kind of scenario. If you want the stakes to be personal, they have to go on each other's boats. They have to get close enough. So I think in that sense, it did work. People who I saw the film with suggested that it was very video game like that. That moment seemed a little bit like an Assassin's Creed video game. So I think there was something kind of like, this is the next level to it as well. But I think they, I think they did a good job. I enjoyed it. I like I said, I would have liked even more just, I throw it all, throw it all at a water fight scene. I
Dr Rad 23:45 have to ask, What? What is more? What is more? On top of islands and sharks and ramming, it could have
Lindsay Steenberg 23:49 been islands. It could have been sure. I mean, we could have brought some, some women right into the amphitheater, and perhaps an emperor could have fallen at least one of them. I mean, there were two. There's a spare. Let's get, let's get Caracalla.
Dr Rad 24:00 Let's have one of them drown. Yeah, maybe
Lindsay Steenberg 24:03 some
Dr G 24:04 nunchucks falls onto a boat. Yeah?
Lindsay Steenberg 24:08 An explosion or two, like, bring Michael Bay on to consult, something could explode.
Dr Rad 24:12 You're right. You know, we've also had the Colosseum actually start to collapse and the crowds start to fall into, you know,
Lindsay Steenberg 24:21 the crowd falling in later. So that was, yeah, more, maybe more sort of Errol Flynn style, like ropes, a little, little swinging in there as
Dr G 24:31 well. Yeah, missed opportunity that one. So, yeah, it was, it
Lindsay Steenberg 24:34 was enough. It was definitely excessive. But somebody could have ridden a shark,
Dr Rad 24:38 yeah, you say Right? Because that was the main thing that people have said to me, they're like sharks gamma.
Lindsay Steenberg 24:43 I mean, yes, like I said, I don't think there were sharks, but there could have been other that they have reported, other animals, look
Dr G 24:50 but the thing that I've talked to people about, and I firmly stand by, is that if the Romans could have put sharks in there, they would have
Lindsay Steenberg 24:59 that's a. Exactly what I said. I'm like, Look, if they could find a way to get a shark into an amphitheater, they would have been 100% behind it. They've been a yes,
Dr G 25:09 very keeping in the spirit of the Romans, could
the sharks fight each other? They would have found a way to make this happen. So
Dr Rad 25:15 really, the great tragedy of this is that the Romans themselves will never see this movie. They will
Lindsay Steenberg 25:20 never see the movie about themselves, although, I mean, when it comes to sort of Rome on screen, the interesting thing is that that, of course, it is, is rarely about Rome. Gladiator is as much about America as it is about Ancient Rome and what we think it was like. So the heroism we see there is very American. Yes,
Dr Rad 25:38 it's okay. So now that you brought this up, I definitely would love to probe a little bit more about this, because one of the things I felt after seeing gladiator two, I didn't like it as much as the first film, and I felt that it was because it was kind of a typical sequel, you know, and that the villains were worse, the explosions were bigger, you know, There was more action, but I felt there was a little less heart and soul and story, and like the main character, for me, was lacking. I mean, as kind of laughable sometimes, as Maximus is, in some ways, there's something so strangely compelling about him, as characterized by Russell Crowe, which I did not find with Lucius so much as I did with fake characters like Macrinus. And I also felt that the first gladiator did have a more obvious commentary on contemporary America and that sort of thing with its I always got the impression that it was sort of talking about how the American people are distracted from politics and what is really going on by entertainment and those sorts of messages, which actually sort of stem a little bit from, obviously, what some of the critics of ancient Rome said as well about their own society. So I'm curious to know what you think about gladiator two and what it speaks to at this moment in time.
Lindsay Steenberg 26:57 Yeah, absolutely. The first one did seem to be a very kind of, you know, it's putting a toga on something, but it is commenting on, what is it like to live in a spectacle driven society? What's it like to kind of worship celebrities, to create a celebrity who becomes so powerful that even the Emperor can't give them a thumbs down. That idea, the sort of the Oliver Reed moment where he says, You know, I didn't succeed because I was the best. I succeeded because I was the most loved. I was most famous. To me, that was an excellent kind of way of thinking about how this fighter performer worked, and how celebrity can be built and manipulated. Whereas there was, I thought that there was going to be a little bit of the similar kind of thing, you know, Lucius would be built up as this celebrity gladiator and and that celebrity would be something that we could think about that seemed to have been emptied a little bit. Yes, he was famous. They were chanting. They liked him, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. They also quite liked Pedro Pascal's character as this heroic general, but that didn't seem to be something we were thinking about. So it did seem to be a little bit emptied out of some of the more poetic, allegorical moments that the film had, which I found a bit disappointing, because, you know, a nice ancient allegory worked so well, and that idea that the barbarians are at the gate, or, sort of, you know, something is falling, we're under threat. That's something that that gladiator really wanted to think about, you know, what happens when the Empire Falls? What happens if we imagine something beyond this kind of rule? Whereas I found that sort of Lucius speeches were sort of, they don't end tyranny, which is, yes, nobody wants tyranny, but it didn't seem to be very specific. It didn't seem to speak to the moment of what would happen after. So I was a bit disappointed for that missing satire commentary. I was sad when Maximus died. I mean, he was a bit funny sometimes, you're right, he was a bit over the top, and his trauma was so over the top. My name is Gladiator, and I loved it. I loved that melodrama, and I did feel moved when he died. And you know, he was this dream of Rome. Could it ever be good enough to sort of be worthy of his death? Of course not. There was no, no real sacrifice that we were meant to mark in the second one, because Lucius didn't die. Maybe it would have been better if he died. Do I sound horrible, because then he would have fallen again for Rome, and you know, Pedro Pascal's general didn't that that moment didn't have enough gravity and weight to really make us be like, oh, oh, okay, we've lost something here. And you know, why was he there? Why did they want to stop their takeover of Rome to save Lucius? It some of the things were sort of missing in that it was, I think, standard run of the mill, mid level gladiator Movie. Yeah, what it didn't do was chew the scenery too much that I was expecting. I thought that Denzel Washington was going to go full Oliver Reed. He didn't like, like Kiefer Sutherland in Pompeii. I thought he was going to go, yes, he he sort of held a kind of emotional center in the movie that. So it didn't spin out of control. But yeah, I think I don't know whether it depends on when you see it. You know, if I saw it when I was younger, and I hadn't seen a film like it, does that make it more impactful? So maybe if I were 15 years old, seeing this film, knowing Paul Mezcal from other shows, like normal people, I would feel like I did in sort of watching the first film. I'm not sure if it is, but I do feel it was a bit a bit more superficial than the first Yeah.
Dr Rad 30:46 And it felt like it was divided between Lucius, Lucilla and the general, as he's so often called, Pedro Pascal character, gotta have a call in the game, just the general. Yeah. It just felt like it was maybe more divided between them, whereas the first film, it was really all centered on Maximus, even though there were other people who got involved, like Gracchus and Lucilla and that sort of thing. This one, I felt like it was, again, like a typical sequel. There were more distractions and rabbit holes, and there was just, there was just less to root for, I think, with Lucius, you know. And it was just Yeah, I was that was actually the main thing that disappointed me. It wasn't so much the you know, as you say, the arena sequences were executed really well in terms of their cinematography and the spectacle and that sort of thing. But I just felt I was lacking that, that classic gladiator message that films like Spartacus and glad he had to have, yeah,
Dr G 31:42 if I may, I think the reason why you might be disappointed is because the general represents the kind of vision that Maximus was attempting to pursue but was unable to fulfill through his death in the arena, and for him to exit the film so suddenly means that actually, that that narrative aspect is completely lost, and all we're left with now is what we now know is the idea of the natural Imperial inheritance that has already been laid out by Marcus Aurelius through Commodus. And we know how that goes, and it doesn't go well, so there's not a lot of optimism Fauci is coming into this. No, even though he's very angry and he's filled with rage, he's still a prince of Rome. And are we supposed to go for those guys? Because the other ones that we've got on show in this movie, Caracalla and Geta, not, not great, exactly. They're
Lindsay Steenberg 32:39 not, they're not great. They're standard Roman villains. They're, you know, excessive and effeminate, which, you know, classical Hollywood often equates with sort of perversity. Yeah, the notion that it is this ATRA lineal kind of inheritance, like he's his destiny is to be Prince of Rome. It felt like what I kept thinking, what Weren't we going for a republic was that I thought we were talking about a republic. No, yeah, we're good.
Dr Rad 33:04 And there's so much that's left unexplained about, you know, they just have this, you know, this scene where Lucille hurries Lucius out of the arena after Maximus and Commodus both die to get him to safety, to explain how he exists and how this whole storyline is possible. But there's no explanation about Well, why didn't Gracchus and the rest of the senators step up and do what they wanted to do in that power vacuum moment? How on earth did Caracalla and Geta ever get into power where did they come from? Exactly, there's a total lack of any, you know, connecting the dots there, which, which is why it's so frustrating. Because you're like, I don't understand. It seemed like Maximus was getting there. I felt like the only moment where there was a possibility for something similar was when the general dies. Although I didn't really love the timing of that. When Lucius says, Is this how Rome treats its heroes? I'm like, Okay, well, that's a little that's something a little bit different. There was maybe some possibilities there in terms of some, you know, some commentary about how, you know, people can be treated, particularly how good people are treated in more corrupt societies. But again, it never went anywhere. He just, he just died. And that was that it wasn't really followed through in any major way.
Lindsay Steenberg 34:22 I think some of it, too is down to the shorthand that Marcus Aurelius has as a good emperor, and the sort of recent movement towards sort of popular or vernacular stoicism. So, you know, there are places on the internet where it's called broicism. It is this kind of popular, populist philosophy where, you know, it's used a lot people like martial artists or MMA fighters. So you've got the sense that Marcus Aurelius is a good philosopher king, and that Lucius, you don't have to answer the questions because he is. Angry and stoic at the same time. So it isn't that you want to get rid of the kings, it's you just want a good one, not a bad one, which I think to me, even though I knew that Commodus wasn't going to die and leave a republic in his wake, because we may have studied a little bit of history here, I loved that. That's what they went for, that they were like, You know what? We don't want a good king. We don't want a bad king. We want no king, no king. So this one kind of backpedaled on that a little bit. So I thought, Oh, you could have, especially since the two emperors were awful and, you know, have this interesting moment in US leadership there, there was, there was room to do some interesting things that they sort of
Dr Rad 35:39 picked away Exactly, yeah, and Caracalla and geta don't have the backstory that Commodus does as much as Commodus is obviously Caligula 2.0 in the way that they've presented him. You understand very clearly that he has this tortured relationship with his father and never living up to expectations and so and he just has this desperate desire for love and family and connection and so. And maybe it's also partly down to how Joaquin Phoenix obviously played him, because he's a brilliant actor, but you have a certain amount of sympathy and understanding for Commodus, even whilst you totally know he's the bad guy wheras Caracalla and Geta again, there is nothing redeeming these guys nothing, and they have such interesting back stories in real life. It's crazy to me that that none of that was used a real
Dr G 36:30 missed opportunity. I
Lindsay Steenberg 36:31 was gonna say you could hear the difference in the two films too, because in the first film, the the music that you know, the scoring, had the really, meaty themes for Commodus and for Maximus. And, you know, I've read a really interesting article about how the entire film, you hear it, and it is these two motifs coming together and then moving apart. And it's this struggle between two interesting men struggling for power and paternal love, whereas the scoring in the second film, I heard the ghost of some of the classic themes from the original, but didn't quite set up its own unique motifs and identity for its characters. So in some ways, you could hear the difference in the story as much as you could see it. You didn't get those really notable kind of kind of motifs sliding through the film.
Dr G 37:23 I think, yeah, this is one of those things where it's like, do you have Hans Zimmer and his team on board, or do you not have
Lindsay Steenberg 37:31 he's some some film music. People don't care for him very much. But the score of gladiator was really and then Lisa Gerrard, I think that her contribution there, I think really raised it. It just makes a big difference for how you remember the film, and how the film kind of prompts you to feel, and for the scoring in that, yeah,
Dr Rad 37:49 I shouldn't really venture an opinion here, because I'm I cannot to be unbiased, because I actually walked down the aisle to the theme from Gladiator.
Lindsay Steenberg 37:58 It's a very memorable theme.
Dr Rad 38:00 It is
Lindsay Steenberg 38:02 the the much talked about similar melody to the Pirates of the Caribbean fight theme to the to the music and Gladiator I mean, you just have to kind of hum that, and people are ready to find their swords that it's, yeah, it's not exciting. So it was a huge part of that. And I don't recall kind of fight moment with the same musical kind of weight to it. It felt a little bit, you know, I'm not a musicologist, but it felt a lot like the kinds of scoring that you used to see in biblical epic epics from Hollywood, quite orchestral. And I was sort of like, okay, I recognize this. It's just I can't remember it once it's over. And I like to remember the music and think, okay, yeah, that makes me feel like I'm I'm ready for an amphitheater fight. Well,
Dr Rad 38:45 when you think about some of the more notable gladiator films from the past, and I am going to go to Spartacus, just because it's the one I know best, yep, but should Spartacus has that very memorable scoring all throughout it from Alex north, and I know that for some younger people these days, it's a bit much, because there is music every single moment, yeah. But they have, as you say, they've, they very clearly had themes for each character. You know, virinius theme is beautiful. It's a really lovely piece of music. And even though I can see it, I can see that, okay, yeah, that maybe it's a little too much music, but at the same time, it gives the film such a signature, and I only have to hear a few notes, and I'm I'm right back watching that movie, because it does just work like that, I suppose, in our brain. So yeah, I think that there is a lot to be said for scoring, even though it's kind of a bit of an invisible, yeah, part of a movie,
Lindsay Steenberg 39:38 the scoring. And then the other thing that's quite invisible, which I'm always paying attention to, is the stunt performance. So I'm fascinated by the way that that spectacle it, you know, it wasn't just Denzel, Washington, Pedro, Pascal and Paul mescale. It was all of the stunt performers who did an astonishing job of jumping out of boats and, you know, grappling on the sands. So you. I thought that part of it was, was pretty astonishing, but there would have been no point in fighting the twin emperors. They weren't, you know, they're not like Commodus, who we, I think we all know, or most people know, wanted to be a gladiator. So he has, like, you knew it was gonna, it was all coming to that we are gonna find this final battle in the Colosseum. Whereas, you know, not, not so much the similar kind of sort of gladiatorial backstory for the for the
Dr G 40:28 one. And to hone in a little bit, because I think Macrinus is my favorite character in Gladiator and my theory is that he's actually the protagonist of this film. Yeah, he's the one who is demonstrably acting in ways that further plot points, and we see his whole arc across the course of this film as well. And I'm wondering if when we're thinking about it, rather than focusing on our disappointment with maybe what felt like a bit of a flat Lucius, unfortunately, despite, I think, a really workable performance from Paul Mescal. Instead, we get a really sort of shining light with Macrinus, who seems comfortable in his costumes, and, you know, is owning every room that he moves into, and is finding ways to make things happen for him rather than against him, when it could go either way, really, before he gets there. I'm wondering how this might be a useful way to think about this film. I
Lindsay Steenberg 41:25 think so. And I think Denzel Washington's performance really did stand out in this film, like he was interesting, he was baffling in some ways, because at one point I thought, well, he wants the same thing as Lucius. Let's topple Rome. Let's do it. Let's go and I think that's what he wanted. We're not sure why, and I sort of like that. They never gave him a tragic backstory or tried to kind of bulk that up. It was just, this is what I'm doing. This is politics. I am the puppet master. I, you know, I will manipulate everybody to get what I want. So I think if you look at it from that journey, at first I thought he was going to be the Oliver Reed. He was going to sort of give him a pep top, be the coach, you know, get in there. But he wasn't. And he was, he was evil in a pretty great way. So I think that it was that one performance that all the other ones sort of circulated around. He did not, though, have that kind of physicality where it was going to end in a fist fight, even though it ended in a sword fight, I guess so. I think that if you look at it from he is this canny, disappointed, cynical, almost motiveless kind of angry revolutionary. I think that that makes it a much more interesting film. That makes it something to go. What, whoa, okay. What? Okay, Denzel take us along for the ride. So I do think he was the more interesting character. And he did own all the rooms, although sometimes I it did seem like he was wrestling his his clothes a little, and I was sort of like, okay, and I found that a lot of the upper class people, with the exception of Connie Nielsen's Lucilla, did seem to wrestle their clothes a little. And I sort of figured that this must be deliberate, and that, you know, the gladiators with their almost no clothes, they can move, they can stand, they can be embodied, whereas the upper class characters are struggling with togas and and trying to kind of manage themselves, whereas, you know, the Denzel mostly just sat there looking like, yeah, okay, unfold in front of me. I've made this Yeah,
Dr G 43:31 I look I feel like the toga is a bit of a constraining garment at the best of times. It's a bit awkward, it's a bit heavy. Does get in your way? So it does make the Senate an easy target if you're planning a revolution, but it doesn't seem anybody's taking real advantage of that. Unfortunately.
Lindsay Steenberg 43:48 I mean, I almost missed it that they paraded the senators with Lucilla into the amphitheater for execution. I almost missed that. I was like, Who are they? Oh, okay, those are the senators. Okay, like they seem to be less important than they were in the first one and that no, you know, nobody. None of the senators were fighting. None of them seemed very good at puppet mastering. They were outmaneuvered completely by Denzel Washington's character, by the monkey, even like they they didn't have
Dr G 44:17 a clout. Their job seemed to be to roll over when required to
Lindsay Steenberg 44:22 do what somebody said. You know, Lucilla said this, okay. You know, Denzel Washington says this, okay.
Dr Rad 44:28 You got well, Macrinus is such an interesting choice because this is not my area of specialty, this time period. But from what I am, from what I know, Macrinus is a bit of a blank slate of a historical figure. I mean, we know some things about him, but we don't know as much as we would like. So And certainly, there were problems when he became involved in Imperial politics because of his lowly background. But he certainly wasn't as low as the movie seems to indicate. You know, they've, I think they've tried to heighten the drama by I think it would be hard for a modern audience to really get. On board with the idea that, Oh, he was equestrian and not from a senatorial family, or how disgusting that he was really equally rich class.
Lindsay Steenberg 45:08 Is he middle class? Can we do that? Yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 45:12 Whereas trying to give him this other backstory where he, you know, came from nothing, and then, you know, took himself to the top. I think that was meant to be the drama of it, the self made American man, exactly. Americans love a bit of rugged individualism, you know? They
Lindsay Steenberg 45:27 really do. And he, yeah, the hold himself up by his bootstraps. This, this is, these are heroic qualities. They've come to be villainous qualities as well, but often in action films where we're supposed to wonder about the motives of the villain. I'm thinking about Black Panther, or something like that, villains who, you know, made something of themselves from nothing in an unjust system. So he has that kind of backstory. But yes, it would not have worked if they were like, actually, he had a house like this. He didn't need to steal the other guys. Yeah, and that would have been okay for him, and he had power, just not as much. So, you know, we need the story. The underdog is a really important character archetype, and often in cinema, people have to work really hard to make their characters be underdogs. So, you know, you can just throw them in an amphitheater, and that works because they're automatically on the sand, not up in the stands, but giving them that pull themselves up by their bootstrap story is a good one that
Dr Rad 46:28 might, that might turn to our earlier conversation about America. Perhaps, maybe that was meant to be something there and just wasn't emphasized enough for it to come through.
Lindsay Steenberg 46:36 Yeah. I mean, heroic kind of conventions are so interesting, what we think of as a heroic quality and who we want to be our heroes that is very, very specific. Even if a the kind of gladiator as a man forced to fight against his will is pretty standard, who he is and what he get represents, does shift quite a lot depending on if you're looking at an Italian story from the 50s or the 60s, are you looking at like an Asian tournament film from the 1980s so much changes into in what we think is heroic that it's interesting to kind of trace it back to that, that kind of national specificity of where that hero is made and who he's supposed to appeal to.
Dr Rad 47:17 That's actually a perfect segue for us to talk about the idea of the gladiator and celebrity, which you did allude to before, when we were talking about Maximus and that sort of thing, but we would love to know a little bit more about the relationship between gladiators and celebrity on film, especially because we know that gladiators had a very interesting position in Roman society as someone who was both disgusting but also embodying certain Roman values that were much admired and were meant to kind of inspire in terms of when they were performing
Lindsay Steenberg 47:51 absolutely that that double status of them. I think that that speaks to exactly how we view celebrities, from a Kardashian to a sports celebrity. The idea that somebody is both, you know, a bit of a train wreck, but also somebody to admire and imitate is, I think, you know, a kind of quite an ancient formulation that stuck that notion that a gladiator is sort of the best and the worst of a society and somehow mixed together. I think that is also really interesting, and that's something that I've wanted to analyze and talk about, because over, you know, quite frankly, hundreds of films, television shows, adverts, the gladiator is when you see a gladiator character, you know right away that you're in a world that's corrupt and falling so you see him, you're like, oh, barbarians are at the gate. The Apocalypse is going to happen. That's Maximus. That's katnius, Everdeen, whoever it is, you see the Gladiator, like, Oh, we're forcing people to fight for fun. It's the end of the world. But they're also simultaneously the best of their world. If you're facing an apocalypse, whether it's Vesuvius or a nuclear war, you find a gladiator, you make friends with them, and they will see you through because they they say that the apocalypse is happening just seeing them, and that they're the one who can, uniquely with their particular set of skills, survive the apocalypse. So they're the best and the worst at all times. So I think that there is something that remains the idea that a celebrity is somebody who we want to imitate and admire and even who has influence over us, but at the same time we're deeply suspicious of that's really easy to talk about when we have infamous celebrities and the whole True Crime boom, and how we've come to elevate serial murderers as celebrities. That's like the tail end of that spectrum. That's way over there. Whereas a gladiator uses violence to make themselves famous, we love them. We admire them. Sometimes, maybe even the Romans wanted to be them. So there, I believe that there are records of aristocrats really wanting to try their hand at being a gladiator, but at the same time to. Put yourself and your body on display for entertainment is kind of quite taboo, and I love that they often found themselves in the same category as actors and even as sex workers, because that is something that has continued and many gladiator fictions, from the sort of television Spartacus to the Pompeii film they do enmesh the kind of sex work and gladiators as a similar category, and that's often another moment of spectacle that's layered on top of the violence is the sexuality of the believing that when
Dr Rad 50:33 I get to see it, there is an allusion to it in the first gladiator film, obviously that scene between Maximus And Lucilla. And obviously, at some point they did have relationship, although not when he was Gladiator, to be fair, as we now know, because of Lucius, all revealed. It's all revealed. I actually, genuinely did not see that coming. I didn't think that that was a thing. I mean,
Lindsay Steenberg 50:55 it, they kind of dropped it like it wasn't a thing, but it was, I mean, maybe hinted in the first movie that Lucilla and Maximus, they definitely had a relationship at some point, totally, but I don't know that we were ever supposed to believe that Lucius was Maximus son. But this one, they were just like, yippee. Is
Dr Rad 51:12 totally Yeah. No, exactly, I thought so too. I was like, Whoa. Okay, you seem very certain about this all of a sudden,
Dr G 51:17 yeah, if you weren't paying attention, yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 51:21 There's trinkets being passed down.
Lindsay Steenberg 51:25 There's heirlooms. What? Yeah, did this happen? Just
Dr G 51:28 to recap on the first season, he's the son.
Lindsay Steenberg 51:32 Spoilers, he's the son. I mean, in some of this is when I was researching for the book on Gladiators, I came across the unrealized screenplay for a gladiator two that was written by Nick Cave,
Dr Rad 51:45 oh yes, I did see this referred to in your book, and I was so intrigued.
Lindsay Steenberg 51:50 I mean, I'll be honest that no gladiator two could ever live up to the absolute insanity that was part of that screenplay. And Nick Cave, I think he has said, like, I wrote it because I knew they'd never make it. I just knew they wouldn't. And Lucius was in it. He was in it. He was not Maximus son, but he was in it. And if I recall the screenplay correctly, the afterlife, there's gods, and it ends with like a 25 minute montage of Maximus fighting in every single war in history, like from the trenches of World War One to Vietnam, to the Civil War, like, just, let's give up. Let's just put this celebrity gladiator in every battle ever, and sit back and watch. And I was like, you know, and win. I would have watched that,
Dr Rad 52:34 you know. I saw Lucius being a character. I did. I thought as soon as I heard that there was going to be a secret, which I never thought there would be because of the way that the first one ended. But as soon as I heard I thought, yeah, for sure, Lucius is going to be a character. But never thought he was going to be a character in this way. I again, kind of wish they'd done something different with him. But thinking about Lucius, and again, going back to this idea that he was not quite the same as Maximus. Why is it you think that Maximus was built up so successfully as this sort of celebrity fighter, and yet in Gladiator two, it's, again, it's a little bit more muddled. You know, he is, as you say, he does earn his stripes in the arena, but it's just never quite as focused and clear as it is in the first film,
Lindsay Steenberg 53:22 I think it maybe is that they gave up on thinking about celebrity a little bit. So the first film they did have, you know, win the crowd. Win the crowd. You'll win your freedom. This is what you want, the dream of Rome. Win the crowd. In the second one, that wasn't quite as much a part of it. He was a good fighter, and that was enough, like it was, he was good at fighting, but he the kind of theatricality of what the battle was, and the fact that Maximus spectacle was that he hated them all and that he blamed them for the spectacle like that itself was a spectacle that we loved. We loved him being angry at us. That was great. Lucius was just kind of diffuse force of anger. He didn't it wasn't for a reason. It was just, I'm angry. I do all the fighting, all the fight. You just put someone in front of me, let a fight him. Whereas Maximus, I think that we often kind of read a lot of hesitation, like, I don't want to kill all you guys, or I'm protecting my friends, you know, stick with me. We will, we'll. We'll fight this battle. I saw that they wanted to build Lucius up as a leader, you know. They kept saying, you know, you need to lead your men. He gave the speeches. But that didn't seem to it didn't seem to stick as well as I think it probably did in the first film, you didn't get the same side characters, I think, like even if the gladiators, I can't recall, I can't recall all of their names, but he did have his friend, his very good friend. And then we saw, you know, a few of the same figures again and again. And we got a sense that there was a fraternity, that he was becoming closer. And that's something like in Spartacus. I am Spartacus. You have that fraternity, that crowd gathering around them, whereas Lucius had the one friend who was the doctor, but I and the one who died in the first arena fight. But I didn't get the sense of his, his family of gladiators with him in the same way that I did in the first one. And of course, in all the Spartacus, the Sparta chi, the many Spartacus films, TV shows, retellings, just that, that that brotherhood didn't seem to be quite where it could have been. I think
Dr G 55:33 they, they did definitely try to shortcut that by having a Spartacus esque moment.
Lindsay Steenberg 55:38 They so had a Spartacus moment. And when I was in the cinema, everybody giggled. It was
Dr G 55:41 like, Yeah, and I think, I think that's a reasonable response, because the back work on the additional characters in the gladiator troupe wasn't there to justify them all sort of taking part in that moment and being willing to step in and defend Lucius in that way. We didn't have a reason for that to be true. So I think that's why it felt, felt flat and maybe a little bit comedic. Yeah,
Dr Rad 56:06 whereas Maximus is so clearly someone who's earnt the loyalty and the trust of the men around him, and they clearly, they clearly adore him. Same thing with Spartacus, but yeah, you don't ever really get that with Lucius. It's kind of like, Why does everybody care about this guy?
Lindsay Steenberg 56:21 We're just gonna follow him to our Yeah. Okay. I mean, sure. Why not? Gladiator movies are written in shorthand, so I you know there's, there's often not time. I guess what gladiator the original one was, wasn't a bit of an exception. It was a bit of a gladiator movie that did offer you a backstory, that did think through things like male friendship and things like that. Whereas most gladiator movies are sort of delightfully one dimensional, it's like, what are we fighting for? For fighting? That's why we're here. You know, why do you fight? Because I can, like, there doesn't need to be too much complexity necessarily behind the fictions. So I sort of, when I came out of the theater, I was like, Gladiator two is a gladiator movie, like so many others. It has the same things. It has the same conventions, the same short hands. Everything feels familiar. It's just, I think that they're the first gladiator film was a bit of an exception. The trauma was more melodramatic. You know, there's also theorists have sort of noticed a break around that time too. The sort of the world has already fallen and we're all doomed that comes from Maximus onward. So we just, you know, we've just accepted that our hero is always sad. He's never going to get another wife. He's too sad. She's dead. All ladies don't matter to him, because he only fights. He has no time for romance, whereas the kind of pre millennial Gladiator, even Conan, even Conan the Barbarian, is kind of being raised as a gladiator, still gets a little bit of romance. He still has a bit of joy. He gets a sequel as well. So you get a little bit more playfulness and joy in the pre millennial gladiator who bite gladiate because he likes it. Why do you fight? It's awesome. I love fighting. The second sort of iteration is, oh, I'm sad, and I have to, and they're making me and then I'll die. So there is a kind of break in there. Whereas, you know, I think Paul Mescal was enjoying himself. He looked sad, but it felt like he liked fighting. So it was a bit of a throwback to the more traditional, actually, and it's
Dr Rad 58:23 interesting that you bring up the ladies side of thing, because I felt that that was, again, another aspect that was inexplicable, and that was his relationship with Lucilla as his mother, because that was the real relationship. But it went from being completely one way where he was like, Get out of my set. You were banished me. You mean nothing to me. I don't even remember who you are, mother who I'm sorry you didn't raise me. And then all of a sudden it was like, I would die for you. I would do anything for you, just like, what is happening. And that is an unusual That's an unusual turn events, because we don't often have the mother of a gladiator as a
Lindsay Steenberg 59:03 there are no mothers in Gladiator movies. They have all been killed, all of them. Yeah, she was really interesting. And I did enjoy her performance. She had a kind of, you know, dignity that's normally lacking in a gladiator movie. So I thought Connie Nielsen did a great job reprising her role. He switched with her, the way he did with the Pedro Pascal character, with the sort of, all, you know, I hate you. You replaced my father, kind of very Oedipal sort of struggle, like, how very dare you come and steal my mom. But then was like, oh, but okay, in the same thing, I hate you, mom. Okay, no, I don't. So it was a very kind of strange turn of events. And they did have her, you know, all in white on the sort of sacrificial thing, so that it was clear that she was going to be this, this sacrifice, and she was going to be the tragedy that kept him burning for some time afterwards, although I was secretly hoping. Think that the ending would have been every man was dead, and she's like, well, Rome is mine. Obviously the best person for this
Dr Rad 1:00:08 job. It looked like that's where it was going for I thought it was going there. I
Lindsay Steenberg 1:00:11 got excited. Yeah, I also found it. You know, the most unrealistic thing that Hollywood did was not the sharks in the Colosseum. It was imagining a relationship where a woman was older than a man, so Connie Nielsen is a bit older than Pedro Pascal. That never happens. It happens so infrequently, and it's always such a big deal that people commenting, you know, Anne Hathaway is in a romance film with a much younger man. Oh, they didn't comment on it, and it was just there, and I was watching, going, are they going to say something? No, they're not. Okay, Googling it afterwards, just getting a very niche difference. She's just, she's just going to be the love interest of a younger man. Oh, she died. I'm not going to say it was because of that, but I found it was, like, one of those striking moments. I was like, okay, Gladiator, too interesting. So if they had let her keep her her Pedro Pascal and rural Rome, I would have decided that that was much more exciting at the end. I agree.
Dr G 1:01:12 It's a wrap up question, because I feel like we're heading in that direction now with with this sort of alternative ending, which that's a film I would love to see, was there any particular moments in this film that did drive you crazy in terms of historical accuracy?
Lindsay Steenberg 1:01:28 I mean, I think I'm probably better than most people at being able to put that on a bit of a back burner, because I'm a film scholar, and I'm a scholar who studies a lot of historical films, a lot of historical films that are so incorrect that it's you just, you get itchy, it drives you crazy, or you give up. So I do, I do know how to, you know, healthily, give up on historical accuracy. There are some things where I felt they missed a trick, because history was more interesting. I'm like, Why? Why didn't you go into the backstories of those emperors. That was a crazy stuff happening. I would have been really cinematic. Also, the why, where was their mom? I guess Lucilla was offered as a maternal character. Like at the end, Caracalla said, you know, do we? Do we have to kill her? So maybe. So they missed a few tricks, and also the the gender politics and hierarchy of the of the actual arena, like the way things might have been segregated, who sits where i It's so interesting, the way that a hierarchy can be written in space that way. I'm like, Come on, let's do it. Let's we're those Vestal virgins. We're always thinking about them.
Dr G 1:02:41 They seem to be in the Senate House. I'm sorry, but that's where they seem to be hanging out. Yeah, I
Lindsay Steenberg 1:02:46 guess so weird.
Dr Rad 1:02:48 Yeah. We both saw that woman and the dress the way that she was in the Senate scene. And we were like,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:02:52 is that a vessel? Yeah. And there were a few women sort of wearing white in the background, looking disapproving. And I sort of wondered, I'm like, is that? Is, are they the best? Is we could use her? She would be a great character. So I just, I think that it didn't, it didn't upset me that that, you know, there wouldn't have been sharks in the Colosseum, or that I knew that the story was different in history than it was in the film. It was more like history is such a wild ride in this time and in this place. Why wouldn't you want to go there? And I know that the historical consultant for the first film, I think she worked with them, and then sort of said, Could you not put my name on that? Actually? Yeah.
Dr Rad 1:03:34 Kathleen Coleman, yeah, she absolutely did. Like,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:03:38 I'm happy to be involved in films, but you might not have listened to what I was telling you, so I can understand that the first one was more accurate, and somehow it was more accurate. But yeah, so I think that the thing that that is is sort of often a disappointment is, is not necessarily the gladiatorial salute that never happened, or the the thumbs up, thumbs down. It's more like, oh man, you missed some amazing parts of history that would have been so cinematic. I do think, though, for my students, especially, the films are so visually arresting that they will replace history in our minds as a collective. So there's always when you watch these movies, it's not a risk, it's just an interesting function and effect that if you see something that is so astonishing, it kind of sits there in your brain and it's not going to shift. So even if you know there's no thumbs up, thumbs down, or you know that they weren't saying we are the moratorium, we are about to die, it's in there, and it's part of the myth, so it can replace so I don't get too mad when the history's off, but I do think there always needs to be a place where someone says, Actually, no, or actually, yeah, you could have, you could have brought the, you know, you could have flooded the Colosseum. So, yeah, that, I guess my fundamental thing is, movies are spectacle. They're not real. I love it when they do things that are over the top. They could bring more historical over the topness and. And But effectively, we always do have to have the moment of conversation where we say that Rome is beautiful, but that's a Rome that the American imagination in 2024 built out of computers and, you know, martial arts trained bodies. It's not necessarily telling us too much about Rome. Yeah, I
Dr Rad 1:05:17 think that's the thing. I also am very forgiving of historical films, because it's also what I like to focus on. But I must admit, when I see a film like this, where I feel like the major issue was the story and the characterization, because the technology was there, the money was there, the talent was there, both, you know, both in front of us in terms of the actors, but also behind the camera and putting all the bits and pieces together. There was just so much talent actually in this film. And I'm just like, why did you make it harder for yourself? Like you obviously struggled with the story
Lindsay Steenberg 1:05:52 more than anything about plot points, you were exactly your plot is all
Dr Rad 1:05:57 over the place. So why wouldn't you use what is actually there, because, you know what, it's already been crafted into a story by ancient historians who are probably making stuff up to and
Lindsay Steenberg 1:06:07 they knew their audience wanted to hear that as well. And they they knew how to tell a good story.
Dr Rad 1:06:12 Yeah. And I was a bit disappointed, actually. And I don't, I don't think of Ridley Scott is someone who is, I don't really know how I feel about this, actually, but Caracalla and geta being portrayed the way that they were in that white face makeup, given their ancestry, I was so confused as to why those actors were cast, and that was the makeup choice they went for, especially, again, in a film with Denzel Washington playing the krius. It just didn't make sense to me.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:06:44 What yet they did make it harder for themselves, and could have kind of Lent back on some of the stories that were or the mythology that's already there. I wonder if they felt shackled to the first film, because the story, you know, had that like and then he was a leader, and then the wife died, and it was captured, and he came to Rome, and he fought for Rome. So I wondered if they were thinking that they needed to stay so close to the film that they forgot that they're telling historical story.
Dr Rad 1:07:16 Yeah. Look, as you say, it's a fascinating addition, because Ridley Scott being someone who is an older director, and someone who grew up watching the original, like golden epics of Hollywood, you can definitely see those reference points in there if you know the history of film. But I think again, that's the weird thing. Like Gladiator, to me, is just the love child of Spartacus and full of the Roman Empire, you
Lindsay Steenberg 1:07:39 know, yeah, and Anthony Mann's film Fall of the Roman Empire does not get nearly enough credit for having influenced that film and for for just being an AWESOME film, really. So yeah, it absolutely was kind of those biblical epics, sort of those those Hollywood epics stuck together, but sad. So
Dr Rad 1:07:57 you think you'd think, really, Scott could therefore take his own film turned into something good too.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:08:03 It's like, What happened, man, what were you doing? And I mean, when you watch a Ridley Scott film, you often whatever you think about what's happening, you're like, Yeah, but it was visually amazing. And I yeah, I did think this one was arresting and spectacular. I'm glad I saw it in a big screen, but I think it did miss a little bit of its own stylization, like when you watch kingdom of heaven, you were like, Whoa. You know, I don't, I don't know why Liam neesons here, but I'm enjoying what I'm watching, and it's stylish and it's interesting. For this one, it was spectacle. It was good, but I sort of felt like it. It missed a little bit of what Ridley Scott used to be really good at, yeah, Blade Runner good at, yeah, that kind of esthetic that belongs to its own world and makes its own visual language. So this, this felt like I said, mid range gladiator film, which I will always watch,
Dr Rad 1:08:58 yeah, very watchable. Yeah, very watchable. But I think, to be honest, that actually was the same issue with his Napoleon for me, because that was so visually stunning.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:09:10 Yeah, amazing. No matter what you think of what's happening in that film, you're like, well, it looks amazing.
Dr G 1:09:18 I was so angry
Dr Rad 1:09:21 about it, because the acting was terrible. And again, it came down to the plot being a total mess, trying to do way too much.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:09:29 And again, history had a great plot there. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:09:32 exactly it's, I don't know how he made Napoleon so dull it was, it was crazy. Yeah,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:09:43 I'm gonna keep in my pocket his reaction to historians watching the film, which I think is one of the funniest things a director's ever said, is, you know, people like, oh, it's not very accurate. It's not this. And he just said, f off. It's a movie. Yeah, guys, I was like, Okay. Ridley Scott, I see where you're going. I. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:10:00 and it's, it's not that, as you say, it's not about the accuracy, per se. It's more that. I'm like, Well, if you can't come up with something better, then why wouldn't you go to the original story, which is good. That's why people want to see a film about Napoleon. You know that that's the issue I have. I'm like, well, by all means, go. Be fictional. Make it up. But yeah,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:10:19 make it crazy. Yeah, exactly. Give us a bit of bridgerton, sure. Fine. Yeah, absolutely. Why not? Yeah.
Dr G 1:10:25 I think this draws our attention to the really important role of the screenwriters and the creation of screenplays in general, and maybe what is going on inside the Hollywood system at this current epoch with script writing and the way these things get changed and altered to suit what seems to be like a committee like structure of like what needs to be in this film. And so instead of being able to tell an original story of gladiator two, which is a natural continuation of the point where the first film ended instead, what you get is a film that is trying to hit the same notes exactly, because that's what made that film a blockbuster, and that's what that's what made it great. So we've got to do that same story again, but now we've just got to have some slight alterations to see if we can enhance that spectrum. Repetition
Lindsay Steenberg 1:11:16 with variation. Works in movies. It works in myths. It works in novels. You know that must make that's a genre repetition with variation. But you have, you have to vary. You have to surprise people, even just a little as you give them what you want. So I don't, I mean, I've spent a lot of my career studying big franchises like Mission Impossible, like John Wick, even Fast and the Furious. And they have that. They're an ecosystem. They have that committee logic, where, you know, you have the one, and then you have to have this, but more this, but more, you know, now with nunchucks now on water, so you do have the logic. You just
Dr Rad 1:11:51 got to go to Tokyo drifting. Yeah, we're gonna get gladiator
Lindsay Steenberg 1:11:55 three. Tokyo Drift would still watch the chariot. There'll be chariot. There's got to be, like, a take on this, like, I want to see that. But then you do feel like what is missed, what loses is that what made the first one special was its variation, and you haven't varied it, so you've given me tried to make literally, what is the first one. And I think you're right about the screenwriters as well. I mean, in an era where, you know, Hollywood is striking because of things like AI, an AI can write a script to gladiator two, it will not be like Nick caves. It will not it'll probably be a little closer to this film that we saw. I'm not saying that an AI wrote this. They absolutely didn't, but the notion that you feed in the kind of familiar tropes and it pops out what you wanted, I think that's often just not enough for us as viewers, even though, historically, often the sequels do make more money than the first. So I'll be curious to see how gladiator two performs at the box office, because when I went to go see it. It was sold out. I have not gone to a cinema where I've been turned away and they've said, No, it's sold out. Or since the 90s, like, I couldn't believe it. I'm like, wow. Okay, that's amazing. So I will see it. Might be enough of a same thing we wanted, but slightly different this time on water that it makes a lot of money, in which case, even if we are feeling a little disappointed that we might get gladiator three Tokyo Drift too fast to gladiator something I would 100%
Dr Rad 1:13:35 like today, Gladiator film where they're too fast and too furious. I would watch that. Well, I think that's probably a perfect note to end up on with our wishes for the future. Dear Ridley, Scott, do you have another one in you? Thank you chariot racing, exactly. Yep. Thank you so much for coming and chatting to us all about the gladiator movies, and Gladiator two in particular, it has been a complete delight. Is there anything that you'd like to tell us about that you are working on that we should keep our eyes peeled for in terms of articles or books or anything like that? Okay,
Lindsay Steenberg 1:14:07 a little shameless self promotion time. Yeah. I guess I think what has been so interesting for me that I'm working on right now is modern interpretations of gladiators that kind of stand out as metaphors for precarious workers in our kind of gig economy. So I've been very interested in things like squid game, very interested in reality TV shows where people gladiate, there's a there's a British show called Romans, Oh,
Dr Rad 1:14:35 yeah.
Lindsay Steenberg 1:14:37 Quite interested in the way that like metaphors like freelancer and stuff like that have become so entrenched in the way we talk about precarious employment. So yeah, I'm, I'm quite interested in writing about things like squid game and and finding out how gladiators have really kind of embedded themselves in our in our in our lives, in sort of like Anglo American and Australian culture.
Dr Rad 1:14:58 Well, that sounds fascinating. We are here for that excellent
Lindsay Steenberg 1:15:01 look forward to squid game two.
Dr Rad 1:15:03 Yeah, it'll come. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and we look forward to perhaps talking to you again when gladiator three eventually makes its appearance on our screens. That would be my pleasure.
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina and joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more lively content about the ancient world by becoming our Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. And today, we would like to thank all of our wonderful Patreons and Ko fi supporters for helping us to cover the cost of making the show and taking it in new directions. However, if you have overindulged and blown all your cash on Jaguars earlobes and Wolf nipple chips whilst watching the games, then please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. You have no idea how much that kind of stuff really helps these days, Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.
Special Episode - Enemy of My Dreams with Jenny Williamson
23 janv. 2025
00:56:52
We were titillated to speak to the scintillating Jenny Freaking Williamson. Jenny is one of the co-hosts of Ancient History Fangirl, which we like to consider part of the unofficial but highly exclusive #ladypodsquad. Jenny and Genn have been on our show before to discuss their fabulous book, Women and Myth, which was released in 2023. However, today Jenny is here to discuss a solo venture. She has just completed her debut novel, a historical romantasy called Enemy of My Dreams, slated for release through Harlequin in February 2025 and available for pre-order now.
Enemy of my Dreams is set during the late Roman Empire and focuses on a romance between an imperial princess named Julia and a ‘barbarian’ leader, Alaric of the Visigoths. Julia was largely inspired by three historical figures: Julia the Elder (daughter of Augustus), Galla Placidia and Honoria.
It was a delight to hear about Jenny’s process in crafting historical fiction.
Special Episode – Enemy of my Dreams with Jenny Williamson
Here are some quick bios for the ladies in question!
Julia the Elder
Julia the Elder was the only biological child of Augustus, which was a nasty surprise for him. Without a son, Julia’s importance as a dynastic pawn grew. She was married off to her cousin, then Augustus’ BFF Agrippa, and finally her stepbrother, Tiberius. Although it was normal for an elite woman to marry for the benefit of her family, there was a huge amount of pressure on Julia to in these scenarios, especially as her last marriage a trainwreck. Let that be a lesson to you – don’t marry your step-siblings!
Julia was suddenly exiled for scandalous behaviour in 2 BCE… or was she plotting against her father? We will never know. All we can be sure of is her fate. Julia was exiled to the island of Pandataria before her exile was moved to Rhegium. She was never allowed to return and died of “malnutrition” early in the reign of Tiberius, her ex-husband. If Augustus intended to put his errant daughter in her place, mission accomplished.
Galla Placidia lived hundreds of years after Julia, in the twilight of the 4th century CE. She was the daughter of Theodosius the Great, a very capable emperor (as the name implies). Sadly for Rome, he died in 395 CE and left the purple to his sons, Honorius and Arcadius, who split the empire between them. Placidia resided in the west with Honorius
These were not easy times for Rome as there was a lot of movement around their borders, and within the empire. The Goths were looking for a new home and the Roman Empire was it! The Romans were not always so thrilled by this prospect. In Placidia’s youth, they decided to unite behind a Visigoth named Alaric. Alaric was a pretty successful guy, and in 410 CE he and his followers managed to penetrate the walls of Rome itself. It’s hard to put into words how shameful and shocking this event was for the Romans.
It became even more embarrassing when Placidia was taken captive by the Goths. She remained with them for years, eventually marrying Alaric’s brother-in-law Athaulf, who became the leader of the Gothic forces after Alaric’s death. It is one of the tragedies of history that we know so little about this time in her life. Did she and Athaulf fall in love, or did it just seem wise to marry a man of status, given the circumstances?
This could have been an interesting union that changed history as we know it, except that Athaulf was murdered soon after their wedding and eventually the Romans found the time to negotiate for her return. Placidia was married to her brother’s right-hand man, Constantius, whom she despised. Hatred is not an effective birth control method, and she had two children by this marriage. Honorius had not produced any children, so Placidia’s son was a likely heir.
Placidia was highly respected in her lifetime for her piety and for her capabilities. When her brother died, she helped to engineer the succession of her son, Valentinian III. As Valentinian was so young, Placidia acted as regent, and she never really left the imperial stage. This probably had something to due with the fact that Valentinian was as useless an emperor as Honorius. She died peacefully in 450. She did not have to witness the assassination of Valentinian a few years later.
Honoria
We know very little about Honoria, the daughter of Galla Placidia and sister to the rather pathetic Valentinian III. Honoria was either born with a wild streak or developed one because she was oddly left single for too long, which was a weird status for an imperial princess. After an affair with one of the imperial stewards, she was being forced into a marriage with a rich senator. That oughtta fix this whole situation!
Honoria refused to go down quietly. She may have contacted Atilla the Hun, the latest barbarian threat on the block. She sent him a ring and asked for his help – was this an offer of marriage? Atilla certainly thought so.
We don’t know much about Honoria’s life after this treasonous act, aside from the fact that Placidia intervened to prevent her execution, and she was not given over to Atilla when he came knocking for his bride. She fades into obscurity, best known for this bizarre rebellion.
Jenny Williamson pictured with her book.
Enemy of My Dreams
You can order Enemy of My Dreams now through your local independent bookstore, as well as online suppliers such as Amazon. Use this link! For our fellow Sydneysiders, you might consider Abbey’s Bookstore.
As well as the many primary sources on both of these women, many of which can be found online
Sound Credits
Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman
Automated Transcript
Dr Rad 0:15 Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Speaker 1 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr rad and
Dr G 0:33 I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Speaker 1 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:54 Welcome to this special episode of the partial historians. I am Dr G
And I am Dr Rad
And we are absolutely thrilled to be joined today by Jenny Williamson. Now we have talked to Jenny before. She is one of the fabulous co hosts of ancient history fangirl and part of the exclusive and unofficial lady pod squad. So we had Jenny and Jen on the show to discuss their book, women and myth, which was released in 2023 which doesn't feel like that long ago, but at the same time, is actually ages ago. And we're really excited to have Jenny here today to discuss her latest solo venture. She's just completed her debut novel, which is labeled as a historical romanticy. And I love that sort of portmanteau of going on there, and it is called enemy of my dreams, and it's going to be coming out in February 2025, at the time of recording. It's a pre order situation. But maybe when you hear this episode, it'll be out and about, in which case you should just go and grab it. Welcome to the show. Jenny,
Jenny W 2:08 hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Dr G 2:12 It is an absolute pleasure.
Jenny W 2:16 So much fun.
Speaker 1 2:17 So look, enemy of my dreams is right up our alley as it takes place in the later Roman Empire. We love our things Roman, and one of the lead characters is Alaric of the Visigoths. However, we are most interested in your female lead, Julia, daughter of the Emperor of Rome, Theodosius the great. And we're here to talk about the history that inspired you to create this intriguing character today. So we believe that there are three women from ancient Rome whose lives inspired your story, Julia, the elder, daughter of the First Emperor. I'm using my little flesh rabbits there Augustus, as well as some women from the fifth century CE such as the Empress gala Placidia or plaquitia, depending on your preference, and her daughter, Honoria. So we're very excited to delve into that today.
Jenny W 3:14 Yes, I am so thrilled to talk about all these ladies.
Dr G 3:18 So I think we'd still like to start with, like, maybe the originator of bad women under the imperial system, and that would be Julia the elder. And I love this woman. She's great. I'm wondering if you can talk us through a little bit about her family connections and her character. Yeah,
Jenny W 3:40 so Julia the Elder is such a she's such a fun character for me. And I really, I think that my very early draft of this book, my Julia was just absolutely straight up Julia the elder, like she was just and Julia the Elder as a, sort of like very surface reading of Julia the Elder, who is very much just like a party girl who likes to sleep around and do what she wants, you know, which is kind of like I said the surface reading, she was the only biological child of the Emperor Augustus, quote, unquote, Emperor Augustus, you know. And listeners of our podcast will also know him as Octavian. We had a whole series about Mark Antony and Cleopatra, in which he figured very prominently. And we're gonna do a series on him later on in the year, I think, where he takes the Empire the, you know, Rome from Republic to Empire. So she was his only biological daughter, his only child, and he had her with, I believe it would have been his second wife, scribonia, and his first wife. I think, was I correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think it was the daughter of Fulvia, who he married very early on and then wound up cruelly rejecting based on the sort of wars that he was having with Mark Antony, who was her dad. So that was his second wife, Scribonia, and I think he divorced her while she was pregnant. And definitely did, yeah, embarrassing, yeah, to marry his third wife, Livia, who was also a badass. And I believe that Julia the Elder as a child, was sent to live with Livia, her stepmom, and was taught to be like a noble woman in her house. She grew up and was engaged to various people, starting at a very young age, wound up being married, I think, first to her cousin at a very early age, I want to say, like 14 or 15 or something like that. Her cousin was Marcellus, was maybe a few years older. He died, and she wound up being married to Agrippa, her dad's best friend, who was also her dad's age. Ew, yeah, gross. They were married for a little while. They had a bunch of kids together, and then when Agrippa died, her dad married her off again to his other son. Was it his adopted? I don't know. How are they related…?
Dr G 5:57 Yeah, Tiberius, he's Livia's son.
Jenny W 6:00 right? That's what it was, you're right. He did adopt him, yeah, he adopted him. So, like keeping, keeping their, you know, family trees straight in my head is always a struggle. But it was her step brother. So yeah, it was, yeah, she was engaged her own step brother. They hated each other. And I think ever since her marriage to Agrippa, there were rumors about Julia the elder, you know, sleeping around, having boyfriends. And as far as I know, this really kind of got started with Tiberius, who also had been married to somebody else, and was made to divorce that person, to marry Julia. Neither of them were happy about it. And at some point, Augustus was trying to put he was trying to take Rome from Republic to Empire. And he was doing a lot of things like trying to craft this sort of unifying story about who Rome was, and change the laws to, like, restore what he considered to be, quote, unquote, Roman greatness. And one of the problems he noticed was that the women they were just were having affairs and being slutty and horrible things. So he was like, you know, tightening these laws around women and reducing their freedoms and kind of expecting them to be more embodying of the traits of a, you know, virtuous Roman Matron. This involved a lot of spinning. As far as I know, he really expected his daughter, Julia, to embody all of these traits of like an upright Roman matron herself, and she just did not want to do it. And there were all these wild rumors about her sleeping with with men in the forum and doing all kinds of crazy things. And she got exiled to Pandatarea, where it was kind of like a prison situation. And she was there for, I don't know, several years, like very, very curtailed, and was eventually allowed to come back. I think she might have been, I'm not 100% sure, but I think she might have been exiled several times. She
Speaker 1 7:46 was allowed to return to the mainland, I believe, for some of her exile, but she was never taken out of exile, and she actually died in exile under Tiberius, yeah,
Dr G 7:58 yeah. So yeah. Part of what happens is that when Julia is exiled. So this is in around two BC, she goes to Pandataria, this island in the Mediterranean. And do you think to yourself now, oh, that sounds not so bad, but it's not ideal when you're an imperial daughter and you're used to living in the city, and now you're on like, you know, a goat ridden island in the middle of the Mediterranean. Her mother, Scribonia, goes with her, so that's nice. She's got a mum, and they do have fun, so they're able to live a modest life. But what Tiberius does is he withdraws all funding from the exile, so they are essentially a starved to death. I don't know how they end up actually dying, but the withdrawal of funds sort of means that they're unable to maintain any life whatsoever, and it seems like they maybe haven't made enough friends on the island to sustain a life and be taken in by others.
Dr Rad 8:58 Ancient Rome. Survivor edition, yeah, exactly.
Dr G 9:02 It's like, there were only chickens here.
Jenny W 9:05 I don't think there would have been people to befriend. I mean, there were maybe not even that, I don't know. Like it was a very dire situation, right? I remember doing an interview with an author who had written a book, kind of a fictionalized version of the life of Julia the younger, and Julia the elder was in it as well. Who Julia the younger was also exiled for something like 20 years. And we were discussing like, the dangers of having this happen, where you were ex, you're sent into exile and then starved to death, or perhaps, you know, beaten by the guards, or really mistreated like this is not a good situation. And what she was telling me, her name is Tana Rebellis. She has she's written some really interesting, I think it was a duology about Julia the younger. But what she was discussing was how, you know, the power of Augustus in his time meant that the guards were gonna be pretty careful about Julia the elder, at least maintain her health and make sure she was okay. When Augustus died like that, was when you had to worry about the guards. That's when it got a little more dangerous because you didn't have that protection anymore. Yeah,
Dr G 10:07 and certainly, like, the orders are now coming from somebody else, and they're coming from somebody who has not liked her time. Think
Speaker 1 10:15 we all have nightmares about our ex being in control of our lives. No, like, Oh no,
Dr G 10:20 Tiberius is now in charge. But I really enjoy the focus of what is Julia the elder trying to do, because she's kind of like a classic, sort of stick it to the man figure in this scenario, because she gets caught in the forum, that's the rumor. And she's kind of got this whole group of senatorial young bloods who are very happy to like party on and have orgies in the forum. So it's like she's hanging out with some very elite characters, and she's really flaunting it all. And at the same time, this is precisely when Augustus is building up his reputation, and he's been awarded a really prestigious title pater patriae, the father of the Fatherland. So he's kind of gotten to this real pinnacle of his own political success, but at the same time that family life is like completely falling apart. And I think there is a really nice mirror to the opening scene of your novel, of how your protagonist, Julia, is kind of as we meet her for the first time, and the kinds of things that she's up to gives that real sense of somebody who's like, I'm going to do exactly what I please. I have the right I'm in a position of power. Life is here for the taking
Jenny W 11:37 exactly. And I think in my book, I was also really thinking about, and I'm sure, like, this was, this is an issue for Julia too, because she kind of lived in the midst of this time, like, what happens when there's a transfer of power, you know? And that's always a really dangerous time for for emperors and, you know, ruling, ruling families and their survivors when they die. So just thinking about how, how the rules are going to change, and they're changing underneath her. And my Julia doesn't really realize that that is what's happening until, until she does kind of too late.
Dr G 12:06 Yeah, interesting. So when we're thinking about the connections between, like the ancient source material and the way that you've interwoven it into this new form, what were the sort of aspects of Julia the elder that really appealed to you, and which elements Did you really try to bring in for this novel?
Jenny W 12:26 So I really enjoyed, and like, I said, like, I really enjoyed this idea of, here's here's this woman who's just kind of careening LIKE A WRECKING BALL through this very upright society, and just, you know, having these orgies and doing whatever she feels like, and probably having a lot of sex and drugs and just that is not normally what you hear about women in the ancient world at all. So I was just very drawn to this party animal character, and I think I wanted to bring that into my book. But you know, my my Julia, has reasons why she's like that and things that she's sort of coping with by sort of drowning her sorrows, basically, and it's like a coping mechanism for her. But I was also thinking about Julia the elder, and kind of how she's perceived, and all these screwless rumors that kind of show up in the sources about her and other figures, where you kind of wonder, like, is this the whole story? Did this actually happen this way, or is this kind of a smear campaign? So my Julia is, she's kind of wild, but she's not as wild as you think at first. And there are, of course, like rumors swirling around her, just like there would have been rumors around Julia the elder, and that was something that really interested me later, is that, you know, the reasons given for her exile, and whether they, in fact, did involve her sleeping around, or whether she was doing some deeper plotting against her dad, is kind of something I've always been interested in, yeah,
Dr G 13:46 and that's the thing, isn't it? Because what we get in the historical source material a lot of the time, we have to question it, because the political invective nature of how do you make it possible to exile somebody like you? Do have to find a way to really trash their reputation. And is it more useful to say openly that there was a political plot against you? It's probably not a great move that might just encourage more plots, for instance, so being able to find a way to tarnish somebody's character is a much more convenient way of ensuring that they're effectively disposed of, and people can no longer associate with them because it becomes hugely problematic. And also, like, if they're stuck on an island, good luck. How are they going to organize anything from there?
Jenny W 14:30 Exactly, exactly. So my Julia, I would say she's, she's a partier, but she's also a plotter, you know? So I kind of was inspired by those two sides that I saw in Julia the elder that I kind of wanted to be true, fair enough.
Speaker 1 14:43 I definitely got visions of I saw Megalopolis, which I would not recommend to anybody, but the opening sequence of Megalopolis, where they have this character of Julia as a party girl. I definitely got visions of your Julia like. When I was reading your book from that movie,
Jenny W 15:03 I have got to watch this. I have got to watch it. I haven't seen it yet. It is so terrible.
Speaker 1 15:07 It's honestly one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my whole life. Oh, wow. The fact that it is inspired by ancient Rome is the reason why I went to see it. But oh my god, what a trash fire. What a mess.
Jenny W 15:22 My goodness, I feel like I maybe just have to watch the first scene then,
Speaker 1 15:26 yeah, maybe the opening five minutes. That's what I would recommend you watch. Gotcha. So thinking about Julia the elder and how you wove various pieces into your book, I was just wondering what specific sources did you actually revisit? Because, as you said, you've done a series where Julie the elder was a major feature in the podcast before, when you were writing the book. Did you go back to any of the ancient source material, or were you more using sort of secondary sources? What was your sort of process with that? So
Jenny W 15:56 it's been so long since I actually had to do it, you know? But like, I remember going back to, like, the gossipy sources like Cassius Dio has some things to say about Julia, if I remember right, who else covered her Suetonius. I honestly forget at this point. But like any book that I could find, and I used a lot of secondary sources, too, and fiction, like whatever I could find, basically, and my own imagination, you know, because that's ultimately what it's about?
Speaker 1 16:21 No, I think what you've done is actually, it's really hard for people that tend to write history, which obviously is what we all do when we're podcasting. I find it really interesting to think about taking all of that material and then turning it into a fictionalized story, because it sort of goes against, in some ways, what we've been trained to do in terms of using so much of your imagination.
Jenny W 16:46 Yeah, I think that's true. When we started the podcast, Jen and I remember being very, sort of intimidated by the idea that I would have to be correct about things, because I did not train as a historian at all, like I have a degree in English, so I was always a little bit nervous, what if I just, you know, write this whole episode about something and just completely because I was, I loved history. I always loved history, but I was just like, what if I just get it wrong? And what's interesting about that in the podcast, in fangirl is that we have a lot of historians and archeologists who listen to us. So far, that seems to be a lot of our fan base. And I'm just like, that seems to be going okay so far. But it's not, it's not that weird to me, because we always kind of incorporated that into our podcast already. You know, like we do Jen and I, my podcast co host and I, we've done a lot of sort of fictionalized, kind of micro fiction intros to podcast episodes that we've done. Then we do a lot of extrapolating, you know, and kind of fan fictioning, and like imagining these scenarios and things like that, and picking a lane like I'm sure you have to do that as historians too, where there's many different possibilities of how the sources could be interpreted, or how the archeology could be interpreted. And you kind of even, even when you have that material in front of you, you have to kind of craft a story about what has happened here in order to make sense of it. So I don't know, like I feel like in my work, in the podcast, I find myself using my imagination more than I thought. Yeah,
Dr G 18:15 definitely, I would agree with that, because, and particularly for ancient history, like modern history, you're almost overwhelmed by the amount of source material you have access to, so you've really got to pick a niche. But with ancient history, I feel like it's more like you're crafting a lace, or you're a spider that's sort of creating a web. And like, what can you connect to? What and what would be most plausible to connect to something else given the other little pieces of information you've been able to scrounge together. So ultimately, the imaginative process is fundamental to doing ancient history, because you're trying to join together things that are just sort of sitting slightly far apart from each other, and how they are connected is going to be the key, and you have to make that connection. Yeah,
Jenny W 18:57 I think that's exactly right. Yeah. I
Speaker 1 19:00 think it's more the idea of having to put it all into the format of a fictionalized book, you know, having the actual conversations and interactions between characters and, you know, and really fully fleshing out the pieces where we don't know as much and that sort of aspect, that's where I think I would struggle,
Jenny W 19:19 yeah, like giving them a voice, like, What do they sound like, you know, when they're irritated or when they're excited, or, you know, like, well, actual words come out of their mouth, and what would that sound like if you translate that into English? Yes, I frequently struggle with dialog.
Speaker 1 19:32 I can, I can understand that. That's, I think, where I would struggle. As you say, it's not that unusual for us to have to pick a lane, but then to have to turn that into something that is more of a story where you've got people interacting and having those sorts of moments between each other. It's a different kind of style of writing completely to what we tend to do.
Jenny W 19:52 Yeah, and it's just to for me in this moment, it was two characters who obviously never met, like if I took Julia the Elder and introduced her to Alaric of the Goths, how would that conversation go like? These are two people from wildly different parts of the empire, from the beginning and the end, you know. So that also kind of interested me as like an exercise is to bring those two people together in a way, and just see what kind of sparks flew and like, how would their understanding of the world be different? And I think, like in the very, very beginning of the book, when I first started it. This was ages ago, and I was really, did not know what I was doing, and I was just kind of playing around. I was like, what if Augustus just lived in the time of Alaric, and this was the real Julia the Elder, like, what if I just did that? And I had, like, a few, you know, scenes written, you know, Intro scenes written with just Julia, where that was her dad instead of her brother. And there were lots of conversations about these, you know, laws, these, sort of like, “women can't be slutty anymore” laws, it was just me having fun. But that is definitely a huge source of inspiration for me. Is these, this sort of wild, what if of history, absolutely.
Speaker 1 21:02 So we can definitely see the influence of Julie the Elder in the characterization, particularly earlier on in your novel, but obviously a large part of your inspiration comes from much later in Roman history, and that is talking about Galla Placidia. Now I'd say that a lot of our listeners probably have heard of Julia the elder, but they probably haven't heard that much about Galla Placidia. She is definitely a lesser known figure, even though she was also very important at Rome's history. So can you tell us a little bit about her family background, her connections and the time in which she lived?
Jenny W 21:37 Yeah, absolutely so Galla Placidia, she was the daughter of Theodosius, the real daughter of Theodosius, and Theodosius was this emperor who lived in the late three hundreds. AD, I don't think he made it into the four hundreds. Ad, I'm trying to think, but he was a really big figure in the history of Roman Christianity, and establishing Christianity as the state religion of Rome. I think he was involved in the Nicene I think he was like the guy who laid down the Nicene Creed, which established Nicene Christianity as the state religion that would be different from Arian Christianity, which was the form of Christianity that alarca The Visigoths was part of. So she was his daughter, and she would have been in Rome during multiple Alaric related sieges, or, like, you know, invasions, he made it down to Rome several times. Yeah, he got there a couple of times. Yeah, yeah. It's actually kind of weird, because I'm like, there are so many times when he made it into the peninsula and then had to leave, and then made it all the way down, and then kind of went up again and then back down. Like, there was a lot of moving around, you know, but she was in the city for a lot of that, I think, 15 years old. There was news of Alaric at one of his sieges. This was not the final one, coming down the peninsula and setting fire to cities along his way. And all these, this horrible news of like sacking and burning, terrible things happening. And the people in Rome were freaking out. And there's all this paranoia. At one point, the priests in the city, these would have been Christian priests, allowed the pagan priests, the worshipers of the old religion, to fire up the old altars again because of all this, you know, horrible stuff happening, and they wanted them to appeal to the gods in every way that they could. And the wife of Stilicho, the old general who had been Alaric's main opponent, the guy who had been keeping him out, who had previously been executed for suspicion of colluding with Alaric. And that's a whole backstory of its own. Anyway, he had been executed. His wife, Serena was arrested on the belief that she was somehow colluding with Alaric. And like, strangled and Galla Placidia at one point, I think, was like witness that, and like, voted for it, or something like that. And from that early age, she just had this kind of cold spine to her that just fascinated me. And she was in the city of Rome when it was sacked by Alaric and the Visigoths. We're not sure exactly how she came to be in his entourage, but she was probably a captive who was taken at that point, she possibly met Alaric himself, but she wound up marrying Alaric's second in command, and his brother in law, Athaulf. Athaulf was this guy who was another Gothic warlord type of guy, said to be very attractive, said to be also short. So, you know, hot, but we is kind of how I pictured him. Here. They got married. It's, there's all kinds of stuff in Edward Gibbon about, like, the history of Rome, about her dowry, which is absolutely amazing, like she supposedly had this enormous table made entirely of precious stones that had 365, legs and, like, just giant gold, solid gold plates, the size of wagon wheels and all kinds of crazy things, supposedly awesome. And I'm just like, you know, reading all this, I'm like, How can I work this in? Where do I put the giant table in Alaric's war tent? So supposedly, depending on the source you. This is really kind of presented as these were two people who fell in love, which is another thing that really drew me to this story, because that's another thing you actually don't see a lot in in the sources about women in the ancient world falling in love with somebody that they wind up marrying, like a lot of is a lot of these noble marriages were like, marriage is a convenience, and if this is a kidnapping, obviously you would not think that that would be the case. And I think that that there are definitely sources that don't show it that way. And I think modern historians that I've read have been more skeptical of that interpretation. So it kind of depends on how you see it. But that's one interpretation. I remember being super drawn to that, because I was just like, oh my gosh, a situation where it's not the worst for the woman, how about that? So I liked it. And I thought, you know, I have early commentary about my book and the way I kind of wove Galla Placidia in. I don't use that name. I couldn't have her fall in love with Athaulf because he gets killed by this guy who was a servant of an enemy of Alaric about, like, a year or maybe two years in the bath after they get married. So they don't stay married long, and it's not a happy story for that reason. So I couldn't have written just a straight historical fiction romance novel about them. I kind of had to make it my own thing. And I definitely, you know, allergic dies five minutes after sacking Rome, so that that had, like, I knew it was suspending disbelief anyway, writing this book, and I wanted to give it a happy ending, so that's what I did. And, you know, early, sort of, you know, reviews about this book have pointed out that this is not historically accurate, like, if I wanted to write a romance novel about this time period, why didn't I just write about gull of lasidia? And my answer to that is, well, because that wouldn't be a romance novel, because romance novels have to have a happy ending any way I did it. If I was writing about Alaric, or if I was writing about Ataulf and Galla Placidia, I would have to completely change it to give them the happy ending anyway. So as long as I was messing with the history, I wanted to do it my way,
Speaker 1 27:02 absolutely. I mean, that's the whole idea, again, of writing historical fiction and not writing a history
Jenny W 27:09 Exactly, exactly. So Galla Placidia, after a tough dies, she gets basically sold back to the Romans. They're like a series of unfortunate events that happened where the Goths are in a terrible position again and wind up having to negotiate with the Romans to survive and send her back, along with a bunch of other concessions, she winds up marrying this general called Constantius, who she loathed, down to her soul, hated this guy. I think that's pretty clear in the sources, as I remember, he eventually becomes emperor, and then dies, and then she becomes Empress, and rules for about 12 years. And she is really, really good at it. Rules completely with an iron fist. She's like, very good at, like, negotiating disputes. She oversaw a lot of building projects in Ravenna, and was really pretty much undisputed. And I just love the idea of my Julia kind of growing into the gala Placidia, part of herself over the course of this story. So that's kind of part of the clay I was working with.
Speaker 1 28:12 I kind of imagine Agrippina, the younger, loving the position that Galla Placidia ends up having, which is after making it through all the marriages and all the men, she ends up getting to be regent for her son and effectively being Empress of the Roman Empire, which I think is what Agrippina the younger probably had in mind when Nero came to reign, and it just didn't work out for her that way. Oh, absolutely.
Jenny W 28:35 And, I mean, I think that there's a lot, there's a there's a huge interesting conversation to be had, because we saw how Cleopatra dealt with her brother husbands, you know, having them killed off. As long as you have a son who is a child, you can rule undisputed. But once that kid gets to be about Nero's age, he's like, 15 years old, he starts to want to do it himself. Then you have a problem, you know, and you see Cleopatra having a similar situation with these brother husbands that she's married to who are like, you know, 12 years old. I mean, she starts to assassinate them. At least that's the rumor. I don't know that's actually all 100% historically accurate all the time. I've
Dr G 29:16 got opinions. They've got to go,
Jenny W 29:18 you know, there's all kinds of stuff happening here, where, as a woman, if you want to rule, you have to rule through this son that you have most of the time if you're alone, you don't have, like, a husband. So that can be a problem as the son ages, unless, unless you have a good relationship with him, or, like, you know, you work it out somehow, I guess.
Speaker 1 29:39 Valentinian the third from memory was not the most inspirational character in history.
Jenny W 29:47 No, no, I don't know what happened with him.
Dr Rad 29:51 Nothing good.
Jenny W 29:53 Yeah, I
Dr G 29:55 think it's a really interesting aspect of history, is that we get the. Women who grow up in the imperial court, so they're very familiar with how things are done. They understand that on some in some respects, that they're locked out of official power in many ways. And we see that with particularly with Honoria as well. And yet, if they get the chance, some of them are like, I can make this work, and it's like, I found my conduit. I've got the small child. It's a man that's great, and now I can start to leverage within that system of power, which I'm very familiar with. I know he's working against me, but if I say I'm speaking on behalf of this kid over here, all of a sudden I can get some stuff done. And I was like, it's like, really face in the face of adversity, finding a way to be powerful anyway, which I think is pretty cool.
Jenny W 30:50 Yeah, I think it's fascinating, too. And it's also dangerous. Like, I think that as your son ages, that can become a time of transition that's dangerous for women rulers. Just as you know, times of transition when a male king dies could be dangerous for everybody. And
Speaker 1 31:02 it's interesting to think about you using Galla Placidia as well, because, as you highlighted when you were talking about the timing of her life, it isn't a completely different Rome. It's the room that most people don't really think about because it's not often presented in popular history, I think, is effectively as earlier parts of Roman history, because this is a really Christianized version of the Roman Empire. And as a result, the way that our sources write about people is different to the way that say, you know your Suetonius, your A Tacitus, would write about people. So what sense Did you really get of the character of Galla Placidia when you were crafting her, I just
Jenny W 31:44 got this sense of just this is a woman who is going to make it work no matter what. You know. She finds herself in the midst of this Gothic horde of people who has just sacked her city and she's gonna rule them. And she finds herself depending on this man who maybe makes her marry him. I don't know exactly how that would have happened, but, or maybe she fell in love with him, but what I suspect is that she wound up having to marry him because he took a shine to her. He decided that it would be politically advantageous to him to marry the daughter of Theodosius. And she decided, I'm going to rule over this man, and then I'm going to rule over your people. And when that fell apart and she wound up going back to Rome and having to marry this other guy, she made it work that way as well. Like she was somebody who was just not gonna she was not gonna take anything lying down, you know, like, whatever situation she came into, she was gonna dominate that situation. And that was really interesting to me.
Dr Rad 32:38 It is really interesting when you think about the what if of that situation, because, as you say, definitely the accepted version of things, even though modern scholars might be a bit more skeptical about it, is that there was some sort of affection or relationship developing between Galla Placidia and her husband, Adolf in that they had a child, they seem to have been really sad when that child died, and if her husband hadn't died so quickly as well. I mean, who knows what would have happened, given that her son ends up dying only a few years after she does, and it's during these increasing problems with the quote, unquote, barbarians. It's just so interesting to think about what would have happened if gala had managed to hold everything together and have preserved a union between the barbarians, again, flesh rabbits and the Romans. Yeah.
Jenny W 33:36 I mean, I think that it would have been a stronger kingdom, you know, because she she leaves it at a point of weakness. And I'm gonna do a whole series coming up on the history of the Goths, and what happens to the Goths after this whole episode with the Romans, after they move out of Italy and things like that like that's also just really interesting history, but I haven't quite gotten to that yet. It's a big undertaking. That's a lot of them. That's the thing. It's a huge undertaking. And that's what part of what made this book so heavily fictionalized, like how I had to write it that way, is because there's so much we don't know about Gothic culture. We have reams and reams and reams and reams and reams of military history, but there's a lot we don't know about how they saw things in just sort of daily life. And it's really easy to assume that they were kind of proto Vikings for various reasons, but that may not have been the case. I am doing a deep dive later. I'm not sure, but I made some choices in the book, you know, because there's a lot of gaps to fill in,
Dr G 34:38 for sure, and I think in a way that becomes like a perfect sort of Canvas for historical fiction, because we don't have those insights into exactly how they live their lives, how their leadership was structured in many respects, and sort of like cross culturally between different Gothic groups as well. Were not sure about when they really sort of came together and decided to work in a more unified way, and what led to that? So there's lots of potential for coloring in all of those gaps to create a really rich world for the reader to explore. Yeah, exactly.
Jenny W 35:17 And that's just so much fun like that is something I absolutely love to do. And
Dr Rad 35:21 so I'd love to ask for Galla Placidia, because, as I say, she's someone that people don't know as well, but she definitely was a major part of your character of Julia. What kind of source material was out there for you for her? So
Jenny W 35:35 I think I first met her in Edward Gibbon. So like the honestly, I'm terrible with names of books, so I should have had a list of things. There is Jordanes, there's Zosimus. There's various writers at the time who come at this mainly from a Christian lens. I would say, I think it's Jordanes, who is actually Gothic and who is writing a history of things. Those are like sources from my for the world in general, and about Alaric, and some of them also talk about Galla Placidia and Athaulf as well. So I think there was one, I forget the name, but there was one that was definitely talking about the relationship between Galla Placidita and Athaulf as servitude. That was the word that was used. But most of them talk about it as she fell in love with him, and he was very handsome, if just a bit short, but she didn't mind. They were in love. One
Dr Rad 36:25 down, full,
Jenny W 36:27 right? No, she was like, You know what? I like a guy who's my height. I don't know. I mean, that's definitely, I feel like that's just definitely a more positive interpretation that I really fell in love with at the time. But you never, you never know with these things, and I don't know, but I was very intrigued by this idea of a woman who could, who could just walk into that situation and make it hers. Yeah,
Dr G 36:49 I think it's really tricky, because obviously we don't have sources from the inside for that kind of situation, but obviously as a hostage, there is a certain degree in which it would be wise to follow along certain decision making paths in order to preserve yourself and to try to create a ring of safety around you and a bit of a buffer. So if somebody has taken a shine to you, for instance, and he does happen to be a little bit shorter, and to all of our short kings out there. Don't worry. It's okay. No,
Speaker 1 37:27 her brother wasn't exactly the most again. I mean, this is another another woman who isn't surrounded by men who were not the most capable, inspirational characters. Her brother was also a bit of a waste of space. Basically, I think her dad is the only one who anyone it would look at and go. Now there's an emperor. Her brother and my son were kind of a waste of space.
Jenny W 37:52 That is so true.
Dr G 37:55 She's doing the best she can. I
Dr Rad 37:56 think the interesting thing about Galla Placidia, as opposed to characters like Julia and Agrippina the Younger, who I'm just mentioning because of her ambition, not because she necessarily has any connection to your book. But the thing about Galla Placidia is that living in this Christianized world, it did give women a different set of tools to play with, I suppose, and a different avenue for power, because if they were admirable religious figures, it kind of, I think, allowed men to admire them and respect them in a slightly different way to what they had before. Yeah, and
Jenny W 38:34 that comes up in the sources, how she was perceived. I believe she's described as beautiful and very pious, and that was kind of a shield that she was holding. And remember that the Goths at this point were also Christian, so that would have been something that that was respected. I did a very early episode, like one of the first episodes that I ever did was about, I did a kind of a series about Alaric, Athaulf, and Galla Placidia, and Honoria and Attila the Hun and in the Athaulf and Galla Placidia episode. This is many, many years ago, like when we first started the podcast. Started the podcast, I made a case that the Gothic culture was less misogynist than the Roman one, and would have valued women more highly, even if they were both Christian at the time, like they had a long history of venerating women as ciruses and listening to them as, you know, community leaders. And there wasn't the sense. One of the things that I picked up on was this sort of scorn for love that occurs, at least in upper class aristocratic Roman culture, like, for example, Pompey was a wife guy and was ridiculed for it. And this happens occasionally, where, you know, people really make fun of someone for loving their wife, and it's kind of looked down on, is like, Oh, you're just kind of enthralled by this woman, and love was seen as this madness and things like that
Speaker 1 39:49 disgusting. I've never heard of such films, right?
Jenny W 39:52 I mean, the appropriate feeling for your spouse should be a sort of fondness and familial duty. That's what you're supposed to feel. You're certainly not supposed to get too excited about it. So this idea that maybe the Gothic culture gave Galla Placidia a little bit more room to breathe, I like the idea that maybe she enjoyed that about it when she found it.
Speaker 1 40:14 It is so intriguing to think about the possibilities of what her life was like in that very brief moment where she was living amongst them, yeah.
Jenny W 40:22 And this is, of course, fan fiction on my part, mostly, and potentially fan fiction on the sources part, depending, you know, because we don't have anything from her point of view, I think it's high, highly likely that when she got into that situation, she wasn't like, I mean, maybe, I don't know, maybe she fell in love with a tall first glance, unlikely. I think it was a bad situation that she was trying to make the best of. She could make this guy enthralled with her all the better. And then, if she could, once she was back in Rome, things worked out for her there too. And I think that kind of shows that that was the kind of person she was
Dr G 40:57 good at making the best of a bad set of circumstances.
Jenny W 41:00 Yeah, good, good at, like, walking into a situation that would be really bad and just ruling it fine of steel. And I just respected that about her, like that was the thing that came across to me.
Speaker 1 41:12 Well, I think you're right. I think when we're talking about her character, as I said, after her father died, which was in 395, ce really, there were a lot of, I mean, I suppose it's not the best way to characterize them, but weaker rulers. There weren't really any strong Roman emperors after Theodosius, and it was the people around them that were more holding things together. I think, after that, particularly if we're talking about, obviously, this sort of Western Roman court, and gallopicity is one of those people. We also have all these, again, quote, unquote, barbarian figures, and we also have people like Constantius, who, even though galapaciti Apparently couldn't stand him, these are the strong characters around the Emperors that seem to be driving events and holding things together. But the Emperors themselves a very meh from this time period, yeah,
Jenny W 42:03 and, and, I mean, that is kind of a, you know, in a way, she has a channel of power because her son is sort of her, her excuse to hang on to power when she is in that position. But there are situations where we kind of see Agrippina, the Younger doing this with Claudius, you know, like there are situations where women to hold on to power need a strong husband that they can operate through. So potentially, at that point, a tough was that guy, maybe potentially where she's like, all right, I can work with this clay.
Speaker 1 42:35 Now, just to wrap up, we're not going to go into heaps of detail, because, to be honest, there's not heaps of detail to be had, but we did mention at the top that Honoria was also worked into this story somewhat. She's a very shadowy figure in the histories, and we have even less from her point of view than we do about someone like Galla Placidia. Can you tell us a little bit about Honoria and how she factored into your story as
Jenny W 43:01 well. Oh yeah, this is actually one of my favorite parts. So Honoria was gala Placidia, his daughter with Constantius, and she did not want to marry the guy that her mom picked out for her, and she rebelled. And what is wild about this is that Galla Placidia, theoretically, again, depending on if you believe the sources, had been married to a man that she maybe loved or had some affection for, possibly, and then married to a man that she absolutely loathed, consensus, and she was really adamant that her daughter was going to marry this man that she loathed, which is wild to me, like this, this idea that she was going to make her daughter do this thing. And so Honoria, at this time, Attila the Hun was kind of ravaging various territories in Rome, and I don't think he had made it all the way into Italy or had made it to Gaul yet, but what she did was she, essentially, she sent him a message inviting him to come and get her,
Dr G 44:03 please. Yes, babe, I would really appreciate
Jenny W 44:06 and get me and I will marry you. Get me out of here. Is that amazing? And as far as I remember, this is a very long time ago that I did these episodes. But this is something that stuck in my mind. He basically took this as a pretext, you know, well, if I marry this woman, that means I own half the Roman Empire. So he invaded on that pretext alone, before they were even married. Now, I don't think these people ever met. Honoria was, I believe, eventually forced to marry somebody, or there's a question mark about what happened to her. I'm not sure she might have been sent into exile. Again. These are like just various theories that I've seen come across, but I'm not sure. I don't think people know, as you said, but yeah, she and Attila the Hun never met in person. And that, again, that scenario, again, was one of the inspirations for this book. And like, I kind of played with the idea of Augustus and Julia the elder living in 410 ad. I also played with the. Idea that maybe this romance novel I was writing was about anoria and Attila the Hun, like, what if they met in person? My Julia kind of propositioning Alaric of the Visigoths, comes from that sort of that just absolutely balls to the walls, you know, rebellious spirit that anoria had, and like, this absolute refusal to just do what most women did at that time, which is, marry who your parents told you to.
Dr G 45:26 Under no circumstances. I'd rather marry a hun. Everyone's like,
Jenny W 45:30 at least she picked him out herself. I mean, granted, she hadn't met him, but
Speaker 1 45:36 it is wild when you think about the reputation that Attila the Hun has, yeah, it is wild to think about a Roman imperial Princess being like, you know what? I don't like the guy that you've picked for me, mom. I'd like that guy well.
Jenny W 45:51 And I think at one point, Honoria was sent to live with the Eastern Roman court, which was a lot more rigidly Christian than where she was living before. So if I remember, right, I don't know if this, honestly, don't know if this is fan fiction at this point, but I wrote, I wrote an intro to this episode that I did about Honoria, where she's in the Eastern Roman court, and she's been living this extremely strictured Christian life, and she can't stand it. And there's this point where Attila the Hun is bearing down on Constantinople. And there's all these wild like, like with the Alaric story, you know, there's all these wild rumors flying before him about his brutality and all of the horrible things he's going to do to the city as soon as he gets to it. And the people are building the walls that have been just destroyed by an earthquake, and they have, like, two weeks to do this, or, you know, some extremely short time to do this before the the Huns are going to get here, and everybody's praying for the walls to rise, and anoria is praying for the walls to fall and for the Huns to just sweep into the city and burn everything and rescue her from this extremely rigid lifestyle. Like that. She just it just didn't fit her. She couldn't stand it. That's who anoria is in my head. I think about that all the time like that. What she was refusing to do was what women did all the time, like that was extremely common back then, is just you married whoever your parents told you to marry, and that was it. And if you were 15 and he was 50 years old, that was fine. That's just what people did. Or, you know, whatever other horrible situation it was like the these were, you know, women and girls who did not get a choice, and the fact that she just dug in her heels and said, No, nobody did that like gala Placidia didn't even do that well,
Dr G 47:28 not directly, but as Honoria is sort of growing up and witnessing what is happening in the imperial court. It's her mom in charge. So it's kind of like as a child, I think you would be seeing very much a situation where you're like, Well, mom gets to do what she likes.
Speaker 1 47:48 I know just imagining this confrontation where it's like, But mom, you got to run off with a barbarian who open you, and my age is a son. That's such
Jenny W 47:56 a good point. Like, why can't I have a barbarian husband? You got
Dr G 48:00 to do it. Yeah. And I think maybe if I'm thinking of like, in a historical fiction kind of way, I feel like that conversation will be like, But mom, you already said you love that guy, and it's like, I just want my own. How bad
Jenny W 48:13 could Attila the Hun be really? I mean, isn't it all just girl is rumor Exactly. It's
Speaker 1 48:21 also that thing of, as you say, We know so little about anoria, which is mental because she is often brought up as being a key factor in Attila the Hun attacking at this point in time. But again, it's that question of, was that just some sort of pretense on behalf of the sources to blame it all on her, when maybe Attila was going to attack anyway. Or maybe there were much larger reasons. It's so hard to understand, but at the same time, you can understand why he would if he thought there was a chance of nailing an Imperial Princess, yeah.
Jenny W 48:53 Or just, you know, maybe this comes up in my book, where my Alaric kind of sells the idea of being married to a Roman Princess, to his people by saying, like this, this is obviously going to mean that when I invade, we're going to have a son, and he's going to be the heir. So I basically already rule Rome. I just have to go and take it, you know, like there's that sort of, that motivation that I think Attila probably had, or at least he's, he's been presented as having. I mean, whether that's the actual case is anybody's guess. Well, I
Speaker 1 49:23 think that's what's so interesting about thinking about this period of Rome's history, in that it is one where a lot of the groups that are putting pressure on Rome's borders, or putting pressure on Rome systems from within. It is about them wanting to be integrated into the Roman Empire, and a lot of the time the Romans are causing problems for themselves by not effectively doing that, by either resisting it, fighting back, or putting all these terms and conditions which are kind of unacceptable on it. And when we see them thriving more, I think is where they are. Able to come to some sort of agreement with these peoples, because, after all, a lot of the barbarians are moving into Rome and putting pressure on Rome because they themselves are having pressure put on them, you know, because they're being driven out of their traditional lands. And so it is an interesting thing to think about when there's so much discussion about immigration in a lot of parts of the world at this point in time, and given that there's only going to be increasing number of people who are fleeing from war, genocide and climate change, it's such an interesting thing for us to be considering at this moment in time. Yeah, that's
Jenny W 50:35 a huge part of this story, because it was the migration era, right? And like, what that means is that there were Huns coming down from. People aren't actually sure where the Huns were coming down from. It might have been the Eastern Asian steppes. It might have been elsewhere. There's a lot of question about who the Huns were, but they were kind of crashing into these other populations of Germanic and Gothic tribes, and they were crashing into the Roman Empire, and that was starting in alaric's time. And so you have, like, you know, refugee crisis piled upon refugee crisis in this time period anyway, which is really the engine for what is happening right now. And Alaric wanted to be integrated. Like a big part of his story was that he had been a federate leader, and he wanted the legitimate, highly placed generalship position in the Roman army proper. And there's questions, you know, about what that means. Did he want that? Because it would have put his people in a better position. Did he want that? Because he just was really petty about the job title for some reason, like,
Dr Rad 51:30 I want the official title, god damn it,
Jenny W 51:32 right. But like the real Alaric, I messed with this history a little bit in my book. Like my Alaric is kind of more focused on the on the homeland part, but the real Alaric was really focused on part of his story was this was a story about integration and what immigrants into Rome did and didn't have the right to do and have, and what was happening to these people. And there's a biography that I've read that came out actually just as I was polishing up and finishing the final draft of book one. Unfortunately, that would have been so helpful, always, always. And it's about, it's called Alaric the Goth, like An Outsider's History of Rome. It's by Douglas Boin, and it is an excellent, excellent biography, and it really focuses on the immigrant part. And it's just fascinating, and just sheds a lot of light on this, on this topic. Well,
Dr G 52:20 at this point in time, I reckon we should wrap up, and I think there's lots of really interesting ideas that come up through your novel that sort of relate and raise questions about what we know about this history and that it is also a case that you're receiving a lot of high praise, so I want to just quote one of them. So Elodie Harper, who is the author of the acclaimed ‘The Wolf Den', has said, this is a hugely entertaining Roman world romanticy with a hilarious heroine and a smoldering hero, whose adventures in love and war are set against the backdrop of the last dangerous days of an ancient empire. So enticing, very enticing, that's Yeah. Congratulations,
Speaker 1 53:10 Jenny. You must be so thrilled to have such an amazing endorsement of your debut novel. And we're wondering, are there any hints about what you might be working on? Well,
Jenny W 53:22 I just want to say thank you to Elodie for that glowing praise. I am eternally grateful. I'm so glad that she loved the book. And yes, I am working on book two of this series where, yeah, which is the continuation of the story. I definitely, when I started it, thought it might be one book, but it is not. It is two books. I'm getting that draft ready. I'm actually, as we're doing this interview, scheduled to pass in the first draft of it to my editor in two days, three, two or three days. I don't know what day is it? It's Friday. Scary
Dr G 53:55 times. Yeah, it's
Jenny W 53:56 a little intimidating. That's what I'm going to be doing all weekend. So, yeah. So I'm working on Book Two, which is as yet untitled. I have an idea for a book three, but I'm kind of sitting on it for now. Gonna see how these edits go, and you know how everything goes, whether I keep the plot point that it's all based on. But yeah, I have an idea for one, at least. And yeah, we'll see. We'll see what's next.
Speaker 1 54:21 Oh, how exciting to hear that this might be a trilogy in the making, potentially,
Jenny W 54:25 I don't know at this point, it's a duology.
Speaker 1 54:30 Yeah, fair enough. So just to wrap up, Jenny, we have mentioned the podcast, obviously. But can you tell our listeners where people can find you? And of course, ancient Yeah?
Jenny W 54:39 So I my podcast is ancient history. Fan girl, it can be found wherever you get podcasts. And I'm Jenny Williamson. Mainly, I'm mainly active on Instagram. My handle is Jenny freaking Williamson. I have a website, Jenny Williamson, author, and from there, you can pretty much find out everything about me that you want to
Speaker 1 54:59 know. Fan. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on and telling us all about your book and your process and your source material, your inspiration and listeners, we hope that you also run out and buy a copy of Jenny's book. Yeah,
Jenny W 55:13 enemy of my dreams, it drops February 4. And yeah, thank you guys so much for having me
Dr G 55:19 an absolute pleasure.
Dr Rad 55:26 Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman, and because this is a special episode, we would like to say thank you to all of our Patreon and Kofi supporters who helped to make bonus content like this possible, and in return, they get early access to all of our extra content. We'd also like to say that if you found the people we were discussing in today's episode particularly fascinating, and let's face it, why wouldn't you? You might want to check out your cheeky guide to the Roman Empire, which is the book that Dr G and I just wrote, which has entries on both Julia the elder and Galla Placidia. We'd also like to recommend Emma Southon's excellent book, a History of Rome in 21 women, which also has some content that might interest you, particularly about Gallup Placidia and Honoria. Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome, you
Special Episode – Storylife with Professor Joel P. Christensen
09 janv. 2025
01:07:37
We are thrilled to sit down in conversation with Professor Joel P. Christensen to discuss some of the ideas explored in his forthcoming book Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things (Yale University Press).
Special Episode – Storylife with Professor Joel P. Christensen
Professor Christensen is also famous online for his engaging work on ancient Greece and Rome through his website sententiaeantiquae.com
In this episode we delve into some of the ideas that Christensen explores in his forthcoming book Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things (Yale University Press). With chapters exploring Homer in tandem with the COVID-19 pandemic and people’s response to it, particularly in the context of the United States.
Cook, E. (1998). ‘Heroism, Suffering, and Change’ in D. Boedeker (Ed.), The Iliad, the Odyssey and the Real World: Proceedings from a Seminar Sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage and Held at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., on March 6-7, 1998 (pp. 47-63). Washington D.C.: Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage.
Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr G 0:15 Welcome to The Partial Historians.
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad.
And I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome everybody to a very special episode of The Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr G.
And I am Dr Rad.
And we are super thrilled today to be welcoming a special guest, Professor JoelChristiensen. Now, Joel Christiensen is professor of Classical Studies at Brandeis University. He received his BA and MA from Brandeis in classics and English, and holds a PhD in classics from New York University, and has many exciting publications in his back catalog, including ‘A Beginner's guide to Homer', ‘A Commentary on the Homeric Battle of Frogs and Mice' with Eric Robinson, ‘Homer's Thebes' with Elton T. E. Barker and ‘The Many-Minded Man:The Odyssey, Psychology, and the Therapy of Epic'. Also, Professor Christensen is famous online for his engaging work on ancient Greece and Rome through his website, which I'm about to mispronounce, sententiaeantiquae.com
Yup, you stuff that up completely.
I did. Somebody correct me, please. Somebody correct me.
Sententiae, I think.
See, there you go. It's easy. Just don't rely on me for pronouncing things. So you could say, from this back catalog that we are incredibly starstruck and also completely out of our death, because we are Roman historians. And you will have noticed that Professor Christensen is really a Greek specialist in all of these sorts of areas that he's focused on in his work. And we are going to be really junior learners in this process of this interview, which we're excited about as we talk about Professor Christensen's forthcoming book, ‘Storylife: On Epic Narrative and Living Things', which is coming out in 2025 through Yale University Press. So thank you, Joel, so much for joining us.
Professor Joel Christensen 2:57 Hey, thank you for inviting me. I was so psyched when you guys sent that email, it's a pleasure to be here.
Dr G 3:03 Fantastic. Woo hoo. I'm glad that the excitement is mutual, because we're definitely starstruck. So this is, this is thrilling stuff. So to start off with, thinking about story life, in the preface, you say that this is an exploration of how we think about stories if we externalize them. And I'm wondering if you can take us a little bit about what led you to this idea to consider stories as external agents.
Speaker 1 3:31 Yeah, so I mean, what's probably connected and animated my work, in fact, my interest in scholarship, since I was, I don't know, middle school is thinking about how stories function in the world, why we respond to them so much, why we care about them and really like how we depend on them and what they do. And so, you know, for many years, in teaching myth, I, you know, grasp about for different metaphors and how to think about getting people to understand why makes vary, why stories are embedded in different contexts, and what similarities and differences from one context to another means. And at the same time, while I was doing this, I have been, as you note in the introduction, sort of habitually online, watching everything that's happened in Twitter and Facebook since it started, I'm, you know, I feel like I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember a world before Google and before Facebook. In fact, both debuted while I was in graduate school, and you really got a sense of watching them unfold, of how much faster narratives were moving and changing, and how they could really make people act in different ways. And so part of it is, for me, I've always felt sort of on the outside of what we might see as American centrism and what we do in the world. To go back again to around the time Google debuted, I was in New York City for 911. I was there for the peace protest. And you know, I lost friends and, like, ruined family relationships. Because from the beginning, I didn't understand why a terrorist attack in the US meant we should be going on an endless war and terror and, you know, invading Afghanistan, Iraq, all of those things. And so constantly, you know, I was interested in rhetoric, in politics. And then, you know, post the 2008 election and Obama, I got really interested in the way that stories shape our notion by identity and belonging to larger groups. And so that's a very long answer for your for your question, but I'm getting, you know, I'm getting to the point, I got to the point where I, you know, everyone's talking about intention and responsibility, like, who's creating stories, who's responsible for it? But one of the things that I think is really clear from watching the way narratives, you know, metastasize online and change, is I don't think there are agents, right? We can point to specific moments where someone floats in there, gets accepted, but it's so much more complicated than and so for me, what? But, you know, Trump's victory in 2016 like bored me. I was like, How does this happen? How do people think like we can actually do? And then what really made me start to think of narratives as being independent of us was our collective response of us, especially to COVID, just the very notion that people were rejecting vaccination, not believing that we could understand the way the disease is working, rejecting masking and public health things, you know, it made me think, well, what if, just for sake of argument, we imagine that stories have nothing to do with our attention, right, but that they have a reason for existing on their own, and they operate by their own logic. And what if, in this logic is the very logic that animates the rest of creation, which is the need to perpetuate itself, not for good, not for evil, just for basic survival. And so that, for me, was sort of the starting proposition, what would it mean to just think about stories as independent from us, and that, in a way, can help sort of soften the blow of us understanding that something that we create and participate in willingly actually causes us harm. And so for me, this is also connected. It's not just about COVID, of course. It's also about climate change, it's about so many of the narratives that we participate in that actually cause harm to us, individually and collectively. And so I think the ideas have been brewing and simmering for a very long time, but the real catalyst was just spending 18 months sitting at home watching us make bad decision after bad decision, and wondering if there's a different way of thinking about things.
Dr G 7:45 Yeah, I think that's really amazing. I think that puts things in a really great context as well, to set up, like the questions that we're going to start to delve into further as we get into this interview as well, but this sense in which stories sort of sit both outside of the realm of the self, but are also constantly interacting with us as we move through space and time. And I think your analogy of, well, it's not even an analogy, it's just a fact of history, the way that the explosiveness of the internet over time, and so I don't think that we're that old, either, but we also pre date some of that stuff.
Speaker 1 8:24 Well, I mean, look for full disclosure, my age. I'm 46 right? And, you know, the first time I ever sent an email was when I was a freshman in college, yeah. And, you know, I never used the internet till I applied for college. And so I think this means, to a certain extent, that my consciousness and cognitive capacity formed before that and have a different relationship to information, but we can see that change. It's like my parents talk about what life was like before cable TV. Like I really understand that, but I can clock the way it works. And just one thing to add to that, you know, that can another connection that that really primed all this thought is the work I did for my Odyssey book, which was really engaged in cognitive psychology and neurobiology and sort of collective notions of thinking and minds to sort of lay the basis for epic being a therapeutic experience. And I think one of our big challenges, and this again, lead back to the book, is as human beings, we are both culturally set up to think of ourselves as individuals and separate from things, and we're biologically encouraged to consider the world in that way, but our language and our engagement with ideas, with others, is actually a collective experience. And so I think one of the reasons why I find these analogies not just useful, but absolutely necessary, is it's so hard for us to defamiliarize ourselves, with our with the experiences that we have. Have like, we don't think well in the aggregate, and it's really hard to think outside of our individual subjectivity and imagine ourselves as part of a larger narrative ecosystem that shapes our identities, instead of sort of, you know, like free agents in the world making all of our own choices.
Dr G 10:15 Yeah, obviously, as of time of recording, to totally date this podcast, which I know we're not supposed to do. But hey, watch me do it yet again. We are obviously all reeling with the news of Trump's re election as of a few weeks ago, and definitely, as somebody who is constantly struggling with the lack of serious action on climate change, on the on the behalf of both institutions and individuals, I totally get what you're saying in terms of, it just constantly boggles my mind that this kind of stuff is happening in the world. And I do think it has a lot to do with with narratives and the way that people interact with them. Yeah, that's drive that, you know, helping to drive sort of action on these sorts of issues.
Speaker 1 10:55 No, I look it's mind boggling. And you know, the the stance I always had, you know, when we elected, when we re elected, George Bush in 2004 you know, my first stance was, everybody's stupid, right? But, but then I had to step back and say, look like, while it might be attractive to dismiss more than 50% of the country, like, we can't assume that everyone's just insane, right? Like, there has to be some other way to think about it, you know. And part of is about to reading people with empathy, trying to under, like, trying to understand the world in a generous way, which is really, really hard. And so that's where it's like, sort of, you know, to think of us as not individuals making rational decisions may seem to, you know, deprive us of agency, in a way, but it also is a fundamentally important framing for understanding human action, and I think that's one of our real challenges in public policy and education. Is really seeing that problem there, that we are part of these larger tides in the world. And no matter how much smarter more informed we think we are like, we still have to look at the larger picture.
Dr G 12:11 So perhaps to segue from modern American politics to ancient Greece, such a jump time traveling a little bit obviously, even the average person on the street is probably aware that one of the standout figures in ancient Greek thought and storytelling is Homer. And one of the big questions that usually concerns scholars of Homer is important enough to receive capitalized letters, which is the Homeric question. Can you briefly explain to us what the Homeric question is all about?
Speaker 1 12:45 So, so that modifier, briefly, there is, is a dangerous request, but I'll see. I'll see what I could do. So the Homeric question, it's not really one question, it's multiple questions, and it has the following elements, one first one are the alien the Odyssey by the same person in scare quotes? Two, whether or not they're by the same person, or if they are, are the alien Odyssey as we have them unitary? Are each of them whole in the way they're meant to be, instead of sort of Malcolm text that were put together by later, by later editors? Three if these texts are unitary, or if they not, or if they're not, what is the relationship between the texts we have and the oral tradition that we're very certain predated the textualizations of the epic right? So, how did they move from an oral tradition of performance into a textual tradition of reading. And I think an additional question there is, how does that change the way we think about the epics, even if they came from an oral tradition, but they're also in text? How do we analyze them? And then I think I'd add to that, how and when did it happen? And, you know it, did it happen in a single time or over time? And what's the dirty relationship between the oral tradition and the text? So complicating features of this is that we have no certain evidence about a person called Homer. There are biographical traditions that are clearly false. They're from all over the place. The best book on this is by Barbara Graziosi. It's called ‘Inventing Homer', and it really goes through the ancient evidence for the creation of Homer as a as a sort of poetic figure. You guys may like this next anecdote. I'll try to make it simple. But my daughter came home. She is in She's a freshman in high school, so first year in high school, she's 14, and to hassle me, she took out her textbook, and she showed me in her history textbook, line, Homer was a blind poet who wrote The Iliad of the Odyssey, and she knew I was going to die from that. And she's like, Well, why isn't this right? I'm like, it. To and I tried to explain to her about composition and performance and how important it was over time. And then she said, Well, Encyclopedia Britannica says this is right. And she took out a phone and started fact checking me. And then she went to karate class and kept texting me. She texted, you know, what is Homer, according to you, and then she followed up people in my class say who was a real guy. And I just like, you're trying to murder me, my daughter. And so I think the biographical tradition is clearly false. And in addition, there are significant features that are different between sort of oral derived literature and literary culture. And to add to all that, and make it more complicated, as a literate culture, where prejudice towards a sort of God author model for the creation of things. And I think if you read really carefully in the development of ancient Greek literature, you can see culture changing. I think Aristotle doesn't understand oral culture. He doesn't see the tradition as being indebted to variety and multiplicity and performance. He sees it as a written thing, because he's a writer, and I think our number one challenge in conceptualizing a non written, fixed textual tradition for Homer is our own cultural framework that privileges authorship over genius over almost all else, and dis privileges collective contributions and creations.
Dr G 16:35 Well, you convinced me I'm going to go out and smash my bust of Homer immediately after recording this episode. Oh no, take that genius.
Professor Joel Christensen 16:45 Somebody might find it useful.
Dr G 16:49 Just fragments. Just leave fragments behind.
That should be appropriate, like that's a good metaphor for what's gonna happen here with the test, I shook that Aristotle was wrong about something. I mean, my god.
Speaker 1 17:02 I may be, I may be veering into iconoclastic territory by saying that, but I think, look, we have good evidence in studies in sort of oral culture, that the shift in mindset is less than a generation like even one person's lifetime, as they move from an oral performance culture. Once they move to relying on reading and fixing things on a page, their sort of neurological relationship to creation changes. So there's some good stuff, but like about that, but it's something again, it's so hard for us to think outside of it's like thinking in another language completely, or like breathing different kind of air.
Dr G 17:41 Well, this is very much like what you were saying, though, because we are of the same generation as you, not to disclose our age too much, but yeah, as you said, like the creation of the internet in our youth, let's say did definitely lead to some changes. And I am a teacher of teenagers, and so I definitely see the different way that they think about information and communication and all of that kind of stuff, in terms of how they interact with social media and AI and all of those sorts of tools which they've grown up with.
Speaker 1 18:14 Yeah, yeah. And I think that's just a small sample of how much it changes. And just imagine the difference if you're embedded in a cultural group that's not relying on reading or writing at all, right, and that's used to attributing authority externally. And so that, to go to your earlier question about sort of externalizing stories, one of the most important things, I think, differences in early Greek literature is the externalizing of agency for an authority, for narrative to the muse. We now think of that as a poetic device that's a way like it's taught like this is just something you do, but I think it was taken very seriously prior to Plato, and even you know among in his time, like this is a way of saying this comes from somewhere else without actually being sure about where it comes to them.
Dr G 19:02 I think this has good parallels to draw upon in connection with oral culture that still exists within indigenous traditions. So definitely in Australia, there is a sort of a reclamation of a lot of indigenous oral tradition, and the way that storytelling is embedded in a really layered way, and it's about relationships between people. But it's also the case that it's very explicitly made clear that if you are being told a story by an elder, you're only being told the first version of that story. There's going to be deeper layers as you get further embedded into the culture and you demonstrate your responsibility and your obligations and things like that. So there's a sense in which the complexity of something like a Homeric text in its oral form is really beyond our capacity to be able to comprehend, because we've only got this written version that remains. That oral tradition has not continued, because it would have evolved and changed through the retelling every single time.
Speaker 1 20:01 Yeah. And, I mean, I think this is one of the things that we miss the most in our tradition, about Homer as well, in that we're taught to read ancient literature as if it's modern literature, as if we just sit there reading it literally. And there's been this sort of, this movement for about 300 years in reading ancient literature that discounts allegory and, you know, symbolism and indirect meaning. You know, as early we have evidence of 600 BCE Pythagorean traditions of, you know, of reading Homer's allegory, of seeing everything in the Odyssey about being the reincarnation of souls. It's not actually about the story of Odysseus. Instead, it's a secret included message. And so I think you know that goes exactly with what you were saying about so traditional literature and community and layers of interpretation and passing down the authority of the past, it's just something we're so separate from, because we're raised with sort of the belief in scriptural traditions where the word is on the page and we interpret it, and we have this idea of universal, timeless meaning, which seems to be inflexible in a way.
Dr G 21:09 So challenging, but also now I'm feeling a little bit riled up. The English teacher side of me is like, but no, it's always about the interpretation every valid and different.
Professor Joel Christensen 21:19 But my guess is you would be a better English teacher, because there are different models, right? There's the model where there's one interpretation and the authority gives it to you, and then there's the other one, where there are where it's the ambiguity and multiplicity of interpretations that makes literature special. And so I think there's a real tension there in the Western tradition of approaching literature, right? It goes back to who has the authority to interpret? Is it supply side poetics, where it's all about whatever the author meant, or is it about something more, much more complicated, about that dance between tradition and the individual and audiences and sort of narratives?
Yeah, for sure, there's so much to think about with this sort of thing. So yeah, I feel like I'm just like, I'm just letting my brain absorb it and and take it in um. But taking this idea a little bit further with the Homeric tradition, and starting to think about the external elements of it as well. You discuss the idea of thinking about Homer's writing home, is writing get out my flesh rabbits through both an oral metaphor and an arboreal metaphor. So a metaphor related to trees. And I don't know if you're open to it, but I'm wondering if you'd be willing to recreate this experience of the arboreal metaphor for us.Okay, sure. So in the introduction, the first thing I talk about is, instead of thinking about the Iliad of the Odyssey as a complex symphony played in different rooms by musicians who can't hear each other, the next one I think, I ask people to think about is the object of the elite. The Odyssey is something fixed like a tree in the landscape. So I have a section where I say, you know, I'll quote myself, and I'll go through it right. If you can get someone to read the next few paragraphs aloud, close your eyes and listen. And here we go. Take a minute and imagine a tree in a manicured park, a private garden. Make it a really lovely tree, one you would notice and remember, if you lingered on a bit, one that has been well situated in its environment. Think about the trees in perfect symmetry, the way it occupies its space. Has it grown? It's in odd angles to meet the sun's changing rays over the seasons or in response to persistent winds. How deeply is it rooted? Now think about this. Someone planted the tree, others tended to it and trimmed it. More people spent generations selecting this domesticated tree from its ancestral stock. Think about the uncountable hands that made this tree possible. The saplings transplanted, the varieties combined over time. What were their lives like? What stories did they tell? What were trees to them, think about the tree's beauty, its esthetics. What makes us set this tree apart from others? What is essential about it? Our appreciation is based on other trees we might not remember, as well as an entire grammar of human beings in the environment, like any native language, you learned its basic syntax without trying. You have a sense of the way trees should be. You probably judge a tree differently from a shrub for historical esthetic reasons. You have expectations of what trees should do, how they should look and how they relate to the world around them. For the most part, you're not cognizant of these assumptions, but you almost certainly have different notions about a shrub or a bush. Now, if you've been listening, open your eyes, but keep the tree in your mind. If someone asks Who is responsible for the tree, what do you say? Is that the person who designed the park? Is it the gardener is the first person who imagined a tree in the garden, any single answer ignores those countless hands, minds and environments that contribute to the treeness of the tree. I can keep going, and there's more, but enough of it.
Dr G 25:07 No I think that's good, that that starts to open up the pathways they're thinking about the complexities of anything. So I think one of the challenges that students often come with is when they're sold an idea that, like, Homer, is a guy, you know, he's a blind poet. He did these things is that it gives it that singular point of generation. It's like this is emerged from a singular moment of genius from one person. And perhaps it was a response to their world. But it somehow all comes down to them, and anything that we can take away from that text, we also then have to acknowledge the genius of the creator, and by stepping back and trying to place the poetry and the ideas that come with that poetry in the broader landscape. And I think this is part of the power of this metaphor, is that it allows us to see the whole context, or a window into that whole context. And it's like we're always looking at so much more than just some phrasing, just a moment of singular genius. I mean, Western culture does have this sort of propensity for the for the white male genius aspect, model of creation, but it's so much more than that, and so I think that it shows a real potential for how we can start to think about literature completely differently. So thank you,
Speaker 1 26:33 Yeah, and well, and I think what I found useful or attractive about is that there are two angles, and it really gets into what I'll just call, perhaps unfairly ecological thinking, right? Like we all, anybody who's taking basic science understands how a tree is part of an ecosystem, what we lose track of, though, is that most of our ecosystems are human shaped. At this point, there are few that don't have some sort of influence from us, that have kept a different equilibrium that wouldn't be natural, whatever that means, because we're still natural in a way, right? Or, you know, have had some other influence on what we're seeing. So there's that ecosystem that's really critical, because every every piece of the tree is shaped by, you know, inheritance that it has from its own tree genes, right? And then the experience of the world, how the world has shaped it the secondary ecosystem that comes from our judgment, right, and our judgment is similarly constituted in an ecosystem of ideas, of our own history, of other people's influence of esthetic judgments, of our interaction of our senses in the world that shape those esthetic judgments, but also shaped by them. I mean, all those things are really complicated, and then we live in a specific slice of time and have a real hard ability seeing duration of time and how things change. And so we pick a point, and we see things in one way or another, and we it's very hard for us to think about these overlapping ecologies of sort of the nature and ecologies of thought.
Dr G 28:06 Indeed, yes, and I really, I liked, I liked that tree metaphor. That was actually the part that really jumped out at me when I was reading the introduction. Now I have to ask you a question about my most feared subject, which is ancient languages.
Professor Joel Christensen 28:25 I'll try not to be too scary.
Dr G 28:28 Well, I am someone who struggles with language in any form, modern, ancient doesn't matter. Latin, Greek, either way, I don't understand it, so Homeric Greek is a big challenge. But even to people who are better at languages than I am. This is a big challenge. So in the first chapter, you explore parallels between Homeric language and DNA. What are some of the key features of Homeric meter and language, and how do you think DNA helps us to better appreciate the ethics?
Speaker 1 28:58 All right, so the first thing I'm going to say that's probably going to upset you more, or maybe it won't, is that I actually think that all language is going to be governed by the principles that I'll talk about, but that it's easier for us to think about Homeric language in this way, because we think of it in some way as artificial, even though that's completely false. So I'll talk about Homeric Greek a little bit, but, you know, interrupt me at any point, because I don't want to send people screaming after they listen to this bit, right? So look, we know that all languages are governed by rules, right? And the rules are essentially arbitrary. They exist within a system of contrast, and we have learned them at a young age, right? And so there's no sort of universal syntax or grammar or universal semantics or meaning. Those two axes are always engaging in the way that things unfold in time, right? So any languages, as I see it, has building blocks that are akin to. DNA. And the building blocks are the morphologies, the actual sounds, the grammar, how these morphologies fit together to unveil meaning right in an ordered way, following rules we know. And then there's the semantic sphere, which is, well, what do these words mean in contact with each other? And so the very basic idea that I have is that, you know, DNA that's not activated in an environment, that's not living, is just a string of proteins, but when you put it in an environment in contact with other things, then various traits are triggered. They are, you know, they are activated and they reveal themselves to the world. So a big, you know, big thing people talk about in genetics for a while is epigenetics, right? The way that certain features of DNA or of a creature will be activated by its environment, right? And so, you know, a hand or foot doesn't make any sense unless it's articulated with the rest of the body. It doesn't make sense in space to have four limbs, right? It's really based on engagement with the environment. So in a very simplistic way, language functions the same way. Now Homeric Greek, I think, lends itself to this analysis a little better because of the way it developed, it has a limit on it that other languages don't, and that limit is meter, right? So one of the things that people used to think about Homeric language is that it was composed the way Virgil composed the Aeneid or Shakespeare composed some of his poetry, which is that you had to, like, take your language and put it into meter, right? But that's not actually what happened with ancient with a Homeric Greek. Homeric Greek developed over time with the metrical shapes as part of its repertoire. So just as our language is bounded by tense forms, whether it's ed on the end for past tense or your ablouding with grew and grow. Ancient Greek had rhythmic features that drew from different dialects. And so that's another reason why I find the DNA for attractive is because we can look at strands of DNA and see how one organism is actually comprised of many different historical organisms like DNA put together to make a entity that functions in a particular environment with particular constraints. So Homeric language has drawn from several different dialects with different forms for any given word that make it possible to fill the six foot line, and now I'm going to make it really concrete for me. All right, so the first line of the Iliad is μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος. First line of the Odyssey: ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ. The basic rule there is that the final two feet end in a shave and a haircut, right bump ba-da bump, bump, right, a dactyl and a spondee. Everything before that can be two longs, like may, like, sorry, long and two shorts, μῆνιν ἄει, it can be two longs. And the main rule is that ending. Now, if you follow the history of Greek poetry over time, as you move towards writing, the rules become much more rigid. If you you know, if you were turned off by Greek poetry or by prosody, it's probably because someone made you learn a bunch of laws or rules. But the fact is, it's much simpler. If you think of it as music, if you imagine, you know, four bars, four bars of four, four time, and your options are like a quarter notes and eighth notes, and I can mix them together, right? If you're listening to music that's in four, four time. You're not sitting there thinking that's a quarter note, that's an eighth note, right? You're listening to it, and you tolerate creativity. People shove a bunch of syllables and like one line or they go, the meaning goes over one line or another. Like, music has that variety that we don't often attribute to prose. Now, to go back to Homeric week, part of what's really amazing about it is that it's not just single words put together. Most of the time, we're looking at phrases that can be repeated. And so the line I mentioned, μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος, really has three parts to it, and you can split most Homeric lines into two or three parts, and most lines of the Iliad and the Odyssey, 16,000 of the Iliad or so, 12, 13,000 of the Odyssey. Majority of them don't roll over into the next line. Each line is a single unit of meaning, which is first thing that floored me when I read Homeric Greek when I was I must have been 21 the first time I read it in Greek, because it was so different from, again, Milton or Shakespeare or Virgil, where you could definitely see the joins where we're trying to fit our ideas in this. And so this means that somebody who was trained to perform Homeric Greek could speak, or at least converse the way I am right now, in meter, right? It wouldn't be the same cadence or flow, because the esthetics would be different. But the whole system was conducive to composing in performance. And so the actual performance of Homeric poetry, Hesiodic poetry, anything in the same language, was a combination between sort of plans that happened ahead of time and the actual performance itself, which could change. And a lot of this comes from work that people don't know about it, Millman Perry, Albert Lord, studying living epic and what used to be Yugoslavia, they really found that there were traditions where things like this were still happening, where it was absolutely possible for someone to compose in the spot a very complicated narrative. And so to go back to the Homeric question, before I wrap up on the language, all of this is connected to whether or not people thought it was possible to develop a super long narrative without writing as a planning and it comes down to that sort of last moment of whether or not we credit the amazingness of the Odyssey to this really fluid multicultural tradition, or we credit it to a final composer who inherited this tradition and put it all down. But back to the language itself. It is so hard to explain, to convince someone of how the Homeric language works if they don't actually learn Greek. So if you're not fully persuaded, you know, maybe come, learn Greek with me or learn it on your own. But I mean, it is. It's qualitatively and quantitatively different from any language I've studied. And you can really feel it when you get into it if you move from a literate author, even a Greek one, like Apollonius Rhodes from several centuries later. And it's even more severe if you jump to say Virgil, Lucan or Ovid.
Dr G 37:22 I know. Look, I think we should convince them by forcing them to sit through nine hours of, you know, Irish bard performance, or, you know,
Speaker 1 37:31 Right, right? And there are, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, there are so many different traditions around the world that support it. But the challenging thing is that they're not all the same, right? Just that. So I think one of the mistakes early studies in oral poetry made is making the assertion that they were monolithic in nature, culturally and esthetic, right? But we know that written forms of poetry, say a Shakespearean sonnet or a haiku, follow, follow very different cultural rules and adhere to very different expectations. So why would oral poetry be any different, right? So if you look at, you know, Sub-Saharan African epic traditions, Arabic epic traditions, Yugoslavian, Indian you know the oral traditions of the of the Maori, or, you know, indigenous people in Australia, there are very different rules, right? But they do show some commonalities and difference from literary cultures. I think there, you know, if people looking for reading recommendations or classic texts on this is Ruth Finnegan's, Oral Poetry' really shows the variety of things available in oral poetic traditions. And then Walter Ong's ‘Orality and Literacy' really focuses on difference in esthetics between oral cultures and literary cultures, and they read really well together.
Dr G 38:51 I think this is amazing, because this is opening up some pathways that I've definitely thought about before within literary English teaching, but and have understood sort of tacitly, because people who do study Homeric literature, if we and the flesh rabbits again, I think definitely wax lyrical in ways that other people who study other types of of poetry do not, and I've never really been able to put my finger on why, because I've always been a Roman person, and I'm like mad Latin, you know, it's a bit like a mathematical part.
Speaker 1 39:36 I became a classics major because I loved Catullus.
Dr G 39:40 Ah, well, that's a good place to start.
Professor Joel Christensen 39:43 Yeah, I read Catullus and Horace, I think, when I was 16 in high school, and I hated Horace, I'll be honest there, but Catullus, like I did. I was floored, right? I was like, This is amazing. I want to understand more about it. And I took Greek just because you had to, yeah, you know. And, you know, I'd stumbled through. It, I was okay at it. I don't think anybody would say I was an exceptional Greek student, but I remember from the first moment reading the Iliad in the original that I was like, this is different, yeah. And at that time, I said, I want to spend a little time figuring out how and a little time turned into a senior thesis. A senior thesis turned into a dissertation. And now I'm over 25 years into it, and I'm still figuring out how Homer's different.
Dr G 40:26 That's amazing.
Too late to turn back now.
Yeah, yeah, you gotta keep going
Professor Joel Christensen 40:33 Yeah, it is
Dr G 40:35 Focus now, focus now, You've got to be getting close
Professor Joel Christensen 40:40 I may have another 25 years.
Dr G 40:44 And I also think that's one of the values, and the part of the great richness of studying the ancient world is actually it offers so much potential for rethinking and recalibrating your thoughts.
Professor Joel Christensen 40:55 It does, well I think, you know, yeah, in the spirit of the work I do, though, is sort of focusing on the opportunities rather than what's been closed off. When I was in graduate school, I told my advisor, David Cider, who won't listen to this, but if he did, he won't mind me sharing that I wanted to do homework. And he said, why the bibliography is so long? He's like, you can't say anything new. And I've always been someone who does what people tell me not to do. I just got that problem. But I think, you know, I think there's the challenge of it, but there's also, you know, the depth of what people have said already is impressive, and you can learn from it. And that, you know, it was never boring conversation.
Dr G 41:38 Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. And I think what you said about language, though, is so true. Because I think one of the reasons why I actually struggle so much with other languages is that I struggle to see the different ways that people put together their sentence structures. I can learn the meaning of words and grammar and that sort of thing, but then put me in front of a passage which I have no idea what it's about. And I'm like, Oh my God. It's like they're speaking like Yoda, and it makes no sense at all.
Speaker 1 42:07 But actually I think, I mean, I've been teaching languages since I was in college in Latin and Greek, and I actually think that some people just have are cognitively blocked and to move from word order dominant languages to inflected languages, just, I think there's a percentage of the population where it's just a huge challenge, right? It's like being colorblind. And I don't I don't know of any studies that prove this, but I can tell you that I've had so many students who are smart people, but when it comes down to it, they will never understand an indirect statement in Latin and Greek. It just doesn't come naturally, and it hurts. And I can't explain that in any other way, except the brains are just not set up.
Dr G 42:48 No, look, I'm really glad that we have this on recording. So everyone out there, including my old Latin teachers, Professor Joel Christensen, has just said that I am a smart person, but cognitively blocked and it is impossible for me to understand.
Speaker 1 43:01 I didn't say impossible. I just said harder. Like my wife. I met my wife when I was an undergraduate, but like in our like in our third week, and when I met her, she was studying Spanish, French, Arabic and Latin, like she was involved in those four classes. I said, What are you doing? She's like, I don't know. I like languages, but I remember her coming up and like, it was Latin indirect statements, and no matter how many times we went through it, she just couldn't get it. Now she can speak any language better than I can. She's a pediatric dentist. Now she's gone to Ivy League schools. I haven't, right, but there's just that one thing, like, her brain's just like, No, I hate it. I will not accept it.
Dr G 43:43 Under no circumstances
Dr Rad 43:43 Exactly what I think about Latin.
Dr G 43:48 Oh, look, I don't want to speak too much about my facility with or with, not with languages. No, I keep trying. I was okay at Latin when I was able to study it four hours a day. That was, that was the time I got good at it.
Yeah and look, I think, as well, in Australia, in the in the era that we grew up, English was taught in a very strange way in that it wasn't explicit. And then on top of that, back in, back in Australia in the 1980s your engagement with other languages in public schooling systems was generally fairly limited. So I think it's also to do with, yeah, potentially, the culture you grow up in, and how it encourages you to perhaps engage with other languages.
Speaker 1 44:32 No doubt, yeah, like, I mean, I spent, you know, the few two years ago, we were in Denmark, and I think we, you know, told we're in Scandinavia maybe a week and a half. And, you know, I had a graduate student study. I had to pass French exams, German exams. I don't know any of it well, but just being in an environment where everybody's speaking different languages all the time changes the way your brain works, right, like when you're in and. Monoglot culture, like the US, for many of us, because we are really, really segregated, or or Australia, like, your brain's just not primed for it. And it's like, if you spend your life doing very little physical activity, and then suddenly you have to do a 5k like, it's going to be the worst pain you've ever felt, right, but if you spend all your time really active, like, it's not that bad. And so I just think it's about training and and, you know, like, you can do everything you want in primary school and public school, but if you're not embarrassed in languages and exposed to them, like more than 45 minutes, three days a week, like you're not going to learn anything, like you're always going to be blocked.
Dr G 45:40 Yeah. Well, okay, okay, okay, focusing in, focusing in, because
enough about my trauma.
I'm not disinterested in your trauma, Dr Rad.
No no, I have spoken about it many times.
I'm trying to learn Italian. My husband's Italian, and that that is my new quest in life, and I've tried to learn so many times, and this is the first time where I feel like I'm actually getting it, because I'm no longer a beginner student, but I'm no yet, nowhere near yet, competent. But I have moments where I'm like, Oh, I think, I think I have it and and so, like, those little breakthroughs are really important, but it's, it's a struggle, but to to bring everything to a bit of a close, because we're coming up on on our hour together, so we're surrounded by stories. I think this is this has become really clear through what we've talked about and thinking about that context of politics, and the way that with the advent of the Internet, in particularly the the way that narratives shift and change so quickly. So there's the stories that we're told however we receive them. There's the ones that we read so we go out and and we we either read them or we receive them. And then there's the stories that we actually tell. So there's the orality. So we might hear stories, we might read them. We might be telling stories as well. There's this whole nexus. Stories create a capacity, I think, to glimpse lives and experiences that we will never have, the capacity to confront for ourselves. So there's so much opportunity when it comes to stories, and particularly when we're thinking about the Homeric tradition as well, and the things that extend out of that, the capacity to come in contact with generations of people so far removed from our own experience as well. If there's one last thing that you'd like to leave us with in terms of thinking about stories, what sort of idea or question Would you like to leave us to contemplate?
Speaker 1 47:36 Oh, well, um, one idea I'm going to go over time.
Dr G 47:43 Also, you don't need to limit yourself. If there's more than one, that's okay.
Speaker 1 47:46 No, no. I mean, so I think the main so, the thing you just said about story, giving us the capacity to experience 1000 lives is one of the most important things to acknowledge about narrative, right? And so I think that one of the ways that people often talk about language and narrative is to think of it as a technology, right? If we imagine that narrative and stories are akin to our ability to use fire or, you know, to cook food and to things like that, then we can see it as something we that we use that facilitates culture, etc. But I think another way to think about it, and this is the one I'll go back to, is the notion that stories actually do keep on living on their own. And so the reason I really focus on the biological narrative in the book is to give us the understanding that stories combine and recombine with other features in the world, and they act on their own, so in a different environment, let's say a heroic narrative is is successful and useful for getting people to stand up and defend their communities. On the other hand, that very same narrative can cause people to have expectations of their communities that are unfair and damaging, right? And so, you know, maybe I'll answer your question by getting concrete and going to the Iliad and then jumping outside of the Iliad, if I can, right? So, too often people see the Iliad as a simple narrative where it's about Achilles as a hero, and they're not wrong, he's a hero, but in the sense that Erwin Cook describes heroes in an article about Herakles and Odysseus, which is that heroes cause suffering and they suffer. So the biggest thing to understand about the Iliad and the Odyssey is that both of our primary heroes are mentioned for being serial killers, like from the beginning, Achilles is said to send myriad Achaeans to their doom, not Trojans, Achaeans. And from the beginning, we hear about Odysseus, that he tried really, really hard to save his men, but he failed. And then we're asked. To consider how human beings make their own fate harder or worse than it has to be because of their own recklessness. And if you read the Odyssey carefully, it's constantly pointing its finger, finger at Odysseus, right? So the ill in the Odyssey are not praise narratives. That's the biggest reason people or biggest way people misunderstand them instead their narratives about mismatched expectations and about how dangerous elevating individuals above the collective can be, right? And that's where I'll go back to Achilles and try to say something positive, right? Because what I think the Iliad is offering is the very same thing that the Pfizer vaccine I just got last week is offering me vis-a-vis COVID, and that's project protection. Because if you read the Iliad carefully, it lets you know that a heroic narrative is damaging. It lets you know that because Achilles expected to be honored by his community for being so awesome, and then wasn't, and through a fit, his best friend or lover died. Patroclus dies because of Achilles, and that's the hardest thing for the Iliad to convey, because people want to point fingers elsewhere. They want to talk about his rage, about how he is dishonored. No Achilles made a choice, and it was the wrong one, but the Iliad doesn't end with that. Instead, if you carefully read the Iliad, and I'm not going to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, I hope it has Achilles many moments, this moment, moment in Book 19, where he laments for Patroclus and the other people watch him lament and feel pity, and they lament for themselves as well. This is Book 19, but if you read the language closely, it's echoed at that magnificent moment in Book 24 when Priam comes to Achilles and he says to Achilles, remember your father and you know, and then they weep together, like they see in each other the suffering and the loss that they feel in themselves and the languages they pity each other, and they felt something about it. I think the notion the lesson of the Iliad is something that modern science has confirmed, and that's the stories can actually make you feel the very same things, cognitively and neurobiology, biologically, that real life can make you feel they can change you. And it's an avenue to be re humanized, right? And so what the Iliad offers, I think, and the Odyssey, too, if you listen to it carefully, is the understanding that narratives can send you in completely the wrong direction. They can make you instrumentalize other people. They can make you misunderstand people. They help you dehumanize other people in order to slaughter them and and continue with war. But narrative also has that potential when you understand somebody else's story to make them real to you, and for you to see yourself in them and to maybe change. And so that's a powerful moment. And the one person who acts like in The Iliad is actually zoops. He sees Achilles and he pities, and he changes the way he does things, because he has that feeling. And I think that the Iliad is that we as audience members are supposed to go through that process. And so like when I close the book, I talk about different stories. I talk about Kleomedes, this, you know, boxer who kills a bunch of young kids because he's upset that he lost. And I talk about heroic narratives and the damage they do. But I don't end by saying we're screwed. Let's just give up, right? Instead, like we actually need to get away from, you know, the very simplistic and superficial approaches to narrative that we have. We need to understand that it's going to keep doing whatever it wants to do, but we can actually live alongside it, right? Like we can educate people. The thing I always tell students and my colleagues now increasingly, is that we're born, we're not giving a manual to the human mind and body, right? One doesn't exist. And to be frank, if we were given a manual, I wouldn't read it, because I never read the manuals anyway, right? But I think a fundamental function of education has to be especially in universities, where we say we're preparing people to be citizens of the world, right? A fundamental part of education has to be understanding how narrative binds us and breaks us, how it allows us to work together as a group, but it also constrains our view of the future and what we think is possible, and how understanding narrative is actually prior to political activity, because political activity is presupposed on us, actually understanding each other. And so I think, like, you know, again, a long answer to your question. It wasn't a simple question, to be fair, but I think at the end, the one thing to take away is that you. Oh, wait, I'm going to get negative. Now almost all of our educational systems are moving in the wrong direction, right? I mean, we don't acknowledge that science is a narrative, right? That a whole notion of like causality is narrative. That what we need to train people from a young age to understand is, you know, differences between propaganda and narrative, identity and belonging, all of these things that make our life together possible. We take it for granted, to our own detriment, and then people who are good at manipulating it intentionally or not, I don't think, for example, major politician, politician just elected the US President, again, actually thinking about what he's doing instead, he's leaning into a system that favors a certain type of madness. And so we need to have anti madness out there. We need to inoculate people against the disruptions of narrative and actually give them a control, a choice in their lives, both individually and together. And I know to say, Oh, this is all what's going on the Iliad sounds a little crazy, right? But again, I think that the Iliad and the Odyssey emerge during periods of increasing political complexity, in a period when Greek city states were moving from little households and fiefdoms into larger entities that were experimenting with oligarchy and tyranny, aristocracy and democracy, and that the questions of language and how we lived together under the weight of the past were central to what they were doing together, and it's no different for us today.
Dr G 56:36 Oh, this is a powerful conclusion. Thank you so much. I think there is ways in which the dismissal of the power of narrative across education broadly has been to its detriment. I definitely agree with you on this, because so much of the role of humanity subjects, not just classics, is to try and give students the potential critical tools to be able to see narratives for what they are, and to pull out the pieces of information that that don't marry up quite well, to like expectation, To see the things that are potentially endangering society.
Speaker 1 57:23 And what you just said, I mean, you know, but the way we've been forced to sell the humanities right, is with these two insidious words, critical thinking, right? And we say it because, oh, this will make you a better stock broker. This will make you a better surgeon. Critical thinking will make you a better I don't know baker, whatever it is, but what we need to double down on is that one of the original meetings of the liberal arts was the, you know, the studies worthy of a free person, but another one or the skills and studies that make you a free person. And I think no again, to put my conspiracy hat back on, I think there's an intentional reason why corporations, governments don't want to lean into that aspect of it, because, as you said, they're the very skills the humanities social sciences, are the very skills that force us to question the basis of our social structures, of our inequalities, of our histories. And you know, there's a there's a reason why people might be disinclined to encourage that.
Dr G 58:28 Oh no, let's not create a disruptive citizenry that is expecting more, that's unproductive for us all. But don't get me started on productivity before I get angry.
Speaker 1 58:41 I mean, at times I find myself like, sort of even railing against the academic humanities, because we are, you know, you teach English, you know how much of it is like, what's this genre? What's this form? What's the main character, right? When, when the humanities, if they're useful, are the studies that help us be human. It's a study of what that means and what's uniquely so. And too much of it is just now the sort of rope stuff. We won't want to be dangerous. We don't want to unsettle people's notions of reality. But at the end of it, if we don't do so, what are we looking at, right? I mean, we're going to break that three degrees celsius mark, right? Pretty soon, right? And we have people are saying, oh, we should go to Mars. We should invest all this money and stuff. Like, human beings cannot gestate in non, non-Earth gravity, like it's a medical fact, like, we cannot survive on Mars. It's insanity to even think so.
Dr G 59:38 I mean, I do agree with you, but I'm also not against billionaires taking themselves out of this context and leaving us to then sort it out, because they're not helping
Speaker 1 59:47 But taking all that wealth that could feed people with them. Yeah, it's problem. I keep wanting to post online, but I'm afraid I'll get fired someday, and all I want to write is: Where are the good billionaires? Is a trick question.
Dr G 1:00:04 yeah for sure
Speaker 1 1:00:06 because it's where does wealth come from?
Dr G 1:00:11 As someone who has been increasingly concerned about the problems with communication into over climate change, I remember reading this really amazing book which really changed the way that I tried to talk to people about this a number of years ago, which was literally called ‘How to Talk About Climate Change' and and also thinking about the work of there's actually a really amazing Australian filmmaker whose name I've totally forgotten. I think it's, is it, Damon Gameau, but yeah, he his whole thing about, he made this film called ‘2040', and his whole thing was that part of the problem with the environmental movement is that it has not clearly communicated to people a better story you know about, you know, like, Why wouldn't you want to live in a cleaner, healthier environment that's, you know, that's much better for you, like, Why? Why wouldn't you want that? And so, you know, you have to tell people the story that shows them, you know, what is possible and what this is all about, rather than just being it all about, you know, the the scientific facts, or this really complicated, you know, scientific language, and it has to be a story,
Speaker 1 1:01:22 And we fail. I mean, we fail all the time. I mean another example that's not from climate change, but you know, from from the recent elections, so many people are upset in the US about inflation. Yeah, right. And they say, but I didn't, at once see the Democratic Party make the very true and clear argument that inflation went up because we had to lower our money policies to avoid a generation defining Depression during COVID Right? We rate, lowered the money down like that, increased the flow of money. The interest rates gave lots of people flush with cash, which created inflation that then we had to exert deflationary pressure on, which takes time, right? It was actually handled really well from a macroeconomic, economic perspective. But we didn't make the argument like we didn't tell the story that this is about COVID, and I just, I don't know why like it, just it flabbergasted me that we didn't like directly address a very clear cause and effect situation.
Dr G 1:02:23 Oh, look, I actually been talking. I actually teach about America in the 1920s and 1930s to my senior students, and I see so many parallels between that time period and now. And I constantly have to say to them about the Great Depression and the Wall Street crash. Correlation is not causation, and you can see that very much in American politics right now. People sometimes think that just because something's happening at around the same time, that therefore there is a direct cause and effect link, and it's just not the case.
Speaker 1 1:02:54 Yeah, yeah, no. And so, I mean all the way around, though, like from from simple things, like one election to, like massive things like the environment and what we're doing to the world, it is so hard to tell clear and simple narratives about complex things. So those of us who like study it and are experts are at some level, like, paralyzed by our knowledge and incapable of translating it to a way that people who haven't learned it can accept, just like me, with like, Homeric language,
Dr G 1:03:24 Yeah, no. Look, I think it's one of those things where, on the positive side, we do actually have a course here in New South Wales for high school students called extension history. And it is actually all about getting into these really higher order ideas about the way that history is constructed and potentially misrepresented, used and abused as a narrative. And it's one, it's one of those subjects that when people get into it, they actually, they actually, really like it, because it is moving away from exactly what you said. What was wrong with education? It's not about rote learning. It's not about, you know, just learning facts. It is about the students developing their own voice, their own capacity to tell stories, and also their own capacity to read stories. I'm going to use that word in a critical manner, but I mean in the sense of, you know, engaging with the way that things have been pieced together and then are potentially, yeah, used and abused in the world. So yeah, there are some things out there which are little glimmers of hope education.
Well, thank you so much, Joel for joining us. It has been a really interesting hour to delve into some of the ideas that are coming up in your forthcoming book ‘Storylife'. So very excited to see it out in the world. And, yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 1:04:49 Well, thank you. And you know, I'm always happy to talk to you again, and I really, I just want to say I appreciate the work that you all do in you know. Popularizing and bringing all these ideas. I think that the you know, the podcast that you do reach, you know, an order of magnitude more people than any article I write ever will. So you're doing important work, and I appreciate it.
Dr G 1:05:13 Oh, thank you.
Dr Rad 1:05:14 Thank you.
Dr G 1:05:45 Music. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notesover at partialhistorians.com . We offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters. If you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-fi for one or four ongoing donations or Patreon, of course, our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire' is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with ‘Your Cheeky Guide To the Roman Empire'.
In 398, the Romans received some worrying signs from the gods, and now we return with a special message for them: From Delphi, With Love.
Episode 157 – From Delphi, With Love
In 397 BCE, the Romans were waging war on all fronts. On top of their ongoing siege at Veii, they were contesting their hold on Anxur with the Volscians, and their colony at Labici against the Aequians. Never ones to shy away from drama, the Romans were also dealing with internal division between the patricians and the plebeians. PHEW! Sounds exhausting.
Rude Raiders
The Tarquinii, from another part of Etruria, also noticed that the Romans had a lot on their plate. Now was their moment to attack and score some booty! The Romans were highly offended that anyone could even THINK of attacking them when they were already so busy. It was time for an etiquette lesson…
The Romans wiped the floor with these rude raiders, but the rest of their campaigns were in a stalemate. They weren’t losing, but they weren’t winning either. Clearly they needed some divine help, direct from Delphi.
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The ambassadors that had been seen to the Delphic Oracle after the sudden rise in the levels of the Alban Lake in 398 returned at this moment. They confirmed what the kidnapped soothsayer from Veii had told them in 398. Lower the levels of the lake and you will have your victory at Veii. Suddenly their captive seemed much more valuable.
Getting Square
Aside from their lack of military victories and the higher levels of water in the Alban Lake, the Romans discovered another sign that all was not right. When the magistrates for 397 had been proclaimed, something had gone wrong. Magistrates were proclaimed during the annual Latin festival for Jupiter Latiaris. If a mistake was made during the sacrifice or proclamation, there was only one thing to do. Get rid of this lot of magistrates and start all over.
An interregnum ensued whilst the Romans sorted out their magistrate woes. Very unusually, the Romans set their sights on someone who was not even campaigning, Publius Licinius Calvus. Calvus had been the first confirmed plebeian to become military tribune with consular power and was known to be very moderate. But how would the Romans pull off his election? Tune in to find out more!
Things to Look Out For:
Aeneas’ dad, Latinus
The Etruscans giving Veii the cold shoulder, AGAIN!
Tips on the proper way to sacrifice a bull
Volcanic activity
Roman-style Christmas hampers
Highlights of happenings in the wider Mediterranean world
Our Players for 397 BCEMilitary Tribune with Consular Power
L. Iulius L. f. Vopisci n. Iullus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401
L. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat) Cos. 413, 409, Mil. Tr. c.p. 407, 405, 398, 395, 394, 391
L. Sergius M. f. L. n. Fidenas (Pat)
A. Postumius – f. – n. Albinus Regillensis (Pat)
P. Cornelius P. f. M. n. Maluginensis (Pat) Cos. 393? Mil. Tr. c.p. 390
A. Manlius A. f. Cn. n. Vulso Capitolinus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 405, 402
Legates; Ambassadors
(Cn. Cornelius) Cossus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 406, 404, 401
(P.) Licinius (Calvus Esquilinus) Mil. Tr. c.p. 400, 396
(L.) Valerius Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398
OR
(C.) Valerius Potitus (Volusus) (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c.p. 415, 404
(K.) Fabius Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 410, 404, 401, 395, 309?
OR
(Num.) Fabius Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 406
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy, 5.16-18.
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus, 14.85.1; Fasti Capitolini.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Kraus, C. S. 2020. ‘Urban Disasters and Other Romes: The Case of Veii’ in Closs, V. M., Keitel, E. eds. Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination (De Gruyter), 17-31.
Dr Rad 0:00 Hi listeners. Before we get into today's episode, Dr G and I would just like to mention that we will once again be presenting at the podcast event of the year, Intelligence Speech in 2025 this event will be taking place on February 8, starting at 9am Eastern Standard Time. The tickets are $30 and are available at intelligentspeechonline.com this year's topic is deception. So we will be hearing about all sorts of fake history. And historical deception seems timely. Last year, we had a blast talking about Augustus failed attempts to secure an air and we're looking forward to presenting on something similarly Imperial and scandalous this year. We hope that you can join us and all your other favorite podcasters at Intelligent Speech, and now on with the episode you
Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 1:13 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 1:18 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage, and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr rad, and
Dr G 1:28 I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 1:38 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr rad, and
Dr G 1:59 I am Dr G, and I'm super excited to be here because we're about to talk about 397 BCE, indeed,
Dr Rad 2:09 we are Dr G as we trace the story of room from the founding of the city. But before we get to 397 Can we please quickly recap what happened in 398,
Dr G 2:22 look, there was some sort of lake. It rose up. I think that might be all I recall. Yeah, no, it was important. I didn't have a lot of evidence, but I think I had some things that suggested that, you know, we had a dangerous time. There was some reading of some portents, one of the people from they revealed the nature of the portent to the Romans, which then prompted the Romans to take some action to make sure the portent worked out in their favor.
Dr Rad 2:51 You are more correct than you know. Dr G, so we're right in the middle of this lengthy siege of they a rival Etruscan city to Rome, that even though we've got this very epic story, is actually not that far away. But we understand why the Romans want to conquer it. It's powerful. It's on their doorstep. It's from a rival peoples they want it for their close to home. Yeah, and it's been dragging on for a while. It's been causing internal tension in Rome over issues like military pay and military service. So the quicker this is wrapped up, the better. And last episode, we did indeed have a man from ve, potentially an older man, a soothsayer of some kind, being kidnapped, and he revealed that the only way Rome was going to be able to conquer the city of a was if they figured out how to deal with the excessive water in this particular lake that you mentioned.
Dr G 3:52 Now, intriguing. Now, I have to say, one of our Patreon supporters got in touch with us about this, to discuss the way that there is some evidence from a volcanology perspective, that's right, or the flooding of these kinds of volcanic lakes from volcanic activity that happens below them that then pushes the water up above the line that it usually sits at. So if you've got a lot of magma moving around under the surface, all of a sudden, you might get a situation which appears preternatural, but is actually the result of volcanic activity. And I loved the fact that they reached out with this detail, because I am not a volcanologist. I am an ancient historian. I was just baffled by this, like,
Dr Rad 4:38 what are you bringing to the show, if not volcanology, get out of here!
Dr G 4:42 Charm and good looks. Thank you.
Dr Rad 4:43 Well, that would make so much sense, and I agree with you. So glad that someone reached out with this detail. Because we are, of course, talking about the album like which is seemingly not connected to they, which is in completely the other direction. However, sign. Come from? Whence signs come? Dr, G, when the gods choose to speak, it may not be geographically appropriate, and that makes sense, because the Alban Mons was an active volcano up until around 1150 BC. I believe which, which might explain why there's not a lot of people living this area until just after that. So that kind of makes sense. You know, the volcano stuff, it adds up.
Dr G 5:29 It does. So I think that's an exciting detail that adds into this. Because you're like, Okay, that sounds like a really bizarre story on the surface, but there could be some natural phenomena that is feeding into what is some very unusual natural observations that are happening from the side of they and the portents that are suggested as a result.
Dr Rad 5:50 Yeah. So thank you very much. Patreon, listener for your volcanology tip and with that, Dr, G, I think We might be ready to dive into 397, BCE,
Oh, all right. Dr G, 397 BCE, please tell me. Who are we dealing with as magistrates? This year,
Dr G 6:33 our players, the magistrates, we have a whole suite of military tribunes with consular power, and they're all patricians,
Dr Rad 6:44 back in the saddle again for the ride through the town with the elites. Yeah,
Dr G 6:51 look, you can have some successes in your siege under a plebeian leadership. But is that enough to keep them in power? No people who have always had power want it back, and they want it back yesterday, so
Dr Rad 7:05 yesterday and forever. Dr, G, yeah,
Dr G 7:07 look so people we have in the role. We've got some names that are going to sound awfully familiar, and I think most of these people, by and large, have held positions before, or if not, they come from families that are going to be well known, well well heard amongst listeners, sure. So we have Lucius Iulius Vopisci.
Dr Rad 7:31 Ulis, yep, I definitely recognize that name, and I reconsider 90% of the people listening to this show
Dr G 7:38 like a Julii in power. What are the chances? Previously, a military Tribune in 401 so really, quite recently, Lucius Furius Medullinus,
Dr Rad 7:50 yeah, yeah,
Dr G 7:52 a Furius back in the saddle. Previously, consul in 413, and 409 and previously, military tribunein 407, 405, but most importantly, 398, just the previous year. Methinks,
Dr Rad 8:08 you've got a bit of a monopoly on power.
Dr G 8:11 He certainly seems to hold a lot of position. So he seems to be quite popular new kid on the block, but very familiar name, Lucius Sergius Fidenas,
Dr Rad 8:23 yes, descended, I presume, from a branch of a family that's had something to do with the conquest of Fidenae, one would assume, yes,
Dr G 8:34 following up, also new to the role Aulus Postumius Albinus Regillensis, new
Dr Rad 8:40 man, but perhaps very familiar name.
Dr G 8:43 Yeah, we're like, is that a new guy? Because that sounds like somebody we've talked about before. I agree. How many, how many, how many Postumii are there? We;ve then got Publius Cornelius, Maluginensis.
Dr Rad 8:58 I hate that name.
Dr G 9:00 Also first turn around the block, and then Aulus Manlius Vulso Capitolinus, who was also previously military tribune in 405, and 4020, okay. I do have some mention that there are some legates or some ambassadors, indeed, but apparently Livy talks about them, so I don't have their names.
Dr Rad 9:21 Oh well, okay, I have their names so I can go through the little list, and then we'll see how they come up in our story. We've got Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus. Now we think that's his name, who's a patrician, previously military Tribune with consular power in 406, 404 and 401 and then we've got Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, previously military Tribune in 400 BC. We've then got Lucius Valerius Potitus, and he has been military Tribune with consular power in 414 406, 403, 401, and 398,
Dr G 10:03 somebody's popular at high school. Yeah.
Dr Rad 10:05 Now that's, that's one set. Oh, yeah,
Dr G 10:09 there are more sets. Yeah. Well, this is
Dr Rad 10:11 the thing. There's a bit of confusion about, I think, these positions. So we may be dealing instead with Caius Valerius Potitus. Yeah. Consul in 410, military Tribune in 415, and 404 Kaeso Fabius Ambustus, military Tribune with consular power in 410, 404 and 401 or we might be dealing with a Numerius Fabius Ambustus.
Dr G 10:43 Oh, okay, now that that we've hit the Ambustii, yeah, in this list, I'm like, wait a minute. I had these people listed down for the previous year, but apparently, maybe some of them are ongoing in their ambassadorial Yeah. I
Dr Rad 10:59 think there's a bit of confusion. There's a bit of confusion. There's definitely a bit of confusion happening around these Ambassador legate people. All right,
Dr G 11:08 okay. They're still there, still hanging around. They are
Dr Rad 11:11 listed in Broughton, and therefore I accept that they were there.
Dr G 11:15 No fair enough. So when we're talking about legates at this time period, it's basically a delegation. You could be given any kind of task. It's whatever the military tribunes or the Senate decide needs to be done. So it's not like they hold a specific military position. I mean, you do get military legates later, but you could be asked to do any task that's administrative in nature, that is supportive of the Roman state. Yeah. So whatever that is, and I'm probably about to hear about it for the first time,
Dr Rad 11:47 well, I think, I think the reason why there's a bit of overlap is that we, of course, had some legits legging it to see the Oracle at Delphi in the previous year. I would maybe implying that maybe they're still traveling at this point in time that might have something to do with it.
Dr G 12:05 Are you telling me it's not that fast to travel all the way to Delphi okay, it's
Dr Rad 12:09 bit of a journey. It's a bit of a journey. All right. Dr, G, you ready? Therefore to jump into 397, now that we kind of know who we're dealing with,
Dr G 12:18 I'm excited to find out what happens for sure? Yep.
Dr Rad 12:22 Okay, so we have a new enemy on the horizon for Rome in this year, the Tarquinenses.
Dr G 12:33 Oh, dear. Yeah, these the inhabitants of Tarquinii. This
Dr Rad 12:37 is to do with the area of Tarquinii, yes. So we're talking about an Etruscan peoples, yes. Now they notice that Rome is dealing with a lot of other enemies at this point in time. So not only do they have the siege at they which is ongoing and they, of course, has by this time, being joined by neighboring peoples, the Falerr and people from Capena. And then we've also got them fighting the Volsci who were contesting occupation of Anxur. We've talked about that a few times. That's been tossed backwards and forwards between the Romans and the Volscians like a hot potato. And then we've also got the Aequians who are engaged in attacking the Roman colony at Labici, oh,
Dr G 13:25 dear. It sounds like the Romans have got enemies on every single side.
Dr Rad 13:29 When don't they talk to G, when don't they this is
Dr G 13:33 a particularly robust group of everybody that they've really ever encountered, not having anything nice to say about them and deciding that attacking is worthwhile. So the Volsci and the Aequians, sort of to the south and the south east, the Falsicans, the Capenates and the people of they to the north, and the Tarquinii also to the north. It's a pretty big sweep of war on two fronts and multiple enemies on both fronts, and
Dr Rad 14:03 just when you thought that Rome couldn't take anymore. Dr, G, I'm gonna add a smattering of internal problems. Uh, oh yeah, we're talking, of course, about the patricians and the plebeians.
Dr G 14:15 Well, Color me surprised. What are they up to now? Oh,
Dr Rad 14:19 well, you know, they always have these ongoing issues, don't they? I mean, we're in the conflict of the orders, and we will be for quite some time now.
Dr G 14:28 Oh boy,
Dr Rad 14:29 it couldn't be really more problematic in Rome right now. So the people who are the Tarquinenses are right on the money in saying that Rome has its hands full. Now, if I were being historical about this. Dr, G, I might want to point out that there are some eerie parallels between events from this year at another year, which we haven't actually covered yet, which is 388, BCE, oh, okay,
Dr G 14:55 that's a very close year to have as a parallel, but I'll allow it. Yeah.
Dr Rad 15:00 I think it's just that historians have definitely noticed that there are some interesting overlaps in that. We also have war with the Tarquinii. We've also got Camillus showing up in that year. We've also got an attack on the Aequians. It's just some interesting crossovers there, which may or may not be coincidental.
Dr G 15:22 This might explain why my evidence is such a mess. Because there is some evidence that I have that I think goes with a later year, but could possibly be connected with this one. And I think for now, I'm just going to leave it until later, and whenever we get to the episode where I think it belongs. But yes, there was some confusion, even with the small amount of things I have available to me as evidence right now about where things go in terms of the timeline. Yes,
Dr Rad 15:49 exactly, yeah. So basically, the tar quinnenzis, they decide they're going to just dabble in some raiding whilst Rome is too busy to really pay attention. They totally believe that the Romans are either going to just ignore the attacks as they didn't have the capacity to address it, or if they decided to deal with it, they wouldn't be sending their best men, and therefore might be easily defeated or dealt with. I
Dr G 16:15 see. Okay, so it's a raid of opportunity.
Dr Rad 16:19 It is definitely now, the Romans were not necessarily particularly worried by this raiding, because, of course, come on, they're wrong. They're way too awesome to worry about such minor problems. However, it's the manners, the etiquette, that is at stake here. Dr G, it is an outrageous and unprovoked attack. How very dare you. Is basically their response to these people.
Dr G 16:47 How rude any warning. Yes, exactly.
Dr Rad 16:51 It's just, it's just not the way that we do cricket. Yeah, can't
Dr G 16:57 you see, I'm busy with a whole bunch of other wars. You could at least send a letter to warn us we were about to do this kind
Dr Rad 17:04 of as predicted. The Romans indeed did not put much effort into their preparation for dealing with this new and unexpected enemy. But they also didn't hesitate to deal with this situation. Aulus Postumius and Lucius Iulius. They weren't able to hold a regular levy because the tribunes of the plebs are named, prevented one. So instead, they set out with a volunteer force totally made up of anyone who had been talked into signing up. And they decided to travel through car A and managed to surprise this new enemy as they were journeying home happily with their stolen booty in their backpacks.
Dr G 17:49 Wow. Okay, so I think the most impressive thing here is that there was anybody left in Rome who would volunteer go on a party when they're in the middle of so many wars. And the reason why the tribune of the plebs are probably trying to prevent the levy is because the people, by and large, do not want to be levied anymore. No,
Dr Rad 18:08 who is, I agree with you, who is left to levy?
Dr G 18:11 Yeah. Who are these people? Yeah. Is it the young patricians who are like, it's time for me to show my masculinity out in the field? Yeah. Is
Dr Rad 18:19 it children? Is it the elderly?
Dr G 18:23 I don't know. Volunteers, Goodness me.
Dr Rad 18:26 But of course, because these people are totally beneath the Romans, the Romans managed to kill a lot of them. I mean, it is surprise attack, to be fair, and they managed to take back all the booty that had been stolen from them and headed back to Rome. Wow.
Dr G 18:41 Okay, so on some level, I suppose this could just be read as a standard surprise attack, but I wonder if this is also something where Livy is now trying to build a narrative of Etruscan decline, because interesting. So the Tarquinii are one of the Etruscan peoples, and we know that they is not in a great situation. They haven't lost this siege yet. But watch out, everybody, spoilers.
Dr Rad 19:13 Yes, it could be definitely a bit of an indication of what is about to come spoilers. Yes, so the Romans then have a very amusing situation to me, which we've spoken of often, Dr G, which is where they basically put everything out in the open, and they say, Come and get your stuff. You got two days. Oh,
Dr G 19:31 okay, so is this like a is this a booty situation? Yeah,
Dr Rad 19:36 because I take him back, basically everything that had been taken in this, in this initial attack, has been taken back in the reverse surprise attack. And so they come home with all this stuff. And stupidly, the Romans have not put their name on everything in black texture. And so they just put it all out and they say, right, you got two days. Everybody and anything that's left on the third day is going. To be sold under the spear, and the money raised will be split between the soldiers that served in this surprise attack. Selling something under the spear means a spear would sort of be set up to as like an advertisement saying, Come and get it, and it would be essentially a public auction. Intriguing.
Dr G 20:17 Now I wonder if there would ever be anything left, I feel like the onus would be on. The priority would be to take as much stuff as possible, particularly if you were involved in the raid. Because what if there was nothing left at the end for that auction to raise money for yourself? That would suck. Yeah, this, this does sound like a bizarre set of maneuvers. You know, there
Dr Rad 20:42 might be an odd shoe doesn't have,
Dr G 20:46 like I see that leather vest, but I could make one better myself. Yeah, take that rubbish home. Etruscan rubbish. No. Well, so
Dr Rad 20:54 anyway, so that's what happens. That's a little bit obviously of Roman success, which is just as well, because as for the rest of the Roman campaigns, it's not going that well. Dr, g Now, don't get me wrong, the Romans are definitely not losing their other campaigns, but they're certainly not winning. It's basically a stalemate just all around. Ah,
Dr G 21:15 well, that's tough times, isn't it? Not making any progress, just sort of waiting it out, and it's the grind of war. It
Dr Rad 21:23 is. It is so the Romans feel that they're stuck in this situation. They no longer feel that they're going to be getting any help from humans. We need to turn to the divine. Dr, G, and wouldn't you know it? It's right about now that those legates slash ambassadors returned from the Delphic
Dr G 21:43 Oracle. Oh, good timing, guys,
Dr Rad 21:47 exactly. Now they did have that soothsayer, the elderly soothsayer that had been kidnapped from they, who told them how to deal with the rising waters in the Alban Lake, and that unless they dealt with that, they would never triumph over they. But naturally, because he's from the enemy, they're in little bits and submissions that he might be trying to throw them off course. And they wanted verification. The Delphic Oracle says exactly the same thing as the old man has said. So now they have corroboration. Of course, being an Oracle, it says it in a much, much more wordy Oracle, e sort of way the the meaning is essentially the same, I
Dr G 22:23 suppose, yes. I mean the famously, these oracles could be misinterpreted. So I hope this one is clearer than most
Dr Rad 22:30 well. Interestingly, some historians, of course, have looked into this oracle, and it does apparently stem from something that has been translated from the Greek, and the prophecy is thought to be one that isn't really an original Oracle from Delphi, but one of these ones that had sort of popped up in the late Republic and was reported to be an Oracle from Delphi. Oh, I
Dr G 23:00 see, okay, the way that, I mean, yeah, okay, yeah. So we're dealing with a bit of a sort of an anachronistic sort of retrojection back into this, at least
Dr Rad 23:10 in the wording, yeah. I mean, the meaning might have, you know, always been there. But yes, the way that it's worded, I believe, hmm,
Dr G 23:17 I think this is a really interesting move, on the behalf of the Romans to be like, we need to put our faith in not any sort of soothsayer necessarily, or even local members of the sipper lines, for instance, but we need to travel all the way to Delphi to get an answer. This might be indicative of just how under the pump the Romans feel in this moment, with this ongoing siege, that they're like, We really need the big guns for this one. But it is an interesting sense in which we can understand Rome as being part of that broader Mediterranean world. They're not just relying on their own people. They're certainly not just relying on the Etruscans, and they're willing to travel quite vast distances in order to get some sort of divine insight into their local problems,
Dr Rad 24:04 and now the Romans feel obliged to give the Delphic Oracle a very generous gift once the war was entirely over. So that's their future intention. Ah,
Dr G 24:16 yes, okay, I look forward to this because I think I've read a little bit about this, but it doesn't happen this year. I'm like, No, this
Dr Rad 24:22 is just a an intention. They're like, mental note. Put it in the diary, guys. Once we finish dealing with this situation, we better send them something really nice. We'll get them a box of lint chocolates. We want top quality. We want foreign champagne. The whole works.
Dr G 24:38 All right, so prepare yourselves for a hamper. Priestess of Apollo, given
Dr Rad 24:44 that we are currently recording this at around Christmas time, I feel like there's going to be all sorts of strange things in this hamper as well that you would never normally eat, but somehow turn up in hampers.
Dr G 24:55 Yeah, you're like, Oh, that's really intriguing. Yeah, some
Dr Rad 24:59 sort of. Pate, some sort of spread made of something that you never thought could be turned into a spread.
Dr G 25:04 Well, you're like, thank you.
Dr Rad 25:08 Now, of course, all of a sudden, the guy that they had kidnapped from they the soothsayer that had told them ages ago about this whole lake situation is very respected in urban society, because wouldn't you know what he was telling the truth this whole time.
Dr G 25:24 Can you imagine his fate, if that he had not been corroborated by the Delphic Oracle, would have been death very quickly. So I'm glad for his sake, but that it's turned out well, it's
Dr Rad 25:35 I think this is where your version of events makes more sense than mine in this particular instance, because you highlighted that in your account, this guy was tortured for information, whereas in my account, he seems to very willingly just give information up. Either way, I definitely would have been suspicious. Torture means he might have just been saying it to make the pain stop. The other way around, it seems a little quick that he just suddenly turns against his own people and tells the Romans what they need to know.
Dr G 26:03 Where's the sense of loyalty? What's in it for him?
Dr Rad 26:06 Yes, the military tribunes, Cornelius and Postumius, want to use the soothsayer to take care of this whole album Lake overflowing situation, especially because now the gods are involved, they feel they have to appease the gods by taking care of that particular situation. Sounds
Dr G 26:21 reasonable, all right, so they're going to get a workforce onto that one.
Dr Rad 26:25 Now they also find that there's been an offense against the gods, because there was a problem with some of the magistrates.
Dr G 26:36 Oh dear.
Dr Rad 26:38 Turns out that there had been a problem with the election. Oh, okay, it had been improperly proclaimed, these Latin games and a sacrifice conducted on the Alban Mount. Now this is probably referring to a Latin festival that of Juppiter Latiarius. This is probably what it's referring to here, which was something that is associated with the Latin League. It was held every year. And after this festival, that's where there'd be a sacrifice, and there'd be the proclamation of new consuls or military tribunes at this time. So it seems that somewhere in here, at this very important moment of proclamation, something had gone wrong.
Dr G 27:24 Okay, so I think this is one of those things about Ancient Rome which is off overlooked, particularly for the Republic, but is super important, which is the way in which their politics is very much tied in to their relationship with the gods at all times. So the way that things are pronounced, the way that things are said, all of those ritual formulations, are extremely important in order to get right for things to be proper in the eyes of the gods, from a Roman perspective. So if something has gone wrong in any of that stuff, and they come back around and they realize this is a huge problem. So does this mean that they disband this whole group of, like, military tributes we're
Dr Rad 28:10 getting there. We're getting I'm just gonna add okay to what you just said. I think it's also, I think you're totally right about that, but I think it's also potentially a problem with the sacrifice, like, it sounds like a great big stuff up on their part.
Dr G 28:22 Oh, a problem with the sacrifice. Do they have details about what went wrong with the sacrifice?
Dr Rad 28:27 No, just says there was a problem, a problem
Dr G 28:31 with a sacrifice. Yeah, all right, I'm very intrigued by this. Yeah. Please continue. Yeah.
Dr Rad 28:36 Well, and I just thought I'd also mention because people might not know much about this. Indeed, I don't know much about this because I'm not really into religion as much as you are. But this particular gathering, this festival, it's very ancient. As far as we can tell. It goes back a really, really long way. It's held, funnily enough, on the Alban mount, which we keep talking about, this previously volcanic mountain, which has now become such a focus of so many of our stories. And it is something where various Latin people come together, and it's where you can see this commonality between them in terms of the language that they speak in terms of the gods that they worship, potentially also the way that their societies are organized. You know, we offer, you know, we've often questioned, do they have exactly the same political setup as the Romans? Because sometimes it seems like the Roman sources assume that they do. Maybe they do,
Dr G 29:36 maybe they do. There has got to be some sort of cultural connection. You would assume, even if things are run slightly differently in each place, that shared language and a shared understanding of the gods that need to be looked after and appeased is a sense of commonality of purpose, even if there are small nuances of differences in how each one is run. Politically when they go back home, yeah? Now, if we're talking about problems that you could have with a sacrifice, I mean, there's a whole number of problems potentially. And this
Dr Rad 30:10 is a big have, yeah, this is a bull that is sacrificed, okay,
Dr G 30:14 yeah, because it has to be, obviously, it has to be the right kind of bull. So you would hope that that's not the mistake that they've got the right kind of bull in terms of its coloration, for instance, and its age, things like that are very important. But it could be something about the nature of the procession to the ritual killing. It could be something about how the knife was wielded during the sacrifice. It could be something about what was said in the moment over the sacrifice, either before it happened or after it happened. So those verbalizations tend to be something that is really possible to make a mistake with, and could be heavily scrutinized afterwards. Now, how would you know you'd be waiting for other signs of the gods, right, to suggest that there was some sort of displeasure here, so then you'd have to backtrack. Yeah, yeah, the lake might be the indicator. Be like, Oh no, the lake, guys, I don't think we did it, right, yeah.
Dr Rad 31:16 And it is. It is so interesting, because, as you say, I feel like I often do overlook these religious aspects to Roman life. And obviously this is beyond Roman life. This is about Latin communal life where they're coming together. And it becomes a really important sign that you're invited to this, you know that you're part of that particular community, and it's something that the Romans will continue to attend for, like, a really long time. So it's probably not the only moment where we might mention this particular festival. Now we don't know how far back this particular association goes exactly, even though we know the festival itself is very ancient, but it might be something to do with this myth idea that the Latins all trace their ancestry back to Latinus, the father in law of anaeus, who's obviously very important in terms of Roman understanding of themselves and their connection to Trojan War survivors, who is transformed into The figure of Juppiter Latiarius after his death. Now that may come after the festival, maybe a way of explaining some aspects of it, but certainly it does eventually have that particular association as well, which again highlights that shared culture.
Dr G 32:35 Yeah. And as far as these sorts of things go, there's likely to be a number of different locations, in different spots locally, where gatherings happen depending on the god, depending on the time of year. So shared sacred spaces, essentially where people come together to meet in order to do this kind of ritual undertaking, in order to make sure those relationships with the gods are solid. Now I think what I would love to know, and I think might be impossible to really know, is how often might it be the case that the Romans are turning up to these sort of shared sacred spaces in order to engage in communal sharing of gods and sacrifice with people that they are also potentially at war with outside of those spaces, I've wondered to what degree that is happening, or whether there are times where certain groups don't attend in anticipation of not wanting to run into groups that they're currently in conflict with it is an
Dr Rad 33:41 interesting question, because as far as we can tell, the Romans did not initiate this festival, and it's something that they just they became a part of, and became a perhaps more important part of as they start to conquer. You know, surrounding cities and towns and their reach grows larger, but yes, I agree. Awkward,
Dr G 34:03 awkward. Oh, hey guys, just, just here for the sacrifice.
Dr Rad 34:09 Could you please pass the slaughtered ball
Dr G 34:12 that guy tried to stab me last year on the battlefield? Anything
Dr Rad 34:18 now, as you highlighted Dr G in this particular moment, the only thing that could be done to address this was to get all of the military tribunes to resign their office and to retake the auspices and start an interregnum in the place of the military tribunes. Because, oh goodness, yeah, it causes huge problems, obviously, for their their power, the legality of that power, it's just not worth the risk.
Dr G 34:44 Wow. It's been a while since, I think we've had an interregnum. Yeah? Okay, I'm up for that. Sure. Let it commence.
Dr Rad 34:52 Yeah? So, I mean, I think it's because they see all these signs, not just the lake, but obviously the fact that they're not having much success in battle, like they're not you. Not a disaster, but it's not what they aspire to. So the Senate orders that this takes place the interregges who are chosen are Lucius Valerius, Quintus Servilius Fidenas and Marcus Furius Camillus.
Dr G 35:12 Oh, okay, well,
Dr Rad 35:15 how convenient. Yes, there are ongoing problems caused by these unnamed tribunes of the plebs who are continuing to cause issues. In this particular instance, they are blocking elections until they receive assurances that most of the new military tribunes with consular power would be plebeians,
Dr G 35:38 fair enough. I mean, it's a classic tribune of the plebs move. I applaud them for it, and I wish them all the very best. Yeah,
Dr Rad 35:45 yeah. And I think this is perhaps why they're unnamed, because Livy's just like, Oh my God, here we go again. Not more of this segue to what's going on in the Etruscan land. Ooh. The Etruscans are also having a bit of a meeting at this moment in time. Now, we've often seen the Etruscans come together at voltuner. It's where they all seem to meet chat and get on Veii's case.
Dr G 36:16 What's happening down there this time? Guys? You need help again? We're busy. Yeah.
Dr Rad 36:20 So now that they've got the capernaus and the Philistines involved in this whole shenanigan, they are strongly suggesting that all the Etruscans should band together to try and help end the siege against vein, because they're obviously now committed. And they're like, Come on, guys, come on. We know you hate vein, but what about us? We're adorable. However, once again, the Etruscans say a big fat no to helping. They citing their old reason that they had never shown any interest in helping or caring for anyone else but themselves. It
Dr G 36:51 is really interesting, because one How would Livy know this, but also this idea that Etruria as a nation is starting to break down. Like, under what circumstances would you not try to look after one of your own? They is an Etruscan city. So the idea that the rest of the Etruscans are getting together and being like, No, and it's like, it's really rejecting somebody from your family at that point. Oh, yeah. Like, you're on your own, whatever. Yeah.
Dr Rad 37:23 No, I know it's kind of bizarre, because surely they can see that things aren't going terribly, but it's not good. It's been the Siege has been enduring for quite some time now, and what
Dr G 37:33 does it what does the true area think is going to happen if they falls? Who do they think is next? It's like they haven't thought ahead the way the civiliscans and the capinartes have. They're like, they're like, no, no, we're a solid block. We'll be fine.
Dr Rad 37:48 The Etruscans also have their own problems going on, which might also explain their reluctance to help the people of A and that is that they're dealing with. And I quote my translation of Livy, a strange race new settlers. Who are these people? No freaking idea. The Etruscans aren't actually engaged in warfare with them at this point in time, but it's clear that it's a prickly situation, right?
Dr G 38:14 Are these people, by any chance, from the North?
Dr Rad 38:18 I know what you're thinking, and we can't really be sure, it doesn't seem quite right. Seems too early.
Dr G 38:25 Intriguing. Yeah, I
Dr Rad 38:26 I'll just explain to the listeners. I believe Dr G is asking if they are indeed, Gauls. Are
Dr G 38:34 they have the French arrive. Everyone's like, I'm confused, but their cheese is delicious, so I'll let them stay for now.
Dr Rad 38:44 Yeah, honestly, not sure. But from what I've seen so far, I think the answer is probably no, okay, yeah, but we don't know. Okay,
Dr G 38:52 I wonder if they're people from the other side of the Apennines. Then there's sort of like, the East Coast Italians coming over the way, being like, hello,
Dr Rad 39:02 East Coast. West Coast. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So the Etruscans decide to make a bit of a compromise in this whole scenario, which is that any of their young men who want to go and volunteer may go and help. They once again volunteering. Big thing 397,
Dr G 39:19 nobody's got any money that that we've established
Dr Rad 39:22 that might be it.
Dr G 39:25 They spend it all paying the soldiers to get through winter. Nobody's got any cash left. Etruscans included,
Dr Rad 39:30 yeah, with young people going to volunteer to help, they the Romans, of course, presumably don't know that all of this is going on, that this is a negotiation that's happening, and so all they see is this huge influx of young fighting men, and they're like, holy crap. What does this mean? Is this a sign that worse is to come? This seems very worrying. And of course, as soon as the external threat that external pressure is increased, it means that the patrician and plebeian problems, they got to take a back seat that predictable pattern that we come to know and love. Dr, G,
Dr G 40:08 yes, we need to band together, put aside our personal political differences and make sure we win this war. It's the only way. In fact, it is the only patrician way to navigate anything. Yes,
Dr Rad 40:22 it's at this moment that we see a return of Publius Licinius Calvus, if that name doesn't ring a bell for shame, because he was the first ever military Tribune with consular power, who was definitely, without doubt, a plebeian. And he first served in 400 BC, so only a few years ago.
Dr G 40:41 How could one forget that's very exciting. But what's he What is he going to do? Does this mean they've put him into a magistracy or,
Dr Rad 40:48 yeah, he's he's chosen again, to be prospective military tribune with consular power for the following year. I believe that's what, oh, that's what they want. And I think because they know that he's a very moderate character. Remember, if we cast our minds back to 400 BCE, it seems that he was chosen because, whilst he has the plebeian background that would please the tribunes of the plebs and the plebs themselves, he was not offensively radical to the patricians,
Dr G 41:16 very willing to roll patrician style, yes, and
Dr Rad 41:20 because he had proved himself before, I think they see this as a compromise moment, once again, all right, very interesting. Now I'm going to add another detail. It's going to blow your mind here. Okay, okay, so he was chosen even though he had not run for the office.
Dr G 41:41 Okay. Well, that sounding more classic Roman potential, weird horse moment being like, I'm just hanging around being a dude, and it's like, we need you to save Rome. Yeah,
Dr Rad 41:52 I think that's it. I think they see him as serving a very particular purpose and a moment of tension when they need the Roman people to be united, and the senators are very happy that he is around to serve this purpose. And I think the idea is they're going to get the whole band back together. That's what Livy says. He's like, let's just get everybody from 400 because that was a great team. We want that team. We need that team. Wow.
Dr G 42:15 Okay, well, I feel like that's that will be an interesting moment for them, if that's the path they decide to tread for the next year. But I guess, I guess we'll find out soon. We
Dr Rad 42:26 will, and I'm gonna have to save, unfortunately, the details of exactly what happens for the following year, because, of course, this is all for the following year. So this is looking forward to 396, the detail that I'll finish up on. And this is one I must admit, that I always find confusing to explain, because the Roman voting system is always one that perplexes me, particularly early on in this stage where we can't be 100% sure about a lot of details, but the way that he was chosen was apparently by prerogatives. Now explaining this is where I get a little a little tripped up. Essentially, the idea is that there are 18 centuries of knights, and they would vote first, and if they all vote the same way, the other centuries are not required to vote because they outnumber it. That whole idea of like the the rich and the powerful out ranking everybody else,
Dr G 43:17 yeah, there's a yeah, there's a clear system of who gets to vote in what order. And then there's a first past the post kind of element to this, where it's like, once they reach a threshold of who the winner is, everybody else can just go home.
Dr Rad 43:31 Yes. The difference is that with the praerogativa, the idea is that one would be chosen by lot. Okay, yeah, so that's kind of the idea, rather than them all voting together as a voting block, eventually, there was a system introduced where one would be one of the centuries would be chosen by lot, and it would be revealed to the rest of the assembly before a vote was recorded. So it was kind of being like, this is the way that we're heading, kind of indication, I suppose,
Dr G 44:08 okay, and that selection by lot happens before the voting commences. Yeah,
Dr Rad 44:13 it's this idea that one of the centuries. So presumably, what we're talking about here is like the committee a century art, and it's like one of the centuries from the first class would be chosen by a lot, and that would be like an indication of where things were going eventually, it was, I believe, adapted so that a single century would be chosen by a lot to try and make it a bit fairer. Now, all of these developments that I'm talking about here, they're all things that we can only test for certain at a much later date. We have no idea when these things actually really started.
Dr G 44:47 Yeah, the voting organization is very unclear from our source material for this particular period, and I think we only start to get some really solid evidence, some hints and tips. It's in a century or two.
Dr Rad 45:02 Yes, exactly. So exactly what this means is a little unclear, but it certainly, I think, is meant to be indicating that, look, this is the way that the vote would go. And we like this guy, we want Publius, Licinius Calvus, to be our man. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, so it's a little confusing. I apologize that I've explained this badly, but it's mostly because it's all about who has the right to vote first, essentially. And the reason why it's confusing is that it's really hard to know exactly how this would have played out at this particular moment in time, for sure. And that is about all I have for 397, BCE, dr, G
Dr G 45:44 Oh, well. Exciting news. I have things to tell you about the broader Mediterranean world. Love it, not a lot, but I don't have much on Rome, but I have made a note about this prerogative motion in voting systems, because I'll go and have a look at it and have a look at it and see what I can dig up, because I would love to know more.
Dr Rad 46:04 Yes, and I must admit, when I looked the more I looked it up, the more I became incredibly confused, because it's obviously been adapted several times, and none of those particular tested moments may have anything to do with this story.
Dr G 46:18 Yeah, it's a tough one, particularly for this early period of the Republic. So the source that I have for this period is Diodorus Siculus, amazing. Who gets some of the names right of the military tribunes some of the names wrong, leaves a couple out. But he does also tell us about what's going down with the Persians and the Athenians at this point in time. So we have this really interesting character called Conon. Now, Conon was a naval commander of the Athenians, and he gets voted in on multiple occasions as Dr Goss so as a military commander, General figure, and during the Peloponnesian War, he gets caught up with some situations around my deline, and he loses a whole bunch of his ships. And this is a problem, and he escapes out of this situation, and he flees to a king eurogoros And who's in Cyprus. So he gets to a different island, he gets himself out of trouble, and it's at that point that he's put in touch with a guy called fauna barzos, who is a Sartre of the Persians, and is currently great king as well. So somehow, he falls in with the Persians, the powerful Persians at this time, and he is then taken in by the Persians and placed as an amral at the head of a Persian fleet because of his great skill set. So he's basically escaped from a war like situation and sold his skill set to the Persians. The Persians have been willing to accept that, and he's now an Athenian leading a Persian naval command. You're like, this is chaos. What is this guy up to? I
Dr Rad 48:23 feel like that's not a terribly uncommon story for the Greeks at this moment in time. Even though the Persians are often like their great enemy, a lot of people who fall afoul of their fellow Greeks seem to find their way to Persia.
Dr G 48:38 Yeah. And so it's in this sort of like situation where it's like he's fallen in with the Persians, and they're looking after him, and he's been put in charge of stuff that they then send him because it probably because of his intelligence, they send him at the head of a Persian fleet to Athens so not only is he now working for The Persians, but he now is rocking up at the doorstep of his former homeland, entering the parius with 80 triremes. And he's like, we're here to help. The Persians are here to help everyone's like, this situation is part of what is going on with this complexity of the Athenian situation, which has been variously strung out with the Peloponnesian War, which is just has wrapped up, but is now like, what are the consequences of that? And part of the consequences of that is that the Spartans are now seeing a power gap in opportunity, and so they see that this Conon character is that the head of this fleet, they try to make that a thing for them. It's just getting really messy over there. He eventually gets lured back to Persia, and there he's arrested because he's not doing what the Persians want him to do. So the Athenians don't seem to be particularly happy, and the Spartans are not very happy either. So it's a tale of woe and dissatisfaction that is playing out in Greece. So I mean good luck to the legates and ambassadors who have been trying to travel to the Oracle at Delphi, because it seems like it's a complicated time in the Mediterranean Sea in terms of who's going where or what ship, and how they're ending up, and who's actually in charge. And how do you tell if somebody's Persian or Athenian when they're in command of a whole fleet of vessels? Nobody knows it's madness out there. Indeed.
Dr Rad 50:36 Oh my goodness. Well, that's
Dr G 50:37 that's my fun tale. I'm sadly lacking in source material for the Romans. I
Dr Rad 50:42 suspect that will change for the next year. I'm very excited
Dr G 50:45 for the next year, because I have so many sources to consider,
Dr Rad 50:49 indeed. Well, I think that means, Dr G, that it's probably time for and the partial pick a very tired little Igor today. So Dr G tell us about the partial pick. All
Dr G 51:04 right, we judge Rome by their own standards, and often they fail miserably, so we'll see how they do this time round. But there are five categories that we're going to consider, and they can win up to 10 golden eagles in each category, and at the end, we'll add it up to see what they got out of 50 and whether it's a pass or fail for the old romance this time round,
Dr Rad 51:27 I'm not holding my breath. I'm not going to lie. But let's start off with our first category. First category is military clout, all right. Well, whilst widely acknowledged to be in a stalemate. They did have that little victory over those Raiders.
Dr G 51:43 I give them one point for that. They haven't lost
Dr Rad 51:47 anything disastrously. They're holding their own.
Dr G 51:51 They've won nothing else, but they're facing so many enemies, okay, two I would expect, I expect more victories, but they're
Dr Rad 52:01 not losing. They're holding their own against several enemies and still managed to secure, okay, admittedly, a minor victory against some raiders, but still they got all their stuff back. Okay,
Dr G 52:12 how well have the Romans acquitted themselves in battle? Is the question that is connected with the concept of military clout. Well,
Dr Rad 52:20 they won against the Raiders. They got all their stuff back, and they give it back to everybody.
Dr G 52:23 Raiding is not a battle.
Dr Rad 52:25 No, the enemies were raiding. The Romans put those raiders in their place with volunteers, no less. Dr G, volunteers
Dr G 52:35 willing to give them one golden eagle. Nothing more. All right, fine, nothing less. The second category is diplomacy,
Dr Rad 52:44 Hmm, no, I don't think so.
Dr G 52:48 I sense no negotiation. Well,
Dr Rad 52:50 I feel like the Etruscans are negotiating amongst themselves, but that doesn't count for the Romans.
Dr G 52:54 It certainly does not expansion, no.
Dr Rad 52:58 I mean, they're kind of just holding on desperately.
Dr G 53:05 Okay, weirdos? Oh,
Dr Rad 53:06 my God, no, there's like nothing going on here.
Dr G 53:10 I don't know. I felt like there was a weird to us moment when Calvus Didn't put himself forward. Is
Dr Rad 53:18 that weird or so? Isn't weird to us about taking action.
Dr G 53:22 I mean, yes, but it would also potentially if we had a scene where he actively declined.
Dr Rad 53:31 I don't think that's what happened. I think, I mean, it's Look, I can't, I don't want to give anything away about the following year, but it seems more that he was just minding his own business, racing around trying to manage the folds of his toga. And he was chosen because he demonstrated that moderate behavior, which they felt Rome was sorely lacking at this point in time. And he doesn't seem to have said No, exactly, okay.
Dr G 54:00 Well, he's coming across as a pretty bland character. Yes, yes. Doesn't say no. Just goes with the flow. I
Dr Rad 54:09 mean, look, there will there will come a moment which, which is going to complicate this story in the following year. But I don't think he is like a Cincinnatus type of character where he's like, you just leave me alone to farm. Well,
Dr G 54:21 in that case, I'm not seeing any clear signs of weird display. No.
Dr Rad 54:26 I mean, look again, there's the dealing with the raiders, the military tribunes with consular power. They do that. They deal with the Alban Lake situation. But I feel that's just politicking
Dr G 54:35 that is. I'm not necessarily seeing any standout figures of Roman weird to us. Yeah, all right. The final category perhaps the moment for redemption, because otherwise it's looking pretty grim, is the citizen score.
Dr Rad 54:50 Oh boy. Okay, we don't get a lot of insight in this year to what's going on with the citizens, apart from the fact that there is this ongoing tension between the. Patricians and the plebeians. And again, it's a very stalemate situation. While it doesn't seem to be going that brilliantly for them, the tribunes of the plebs are definitely holding their own, unnamed as they are. They
Dr G 55:15 are. They seem to have denied a levy, but we also have citizens who are volunteering to go on some counter raid. That's
Dr Rad 55:23 true. But from where are they? The ones that had their stuff stolen? Well,
Dr G 55:27 Give me back my blanket.
I want my shoes, damn it.
Dr Rad 55:31 How am I supposed to walk anywhere?
Dr G 55:35 They say, walk a mile in his shoes, and you understand him. Understand myself without shoes. Yeah? So anyway, I don't know. Yeah, that's what
Dr Rad 55:46 I mean. It's very confusing. We do have the military tribunes refusing a levy. We have them postponing elections until they get certain assurances, which seem to have been somewhat successful because of this Licinius Calvus person being resurrected again, vanilla as he is. He is a plebeian vanilla bean.
Dr G 56:06 Well, I mean, if you have to have vanilla beans, let them be plebeian.
Dr Rad 56:10 Yeah, yeah. So there's a little bit of success there, but there is still a lot of war going on, yes.
Dr G 56:15 So as a citizen, it doesn't seem like it's the worst time, because it's not like that Romans having terrible losses on the battlefield, where you can be like, it's a horrible time to be a Roman city. They don't seem to be winning a lot either, no, except for the misplaced booty situation. So maybe
Dr Rad 56:34 two, yeah, I think that is fair. I think we also need to rewrite that famous line from Charles Dickens. It wasn't quite the worst of times. It wasn't quite the best of times.
Dr G 56:50 397, mediocre at best. Yeah,
Dr Rad 56:54 and that means Dr G that we have a total of three out of 50 Golden Eagles for Rome. Well,
Dr G 56:59 that's quite low Rome, but maybe next year will be redemption.
Dr Rad 57:04 It's one of those things because I'm like, actually, this was an interesting year in some ways, but it just wasn't really going anywhere. It was like the holding pattern. Look this once again, could be Livy padding the narrative a little bit, until we get to the very big year of 396, he's in a holding pattern. He's circling. He's circling a very big story not ready to come into land yet.
Dr G 57:29 Yeah. He's like a little vulture just waiting for the 10 years to be up so he can start telling this tale about how
Dr Rad 57:36 How dare you He's an eagle.
Dr G 57:39 Either way, either way. Yeah,
Dr Rad 57:41 all right. Dr, G, well, that is 397 wrapped up, and I am extremely excited to talk to you about 396 because I have indicated a number of times I have you it's going to be a big one.
Dr G 57:53 Oh yeah, looking forward to it. You.
Dr Rad 57:55 Music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buy us a coffee on ko fi. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say salve to Taurus, Vicky, the Mercian People's Front and Gail some of our recent Patreon and Ko fi supporters. Thank you so much for joining the partial band. However, if you lost all of your money betting on the wrong Gladiator, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. And if you're looking for something delightful and rumin to read over your holiday break, you can grab yourself a copy of our latest book, your cheeky guide to the Roman Empire out now Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome. You
Special Episode – Totally Chaotic History with Dr Emma Southon
12 déc. 2024
00:53:15
Are you ready to have a Totally Chaotic time?
We certainly hope so, as we are thrilled to welcome Dr Emma Southon back on the show for the FOURTH TIME (not the third, as incorrectly said by Dr Rad). Emma has released her first children’s book, which was co-authored with Greg Jenner and illustrated by Rikin Parekh.
Special Episode – Totally Chaotic History with Dr Emma Southon
The cover of Totally Chaotic History: Roman Britain Gets Rowdy!
This powerhouse trio have produced Totally Chaotic History: Roman History Gets Rowdy! Whilst the target audience for this latest instalment in the Totally Chaotic series is 7-12 year olds, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Turns out that we didn’t know as much about Roman Britain as we thought!
If you would like to chuckle and LOL your way through the lengthy history of the British and their interactions with the Romans, you need to grab a copy of this book. We were intrigued to find out how Greg, Emma and Rikin managed to pack so much historiography into a children’s history book. It was intriguing to find out about the process that went into building the layers of historical meaning on every page.
Are you ready to get rowdy?
Things to Listen Out For:
Robot hamsters
Chaos ratings
Tips on sight-seeing in Britain
Emma’s upcoming projects
Ask Santa for Totally Chaotic History: Roman History Gets Rowdy! Naturally, Mr Claus shops at your local independent bookstore.
Dr Rad 0:15 Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad and
Dr G 0:33 I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to a special episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad, and I am Dr G and Dr G, we are joined by someone who is now, I think, a triple guest, which I don't think we've ever had before. We are joined by Dr Emma Southon, who is without doubt, our top drag race fan to have on the podcast, but she also happens to be a top notch historian and hilarious, so that's very handy for us. She is the author of a biography of Agrippina the Younger as well as a book called A fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and, most recently, a history of Rome in 21 women, all of which you need to check out if you have not read them already, Emma is also the co host of the podcast. History is sexy, but we are here today to graduate her on her latest book, which is totally chaotic history Roman Britain gets rowdy, and in this collaboration, Emma gets together with a podcaster and all around famous author Greg Jenner and illustrator Rikin Parekh. So Emma, welcome,
Dr Emma Southon 2:06 hello. What a joy to be back. Am I really your first third person? That makes me feel special.
Dr Rad 2:11 I think so
Dr G 2:14 special you've come to the right place. So we
Dr Rad 2:17 are so excited to talk about this book, because it is very different, and we're going to explore some of those differences in a moment for you. But let's start with the general premise of the book. Shall we? The book is about Roman Britain, and we actually learned a lot by reading this, right? Because it is actually a children's book, I should point out to people.
Dr Emma Southon 2:37 It isn't for, technically, for like seven to 12 year olds, but both Greg and I love history, and so we put in about as much as we learned. Everything that we learned that we found was interesting, we chucked in there, and we're very keen to make it a book that is proper history like So the premise is that Greg is an amateur historian who is telling the reader the story of whatever the period he's covering, so telling the story of Roman Britain. And then that's all in the present tense, and then he has expert interruptions from a professional historian and expert in the field, who, in the past tense, comes in and says, Actually, Greg, we used to think that, but now we think says, and we know this because we found x, y, z, or and this is what the evidence is. And kind of then gives you the historiography of the period as well, and the like, how we know what we know what kind of things historians have had arguments about what has shifted in our understanding of it, how we interpret the sources and just both widening the subjects as it's usually taught to children. So it's not just like decontextualized Roman Britain, which has like no time period, which is what you very often get with kids books. You just get, like, the Romans or and as if there was no change in the entire period. Or like, you know, the Romans are in Britain for 500 years, and there's just pretense that it's all the same and all the whole time, and also showing how we expanding what history is as it's taught to children. So it's not just giving them facts, as though we just we know those facts, but what historians actually do like how we learn, how we change our minds, how we have big history fights all the time, and have arguments about things, and how there isn't, like one right answer in history. Most of the time, there's a lot of wrong answers, but there's very rare there's also a lot of right answers. And so it sounds quite complicated, but because Greg is naturally hilarious, and because there a lot of it is done through illustration and the way that the page is laid out, it means that there can be lots of a lot going on on the page, and you can learn a whole lot from what looks like just a really fun, silly joke.
Dr Rad 4:59 Like, you're making me feel a lot better about the fact that I learned a lot from reading
Dr Emma Southon 5:04 good that's the aim. Is that? Because, I think that, especially with because I read the first is a series that Greg is doing, and he's doing four initially. The first one was totally chaotic Egypt, and he sent me that, like, before it came out, to say, like, this is what the thing's gonna look like. And I learned so much from that. And like I did, I haven't technically done Egypt since I was an undergraduate, but I still felt like I had, you know, a basic grasp of it, but like, there's a whole debate in there about why Egyptians mummified people and, like, what is the purpose of that? And I was like, Oh my God, I've never even thought about that as an like it's just in a kid's book for eight year olds, and a complete shift in my understanding of why Egyptian culture mummified people. Is it preservation, or is it actually a deliberate transformation? Because if it's preservation, why are you taking the organs out that's not preserving? Is it that's transforming the body.
Dr Rad 6:02 That's true. That's true. Yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 6:04 So, so I also learned a lot, and the next one is a stone age, and I'm looking forward to learning stuff about that. Okay,
Dr G 6:10 I'm ready to dig in. I'm gonna have to acquire the whole series. On the back of this amazing
Dr Rad 6:16 it makes me feel terrified that all these children are gonna grow up to be so incredibly educated
Dr Emma Southon 6:21 they are. They're going to be smarter than by the time they're 12. They're going to know so
Dr Rad 6:26 exactly they're going to be like, Excuse me, I think you'll find that there's historiographical debate about that exactly, that's what we want, which I find terrific, because I'm a teacher, I'm actually going to encounter this. Thanks.
Dr Emma Southon 6:40 They'll be the best kids, though. Yeah.
Dr G 6:43 We want that kind of smarts coming through. That's that's really exciting.
Dr Rad 6:47 So that's an amazing description of what the book is all about, in sort of general terms. And it sort of made us realize that when we have looked at Roman Britain, it's been very much about Caesar Claudius and Boudicca, the highlights, yeah, as I like to call them, which all happened in a very short period of time. So can you tell us a bit about some of the other chapters and what they specifically focus on?
Dr Emma Southon 7:06 So we have a chapter first at the beginning, about the late Iron Age and like, what is Britain like before Caesar gets there? Basically, very important, yeah, because I think that everybody thinks that see the Britain like before Caesar got there, is basically what Caesar describes, which is eight men with mustaches and 200 cows and nothing. So
Dr Rad 7:30 we've got a bit sounds like a party, yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 7:32 And then it effectively goes through, kind of chronologically, the the history of of the Roman occupation of Britain. And Britain as part of the Empire. So it does Caesar. And then the massive impacts that Caesar brings, because he makes Britain, or at least southern Britain, big chunks of it, become client kingdoms of the Roman Empire. And so there's these relationships with Tiberius and Augustus that are very rarely written about in anywhere, to be honest, but they're all there. And then Claudius, kind of second invasion, his big invasion, and then the resistance period after that. So you've got about 100 years of people like coraticus and the kind of ongoing attempts to remove the Romans. And then we really wanted it to not just focus on London. So we have a section on Wales. We've got sections on what's happening in the north of England, on how these places are kind of slowly absorbed into the empire in different ways, especially Wales, which takes, like, a really concerted effort to get it in. And then we go all the way through talking about both how unique Britain is, in terms of how much of the army is there, how you get these kind of syncretic, syncretistic gods that you find in Britain? So we've got a god swap game where you get to match your gods to your local Yeah, all of them just match with Mars, because apparently the British just really took to Mars and were like, we hear you said he's a god of war, but we've decided he's the God of Everything. So and fashion. What do we you know? What are people wearing? What are people doing? Building fancy villas, building a town? Because what Rome really brings is urbanization, and then so you get towns for the first time and cities, but also you get these huge Villa estates that are like areas of agricultural production for export, which never existed before, and they're really unique, like the way they're built. And when everybody draws a Roman villa, they draw that kind of bracket shaped, you know, classic Italian Palace, but the ones in Britain are like corridors, and they're kind of weird. So we've got lots of archeology and mosaics and how you build your villa. So we have a, we originally wrote a Grand Designs thing for that. So it was going to be like, someone's coming to video. But they were like, I.
Dr Rad 10:00 Only 40 year olds will get eight year old is watching,
Dr Emma Southon 10:09 like he was really funny for us. And then we were like, no, no. Eight year old knows. So we did it as a catalog instead, like they'll get that. And then we did, like, the building your villa, you're building your town as a kind of Minecraft thing. So you get to did it as constructor the game, and then talked through all of the actually big history that happens in in Britain at the end of the Roman Empire. So from like 200 to 400 there are like three emperors that are proclaimed in Britain, including Caracalla and Geta of Gladiator II fame,
Dr Rad 10:42 absolutely, I was very, so excited to see the section on them. There
Dr G 10:46 they are hanging out. I will
Dr Emma Southon 10:49 tell you now, and I'm sorry they're going to probably have to edit this out. But I spent the entire thing going, why is Geta the big one?
Dr G 10:58 Yeah. Surely this really assumed, yeah, miscasting,
Dr Emma Southon 11:03 yeah, like, Geta is the big one and the little one is Caracalla.
Dr G 11:08 Don't tell Fiona too much. She hasn't seen it yet.
Dr Rad 11:11 Oh, you've seen it. Okay, we're actually going together to what we call Gold Class here, which basically is, like the super fancy cinema with, like this, you know, the recliner I
Dr G 11:21 want? I want to Colosseum popcorn bucket. That's what I'm after. Yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 11:26 I cannot get it here, and it breaks my heart. I'm not going to spoil anything else, but I'm just going to say Gator is the big one, and I genuinely spent a third of a movie with
Dr Rad 11:34 my mind blown. Yeah, no, that is crazy to me. Yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 11:38 So Caracalla,, Geta, Constantine the great he is crowned in Britain. And then Britain is called like a hotbed of usurpers, because people keep rising up, taking chunks of the army and invading mainland Britain, basically. And then there's a lot that goes on there. Britain, I think, is very often considered to be like a massive backwater that Rome didn't care about at all. But you see hundreds of years of them desperately trying to keep Britain in the empire, because it is very important as both a space for which is agriculturally, producing enormously, and it is a place where people have loads of property and they want to keep it. And it is, you know, they don't want to lose it as a space. And the period that Britain is the richest and when the most beautiful things are being built, and when it's spending the most money on villas and mosaics and paintings, and is the third and fourth century, like this period that we think of as a period of decline and misery is actually a period of kind of gold and luxury in Roman Britain. So, so we have all of that, and then we have the kind of final sad decline, I suppose, of Britain as the army just keeps leaving, and then no one has any money to travel across the sea anymore. So
Dr G 12:56 this ferry system is getting very expensive. I don't know if I can put my army on boats,
Dr Emma Southon 13:02 and their Saxons got very, very good at piracy, so it became real expensive to keep sending stuff over. And so this kind of last hurrah of Roman Britain is kind of ends with a bit of a whimper. And that famous letter from Honorius where he says, you know, we wrote to Britain and said that they'd have to deal with themselves, which may or may not be about Britain, but yeah, so it hopefully gives, like, a very different perspective on Roman Britain, and then that, it does the whole of it, from the first contact in 150 BCE all the way through to, kind of The final dregs of Roman culture in like 500 and tells you everything that happened, basically, and get a good idea of what living at any period under Roman occupation was like,
Dr G 13:53 Oh, fantastic. So I like the fact that there's a chronology here. It's, as you say, it's not just a smattering of facts without any sort of contextual detail. So everybody gets to go on a journey through this whole few 100 years of Roman contact with the Britons. When you're thinking about your research and work on this book, was there anything in particular you were surprised to learn as you went through this process,
Dr Emma Southon 14:20 the kind of uniqueness of Romano British culture, like archeologically, because the archeology of Roman Britain is not something that I had ever like looked at in huge detail, and I'd certainly never sat down and read all of the many British archeological reports I read. And because British archeological reports basically publish every archeology PhD that wants to be published. Oh, that's on British archeology, and it's brilliant. And as a result, you can read the tiny little niches that people do and see what they're looking at. And the there are real uniquenesses to Roman British culture, like they didn't. We used to call it romanizing Back in the day, but you know, they didn't hell themselves into being as Roman as possible on a copy. But they took what they wanted and absorbed it. But so they were like, Okay, we'll do villas, but we're doing them in a way that we like, like, we'll do corners. Now, really funny thing is that there was a drought 2007-2008, that, for archeologists, was brilliant, because all of the dried out fields meant that they could see with aerial photography, loads of foundations that they wouldn't have been able to see, and so they could suddenly see loads of Roman and pre Roman archeological sites, or like sites of locations of inhabitation where that they hadn't known existed before. And you can tell which ones are the pre Roman because they're all round. And then the Romans come and put corners on
Dr G 15:41 all those Romans. They love their lines. They love their angles.
Dr Emma Southon 15:48 I just really amused me to imagine, like early Roman Britons being like, and they've got coordinates, you say,
Dr Rad 15:58 or something. There's something there about, like, a square pig and
Dr Emma Southon 16:04 a round you get these things, these really specific villas. And like, they build Roman temples, but they build them in a really specific way that is doesn't look like Roman temple has got like a circular bit in the middle. So they'll be like, Okay, we'll do like 50-50, and they were, like, all of the religious sites that appear, which don't appear until, like, relatively late, but they appeared, but they're like, we'll do votive offering. We get that, but we are only going to put it in water, because water is our thing. So we're gonna, like, make we're gonna absorb it into our culture, rather than absorbing ourselves into you, basically, which was fascinating to me. And at no point does Britain in general seem to have, like, wholeheartedly thrown itself into you get the odd guy, like the guy who built fishborne Roman palace. But mostly people are like, yeah. Don't know how I feel about guys
Unknown Speaker 16:58 that might work, but
Dr Emma Southon 17:02 they are still building roundhouses. And like you can see, like, they'll get on board with things that are useful, like lamps and locks. But apart from that, they're a bit like, there is a real uniqueness. And like face pots, as well as this thing that you only find in Roman Britain, which is urns for cremains. And they would bury the cremains in a pot with a little face on it. So they make these little face pots interesting. They are adorable. And I don't know if they're like the face of the person, sometimes they have a little penis on them because they're Roman. So they'll just have, like, a penis, actually, yeah, wouldn't
Dr G 17:38 want to miss an opportunity,
Dr Emma Southon 17:41 yeah. But you find it in, like, you only find the Britain and, like, a little bit in northern Gaul, but they're just like these unique aspects of Roman Britain culture that I thought were really delightful. And every single one of them that I learned about was so charming. Because, like, certainly, when I was in school, we went, I grew up near fish born Roman Palace, which is, like the Roman palace, and it is the villa that everybody talks about, and it's ginormous. It's like four times the size of most villas. And it is so Roman. It's so square. It's got, like, the atrium, it's got the big wings that go round a bit of grass. And so for a long time, I was like, Okay, so that's what a Roman villa is. But then when you look at what they all look like, they have a specific layout that the British designed themselves. And so it was, yeah, it was um, eye opening to see how, how the the people for 400 years, were like, okay, we can get along with some of this. But I kind of like, that's like, feels profoundly British, yeah,
Dr G 18:42 okay, the pragmatism of like, well, you say you do it that way, but we've always done it like this, so I think we're just gonna keep doing it like this. We're gonna
Dr Emma Southon 18:53 keep we'll incorporate the bits that we like, but otherwise we will be avoiding virtually all of it.
Dr Rad 19:03 We'll take the luck, yeah, throw it.
Dr Emma Southon 19:06 We'll take this, but we're not getting on board with we'll take the wine, but we're not getting on board with the garam
Dr Rad 19:13 there's got to be a new Monty Python skit in there somewhere.
Dr Emma Southon 19:16 Yeah, there's a horrible history skit in there somewhere with this, yeah,
Dr Rad 19:21 exactly, yeah. Which is, which is obviously very apt, given that Greg Jenner was involved in me. He was,
Dr Emma Southon 19:26 and you can tell he was the historical consultant for Horrible Histories for a long time. And he wrote the, or helped write the film, The Boudicca film. And, yeah, did a was kind of locked, very responsible for a lot of horrible history stuff. So you can see that humor in there. He has a very the puns and word play. And we share a hilarity of just imagining how these things play out when people talk about and then they cleared some land. We both find it really funny to imagine, like, how does that like? There is a horrible history. Sketch of, like, somebody turning up at a guy's door and saying, we're going to build a wall through here. Going to build a massive wall right the way across the island, and if you could just move your sheep out. I think,
Dr Rad 20:11 I think that is something that that we also share. We delight in imagining these scenes of when people come up to the door of, you know, Cincinnatus, whilst he's farming shirtless. And, yeah, exactly,
Dr Emma Southon 20:26 giving Cato a call, and he's talking about with cabbages yet again.
Dr Rad 20:33 So obviously, as you sort of highlighted before, there are sometimes these sort of different ideas behind each chapter, the way you laid it out, and the sort of approach that you've taken, so when you sort of saw it all come together, which part ended up being your favorite?
Dr Emma Southon 20:47 That's my favorite. I find the Julius Caesar YouTube bit really funny. So we did Julius Caesar as like a manosphere YouTube bro who is trying to pass off his ludicrous, his ludicrous turning up in Britain, fundamentally unprepared and being chased out and then constantly complaining that doesn't matter how many hostages he takes, they just keep stabbing him in the back, trying to pass it off as a brilliant victory. And we imagined him kind of, what's that guy that just fought?
Dr G 21:23 Oh, the guy that just fought my boxer guy,
Dr Emma Southon 21:27 yes,
Dr G 21:28 I can't remember his name. What's his name? But isn't he fundamentally a YouTuber? Yeah, he is.
Dr Emma Southon 21:34 So basically, we imagined him as one of those youtubers who's, like, always doing stunts, or like a kind of Mr. Beast type bro guy who just wants to impress everybody with, like, the massive stunts that he's doing. And then we had, like, his description of Britain. We ended up doing it as, like a Q and A while he's trapped in because he can't go out because the weather's so bad that it's destroyed all of his ships that genuinely happened. So he got trapped on the island well, because all his ships got destroyed and stopped. So, like, he's got nothing to do. So he can do an AMA, and he'll describe Britain, and that's how we'll have, like, his description of what Britain is like. And yeah, that ended up. And when we were recording the audio book, Greg was doing voices, doing his YouTube voice. And it took a while to get through that, because it was just made us both really laughed that one. I really like that chapter. I think it's really funny.
Dr G 22:30 That's a good one. Julius Caesar, what a man, what a time I know, what a guy. And maybe this will help some people, you know, young people, come to a better sense of what he might have really been like. Yeah, he spends a lot of time talking about himself, that's for sure. In
Dr Emma Southon 22:51 the third person we did, let him say, I we should have we thought they might be a bit far if we had him saying, Caesar has been to British. Yeah. Ridiculous.
Dr G 23:04 It would have served him right in some respects, but I can appreciate the change,
Dr Emma Southon 23:07 yeah, but yeah. Still, it still tickles me to imagine him on YouTube.
Dr G 23:11 Definitely. He'd have quite a following. I can only imagine
Dr Emma Southon 23:16 he really would. He'd have a podcast following, be doing massive things and filming them. Yeah, it would be ridiculous.
Dr G 23:27 So I like the fact that this is a new kind of Avenue, if you like, for your work as a way, because not only is this a co authorship situation that, but there's also an illustrator involved, and you've talked a little bit about how the layout of the page is doing a lot of the work and sort of helping create the the argumentative structures and to point people in particular directions. I'm wondering, if you can take us a little bit through that process, what was it like coming together to collaborate on that visual as well as the written
Dr Emma Southon 23:59 fun? I'm not a visual thinker, so the what the page looked like was probably the bit that I was least involved in. We had kind of as we were going through. So what we did was we went through and put together, like a chronology of what we thought the chapter should be and what we wanted to include and how to break it up. And then we went through and sat on Zoom for hours, and like, chapter by chapter, we're like, what's the funniest way to do this chapter? And then we wrote them. So I would do the research, and then send loads of research to Greg, and he would write it and send it back to me, and then I would edit it and fiddle about with it and send it back to him. And then we would go back and forth. And then we basically sent a giant Word document, and we came would come up with kind of ideas of things that we would think were funny to for it to look like, but we basically then sent the text to Rikin and then he drew what he thought were funny, basically versions about Greg thinks of jokes really easily, like visual jokes, because of his work in TV. So sometimes he. Would put in a LIKE, Would it be funny to have like? When I found, archeologists have found skulls, cow skulls with Roman bullets in them, because the Roman army would use cows as target practice, or were just shooting cows for fun, which is bizarre. And so he was like, we have to have a picture of we have to have a picture of that. Or he would think of a caption, and then we would send that to Rikin, and then Rikin and just drew loads. And part of it is of what the page looks like is done by the editors, because it has to fit onto a certain amount of pages, essentially. And so we would lose text in order to keep a picture, or lose a picture in order to keep text. And so go went through probably 10 or 12 different iterations of what the page is going to look like. If we have this image here, the joke is before, like, the visual joke is before the paragraph, so we're going to have to shift it around. But if we do that, then it's going to push the visual joke onto the next page. So we're going to have to cut out like 13 words of this paragraph so that it will all fit on this one page. And it's a very kind of careful I have a lot more appreciation for kids books and illustrated books now, of the of how much work goes in, like page by page, to making sure that you don't end up with a big bit of blank space. You don't end up with a especially because we've got like, three layers of text. We've got the Greg's text and then the interruptions. And some of them are interruptions and some of them are definitions, so where I've underlined something and then defined it, and keeping that all on the one page so that the jokes run in the right order, and that the paragraph doesn't ruin the visual joke, and the visual joke doesn't come completely out of context, is quite an undertaking, and I now have a lot of respect for children's books editors who would happen to balance this like very visually that I did not have before. I did not appreciate them as much as I should have. So it is quite present. And sometimes I sent Rikin a lot of visual references so that everything would be as accurate as possible. So when we have at the beginning, when they you start seeing things like cosmetic mixes, cosmetic sets like appear in southern Britain. I was like, we should totally like, we're gonna have if we can't be having like, I don't need. Want you to be having like, a mirror and a brush. I want it to be a Roman cosmetic set. Don't look like what you consider to be a cosmetic set. It looks like a pestle and mortar. That's tiny. But he was great asking for more. What does this look like? What does an actual pot look like? Like one of the original pots he drew? I was like, No, that's a Greek pot. Sorry, I love you, but that like, there's a difference between a Greek pot and a Roman. And you've drawn a Greek pot, and I need you to draw me a Roman. Like, the handles are smaller, the neck is different. And so we did go kind of back and forth, a few on that, but he really wanted to be accurate as well. So he I would send him, like, big PDFs full of images, often drawings of things from bar reports. And he would make them funny. God bless him. That
Dr G 28:17 is an art, I think, being able to take, you know, archeological drawings, and turn them into something hilarious as well as informative at the same time.
Dr Emma Southon 28:26 And we really did our best to be like, you know, what's the difference between a Roman chariot and a like, I see any chariot like, do we know? What can we tell? How do we make them look different? What does what's the difference between a Greek pot and a Roman so we're not misleading people.
Dr Rad 28:44 And, yeah, yeah, well, I mean, and I think that that you've actually highlighted something which is also a bit of a departure for you, which is that you have most definitely been writing for adults in your previous books, all the murder, yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 28:58 all the murder, all the swearing. Oh, yeah, exactly. Development jokes, not.
Dr Rad 29:04 So what was it like having to write for children?
Dr Emma Southon 29:07 I was very lucky that I was with Greg, so he did the first draft of everything. And he obviously has been writing for kids for a very long time, and he has other kids books that he has written. This was his third or fourth one, and he did a he's like, does he did a podcast series for kids during the lockdown called homeschool history, like he knows how to make children laugh, and he has a kid and he's not afraid of them like I am. So he did the first pass, basically, of everything, and then I just went through and was either like, I understand the sentence, or just kind of tweet things. So I was very it felt like a kind of apprenticeship in a way of seeing Greg do his thing, and I would give him, like, quite dense 1520, page research articles that I would written up, or like lists of things. You know what? It. All the things I thought would be interesting for this chapter. And he would pare those down into 2000 words of that contained a ton of jokes for kids and some references to like, robot hamsters, or like it is a real work of genius to be able to do this and make it like, snappy and funny and yeah, and then we would just edit it down together until it got kind of littler and littler. And the only bit I wrote by myself was, which was by the time we had got, like, quite a few chapters in, was the myth buster part on the on Hadrian's Wall. So I'd seen him write like, six or seven chapters by that point, so I felt like I could have a go. And then he edited it into something better. But it is a real it's a real art form to talk to kids and entertain them without patronizing them, and without being like cost you the clown or something. And so it was or doing what I do to children in real life, which is to talk to them like they're just adults, but smaller. Charles, how was your day at work? Let's
Dr Rad 31:10 please talk about the difference between Roman and Greek pots. It's very important that you understand the subtle differences.
Dr Emma Southon 31:15 I do as an example of how I usually am with children, I was talking to my nephew quite recently. It was his 21st birthday. And he I took him out for dinner, and we were out, and he said, Do you remember Auntie Emma when I was about six and you taught me what genocide was? I was like, yes,
Dr Rad 31:38 that is exactly the kind of thing that I would do.
Dr G 31:42 I mean, if it comes up in conversation and it's the right time to learn the information I don't I mean,
Dr Emma Southon 31:48 in my defense, he had, he was in a school that was very progressive, and they had decided to name all of their classes after countries, like each year group was a continent and each class was a country. The year before, he had been in hedgehog class, and this year, I asked him what class he was in, and he said, Cambodia. Oh, God. Well,
Dr Rad 32:07 that makes total sense that you would instantly go there. And so after
Dr Emma Southon 32:11 some questioning, we obviously got around to Cambodian history, fair enough. And yeah, and he considers a very formative part of his like, he's now very politically engaged, and he's a journalist, so I feel like I did a good job, but still,
Dr Rad 32:24 I think that's one of the things, yeah, that is one of the things I find when you're actually talking to a small child, because I also have a couple of nephews who are toddlers at the moment, and I find that it's one of those things where I'll just be talking to them normally, just as I'm like, you know, bustling around, and I'll just say something, and then all of a sudden, as the words leave my mouth, I'm like, Oh no, that's gonna lead to more questions. And I don't know what their parents want me to say about this. And I literally did that the other day, where I was talking about how I was a step parent and that, and then I was like, oh no, oh no. That's gonna lead to questions about what. What does that involve? And so I had to go through the whole thing of, look, so you know those people I call my children? Yeah, they weren't actually ever inside of me. Oh crap, yeah. And I think, I think we ended up finishing the conversation with him, concluding that to have a step parent means that you have three mothers. And I was like, yep, you know what? Let's just Yeah.
Dr G 33:21 We can clear that up. That's
Dr Emma Southon 33:23 worse things that could come out. But
Dr Rad 33:26 yeah, so I am terrible at explaining things to really small
Dr Emma Southon 33:28 children. Yeah, they're very challenging. That's why they can see right through you. And this is the thing with writing for kids and talking to kids really like they, they know, if you're like, trying to bullshit them, they can. They don't have time for any kind of patronizing them or pretending like they and so you have to be enthusiastic, and you have to take them seriously. And that was which is good, because that's what I like to do, I take everything well, that's not true. I don't take everything seriously, but I do take history,
Dr Rad 34:05 I think seriously underneath hilarious on the top, yeah, exactly.
Dr Emma Southon 34:08 And I wouldn't have done a book for children if it had been anything other than what Greg does, which is to teach kids history, not just teach them history facts like or history stories, but teach them what history is and what historians do, and that history is largely arguing and interpretation. It's not just like a static series of stories or facts or myths. It is a kind of constantly evolving discipline, and he takes that very seriously indeed. And then does robot hamster jokes.
Dr G 34:50 This actually leads me into something that I did want to ask you about, because this book has things like the the chaos ratings in it, as you as you go through. True. And, you know, this is obviously a really great mechanism, I think, for giving us sort of a little bit of a foreshadowing of what is to come or indicating just how complex the thing that is about to be discussed is going to be. And I'm wondering about how, like, a feature like that may have evolved during the discussion process.
Dr Rad 35:18 Yeah, because that's the historic graphical bit, I think,
Dr Emma Southon 35:21 yeah, because this is so Greg's original like pitch for this was that he will be the guy who is living through it, essentially, like he's in present tense, and he is living through it. And sometimes he you never know what's coming next. And sometimes what comes next is really chaotic, and like in the moment, you have no clue what's happening, and the historian can come in and say, Oh, x, y, z is what is occurring. But like, so you have this period at the end, which is, I think, when the chaos meter goes to totally chaotic, when Britain is like in three separate empires, technically, in about a 20 year period. So the Gallic Empire splits away from the Roman Empire in the third century, and then Aurelian brings it back in, and then it splits off into a tiny British Empire, which consists of Britain.
Dr G 36:12 We're all by ourselves,
Dr Emma Southon 36:14 yeah, for like 10 years, it's the British Empire, and then it's back into the Roman Empire again. And so we had that as a news reader, who's, like, constantly being like, and then this guy's been murdered, and then this guy's been murdered, there's constantly coins like, appearing, which, and who the hell is this guy? And so his feeling is that it like, sometimes it's going to feel like you don't know what's going to happen, like, who you can who's going to be the Emperor when you wake up tomorrow, who? What Empire Am I in when I wake up tomorrow? Like sometimes when you're living day to day, it feels totally chaotic and like you don't know how anything is going to survive, but in you can be, then be a historian, and look back and say, Ah, the forces, an Aurelian is going to come and save everybody, and it's all going to be okay. Don't worry, guys. Yeah. And so the chaos meter is basically how the person at the time would be feeling if they were living through this. Are they feeling like they're in a good, chill, useful time where everything is delightful and it's the end of history, or are they living in interesting historical times and they feel like they don't know what their world is going to look like tomorrow, and they're burying their gold because they're worried that someone's going to come and
Dr G 37:26 rob them. Fair enough,
Dr Rad 37:28 I was really impressed by all those additional elements, because, as I say, I think that's where the historiography comes in, with the accuracy alerts the myth bust, seeing, you know, it was so layered, as you say, I was like, Whoa, there's like, so much historiography going on on this page, and it's a children's book. And I think, without a doubt, this isn't a question. I'm just saying this, without a doubt, my favorite part was the historian head to head over Buddha cup, mostly because of the illustration of you and Greg fighting each other with books.
Dr Emma Southon 37:56 Yeah, a genuinely delightful Yeah. And, you know, and that is an argument that, for some reason, I tried to keep trying to avoid Boudicca, but you come back to her constantly. I know I've accidentally written two books that she's in, and like there are so many different interpretations of her and so many like that. You know you can talk to French archeologists who argue that she never existed. You can talk to like, really intense patriots who are like she was a woman, and this and like the Tacitus story, is exactly what happened to her, and that is precisely it I kind of like to sit in the middle. And I think that Tacitus is telling a very specific, fictionalized mythic story about her, and that it best, almost no resemblance to the Dio version of her, that these are, you know, she's a real woman told as a literary device. And but then you have, you know, there's the Amanda Scott who is like, no, she was Welsh. And Boudicca actually means vodaker, and it means victory. And like there's so many different ways of understanding her and of of interpreting her, but all we have, really is two guys who know something about her and are writing about her for a very specific political audience, and that kind of arguing about her, that's what history is, especially ancient history. And you know this, when you're dealing with Roman texts and you've got nothing else to where you've got nothing else to work with, it's just arguing over two guys and how much you want to believe those two guys were telling the truth, and if they were both telling the truth, then why their story is so different?
Dr Rad 39:44 Yeah, look as two people who base their entire podcast basically on Livy and Dionysus of Halicarnassus for a long time, and we generally do, often get to the point where I end up sort of saying at the end of the episode, so wait, maybe none of this ever actually happened. And Peta's like, whoa, whoa.
Dr G 39:59 I mean, something happened, like, have we
Dr Rad 40:04 just proven that none of this ever happened?
Dr Emma Southon 40:06 Rome appeared fully formed, 27 BCE with Augustine
Dr G 40:14 before that. We can't possibly know anything.
Dr Rad 40:20 You know, look, I think it's, it is amazing how much you guys have been able to show, as you say, what history actually is, which is all these different perspectives, all this problematic evidence. It is amazing that you have been able to delve into all of these issues and cover the entire history of Britain all in one book.
Dr Emma Southon 40:36 Yeah, amazing in like 25,000 words. It's, yeah,
Dr Rad 40:39 I might have something to learn. So tell us, if people are really keen to dive right in, and we mean physically dive in, are there any places in Britain that you would recommend going?
Dr Emma Southon 40:52 So there are a bunch of villas. So I honestly do think that fishborne is brilliant. It is very much a it's like an early Roman villa. It's in Sussex, and it is, it's like the most Roman of all the Roman villas, but it is amazing, and it is like a genuine delight to see chedworth is also great. And that's much more of a what's the word, like British one? But, yeah, it's a corridor, but it's also it has great like mosaics, and it's a great site to go to. The British Museum has all the cool stuff. So, you know, you can't say no to the British Museum, really, it does have all the best stuff. But the great thing about Britain is you can come one day, me and my husband say we're going to get an English Heritage membership and just spend a year like driving around Britain looking all the English Heritage stuff, because there's so much in the way of in every town, there's something almost every town, there's something that is Roman, and then, like, my dad lives in Dover, and they have a fort That's under a car park that you can go to
Dr G 42:04 classic, come to our car park fort, yeah, and
Dr Emma Southon 42:08 then and you can go to Dover.
And Dover Castle has a Roman lighthouse, so it's still standing. Yes, it's like next to a 12th century church, but it's this Roman lighthouse that you can go to and virtually anywhere that you go. And quite often, because we wanted to do a whole chapter on the rediscovery of Roman Britain, because Roman Britain was not appreciated, particularly until, like, the 18th century, when they redug up bath in order to make it kind of Spa, Georgian spa destination. And we discovered all of the stuff in Bath, and all of the stuff there, you can see the Roman stuff, but a lot of it is still buried. And a lot of the stuff that they say is Roman is actually Victorian, but it's like pseudo neoclassical. It's still gorgeous. It's worth going to but and just be aware that it's not all that, but so much of it was not appreciated. And you get all of these stories of like 17th century, 16th century farmers digging up mosaics and then just chucking them in the bin. Oh, no. Ooh. There was one story that was like from 1840 something of a farmer plowing up a mosaic and then load it being in the papers, and loads of people coming to see them, and then everyone just taking some of it home. And it kind of makes you feel a bit sick,
Dr Rad 43:36 but, and this is my charm, how much stuff I mean when you combine that with all the stories of early archeologists at places like Pompeii and Herculaneum, you know, being like, that's not important, tossing it out. Give me the good stuff. Just like, Oh my god. How much of this stuff that we complain we don't have enough of has actually ended up in the bin. But
Dr Emma Southon 43:55 since then, it's got a bit better. But now virtually every town in Britain has something and it will have a mosaic or something cool and Roman in their like Village Museum, and which is kind of delightful to see how much of it there is just everywhere, and not just the monumental stuff that you get if you go like, there's no arches, there's no big buildings, particularly, there's just lots of little things. I will do one shout out for the Mithraeum in London, actually, if you're in London, which is in the bottom of the Bloomberg building, but they have a load of they have the oldest writing tablets that have been found in Western Europe, which are from like 100 CE, that were all found in the Thames, and they're all Business Tablets, so they're well, boring, but they're delightful to see. But then what they've done with the Mithraeum,with these kind of light show and holograms and this recreation of mithraic worship is really cool to see. Sounds like a delight. Yeah?
Dr Rad 44:58 Indeed. Yeah. I. Never been, actually, even though I've been to London several times, I didn't know was there the last time I
Dr Emma Southon 45:05 was, yeah, you have to, like, go to the business districts and then, like, go into the bottom of a building that really feels like you shouldn't be in
Unknown Speaker 45:13 this all Bloomberg cannon. But, yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 45:15 but it's freedom, and it is like an hour, and you get to see, and they've got these kind of displays of all of the stuff that they found. Their archeological reports are great as well, actually. But yeah, there's just so much on the army. You can go up and see all the forts in the north, and you can go and see Hadrian's Wall and walk along it. And you can go to Vindolanda, although the good tablets are in the British Museum.
Dr G 45:39 Fair warning, fair warning. Yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 45:41 they do have lots
Dr Rad 45:42 Start at the British Museum, then work your way up.
Dr Emma Southon 45:44 Yeah, pretty much start the bottom, work your way up, drive around. There is a great book, actually, about driving around Roman Britain, by Charlotte Higgins, oh, okay, and she drove around a few years old now, she drove around Britain and went to loads and loads of different Roman sites, and, like really explored the impact that Rome left on on the British landscape that you can still see. So I would recommend that
Dr G 46:10 fantastic. All right. Well, to wrap this up, because this has been a fabulous conversation, as always, we hear that there might be exciting new, upcoming projects in your life
Dr Emma Southon 46:22 there are, and
Dr G 46:23 we're wondering, if you can tell us hints and tips I can.
Dr Emma Southon 46:26 So the book that I'm writing at the moment is very definitely for adults, and is a kind of big cultural history of slavery in the Roman Empire and all of the ways that slavery was embedded into the Empire, and supported it and made it possible for the Empire to exist, basically, which I'm trying not to make depressing, largely by focusing on people, and as many people as I can that to experience slavery in one day or one way or another, which is everybody in the empire, like there is not one single person in the whole Roman Empire who experienced a day without coming into contact with slavery in some way, either by owning them, being one or dealing with an enslaved person. So that's the one I'm writing at the moment. And then I have a two book deal now, so there's minimum of two books coming. So the next one after that is going to be about the Palatine and a history of the Palatine complex, through the emperors who lived there, how it grew, the what was there? What's going on? Who are these guys? It takes up the takes of, like, two miles of Rome. It takes up like a nearly a quarter of the city in its original walls. It's enormous, and it's full of people, and yeah, what's going on up there, and how it changes, and everybody from the guy who is in charge of import taxes from Alexandria to the guy whose job is to be a sexy human pet.
Dr Rad 48:06 Sounds fascinating. You
Dr G 48:09 can go up that hill, but you don't know what anybody will ask you to do once you get to the top of the
Dr Emma Southon 48:14 map. You do not and it could be very boring, or it's almost only gonna be very boring, but it might also be very weird,
Dr G 48:22 amazing. Both of those projects actually sound really incredible and important, actually, because I think for readers who are interested in Rome but haven't had the opportunity to really study it in depth, the extent to which slavery shapes Rome and how it operates is is massive. And yeah, it needs to be better understood. I think, yeah. And
Dr Emma Southon 48:44 when I talk to people, and I tell people who are not Roman historians that this is what I'm doing 99% of the time, the response is, Oh, I hear slavery in Rome was actually fine, like everybody was freed, and it was basically like being a serf, and you have to be like, no,
Dr G 49:04 actually pretty terrible.
Dr Rad 49:07 Just generally not a good idea. It
Dr Emma Southon 49:09 is still very much slavery. So, yeah,
Dr G 49:12 like, just
Dr Rad 49:14 because it's better than some forms of Greek slavery, does it mean that people are like, Oh, that's totally cool. I'll totally do
Dr Emma Southon 49:21 Yeah. Just because it doesn't have a philosophy behind it doesn't mean that it isn't still slavery, yeah, yeah. So part of it is going to be overcoming the fact that people think that Roman slavery is not really slavery, or they don't think it's chattel slavery, or, yeah, or they're just really focused on one specific form of domestic slavery like that. You are the secretary of Cicero, and therefore you have a certain amount of power, forgetting all of the people in the fields and the mines and their Fullers and the people doing the monstrous jobs that no one will take, you know is being paid to do. They're doing it forever.
Dr Rad 49:59 Yeah, you gotta think of that opening of Spartacus, because as much as there is zero evidence that that's what Spartacus originally did, the film does show him working in pretty terrible job. At first, there's
Dr Emma Southon 50:13 a lot of people talking about like mining and field work and chain gangs and, you know, and how terrible it was, but that's the next project, which it not forget. Are
Dr Rad 50:25 you sure? I don't know. Yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 50:27 I don't know. Maybe, all right, yeah, just really depressed some children, yeah.
Dr Rad 50:32 Well, that is very exciting. We will be looking forward to hopefully chatting to you again when that is finished. But thank you so much for talking to us today. As usual, we have, not only did we learn a lot from the book, but we learned a lot about the process of producing a book like this. And I definitely would encourage actually adults to read it as well as get it for your kids, because I think you'll find it's a genuinely delightful read. Yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 50:59 I think that everybody will learn a lot from it. There are not that many books on Roman Britain for adults or for anybody that do a big tell you all about it, and this is a good starting point, I think.
Dr G 51:15 Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for telling us more about this book. So for people who are listening at home or wherever you are out and about, the book is called totally chaotic history. Roman Britain gets rowdy with an exclamation mark. So get the excitement pumping. Get into some historiography. Go and enjoy the whole swath of Roman British history. Yeah,
Dr Rad 51:39 and it is available in e book as well as print and audio book from the sounds of it. Yeah,
Dr Emma Southon 51:43 my first audio book reading experience, I do a voice. I do a good couple of amusing voices. So if you want to hear me do my first full range of voice acting,
Dr Rad 51:55 how exciting? Yeah, I look forward to hearing what you think Agrippina the younger sounds, all right. Well, thank you so much, and we will definitely be talking to you hopefully shortly about thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes@www.partialhistorians.com Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes, just like this one. However, if you lost all your money betting on a chariot race, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.
In 398 BCE, the Romans were still enmeshed in their siege at Veii. Whilst the Romans waited, worrying portents started to appear. What did they all mean?
Episode 156 – Kidnapped!
The most concerning portent was a sudden increase in the levels of the lake in the Alban Woods. It was positively spooky. An embassy was despatched to visit the Delphic Oracle so that the mystery could be unravelled.
Whilst the ambassadors were on the road, some casual conversation between enemies led to a revelation. An old man from Veii seemed to have the answers the Romans needed, and unfortunately this led to him being kidnapped and interrogated. How else could the Romans get the information? They want the truth!
The old man and the Oracle both indicated that the Romans needed to figure out a way to draw off the water from the lake. Then, and only then, Veii would fall, and the Romans would be victorious.
Sounds simple! Just make the water go away, Rome.
Things to listen out for:
LOTS of patricians in power
Dangerous shortages of Etruscan soothsayers
Sneaky Roman youths
Road trips!
An owl suddenly covering for Igor
Our Players for 398 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
L. Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401
M. Valerius M. f. M. n. Lactucinus Maximus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 395
M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401, 394, 386, 384, 381
L. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat) Cos. 413, 409. Mil. Tr. c.p. 407, 405, 397, 295, 394. 391
Q. Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat) Mil. Tr. 402, 395, 390, 388, 386
Q. Sulpicius Ser. f. Se. n. Camerinus Cornutus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 402
Legates, Ambassadors
(Cn. Cornelius) Cossus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 406, 404, 401
(P.) Licinius (Calvus Esquilinus) Mil. Tr. c.p. 400, 396
(L.) Valerius Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398
OR
(C.) Valerius Potitus (Volusus) (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c.p. 415, 404
(K.) Fabius Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 410, 404, 401, 395, 309?
OR
(Num.) Fabius Ambustus (Pat)
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy, 5.14-15.
Dr G reads Dionysius of Halicarnassus 12.10-33; Cicero, On Divination, 1.44; Diodorus Siculus, 14.82; Plutarch, Life of Camillus 2.3-4.4.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Dr Rad 0:15 Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad.
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:55 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians I am Dr G, and I am Dr rad, and we are tracing Rome's history from the foundation of the city. And in this episode, we're going to be looking at 398 BCE, so we're right in the early period of the fourth century
Dr Rad 1:18 that we are Dr G. But before we dive into 398 Can we get a quick recap on what happened in 399
Dr G 1:24 It was either a hot summer, a severe snowstorm, or both. Well, I
Dr Rad 1:29 think the snowstorm actually happened in 400
Dr G 1:32 Well, so you say.
Dr Rad 1:34 So I say indeed, although Wait, how do Italian winters work? Wait, when is a winter? Oh, actually, that would make sense. It would span two years. Sorry, being in the southern hemisphere, it took me a moment to figure
Dr G 1:46 that out, yes. And the thing is that the source material doesn't kind of line up in any other way. So, like that fragment can't come in earlier than what it already did, or at least not as far as I can tell. So I think there are ways in which Livy and Dionysius might be a little bit out of sync with each other, and that's fine, because there is that sort of prerogative around the 10 year siege. So we're in this period of time where we know that Rome is and the writers of Rome are making up some of the time because they want this siege of a to take 10 years, just like the Trojan Well, yeah, they want to have this beautiful mirror to the Trojan War. So things are a little bit haphazard. Things are a little bit out of sync. And even when we look at our comparative source material from somebody like Diodorus Siculus, they're out by a couple of years every time,
Dr Rad 2:38 exactly. And so, as a result of all this terrible weather, the Romans had to throw a gigantic party for themselves and for the gods. Most importantly, and the patricians decided to blame it all on the fact that there were so many plebeians elected to serve as magistracies.
Dr G 2:55 I mean, where else would terrible weather come from? Naturally? So, yeah. So this means that we head into 398 with the pretty traditional patrician chip on the shoulder about plebeians and what's going on there. And I guess we're gonna see how that plays out for them. Exactly.
Dr Rad 3:16 All right. Dr, G, let's do it 398 BC, you
Dr G 3:37 so this year we have military tributes with consular power. It has been foreshadowed, and now we're here.
Dr Rad 3:44 And the names, Dr, G, such sweet music to my ears, because they're so familiar.
Dr G 3:50 Oh well, some of them, at the very least, exactly, Lucius, Valerius, Potitus, yeah, yeah, you've heard of him before. It sounds familiar. Is familiar previously, Military Tribune in 414, 406, 403 and 401
Dr Rad 4:04 It's nice to have an experienced hand back at the wheel, all
Dr G 4:08 hands on deck, especially potituses. We also have Marcus Valerius Lactucinus, Maximus. Lactucinus
Dr Rad 4:19 of all sounds like a disease that you get when there's too much pollen around. Well,
Dr G 4:23 interestingly, I
Dr Rad 4:24 did look this up because, yay. Wait, did have to do with milk? Oh, no,
Dr G 4:29 it has to do with lettuce, as in salad leaves.
Dr Rad 4:34 So the most insane thing I've ever heard. Well, I don't
Dr G 4:38 know. Is it any worse than Cicero, the chickpea. So the early Republican period, this name Lactocinus, or Lactucinus, if we go with a really hard seat, is related to, etymologically, the word for lettuce.
Dr Rad 4:55 He should marry his daughter to someone in the Cicero family so that they can have a salad. They could make salad together. Oh, yeah.
Dr G 5:02 So yeah, this seems to be one of the things. They're not that common. A few of them crop up in this century, and we're going to see one later on as well. But yeah, pretty rare. This guy is a new kid to the block. Never been a military Tribune before, so he must be pretty excited. This
Dr Rad 5:20 also doesn't really add up with what they said in the previous year, which is that they were putting their very best candidates out. I mean, how can this guy be the best candidate who's never held the office before? I don't
Dr G 5:30 think you understand how best works from a patrician perspective.
Dr Rad 5:34 I know I'm just putting it out. I'm switching perspectives from all over the place. Sometimes I'm plebeian and sometimes I'm patrician. Just when you think I'm gonna Zig. I zag.
Dr G 5:42 think he was born that way, and that's what makes him great. Yeah, we also have Marcus Furius Camillus.
Dr Rad 5:50 Come on, the Furii.
Dr G 5:54 of the story. He emerges. He's here previously, military Tribune in 401, so quite recently, yeah, Andy's Beau and Lucius furious. Medullinus
Dr Rad 6:06 definitely recognize this name, yeah. So
Dr G 6:09 a couple of Furii's in this gang. Well, of course. I
Dr Rad 6:12 mean, if you're putting forward your best, you're putting forward the Furii, obviously, of course. I mean, I'm disappointed that none of them are Spurius Furius, but still,
Dr G 6:19 that's true, although Camillus is the grandson of a Spurius Furius, that's as good as it gets. So Lucius Furius Medullinus was previously consul in 413, and 409 so way more illustrious than the military Tribune with consular power.
Dr Rad 6:38 Seems so long ago that we talked about consul.
Dr G 6:40 Yeah, it's been a hot minute,
and he was also a military Tribune with consular power in 407 and 405 so definitely experienced. Well, experienced. Yeah. Next we have Quintus, Servilius Fidenas, ah, yes, previously, military tribune in 402 and Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, also military Tribune with consular power in 402
Dr Rad 7:10 the old gang is back together. Yeah,
Dr G 7:13 the boys are back now. I also have the names of some ambassadors or legates, or legates, people who hold some minor but significant positions enough that it gets named in the year. We know who they are, apparently, almost somewhat kind of,
Dr Rad 7:35 we
Dr G 7:36 have parts of their names. I have a lot of oars in this list. Yes, me too. Yeah. So we've got Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus. Now, this guy, fabulous patrician background, previously military Tribune in 406, 404 and 401 wow. Yeah, he's getting around. But now he's been, he's been given some sort of task this year, we'll find out what it is.
Maybe the taskmaster shall tell you, Ambassador,
Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus. Question mark, not a patrician.
Dr Rad 8:10 No, he's a guy. He's the first one, you know, the
Dr G 8:14 only one, according to Livy, apparently, in 400
Dr Rad 8:16 exactly the inoffensive one. Oh, the palatable How could you forget someone as beige as him, the palatable plebeian? Exactly,
Dr G 8:27 he opened the door for the radicals of the following year, who
Dr Rad 8:31 did nothing and yet still got blamed for everything.
Dr G 8:34 I thought their military victories were quite significant, really. No, I know, but that's what I mean.
Dr Rad 8:37 Like, they did nothing wrong, but they still got blamed for everything. Disaster.
Dr G 8:42 Yeah. So they are joined by these two guys. Are joined by a Lucius, Valerius Potitus, same guy as above. Apparently, you could be a military Tribune with Constable of power and be an ambassador, slash leggett, with your patrician. You can be anything. I mean, we could hire somebody else for the job, but I've just decided to hire myself.
Dr Rad 9:01 I just so qualified.
Dr G 9:03 I've looked at the candidates, and I've decided I should be the boss. I
Dr Rad 9:06 am clearly the man for the job, indeed. And that job, and that job, in fact,
Dr G 9:11 all the jobs, exactly. And that's how we get kings. Everybody. Be careful. Now we're not entirely certain that this is set in stone. This is one of the ‘ors'. So it's either this Valerius Potitus, already in a role, or Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusu, who must be related. There's a lot of similar names here, so Gaius Valerius Potitus, maybe instead of Lucius Valerius potitus, we'll see now Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus was previously consul in 410 as I'm sure you recall, oh, naturally I never forget. And previously military Tribune with consular power in 415 and 404, some families are really dominating the upper echelons of power. Here they really are. Now we also. Have another or situation. So it could be the case that we have Kaeso,Fabius Ambustus as our last ambassador, legate, or Numerus Fabius Ambustus.
Dr Rad 10:12 the first one sounds for more familiar to me.
Dr G 10:15 The first one is more familiar because they've definitely had more roles previously, military Tribune in 410 404 and 401 whereas numerous has only been a military Tribune with consular power once in 406 but it's anybody's guess, some of the names are missing. And when we are missing the prey gnome and the first name, and we've only got the gens, and then the branch of the gens, it really does put us at a bit of a loss as to who we're talking about.
Dr Rad 10:48 We're like Roman names. They're
Dr G 10:50 from a family, yeah.
Dr Rad 10:52 All right. Dr, G, are you ready for some drama? I am ready. Okay, so as we've noted, it's an oil patrician lineup. And Livy s obviously very into this, because he does actually detail exactly how many times these guys have held the position before, etc, etc. So he wants you to know these guys are elite now. They do not do anything particularly significant at they itself. The siege continues. Well, there's a surprise, yeah, there's just some minor pillaging that goes on, you know, just to keep them on their toes. However, it's time to take out the legs from this campaign. And by that, I mean, you've got to get rid of those pesky allies that keep trying to pin Rome between they and themselves, it's time to take out the Falerii once and for all, exactly, and also, the Capenates hate those guys absolutely. So Potitus is the one who is picked to go against the Falerii the people of Falerii and Camillus is sent against the Capenates. Now I said that dramatically, because Camillus is a figure of note in Roman history. He is now against these enemies. They were able to capture lots and lots of booty, and then they destroyed anything that they didn't take.
Dr G 12:20 Oh, okay, wow. Okay, yep.
Dr Rad 12:23 Annoyingly, this also was a year where there were lots of portents that were being reported. Dr, G, ah, yes. Now, at first, when they started being reported, it was just one person who saw something weird, and people were like, Hmm, maybe Bob's gone crazy.
Dr G 12:41 What are you been drinking? Bob, yeah,
Dr Rad 12:43 I don't think I believe you, but as time went on and more and more were being reported, it started to become concerning, especially because this war with they meant Rome was plung out of Etruscan soothsayers.
Dr G 13:00 Oh, no. I hate it when that happens. But then
Dr Rad 13:04 there was a portent that lots of people saw, and it got everyone really freaked out. Are you ready to hear? What kind of twisted thing would make them think that the world was about to end? I
Dr G 13:16 am interested to hear, particularly since I have some source material this year, so I'm wondering the extent to which our sources are going to agree or disagree on the fantastic things you're about to tell me, look,
Dr Rad 13:27 it's a pretty big deal, so I think they are going to line up, but nonetheless, strap yourself in, just in case. Don't you falling off that chair the lake in the Alban woods, even though there had been no rain or any other sort of water source, suddenly got higher. Yep, there was more water in it, and nobody knew how.
Dr G 13:50 Oh, that's weird.
Dr Rad 13:53 It was really, I know they were like, where's the magician? How did they do that? They can't explain it. And so they decide to send off representatives to the Delphic Oracle. That is a long way from home, it is, and this is where all our legates and ambassadors come in, yeah, however, road trip, yeah, exactly. Let's get this elite band on the road show some people what we've got. However, whilst they're off checking out the Delphic Oracle, as you say, it's not close. So it's happened that an old man of they just wandered out and chipped in his two cents about what this all meant. Now, apparently this was possible, because obviously the Siege has been going on for a number of years. At this point in time, and between the two warring armies, when they weren't trading insults and having staring contests with each other, they were apparently chatting sometimes.
Dr G 14:54 Oh well, yeah, fair enough. I mean, a siege is a siege. You gotta get bored like bro. What's happening on your. A third of the world. Yeah.
Dr Rad 15:01 Now I imagine that the way he said this, he didn't just wander out and sort of casually throw it out there, like, oh, you worried about the lake. Here's what it means. I think it was very much like the scene in the Harry Potter movies where Emma Thompson's Professor character, the one who's like the divination teacher, goes all weird, and, like, goes into a trance, and very clearly, is speaking for somebody else, like on behalf of somebody else, yeah, because I'm saying this, because Livy says he said it in a prophetic strain. Oh, okay, so I'm imagining something quite dramatic.
Dr G 15:38 Yeah, everyone's like, wait a minute, that guy's doing prophecy. Yeah, now,
Dr Rad 15:41 see it gets even more dramatic than more water, where no more water should be. What he says is that the Romans would never be able to capture they, whilst the water level remained high, once the water had been drawn off, that was their moment to seize. They once and for all. How strange I know the Romans were like, Yeah, okay, old dude, clearly you're just trying to psych us out and make us like, even more worried about the lake getting higher. Mysteriously, lies, lies, I say exactly however. They can't help but keep talking about it amongst themselves. It's quite the topic of hot gossip. Dr, G, well, I
Dr G 16:26 mean, they've just had a really weird experience with like, strange weather events and their first lexternium, all of this sort of stuff. So maybe they're in they're in the mood for thinking about, well, what if, yeah.
Dr Rad 16:42 So the Romans started to just like, chat to some of the locals and ask, like, so who was that guy who, like, made that random comment that we're not thinking about at all. And this, again, just shows how the theaters lasted so long that the Romans and the people they're totally talking to each other, the Romans discover by talking to the locals that the guy was a genuine, legit soothsayer.
Dr G 17:10 No regular party tricks, but like No, no fundamentally trained in the arts of divination, exactly, trust and style, totally,
Dr Rad 17:18 totally legit. Could not be more above board. So the Roman who'd taken it upon himself, this random Roman guy to chat to the locals, asked if the old guy would come and meet with him, because he's super, super concerned about this portent. So the Roman, apparently, is quite the charmer. He manages to put the old man at ease when he comes to the meeting. And he also very subtly, starts just walking him away from any of his own folk, walking him well away from his own group. Uh oh. He also made sure that he had no weapons on him when this happened, like the old man had no weapons, and then in plain sight of everyone, he abducts him. I know
Dr G 18:11 people on the walls are vaping like, hey, yeah.
Dr Rad 18:15 Now this is interesting, because apparently not all the sources that tell this story make it an old man and like a younger Roman soldier. And it might have been something that was added to sort of foreshadow that Veii was old and faltering and Rome was young and hot fresh.
Dr G 18:33 Well, look, I mean, it sounds like a reasonable way to approach it. There are some differences, definitely between the account that you've just provided from Livy, oh,
Dr Rad 18:43 and it's not over yet,
Dr G 18:45 and the source material that I have prepared.
Dr Rad 18:47 Okay, which is good. This is good, all right. Now, crazily, the Etruscans cause a huge fuss about this, this kidnap in broad daylight, but the rumors are like, yeah, no, sorry. It doesn't really matter how much you jump up and down. We're keeping him. We like him. He's ours now. Exactly he's ours now. So they take the old guy to the general, and the general says, What am I going to do with this guy? Send him to the Senate. So he goes off to Rome itself, and the Senate interrogate him intently. They get out the spotlight. They put him in a dark room. They all crowd around him menacingly. There's a bad cop, good cop, exactly, slapping him around. And they're like, tell us about the Alban Lake prophecy. Tell us more. The Old Man points out that the gods must have been angry at the people of they to have sent him such a message at such a time, so that the Romans obviously overheard the key to defeating their enemy. I mean, it seems a bit crazy, because it's telling them exactly what they need to do in order to defeat they they just need to drain the lake. Somehow,
Dr G 19:50 it does seem a bit strange, doesn't it? Yeah.
Dr Rad 19:54 Now, apparently there was actually a record of this on the Etruscan side of things, so it was written down. Somewhere in Etruscan law. So I guess something like their version of the sibylline books that when the Alban water overflowed, if the Romans could draw it off, they would indeed defeat they but the gods would be by their side until that exact moment the old man then, apparently said, Oh, you're worried about draining it. Well, this is how you drain it. It's being very helpful. Wait
Dr G 20:27 a minute,
Dr Rad 20:28 I know inside of his own abduction, he's super, super helpful.
Dr G 20:33 Yeah, look, I mean, I suppose he has been tortured because he's now giving up everything he
Dr Rad 20:37 really is. So the senators are like, Really, okay, but they're not sure if they can trust him, because, after all, he is from the enemy, and it's super weird that he's telling them everything with seemingly very little pressure. So they decide that they want to wait and hear what the Delphic Oracle says, because, of course, they've got their ambassadors of checking that out. All right, okay. Now, unfortunately, the Group of Ambassadors must have been having a fabulous time, because they did not return very quickly. Well,
Dr G 21:10 I mean, it's not close. Delphi is not near Italy, really. I mean, think about, how are they going to get there? They either have to go over the Apennines and then they've got to take a ship, and then they've got to cut across some land, and then they've got to get to Delphi, and then they've got to do the whole trip in reverse, or they sail around. They go in the opposite direction. In Italy, they head towards Ostia, and then they sail all the way around the foot, all the way around and across to Greece, to Delphi and then all the way back. This is not, it's not a pleasure jaunt that's going to take, you know, a couple of weeks. It's going to take a while.
Dr Rad 21:49 Excuses, excuses, Dr G, but because they're not back in time, it means that they can't actually drain the Alvin lake in this year, and therefore they just have to hold on a little bit longer, hold on for one more day,
Dr G 22:04 looking at the lake being like, Excuse me, still high. Yeah. Problems.
Dr Rad 22:10 Now this is all very confusing, because the final thing I'm going to just mention is that I don't understand what the Alban lake would have to do with they because it's nowhere near they it's in completely the other direction. Excuse me, yeah, it's not near ve at all. And so it's really strange that this is mentioned in connection with this story. And even stranger, dr, G, I have archeological proof that something did go down with the Alban Lake.
Dr G 22:41 Oh, yes, likewise, yeah, there are some odd things with the Alban lake. So would now be a good time to mention some different source material into these.
Dr Rad 22:53 Feel free.
Dr G 22:54 Hmm, well, well, well, I have a few sources. Dionysus of Halicarnassus is first. Then we've got a bit from Plutarch, and then we also have a bit from Cicero. My
Dr Rad 23:07 goodness, diversity,
Dr G 23:09 you know, find my sources where I can Dionysus of Halicarnassus being back is great, to be honest. And I enjoy the fact that that this is one of these moments where there's an A new parallel to be drawn with Livy and some distinctions to be made. So he opens this situation talking about the rising of the Dog Star. So this is Sirius, the brightest star in the in the sky, and talks about how that period of the rising of the Dog Star is related to a whole bunch of water events where lakes tend to fail and rivers tend to dry up, but the Nile, as an exception, has its inundation. So he sets up this whole sort of like water and the time of the stars. And then he talks about the Alban mount. Now, the Alban mount and the associated lake are in that Castelli Romani region to the south east of Rome, and really importantly, tie into the foundation story of Rome. So it is weird that we have this coming out in an Etruscan soothsaying situation, because it doesn't tend to have a traditional association with the Etruscans, at least as far as we're aware. Nevertheless, we're talking about a similar region, like they and Rome are very close to each other. This is true, and while Rome would be on the way to the album mount. If you were from ve it's still not that far, really. So they're in the same region, essentially. One of the odd things that Dionysius tells us is that there had not been rain or snowstorms that could account for what happens with the lake. Which is weird, because previously, in the last year that just passed, we did have the unprecedented almost seven foot snowstorm in Rome. And I'm like, Are you sure you didn't have any snow recently? Because I might explain it. I feel like you guys just talked about, like, the most outlandish and unheard of before or after snowstorm in Rome's history.
Dr Rad 25:26 They have every right to be freaked out by this mysterious water that came from nowhere.
Dr G 25:30 Where did the water come from? I'm so confused. It's not
Dr Rad 25:34 like we just had all this snow and then a really, really hot summer that melted it all. No
Dr G 25:38 idea. I'm perplexed, a mystery. I am purplex The gods. And the other thing to keep in mind about the Alban mount is it is a volcanic lake, so it's, Oh, I did not know that, yeah. So it may be fed by some spring systems, but the rock itself underneath it is going to be pretty porous. So you're not expecting the lake to ever rise a lot, it would have it would take an all enormous amount of water to raise the lake
Dr Rad 26:06 so scary. Dr, G, yeah,
Dr G 26:09 because it's constantly sort of like slowly dissipating out through the mountain and down out into other regions. And that's what makes the water so delicious, and it's what makes it so good for growing grapes and things like that. The wine from that region is really well known. So all of these things, you're like, Okay, well, it is weird that the lake has raised so significantly, although within the context of a snowstorm, maybe not so much, but leaving those
Dr Rad 26:37 crucial leave your logic at the door, please. I
Dr G 26:40 feel like Dionysius didn't read back his previous draft. He just kept going forward. He sits down for a new day, and he's like to to whoever he's dictating this to, because we don't think he put pen to paper himself. You know. He's not like, you know, just give me the heads up on what just happened. And he's like, nope, starting fresh. All right, so 398, there has been no snow. Anyway. This whole situation with the lake is so significant because it floods. So it raises above all of its conceivable threshold limits, and it starts to flood places, and the water runs down out of the Alban mount into the surrounding plains. Now this is a problem for Rome, because Rome is in the surrounding plains. Yeah, disaster. Also. There's plenty of other towns along the way. So that's a problem for everybody.
Dr Rad 27:34 You know. You think they just say that, you know that it flooded. It flooded, yeah? Rather than saying, Oh, my God, there's so much water,
Dr G 27:44 where will it go? It goes out of the lake and down the mountain, that's where it goes, that pallet makes sense to me. So I think it's interesting that Livy didn't sort of tap into that what seems to be like a key piece of like, just knowledge about how water might work. But anyway, it's not his thing. So the Romans in general think that the gods might be mad at them fair enough, and it's time to do some ritual propitiation of the gods in order to make things okay. And ask local bankers
Dr Rad 28:17 banquet, was it enough? They even had catches? Yeah, look,
Dr G 28:20 The lectisternium is over, guys, we can't do another one of those just yet. Who would we invite
Dr Rad 28:27 these guards?
Dr G 28:29 So the local soothsayers apparently didn't have a good answer on this situation, and this is what led to sending a delegation to the Delphic Oracle. Like you can't get an answer, you need an answer. It's time to visit Delphi anyway. That's a long trip. So fair enough. But in the meantime, over in Fay, it turns out that one of the inhabitants of Veii
Dr Rad 29:00 is a man
Dr G 29:03 no is a holder of the knowledge of augural science.
Dr Rad 29:09 Birds, again,
Dr G 29:12 who the knowledge of which has been inherited from his ancestors. And the Etruscans are famous for their augury. So this is one of their ways of doing divination that that is really nice. And it turns out that if you've been in a siege for about five or six years, maybe you've struck up some acquaintances and friendships on either side of the wall. And this guy from they has ended up being mates with one of the Roman centurions, nameless, sadly, naturally, who knows some guy anyway? These two dudes, they get together every so often, have a bit of a chat. You know, they see each other wave from like, you know, down on the ground, from up on the wall, mate, let's go.
Dr Rad 29:58 I'm not gonna kill you today.
Dr G 29:59 No. You starving yet? Why you're looking good. Consider you got no food, all that sort of stuff. And apparently, on one of these days, this guy from ve remarks that he pities the Roman Centurion because of the calamity that is going to befall him and everybody, if the city is captured,
Dr Rad 30:19 wait, if Veii is captured, or if Rome is captured, it must be a captured, right?
Dr G 30:24 Oh no, the centurion, sorry. Oh, right, sorry, yes, yes, not the guy from me, the centurions, like, look, I'm, you know, sorry for you guys. You know it's gonna end badly. We're gonna capture the city. It's gonna be a disaster. Yeah,
Dr Rad 30:35 you already so we did to your allies. It wasn't pleasant. Sorry
Dr G 30:39 about that. Yeah, and then the Etruscan guy says, Well, you know, that's interesting that you say that because you're actually quite ignorant of what is going to happen in this situation. Because, you know, we're in this endless war, fruitless toil, and you think you're going to overthrow the city of Veii, and it seems like you don't understand that there is a whole prophecy related to this. So nobody told you about the kind of
Dr Rad 31:13 reading your sibling books.
Dr G 31:15 So as an atratuscan, what I can tell you is you don't know the prophecy, and it's fated that they will be captured only when and only if the lake beside the album mount is lacking in its natural springs and is no longer able to mingle its waters with the sea.
Dr Rad 31:35 Hmm. Okay, that's a bit more specific than mine. Yeah.
Dr G 31:39 So the idea that the lake actually feeds into a whole bunch of sort of tributary systems and eventually leads into the sea, which, you know, sounds pretty reasonable geographically. And I think the guy from Veii is feeling really confident as well being like, well, obviously, you know, you're never going to be able to cut off a lake and a river system from the sea. That's just not how things work. Boy, has this guy underestimated the Romans
Dr Rad 32:10 and their determination to beat them?
Dr G 32:13 So the Roman centurion is kind of like, this sounds serious, but it does sound like we've got, like, a way out here as well. And he tells the tribunes that he's got a bit of a plan, and he's wondering if he can move forward with it. And they're kind of like, well, sure. I mean, I guess. I mean, let's see what happens. It can't be any worse than anything else we've been trying recently. So the Roman centurian is like, the next day to the guy from Veii, like, let's have a chat, man to man, mano e mano, let's do this thing. And the guy from Veii's like, sure, you know, we can have a more fulsome chat about prodigies and things like that. That's fine. And as they're going for a bit of a walk away from the walls, it's at that moment that the Centurion grabs the guy from Veii around the waist picks him up and runs away with him abduction and carries him off to the Roman camp, to the surprise of perhaps the guy from Veii, but not to the military tribunes who approved this plan ahead of Time, of course. So the tribunes, they use arguments. They threaten to torture this guy.
Dr Rad 33:25 Oh, okay, so in my account, it seems like he just gave everything up very easily. No,
Dr G 33:31 he doesn't give things up very easily. They eventually send this guy to the Senate, because he doesn't seem to be giving them any more fulsome detail. And he kind of just sort of states the same thing over to the Senate as well. Some of the Senate appear to think that this guy must be a bit of a huckster, a charlatan, somebody who's just lying through their teeth to try and get the Romans worried. And others are kind of like, seems legit, you know, gotta? You gotta listen to the soothsayers. You wouldn't want to dismiss somebody who's got augural science in their background, would you so got the birds only sad? Yeah, the birds are with him. So it's in this moment when we have the guy from Vay in front of the Senate and they're disagreeing about whether they believe him or not, that the ambassadors that had been sent to Delphi earlier return, just in the nick of time. Oh, okay, yeah. So we've got this moment of the coming together of the guy from Veii, who is telling this story about the urban Lake and how, you know, if it's cut off from the sea, that means Rome will win. That's when they will fall. That's when it's foretold, and that's the only time that it could happen. But now the guys from Delphi are back, and they're like, Oh, well, this is interesting, because it turns out that the Delphic Oracle agrees with this an Etruscan prophecy. That's what she's told us as well. That's what she said they're like, ah. So this then sets in motion a whole train of action. There's a sense in which that Dionysius, at this point, starts to talk about the gods and the genii of the city of they and the genii are this personification of divine force that is supposed to live in every person. So the idea that there is, there are gods of a place, and Genii sort of embedded in the people that also reflect the place, seems to be this sort of thing. And the idea that the good fortune of the city is really held in place by the gods and the corresponding genii, and this is where the Romans decide that it might be time to test out this prophecy by taking some action. That's
Dr Rad 36:03 interesting, actually, because one of the academics I was reading about this passage mentioned that the idea of the gods deserting they and therefore that being the moment when the city finally falls is meant to once again, be really matching up with the narrative of the Trojan War and the gods deserting Troy. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Very
Dr G 36:29 interesting. Yeah. So this idea that the character and strength of a is somehow tied to the divinities, but is also tied into prophecy and somehow connected to this Alban Lake specifically. So there is a sense of location involved as well, and that, yeah, the fate of the city is in the balance in this moment. So the Romans come up with what I think is a very quintessential Roman problem solving for a prophecy like this. Let
Dr Rad 37:08 me guess it involves construction. We're gonna
Dr G 37:11 dig some channels, guys. Let us divert the water that flows out of the Alban Lake and make sure that it no longer runs into the sea. That's how we're going to win this war.
Dr Rad 37:26 Smart, ARB,
Dr G 37:28 true. Smart, I did some Roman engineering. What I find fascinating about this whole tale is that, on the one hand, it sounds very much like the person from Veii is just trying to provide a distraction tactic and keep the Romans busy. Keep the Romans busy in the opposite direction.
Dr Rad 37:47 Yeah, exactly like suddenly the geography makes sense. You need to
Dr G 37:51 be looking over at the Alban Lake, guys. That's where the problem lies. Not I mean, we're going to be here until that problem is solved. So if you go over there and fix that and then come back here, and in the meantime, everybody in Veii is like, sort of laughing in the corner being like they fell for it.
Dr Rad 38:11 That's it'd be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that they actually will be defeated. Well,
Dr G 38:16 that that is the real problem for this narrative, I think, yeah, but they're not going to fall straight away. So in that sense, we've got a bit of a problem, because the Romans are now out doing various engineering works on the plains south of Rome, away from Veii to try and divert some water courses. And it's kind
Dr Rad 38:35 of wild to think that you can actually still see, presumably, this tunnel that Livy and Dionysius and everyone was talking about that it actually still exists. I have heard it mentioned as well in one of the sources I was looking at that maybe, rather than being a diversion, very cleverly devised by the people of a maybe it had something to do with hygiene. You know, if the Romans are worried about plague or dealing with pestilence, you know, given all the environmental things that have gone on, maybe it was something to do with improving, like water flow, water supply, hygiene, something like that in their area.
Dr G 39:18 I think there's reasonable grounds to assume that the locals in the area have done works around the lake in order to mitigate its potential for flooding like that would just make sense. Yes. So in order to it, because it's it functions a little bit like a dam, and if you need to let some runoff happen, and you've got the capacity to control that a little bit. That's preferable to letting it flood wherever it wants to and making it really, really difficult for people who live around that lake. Yeah. So controlling that environment, I think, is something that makes sense for the locals in the area, whether the Roman specific. Did it in connection to this prophecy? Is a whole other question. And one of the sources that I encountered for this that was considered to be modern scholarship, but it was, it did feel more like a 19th century Grand Tour journal. Was a guy who was like, I've just gone to try and find these tunnels related to this Alban lake. And boy, did I succeed. And I had to tie some rope around some olive trees and swing on over find out what's going on. I was like, This is hilarious and very interesting. So there's definitely engineering work that have that has been done that is related to the Alban Lake, for sure. The connection with this as early as this period on unclear, but the dating is Yeah. The dating might be Yeah. Well, definitely, there seems to be some grounds for this kind of idea. Now, whether you want to buy into this whole narrative, but Dionysius continues with more detail here as well, because it's not just that the Romans go about this engineering work. The people in Veii find out about the engineering work, and they become incredibly concerned that the prophecy is about to come true the wrong way. Yeah,
Dr Rad 41:17 it makes it sound less like a clever diversion on that part. Well,
Dr G 41:20 apparently they become really quite concerned, and they send one of their most senior soothsayers at that point to the Romans as an envoy, and
Dr Rad 41:32 he's like, we take it all back. We didn't mean it,
Dr G 41:35 not that they didn't mean it, but that they actually wished to end the war they wanted to, oh, my god, yeah. So they sent somebody really senior to the Romans to say, we would like to see an end to this siege. And, wow, we will give up. They and it's at that point that the Roman Senate votes against peace. Holy
Dr Rad 42:02 crap. I'm glad you can't see me right now. Dr, G, because my mind blown all over the walls.
Dr G 42:09 I'm sorry to hear it, because your brain is very special. The fact that it's everywhere now is it's a problem.
Dr Rad 42:17 We're gonna have to put that back together again. We'll deal with that later, after the audio,
Dr G 42:22 so yeah, the Senate votes against peace, which is a poor choice. I would say. You know, if people are willing to not fight and give up a place, ideally say yes, yeah,
Dr Rad 42:36 why would you want Is it because they really think that they have to do things according to the prophecy.
Dr G 42:42 Oh, they actually it's not at all clear. Dionysius doesn't give us like the rationale for why the Senate doesn't want peace, okay, but does record the reaction of the envoy who really digs into them and says, What kind of place are you that you will not accept the submission of a city like who do you think you are, that we think we're room, that when a city comes to you and says, we're going to lay down our arms and surrender, that you would rather destroy it root and branch like what kind of people are you in the face of the gods that you would make that kind of decision? I
Dr Rad 43:30 feel like this is building to a larger narrative that Dionysius might have in mind. It has something to do with something that happens to Rome after they managed to conquer they
Dr G 43:44 no spoilers. So that's Dionysius account of the situation, okay, and then we have plutarchs Life of Camillus. And obviously the focus is on Camillus, and so
Dr Rad 44:02 naturally he mentions the whole escapade against the Capenates. Yeah,
Dr G 44:06 Tribune for the second time, you know, for the present, he had nothing to do with the siege, because he was busy waging war with the Valerians. Oh, okay, and the capernatos. Oh, okay,
Dr Rad 44:21 there you go. And
Dr G 44:23 so he was a busy boy, not involved with the siege, but that's very exciting. But then Plutarch also shifts into talking about the calamity of the Alban Lake.
Dr Rad 44:33 Oh, wow. Everyone's very concerned about these water levels.
Dr G 44:37 This lake is considered to be an incredible prodigy. Yeah, tell me about it. No natural cause. Nobody knows where the water came from. It had been neither rainy nor nor had Rome been vexed with South winds,
Dr Rad 44:58 once again, overlooking this. Yeah,
Dr G 45:02 yeah. So the rivers had run low, so there could be no explanation at all for why the Alban Lake, on the other hand, was already somehow rising above its natural levels, swelling until it reached the skirts of the mountain and gradually touching the highest ridges.
Dr Rad 45:24 Sounds pretty pervy. Yeah,
Dr G 45:27 it is those skirts. They're rising. Oh, yeah. This was considered a prodigy already, apparently, by the local shepherds and herdsmen. They had looked at the lake. They saw it first. They're like, This is bad. The gods are involved, and then the waters break, and Plutarch describes this massive torrent coming down out of the mountain all of a sudden and flooding everything in its path, ruining the vineyards for which this mountainous area is so famous for, and heading all the way to the sea, which, if you're in the urban mount, you can't see the sea in the distance. So, I mean, it's the least within, you know, a reasonable visual range. And everyone's dismayed. Obviously, Rome's it's a problem for Rome and the inhabitants. It's a problem for everybody in the local area. It's all very low lying. Everyone in Rome, I imagine, is like running up to the tops of hills being like, Oh no. Then we get the similar sort of story about the soothsayer from Veii being on intimate and confidential terms with one of the Roman soldiers. Man
Dr Rad 46:35 three sources and still no names,
Dr G 46:39 no But similarly, the guy from Veii gets abducted by the soldier just they're just friends, just two men, one abducting the other one with a prophecy. It
Dr Rad 46:51 sounds like the kind of friendship you should probably expect during a siege, to be fair to the Romans.
Dr G 46:57 So in that sense, Plutarch is a pretty good parallel. It sounds it reads like Plutarch read Dionysius of halicanassus is one of his major sources. Oh, and Livy, no, but he doesn't have Livy s details. He has Dionysius. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Um, so I'm sorry he might have read Livy and decided that that one didn't really convince him quite as much
Dr Rad 47:21 as, Oh, someone's cooking now that she's got her sauce material back,
Dr G 47:27 my sauces are back, guys, finally, we can know the truth about robes
Dr Rad 47:31 history. Yeah, I told by the Greek
Dr G 47:35 an impartial source to be sure. Oh,
Dr Rad 47:39 dear. All right, well, I think that probably does that wrap us up for 398,
Dr G 47:43 yeah, mostly. So this does get a mention in Cicero's on divination as well,
Dr Rad 47:49 of course, on divination. Yes,
Dr G 47:53 he talks about this, not in terms of abduction of the soothsayer from Veii, but as a desertion, which might tie in quite nicely with Livy s version of events actually true. Yeah. So the idea that this guy from Veii gives up all of this detail so willingly,
Dr Rad 48:11 he's just like, Oh, please don't take me. Oh no, no, I'm on the other side. I have a prophecy that could really help you, and I have a prophecy that says that my city's gonna fall in a couple of years. Oh no, I know what. I got a room. Don't take me to the other side. That's gonna win. I'd hate for that to happen exactly with my people, exactly. I need to be here when everything really goes tits up.
Dr G 48:36 That gives a sense like Cicero is more leaning into the desertion aspect of this and how that might play out, and certainly also conveys this idea that perhaps the people of a are really just war tired at this point.
Dr Rad 48:52 Well, yeah, they haven't been able to get out, yeah, and
Dr G 48:55 they do, again, send an envoy to Rome, and they do seek peace at this point, and we don't see peace. So it's it's glossed over a little bit, and there's not as much detail about that in Cicero as we get in Dionysus of Halicarnassus. But certainly, this idea that Rome has a peace offer on the table, and they reject it does come through in a couple of different sources.
Dr Rad 49:23 Rome, Rome, you make it hard to root for you. Sometimes
Dr G 49:27 they certainly do. But yes, that is the end of my source material. All right.
Dr Rad 49:31 Well, Dr G, it's time to wrap up. 398, that means it's time for the partial pick. Woohoo. An Ow. Who, who? All right. Dr, G, tell us how the partial pick works.
Dr G 49:46 All right. We judge Rome by five categories. We like to think we judge them by their own standards, but really we judge them by a house completely
Dr Rad 49:56 arbitrary.
Dr G 49:58 They can win up to. 50 Golden Eagles under this system, and 10 are potentially on offer in each category. So our first category is military clout, okay,
Dr Rad 50:12 not really what I would call military clout. I mean, there's a little bit of action in my account. You know, with the military tribunes with concealer power, seems to go, okay, but it's nothing that spectacular.
Dr G 50:24 Yeah, I think we get Camillus, and that's about it, but
Dr Rad 50:30 and Potitus.Thank you very much.
Dr G 50:34 Could forget Potitus? I mean, I just did so I can't give points to somebody I forgot, even within the context of an episode we were talking about him, yeah. I mean, I feel like two, yeah, I'm not. I feel like I'm not in a good position to judge this one, because I
Dr Rad 50:50 feel like two, yeah, one for each of them, for Potitus and Camillus. Oh,
Dr G 50:55 all right. Two, it is our second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 50:59 Wow. Well, given your accounts, the Romans really fall on their face in this category.
Dr G 51:05 I think I would like to give them negative. I can't, so I'm gonna go with zero, because they hand diplomacy come to their doorstep and they said, No, thank you. We'd rather try to wipe you all out. And
Dr Rad 51:20 I also think the kidnapping is also kind of undiplomatic. Yes,
Dr G 51:24 that is undiplomatic, isn't it? And I don't think that sending envoys to Delphi necessarily counts as diplomacy. No,
Dr Rad 51:32 no, that's just for their own ends,
Dr G 51:36 indeed. So a solid zero there. Good job. Rome. Third category is expansion.
Dr Rad 51:43 No, again, it's just faffing about at this age.
Dr G 51:48 Yes, there's no territory gained nor lost. It would seem, trenches were dug, channels were made. Engineering happened.
Dr Rad 51:57 Says you, but yeah, oh, my account very specifically says nothing happens yet
Dr G 52:04 I see All right, so expansion is a zero, yeah, the fourth category is weirdos. No,
Dr Rad 52:11 oh, my god,
Dr G 52:13 Ro really falling on it.
Dr Rad 52:17 I know. I mean, there's some chat that's bad,
Dr G 52:20 is it weird to us to abduct somebody in broad daylight after you've led them away from a wall?
Dr Rad 52:26 Well, this is the thing. I think the Romans would like it, but I think they would think that's pretty manly, yeah, but the guy's nameless. I feel like they're not really taking him very seriously. If they don't at least bother to give us his name. Perhaps you are right. Yeah, I feel like if they really thought, oh my god, this is so cool, they would tell us at least what his name was, and also how weird was It was, yeah, exactly. It doesn't come across that way. It's very set up, like it's very sketchy in Livy S account, the way that he's like, Oh, hi, old man, you don't happen to have any weapons on you. Good, good. Let's just wander over here. Nothing suspicious, nothing to worry about. Look at
Dr G 53:09 it. Look at that bird.
Dr Rad 53:11 Yeah, and he's like, Well, it's kind of my thing. Thanks. Thanks for noticing Roman enemy.
Dr G 53:19 Okay, so is zero and weird, I
Dr Rad 53:20 think it has to be, yeah, okay.
Dr G 53:23 And the last category is the citizen score.
Dr Rad 53:28 Oh, I don't know how to feel about this one, because we don't really get much from the citizens. It can't be good if they're flooding and they have no plebeians in office, so that's bad, even though they apparently think it's good. Yeah, and the war is dragging on. I mean, it doesn't sound
Dr G 53:50 great, yeah. And who's digging those, those channels? Well,
Dr Rad 53:54 exactly. I don't believe that patricians are doing it.
Dr G 53:58 I don't think so. I'd be very surprised. I would be too Oh
Dr Rad 54:03 no. Dr, G, that means Rome has managed to scrounge together two gold
Dr G 54:11 Oh no.
Dr Rad 54:12 I mean, you think it would be good news actually, because they've got this prophecy that's kind of in their favor, but it's just not in their favor yet. I
Dr G 54:21 see, yeah, well, it's tough times out there. Oh, that is rough. Well, I wish that your lakes rise only as much as you desire them to, and that there are no prophecies attached to them. In any case, actually,
Dr Rad 54:35 ironically, I am currently living in an apartment that floods whenever we get the tiniest bit of rain, and we are actually about to have it dug up and relayed so that basically, rain is better. I'm living this year, right? My life is you
Dr G 54:52 don't need to time travel. You're there. I
Dr Rad 54:54 am, and like the Romans, whenever it rains, I'm surprised. Said, I'm like, Oh, the levels are rising. Why? Why did the God take me? So
Dr G 55:06 what you really need is a prophecy.
Dr Rad 55:09 I really do. It would be a lot cheaper than what I'm going for.
Dr G 55:13 Well, a pleasure as Oh, indeed. Oh,
Dr Rad 55:16 music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buy us a coffee on kofi. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say survey to J9niners, Joe, Nigel, Scott and Kent some of our recent Patreon and Kofi supporters. Thank you so much for joining our partial band. However, if you're feeling decidedly like a downtrodden pleb, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review and a quick reminder at the time that this episode is released, you will be able to pick yourself up a copy of our new book, Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire, at your local bookstore or on Amazon, Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome, you
Special Episode - Gods and Mortals with Liv Albert
14 nov. 2024
00:56:01
We love it when we get to chat with some of our podcast friends, and this week we got to catch up with the hilarious Liv Albert from ‘Let's talk about myths, baby!' to talk about relationships between gods and mortals.
Please be warned, this episode does contain references to sexual assault.
Special Episode – Gods and Mortals with Liv Albert
The lovely Liv Albert herself!
When we get together with Liv, we pick a theme and compare the Roman and Greek myths on the topic. This episode, we decided to compare what each civilisation had to say about gods and mortals get involved with each other.
We found some interesting points of divergence as we delved into the tales of Rhea Silvia and Mars, Servius Tullius and Fortuna, and Aphrodite and Anchises.
Join us for this mini-myth conversation!
Things to Look Out For:
Mars Bar controversy
The debut of ‘The Trojan Connection'
Roman studio executives planning to reboot Aeneas' myth
Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire with Ulysses Press
08 nov. 2024
00:24:37
We sit down with Casie Vogel, VP Publisher at Ulysses Press to talk about the process of bringing an ancient Roman history book into the world and some of the cheeky details about the past that Casie learnt along the way.
To celebrate the publication of ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire' this special episode is even in video form!
https://videopress.com/v/Pni4vXoO?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&posterUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fpartialhistorians.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F11%2Fyour-cheeky-guide-interview-with-casie-vogel_mp4_hd.original.jpg&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=trueYou can also find this video over on our YouTube channel if that's easier for you.
Join us as we talk about books, publishing, and ancient Rome (of course)!
Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire is out now! We hope you love it as much as we enjoyed writing it. Have a chat to your local independent bookstore about getting a copy or two in or let your library know that you'd love them to keep a copy in their collection.
Libraries are a bastion of hope and a refuge for so many and surely a joy-filled exploration of Rome is just the ticket!
The header image includes the highly detailed, but very idealised imagining of ancient Rome at its height by Thomas Cole. This painting dates to 1836 and is part of the series The Course of Empire. This painting in particular is entitled The Consummation. There are vibrant crowds of people on a bridge crossing the Tiber surrounded by white buildings with hints of gold everywhere.
The Final Cheeky Preview - Last Man Standing: Masada
04 nov. 2024
00:28:02
We are thrilled to release the final cheeky preview from our new book, Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire. The final chapter from our ‘With a Rebel Yell' bonus material is entitled ‘Last Man Standing: Masada'. This bonus episode is coming out on the very same day that our book officially hits the shelves. Huzzah!
The Final Cheeky Preview – Last Man Standing: Masada
We hope you enjoy listening to the fascinating tale of the final stand in the First Jewish Revolt (or Great Jewish Revolt). The literary and archaeological sources for this event pose just as many questions as they answer!
Want to hear about our other favourite rebels? Check out the chapters on Spartacus and Zenobia!
And of course, if you enjoy this chapter, you might like to grab yourself a copy of the book! It is available on Amazon, or ask at your local independent bookstore.
It’s happening – the Romans enter the fourth century! In this episode, we compare and contrast the ancient source accounts for the year that was 399 BCE. Rome and Veii are still locked in a siege, with Roman forces outside the gates of the most preeminent Etruscan city to the south. Combined with the this situation is the suggestion that one (or more) plebeians have recently made it into the position of military tribune with consular power – no small feat given this is the most senior magistracy in Rome during the year that people are elected into it.
Episode 155 – A Feast for the Gods!
Siege got you down? Experiencing some baleful weather? What’s a Roman to do?
It’s fair to say that Rome’s been copping a rough time recently. From strange and unprecedented weather conditions to the ongoing challenges of trying to run a multi-year siege when you have a system of annual magistrates, Rome is in a tough spot. It’s moments like these that a consultation with the Sibylline Books is in order…
Things to listen out for
Who are the duumvirs?
What is the lectisternium and why do the Romans want one?
A hot Roman summer
A huge snowstorm
A little bit of the regional history of some of the gods: Apollo and Latona
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi puts in an early appearance as the writer of the Annales
Veii might not be friendless after all!
Our PlayersMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Gnaeus Genucius M. f. M. n. Augurinus
Lucius Atilius L. f. L. n. Priscus
Marcus Pomponius L. f. L. n. Rufus
Gnaeus/Gaius Duillius K. f. K. n. Longus
Marcus Veturius Ti. f. Sp. n. Crassus Cicurinus (Pat)
Volero Publilius P. f. Voler. N. Philo
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy 5.13
Dr G reads the Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 12.7-9; Diodorus Siculus 14.54.1-4; Fasti Capitolini
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Elvers, K. (., Eck, W. (., Kierdorf, W. (., Walde, C. (., & Fey-Wickert, B. (. (2006). Calpurnius. In Brill's New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e225050
Graf, F. (. O., & Ley, A. (. (2006). Apollo. In Brill's New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e128090
Maharam, W. (. (2006). Latona. In Brill's New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e632510
Mommsen, T. 1894-1908. Römische Geschichte Münzer, F. ‘Licinius 43’ in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Phillips, C. R. I. (. P. (2006). Neptunus. In Brill's New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e820340
Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley).
Siebert, A. V. (. (2006). Lectisternium. In Brill's New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e633370
Smith, C. 2019. ‘Furius Camillus and Veii’, in Taboli, J., Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 219-224.
Sound Credits
Our music is by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Sounds and Orange Free Sound.
The Apollo of Veii is thought to date to around 500 BCE so about a century prior to the action that takes place in this episode. This fabulous sculpture is held by the Museo Nazionale Etrusco.
Automated Transcript
Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to The Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad.
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to a brand new episode of The Partial Historians, I am one of your hosts. Dr Rad.
Dr G 1:04 And I am Dr G, welcome.
Dr Rad 1:08 Dr G, I feel like listeners will have no idea how hard we have fought to get to our microphones today.
Dr G 1:15 Oh, dear listeners, we've been experiencing some audio issues.
Dr Rad 1:20 We still are experienced.
Dr G 1:23 Suffice it to say that we are podcasting in separate rooms of the same house
Dr Rad 1:28 and I am standing, which is very strange.
Dr G 1:31 Think of the vocal projection
Dr Rad 1:34 And I can't hear myself. So this is going to be really interesting.
Dr G 1:37 So we have been tracing Rome's history from the founding of the city and it this is a very exciting episode for us, because we officially tip into the fourth century BCE.
Dr Rad 1:54 That we do. And to do a quick recap of where we were in 400 BCE, the tipping point, if you will. The main thing that we were excited about was the fact that there was a plebeian elected to the supreme magistracies of Rome, the military tribune with consular power.
Dr G 2:15 Such a breakthrough. And I think, if I recall rightly, and maybe I don't, there was more than one,
Dr Rad 2:20 No, you are 100% wrong on that.
Dr G 2:25 Well, there you go, folks, even historians don't remember things properly. That's why it's always good to check your sources.
Dr Rad 2:30 Yes, but yes, we had one who was elected, and everyone was like, this isn't too bad the world didn't collapse on itself. And the other thing, I think to note, in terms of background, we've been talking about this for a few episodes, actually, but I feel it will be relevant to my narrative. Today, Rome is at war with Veii, an Etruscan city to the north.
Dr G 2:52 Yeah, this has been happening for a little while now, and we must be, you know, a good ways into what is going to be this 10 year siege.
Dr Rad 3:00 Yes, we're getting ever closer. Dr G, to the end of the siege.
Dr G 3:04 Edging towards the end of the siege.
Dr Rad 3:06 Yeah. So that's a recap. If you want a more detailed one, we actually just did a massive episode where we were kept the entire fifth century.
Dr G 3:13 Yeah, check it out.
Dr Rad 3:14 Yeah. But otherwise, I'm ready. Dr G, let's go into 399 BCE.
Dr G 3:42 It's 399 BCE.
Dr Rad 3:46 How's your source material looking, Dr. G?
Dr G 3:48 Oh, I have source material.
Dr Rad 3:50 Really?!
Dr G 3:50 I'm so excited.
Dr Rad 3:52 Okay, well, you know what? Just in case it's not as good as you think, I'm gonna let you do the magistracies, because I feel like that's just become your thing.
Dr G 4:01 Now, that's a little bit of an ouch from the old Livy lover over here.
Dr Rad 4:05 Nothing against you personally. It's just Dionysius has been gone for a while now,
Dr G 4:10 I know, but we'll get to that in a moment. Okay, so we start the year with military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 4:18 We do
Dr G 4:19 Super important. And there is six of them, and I hate to break it to you, I did just go back and do a quick relook at 400 and at least from my sources perspective, there was more than one plebeian as military tribune with consular power in 400 now we could be quibbling about names, but definitely this year, we seem to have a whole spate of plebeians in the role.
Dr Rad 4:46 Well, way to go and spoil my fun. Dr, G, I was going to surprise you with the fact that Livy tells me explicitly that there is only one patrician elected to be military tribune with consular power in this year.
Dr G 5:02 Oh yeah, the old Marcus Veturius Crassus Cicurinus.
Dr Rad 5:07 Yeah, that guy yeah.
Dr G 5:09 Or Cicurinus, that's the one that guy, he's gonna stand up. So this guy, this one, sole patrician this year, is surrounded by a whole bunch of really interesting, different folk who do not seem to have patrician names. So we've got, first of all, Gnaeus Genucius Augurinus. We have Lucius Atilius Priscus. Both of these guys, first time in the role. Not a surprise when you're not a patrician.
Dr Rad 5:09 Yeah, I could have told you that
Dr G 5:16 Marcus Pomponius Rufus, doesn't seem to be a patrician either.
Dr Rad 5:43 No
Dr G 5:44 Gnaeus or Gaius – there seems to be some dispute about the praenomen with this guy – Duilius Longus.
Dr Rad 5:52 I feel like I've heard that family name before.
Dr G 5:55 Duilius?
Dr Rad 5:56 Plebian though it may be.
Dr G 5:58 Yeah, I think it has come up. It rolls off the tongue nicely, which means I must have pronounced it before.
Dr Rad 6:03 Exactly.
Dr G 6:04 And finally, we have Valero Publius Philo.
Dr Rad 6:08 Okay.
Dr G 6:09 So all of these guys, all five of these non patrician military tribunes, first time in the role, fresh cabs off the rank. I think we're in that point where, in terms of the siege of Veiii, people are looking for new strategies and innovation.
Dr Rad 6:23 Look possibly. But I find it kind of amusing that, according to Livy, at least, it has taken several decades to get to the point where people finally felt comfortable enough to elect a plebeian to be military tribune with consular power. And now that they've had one year with one guy, they're like, we're all in. Let's make it plebeian all the time. Turns out they're great, yeah, exactly. I find that quite hilarious.
Dr G 6:50 They just had to try it.
Dr Rad 6:52 Yeah, exactly. Now they're like, oh my god.
Dr G 6:54 It's really opened a door for them. Now they're getting experimental.
Dr Rad 6:57 Exactly, yeah, all right. So apart from the fact that we have so many plebeians in office, the first thing that Livy tells me about 399 is that there had been a terrible winter the year before, which, I think I did mention, and now in 399 it's an incredibly hot summer.
Dr G 7:16 Ooh,
Unknown Speaker 7:16 Yes..
Dr G 7:17 Oh, a hot Roman summer.
Dr Rad 7:18 That's right. I actually quite like the translation, so I'm going to read it out to you. It is noxious and baleful to all living creatures.
Dr G 7:25 Oh, god.
Dr Rad 7:27 Doesn't sound great.
Dr G 7:28 Oh, look. I mean, I was in Rome last year and it was pretty hot. It was a six week heat wave. So maybe they had one of those.
Dr Rad 7:36 I feel like they did so naturally, if you have a terrible winter and then a really awful summer, it gets you wondering. Dr, G, have I offended the gods?
Dr G 7:49 Is climate change on the horizon?
Dr Rad 7:51 Exactly. What have we been doing? You know, I mean, Rome does become a industrial powerhouse, but I feel like we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves with that one. It's probably more likely that they've offended the gods.
Dr G 8:00 Yeah, our chances are.
Dr Rad 8:02 Yeah. So as a result, they're looking around. They're going, what did we do? I can't figure it out. And so they turn to their old trusty fail safe, the Sibylline Books.
Dr G 8:16 Yeah, okay, so the Sibylline Books, just to sort of recap a little bit on that we think that they turned up in Rome in the time of the kings and were sadly mostly destroyed through hubris. And the few books that are remaining are now safely guarded and taken care of and consulted in times of trouble. Now you could also go and see the Sibylline oracle directly. But there's also the books.
Dr Rad 8:44 Exactly they decide to go for the books, easier option.
Dr G 8:48 Yeah, you never know if she's gonna be available.
Dr Rad 8:50 Exactly. Now, we have actually mentioned this before. It seems like there are some guys who are kind of in charge of the books, or stuff relating to the books called the duumvirs. They've come up before, I believe. Now, those of you who studied places like Pompeii will know that a duumvir is the head magistracies in like, a smaller town like Pompeii, but in this case, we're not really talking about that exactly. ‘Duumvir' just literally means like the two men.
Dr G 9:22 Yeah, the two men who are looking after those books.
Dr Rad 9:25 Exactly. So they decide that what they need to do is hold a new religious ceremony. Now I'm building up to this because I'm not entirely confident that my tongue is going to get around it the lectisternium.
Dr G 9:43 Oh, yes. Oh, look, you and I, our sources are in sync in some respects.
Dr Rad 9:47 Okay, so apparently it's the first one that was ever held in Rome, and it goes for eight days, and there are sacrifices to Apollo, Latona, Diana, Hercules, Mercury and Neptune. Now, listeners might be wondering, well, what is involved in this? Exactly? Apparently, the name comes from the idea that there are couches involved and food spread out for the gods, because, essentially, the Romans put out some couches, put down some images of the gods on those couches, and spread out a nice little banquet for them.
Dr G 10:30 A delicious divine feast.
Dr Rad 10:32 Exactly, exactly they are invited to partake in this sacrificial feast. Basically, we think it comes from Greek origins. The Romans being influenced by the Greeks because they have something kind of similar. I think the Greek versions are called the theoxenia, which is again basically a banquet for the gods, with their images spread out on couches and stuff.
Dr G 11:03 It's a delightful image. And I wonder if this might be a good time to take you a little bit through what I have of Dionysus of Halicarnassus, because framing up the context for this whole situation, I think is really important.
Dr Rad 11:19 Yeah. No, please tell me.
Dr G 11:21 So Dionysus of Halicarnassus does not agree with Livy.
Dr Rad 11:24 Oh okay, fine,
Dr G 11:25 Sadly
Dr Rad 11:27 But you just said we were in sync.
Dr G 11:28 Well, in the sense that we've got severe weather on the cards
Dr Rad 11:31 Ah okay
Dr G 11:32 but we have very different types of severe weather being put forward.
Dr Rad 11:37 Let me guess it was a great winter and then an even better summer.
Dr G 11:42 It was a very severe snowstorm.
Dr Rad 11:46 Okay
Dr G 11:47 And the snow apparently was higher than seven Roman feet. So we're talking like an epic snowfall.
Dr Rad 11:57 Yeah, you'd be trapped in your house with that
Dr G 11:59 Oh, not only that, your house would collapse.
Dr Rad 12:02 That's even worse than I imagine.
Dr G 12:03 It's disastrous. So a Roman foot is about 29 centimeters, or about, I think, what does that make it maybe, maybe a foot, a modern foot, a Roman foot and a modern foot might be similar in length, and so we're looking at a depth of over two metres worth of snow, or about six foot, nine and a half inches of snow, at least. And think about Rome and its situation on some small hills, but mostly surrounded by plains. This is a very unlikely geographic location for such a high level of snowfall and it is reported to be completely unprecedented, either in source material before or records afterwards, at least down to the time of Dionysus of Halicarnassus. So they talk about this as like an exceptionally terrible snow event. And the consequence of this are massive, because with this much snow, you basically have issues with your herds. Cattle die from frostbite and things like this. The fruit trees, which might be starting to put on new growth, basically wither up and don't produce anything for years to come. They have to recover from that. People think those fruit trees are dead.
Dr Rad 13:26 My god.
Dr G 13:28 And when the snow melts, it's so heavy that it actually breaks structures. So there's this massive issue. And to compensate for this, the idea of putting forward a lectisternium under these conditions, so some sort of banquet with sacrifices to the gods, when actually the township of Rome itself must be on the brink of famine and under pretty severedisaster circumstances already, the idea that they're giving what little they have left to the gods in order to try and rectify this situation, I think, speaks remarkably to how strongly the Romans feel about their relationship with the gods and how they have to manage that, and how shocking this whole moment must have been for them to be like, Oh, we really need to do something different in terms of our ritual practice in order to compensate for whatever is going on here, because this was outstandingly terrible.
Dr Rad 14:30 Wow, that's so sad. I didn't think about the fact that they're offering food to the gods, and they probably have almost none.
Dr G 14:35 Yeah, so sad.
Dr Rad 14:37 I know. Well, apparently when we see the lectisternium showing up in early Rome, it is often in connection to things like pestilence. So and we've talked before about how these environmental issues can obviously lead to wider issues with food supply and general health. They're obviously trying to tickle. All the boxes, because they are including most of the major gods I could think about.
Dr G 15:05 So yeah, so those connections of these gods seem really important as well. So Apollo has a connection with healing, divination, music
Dr Rad 15:14 Exactly
Dr G 15:15 Also has an Etruscan legacy as well. So he was well known throughout the region, not just from a Greek perspective. Latona is the goddess of the night, and so she is often considered to be synchronous with Leto
Dr Rad 15:33 Okay
Dr G 15:33 Also known in the Etruscan and obviously, Diana and Apollo have a bit of a thing.
Dr Rad 15:42 singing!
Dr G 15:44 Exactly. So this idea that there is a whole range of these gods involved, including Mercury, bringer of culture, relationships with the shepherds, maybe try to get something right with the herds here.
Dr Rad 15:58 And also maybe trade, you know, getting supplies, resources, making sure they're not, you know, totally cut off.
Dr G 16:05 Yeah. And this connection with trade might also feed into the connection with Hercules, who's also associated with cattle breeding and trading and things like that, true. And then we also have Neptune. Now, why Neptune is involved might just be because of the melting snow, because otherwise, I'm not sure why he's there.
Dr Rad 16:24 Well, again, if we go back to trade, how do you trade? By ship.
Dr G 16:29 Oh, yeah, it's the fastest way to travel.
Dr Rad 16:31 Exactly. So it could be that, but who really knows? So don't spell that out for us, unfortunately.
Dr G 16:36 That's true. Now, what is interesting in Dionysius' account, because we've only got a fragment.
Dr Rad 16:43 Better than nothing!
Dr G 16:44 Better than – ooo I've got something to talk about, Dr Rad. He mentions a source on this called, referring to a guy called Piso, who is an ex censor who wrote a series called the ‘Annales', which is, you know, off the face of it doesn't sound particularly unique. Writing ‘Annales' is the sort of thing that anybody who's anybody likes to do. Both Livy and Dionysius or Halicarnassus are essentially writing annales – a year by year account of things.
Dr Rad 17:15 And it's essentially what you and I are doing. Dr, G.
Dr G 17:17 Oh yeah, we're not unique either. Oh no!
Dr Rad 17:20 No, but you know, we're anybody who's anybody, that's a good thing.
Dr G 17:24 Oh, that's true. We're an illustrious category.
Dr Rad 17:26 Exactly.
Dr G 17:26 Now, this is a reference to somebody who we do know, a guy called Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi. Now he was a Roman senator and a historian in the second century BCE, tribune of the plebs in 149, consul in 133 and then censor in 120. Now,the reason why it's worth mentioning those dates is because he's very much tied up in the whole situation with the Gracchi later on.
Dr Rad 17:59 Oh, okay.
Dr G 18:00 So it's interesting that we're starting to see callbacks to writers that are very much invested in things to do with the agrarian crisis that then is also placed back in time into this like fourth and fifth century period as well.
Dr Rad 18:19 Absolutely, now Livy does go a little bit crazy, Dr G. Apparently, because Piso, the original source, might have added on a bit of extra detail. And this, apparently, is something that Dionysius, your friend, tells us,
Dr G 18:35 Oh, yeah. Oh. Dionysius has some, has some beautiful detail from Piso, yes.
Dr Rad 18:41 And so he says how it wasn't just the gods having a fun old time, it was everybody in Rome, because they were just opening the doors. They were throwing open their homes and saying, Come on in. Join my party. Doesn't matter if I know you. Doesn't matter if I don't. And it was time to make up with people you might have been fighting with, and you weren't allowed to start any new fights. You weren't allowed to start any lawsuits. Prisoners were released forever, it seems because the gods seem to be smiling down upon them.
Dr G 19:12 Hmm, are you saying that Livy doesn't believe this?
Dr Rad 19:15 I think Livy does believe this. I think it's Dionysius who mentions that this was something that Piso talked about.
Dr G 19:25 Yeah, he does, but he doesn't dismiss it. He just sort of recounts it.
Dr Rad 19:28 It's the academic that're dismissive. I think they're looking at all the other lectusternium and saying, This doesn't happen. Oh, come on, guys, there's no party vibe. There's no Block Party.
Dr G 19:38 Let Piso have his moment in the sun,
Dr Rad 19:40 We're shutting it right down.
Dr G 19:42 He wants to call back to some beautiful, glorious golden era of Rome, the proper Republic, where things were done, right.
Dr Rad 19:51 Well, look, I think that Livy went even further than Piso. Yeah, I think that's what the academics are assuming that Piso added a little bit of extra detail. On and Livy s like, you know what? I'll take your extra detail and add some.
Dr G 20:04 Okay, well, that's very interesting, because it does seem like it's a time of severe crisis. And perhaps a proportionate reaction to crisis is to really lean into – in a sort of nihilistic, fatalistic kind of way – lean into life itself and celebrate the fact that you've survived. So to me, this level of excess with like freeing of slaves and everybody's partying at everybody's house doesn't necessarily sound unlikely given the severity of the circumstances. So if we buy into – it's beena really severe natural disaster, and it sounds like we've had a couple of those in recent years as well – that on the back of some other weather conditions, and potentially on the back of a really hot summer where they've now got this really severe winter that people are kind of open to embracing the fact that they've gotten through this, and maybe that's led to some hedonistic behavior.
Dr Rad 21:06 Look, I'm not entirely discounting the partying. I think it's specifically the freeing of prisoners.
Dr G 21:12 Yeah, nobody would ever do that.
Dr Rad 21:14 Yeah, I'm not really sure about that. Yeah, the idea that it was also like a gigantic bloc party. It might be a time when people are, you know, putting aside their grudges and that kind of thing. But whether it was, you know, like Rome is just having, you know, one big old shindig, it's like, well, maybe not. Now, Dr G, if that's all we have to say about this banquet for the gods, I've got something else for you that's heating up just like this horrible, horrible summer.
Dr G 21:42 Oh, what is it?
Dr Rad 21:44 It's the war with Veii.
Dr G 21:46 Oh, no. Is it still happening?
Dr Rad 21:48 It's definitely still happening.
Dr G 21:50 Oh, that siege. When's it ever going to end?
Dr Rad 21:52 I know the Romans are tinkering around with their siege equipment. You know, I don't really know anything about construction, so I'm going to imagine they're tightening something, tightening some lug nuts. No idea what that is.
Dr G 22:05 You know, making – covering the rocks that they're about to throw with a little bit of animal faeces to make them less pleasant when they hit the target.
Dr Rad 22:12 Exactly, writing insulting messages on the rocks.
Dr G 22:15 Exactly.
Dr Rad 22:16 Yes, when, all of a sudden, they're attacked from different sides by the people that have joined Veii: the Capenantes and the Faliscans, as well as Veii.
Dr G 22:27 Wow. Okay, yeah, so they does have some allies. These are the people, if I recall rightly, that are slightly further north, who realize if Veii falls, the domino effect that they're worried about.
Dr Rad 22:38 They have twigged, yes, that's right, that's exactly what's happening now. This has happened before, because when the first realized that we know that the Romans got caught in a very unpleasant sandwich between their enemies, and it didn't go well for them, however, that was, of course, entirely down to their poor leadership,
Dr G 22:54 I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, the I'm not coming to help you unless you ask. And it's like, well, I'm not asking
Dr Rad 23:02 This time, they learnt from history. An example of someone learning from history. Can you believe it?
Dr G 23:08 It's possible, my friends, it's possible.
Dr Rad 23:11 So as a result, when the Romans found themselves, once again, penned in, help was immediately sent from the main camp, and the backups were also able to assault the Capenantes from behind bit of their own medicine. The Faliscans were naturally terrified by this sudden attack, and the Romans decided to really push this advantage home. And with a sally, they finally sent them running away, and the Romans didn't let up there. They continued to follow them as they ran screaming in the other direction, slaughtering them, left, right and center.
Dr G 23:47 Ahhh, I ahh suppose it's war. I mean, that's unpleasant, though.
Dr Rad 23:51 I think we're on the Roman side here, so I think we're supposed to be happy about that.
Dr G 23:54 Yay.
Dr Rad 23:57 Then some Romans also decide, why not raid some territory of the Capenantes.
Dr G 24:03 Well, as you do naturally, since you're there.
Dr Rad 24:05 Exactly. And whilst they were doing that, they happened to run into the army. He was chasing us for the Faliscans, and so they join in killing the surviving Faliscans.
Dr G 24:13 Oh, okay.
Dr Rad 24:15 Yeah, the people from Veii take a look around at this situation and say, You know what? We might just go back into the city.
Dr G 24:22 You know what? This siege is, fine. I'm gonna live inside the walls.
Dr Rad 24:25 Thanks for the help, guys. But you know what? I'm a bit tired. I think I might just go back behind the walls.
Dr G 24:30 I'm gonna retire to my chambers and think about my future with the Roman camp outside.
Dr Rad 24:35 Exactly. Unfortunately, of course, they have – they naturally – whilst they were fighting, the Romans – had the gates to the city closed so that the Romans couldn't just run into the city.
Dr G 24:44 That's very clever.
Dr Rad 24:45 Yeah. Unfortunately, what this means is the people who decide to retreat are trapped.
Dr G 24:50 Oh no.
Dr Rad 24:51 I don't say that again because I just hit the microphone with my nose. They are trapped.
Dr G 24:55 Oh no.
Dr Rad 24:57 And unfortunately, many of them are also killed before they managed to get inside.
Dr G 25:02 Oh, okay, this sounds like it's a pretty stellar win for the Roman forces. It doesn't sound like they've broken the siege at all, but they've really put a dent in morale and confidence.
Dr Rad 25:13 It's that slow drip of psychological terror.
Dr G 25:17 With neighbors like these, who needs enemies.
Dr Rad 25:19 Exactly, and the reasons why the people of a were slow to let the soldiers in is, of course, they didn't want the Romans to penetrate their city, so they were very slow about opening the gates.
Dr G 25:30 Wow, I can only imagine the sort of horrified conversations that would have happened inside the walls, because people are basically locking out their own relations and then watching them get slaughtered.
Dr Rad 25:42 Yeah, they're saying really sorry, guys. We know that you're tired, we know that you want a nap, but we just can't risk it. Now, that's basically all I get about the war with Veii for 399 but if we switch our attention back to the city itself, it's time for some more elections, Dr. G.
Dr G 25:58 Ooh, elections. Oh, that's exciting.
Dr Rad 26:00 Getting ready for next year now, naturally, the patricians are not at all happy at this situation where there are more plebeians in power than patricians. Outrageous.
Dr G 26:11 Not only that, it sounds like the plebeians as military tribunes with consular power, have had some real military breakthroughs, like they have just run down the enemy in a couple of different directions. And pen some of the Venetians, or the Veii- and Veiantes, I should say – Venetians will make us confused about Venezia. We shouldn't do that.
Dr Rad 26:30 And blinds
Dr G 26:31 Yeah, the people of Veii trapped on the outside of their own walls. So it seems like they're doing okay without the patrician leadership in the top position.
Dr Rad 26:42 But notice that there are no named commanders in any of that.
Dr G 26:47 Well, is that, because the patricians who write down history would never deign to give them any credit?
Dr Rad 26:55 I'm entirely in agreement with you. Now, the reason why they have a problem, of course, is that they thought this whole situation was meant to be about sharing power, because sharing is caring. But the plebeians are being so greedy, taking over all the offices, it's like they're running the state.
Dr G 27:14 Yeah, you wouldn't want to look at the previous year and the way that they've all been stacked with patricians to then be like, You know what? What is fair?
Dr Rad 27:23 Fair is when the patricians get their way. I thought that was very clear. So the patricians decide, All right, guys, we can't be sleeping on this one. We've got to really put our best fancily shoed foot forward. And they therefore select the absolute best candidates that they have on offer, and the plebeians could not resist. They were just so sexy and so arrogant.
Dr G 27:55 Have you seen the way he lifts his toga above his knee? (growls)
Dr Rad 28:01 And they started campaigning for the patricians as though it was actually a plebeian candidate, because they're idiots. Of course, teamwork equals dreamwork, guys.
Dr G 28:13 I am unhappy about this turn of events.
Dr Rad 28:15 I know plebeians are fools. Now, naturally, there's probably also something going on here with the whole religious angle, a terrible winter pestilence, which was just mentioned summer. The gods are upset. Plague is clearly coming after all of this stuff, the Sibylline books indicated as much, and we can link it all back to the fact that they were plebeians in office.
Dr G 28:46 Oh, okay. Oh, that's the explanation.
Dr Rad 28:48 That's the explanation. I mean, everything's been completely fine. There has never been a plague or a pestilence while patricians were in charge.
Dr G 28:55 Yeah, I mean, who would be surprised at this turn of events? Soon as you put plebeians in power, what do you got? Disaster. That's what you got.
Dr Rad 29:04 That's exactly it.
Dr G 29:05 Now the gods are unhappy.
Dr Rad 29:06 Yeah, well, that's what the patricians have been saying all this time, haven't they, Dr. G? They were like –
Dr G 29:11 It's true. I mean, at least they're consistent.
Dr Rad 29:12 Yeah. That's why they didn't want them to have the consulship, like, we can't. It's too risky, sacred. And now look what's happened. We gave you something else, and even then you screwed it up. For everybody.
Dr G 29:25 The gods are so disappointed in us that we're just going to have to go back to having some patricians in power.
Dr Rad 29:30 That's pretty much it. So the plebeians are basically fainting in the streets. They're going, oh my god, they're blood. It's just so blue! I can't concentrate. And they were also really scared that something much worse was coming their way, because the gods were clearly ticked off with them, and so all patricians were elected for the following year. And that is all I have from Livy today.
Dr G 29:52 Oh interesting, I know well, so there is some nice synergy, I think, between Livy's account and what Dionysius of Halicarnassus are bringing to the table. Admittedly, we've only got a fragment of Dionysius, and the idea of there being like the terrible summer versus the terrible snowstorm, seems like you know, minor details, but maybe they had both that would explain some of the tragedy here.
Dr Rad 30:17 I think we can all agree we're not going to time travel back to 399.
Dr G 30:22 Oh, yeah, no, I don't think I want to experience that weather system. Whatever was going on. There was a bit of a problem.
Dr Rad 30:29 Cause tonight we're gonna party like it's 399!
Dr G 30:34 I mean, I'm happy to follow Piso on this. I mean, like, let people have some fun for a change. Like, why? Why would that have to be wrong. I mean, come on. Admittedly, I haven't delved into the scholarship on this, but I'm sure people have very good reasons why they they want Rome to be a more grumpy place than it currently is.
Dr Rad 30:50 I don't think they're denying the celebration or anything. I think they're just questioning whether it was quite as extreme as Livy points out.
Dr G 30:57 Would you really free people? Would you really just let anybody into your house?
Dr Rad 31:03 It kind of seems like a recipe for disaster, that when things are going badly, you're like, I know, let's let the criminals loose through the street.
Dr G 31:11 Well, it's not even that they're criminals necessarily, at least in the account that we get from Dionysius. It's slaves being manumitted.
Dr Rad 31:21 Really? I was wondering why you said slaves earlier. Okay, interesting.
Dr G 31:25 It's not necessarily criminals at all, unless you consider that debt bondage could be one of the ways that you end up enslaved, which is possible and is considered a crime, but is a crime of circumstance, not a crime that you really go out of your way to commit.
Dr Rad 31:40 Talk about criminalizing the poor, Dr G.
Dr G 31:42 Yup exactly. We see it all in Rome. Whatever you thought about today, we've seen it in Rome. So we've got this lectisternium, and that is apparently the direct response to the Sibylline Oracle, suggesting, like, this is the course of action to take correct. So that's the Greek connection that you're talking about as well. So this idea that they're borrowing from Greek ritual rites in order to see if that will make a difference. In this case, the idea that the couches of the gods are sacred is really important. So one of the things that we understand about the way the Romans were practicing religion in this period is that if you had a temple, and there would have been very few at this point in time, but the structures that you built to house statues of the gods weren't the only part of the building that was very important. The couch itself, where the statue would sit, was also considered to be quite sacred. So this is a sacred banquet of sorts, because the couches involved have been consecrated in the same way that the buildings have been consecrated. So I think that's an interesting detail that comes out through this as well. I think the choice of the gods is really interesting. I'm not sure what to make of it, but there's some figures here that we haven't really encountered very much before, but
Dr Rad 33:01 I think it's all guesswork, to be honest. I mean, we know the names and people have suggested, well, maybe it's because of this, maybe it's because of that, but we don't have anyone saying it's because of this.
Dr G 33:10 Yeah, well, exactly, but it does give us a sense that the divine landscape that the Romans are operating in is broader than what we've previously really encountered in our written source material. Like we do know that there is a whole series of indigent Latin gods and sort of Italic gods, and they sometimes start to morph into these Greek figures that then become Roman figures. And this is already well happening by the time that we get to 399, so things like Apollo and Diana, Hercules, Mercury Neptune, these are all very familiar from a different context, cultural context. And maybe that's part of the connection here as well, is that they're taking from Greek rights, but they're also prioritizing gods of their own that have a syncretism and overlap with Greek gods as well.
Dr Rad 34:07 All right? Dr G, well, with that being said, I think it's time for the Partial Pick That's right, listeners, this is the part of the episode where we get to rate Rome's performance. How do we do it, Dr G?
Dr G 34:22 Well, there is a potential for Rome to win 50 golden eagles. So first of all, we have the five categories. They can score up to 10 in each category, and we will see how they go.
Dr Rad 34:37 All right, what's our first category, Dr G?
Dr G 34:39 Military clout.
Dr Rad 34:40 Okay, I think we have something to work with here.
Dr G 34:43 Do we?
Dr Rad 34:45 excuse me? They escaped from a very dangerous enemy embrace.
Dr G 34:52 It sounds like they chased down people and murdered them
Dr Rad 34:56 After being attacked themselves.
Dr G 34:59 Fine. I think in this sort of situation, obviously, this siege has been going on for a while. This is by no means illegitimate war tactics. As far as the Romans are concerned, or their neighbors, if the situation had been reversed, we could almost guarantee that their neighbors would have behaved in the same way. I would say that this is probably a five.
Dr Rad 35:20 Yeah, I think it's a five. It could have been bad. I mean, they could have been completely pinned in and not able to break out. And they managed to do it. And not only that, they managed to scare the little pence of those guys.
Dr G 35:32 Yeah, this does set things up for a poor morale outlook for they and their allies heading into the next campaign season.
Dr Rad 35:40 This is true. All right, what's our next category, Dr G?
Dr G 35:43 Our second category is Diplomacy.
Dr Rad 35:46 Hmm, don't really think so.
Dr G 35:48 I'm gonna say zero,
Dr Rad 35:50 Yeah, nothing's happening on the outside and nothing's happening on the inside.
Dr G 35:55 Any hints of diplomatic activity here,
Dr Rad 35:58 Although, again, I would say not their fault. Do did they try? Well, what are you supposed to do when you're being attacked? Make them a mixtape.
Dr G 36:08 I mean, you could. These are some songs that remind me of you.
Dr Rad 36:13 All right, let's move on. What's our next category?
Dr G 36:15 Expansion.
Dr Rad 36:16 No.
Dr G 36:18 They're trying, but no, yeah, they're not really gaining territory. They're doing some raiding, but it doesn't sound like they've secured anything. So that's a zero, yeah. That leads us into Virtus.
Dr Rad 36:29 Unfortunately, even though they apparently did so well in the battle, we don't really have any moments that are singled out.
Dr G 36:37 Well, yeah, and because we don't have individual names attached to some of these military feats, we don't get a chance to really see virtus embodied. And the thing with virtus is it is about the person and the way that they're embodying manliness from a Roman perspective. So if you don't have a name attached to a commander or somebody in the field, doing the thing, then we can't be sure about the virtus involved.
Dr Rad 37:05 Yeah, exactly. And that leads us to our final category, Dr G
Dr G 37:09 The Citizen Score. Was this a good time to be a Roman citizen?
Dr Rad 37:13 I'm so torn for all the reasons we've discussed, there's a party, but it's a party because things are really bad.
Dr G 37:19 It's a party for those who survived and party, and everyone's invited. But, you know, the cattle or died, that's not great. It seems like the pestilence must be on the way.
Dr Rad 37:30 But it's 399, whoo whoo
Dr G 37:34 And I suppose
Dr Rad 37:35 Plebeians in power.
Dr G 37:36 Oh yeah, that that is, that might be the saving grace here.
Dr Rad 37:39 Failing miserably.
Dr G 37:41 I don't think they're failing miserably. Didn't they have huge military success.
Dr Rad 37:45 I think I just told you that all of this disaster is because of them, so…
Dr G 37:49 Oh, I see, taking the patricians' side are we?
Dr Rad 37:53 Well, is there any other way to look at things?
Dr G 37:58 Okay, so the citizen score? Yeah, I'm focusing. I'm focusing. Is there anything good here for citizens? And I think the fact that we've got five of the six military tribunes with consular power coming from the plebeians, and they perform well in the battlefield despite what other propaganda might say about the failures of this year, and the need for patrician leadership only.
Dr Rad 38:23 It's not propaganda when it's the truth.
Dr G 38:26 I think we can say maybe about a three or a four for citizen score, just because they've got some representation in there, and the representation seems to go well,
Dr Rad 38:34 That's true.
Dr G 38:34 Otherwise, it's not a great time, because obviously these natural disasters seem to be quite severe and are leading to flow on consequences.
Dr Rad 38:42 But the partying and the slaves and the prisoners,
Dr G 38:45 Yeah, I mean, but you know, it's like when you go to a wake at a funeral and it's like, sure
Dr Rad 38:51 Ouch! I don't know how the gods would feel about you characterizing their banquet in this way?
Dr G 38:56 I'm just saying there are times. There are times when people come together, and maybe it gets rowdy, depending on the wake. It really depends. But it's, it's a celebration through pain. And I think the same sort of situation is going on here,
Dr Rad 39:13 Ancient Rome, smiling through the pain. 399 BCE.
Dr G 39:18 Put that on the headstone.
Dr Rad 39:19 Oh yeah, that's gonna be our next T-shirt, alright because not at all in niche to have it pinned down to one yeareveryone else has forgotten All right, so I agree with you. I would say I think probably a four.
Dr G 39:30 Okay.
Dr Rad 39:31 Okay, which means, Dr G, we have ended up with a grand total of nine Golden Eagles for Rome.
Dr G 39:37 Nine? Didn't even crack double figures.
Dr Rad 39:41 Were you really expecting more when there were plebeians in the majority for the first time?
Dr G 39:47 No comment, really? Yeah. I feel like, you know, the patricians can stick it up their arse.
Dr Rad 39:51 Look. I kind of think of this like in Australia, the first time we had a female prime minister, it didn't go so great. And…
Dr G 40:00 Well mostly because everybody decided that they really needed to be misogynistic all of a sudden.
Dr Rad 40:04 I'm not denying that, but I'm just saying, you know, when you're the first I think sometimes things go badly.
Dr G 40:11 Wow, you got a feel for the guy from 400 then.
Dr Rad 40:13 Hey, the good news is we're back to having all patricians all the time next year. Hey, hey, hey!
Dr G 40:19 yeah, yeah yay. Well, I look forward to seeing how poorly they do in power.
Dr Rad 40:29 Me too, secretly, me too. Don't tell them I said that.
Dr G 40:38 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com. We offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters. If you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-Fi for one or four ongoing donations or Patreon. Of course, our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire', is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with'Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire'.
This chapter is a bit of a contrast to our first one on Spartacus. We turn from a rebel from the lowest ranks of society to one from the elite. We are journeying from the Roman Republic to the mid-Empire. Aaaaand we are travelling from Italy to the provinces.
For our next instalment, we tell you the tale of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. Cleopatra reborn!
The fifth century BCE in Rome is the century that saw the idea of the republic flourish and falter only to flourish again. The plebeians rose up to fight for their rights and to enjoy the fruits of their hard work on the battlefield. The patricians held on to their prestige and power with a vice-like grip and Rome began to expand their influence in the local region. At least that’s what our ancient sources believed!
Let’s review the 5th century BCE together. We’ll focus on the big themes, the ideas that were central to the century, and what was going on in the Struggle of the Orders.
Episode 154 – The Fifth Century BCE in Review
It seems only fair to start with the year 509 BCE (so technically the end of the 6th century!) because that’s the year that the Romans finally booted out the kings and decided there had to be a better way to run the place. If you’re keen to go through the 5th century in ALL THE DETAIL, you’ll need to go back to our Episode 45 – The Last Gasp of the Regal Period that we recorded all the way back in 2015! Our detailed coverage of the 5th century BCE runs from Episode 45 all the way through to Episode 153 – The Plebeians Push Into Power. That’s 108 episodes on the 5th century BCE!
Touchstones of the 5th century BCE
We'll be taking a bird's eye look at the century that was with a focus on some key themes and developments. Tune in for a consideration of:
The Introduction of the Dictator
The Struggle of the Orders
The First and Second Plebeian Secession
The Introduction of the Tribune of the Plebs
Trouble with the Etruscans and the Volscians and the Aequians and…!
The Decemvirate and the Twelve Tables
The Dream of Agrarian Reform
The Military Tribune with Consular Power
Where to from here?
So after a turbulent first 100 years of the Roman Republic, what can we say for sure?
There’s tensions between the haves and the have nots.
The primary political power of Rome seems to be drawn from the gens, the extended family structure. This led to war bands like the Fabians taking it upon themselves to execute a war against their neighbours that they ultimately lost.
Rome doesn’t have anything like a formal army. If you wanted to go to war you needed to convince people to sign up. They might be willing to do that in order to protect their own lands and gens, but they might not want to if it interfered with their own prerogatives. There is some suggestion that, at times, the issue of war service was forced through internal violence.
A troubled time in the field or illness sweeping through the land could have devastating consequences. Plagues were a disaster – death and loss of life from illness could also have consequences for the next farming season. There’s plenty of tales from the 5th century that draw attention to the way that significant military losses or death from contagions resulted in famines the next year. Life was hard and there were no quick fixes.
Rome isn’t a leader in the region – far from it. They seem to have had a great proclivity for pissing off most of their neighbours without always being able to back up their ambitions with talent. The Latins and Hernicians were their major allies in the 5th century but they were not looked upon fondly by many: the Etruscans, the Volscians, the Aequians, the Faliscans, the Sabines etc.
The archaeological record across Italy in the 5th century suggests that the Romans were not the only people struggling. The Etruscan influence in Campania declined over the 5th century even while their power expanded in the northern region of the Po River. There seems to have been less foreign trade and more economic struggle. The Romans and their neighbours were fighting wars over scraps.
What will the 4th century BCE bring for the development of Rome? Stay tuned to find out!
Sound Credits
Our music is by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Sounds.
Léon Bénouville (1844) Cincinnatus. The senators happen upon Cincinnatus while is he is busy farming sans shirt.
Automated Transcript
Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad.
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:55 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians I am, Dr G, and I'm joined by my long-going and fabulous co host:
Dr Rad 1:07 Dr Rad. How you doing, Dr G?
Dr G 1:10 I'm doing fabulously well. It's always a good day when I get to sit down with you.
Dr Rad 1:14 I know, now look, you and I, we usually sit here and we hash out the narrative that is the history of Rome from the founding of the city. We look at different sources, we compare accounts. And to be honest, I think one thing that we are not particularly good on is like anniversaries and special episodes that sort of thing. We never really pay attention to how many episodes we pump out. And we don't really do episodes to celebrate how many years we've been doing this, but we felt that we had to pause and celebrate today. Slow going as our narrative is,
Dr G 1:51 I think you mean thorough and detailed as our narrative is.
Dr Rad 1:54 It is, it is. Thorough and detailed. So today is a special episode, because the last time we spoke, we hit a century.
Dr G 2:05 Yeah, we're about to tip into a whole new world in terms of the numbers. Whether that means anything for the Romans is anybody's guess, but it certainly means something for us. So we're about to switch away from the fifth century BCE, and we thought to ourselves, let's just take a moment take stock of the situation. How far has Rome come in its first century as a republic?
Dr Rad 2:36 Exactly. So today is the most gigantic partial recap. If that even makes sense that we've ever done.
Dr G 2:44 I'm not even willing to call it a recap. It's going to be bigger than that.
Dr Rad 2:49 Yeah, yeah, as we look at the fifth century.
Dr G 2:54 Yeah, so we started talking about the Roman Republic, which officially started in 509, ish, so just at the very end of the sixth century, and that was in Episode 45 which was called ‘The Last Gasp of the Regal Period'. And it was so long ago that it was in 2015.
Dr Rad 3:17 Jesus Christ.
Dr G 3:22 Are we going as slow as the Romans?
Dr Rad 3:25 We're living it in real time, history unfolding before your very eyes.
Dr G 3:30 A little bit of history repeating…
Dr Rad 3:32 Exactly.
Dr G 3:33 And it has taken us 108 episodes to get from that point in time to the end of the fifth century BCE, which legitimately means that we've got an episode for just about every year that the Republic has been in existence so far.
Dr Rad 3:53 I was going to say that sounds astronomical, but when you think about it, should we be surprised? I mean, we do basically cover a year an episode. That's kind of our thing.
Dr G 4:02 Well, that's true and but sometimes we cover two years because there's not much going on, and then sometimes so much is going on that we need to devote more than one episode to a single year. So this is, I think it's a nice sort of like marry up a parallel at this point, to be in a situation where we've got as many episodes as they've been years basically, yeah, I think the fifth century BCE, the evidence has been pretty thin on the ground, really.
Dr Rad 4:35 And yet, somehow we fleshed it out into almost 10 years worth of podcasting.
Dr G 4:39 Incredible, incredible stuff. I think, yeah, it's a high five for us. I'll put in a sound effect there.
Dr Rad 4:45 Oh, definitely, yeah. So look, I have to say this as well. I think is something we needed to do because of the very nature of podcasting, particularly the way that you and I do it, whereas you say we do delve into the details, because when you're doing a podcasting. Show the big difference between doing this and, say, writing a book on the fifth century BCE is that if you were writing a book, you would obviously sit down, you would research the whole period at once. It might take you a few years to actually come to grips with all the material, do all your research, pull it together into the structure that you want, and then you write it, and then it's reviewed, etc, etc, right? Whereas with podcasting, it is quite different, because we are, we are looking very much at it unfolding in sort of real time, in that we're not reading ahead that far, if, if at all. Sometimes we are just looking at the year that that was, and we are, we are definitely doing our research into interesting things that pop up as we look at the accounts, but we're certainly not looking ahead. I think that's kind of actually the nice part of it. We're kind of as surprised as the Romans in that we're like, oh, wow, that happened. Wasn't expecting that. So that's why, I think looking back now and trying to take it all in what we've covered over the last almost 10 years is kind of important, because now we can kind of look back and say, right, well, now we know everything that happened. What do we think of this century?
Dr G 6:10 Yeah, now that we've we've done every year conceivable that we could across this whole period of time, what can we take away from it? So this episode is more going to be like a discussion of some of the really big themes and events that occurred throughout this century, and just a sense of like, where we think things are at with Rome now that we've gotten to the end of this period and we're about to tip into a whole new century. So if people come to this podcast in many years hence, and they're like, I don't know where to start with the fifth century. Come to this episode first before you go right back and listen to all of the others.
Dr Rad 6:50 You can, rebel, you. Rebel listeners, you can listen out of order. My God.
Dr G 6:56 The horror.
Dr Rad 6:57 The horror. I have to say, I actually enjoyed this century a lot more than I thought I would. And that's another reason why I think it's actually important to talk about it, because it it is a bit of a forgotten century. I feel, you know, people talk about skipped over, yes, yeah. People talk about that very, very early stuff where the Republic is founded, which is obviously so key, because people care so much about the Roman Republic, people like to talk about it a lot, but then I feel like people just zoom straight ahead to like the Punic Wars, or maybe the Samnite wars, or even, dare I say it, the fall of Veii. Spoilers!
Dr G 7:37 Which still has not happened yet for us.
Dr Rad 7:39 I know, I know, but they don't pay attention to the stuff that happens. And actually, I'm like, wow, this actually tells us so much about the way, the way that the Romans wrote their history, the way that they conceptualize themselves. I actually see this as being kind of foundational. Now I'm so glad that we did actually go through year by year.
Dr G 7:58 Yeah, and I think there is a real pleasure in the slow reading of material that we've engaged in as well. So this is something that as a working historian, you sometimes don't get the luxury of doing just sitting with a text for a really long period of time and going through it really slowly. You want to be able to do that, but often what you're called to do in the profession is to dig into things quite quickly, come to grips with stuff really fast, and then find the key pieces that will really help you say the things that you're hoping to bring together to search for the hypothesis. And that really slow, close reading, and close rereading, is kind of fundamental to the pleasure of doing history, but it is also something that sometimes you don't get to do quite as much as you'd like to, like you might be prepping to teach, or you might be trying to finish off an article, and all those sorts of things are pressured deadlines, which means that slow reading engagement is something that you might have to build into your spare time, and we've been really fortunate to be able to do that within the context of producing a podcast together.
Dr Rad 9:09 Completely agree, I tend to dip in an out of source material, if I'm writing an article or writing a book, and just finding the stuff that I absolutely have to read because there is a deadline looming, and I need to get through things as quickly as possible. So yeah, I think this is something that is unusual, and yet should be such a key part of what it is that historians do. Yeah, slow and steady wins the race. Yeah. All right. Dr, G, so you have very kindly put together a highlights reel for us here, which we're going to explore. So why don't you tell me what stood out to you, looking back on the fifth century BC as a defining theme.
Dr G 9:48 I think one of the first things that I think is worthy of mention is that we have the introduction of the role of dictator. So this is something that fundamentally you can. Not have under a monarchy, it doesn't really work like that. The king's in charge. The king does all the things. They're both the spiritual leader and the military leader and the judicial person. Those functions really get split up and broken away and sort of hived off in different directions. As we head into the republic, people see the monarch as somebody who has way too much of various powers, and that needs to be dealt with. Having said that, though the early republic of Rome is a messy place, and they're trying to do something new with their government, and they're not really sure quite if it's working or not, and sometimes they do get themselves into a bit of a spot of bother. Sometimes that relates to their relationship with the gods, sometimes that relates to the military, sometimes that relates to judicial matters. And in times of real need, all of a sudden they're like, well, might be good to have one person really in charge and just in charge for a small amount of time. And this is where the idea of the dictator sort of comes into play. They've got various roles that they can fulfill, but the idea is that they definitely have to step down. It is a temporary position, and they must step down once they've fulfilled their mandate. So I think this is fundamental to the nature of the fifth century BCE, because Rome sort of harks back to the kings without necessarily returning to the kings at times.
Dr Rad 11:33 Absolutely, I agree. I think that if you were to open a popular history of Rome. And there was anything on this period which a would shock me, but let's pretend that this is happening. It would very much tell you that in 509 BCE, the last king of Rome was expelled. The Romans vowed never to have kings again, and they introduced this new system, which was structured like this. One thing that you and I have really seen, whilst going into the details of this, is how much of a lie that is.
Dr G 12:07 Can you imagine having a whole group of people just being like, we're not doing it that way anymore, and then having completely smooth transition into a unknown, completely new, shiny system that they've made up on the spot, basically, and it not having any issues whatsoever. It's just unrealistic.
Dr Rad 12:28 Exactly. I mean, to be honest, I don't know why that actually even surprises us. Anybody who's been through a restructure of any company or institution that you work at. We all know it takes years, years to figure that kind of stuff out. It takes all sorts of HR management. It takes people having tantrums. It takes clashes, it takes complaints. It is a complicated process, and that is in the modern age. I don't know why we'd think that the ancient world would be so much more seamless.
Dr G 13:00 It's certainly not seamless, and it doesn't take them very long to sort of hit a snag in this new republic of theirs.
Dr Rad 13:08 No, no, it doesn't at all.
Dr G 13:09 The first traditional dictator is a guy called Titus Larcius Flavus, and he's brought in in 498, BCE, so the Republic isn't even a decade old, no, so it's an issue. They're like, uh oh, we need somebody, and his job, basically, is to deal with the lingering supporters for the last king, Tarquinius Superbus, that man who doesn't want to die, doesn't want to go away, would still like to be king, really? Oh, yeah, and he does have factional support, so it's a bit like, look, any politician that you really don't like that just keeps returning and keeps trying to get themselves back into power. Tarquinius Superbus is your man.
I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Dr, G.
I'm not name dropping. I'm not going to date this podcast.
Dr Rad 14:05 Yeah, it's 2024, where would we be seeing that kind of thing happening?
Dr G 14:10 No idea. So they call up this Titus Larcius Flavus to deal with this situation. And in addition to that, there seems to be some broad issues with the Sabines, which are Rome's neighbors to the east, up in the hills. So there's unrest politically. You know, we've got some monarchical elements still at play. We've got the neighbors of Rome causing a bit of an issue. And so he gets out his lictors. He gets to have a lot of lictors. They get to have their fasces with the axes, which makes everybody a little bit perturbed. And Bob's your uncle. We've got our first dictator.
Dr Rad 14:53 I know. And I kind of love the idea that, however, this system came together, the Romans eventually, basically. Had a built in band aid for their world, literally, a band aid solution.
Dr G 15:08 Having a terrible time? Not sure what to do now? Quick, appoint somebody dictator! So there had to be an agreement about who the dictator would be. That was pretty important. And there is an outlying, even earlier contender to be the first dictator. Scholars tend to not be sure about this one, though, so he doesn't usually get the name this guy, Manlius Valerius Volsesi, was apparently a player in 501 BCE, but the sauces are pretty thin on the ground, so that one's usually dismissed. But then we have, like, some really stand out figures and the most famous dictator, and shout out to our fans in Cincinnati. This guy takes the cake in the fifth century, we have Cincinnatus as dictator, and he holds the role twice, which is phenomenal stuff.
Dr Rad 16:09 Yeah, and that's on top of his other positions that he holds, not to mention his family's general domination of politics in the latter half of the fifth century BCE.
Dr G 16:21 Yeah, they're a pretty phenomenal family, and he does not want to be dictator, for sure, he's busy, if I recall rightly, farming without his shirt on. When they come and find him.
Dr Rad 16:33 Who could forget that scene?
Dr G 16:36 I'd never forget a scene like that. And he was so good at the job and resolving the crisis at that point in time that about 30 years later, or maybe 20 years later, they called him up to be dictator again, by which time, he was a crotchety old man and even more grumpy than he was the first time. And he's like, are you sure you don't want to pick a younger man for this? He must have been in his 70s or 80s by that time, and he very reluctantly became dictator again.
Dr Rad 17:09 But this is, I love Cincinnatus as something to talk about, because, as we've said before, but bears repeating now, because the fifth century BC is a little murky with source material. I think it's very much still one of those periods that the sources that we're mostly consulting, that were written later are looking back to for exemplars, and Cincinnatus, I'm sure probably did historically exist, that's not to say that he is a myth. However, I do think that his life the way that he conducts himself, it does become an exemplar that later Romans will reach back to as their perfect man, someone who's rural, rustic, embraces those traditional values of hard work and discipline and does not want to hold on to power. Because, as we've said many a time, this is the ultimate man. The dream man for the Romans is someone who is really good at exercising power but doesn't actually want it.
Dr G 18:11 Oh yeah, you can, you can almost feel Cato the Elder loving this guy from a couple of centuries hence. That sense of being tied to the land is a very fundamental concept of the early, mid and even late republic, the idea that a true Roman is centered in the farm, somehow, in that rustic landscape, not in the urban environment where the politics is happening and yeah, Cincinnatus is ticking all of those reluctant leader boxes.
Dr Rad 18:46 Absolutely. Um, do you mind if I get political for a moment? So I know that, I know this is going to put a timestamp on this episode, which is not ideal, but I can never resist it whilst, whilst, obviously, it's not exactly the same. I do think that there is also still something about maybe certain people these days where we are a little suspicious of anyone who's too keen to hold power, even in our own time. And whilst I certainly would not say that I approve or agree with everything Joe Biden did as President of the United States of America, there is something to be said for somebody who, okay, admittedly, after a lot of pressure, did at least step down when it was clear that him being in that position was no good for anyone anymore. It is not a perfect scenario in that there certainly had to be a gigantic amount of pressure put on him before he took that step. So I'm certainly not holding him up as a paragon of virtue in that respect, but there is something to be said for somebody who does at least eventually read the room and realize that it's time to go.
Dr G 19:58 Wow.
Dr Rad 19:59 Yeah, which is not something that can be said for everyone.
Dr G 20:04 That is true, and we'll get to a couple of examples of people who do not know how to read the room in the fifth century BCE in this episode, for sure.
Dr Rad 20:14 Anyway, all right, so the next thing is something that we have spent many hours of our lives talking about. So how could anyone forget? Not going to surprise our listeners here, but the Struggle of the Orders, Dr G.
Dr G 20:26 And boy, is it a struggle. It just keeps on happening.
Dr Rad 20:30 It definitely does. So certainly, the fifth century BCE is the time where we see the kickoff, something that will actually last for a couple of 100 of years, which is the patricians and the pabeans, these apparent classes that exist in ancient Rome and are consistently at loggerheads with each other. And it flares up and it dies down periodically. It depends what's happening, but it's always there lurking around the corner. I don't think we could probably go more than – ooh, I'm gonna say one or two years, really – without some mention of something happening between the patricians and the plebeians.
Dr G 21:11 Yes. And I think the major issue that we've returned to many times and bears repeating is that the historicity of this conflict is really open to question. Who are the patricians? Who are the plebeians? It's not at all clear we don't have enough good, solid, independent evidence outside of our written source material that was produced much later to give us some insight into what is going on here. So it does make it really hard to know whether we're on firm ground with this. The idea that there would be social and political tensions in any state, particularly as it's starting to grow and expand, and particularly since they've just changed their system of government seems a reasonable assumption, and what shape that really took is kind of anybody's guess at that point. But this Struggle of the Orders, is it flares up in a number of ways across this century, and we'll get into more detail on that. It's a big deal, and it seems to be positioned very much in our source material as the elite faction within the social structure of Rome is very much trying to push its own agenda. And obviously they have the power and the platform to do that, and this leaves the people who are locked outside of that pretty frustrated a lot of the time.
Dr Rad 22:43 Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think that's why it's been so appealing, actually, to look at it, particularly with the world scenarios that we face these days, the idea of powerful people managing to establish such a domination on the institutions that control everyone's lives and the frustration that comes with that, I think we can very much sympathize with that. I think that's been very clear in the way that we've talked about it.
Dr G 23:14 Yes, yes,
Dr Rad 23:16 Yeah, it's not that we don't know how things work, which sometimes seems to be the case in the conflict of the orders, like it sometimes seems like there is some sort of knowledge or oral tradition or training or something that is at stake here, where only certain people maybe are familiarized with that or know it really well, and that that may be part of the frustration. But even once that issue is somewhat resolved, it definitely is this frustration of like a lack of representation, a lack of access to certain parts of the state. So whilst we might not necessarily feel confident in who the patricians are, who the plebeians are, we certainly wouldn't want to suggest that there isn't some sort of power struggle happening in ancient Rome in the fifth century BCE. It might just be that the way that our later sources choose to explain it, it maybe reflects a little bit more of events closer to their own time than what was actually happening. And that's why it seems a bit dubious. But certainly they're probably very aware that there was some sort of power struggle going on within Rome, within certain factions. We just can't be certain who made up those factions, and sometimes it feels like that story is being projected onto maybe a fairly bare bones account. And so they're like, I can't quite make sense of this. I know it must have something to do with the Struggle of the Orders!
Dr G 24:35 Guess what, guys? It's the struggle and fair enough. And this leads us into a couple of really big ticket events that take place in the fifth century, which is the first and the second plebeian secession,
Dr Rad 24:49 Ah, yes.
Dr G 24:49 where, this idea that the have nots get so completely frustrated with their inability to be able to. To produce something in this new republic that actually helps them, supports them in their difficult lives, that they decide it's easier to up sticks and go somewhere else and leave all of those elite, Fancy Pants patrician people to rule over each other in without the plebeians having to be involved. And it doesn't seem to take very long. So we talk about the way that we have the first dictator in about 498 and then only four years later in 494 so we're less than 20 years into the Republic. At this point, it seems that certain people have gotten so jack of this system that they're like, it's time to go somewhere else. Let's leave Rome. We've been here for a while. I don't want anything more to do with it. And so they leave what is the urban boundary of Rome, which is determined by the pomerium, and they go and head out to a place known as the Mons Sacer, “the sacred mount”, sometimes also referred to as the Aventine. But they might be different places, and it's this moment where they seem to decide that they need their own representation as well. They need people to negotiate on their behalf, because the patricians aren't satisfied with this situation. They're like, what are you doing? Running away. We need you. We need you. And they're like, Well, you need to treat us better. So it's a bit like an abusive relationship.
Dr Rad 26:30 It does feel that way.
Dr G 26:32 It does feel that way. And what the plebeians do is they nominate a couple of people to represent their interests. So they kind of like, go for like, you can talk to our lawyers. Okay, don't talk to me. Talk to my lawyers. And these two people become the start of what will be known as the tribune of the plebs.
Dr Rad 26:54 Very important.
Dr G 26:54 Very important.
Dr Rad 26:56 And this is really interesting as well, because we talked obviously about the dictator coming into play in this century, but this is obviously the century when we see the tribune of the plebs come into play, which remains a really important and unusual position in Rome's history for different reasons at different times. Obviously it shifts with with each century, but certainly it becomes a real bug bear in the quarrels between the patricians and the plebeians, because the patricians really regret ever giving into this. They're like, damn it. They really had me over a barrel, and I wish I'd never agreed to that. And they're constantly trying to think of ways to either undermine this office or actually get their hands on it so that they can presumably dominate that as well.
Dr G 27:41 Kind of horrifying. Very like, Okay, you have representation, but how can we ruin that for you? So it doesn't interfere with our…
Dr Rad 27:48 We should have never given you that representation!
Dr G 27:50 I have regrets.
Dr Rad 27:54 Regrets, I have a few.
Dr G 27:58 A patrician refrain for the ages.
Dr Rad 28:01 I was gonna say “My Way” seems a very fitting song for the patricians. I think that's kind of why the plebians are always so upset.
Dr G 28:07 It does make an awful lot of sense.
Dr Rad 28:09 Yeah.
Dr G 28:09 So we have this situation where the in the first secession, the plebeians are convinced to return. It does take some negotiation. They're like, all right, but you know, we need to have this political representation. We need these tribune of the plebs. Now, all of this is kind of up for grabs in terms of the source material as well. We certainly are not sure about most things to do with this century, but these are the tales that our source material, like Livy and Dionysus of Halicarnassus are suggesting, Dionysius of Halicarnassus are suggesting, and you have some smoothing over of all of this, but problems do bubble under the surface, and that's what the struggle of the orders is really suggesting, that this is an ongoing process of struggle between These groups, and it all comes to a head again in 449, BCE, which is the second plebeian secession, where everyone's like, just no, just no. And this is also a controversial situation as well, because at this stage, the republic is not smoothly functioning at all really. They're under the leadership of a group called the decemvirate so things have gotten a little bit out of hand, and this will tie into some other things as well as we get further into this. But essentially, people are interested in knowing exactly what the laws are in this place, and it seems like some people have been keeping the laws a bit secret. They haven't been written down properly. They're not in a public, accessible place, so you can't just go and find out what the laws are for yourself. Usually, what seems to happen is you try to do something. Thing as a citizen of Rome, somebody more powerful or important than you tells you that you're not allowed to do that, and in fact, you've broken the law, and you didn't even know that there was a law about that. So there's a real frustration coming through that, well, if this place has laws, surely everyone needs to know what they are, and this is where they decide to establish something like the decemvirate, which is a group of 10 men, and we'll get into more detail about them later, but they're supposed to be putting together a publicly accessible law record. So that'd be nice, but it's not going well. The plebeians decide they need to secede again. They run away. They head to the Aventine and to the Capitolione Hills. And this really forces another negotiation moment with the elite class. And so there's this whole situation again, where the patricians have to, sort of, you know, make some concessions. It's not ideal. They don't want to, but everybody's threatening to leave them. So they're like, Okay, maybe I need to talk to them.
Dr Rad 31:08 It took quite a few diamond tennis bracelets and red roses to win them back.
Dr G 31:12 Well, look, you know, some paid lunches would really be helpful right now.
Dr Rad 31:17 But this is these two secessions are actually the perfect example of how we've got the this larger narrative being used to tie together events which may have been quite separate, because the first secession is really about debt, about the fact that with all the warfare happening on top of just the general inequality and hardship that is life in ancient Rome at that point in time, people are really struggling to hang on to what little they have, because they're constantly away fighting things fall into neglect. They fall into debt. It just becomes a vicious cycle where eventually they find themselves, you know, enslaved for debt in some cases, and they're not happy about that. The second secession comes about because of the law about the laws. As you said, people wanting things to be written down so that they don't, you know, find themselves, you know, someone running up to something going, oh, a black cat crossed your path on a Sunday. That'll be 10 sesterces. Not that that would happen. That's ridiculous in our every circumstances. But the law about the laws is the key to the decemvirate, so it's a totally different issue, on top of which it's also about the fact that the second decemvirate doesn't let go of their power, that is a trigger, and they're abusing their power. So it's also relating to those sorts of issues, so seemingly quite different reasons to secede if we do believe that the second secession happened, but they are, they are both tied together as being examples of this larger conflict of the orders. And maybe our sources are a bit wrong about that. Maybe there are just different points of political social tension in ancient Rome, and it just seems like there's a larger narrative going on here.
Dr G 32:58 Yeah, perhaps this is a view from hindsight, as we can often talk about as historians. It's like you have to be really careful when thinking about any event in time and how it might be interconnected or not with the things that happen afterwards. You don't want to get ahead of yourself too much. I'm not sure that Livy and Dionysus of Halicarnassus are necessarily as concerned about things like that.
Dr Rad 33:25 But I have a feeling they're not.
Dr G 33:27 That certainly adds some complexity to what we can know about this century. So we've talked about the introduction of the tribune of the plebs as being related in part to this Struggle of the Orders. And what we also see, or what is also suggested in our source material, is that although they start out with two representatives, this does expand over the course of the century, until we get to about 10 later on. So part of what makes the tribune of the plebs really special is the fact that their body is considered to be inviolable in the time that they're holding the role. And this means that in times of physical danger, citizens can run up to them and sort of hold on to the tribune, if you like, sort of seek physical protection, and because the tribune is considered to be inviolable, they are able to physically protect citizens. Now this seems like a really kind of specific thing, but if you think about what would life have been like in the early urban Roman state, where some people are allowed to carry sticks by permission and some people are not, you might think to yourself, well, sometimes you need to run away from the guys with the cudgels and find some safety with somebody who's designated as inviolable you cannot produce. Violence against them. So that's the thing. So I think when we think about Rome, obviously it comes to mind as this kind of like militaristic, powerful empire. But in this early period of history, we can start to see these really early, tangible signs of the kind of physical violence that's always at play in its political landscape, even amongst themselves. So the fact that to be a magistrate means you do get to have a bodyguard, and you can push people out of the way, and if things are going really badly, you can hit people suggest that this is a pretty rough and ready place, and having somebody who is able to offer physical protection to people who are outside of the elite becomes a really important force, and we seem to think that it develops in this century.
Dr Rad 35:52 I have to say, thinking about the tribune of the playoffs at this moment in time, it does make ancient Rome sound like a gigantic game of cops and robbers, and robbers and the tribune of the plebs is the safe you know, like, when you used to play that game, when you were little, you'd be like, safe. I'm safe. Can't touch me. I'm safe.
Dr G 36:08 Yup yup. I found the person. Tap it.
Dr Rad 36:11 Yeah, but it does, as you say, it kind of highlights just how small scale all of this must have been violent, but small scale, because if you just have two guys who are the safe points. It wouldn't really work if Rome was gigantic.
Dr G 36:25 Yeah, you would hope that it's a small place, because that doesn't seem like enough people to offer protection.
Dr Rad 36:32 No, it does not. I also feel kind of bad for the tribunes. I feel like they would receive a lot of very sweaty, panicky hugs.
Dr G 36:39 Wow. You know,
Dr Rad 36:40 Tasty.
Dr G 36:42 Thank you. Yes, I'll save you, just don't touch me. And the patricians aren't very happy about this. This would seem.
Dr Rad 36:52 No.
Dr G 36:53 It's a problem. They didn't really want to allow this. They had to. They were forced into this, and so they are often seeking to bring down the tribune of the plebs from within, it would seem, either through bribery, outright threats, or even worst of all, trying to co opt themselves into the roles so that they also are a tribune of the plebs and can whittle things away from the inside in that sense. So there is a sense in which the tribune of the plebs is always a little bit contentious and also a little bit exposed at all times to whatever the patricians are up to.
Dr Rad 37:37 I do love that idea that the patricians are like, yeah. I mean, it's totally legit for me to represent plebeian interests and be attributed with the plebs as a patrician. Like, what's the problem, guys?
Dr G 37:46 I'm interested in your best interests. I'm interested in all our best interests,
Dr Rad 37:52 Conflicting interests? I don't know what you mean! The height of absurdity. So Dr, G, I believe if people want to go back and listen to our very first episode covering the tribune of the plebs, they have to go all the way back to Episode 59 which we called “Introducing the Tribune of the Plebs”.
Dr G 38:12 I'm glad we've got this very, very logical naming system. Easy to find what you're looking for, guys.
Dr Rad 38:20 Indeed.
Dr G 38:21 We talk about the children of the plebs a lot.
Dr Rad 38:22 Yeah. Now, of course, it's not all internal drama by any means. In Rome in the fifth century, if anything, this is the century that Rome starts to really put itself on the map. I think I mean the Regal period, sure, but it's a little bit, you know, it's a little bit more mythical, dare I say legendary? It's a little hard to know what's going on in that time period. So there's certainly not a predominant power at any point in this century. They are not the Rome that gets made into glorious movies like Gladiator.
Dr G 38:57 Certainly not.
Dr Rad 38:58 But we do see some really interesting interactions with them and other major powers in Italy at this point in time. So we of course have the Etruscans to the north, very influential culture on Rome itself. There's a lot of interchange there, but also, you know, some conflict. And then we also have the Sabines to the east. They are major players in the fifth century, not quite as much, though, as the aequians and the volscians who are to the south and the Southeast. Oh, if I had $1 for every time I'd said the Aequians and the Volscians, Dr, G.
Dr G 39:38 You would be able to retire right now.
Dr Rad 39:40 I could be a podcaster full time. It'd be amazing. Let's set up that system.
Dr G 39:45 Yes, I think so. So yeah, Rome is small. It is not predominant in its region necessarily. It seems to be engaging in back and forth conflict. With all of its neighbors. And the fifth century, within the broader terms of what we know about Italy itself, the whole the whole kit and caboodle from north to south, that whole peninsula across this century, it seems to be a century where nobody is really flourishing as much as they have done previously.
Dr Rad 40:22 That is true, yeah.
Dr G 40:23 So the Etruscans seem to have this really sort of thriving trading culture, and they have an influence that spreads all the way into Campania so south of Rome in the sixth century, and that seems to really be curtailed in the fifth century. So they start to lose their foothold in the south, and they start to expand a little bit more and flourish more in the north. So if you think about where the Po River is, they're doing quite well up there in the fifth century, but where Rome is in the center of Italy, the Etruscans aren't doing so well, and it's becoming that that's their lowest threshold, like the lowest point into Italy, that they are able to retain any control. They lose that influence in Campania. And so that's all happening. You've got the situation in Magna Graecia, where, again, the archeological record suggests that the trading has really slowed down, that you've got a lot of infighting between peoples who are from ancestral Greek colonist backgrounds with people from Italic backgrounds. So there starts to be some more internal fighting going on, and the trade network sort of falling away a little bit, and Rome sort of comes through in this era, but we don't see them flourishing in particular in this century, and they actually have a lot of trouble in certain moments. There's some good 10 year periods in this century where it seems like they're getting sort of hit by plague, or they're going back and forwards against the Volscians and the Aequians, but the next year they lose, and the next year they win, and they're just sort of fighting over the same bits of territory and the same bits of booty, and it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. So Rome isn't preeminent by any means. They have a couple of friends in the region, but they also are struggling with a foothold, and we do get this sense that one of the ways that warfare operates in this century seems to be through the framework of the family. So the gens is a really important mechanism for military power, and the one that really stands out is the Fabian gens in this century, because they're nearly completely wiped out through their conflict with the Etruscan outpost of Cremera to the north in around about 477 BCE. So they have this huge problem where they lose almost every eligible man who could continue their patriarchal line in this moment. And so we get the sense that warfare isn't just about elite people trying to levy an army together, but it is about families determining what their interests are and where they might want to send their own personal war band.
Dr Rad 43:28 And I think that this leads so much into the politics that we've just been talking about as well. I think with military power obviously being so crucial to Rome survival at this point in time, forget about thriving, just survival against all these other rival powers. With that military backbone being so crucial, it makes sense that we also see the genses being so crucial in political life as well, and certain families being more dominant than others, the networks, you know, the patron client relationships that kind of start to spring up. It's very futile when we look at it. And that's where I think the chaos comes from as well, because it is about whether these families, I think, actually have the ability to follow through in a military sense, not just a political sense. And that's why I think that there's a little bit more chaos to it than you might otherwise be led to believe where it's like, well, the republic was founded, and this is how it worked. And, you know, this is how it operated.
Dr G 44:28 Yeah, so the sense that there is, like, this chaotic, familial element that is at the heart of Roman politics, I think, is a really useful idea to take away from the fifth century, because it is going to continue. We're going to see the rise of different gentes over time, and that's part and parcel of the way that Roman politics is centered in the extended family in really particular ways. So obviously you have an expanding range of magisterial positions that occur as we go through time in the fifth century. We're not entirely sure about how complex that structure is, but there's some and it's going to get more complex, but certainly we see patterns of families coming into these roles, and it seems to be the case that there is a sense of trust that if a family has held a position before, then they kind of have an experience that will be useful for the next person in their family who comes into that role. So families build reputations within this republican structure in a way that may have not been possible in a monarchical system, but we also see that warband element, so we can't forget the way that family is operating here, and maybe it is having more of an effect than we're really aware of. The Struggle of the Orders might be repositioned as something like struggles amongst gentes, for instance.
Dr Rad 46:00 Yeah, definitely. And I think it also makes sense that if we look at the archeological record, and I know this is something we flagged in our detailed episodes, but it makes sense that this would be a century of strife and highs and lows. If we can see in the archeological record that most societies in Italy are struggling at this point in time. You know, there's even scholars who will write about this thing of the fifth century crisis. So we know that whenever humans are just natural, isn't it that if you're put in a difficult position, there's higher stress in terms of either the cost of your living or having access to certain resources that you need, it's only natural that you're going to be more aggressive, perhaps more ready to fight with other people and other groups. It just makes sense. That's why people are obviously. It's one of the many reasons why, in this day and age, in 2024 people are so concerned about the effect that climate change is going to have, because it is going to reduce our resources, and it is going to increase our cost of living. So it's all very well and good to hark back to good old days when none of this was a problem. But that's not a political problem, you know, you can, you can look back on, you know, things 20, 30, years ago and think, oh, wow, we had it really good back then. I'm going to, you know, think about the politics back then and try and return to that era. That's not what this is about environmental issues, which, you know, going back to that political party, isn't going to change. And so to me, it makes so much sense, because what we see in our own time period, I think, is emblematic of what they're going through. You know, it's just, it's just about pressure, stress, all those same sorts of things, human, behavior, I don't think changes that much in these sort of broader areas that we're looking at.
Dr G 47:44 Yeah, and I think this is one of the keys to thinking about this state of lack of flourishing, if you like, it's environmental, and this has consequences for the culture.
Dr Rad 47:57 Yeah.
Dr G 47:57 You can see that playing out pretty clearly for the Romans in this period, like they are on struggle street, and there's various ways that they try to deal with that, one of which is this decemvirate that I flagged earlier. You know, it's tough. So by the mid fifth century, BCE, so 452, nobody seems to be particularly happy in Rome. Maybe it's to do with the dominance of certain elite folk. Maybe it's to do with the ongoing year on year wars that seem to be coming up and dragging on. But there does become a sense of concern around this idea that the laws are just not explicitly known, and a codification of them would be an important step. This pressure has been building for a while, and this eventually culminates in the creation of the “decemviri consulari imperio legibus scribundis”, the 10 men with consular imperium for writing down the laws.
Dr Rad 49:07 Romans really have to work on their catchy titles for things.
Dr G 49:11 We can call them the decemvirs, I think that's easier. So they effectively replace the consulship for a short while. And I don't know.
Dr Rad 49:19 Well, all magistracies, isn't it? Like, basically, there are no – I thought it was the case that they were like no magistracies apart from – and that's why it was such a big step, because they had to hand over everything to these guys. It wasn't it because there was, like, no place of appeal?
Dr G 49:34 Yes. But also, do we have other magistrates?
Dr Rad 49:38 Well, that's the question.
Dr G 49:41 So I wasn't I was considering opening the thorny door of, do we even have consuls? But I'm gonna leave that mostly shut.
Dr Rad 49:49 Don't rain on my parade of imaginary magistrates!
Dr G 49:53 There are some people who used to be in charge in Rome, and now they have been replaced by these 10 men who have a singular job. Their job is to write down the laws, and that would be fine. You got to get the codification. You got to get it done. This is going to become the Twelve Tables, which is exciting, but the project takes way longer than anybody is expecting, and it's important that they're given consular imperium as well, because this means that if they need to take a break from the codification of the laws and go and fight a war instead, they have the legitimate authority to do that too. So things take longer than anybody thought they would. One wonders, if they're being delayed deliberately? Isn't it nice to be in power? Isn't it nice for you and nine of your buddies to be swatting about in charge of this place and not really have to give it up until you get the job done? But what if you do? Yeah, what if it takes your whole life to get that job done? So anyway, in 450 it's decided that there needs to be a second decemvirate. So the first one sort of dragged on a little bit too long, at least twice as long as expected, because they thought it would only take a year, but it's taken at least two and they're like, okay, we need to get a second group of these guys. And we really need to finish this task. And the second group is really the choice pick of a guy called Appius Claudius. So he stands out as the preeminent figure in this time period. He has enough charisma and enough tszuj that everyone's like, well, he should be in charge of that second decemvirate. So he handpicks it basically, and has all of his buddies brought in, and then they all start behaving badly, I think might be the nice way of putting it.
Dr Rad 51:49 To the surprise of nobody who knows the Claudian family.
Dr G 51:54 The Claudian family does have a reputation. Remember this, it is going to become important over and over again.
Dr Rad 52:03 It will, it will different branches and yet.
Dr G 52:06 And yet, yeah, they can't help themselves. He ends up ruining some innocent lives. And it's only after a supreme act of violation of Verginia, who is a plebeian woman that the Roman senate who standing off in the background, just a bunch of old men being like, yeah, I don't know if we should let him do this anymore. They finally are persuaded that the decemvirate needs to be dealt with.
Dr Rad 52:38 And the murder of Dentatus. Dr G, everyone forgets the murder of Dentatus, “the man with teeth”.
Dr G 52:44 The murder of Dentatus is still etched in my soul, because I will never be over the grief. Let's make that clear. Dentatus did so much, and how was he repaid? Terribly. So eventually, the decemvriate is shut down, we get what we think is their work in the fragments that remain of the Twelve Tables. And it is a bonkers text. So it does seem like maybe the patricians were making up some laws because it's chaotic out there.
Dr Rad 53:15 Yeah, but it's so fundamental, isn't it? It's such a big deal whenever a society gets to this point where they're like, right? We're codifying the laws, and we're going to write them down this time.
Dr G 53:25 Once and for all, people will know what's going on. And boy, absolutely did you want to know less about fruit trees.
Dr Rad 53:32 Well, that's just it. That what we have left of the Twelve Tables, we do have a bit, but it is still somewhat fragmentary, in spite of its immense importance, apparently, to Roman society.
Dr G 53:42 Yeah, very fragmentary. A lot to do with understanding where the borders are between you and your neighbor's property, and the sorts of things that pertain to what is okay to do if you find something on the wrong side of the fence. And yes, exactly you know, can you drop down the branches? And it's like, sometimes you can.
Dr Rad 54:03 And this is the Roman dream, Dr G, to have your own land. Which brings me to one of the other big themes of this century, apparently, the dream of agrarian reform. So along with the law about the laws, yeah, law about the laws, issues over debt. This is probably the completes, the trio, I think, of the top plebeian demands in the Struggle of the Orders. It's a little tricky to understand this, because if we look at what the sources say it is the fact that there is public land, the “ager publicus”, apparently.
Dr G 54:40 Apparently.
Dr Rad 54:41 And it is not always being used in a fair manner. We think that, according to our sources, the elites are perhaps controlling it overly much, instead of it being held in common use for all the citizens. Now we've always struggled with this storyline, because it just seems so much like the issues that arise in the late republic and are super controversial at that time period. And this is involves, for those of you who know a little bit about Roman history, the famous Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. They get swept up in these issues of land reform in the late republic. But it's just brought up so many times.
Dr G 55:27 It is a huge issue, and it seems that Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus are very fixated on it. It seems to be one of the pain points of the broader Struggle of the Orders, the idea that there is ager publicus – at this point in time – seems a little far fetched, I would suggest, if we think about the broader context of the fifth century in Italy is not a time of flourishing, it's a time of struggle, generally speaking, and Rome isn't expanding very much. Now they do make some acquisitions in the fifth century, little outposts here and there, but it is not at all clear that they are controlling vast tracts of land, no and even if they were controlling even small areas, they tend to lose them and then have to regain them back. It's not like they are secure holdings. And let's say, for instance, you took over a place in the fifth century, and you were Rome, and then the next year you lost it, and then the next year you gained it back. Do you gain it back in exactly the same way that you had it before? And what portion of that, if any, would be considered common use land? Goodness knows, it's madness to me. So I feel like this is something that is really hard to reconcile with just how unstable things appear to be. In the fifth century BCE, the Romans are very much struggling to hold targets that they acquire if they are expanding. It's not at all clear where that land would go or how it would be used, although sometimes there's mention of colonists being sent out. And, yeah, it does feel like we're really getting a later issue being sort of superimposed on this very first century of the republic, just to sort of give us a sense that this has always been on the cards for Rome and the stories that happen much later with the Gracchi are maybe justified to a certain extent that the idea has always been at play.
Dr Rad 57:49 Yeah, and I think as well, if we brush aside the first century BCE curtain that might be covering these issues, maybe what is at stake here is that with all this warfare going on with Rome and its neighbors, maybe it is about the fair and just distribution of booty and access to resources that are being gained in whatever expeditions the Romans are carrying on. Maybe that's really what is at stake here, and for Livy and Dionysius living in the time period that they live in, that would be land, you know, that that would be a major issue, or maybe it reflects a paucity of land in this time period that people are struggling to survive. I can kind of see some connection, obviously, between that and the issues of debt that we've talked about and and there being a division between, obviously, people that have more and people that have less. It's not necessarily that that that you can put that directly on top of patricians for beings, but I can definitely understand that. It's a very old story, and one that we still obviously experience now, this division between people that have very much and people that have very little.
Dr G 58:59 Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I think the dream of agrarian reform, it's there. How does it manifest? And I like your theory relating to like, is it about equitable distribution of the booty, the things that are taken in warfare, as much as it might be about –
Dr Rad 59:18 Gotta divide up that ass!
Dr G 59:22 Shake it, shake it
Dr Rad 59:22 Sorry, it's been a while since I've done one of those jokes.
Dr G 59:25 I always appreciate them, thinking also about like, how does it look when you're struggling to survive? And, yeah, this is one of the problems that Rome suffers from as well, is that it's like, this is not a hunky dory time to be a Roman. It is a time where there are plagues, there are ongoing, sort of rotating military campaigns that mean that you're losing people consistently, which is then affecting your ability to farm, affecting your ability to bring in a harvest, and, yeah, if you don't have enough land to subsist or produce a little bit of surplus, then obviously this is going to lead to real tensions. So perhaps you do want some agrarian reform.
Dr Rad 1:00:16 Yeah, exactly. And I think that's that's something that, again, just to do the modern parallels, which I love to do, even though it completely time stamps out this episode. It is that idea that sometimes when people encounter things that cost a lot, like in terms of clothing or food, they get really outraged in Anglophone countries like Britain and Australia and America. And it's understandable, because you've been led to believe that these sorts of things should be cheap and plentiful, but actually, when you look at the amount of labor and work that goes into producing these resources, and how crucial they are to survival, if everyone in that supply chain and in that production is getting paid well enough, then actually, these things probably should cost a little more than what we've been led to believe. Doesn't mean it should. I'm not saying I agree with the cost of living crisis that is happening in many countries right now, but I think we've been led to believe that certain things should be cheap and that we should have huge amounts of disposable income, when actually, if you look at how people used to live in ancient Rome, a huge amount of whatever they were bringing in, not that would be cash, like for us, but whatever they were bringing in, it is labor intensive, and a lot of what they're trying to produce is just like basic enough clothes to keep them warm or cool, depending on the season, somewhere to live and enough food to survive. That's really what they're looking for here. Sure, everyone enjoys entertainment, everyone enjoys that extra stuff that you have. Obviously, there is like something inbuilt in us where there's competition and rivalry and we want to have more. But I think that comes from a self rival instinct, whereas these days, what it applies to obviously that more is becoming just so extravagant, the lifestyle that we expect with that more is just, it's insane when you look at what people are aspiring to have, and that's why it's just, it's yeah, just not reachable for most.
Dr G 1:02:12 Yeah, for sure. And I think when we're thinking about Rome and how people are struggling in this century. It is perhaps even more, I don't want to say, laudable, that's the word that came to mind. But that's not the right word. Even more interesting. Stick with something really neutral. One of my favorite words interesting that they do field as many military forces as they do absolutely part of it is about survival, and part of it is trying to create that sort of protective barrier between yourself and the danger. So if you can have that buffer zone, it's strategic, military, you know, it's tactical. If you can do that, that's really useful, because that allows you to then relax a little bit in terms of being able to produce a little bit extra so that you can do that again. And that's kind of the struggle that Rome and all of her neighbors are in, is that they're all trying to gain just a little bit of security for themselves. That means that they've got enough surplus to do it again if they have to, because it's pretty clear that they will have to year on year. So I think this leads us very nicely into thinking about the way that this militarization and conflict throughout the region is really becoming more and more severe as the century goes on, because they have to develop this whole new political entity, the military tribune with consular power.
Dr Rad 1:03:55 Such a wordy title.
Dr G 1:03:57 It is a wordy title. And I don't know that they're I see people sort of like, you know, turning it into, like an abbreviation, the MTCP, and I'm like no! It's the military tribune with consular power. It is so you can't have a new political system without some teething issues. The dictator has been a bit of a solution. The tribune of the plebs a bit of a solution. And then we've got this idea that the major magistracies are these two consuls, this idea that there's a sharing of what used to be monarchical power between these two figures. But sometimes you've got even bigger issues, and one of the key facets of the consulship is this idea that they are legally, legitimately able to field military forces, which is great, because you could have two armies going in different directions led by two different people. But what if? What if, Dr Rad, you had more than two enemies that you needed to deal with in a particular year?
Dr Rad 1:05:06 Which I think Rome often does. They managed to annoy a lot of people. It's impressive. Actually, it's laudable, you might say.
Dr G 1:05:14 Let's say you're not great at making friends. And let's say you're better at making enemies. And let's say all your enemies decide to attack in the same year. Well, maybe you got a bit of a crisis on your hands, because you've got a situation now where you're like, well, if I had one big issue, I could bring in a dictator, but I've got four big issues that I need to deal with…
Dr Rad 1:05:39 I got 99 problems.
Dr G 1:05:42 Exactly. It's like, my problems are multiplying, and I just don't have the manpower. And all of a sudden, you're like, I need more people to be able to lead armies. This is where the military tribune with consular power comes in. And not only is it beneficial in terms of being able to have more armies in the field, although presumably they're smaller armies than if you had two big armies. But there is a sense in which it's a military tribune, which is kind of like a lower level position within the military structure. And this allows them to co-opt plebeians into this leadership role all of a sudden. Or that's the theory anyway.
Dr Rad 1:06:27 That's the theory.
Dr G 1:06:28 That's the theory. So sometimes we have four military tribunes with consular power. Sometimes we have six. It gets more chaotic as the century goes on, and theoretically, we're allowed to have some plebeians in there, but that really doesn't happen until we get right to the end of the fifth century BCE.
Dr Rad 1:06:52 Which is, I think again, one of those interesting examples of potentially the narrative maybe overriding what was actually happening. So rather than saying, look, guys, I'm not going to lie to you, things were tough in this century. Whew, boy. We almost got snuffed out completely a few times, rather than potentially admitting that, it feels like whenever we talk about military tribunes with consular power, it's far more a political issue, where it's about who's going to hold the power, the ultimate power? Is it going to be a patrician? Is it going to be a plebeian? Constantly we are talking about this rivalry, about, Oh, what the what's the election going to be for the next year? Is it going to be a consular year, or is it going to be military tribunes with consular power? And it's never really connected to the fact that maybe it's because there is so much going on militarily, and then towards the end of the fifth century, BCE, rather than Rome sort of trading tit for tat with neighbors, which feels like what happens a lot of the time in the fifth century BCE, it seems like Rome is actually going a little bit more aggressively for expansion. And so it would make sense again, to have military tribunes with consular power if you were trying to be on the front foot more than you were on the back foot, or, you know, just responding to some sort of other conflict where it's being resolved militarily. So yeah, it's really weird that we very rarely see talk about this position, and how many there were of them in the sense of, well, Rome just has that many problems, guys.
Dr G 1:08:26 So many problems. And we just need so many people to help us out.
Dr Rad 1:08:30 Yeah.
Dr G 1:08:31 And sometimes they do get sent to similar locations. So as we hit the end of the fifth century BCE, we are at the start of the siege of Veii and it does seem like there are moments where Rome sends a whole bunch of commanders to the same location, being like, alright, well, it's military tribunes of consular power this year. But that's the problem, and so that does feed into this idea that you've suggested that we're talking about something that is not just about the practicality of, can we field enough armies? Because we've got too many war fronts that we need to deal with to this is a political situation, and we certainly don't want some people sitting in that consulship this year. It's got to be a military tribunate instead, and the ins and outs of that are completely beyond our capacity to reckon with, with the source material that we've got. But it is fascinating.
Dr Rad 1:09:32 It definitely is, and I feel very happy, at least, that we did manage to get a plebeian in just under the line.
Dr G 1:09:39 Scraping in.
Dr Rad 1:09:42 Yeah. Well, Dr, G, I think that that does definitely give people a bit of a highlight through looking back and seeing those tensions between the haves and have nots, whoever they may be, we're not. We're not going to make them fit in these labelled categories, we're too cool and hip for that.
Dr G 1:10:02 I don't like, I don't like labels.
Dr Rad 1:10:04 Yeah, don't like labels. And definitely the power of the families and that extended family structure being so important. So the gens being really at the heart of the political and military life of Rome at this point in time, and that perhaps explaining why there is this sense of chaos. It's just lurking beneath the order that Livy and Dionysius have given to the narratives. It seems so, seems like everything's so together. But really, you peek underneath it, it's not quite a set in stone, as they would have us.
Dr G 1:10:38 Yeah, open that door. Have a look inside. Close it again. Be like Rome. It's chaos in there.
Dr Rad 1:10:42 Yeah.
Dr G 1:10:43 Rome certainly doesn't have a formal army in this century. Far from it. It is really a situation where they have to be called up every sort of campaign season.
Dr Rad 1:10:55 Ah, the levy.
Dr G 1:10:57 Yeah. So there is a levy every time, and so people have to sign up to be on campaign, which must take a reasonable amount of time. So that is interesting. People don't get paid. It's part of your civic duty, not something that you are getting an income from. And we start to see a little hint that potentially, there is payment offered to Roman military forces right at the end of the fifth century BCE. And again, it's related to the siege of Veii.
Dr Rad 1:11:31 A little hint? You're calling Livy, talking about military pay multiple times, a little hint? Well, that's just shows how much do you value him, Dr G!
Dr G 1:11:42 It's a very small hint. I would not be the first historian who has a small quibble with Livy on this point.
Dr Rad 1:11:51 I know, I know.
Dr G 1:11:54 The idea that you could run a siege, which has to run regardless of the season, rain, hail, shine, you're on siege. The idea that that would maybe necessitate or encourage some sort of monetary compensation from the elites does make some sense, because prior to having a long, protracted siege, warfare tends to be campaign season only. So do your levy in the early spring. You get out in the summer, you wrap it up before winter, because you've got to get home. So that whole situation in terms of like warfare being tied to the seasonal calendar might allow you to just sort of be like, it's a citizen duty to turn up and do the fighting, and it's like, and the weather is nice, and you're hanging out with your bros, and you're like, yeah, look, I've seen some traumatic things, but, you know, I had some fun as well.
Dr Rad 1:12:53 It's summertime, and you know what that means?
Dr G 1:12:56 It means I'm wearing my shorty shorts and I'm on the battlefield with my bros
Dr Rad 1:13:01 Who wears short shorts? Actually, we should change that rewind, who wears short skirts?
Dr G 1:13:10 I mean, it's beautiful out there. You know, there's a man hanging out with men writing letters home. Dear Marcia.
Dr Rad 1:13:20 So the other thing that we definitely see throughout the fifth century BCE, not surprising, and again, something that modern listeners perhaps have greater understanding of now than they would have 10 years ago, is just how much illness can have an impact on a civilization. So we certainly see devastating outbreaks of plague. What exactly that illness is, when they say plague or pestilence, is anybody's guess, because, of course, we have very different understandings of medical matters in the modern time period to the ancient. But certainly the way that that could really bring Rome to its knees. And that, I think, also links into other disasters, like, you know, famine, infestations of, you know, insects, anything like that. Obviously can be really devastating for these sorts of civilizations. And I think we kind of started to feel like that wasn't the case again in very privileged countries. But Covid really showed us that that is not the case at all, that any civilization actually can be ground to a halt if the illness is serious enough, so.
Dr G 1:14:30 Yeah, and I think the thing for Rome is, the sad benefit for Rome in all of this sort of stuff is that plagues – they're not interested in your borders. You know they will sweep through your neighbors, just as they will sweep through you. So you have a situation across the fifth century where Rome falls under the blight of some sort of plague and pestilence. But they're not the only ones, so it's not like their enemies. Can take advantage of the situation in any particular way, because they, too, are having a plague and all lying about being like just let it be over. I can't live like this anymore.
Dr Rad 1:15:13 The odd time when they have tried to take advantage because they haven't been infected, usually they end up getting infected because they got too close to the Romans, exactly. So isolation, guys, it works.
Dr G 1:15:24 I mean, if you don't have the plague, don't run at somebody who has the plague.
Dr Rad 1:15:28 Yes, social distancing, it's a thing.
Dr G 1:15:31 It works, guys, it works. Follow the science.
Dr Rad 1:15:35 Yeah, and so, yeah. Basically, we've got the fifth century being really interesting, because it is a time of struggle. It's a time of conflict. Rome is trying to establish itself. It certainly is a power that's worthy of discussion at this time. You know, people are definitely taking note of it. People want to conquer it. People want to grind it into the dust under their sandaled heel. But it certainly isn't a major power that is winning every battle. I mean, I if I thought of it at the time, we really should have kept a scoreboard of how many times Rome wins and how many times it loses, because I feel like it would come out fairly evenly.
Dr G 1:16:13 I feel like, yeah, for every victory there's definitely a loss. And you know, they're having this ongoing struggle with the Etruscans. The Volscians are a thorn in their sides, the Aequians and later on, the Faliscans. And they've got some friends as well. The Tusculans seem to be always on Rome's side.
Dr Rad 1:16:32 Adorable Tusculans, yes.
Dr G 1:16:34 Rome has made some friends. The Hernicians are their friends, which is cute, but yeah, it's it's it's bonkers out there. And they are not a regional leader at all. They're one of many competing for the same resources in the same very nice part of Central Italy.
Dr Rad 1:16:54 Yeah. And I like to say thank you to everybody who's been with us throughout this past century and before, if you were with us for the Regal period as well, and also the period before that, when we were doing things much more randomly, kind of like the Romans. See, order develops with time.
Dr G 1:17:09 Order from chaos.
Dr Rad 1:17:12 That's right, that's how it happens. Now I should say, I know that I've been a little bit present just today, and I often am a bit presentist in the way that we talk about things, but I think that the reason why I like history so much Dr G is that by thinking through the experiences that the Romans had and the experiences that I've had myself, it actually kind of helps me to understand their scenario, even though I know it's not the same. I know you can't translate my life and put it into ancient Rome by any means, but in terms of the basic emotions that they were feeling, or the very, very broad experiences, I just feel like it gives me more empathy for what people were going through back then, and I also feel like it helps me to process what I'm going through right now as a person living on this planet.
Dr G 1:17:57 Yeah, and I think there's a huge value to doing history as a way of understanding the self and for seeing certain parallels. Obviously, nothing is a one to one parallel. Everything is vastly different in all of its manifestations through time. But there are ways in which we can see the way that the Romans are sort of navigating their definition of self through the way the historians write about it much later.
Dr Rad 1:18:23 Absolutely, yeah, they're doing the same thing, yeah.
Dr G 1:18:26 And that process of coming to grips with the past as a way of coming to grips with yourself, I think, is one of the great pleasures of history. So any point in time in which you do history and practice history, the outcome will always be a little bit different, and that is because your present is always a little bit different from the present of somebody else. So yeah, returning to these things over time, you start to learn more about yourself, more about your own society, and it raises questions, not just about the past, but also about the here and now, which I think is fascinating.
Dr Rad 1:19:00 Exactly. It makes it intelligible. I think history is at the end of a just good to think with. And there is no doubt in my mind that if I were plunked by a DeLorean, of course, into the fifth century BCE, I would probably die within a week, because I don't have the skills necessary. But if I think about the sorts of issues that the Romans are talking about and wrestling with, you know, those sort of core conversations and questions about power and how a society should function, and what our responsibility to each other is if we're living in form of society, I mean, it's all very understandable all of a sudden, even though I'm like, wow, your life is so foreign, I can be like, wow, actually, we're not that different.
Dr G 1:19:46 So true.
Dr Rad 1:19:48 So Dr, G, it's been such a delight spending so much time in the fifth century. BCE, with you, and I cannot wait to see what a new century has in store for us.
Dr G 1:19:57 Did we just spend nearly a decade in the fifth century BCE?
Dr Rad 1:20:02 I think we did. We're gonna have to live really long lives. Quick, take that magic potion!
Dr G 1:20:08 I'm very excited to start exploring the fourth century BCE, with you, Dr Rad, and I look forward to the next time we chat.
Dr Rad 1:20:15 Absolutely, we're certainly not gonna run out of material!
Special Episode - Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
18 sept. 2024
01:43:11
We are in shock that it has taken us this long to cover the cult classic that is Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). We have Rslaugesen over on Patreon to thank for pointing out this glaring oversight.
Once we got started, it was hard for us to stop talking about the Life of Brian. British comedy was a staple of our childhoods and Monty Python was one of our favourites. It was a treat to follow the development of this movie from Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory to a Sliding Doors-style story of Brian Cohen, born in the manger over from Christ.
Whilst Monty Python were probably trying to make a parody of 1970s Britain rather than a historically accurate portrait of first century CE Judea, we still found this film intriguing. From wolf’s nipples to imperialism, we take you through all the best Roman scenes… and perhaps a few non-Roman scenes as well. Who can resist talking about the Virgin Mandy?
Part of the appeal of Life of Brian is the fact that it is not afraid to make fun of the Romans (or anyone) and shows a much less glamorous side of the empire. Quite the contrast to the epics of the 1950s and 1960s.
Things to Look Out For
Far too many ‘reenactments’ of our favourite moments
Comedies don’t always stand the test of time. We can spot some awkward moments in the film, but overall, we think Life of Brian stands the test of time. Forty-five years after it’s release, we would love to know whether you agree!
The 400s BCE have been a rollercoaster for Rome. It certainly seems to have been a decade of big changes, both in terms of foreign policy and on the domestic front.
Join us for the highlights for the last decade of the fifth century BCE!
Dr Rad – Welcome to the Partial Recap for the 400s BCE! Dr G – I’m Dr G Dr Rad: and I’m Dr Rad Dr G: and this is our highlights edition of the 400s in Rome. We’ll take you through from 409 to 400 in an epitome of our normal episodes. Dr Rad: Perfect for those mornings when you don’t want some lengthy rhetoric with your coffee – but please be warned – the Roman world is a violent one. Dr G: Get ready for a recappuccino.
409 BCE
In 409 BCE, the consuls were Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus and Lucius Furius Medullinus.
The plebeians were SO upset that they could not elect their champion, Menenius, as military tribune with consular power
Capitalising on that, the tribune of the plebs started applying some pressure. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE SITUATION, PEOPLE OR WE GIVE UP.
There were a staggering number of tribunes from the legendary Icilii family this year, and the plebs did always take them especially seriously. #heroesoftheunderrrepresented
Finally, THREE plebs were elected the quaestorship instead.
This cheered them up immensely as it was the FIRST TIME a pleb had been chosen for this office! Amazeballs.
The patricians naturally fell apart immediately. When they allowed plebs to be elected to the quaestorship, they didn’t really think it would happen! It was too ridiculous! A pleb in office? A pleb chosen over a patrician? This was a worrying sign that the world was ending.
To make matters worse, the Icilii started pushing for elections for military tribunes with consular power in 408. We see what you are SCHEMING, you troublesome tribunes! You want a pleb to hold imperium! Don’t make us SICK.
As the patricians and plebeians battled it out once more for consuls vs military tribunes, the Aequians and the Volscians started attacking the territory of Roman allies.
The consuls attempted to hold a levy to raise an army, but the Icilii refused to let the levy proceed until they got what they wanted – elections for military tribunes!
As the patricians and plebeians entered yet another staring contest, news arrived that the citadel of Carventum had been lost to the enemy.
Still, the tribunes refused to allow the levy to proceed – military success be damned!
This was not a popular move – but it WORKED
The patricians were forced to agree that there would be no consuls in 408 – BUT only on the condition that none of the current tribunes of the plebs could serve again OR be elected as military tribune. They couldn’t kill the Icilli, but they could kill their career prospects!
With all that unpleasantness behind them, the Romans could now march off to Carventum and win back that citadel.
They did not quite pull that off, so instead they captured Verrugo from the Volscians and contented themselves with lots of lovely booty.
408 BCE
In 408 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Caius Julius Iullus, Publius Cornelius Cossus, and Caius Servilius Ahala
In spite of the drama in 409, only patricians were elected to serve as the chief magistrates. Who would’ve thought?
The patricians had pulled some shady tricks in the election, but it worked! No plebs were chosen and they could breathe a sigh of relief.
The Antiates, Volscians and Aequians decided to band together and take on the Romans in this year.
The Romans were used to taking on two enemies at a time, but three??? Time for a dictator!
Two of the military tribunes were PRESSED to see their chance for glory and command slip right through their fingers.
Julius and Cornelius complained so much, high-ranking senators had to tell them to build a bridge and get over it.
Only Ahala proved himself worthy of office, as he was willing to do whatever was best for Rome – not himself. AWWWW
This impressed the pants off everyone, including the new dictator, Publius Cornelius Rutilus Cossus. He chose Ahala to serve as his deputy. That’s what happens when you’re a team player!
The Romans could now focus on what they do best – winning! They easily trampled their enemies, perhaps capturing some prisoners and a fortress?
Back at home, the patricians decided to use the same dodgy election tactics to make sure that no plebs were chosen to serve as military tribunes with consular power in 407 – and it worked again!
Who says you have to reinvent the wheel? The wheel is fine!
407 BCE
In 407 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Lucius Furius Medullinus, Caius Valerius Potitus Volusus, Numerius Favius Vibulanus and Gaius Servilius Ahala
It may have been in this year that the treaty between the Romans and Veii ran out. Hope that doesn’t have any terrible consequences!
The recently recaptured town or fortress of Verrugo was lost back to the Volscians…. Again.
Losing the territory was bitter, but the slaughter of the Roman garrison made the situation even worse.
And it all could have been avoided if the Romans had just sent reinforcements instead of waiting for their nails to dry.
406 BCE
In 406 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Publius Cornelius Rutilus Cossus, Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Numerius or Cnaeus Fabius Ambustus and Lucius Valerius Potitus.
406 BCE was a BIG year for the Ancient Romans, as it was apparently the year that their relationship with the Etruscan city of Veii fell apart… for the third time. It’s like Ross and Rachel all over again! Will these two crazy kids stop trying to kill each other and just admit that they are perfect for each other???
NO – the senators at Veii make it very clear that they prefer the killing option.
The Romans were SO offended that war was the only response.
Unfortunately, the young men in the city were kind of all-warred out. The Romans have finally done it. They’ve had enough fighting. Who knew that was possible?
The tribune of the plebs seized on this unhappiness to create some fantastic propaganda about how awful the patricians were. They use war to keep the people too distracted to fight for their own rights! Bastards.
The patricians knew they were in trouble when some veterans started taking their tunics off and showing their wounds. How much more blood do you want, you elite vampires??? Can’t you see they’ve already given all they have???
Instead, the military tribunes decided to head off against the Volscians. Smart to wrap one conflict before starting another!
Three of the military tribunes decided to divide and conquer – taking on Antium, Ecetrae and Anxur.
This was pushing things further south than the Romans had ever gone before!
Through some clever distractions, Fabius managed to capture Anxur, which meant lots of plunder for all!
Such generosity made the plebeians teary. Thanks for letting us profit from this death and destruction guys!
The patricians followed this up with a very unexpected bonus. Military pay! Yeah, it’s now a thing everyone.
If there ever was a moment when the plebeians had their minds blown, it was now. EXPLOSION.
The plebeians were now fully #teampatrician
It’s not just the pay guys. It’s the fact that you anticipated our needs! I mean, we didn’t even have to ask!
The only people who were not popping the champagne were the tribune of the plebs.
The plebeian tribunes tried to slap some sense into the people – HELLO? Where is the money for this going to come from, hmmm??? And why now??? What are the patricians planning???
Unwilling to lose their good publicity, the patricians made very public donations to the military pay fund, and anyone who could afford it started following their example.
The plebeians did not need to see any more – where could they sign? War couldn’t come soon enough! It was the only way to show how much they just LOVED Rome and LOVED the patricians. Nobody has better leaders. Where else do you get PAID to risk your life and limbs?!
The patricians suddenly remembered that they actually WOULD like an army to go and fight Veii. Isn’t that just a coincidence? Or did it all happen the other way round? The war, then the pay? Hmmmm….
By the close of the year, the Romans were ready to avenge the insult from Veii. Nobody is rude to the Romans and gets away with it! Time to teach the Etruscans some manners!
405 BCE
In 405 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus, Caius Iulius Iullus, Aulus Manlius, Lucius Furius Medullinus, and Manius Aemilius Mamercus..
The siege of Veii technically began in this year, although the Romans did not make much progress because the Roman army had to leave and deal with those pesky Volscians.
Meanwhile, the Etruscans were having one of their gatherings at the shrine of Voltumna and debating whether they should support Veii in the upcoming struggle with the Romans.
404 BCE
In 404 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Caius Valerius Potitus, Manius Sergius Fidenas, Publius Cornelius Maluginensis, Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Gaius or Kaeso Fabius Ambustus, Spurius Natius Rutulus.
The Romans won various battles with the Volscians in this year, but the most significant victory was at the town of Artena.
The Romans managed to capture the city, except for the citadel.
Some Volscian warriors had taken refuge there and the Romans just could not break through. What’s a soldier to do?
The Romans were pouting over this predicament when a Volscian slave decided to betray his masters and showed the Romans a secret way into the citadel. (EVIL LAUGHTER)
The Romans captured that annoying citadel and demolished the town.
The slave was freed and given the name of Servius Romanus plus some property for his troubles.
Now the Romans could really focus on Veii.
403 BCE
In 403 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Aemilius Mamercinus or Mamercus, Lucius Valerius Potitus, Appius Claudius Crassus, Marcus Quinctilius Varus, Lucius Julius Iulus, Marcus Furius Fusus, Marcus Postumius, Marcus Furius Camillus, and Marcus Postumius Albinus Regillensis
Rome and Veii continued to be on the warpath this year, only this time, they both seemed to understand that this would be a duel to the death. It would be victory or utter destruction.
That might have something to do with the extraordinary number of military tribunes that Rome elected!
The people of Veii actually weren’t that interested in more campaigning and decided to elect a king.
Unfortunately, their king was well-known as a douchebag extraordinaire and so the rest of the Etruscan cities said, “You’re on your own, Veii!” Sorry ‘bout it!
The Romans were busily preparing their siege and everyone noticed that winter quarters were being set up so that siege could last as long as it needed to. This was a new development and not everyone was terribly happy about it.
The Tribunes of the Plebs started stirring up trouble in the city, as they tended to do, pointing out that this was EXACTLY what they had suspected when military pay was suddenly introduced a few years ago. TOLD YOU SO!
The patricians were completely out of line. They expected the soldiers to serve endlessly, with no work-life balance?
Why not just make them slaves and be done with it.
This was a new low – and they had seen some real scallywags in the past.
If only the plebeians had elected one of their own to be a military tribune, maybe they wouldn’t all be in this mess!
The military tribunes had anticipated that someone might start getting lippy, so they had left behind Appius Claudius, from the most patrician gens on the block, to deal with any rabble-rousers.
Appius Claudius summoned all his rhetorical powers to savagely attack the tribunes of the plebs.
They were clearly just creating strife so that they could justify their job!
If there were no tribunes, the relationship between the plebs and the patricians would be so much more harmonious – because the patricians are the best people on the PLANET!
Unity was what Rome needed – a united Rome would be unstoppable. They would conquer the world!
But hey, if the people really wanted to insult the soldiers by undoing all their hard work and risk the war moving to Roman territory, that was one way to go .A stupid way to go!
And if the people wanted to call the Roman soldiers snowflakes because they can’t take a few, well, snowflakes, they could diss their own army and make Rome look like a laughing stock in front of all their enemies.
But Appius didn’t believe the ROman really wanted that. They understood that military pay was a totally fair trade for these new circumstances, they had the grit, the determination and the hatred necessary to pounce now whilst Veii was vulnerable!
Of course, they could listen to the tribune of the plebs and be WEAK and totally ruin everything… I mean, they’re basically traitors who were completely planning to undermine the obedience of the army next.
After such a barrage of arguments, some of the people were starting to think Appius was talking sense, but the plebs were divided.
At that moment, word reached Rome of a major setback in the siege at Veii which completely changed everything.
The Patricians and Plebeians started to unite, and more of the plebs found themselves agreeing with what Appius Claudius had said.
Equestrian men donated their service – and that of their own horses – to help with the war effort.
The senators were overwhelmed, but they were about to get ANOTHER present.
The plebs did not want to be outshone by these equestrians, so they rushed to the senate house and volunteered to do whatever it took to defeat Veii. Do you want me to kill for you? Please, ask me to kill for you.
The year ended in a total love-fest – tears, joy flowing on all sides and awkward embraces between the senators and the plebs.
This infusion of fresh meat was just what the campaign needed.
The equestrian volunteers were given a money allowance – which was apparently partly financed by some new taxes on unmarried men and orphans. Thanks censors! We wouldn’t want the rich men on horses to feel the pinch – definitely best to make the orphans cover the costs.
402 BCE
In 402 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Caius Servilius Ahala, Quintus Servilius Fidenas, Lucius Verginius Tricostus Esquilinus, Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, Aulus Manlius Vulso Capitolinus, and Manius Sergius Fidenas.
The Romans were so intensely focused on their war with Veii that they let things slide in Anxur, which they had recently added to their collection of territories.
The Roman garrison were given some leave, and whilst they were out picnicking and braiding each other’s hair, the locals recaptured their town.
Meanwhile at Veii, the commanders seemed to be more caught up in a competition with each other than in actually conquering their Etruscan rivals. Sounds like the Romans were cooking up a recipe for disaster!
Verginius and Sergius clearly had some serious beef with each other (hey Livy, where’s the backstory on these two?) and their rivalry could not have come at a worse time.
The Faliscans and Capenates decided to join their Etruscan brothers suddenly in their war with Rome – we’re sure it was out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they realised that the Romans would be coming after them if Veii fell.
The Romans already despised the Faliscans as they had fought against them in the past. How dare they cross them AGAIN?
However this surprising union of Etruscan peoples put the Romans on the backfoot. Were all of the Etruscans coming after them?
More concerningly, Roman forces were now caught between two attacking forces.
Sergius was the man on the ground and he knew the ROmans needed some reinforcements from their main camp. But he wasn’t going to ASK for help – that would mean asking his rival, Verginius, for aid.
Back at the main camp, Verginius heard that the Romans were in distress, but he wasn’t going to send help to SERGIUS – not unless he begged.
If you’re sensing that this battle did not go Rome’s way, you would be correct.
Sergius decided to run back to Rome to tattle on Verginius and demand that he be stripped of his command.
The Senate were not impressed with this situation and decided to just clean sweep it – get rid of all these tribunes, hold some early elections and start fresh.
Sergius and Verginius started to backpeddle furiously – they weren’t going to have their military tribunate cut short!
The tribune of the plebs weighed in on the issue, threatening the military tribunes with prison if they did not resign early.
Ahala, one of the other military tribunes, chimed in, telling the tribunes of the plebs that they had no right to send any magistrates to prison. Perhaps it was time for a dictator!
Everyone loved Ahala’s strong stance. It did the trick! The tribunes of the plebs and Sergius & Veginius all backed down, allowing elections to be called early for the following year.
401 BCE
In 401 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Lucius Valerius Potitus, Marcus Furius Camillus, Manius Aemilius Mamercinus or Mamercus, Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Kaeso Fabius Ambustus, and Lucius Julius Iulius Vospisci.
Rome was on scandal overload in 401 BCE.
The first drama was caused by the new military tribunes as they started to levy troops. They needed LOTS of men with all of the campaigns they were running – battling Veii, Capena, Falerii and the Volscians.
However, it was not a good look when they started enlisting the young and elderly.
But the more men they enlisted, the more money they needed to fund the new military pay system.
An attempt was made to introduce a special war-tax and this went down about as well as most new taxes.
The plebs were feeling very put upon and the tribune of the plebs decided to make the most of this. They stirred up so much angst that the elections of the next tribunes were a bit of a non-event, and there weren’t enough plebeian men elected to office.
The patricians were keen to undermine this position and they seem to have leaned on some of the elected tribunes to co-opt candidates that they found ….acceptable.
One of the remaining tribunes, Gnaeus Trebonius, fought hard against this. His ancestor had campaigned in 448 BCE to protect the tribunate from exactly this kind of corruption and the Lex Trebonia was now being blithely ignored.
The guilty tribunes who had made a deal with the patricians knew their reputation was in danger. They decided to harness all the negative feeling towards themselves, the tax, the levy, the wars, and channel it into attacking Sergius and Verginius.
Sergius and Verginius were the military tribunes from the previous year who had let their personal hatreds seriously jeopardise the fighting against Veii.
Insinuating that they were part of some evil deep state patrician conspiracy to drag out the wars so that the people did not have the time or energy to push for greater plebeian rights.
Hey Britney, it’s getting toxic in here.
It’s just as well Sergius and Verginius were totally guilty as they did not stand much chance of being declared innocent.
The two douchebags were issued a heavy fine, but the tribunes weren’t going to stop there. Why not try to secure land reform and refuse to pay the war-tax whilst they were at it? After all, Rome was not exactly vanquishing its’ enemies – they were mostly holding their own – was this worth a special tax?
This had a serious effect on those out in the field. Where was this pay they had been promised?
But in the city itself, all the outrage finally seemed to be paying off – a plebeian was elected to serve as military tribune with consular power in the very next year.
It only took a hundred or so years to get to this point!
400 BCE
In 400 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, Publius Manlius Vulso, Lucius Titinius Pansa Saccus, Publius Maelius Capitolinus, Spurius Furius Medullinus, and Lucius Publilius Philo Volscus VOLSCUS
In this year, The Romans recaptured Anxur from the Volscians. Huzzah!
The plebeians were in a state of shock to find one of their own serving as military tribune this year.
What made Publius Licinius Calvus so special? Did he buy his way into power? Was it family connections? Or was he just…nice?
Licinius Calvus seems to have owed his position to the fact that he was completely inoffensive to both classes – the patricians and the plebeians found him quite congenial.
With one of the major goals achieved, the tribunes of the plebs could finally relax – put on a Hawaiian shirt and take a holiday.
The war-tax, which had been needed to fund pay for the soldiers, was paid as the tribunes no longer fought against it.
Dr Rad: And that was the 400s in Ancient Rome… or was it?
Dr G: Remember, this has just been the highlights from the ancient sources, so if you want to delve into the complexities of the different evidence from this period, check out our narrative episodes. Jump in at Episode 144: Where in the World is Carventum? to join us for a deep dive into the 400s BCE.
Dr Rad: Thanks for turning in to this Partial Recap!
We are SO excited to share a snippet of our new book with you! That's right, we have a whole section entitled ‘With a Rebel Yell' that will be bonus digital content on the Ulysses Press website and so we thought, why not read it as well?
Today, we kick it all off with the section on the rebellious gladiator, SPARTACUS. Ah, this is where it all began for Dr Rad, and here we are at another beginning, and he's still her plus one.
Sneak Peek from the Bonus Digital Chapter of Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire
We jump into the year 400 BCE which has more excitement than you may have anticipated. Could this be the year we have evidence for a plebeian break-through into the important magisterial position of military tribune with consular power?
Episode 153 – The Plebeians Push into Power
Now, as always with this period of Rome’s early republican history, we need to keep into mind that the extant records are sketchy and we’re relying on writers living centuries in the future for their interpretation of whatever information they could scrounge together. And yet, if we look at the names that are put forward for the top job in 400 BCE, we notice some folk we’ve never heard of before – not just individuals, but extended family groups (gens), which is worth considering in more depth. You know we can’t resist a good thorny mystery when it comes to the evidence!
What is the senate and how did it work?
The entry of Calvus into the position of military tribune with consular power is a bit of a cat amongst the pigeons. But it might be Livy’s details about Calvus’ position as a member of the senate that makes this even more intriguing. We consider what the structure of the very early senate might have been (largely in the absence of strong evidence from the period in question). Where did the senate come from? How did it emerge as a feature of the republic? What might make sense given the senate is later understood as an advisory body? Was there a third socio-political class in the early republic? We explore some potential scenarios.
Things to listen out for
Our transition into nineteenth century German scholars
The difference between segregation and what was happening in the early republic
Discussion of the abuse of power by the powerful
The character of our plebeian hero Calvus
The tribune of soldiers
The fragmentary writer Licinius Macer
Updates on the state of play in Sicily and their conflict with Carthage
Igor taking a short break????
Our Players for 400 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Publius Licinius P. f. P. n. Calvus Esquilinus (NOT a patrician?????)
Publius Manlius M. f. Cn. n. Vulso (Pat)
Lucius Titinius L. f. M’. n. Pansa Saccus (Not a patrician?????)
Publius Maelius Sp. f. C. n. Capitolinus (Not a patrician?????)
Spurius Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat)
Lucius Publilius L. f. Voler. n. Philo Vulscus (Not a patrician?????)
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus; and Fasti Capitolini.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Münzer, F. ‘Licinius 43' in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley).
Smith, C. 2019. ‘Furius Camillus and Veii’, in Taboli, J., Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 219-224.
Sound Credits
Our music is by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Sounds and Orange Free Sound.
A photograph of the Roman forum by Felix Bonfils in the 19th century. Source: Picryl.
Automated Transcript
Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:55 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr G.
Dr Rad 1:03 And I am Dr Rad.
Dr G 1:05 And we are super thrilled to be here for what is the cusp; the very moment of transition. We're going to be talking about 400 BCE.
Dr Rad 1:18 I know. Do you remember when we were young and we started this podcast, and now we're middle aged, and we not even at the better known parts of Roman history yet.
Dr G 1:27 Goodness me, oh, you know, I like being in these lands of Rome's just developing. What is it? Why is it? Nobody really knows.
Dr Rad 1:38 I know. Yeah, well, it's easy to do a bit of a recap of where we were at last time in ancient Rome. Dr, G, because in 401 we hit a momentous milestone for ancient Rome. That's right after all this conflicting of the orders that we've had going on for, oh, I don't know, maybe like 85 years. Maybe longer, plenty, actually, no, 95 years. Yeah, 95 years. After 95 years of having conflict of the orders dominating our narrative, we finally got a plebeian elected due to serve in 400 BCE as a military tribune with consular power, which, okay, it's not the consulship, but it is the most powerful magistracy that will exist at this moment in time.
Dr G 2:30 And let's not disparage this position, because a military tribune with consular power has all of the effective means of the consul role, plus all of the added bonus of the military, I suppose, which exactly the consul had already, I don't know.
Dr Rad 2:50 Yeah, they just don't get the snooty patrician ability to be like, we're patrician and you're not, and we do the religious rights in this particular realm, and you don't, and we have fancy shoes and you don't!
Dr G 3:06 Ah, it's the fancy shoes that get you every time it is.
Dr Rad 3:10 Manolo Blahnik should be all over that one ancient Rome, yeah.
Dr G 3:16 Well, I think this is because it's such a momentous occasion. I think we need to dive in because I'm not sure that our source material is necessarily agreeing with each other, Dr. Rad.
Dr Rad 3:29 Controversy. All right, let's do it. Dr, G, let's dive in to 400 BCE.
I'm dancing. I'm dancing.
Dr G 4:04 It's 400 BCE, and we have six military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 4:12 Alright. Dr, G, tell me who they are, because I believe there is some confusion around the names for this year.
Dr G 4:19 There may very well be, and I put it to you that there's a whole bunch of names in here that don't sound patrician. First of all, we have Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, question mark, not a patrician. We haven't had a Calvus before.
Dr Rad 4:39 No, this is definitely, this is the guy. THIS is the guy. Dr G, this is the one.
Dr G 4:44 Oh okay, he's not my only one though
Dr Rad 4:46 He's definitely the plebeian, yeah.
Dr G 4:49 We also have Publius Manlius Vulso. Sounds very patrician. Whatever.
Dr Rad 4:55 I was gonna say, I think I've heard that name a number of times.
Dr G 4:58 But wait, there's more. We have Lucius Titinius Pansa Saccus.
Dr Rad 5:07 That is a weird name, if ever I heard one.
Dr G 5:10 Not a patrician.
Dr Rad 5:13 hmhmhmhmhmmmmm
Dr G 5:13 Doesn't sound like it. This is his first appearance. But we will see more of this guy later. We then have Publius Maelius Capitolinus. Now you would think patrician sounds pretty patrician.
Dr Rad 5:27 Well we've heard, we've heard of the family before. That's that's all, yeah.
Dr G 5:30 But there are some question marks around this guy as well.
Dr Rad 5:34 Hmmmm.
Dr G 5:34 Maybe not a patrician.
Dr Rad 5:35 Maybe not.
Dr G 5:37 Spurius Furius Medullinus.
Dr Rad 5:40 I know he is definitely, definitely a patrician.
Dr G 5:42 Yeah, we've got, yeah, back on solid patrician territory.
Dr Rad 5:45 The Furii.
Dr G 5:46 Very elite family come back from the dead, just to let us all know how good they are. And Lucius Publius, or Publilius, there seems to be, you know, some controversy. Maybe there's an extra L in there somewhere. Voler Philo Vulscus.
Dr Rad 6:05 Another unusual name, Dr G.
Dr G 6:08 Very, very, potentially, not a patrician. So that would leave us with potentially three or four of these military tribunes with consular power as being non elite patrician holders of the role, which is pretty huge.
Dr Rad 6:31 Not the very cream of the crop.
Dr G 6:33 Well, has everybody died? Have the elite just had a specific plague that's affected only them? Who can say? But I think there is room to be very cautious in this moment as a good historian-
Dr Rad 6:47 Sure
Dr G 6:47 Because having never seen hide nor hair of a non patrician in any of these roles for years and years, ever since the beginning, since 509, so over, over 100 years to then, all of a sudden, have at least half, and maybe more than half, all of a sudden be non patrician. It seems to be significant.
Dr Rad 7:16 It is. It's like they're pulling the old switcheroo on us, Dr G.
Dr G 7:21 Find the lies.
Dr Rad 7:23 That's right, yeah. Well, look, all I can tell you is that, according to my narrative source, Livy, only one of them is a plebeian.
Dr G 7:35 Truly a plebeian. The others are just pretending by changing their names to get onto the role.
Dr Rad 7:40 Clever sleight of hand. You know, just when you think they're gonna zig, they zag.
Dr G 7:45 Classic patrician move. Now, why does Livy think that only one of them might be a plebeian and the rest are patricians, but of unknown families?
Dr Rad 7:57 He gives me no such reason, Dr G, he just tells me. He just tells me that the plebeians are shocked and amazed that they have finally done it, that they have finally taken the plunge and elected one of their own to serve in the supreme magistracy, which technically they have been able to do according to our narrative for almost 50 years now.
Dr G 8:26 I was going to say, so this ties in very particularly to what we know about the legal aspect of the lex Canuleia or Canuleia of 445 BCE.
Dr Rad 8:40 Yes
Dr G 8:41 which was the official moment where they were like, oh, yeah, plebeians could hold the position. I suppose it's kind of done a little bit under like duress.
Dr Rad 8:52 Oh, they definitely did not want them to have the consulship. They would keep your dirty little contaminated paws off the consulship. That's for the very, very special people that are patricians. We'll come up with this other ridiculous office with an insanely long name instead. And you can, you can maybe have that one. Maybe.
Dr G 9:09 Exactly. You could be a tribute of the plebs, nothing more, nothing less.
Dr Rad 9:13 Yeah. But they're not even thrilled about that.
Dr G 9:16 Well, I mean, sometimes and the patricians try to get they try to muscle in on that as well. So there's a lot going on there, but this lex Canuleia is that idea of there should be permissible intermarriage between patrician clans and plebeian families. So you would expect that there would be a bridging of the two groups, and as the generations move down, you would see more mixed class Romans, as it were, and it's like, is it the case that it's taken 45 years for all of those intermarriages that were permissible to produce the kind of children who can stand up and say, Look, I don't have a patrician name, but I got what it takes to take on the role of military tribune with consular power.
Dr Rad 10:06 Well, this is the thing that Livy has constantly been driving home throughout the narrative, is that the plebeians couldn't bring themselves to vote for plebeian candidates. And there are various different reasons given, but it kind of always comes down to the fact that, oh, the patricians are just so amazing, they can't possibly not vote for them all the plebeians are rubbish. Or, you know, there's always some reason why the plebeians think that their own kind are not somehow as suitable or as good for the job, and why they don't end up voting for their own candidates. But I agree it is intriguing to think that maybe there has been a generational shift.
Dr G 10:47 Well, I wonder, because I do have some questions about this. So we know that this came into play in 445. So the first question is, how likely would it have been that any patrician-plebeian unions are happening from that point onwards? Because I imagine there might have some resistance to that. Just because it's legal doesn't mean people want to do it.
Dr Rad 11:08 This is true.
Dr G 11:09 And then who of those unions, if indeed so, let's say a patrician and a plebeian got together. They had a bit of a marriage.
Dr Rad 11:18 Romeo and Juliet.
Dr G 11:19 It was cute. Yeah, crossing the divide. You're from the fields, I'm from the city, and when I saw you from my balcony, I thought to myself, he is one hot plebeian, and I will marry him and have his babies. And they did that. Let's say that they did hypothetically, would those children be considered patrician or plebeian or neither? Now I suspect from a Roman perspective, it's going to depend on what the class of the father was.
Dr Rad 11:49 I agree, yes.
Dr G 11:50 But that leads us to more complicated questions as well, because let's say you were in that first crop. You were very excited. Finally, you were able to, like, get together with your plebeian love and as a patrician, you might expect your children to have come of age in the 420s or at the latest, the 410s if things were going a little bit more slowly for you. So where have these people been in terms of holding positions of power? And it's like it's taking a long time for them to for the wheel to turn. So I feel like there's a narrative element here, because there's conveniently, 45 years between the introduction of this intermarriage law and people who seem to be from a plebeian background, coming into a position which would suggest that if they were the first crop and everything happened like: the law comes in; somebody has a baby; 45 years later, they're old enough to hold the role of military tribune with consular power. You've got to be relatively senior.
Dr Rad 12:50 The Romans do like older men in charge.
Dr G 12:54 They do. They have a – seem to have – a preference for the salt and pepper, as it were.
Dr Rad 13:00 I'm going to call it the George Clooney paradox.
Dr G 13:05 And the more gray there is, the more attractive he becomes.
Dr Rad 13:08 Exactly. It's very intriguing.
Dr G 13:11 Doesn't happen for all men, but definitely happens for some and so I feel like this whole situation invites more questions than it answers, which, frankly, listeners will not be surprised about.
Dr Rad 13:23 Yeah. I mean, this is the thing, obviously, that's the narrative that we're given. How true any of this actually is is definitely out for debate. We've already, I think, highlighted in many episodes on conflict of the orders that we're really not entirely sure that there is quite the hard and fast divide between patricians and plebeians that our sources would like us to believe, and therefore the motivations for these groups is not always going to make sense.
Dr G 13:53 Oh, come on.
Dr Rad 13:55 But let me, shall I tell you a little bit about this guy? Shall I tell you about the guy?
Dr G 14:00 Oh, this Calvus Esquilinus
Dr Rad 14:02 yep
Dr G 14:02 character, yes. I would love to know more about this plebeian.
Dr Rad 14:07 Yes. Okay, so the plebeians are shocked and amazed. They've finally done it. That's where we're at. However, the candidate that has been the one to break the barrier is a little bit puzzling even to the Romans themselves, and that's because we have never heard of like any as calvis before, because he had never held any offices. So he's never been like a tribune of the plebs, which I guess is what you might expect for someone who is then going to, you know, take a jump, take a run at the senior magistracy of Rome, however, and this is where we get this little detail, which I couldn't resist telling you last time. Livy says all he was, was a senator of long standing now well on in years, which blew my mind. It still blows my mind, this idea that, oh yeah, by the way, in spite of all this stuff I've been feeding you about the Conflict of the Orders, by the way, plebeians are allowed to be in the Senate. Didn't mention it. Didn't mention it up until now, but, by the way, bombshell.
Dr G 15:12 Just in case you haven't been paying attention.
Dr Rad 15:15 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All this bitterness.
Dr G 15:18 Turns out they've been there all along.So I think this gives us a moment to think about like, what is the Senate in this period of time? Because we don't know a lot about its structure. Really
Dr Rad 15:32 Clearly
Dr G 15:33 We know very little about it. And the thing about the Roman Senate that we tend to hold on to is this idea that they're they've got this traditional role. So thinking about how the Senate is represented in later periods of Roman history, they've got an advisory role that's considered traditional. They sit outside of legislation. In some respects, they're supposed to be advisors, and they're drawn from significant, powerful families. And there's usually some sort of like monetary entry level as well. So there's both seniority in age and position, and also there's a wealth aspect. And then there's kind of like the sense in which they're not legally bound to be followed either this weird kind of overhang.
Dr Rad 16:26 Not until later. That does eventually happen, but not for a long time.
Dr G 16:31 Not for a long time and so and then we're in this period of history where we're on the cusp of shifting into a new century. The Republic has been at play for about a century, so this advisory body has probably taken slightly different shapes across the course of that century, none of which we're very aware of or could pinpoint in any way, because they just kind of get referred to every now and then. But the idea that there are plebeians in this group does run very counter to most of the things that we assume about the Senate, and assume we know about the Senate, even from, say, 200 years from now in Roman history. So I think this is a really fascinating point where how stable is this republic, and what does it really look like to function in this century, in this very early period? And it sounds like we're not really sure, and Livy has just dropped a bomb.
Dr Rad 17:36 Look he has. And part of the issue comes from Livy himself, I admit it. He tends to use patrician interchangeably with Senate. You know, he constantly is assuming in his language choices that they are one and the same in terms of their perspective. And so throughout the narrative that I have been providing in this podcast, the Senate comes across, therefore, as a very patrician, quite conservative, quite elite body. Now, two of those things may be true. I would say that, yeah, they probably are pretty elite, regardless of what social class they come from. And look, they probably are fairly conservative as well, because they're a bunch of old guys. But I, there have been questions that we've had raised in the scholarship that have highlighted that we don't really know how people become senators at this point in time, because later on, the Senate is mostly made up of people who have held magistracies. But obviously that doesn't work when you're starting a republic. You wouldn't – you'd only have, like a guy and and we don't ever get a sense that the Senate starts with like two guys, and then you get a few more, and then you get a few more. And, like, it's this math game where gradually we're building up the numbers, because there just aren't that many positions going around. It would be a very slow, tortuous process, and I don't think that they'd be fulfilling that advisory body capacity if it's just like a bunch of five guys for a while. So it does raise questions of, Well, where did they initially come from?
Dr G 19:08 Yeah, and this is where I think playing around with, like the possibilities, like what would make sense, what might be plausible in this context, and the idea that there may be delegates sent by families, and there is a request for an advisory body. So where that request might come from? I think it would be coming from families themselves, being like, okay, if we're doing this system differently, and we don't have kings anymore, where we'd like to have a bit of a sense of what's going on and getting people together. So not just having a couple of magistracies, like the consulship and the tribune of the plans, but having a family network where people get together and they send a representative into a situation where they can come together to talk at issues. And try to provide advice. And this might be taking the place of the idea of, well, if there was a king in charge, it was all pretty down the line. But for a king to rule, they kind of have to have consent of the people there. Has there has to be some sort of social support there? So the families are involved anyway, but maybe not in the same kind of way. And if the kings are operating with some advisors, and we do get hints about that, then maybe this sort of carries over into this new Republican experiment where they're like, Well, we still need to be here to provide some advice. You know, everybody's got a perspective. And if you're going to make legislation that affects all of us, then we do want to have a say in how that's going down and what that might look like. And then the number could be quite flexible at that point, depending on who's involved, depending on how many delegates might be sent, depending on the agreement amongst that group about how many people are appropriate. And as some plebeian families become more significant, and particularly after the advent of the tribune of the plebs, it might be the case that you've got some quite powerful plebeian groups who are like, well, we would like to have a seat at that table as well. And that's interesting,
Dr Rad 21:22 Yeah, well, this, yeah, this is exactly, I think, what we've been trying to highlight this whole time. There is this real tendency to see the patricians as the wealthy guys and the plebeians as the poor guys. And that's because of, I think, the connotations that we have when we use the word “pleb” to describe somebody these days, but it also is because of the kinds of issues that the plebeians are often concerned about in the sources, you know, money and debt is sometimes one of them, land ownership is another one. So you can understand why you'd get that impression that these people are not, you know, as well off as they'd like to be, and that sort of thing. But one of the things that we have highlighted is that it's not really like that in practice, we can definitely detect that there are some plebeian families that are obviously quite wealthy, and with wealth tends to come power and influence, even if it's not official, like not because you're holding a particular office, it's just because, obviously you have The ability to grant favors, and you know, your opinion is maybe noted a little bit more. So I completely agree it would be really interesting, particularly given the whole warlord aspect that we've been noticing in this century, that it does seem to be a collection of powerful families that have stepped into the power vacuum potentially left by the office of king, perhaps. And it seems to be almost much more feudal in nature, in that they each obviously hold territory in particular areas. And it seems that they are protecting, representing, calling on the people who live in that area, and maybe sort of representing them, so they're able to, you know, raise private armies from amongst their area. So I love the idea that you've just proposed that maybe it is a family run affair, to a certain extent, where they're sending representatives.
Dr G 23:14 Look, I think it's a potential, and I think it's definitely worth thinking about, like, how does this emerge? Because, I mean, they're referred to as the fathers. So there's that masculine implication already, but there's also that idea of seniority in terms of family position, and the way that that sort of translates into a political advisory body, I think, is really quite fascinating. So, yeah, I'm, I'm not sure, and we don't have good evidence, like, as we've seen, Livy has just dropped this on on us.
Dr Rad 23:46 I know I couldn't believe it when I read it, because I don't actually have a huge amount of detail for this year, which seems criminal given how long we've been waiting to get to this point. But that detail alone just sent me whirling, you know, in terms of all the thoughts that are running through my head. And it also brought me back to something which we probably haven't talked about in a while, but that is this name that is sometimes used to refer to the Senate, the ‘patres conscripti'. Now there's been a lot of ink spilt over what exactly this means and how we should interpret it. I mean, we know what the literal meaning of those words is, but what are the implications of those words? So “patres” meaning the fathers, which makes sense, because we do have this group of older men who are holding an advisory role. That makes sense. And then there's been some debate about what the “conscripti” part is exactly actually referring to. Could it be that the conscripti were people who were, like, conscripted to the Senate, or like were enlisted into the Senate somehow, and therefore, maybe were representatives of, say, plebeian families. So maybe the part raised were maybe some sort of advisors to the king or. You know, families that the king gave particular rights and privileges to, who knows, and that's why they got this identity as part raise. And then we have this potentially separate group that are somehow, maybe slightly second tier, but the idea that they are, yeah, the conscripted ones into this senatorial body.
Dr G 25:21 Yeah and these are the things that we just we wish we knew about this early period of the Republic, because it would change everything if we knew how they were selected, and what were the kind of Terms of Reference they were operating under. Like, was it a role that you held for life? Was it something that was a sort of a time limited opportunity, and you did it for a little while, and then a different conscripted person came into that to fill the space. We just don't know.
Dr Rad 25:50 Yeah, I mean, there's even been suggestions that the conscripti are neither patrician or plebeian, and that this would neatly explain, I know, this would neatly explain, why we have-
Dr G 26:01 There's a third group in Rome? No! No!
Dr Rad 26:05 We can't handle it, but yeah, maybe the fact the idea of them being a third body who does not technically belong to either, would explain the weird names that we get in the lists of consuls and in the lists of the military tribunes with a consular power and that sort of thing, where it doesn't seem like it's the right kind of name for the families that we know, you know what we think we know should be holding those offices. So it might explain the confusing nature of all the list of magistrates that we've had in this century, when there's supposedly this big conflict of the orders going on, and therefore that, that's why we have that particular sort of setup. And then maybe the plebs gradually become involved with certain groups as clients, or, you know, through other means. And so obviously there's more blurring of the lines going on, perhaps in terms of who is, who's part of these groups, or who is represented by these groups. It's incredibly confusing, obviously.
Dr G 27:07 The more it gets confusing, yeah, and this is not the first moment where we have a plebeian or a suspected plebeian in a position of power. So that's the other thing. This seems to be the, maybe the most plausible moment. But there are some other candidates earlier on. So there is the suggestion that in 444 Atilius may have been a plebeian, and in 422 Antonius, in that year may have been a plebeian. And these are arguments that are put forward by very respected German scholars of the 19th century, Momsen and Munzer. So we don't want to discount them out of hand, because I would love to be as good as a German scholar from the 19th century.
Dr Rad 28:01 100% it's the dream.
Dr G 28:03 That is the dream, just grow me a beard, sit at a desk, have seven children, just never talk to them.
Dr Rad 28:08 Give me a pretzel and call me Dr Greenfield.
Dr G 28:12 Please do. But there is this sort of suggestion, like, really early on, after that 445 law on the potential for intermarriage, that there may have been some early figures who, quite possibly, and we're not sure, may have been plebeian as well.
Dr Rad 28:31 Yeah, yeah.
Dr G 28:32 So that puts us in a kind of situation where the lack of surety that we have about anything is just being reinforced at every opportunity.
Dr Rad 28:42 Yeah, well, I mean, I guess I sometimes kind of imagine this situation if, as if Ancient Rome was the American South prior to the Civil Rights Movement, just because it kind of helps me remember that even with much more clearly, I think, delineated lines of segregation as existed in the south, even in a situation where you have laws and unofficial practices and violence and terror and all of that kind of stuff going on to try and keep two groups apart, even then it's not always successful. You know, there are those exceptions where you hear of people mixing anyway or behaving in ways that are dangerous, or, you know, whatever. And then, of course, you have the Civil Rights Movement, which, of course, is, you know, daring to push back against this kind of segregation. And Ancient Rome is obviously not like that. So to me, it makes sense that obviously there would be much more blurring of the lines between these two groups than it sometimes would appear because of the nature of our source material. It makes sense that it'd be far messier, because we're not talking about a society that is segregated. So this is about access to opportunity, access to wealth, access to privilege, access to knowledge, like about the laws and that sort of thing. But on a day to day level, I don't think that they would live these like super segregated lives.
Dr G 30:16 Yeah. And I think the way that we think about, for instance, the big ticket item that has often been at the center of this conflict has been use of public land. Might be a bit of a retrojection from our written sources, but the absolutely the idea at the heart of that is that some families have land and control land, and some families don't.
Dr Rad 30:41 Yeah.
Dr G 30:42 Or they don't have enough land to do the subsistence farming that would allow them to take care of themselves. And they're looking for another opportunity to rectify that. And so this idea of the sort of the haves and the have nots within a society, and the kind of infighting that might be generated by that of people pushing for opportunity, people resisting changes to the status quo that suits them, and then the sort of complexities that happen within that where people in power often abuse that power.
Dr Rad 31:19 Yes, absolutely. And that's what rings true, I think, about the conflict of the orders, and why you and I get fired up about it, because it does seem to be this age old story that people with power will not voluntarily give up that power, and will often it will often lead to situations where there is an abuse of that power and that privilege, yeah.
Dr G 31:40 For sure.
Dr Rad 31:42 Anyway, so let's get back to Licinius Calvus.
Dr G 31:45 Oh yeah, what's this guy up to? What's he doing in the role? Surely he's a mover and a shaker.
Dr Rad 31:50 Oh. Dr, G, you gonna be so disappointed. So Livy does not tell me why he thinks the other guys are patricians, and why he thinks this guy is a plebeian. He doesn't go into that, but he does ask the question, why was this guy the guy? Why is he the one that finally broke that barrier? And there are a couple of reasons that he moots about for me. One of them is that he had apparently a connection to a guy called Gnaeus Cornelius, who had been a tribune of the soldiers and had been involved in raising the pay of the cavalrymen. So yeah, we'd be talking about equestrian pay, and, yeah, pay for soldiers and that sort of thing. Allegedly, this guy obviously had some sort of renown due to this, and that maybe the connection, but it is not obviously the most obvious line into a magistracy.
Dr G 32:53 I was gonna say, I'm like, we don't really ever talk about the tribunes of the soldiers…
Dr Rad 32:59 No. And that's just it. It's, yeah, it's, it's a bit confusing as to why this would be such a big deal.
Dr G 33:09 Yeah, interesting, interesting move, Livy. Interesting move.
Dr Rad 33:13 And look, Livy doesn't say this is the reason. He just says this is maybe one of the reasons we know that also one of Livy sources, at times, is Licinius Macer or Macer, if you prefer, so potentially, is this the influence of a source that Livy is using, who is writing with maybe a slightly favorable bent towards his own family and that is seeping into our source material? But even this is confusing, because we're not obviously always sure when Livy is relying on Licinius Macer, he doesn't always tell us, and there are other sources that we know he's relying on. We can't tell for sure if that's what it is that he's using at this point in time.
Dr G 33:57 All right, so that potential to be relying on family narratives, potentially.
Dr Rad 34:04 Potentially, yeah, but it doesn't. It's not 100% a convincing story, because at this point in time, it doesn't really seem that. It doesn't seem like what Livy is writing is that pro this family, like, there's other points where you can see it more clearly that, you know, he's glorifying the Licinii or something like that. And so it's not really clear that that is what is going on here exactly. There is another reason, and this is the reason that's going to really disappoint you. Uh oh, it may have been because of a speech that Licinius Calvus apparently gave where he talked about wanting peace between the patricians and the plebeians, essentially saying, can't we all just get along, guys and everyone really responded positively to this fence sitting, non-committal position.
Dr G 35:03 His way into power!
Dr Rad 35:06 He did, I think that, and look, to be honest, disappointing as it sounds, that kind of, that kind of checks.
Dr G 35:12 You're telling me he made a palatable plebeian for a patrician to get into power?
Dr Rad 35:20 I know, and that's why I kind of believe it. Because I'm like, Well, of course, of course, the patricians let in the guy that's not going to make waves and just get it. It's going to be like, You know what, guys, I'm just really happy to be here. I'm happy to be included.
Dr G 35:34 We've taken our soft core plebeian and we've placed him in power. It's going to be fine. I mean, the plebeians have wanted this for a long time, yeah, so basically, they put in the least plebeian guy they could find and be like, but we did it.
Dr Rad 35:48 I think that that's the case. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's the case. And apparently, the tribune of the plebs are finally happy. You know, they've been feeling really bitter that they fought so hard to win the right for plebeians to hold these offices, and then nobody ever elected anyone that was really starting to make them feel like there was no point to their existence. And why should they even go on? And so they therefore stop objecting to the tax which we talked about last episode. So remember, there was this mention that there had to be a special war tax to fund all these military operations, like military pay and pay for the equestrians.
Dr G 36:27 Yeah, now that you mention it, it feels very circular. We got to pay the soldiers, so we need to tax the soldiers.
Dr Rad 36:33 Well, it was causing a massive problem, because people had been promised this pay and then they weren't receiving the pay because the money wasn't coming through, because the tax wasn't being paid, and the tax was only something that was only something that was just mentioned, and the tribunes were opposing that because they thought it was obscene that the patricians would ask for money to do all of this. And now, however, they're just as happy as Larry, so everything kind of clicks along. The tax gets paid, it's sent to the army. The army is happy. Because the army is happy. Guess what? Anxur is retaken from the Volscians, who seem to have not learnt from the example the Romans set. They're off having a lovely holiday somewhere, allowing the Romans to just swoop in and take it back, which is weird, because that's literally how they got it back from the Romans in the first place. It's a little bit of history repeating.
Dr G 37:24 I'm suspicious.
Dr Rad 37:28 Yeah, I would definitely lean into those suspicions.
Dr G 37:32 All right. I mean, so this is not the plebeian hero that we've been waiting for.
Dr Rad 37:37 Nope. Livy explicitly says that his presence makes the plebeians happy. They are okay with him, and the patricians are not too upset by him. So it's a win win situation, that is literally what Livy tells me.
Dr G 37:49 And it seems problematic in some respects for the tribune of the plebs as a cohort to just sort of roll over be like we finally got where we wanted, guys, everything's great now. And I was like, the least plebeian dude ever got in as a plebeian.
Dr Rad 38:08 What I'm going to use a couple of modern day analogies, if you will. Again, I think about, for example, when in Australia, Julia Gillard got, well, I was going to say, got elected. But that's not exactly how it happened. But let's just say, happened. But let's just say we had our first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. We also have, obviously, Obama becoming the first African American president of the United States. It obviously is not the case that just because you have a person of color or a woman finally holding this prestigious position, that everything magically gets solved for those groups that are experiencing problems being obviously women and African American people. But sometimes people talk about it like it is, hmm, you know, like they'll say, well, what more do you want? You got a woman in office. What more do you want? There's an African American man who's serving as president. Clearly, everything is fine in this country. There are no problems for women, there are no problems for people of color, because the most important position in this country is held by someone from that group. Case closed, so I can kind of see why there might be that reaction after so many years of waiting.
Dr G 39:19 Well, okay, let'sgrant the tribune of the plebs some grace in this moment. Yeah, for being excited that they've finally broken through the patrician ceiling, as it were.
Dr Rad 39:35 Yeah.
Dr G 39:36 And it's like, well, you know, now that it's broken, they should be able we can get the real rebels in there, yes, but for now, let's just be grateful that we got something at all.
Dr Rad 39:48 Yeah, and I know it sounds a bit ridiculous and but we know that the tribunes aren't going to remain passive. I mean, we know there's plenty more trouble to come from that group, so we know it's just a temporary reprieve.
Dr G 40:00 I'm so sad.
Dr Rad 40:01 Yeah, and that's basically all the detail that I have, apart from the fact that the Romans had a very cold and snowy winter, and it made the roads and the Tiber impassable. However, corn did not go up in price because they had enough stockpiled.
Dr G 40:21 Oh, that's convenient.
Dr Rad 40:22 Yeah, that's really all I have, yeah.
Dr G 40:25 Updates on weather conditions and the state of the harvest.
Dr Rad 40:30 I'm going to mention this really gigantic political moment, and I'm going to juxtapose that with a weather report from ancient Rome, which I almost never do unless it involves something, you know, really disastrous, like a flood or something like that. The only other detail I have is something that we probably could surmise without Livy telling us the plebeians were feeling positive and thought that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to get a plebeian in office the next year too. The suspense.
Dr G 41:01 I'm feeling optimistic, guys, yeah, it's snowing outside, but there's a plebeian higher office.
Dr Rad 41:07 That's pretty much it. Yeah, I'm freezing to death, but there's a plebeian in higher office. My family doesn't have enough land to survive, but there's a plebeian in higher office.
Dr G 41:18 Good thing we've got all this grain.
Dr Rad 41:22 So yeah, kind of crazy that we don't have more detail. But then this is partly because, and once again, I'm just going to say this, we think that Livy is somewhat padding the narrative, as we know, because he wants to have this 10 year siege against Veii and so he's got to make up the numbers somewhere.
Dr G 41:38 He doesn't mention anything about this siege!
Dr Rad 41:42 Yeah, so that there we know that this has been strung out a little bit from probably a shorter time period to 10 years.
Dr G 41:51 In the background: no news from the siege front.
Dr Rad 41:55 Yeah, I can't believe they're not even talking about it, apart from the fact that, you know, the army gets paid, woo hoo.
Dr G 42:02 In breaking news: the army gets paid; there's a plebeian in highest office, and it's snowing on the front.
Dr Rad 42:09 That's basically what 400 BCE was like in ancient Rome. It's almost as though you're there. So vivid is the detail.
Dr G 42:18 I do feel like I'm there trying to do my best English radio presenter voice. So I only have Diodorus Siculus as a source for this year. So thin on the ground.
Dr Rad 42:33 Dionysus is a distant memory.
Dr G 42:36 He is. He's going to return to us at some point. I have his next fragment, waiting in the wings for when it's appropriate to introduce.
Dr Rad 42:44 Waiting to pounce.
Dr G 42:47 And I'll move on to new sources soon, at some point, I believe, as well, yeah, but Diodorus Siculus is really focused on what's going on with the situation in Sicily and the ongoing conflict with Carthage. So news from the south, and he does mention a whole bunch of these military tribunes. Get some of the names right, get some of the names wrong, right? But it's not his focus. He's pretty clearly interested in what's going on and Syracuse and the tyrant Dionysus, who's starting to gain quite a reputation for himself, he sends a herald to Carthage and says, prepare yourselves. We're going to attack so, I mean, I think I feel like that's pretty polite.
Dr Rad 43:35 It's giving them some warning.
Dr G 43:36 Yeah. He says, Unless you withdraw from the Greek cities of Sicily, I'm coming for you. And they're like, oh, oh, okay. So the Carthaginians are not happy about that. Obviously it's a bit of a threat, and there's the sense of violence there. And they've also just endured a plague themselves. So they're kind of, you know, the messenger turns up, and people are like, lying in the streets and not doing well. The herald reads it out, and everyone's like, I can't get up right now. War, you say, eerrrrr.
Dr Rad 44:12 Today is not that day.
Dr G 44:14 Yeah. So they feel pretty unprepared. They're not having the best day of their lives. And they then start to think, Okay, well, how will we plan for this? There's no question in their minds that they're going to withdraw from the Greek colonies in Sicily. They're like, I might be sick, but I'm not dead. And they decide that they're going to hire a bunch of mercenaries from Eastern Europe.
Dr Rad 44:42 Okay.
Dr G 44:43 Quick, set sail! And so they're sending out ships across the Mediterranean, particularly towards the east and the Northeast, to try and recruit as many people as they can for what they know will be the inevitable attack upon Carthage. They want to be ready for that. And they're happy to pay for that support.
Dr Rad 45:02 Okay, so we're gearing up for conflict.
Dr G 45:04 We're gearing up. Everybody's getting ready. The Carthaginians are ill, but they're ready to fight. They're preparing themselves.
Dr Rad 45:13 True dedication.
Dr G 45:15 Indeed indeed.
Dr Rad 45:16 All right, cool. Well, that means Dr G, I think it's time for the Partial Pick.
Oh, okay, yeah. Does that herald a change of sound effect?
Dr G 45:36 Stay tuned, listeners. All right, so the first category is military clout.
Dr Rad 45:44 Well, I guess we need to give them some credit for retaking Anxur. It doesn't seem to have been at all difficult, because I have absolutely no detail about the fighting, but they did it okay.
Dr G 45:59 I mean, it's not very impressive, if they can just walk in there.
Dr Rad 46:02 It isn't. But on the other hand, they do still have it, and Anxur is a good place to have.
Dr G 46:09 Well, I mean, certainly the Romans have decided that. I'd give them at most a two.
Dr Rad 46:14 What? That seems mean. Come on, three. Like they've taken a place, come on. Three!
Dr G 46:23 There's been no sign of any conflict.
Dr Rad 46:25 Well, I mean…
Dr G 46:26 It's simply just somebody, you know, in a Roman dress, walking up in, but they're like, oi, and everybody inside be like, come on.
Dr Rad 46:33 No, okay. No, no. They just said that the Volscians had relaxed their – they'd relaxed the strictness with which they were guarding the city. It doesn't say that there were no guards anywhere.
Dr G 46:46 But don't you think that if there had been a military conflict, that Livy would have taken the opportunity to discuss it?
Dr Rad 46:52 Maybe he would, but maybe this is just a very, you know, a filler year, and therefore he's not going to waste his time. He's already told the story of how it was taken the first time.
Dr G 47:03 I don't have the details, you know, I can't guarantee that anything good happened here.
Dr Rad 47:07 We can't, but we can't decide points on lack of detail alone. It has to be somewhat on the military objective, otherwise we're going to be really in trouble.
Dr G 47:16 That's why I'm giving them a two. I mean, they took it.
Dr Rad 47:19 Fine, fine. I don't have the energy to fight you,
Dr G 47:25 And that is how Rome will win all of her wars.
Dr Rad 47:29 This is why I'm the Remus and you're the Romulus.
Dr G 47:30 Oh, no! So so far, they're scoring two out of a possible 50. Here we go. All right, diplomacy.
Dr Rad 47:42 Huh? No, I don't really feel like there's much of that going on. Really. No, that's got to be a zero diplomacy.
Dr G 47:53 Expansion.
Dr Rad 47:54 Okay, yes, okay, now you have to grant me something. Now I get three.
Dr G 48:00 If you think
Dr Rad 48:01 I think
Dr G 48:01 one measly little city of the Volscians…
Dr Rad 48:04 Hey, how often do they take a city from the Volscians? Not often. Every year back, they fight with them a lot. But how often do they actually take stuff, like take important things? You know, they're not just taking a sheep. They're taking the city, man.
Dr G 48:25 Given how stubborn I was on the last one, I'll let you have this one. I am nothing, if not, benevolent.
Dr Rad 48:33 Ahhh the Augustus is coming through in you. Dr, G, all right. All right. We got a five.
Dr G 48:41 All right. So the next category is virtus.
Dr Rad 48:46 No, definitely none of that. It is a very, very dull year for behavior.
Dr G 48:54 Yeah, it feels like we don't get quite enough behavior to be able to make a judgment call on it, does it?
Dr Rad 48:59 No, definitely not.
Dr G 49:00 All right, so our final category is the citizen score.
Dr Rad 49:05 Okay. Now this could be good, because whilst it's cold, they're not starving to death, and there's a plebeian in higher office. I mean, sure he seems like a wet blanket, but hey.
Dr G 49:20 Yeah, look. I mean, it's better than nothing, exactly.
Dr Rad 49:23 I mean, it's a big deal. It is a – it is a big moment.
Dr G 49:27 It is and I think we should give them some points for that.
Dr Rad 49:30 Yeah, should we say? Is it like a five? Because, as we talked about, doesn't make magically solve all the problems, and they actually have conceded on having to pay this tax, which they really didn't want to have to pay.
Dr G 49:40 Well, if you don't pay the tax, you don't get paid. So what comes around goes around, I suppose.
Dr Rad 49:44 I know. I mean, I know it's like, possibly beneficial, but it's also, you know, who's funding it, where's the money? Follow the money.
Dr G 49:52 Follow the money. And the money-
Dr Rad 49:54 Yeah,
Dr G 49:54 -turns out it's going to the citizens in the end. So that's nice, yeah, look, I think a five is appropriate.
Dr Rad 49:59 Okay.
Dr G 49:59 This is a landmark moment for plebeians in terms of their representation beyond the tribunate. And I guess we'll see how things go from here, hopefully it goes up for them.
Dr Rad 50:11 Well, Dr, G, that means that we finish on a grand total of 10 out of 50 golden eagles, which is disappointingly low for a big breakthrough for disenfranchised, I'm going to say, people everywhere.
Dr G 50:29 Yeah, look, it's a good day for Romans, but maybe a not, not a great day for the Partial Pick.
Dr Rad 50:40 Oh, my God, I just had a thought, what if Livy deliberately made this year boring because he doesn't like the plebeians?
Dr G 50:49 That would explain everything.
Dr Rad 50:51 It does, it goes all the way to the top.
Dr G 50:55 Well, I'm gonna sit on that thought. And it has been a pleasure.
Dr Rad 51:02 Yeah, it has been a pleasure. And may I say, given that we're going to be releasing this episode in August of 2024 we are but a few months away from the release of our new book, “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire”, which is available right now for pre order. If you would like to have a laugh whilst also learning a thing or two about ancient Rome. Please pick up a copy wherever good books are sold, and also Amazon, which I don't put in that category.
Dr G 51:33 Very wise, yeah, this is a really exciting book. This is both historical it's a little bit humorous in the way that we are, and there's plenty of like, further readings and a very extensive bibliography. So if you're if there's subjects that interest you and take your fancy, you can definitely go off and do further reading and look up the source material as well. So yeah, I think it's going to be very exciting. So “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire” from Ulysses Press.
Dr Rad 52:06 Yeah. And you can also head to our website to find the details on how to pre order a copy for yourself today. The way that publishing works these days, pre orders are actually super duper important, so that's why we are spooking it, even though it is not yet a physical reality.
Dr G 52:22 Yeah, I mean, perhaps you'd enjoy it for yourself, but I reckon it will also make a great gift for Christmas, for people who you know, who you're like, oh, they do like Rome, but they'd like to know more.
Dr Rad 52:35 Yeah, or a light read over Thanksgiving. I believe it will be out in America, for our American cousins. I believe we'll be out there just in time for Thanksgiving. How exciting. I know a perfect light read for your holiday.
Dr G 52:49 All right. Well, on that note, get reading people. Thankhank you for tuning in to this episode of the Partial Historians. On behalf of Dr Rad and myself, we want to say a huge, huge thank you to all of you for enjoying Ancient Rome with us and a special thank you to our Patreon supporters for loving the show and enabling us to do amazing things like upgrade our audio equipment. So thank you so so much and have a great day.
Special Episode - Ancient Rome's Worst Emperors with LJ Trafford
08 août 2024
01:06:03
In our latest special episode, we welcomed the talented LJ Trafford to the show to discuss her latest book, Ancient Rome’s Worst Emperors (2023).
Special Episode – Ancient Rome's Worst Emperors
You may very well have encountered some of LJ’s wonderful earlier works, including her historical novel series: The Four Emperors. These books cover a turbulent time in the early imperial period with Nero’s fall from power (and life) in 68 CE and the subsequent chaos that followed in the year 69.
She has also published nonfiction works on ancient Rome including How to Survive in Ancient Rome (2020) and Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome (2021). And just in case that didn’t keep her busy, LJ is a contributor to The History Girls blog, writing about all sorts of fascinating subjects involving the ancient world from Pliny the Elder’s concerns about the dangers of sponges to handy tips to avoid assassination as a Roman emperor.
Our conversation allowed us to talk about the qualities that define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors. And yes, Augustus and Tiberius were mentioned, but we kept it civil! LJ then took us through some of the characters who qualified as one of the WORST emperors, including Caligula, Didius Julianus, Silbannacus, and Petronius Maximus.
Image of Caligula, courtesy of Carole Raddato on Flickr.
Things to Look Out For:
Cat armies
Shadow emperors
Tips on shaking up your next meeting
Drunken late-night shopping (Roman style)
You will definitely want to grab a copy of LJ’s book to hear about all the other terrible emperors of Rome after this episode. You should be able to pick up a copy at your local independent bookstore, as well as the usual corporate giants.
Dr Rad 0:15 Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad and
Dr G 0:33 I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:55 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians I am Dr G
Dr Rad 1:03 and I am Dr Rad,
Dr G 1:05 and we are thrilled today to be sitting down and chatting with LJ Trafford. Now you may have heard of this author before. LJ Trafford studied ancient history at the University of Reading and is famous for her historical novel series the four emperors. These books cover a turbulent time in the early imperial period with Nero's fall from power and from life in 68 CE and the subsequent chaos that followed in the year 69 LJ is also a contributor to the history girls blog, writing about all sorts of fascinating subjects involving the ancient world, from Pliny the elders' concerns about the dangers of sponges to handy tips to avoid assassination as a Roman emperor, a goal to which maybe none of us aspire these days, but you never know, those of you out There, there are hints and tips for how to do it. In addition to this, LJ has published three accessible and immensely readable non fiction works on ancient Rome. How to survive in ancient Rome from 2020 sex and sexuality in ancient Rome, 2021, and most recently, ancient Rome's worst emperors in 2023 and it is this latest work on those troublesome emperors that we'll be discussing today. Thank you so much for joining us. LJ,
LJ Trafford 2:32 thank you so I'm delighted to be here. Huzzah. Huzzah,
Dr G 2:35 we're very excited. This is a great topic, and I think there's going to be some nice surprises in here for people as well. Oh, that's good. So before we delve into some of the gruesome details, we'd like to start with your perspective on what makes people in power so fascinating. So some of these stories are told, and they're retold many times, and yet we continue to return to them. And I'm interested in what makes them compelling. From your perspective,
LJ Trafford 3:05 I think from our perspective, I think our kind of politicians look slightly kind of impotent in comparison to kind of Roman emperors. You know, if you've got a parliamentary system, our kind of politicians are kind of curtailed, aren't they, by kind of law, international laws and regulations, and used to be in Britain, certainly UK, European laws and regulations. And they're also constrained by, you know, having an opposition party who might block everything they want to do. So you kind of vote for some your party, and they don't fulfil their potential because they're forever blocked and they and, you know, I think in most societies, there's these kind of big, looming issues that nobody seems to want to deal with that just get kicked down the road as a can down the road for somebody else to pick up later. So I think kind of in comparison looking at Roman emperors, where somebody can just walk in and go, Hey, let's just call September Germanicus, and then it's done. And everybody does. I think there's something quite compelling about somebody who can come in and just make a change and just say, I've decided today we're going to do this, and it happens. And I think it kind of plays into that kind of childhood game of, what would I do if I ruled the world, kind of thing, that kind of imagining how you generally imagine that you'd be the benevolent dictator. You know, you never think you're going to go the full Caligula, do you? But so I think in comparison, it kind of appeals for that. And I think also the stories that Roman historians have collected for us on the Emperors is what makes them so compelling, because they can collect all the worst bits and all the most kind of gruesome bits and all the most kind of sexy bits. So they they've created really the compelling story for us. It's, you know, it's not, it's not a tale of kind of laws being passed and kind of dreary business. It's all you know, who's sleeping of who, who's done the most outrageous thing, who's decided, you know, to call every month after themselves, who's built a, you know, 60 foot gold statue of themselves. So I think it's that, I think that's what compels us, just the the power, the ability of one man to decide so much and for people to to act on that. I think, I think we'd all like a kind of a horn to people around us. Just act on every whim, wherever that may be. I think that. I think that's what makes them so attractive and makes us, yeah, I think it makes this question, what would we do if we had that power? Would we have a 60 foot gold statue of ourselves created?
Dr G 5:11 Definitely, the
LJ Trafford 5:13 answer is yes, of course. Why wouldn't you? I know, why wouldn't you name every month after yourself? Because you know you can, I
Dr Rad 5:22 must admit, I'm really enjoying the idea of you saying to someone like Donald Trump that he is impotent.
LJ Trafford 5:30 Oh, yes, I'd like to see his reaction to
Dr Rad 5:33 that. You feel impotent. Yes, exactly.
Dr G 5:38 I think he has aspirations in the Imperial sense, though, if he could be a Roman Emperor, I think he definitely would try. I think he
LJ Trafford 5:45 talks like one a lot, doesn't he? He comes in as I'm a lot of his rhetoric on the previous election was, I'm the guy who can change this. It's the eye. It's not the we, the Republican Party, can come in and change Americans. I Donald Trump, I alone can clean out the swamp. I alone can do this. So he talks a bit like a Roman emperor, because it's a it's about him. It's not about, you know, the kind of administration and their aims. It's all about him. So, yeah, I can, I can see there's a comparison there.
Dr Rad 6:11 Well, I think, I kind of think that's why we are so intrigued by these sorts of figures, because we, in some ways, they seem so alien and different to us for exactly the reasons that you've outlined. But then when you look at some of the political figures of the 20th and 21st century that still loom very large, you can kind of see how they would enjoy that level of absolute power. And I think
LJ Trafford 6:34 there's a kind of fascination, isn't there, a bit recently, with kind of Putin and his kind of power, and lots of people in, kind of in America, which, you know, given that American Russians history, kind of admiring Putin, because he kind of does stuff as such. So whereas, opposed to their political system has maybe got a bit kind of paralysed in recent years, so there's still this fascination of one man with with absolute power, I think. And I think, yeah, I think we look at our own times, and we forever looking back and comparing, aren't we generally wrongly? It's
Dr G 7:03 one of those dangers of the attraction of the strong man, isn't it? It's sense that it's aligned with a kind of efficiency of purpose and outcomes which you just can't get in the bureaucratic grind of day to day government.
LJ Trafford 7:17 Yeah, the danger of the strong man is when they stay too long, isn't it, and then people forget what it was like before there was the strong man, and then they start to not appreciate the strong man. And then it all goes horribly wrong, the kind of thing. But
Dr Rad 7:28 yes, we're not advocating dictatorship on those podcasts.
LJ Trafford 7:31 She just doesn't like that. Not advocating dictation, not advocating, not advocating anything like that. We
Dr Rad 7:37 always have to make that very clear, you know, as Roman historians, because sometimes it sounds like we actually are getting swept up in Roman values.
LJ Trafford 7:46 I do not share any values of ancient Roman I can't think of it
Dr Rad 7:50 exactly yes. So let's talk about your book a little bit. You take the reader through the imperial period in the Roman West, and you provide examples from the first century all the way down to the fifth century, which means there's a huge amount of ground to cover in your book, and it means that you have to be a bit selective about which emperors you focused on, but it is also an opportunity to draw attention to some emperors that are less well known, perhaps to general readership. So what kinds of qualities or defects were you keen to include that maybe helped you decide who you were going to focus on?
LJ Trafford 8:24 Yeah, kind of first of all, I probably naively didn't realise what a huge task this was when I agreed to write this book. Because generally I get given a book title and a book brief, like, kind of sex and sexuality, and I get like the chapters, and they say, write a chapter on contraception, write a chapter on marriage, write a chapter on this. And I did the brief for this, and I kind of randomly said, Oh, I'm going to write about, you know, worst emperors, you know, over 500 years. And and then when I went to research it, I realised what a huge task is, how much reading there is. And then I thought, well, maybe I could do it by dynasty, and I'll just pick, like, the worst one from each dynasty. And then I looked at, and there's loads of dynasties, just like, far too much, you know. And I got a kind of, I got a work count of, like, 85,000 words. And there was no way I could pick an emperor from each dynasty and write about them in depth. And I wanted to go in depth on some and kind of pull them apart. So I had to kind of go back to drawing board and go, Okay, how am I going to choose these worst emperors? And I kind of took a few things into consider. I took Augustus' Res Gestae, the kind of story of his life, because it's quite a good blueprint for what a good emperor should be, because it's all about I'm brilliant. This is what I did. This is what makes me brilliant. So I kind of took that, because he would talk about, I built this temple, I built this. I defeated this enemy. I did this. I brought in these laws. I gave this money to these soldiers. I gave so much to the people. So it gave me kind of blueprint of what a good emperor should be. And I took kind of Suetonius 12 Caesars as well to help a bit, because he he does a biography of the first 12 emperors. Well, the first 11 and Julius Caesar, we don't count but, but he splits his biographies into they. Deeds and their bad deeds, which again, gave me a bit of a basis to have a look at what a good emperor should be doing and what a bad Emperor did. So I kind of used them vaguely as my kind of back blueprint for picking them. And then really, I chose ones that I thought were quite interesting as well, kind of randomly, but I wanted to show right across those 500 years show kind of how the role of Emperor changes and the kind of people holding it change as well. And I wanted to do, I wanted to look at some more unfamiliar ones, because it's very easy to go, okay, worst emperors, and we just go, okay, Nero, Commodus, Elagabalus, and the kind of the usual people. And I wanted to, kind of, I wanted to find out some more about some different ways in which you could be a worst emperor that didn't necessarily involve kind of sexual depravity and kind of spending lots of money and excess. Because, you know, that I thought as a book, it would get a bit samey, if that's like every chapter, oh yeah, and they bankrupted the Treasury. Next chapter, oh yes, and he bankrupted the Treasury. Next Oh yes. Incest with who, you know, Mother, incest, sister, you know, I thought it'd be a bit samey, so I wanted to pull out some kind of alternative ways where people could be worst. And I found, you know, numerous ones where they, you know, they didn't have these kind of big personalities, like the kind of colleagues and the Neros of the world, but actually, they got the top job, and they just, they just weren't very good at it, and they just weren't up to it, you know. And there's a series of people who kind of become emperor, and at the first sign, the first kind of, kind of barrier, they first the first problem they face, they just completely fold, which I thought was quite interesting. So it was a whole series of people who kind of got the job and then realised they weren't good enough, which is that, you know, I think must be a terrible realisation that you're like, I'm emperor, wow, and everybody's praising you, and you suddenly realise I'm not good enough. I can't cope with this. And there's no kind of like, no resign, and there's no like, handing in your month's notice again, sorry, chaps, not the job I thought it was going to be, you know, I'll let somebody else do it. You know, that's not how you stop being an emperor. You stop being an emperor because somebody kills you, basically, or you die naturally. So there's no resigning. So yeah, I was looking for kind of people like that, people other reasons why you might be worse. And I think, yeah, not having the qualities you need to be an emperor is certainly one. Being weak is certainly one, not being the kind of strong one. And, yeah, just being kind of ineffectual, being promoted above your kind of ability level and and I thought that was a more interesting way to pull people out. And it pulled out some emperors that I hadn't, didn't really know much about, apart from just their names, people like kind of Valentinian the second and kind of Gordian. It pulled out some more interesting people I wanted to have a look at and explore a bit further in detail. But yes, I mean, it's a bit it's a book to for people to debate. And I was thinking that I was going to get a lot of a lot of them shouting at me for including various emperors or not including various emperors. And various ones didn't get in because I, you know, had 85,000 word counts. So some got cut out. And, yeah, some got included because I wanted to write about them, because I thought they were quite interesting. So people like Domitian, I don't necessarily think he was terrible emperor, but I think he's a good illustration of what being Emperor does to you, in a sense, the paranoia and that what you have to do as emperor in the sense of holding on to power, and how the actual kind of things that came with being Emperor for Domitian are the things that kind of undid him. So he, you know, his paranoia gets worse and worse and worse, and he kind of undoes himself. So I thought he was an interesting one to look at as to what kind of being, what being Emperor does to you, does to your mindset, and can lead you down a worse path that you wouldn't necessarily have followed had you been, I don't know, a bit of a stronger character or less paranoid, but it deservedly paranoid. You know, he got assassinated. So you could say he was deservedly paranoid. So
Dr Rad 13:48 I was going to say that, you know, the saying is, it's not really paranoia if they're actually out to get you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 13:54 I think Domitian even said Himself to me that nobody believed in conspiracies unless they were successful. So he was, you know, he was well aware of it.
Dr Rad 14:03 Listening to you talk about that, it again, gives me some sort of modern vibes with people like Louis XVI and Nicholas II, who kind of knew from the get go that they weren't up to the job and didn't turn out too well for either of them, either,
Dr G 14:19 certainly. But yeah, there's a lot to be said for character. Isn't there? Because for somebody liked mission, perhaps, like, if he had never gotten into that job, chances are he would have lived a perfectly regular kind of elite Roman life. And yet, being thrust into power sort of brought out all of those characteristics in him that maybe he didn't have a good chance to manage on his own, and then all of a sudden, here we are, and he's assassinated. Yeah? I mean, he's
LJ Trafford 14:45 very, you know, he would have, yeah, lived a good Roman elite life. He was a tremendous administrator, a tremendous guy for the details guy. So you can imagine he'd be the guy you'd want on every committee, because he'd, you know, you'd pull out all the details you hadn't thought of, like, oh, cool, cool. Thanks to mission. Thanks. Yeah, forgotten about that. Gotten about that. That's really important. But yeah, I mean, he's paranoia probably built before then, because, you know, he was involved in the year 69 CE, and can thrust to the forefront there. So he's paranoid probably started in his teenage years, when his father was declared emperor, and his father is in, you know, Syria so safely out the way of Rome. And Domitian, who's only about 18 at the time, is in Rome, and he's the kind of the front of the kind of Flavian dynasty. So everything's kind of centred on him. So I think he's kind of paranoia probably started from that moment there watching kind of emperors fall and rise right in front of his eyes. But, but, yeah. But I think being emperor, yeah, didn't improve upon his kind of personality. Probably brought out the kind of worst in him, and that he's a good example of, you know what you do to try and hold on to power, and his attempts to hold on to power completely undoing. Because the more extreme he becomes, the more plots there are. And then there's a successful one, and you only need one to be successful. Yes, the
Dr G 16:02 dangers, yeah. And I think this sets up nicely, thinking about the first emperor that you discuss in the book, which is Caligula, which, I mean, it would be hard to pass him over, I think, because he's almost like the what would be the word
Dr Rad 16:21 the OG terrible,
Dr G 16:24 the OG terrible, yes, the OG terrible emperor, because we've kind of got this blueprint that's kind of offered by Augustus through the Reyes guest. Then we've got the struggle street that is Tiberius, who's really trying to sort of make it happen. Is maybe not quite sure whether he really wants it, but he still seems pretty competent overall. I think that's a compliment for you. Dr, rad. And then we get Caligula, and he seems to have some pretty devastating qualities that do make him unfit for rule. And I'm interested in what stands out for you when you're thinking about caligula's life and his reign. Yeah, he's
LJ Trafford 17:04 a, yeah, he's a kind of poster boy of what you would think of as a worst emperor. He's a kind of shorthand, you know, even today, for what worst Emperor is. You know, anyone who goes slightly extreme is going, Oh, it's all going a bit Caligula. He's become that kind of shorthand. He's like, you say, he's the first kind of Emperor who's really kind of unqualified for the job, in the sense of Augustus. Had, you know, this way, created the role of Emperor, though it's not really a role, it's kind of nebulous, a nebulous thing, but he created that, and he'd, you know, he'd fought civil wars, he'd held, you know, government posts, he'd got a big and long kind of background in in kind of administration. So he, you can say he was kind of qualified to do that. And Tiberius coming in his emperor in his 50s, he's got a long history of, you know, being in the military and and holding public position. So again, he's a very qualified person. And we have colleague who comes in at 25 and he hasn't got that kind of background, he hasn't got that kind of training, and he's the kind of the last minute heir to who suddenly decided upon so I think he goes in with the kind of disadvantage of not knowing how things work. Probably he goes in with the advantage of a lot of public support, because he's the son of Germanicus and Agrippina, who were very, very popular with the people, and who his father, Germanicus, had died when he was very young, and Agrippina had been exiled by Tiberius and later, kind of killed. So he goes in with a lot of good feeling. But yeah, I think, I think it stands out with kind of Caligula, is there's a kind of a pushing of how far he can take things. And maybe that's because, you know, as we said, he hasn't. He's got that kind of unqualified feel about it. He's pushing what the word Emperor means and what he can do with it. And underlying it always is this kind of sense of hum, a kind of a very dark sense of humour that comes out in some of the things he does, you know, kind of famous joke about, oh, I'm going to make my horse a senator, you know, kind of disparaging the whole senatorial class and and, you know, on the crawler stage, you know, there was equestrian he was thrown to the beasts and was protesting his innocence, so Caligula had him taken out of the arena. Guy probably thinks he's going to be saved instead, he has his tongue cut out and thrown back in with the beasts. So this is kind of sick, kind of humour and kind of delight in kind of pushing what it means to be emperor and what he can do, you know, to the extent of wanting to put his, um, his statue in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which does not go down well. And in the extent of, you know, he doesn't dress like an ordinary mortal. We're told he dresses in very fine clothing. Um, he's kind of, kind of crossing the boundaries of what's acceptable in Roman society, kind of sex wise. And like we're saying, kind of clothing wise. So you know, sex wise, he's breaking all the taboos, all the things you shouldn't do. He allegedly held dinner parties where he would with senators and their wives, where he would take their wives away, have sex with them, and then take them back to their husbands and give. Long kind of die trait on how great or bad they were in bed, and that kind of thing, that kind of pushing the envelope of, you know, sleeping obviously, with freeborn women is not, not acceptable if they're married. He's he's kind of pushing and pushing what he how, how much he can get away with almost, and when somebody's going to say no. And that kind of spreading of kind of terror and humiliation. You know, famously invited a group of people at the dead of night to the palace Who all think they're going to be executed, and then he just does a little dance for them and sends them home. So there's this kind of, there's a kind of thing about pushing the envelope and kind of torment and humiliation and enjoying that, that kind of runs through kind of Caligula reign that he enjoys exercising this power, and he enjoys the effect it has on people, and he enjoys watching, you know, people being tortured, etc, which we can kind of say all kind of stems from a very, very troubled childhood, to put it mildly, where he'd watched his family being picked off one by one around him by the Praetorian prefecture, Janus. So his mother had been exiled and died horribly, and his brother, two brothers, had been exiled and died horribly. And he was kind of next on the list and was saved and then becomes the kind of heir to the to the guy, Tiberius, who's bumped off his family and is sent to kind of live with him on Capri, the island of Capri where Tiberius has kind of retired to and is forced to kind of keep up this front of being nice to Tiberius whilst knowing what he's done to his family. So you can kind of see, with that kind of troubled background that it might make you slightly slightly unhinged, and when given the opportunity to kind of take revenge on those senators who signed those kind of those papers that damned his family, you could kind of see that he would kind of push it as far as he could go. Well,
Dr Rad 21:47 that's definitely the thing, I think that always is intriguing about Caligula, because when you as you say, look at the actions that are recorded, it seems like no question this is a bad guy, but there is that possibility that he is specifically targeting a group of people who have legitimately caused him a lot of pain and grief in his life, and that that's where this comes from, and this is him sort of unleashing all of that pent up aggression that may have been building up for years and years because The drama of his family is unfolding throughout his entire childhood.
LJ Trafford 22:23 Yeah, I think it's true. I think there seems to be a point at which he realises and he comes in as a kind of the darling of the Roman people, and they call him chicken and Sweetie, and, you know, the senses he preys upon him. And there seems to be a point when he realises that they don't mean it, that this is just words and words being thrown at him. And from that kind of point on, yeah, he starts to kind of target them deliberately, deliberately to humiliate them. And, yeah, I think you're right. I think it is that kind of pent up rage that you know, when the kind of wool is lifted from these eyes, when there's a plot and he realises these people don't love him, they don't adore him. He Yeah, it's revenge, and it's revenge against them and and you can kind of see that kind of unfolding, and he's and obviously the people writing the history are the kind of senatorial class, so any kind of humiliation or kind of undermining of them is going to rank very personally with their kind of personal pride. I mean, Augustus was the one who walked that kind of tightrope between keeping the Senate on side and happy and feeling like they're in power whilst not actually having much power anymore. And Caligula kind of can't do that, and won't do that. He won't pretend. He won't work with them. He won't pretend that they have the power. He is the one with the power, and he unleashes it on them. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's revenge, isn't it? Really, it
Dr G 23:41 does seem like that, yeah. I think it creates a sense of empathy as well for him, this idea that he's operating primarily from a position of pain, yeah, and thinking about that trauma of his childhood, and then how that sort of manifests when he has the opportunity. And I'm not saying it's a good thing. I think some of the obviously, he did terrible things, but all of a sudden you're kind of like, okay, this is somebody who's gone through incredible amounts of hurt and frustration, and now they're in a situation where they have the opportunity to make a choice about how they navigate that, and no one can stop them.
LJ Trafford 24:19 Yeah, that's, that's the kind of frightening thing about illegally. Yeah, no one can stop him. And you know, the person who does stop him is not one of these senators who's been targeting. It's not a Brutus character who makes a grandstand, you know, for liberty and all this. It's um, one of his guards because he made fun of his voice. It's, you know, it's a very personal assassination. And this guard had got a very high pitched, slightly girly voice, so Caligula had been giving him ever more kind of embarrassing kind of watch words, you know, something like Venus or something like that, evermore kind of just taking the mickey out of him, and he's the one that kind of snaps and sets up a plot against him. It's not actually the kind of Senators with grand noble. Lofty ambitions to rid themselves of a tyrant. They don't kind of turn against him, because, I guess it's the fear factor. And, you know, going back to Domitian, you can kind of see that, because we have the writings of Pliny and Tacitus, who served a mission, you know, and both of both of whom did very well under Domitian and got promoted, and, you know, moved up the ranks. But they give us an insight into what it's like to kind of serve an emperor who's, you know, who is that kind of, not great, you know, it's terrifying. It's terrifying to stand in a room and face them when they lose their temper. And I think for Caligula, it must be even more terrifying, because there's no limits to what he might do. It seems he could do anything. And he does, you know, his whole kind of military campaigns, where they go, think it's to Germany, and there's nobody to fight. So they just get some people to hide in the forest for him to capture so he can have his own triumph, you know, the kind of thing. So the it feels like there's no, kind of no limits to what he will do. But they still don't turn because they're just too, too frightened, I guess. But, but, yeah, I mean, it's coming It's coming, it's coming from his child, it's coming from pain, and it's full out revenge and, you know, and it works, yeah?
Dr Rad 26:06 Well, I mean, I suppose comparing him to Augustus and Tiberius, again, they've both obviously experienced their own pains and setbacks in their lives, but you don't get the sense that they were ever shielded from that. They kind of grew up in a very sort of realpolitik kind of world, whereas Caligula, because he was so young when things started going wrong for his family, and then you have that allusion to the papers that he had access to when he became emperor, it's almost as though he maybe did not know the full extent of complicity potentially, in this senatorial class, and you know, people who were involved in powerful circles against his family, and maybe he was sort of kept a bit in the dark, and it wasn't until he became emperor that he sort of had the wall lifted from his eyes. And maybe that's partly where this, this pain and sense of revenge comes from, the fact that he maybe didn't have the full picture, and then all of a sudden, you know, it was kind of like this light, light bulb going off, and he's like, oh, okay, so this is how it all went down. And this is who really testified against my mother, and this is what really happened. Yeah, I
LJ Trafford 27:16 think you're absolutely right, because I think, you know, when you read the sources, you know, the person who gets responsibility for the death of all colleague of his family, oh, it's also Janus fault. You know, there's this kind of thing. Sejanus is executed, and then, you know, everybody's kind of like, oh, yeah, nothing to do with us. It was, yeah, it was Sejanus. He did everything. He did everything. Everything is blamed on him, and he's dead, conveniently dead, so he can be that kind of scapegoat. But, yeah, the papers show that it you know, Sejanus didn't act alone. He needed people to sign things. He needed things to get passed. And they, they did, and they, they aided the death of his family. And I think you possibly right that he maybe didn't know. Maybe he he was shielded from it being so young and be and was probably told, Oh, it was sejana. Sejanus bumped off your family with Tiberius. They're the villains in this piece, and the wool is lifted from his eyes with these kind of papers, and kind of finally realising that these, these are the people who are involved in it as well. Well, that's
Dr Rad 28:11 why it's so interesting, because listeners of this podcast will be aware that I have a slight fondest for Tiberius, and one of the things that I have been struck by is that Caligula actually doesn't seem to have that much of a grudge against Tiberius, which you think he would if Tiberius was really the man he held to be responsible for the downfall of his of his entire family, ultimately, as the Emperor during that time. You know, there are serious some digs. There are some comments, but he also seems to admire Tiberius. Yeah, there are also some positive things that come out of that. So it's, it's kind of a weird relationship that those two must have have, but I certainly never get the sense that he truly hated Tiberius. No,
LJ Trafford 28:55 it doesn't, yeah, like you say, it doesn't come out much. There's not, kind of like a complete damning of Tiberius memory and, you know, kind of ripping up statues as what happens of Emperor's kind of deaths, you know, he kind of keeps it, keeps it going, yeah, yeah, I would grieve you. It doesn't seem to be the hatred. It doesn't, yeah. I'm trying to think, no, what he says about Tiberius is not much that comes out of you,
Dr Rad 29:17 like, as you say, dark jokes that. But he says that kind of stuff about everybody,
Dr G 29:21 and they did spend some time together, so they would have had a personal relationship. So I imagine that would play into it for him as well.
LJ Trafford 29:33 Maybe he was won round by Tiberius' winning personality though, Tiberius was not well known for his kind of winning kind of charm. And I
Dr G 29:41 was gonna say charisma is not really strong suit
Dr Rad 29:45 in the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. I think he only has the last two. So let's move along now to one of my other favourites, because I love movies, love gladiator so we of course. Us have to go all the way down to Commodus, who ruled between 180 to 192 he's been made very famous by Joaquin Phoenix, okay, and I think we can get sort of Caligula vibes from that portrayal in Gladiator. But not many people would be aware that actually, right after him, there was some pretty dud emperors as well. So let's get into one that I bet nobody's heard of before, Didius Julianus. What made him so terrible, Didius
LJ Trafford 30:30 Julianus is a joy. We have to say that gladiator kind of underplays, Commodus, somewhat Commodus is way more extreme than anything they ever showed on screen Gladiator, yeah, but I suppose that's down to you know, the whole thing Commodus is very big on the beast hunts, and he's doing decapitate ostriches with kind of curved arrows, which the Romans loved. But today, in our kind of animal loving society, possibly wouldn't go down so well as a film. So they glossed over a lot of that. But yes, after Commodus is assassinated, there's a guy who steps in, who's a guy called Pertinax, who is an older, older guy. As what seems to happen after a lot of assassinations and dodgy times in ancient Rome, you tend to get a kind of older person who kind of steps in as a kind of safe pair of hands. Afternoon goes. You have, you have Galba, who's in his 70s, who's held a lot of positions. He's very well esteemed. He kind of steps in, you know, after Domitian is assassinated, we have Nerva, who's similarly elder statesman, who steps in. And after Commodus, we have Pertinax, who's that kind of older statesman who kind of steps in and to everybody's and he starts to mop up what come with us is left, which is a big old mess. And everybody says he's doing a really great job, and everybody's very happy with personax, and the Praetorian Guard assassinate him pretty quickly into his reign.
Dr G 31:51 So he was, he was going all right with everybody else, but not with the people with the swords. Yeah.
LJ Trafford 31:57 And the reasons given are kind of one that they couldn't because Pertinax was a very good emperor, they couldn't profiteer in various ways, unspecified ways, that they had been under Commodus. And secondly, that their Praetorian Prefect, Clarus wasn't a very good keeper of secrets, and this was their kind of justification for murder.They burst into the palace, and you know, Pertinax gave a series of arguments of why they shouldn't assassinate him. And some of them were, you know, pretty good well. They were all pretty good arguments. And some of the guard were a bit, well, yeah, he's right, you know, but they killed him anyway,
Dr G 32:31 because maybe we should let him live. I'm quite persuaded
LJ Trafford 32:34 by that argument. But we've come all this way. We've burst in, we've got our swords out. We may as well well, you know, as well. Now we're here do what we set out to do. It's the kind of least well thought out assassination in history, probably because they have no idea who's going to take over. They haven't planned it beyond we'll just kill pertinax and then something will happen. I don't know if they're hoping the Senate will step in and appoint an emperor, but what happens is that most of Senators suddenly disappear to their country estates, I presume, to get out the way because they don't want to be picked as emperor. The people who like pertinax, are rioting so much so the Praetorian Guard have to then go hide in their barracks up on the rumen or Hill, with kind of riots going on outside. So it's a big old mess. And obviously the patron Guard are the Emperor's private bodyguard and no emperor, no Emperor's private bodyguard. So they need to find a new emperor. So they hit upon this scheme of, um, selling it. They'll sell the post of Emperor to the highest bidder. People can come bid, and then they can become emperor. Which is, um, to
Dr G 33:37 our shiny auction guys, is going to be great. Which is the kind
LJ Trafford 33:42 of lowest? I mean, the Pretorian God have been the kind of Kim makers for a long time. They've helped people into the role of Emperor, and they've helped people out of it, shall we say, with swords. But this is the kind of lowest they sink. They're kind of like we're going to sell it to the highest bidder. And this kind of word reaches various people, and it reaches a dinner party, which a certain Didius Julianus is attending. And I'm assuming it's towards the end of this dinner party when everybody is a bit tipsy, because it's really the only, only explanation for what follows. And everybody's Dinner Party says, Hey, DidiusJulianus, why don't you go for it? Why don't you go bid to be emperor? Come on, you'd be great in it. And he, you know, he's got a pretty good background. He's done all the relevant positions, and looked after Belgium for a while, and he was favoured by Marcus Aurelius. So he comes across on paper as not too bad, but yeah, listening to these kind of people at the dinner party, he thinks, yeah, why not? I'm going to be emperor. So they all chopped off, working their way through these riots that are going on somehow, up to the kind of touring barracks and stands outside, and he says, I want to be emperor. I'll offer you all this money. And I think, I think the killer line is he offers the Pretorian Guard more gold than they had asked for and more gold than they expected.
Dr Rad 34:52 That sounds like a lot, an awful lot, which
LJ Trafford 34:55 should have sounded fishy, because the Praetorian Guard are notorious for demanding payment. Huge. Kind of bounties that don't actually exist after Nero kind of died, and the Praetorian guard Nymphidius Sabinus demanded 30,000 sesterces for each one of his guards off Galba. They didn't have the money for that. You know, there was no money to pay them. So they were renowned for asking for more than, you know, the most physically possible. But the fact that Julianus is promised to them more than they even expected, you know, should ring alarm bells that this is a bit fishy, but they they were just delighted, and they hauled him up into the Praetorian barracks and declared him emperor. You know, job done. Brilliant. Got new emperor. It's all sorted. Only problem is, didis Juliana's didn't have that money. He didn't have the money to pay them. He didn't have the money to buy the emperorship. He was pretty much broke. It was all it was all bravado and wine. One has to assume,
Dr G 35:47 I was gonna say, maybe he's been put up to it like, as the dinner party has progressed, people have been like, you know, pushing each other forward, and in the end, like he's the one they all get behind. And he feels he has to go with it. I don't know, but it seems like madness. It
LJ Trafford 36:01 seems like madness. And you have to wonder what he thought when he woke up the next day with a kind of killer hangover. I was like, What did I do? What did I say? And it comes back, it kind of flashbacks. Maybe, you know, kind of, oh yeah, I was at that party. Then what, what, you know, wakes up, maybe in the palace, where am I? And then suddenly realises that, you know, he's emperor, the
Dr Rad 36:20 equivalent of the 90s, late night shopping via credit card, over the telephone, ordering, ordering sets of Ginsu knives and that sort of thing.
LJ Trafford 36:30 Yeah. What did I do last night? Oh, I brought the role of Emperor. Um, so he's now emperor, which doesn't go down well with anybody, because, um, everybody liked person act. So the people are still, when he goes down to, you know, be officially ratified, the people are kind of throwing stones at his head, you know. So from day one, I usually have to work to be unpopular, to be a Roman emperor, you know, Caligula, it took five years for it to completely unravel. You know, Commodus, it took many years to unravel. But from day one, you know, Julius did the honest is being kind of booed by the people, and there's still riots going on and and then he finds out that in the provinces, several other people have declared themselves emperor as well. So he's also, it's another kind of oops moment, equivalent to kind of Otho after Galba, after he assassinated Galba you know, jogging up to the palace, the slaves hand him the correspondence. And, you know, he finds out there's another emperor in Germany marching his direction, and you know, so Julianus is facing not one, but several. He's got Septimius, Severus, and he's got Niger, and I'm going to forget the other guy's name. There's no one. There's three of them, and they're all declared themselves emperor, and they're all going to be heading his direction, all right,
Dr G 37:38 so he's got some competition on his hands, on a number of fronts, it's going to be a problem, good,
LJ Trafford 37:43 promise. So this is a point at which, you know, this is the point at which you find out what emperors are made of, what a man is made of. You're facing adversity. Everybody hates you. You could turn this round. You could, you know, he's got he's got the background, he's got the experience. He could turn this round. But he doesn't. I think Herodian describes him as dumb and witless. He did not know how to resolve the situation. So he sends off um several envoys to me, Severus who, um, promptly changed sides, um. And this keeps happening. He keeps sending people to, you know, kind of negotiate with these other would be emperors. And they decide, Oh, this guy's going to be a better one than Didius Julianus. And they stay so he keeps losing more of his army each time he tries to make situation better, he decides to have an army of elephants in Rome, and he puts except the elephants aren't very well trained, and they don't like their drivers, and they just keep tossing off the drivers that are riding them. So that doesn't work. Cassius, Dio, who's in he's a senator at the time, is and he's there in Rome, says the Senate were frequently overcome with laughter at kind of Didius Julianus' attempts to kind of secure the city. So, yeah, everything he tries, just fails miserably. And Septimius Severus comes into Rome, bursts into, you know, the palace, and you know, he's, he's off, basically, he doesn't last very long, but I think he definitely is up there with the worst emperor, just just for being, just for the way he became emperor shows moral fibre,
Dr G 39:15 that whole process of being like, well, if It's for sale, yeah, I'll buy.
LJ Trafford 39:22 I can do this.
Dr Rad 39:23 I think Duddius Julianus sounds like a better way of remembering him.
LJ Trafford 39:29 Just, and just yeah, just everything he tries is ridiculous and doesn't work, and he can't inspire loyalty in his own troops, in his own envoys, who are going off to negotiate. They're kind of like, Oh yeah, you know, they're very easily swayed by the other side. Yeah, you're right. Probably we'll stay here. I will stay here. So, yeah, it's, it's unintentionally hilarious, although Cassius Dio says it was hilarious, but he's just not up to the job he failed. You know, he's facing a difficult situation. Yeah, that would test any man, but he does not at all rise to the occasion. And. And produce anything of any work. It
Dr G 40:01 is a real challenge in this situation as well, because we're dealing with the late second century, and by this stage, if you do not have, like, pretty strong military support, it's very hard to sustain a power position. And Didius Julianus goes in and doesn't have anybody at best, he's got the Praetorian Guard, and then he has to build from there. And so that's a bit of an issue, I'd say, because everybody else who's coming at him from all of those different angles, have supported the troops. They've been elevated as Imperator from that sort of idea of the general ship being the basis of imperial power. And he doesn't, and I, I wonder what he thinks, you say at best,
LJ Trafford 40:46 he's got the Praetorian girl. This is the same Pretorian gone. He's, he's promised money to that he doesn't have. So they don't, yeah, exactly. He doesn't even have them, you know, whereas, you know, someone like Otho was able, you know, against vastly superior odds, was able to inspire he had a ramshackle army of praetorian guards, new recruits and Gladiators, but they loved him, and he had the charisma, and he rose to the occasion, and he kept fighting for as long as he could against vastly overwhelming odds. Whereas Didius Julianus, he doesn't have that same charisma. Clearly, he can't get an army together. He hasn't got any great ideas, and he's got, even the elephants
are against him. But, I mean, it's, I mean, that just sounds ridiculous. I didn't argue with elephants as if that's gonna stop, you know,
Dr G 41:33 I do like it, though it's got that very, sort of, like, you know, what would work a real hark back to the days of Carthage and, like, you know, the Punic triumphs and things like this. So I can see where, like, the attraction might be in that idea. But obviously, you need to train those elephants quite well for them to be effective,
LJ Trafford 41:51 yeah, just, you know, they may as well have just said, Oh, it's just cities, cats on them. Get cat on. It'll work.
Dr G 42:02 That is an underrated, yeah.
LJ Trafford 42:07 Probably be more fate of elephants, I
Dr G 42:09 think, yeah. So we've got this sort of, like chaotic and short rule of Didius Julianus. And in a way, you would think that maybe nothing could top that. But then we get to one of the most intriguing emperors. And there is so little to be known about this guy that it's it is worth mentioning. And I think you pronounce his name, Silbannacus. Silbannacus rules for a really, really short time. And this is in the third the mid third century CE so and this is a pretty unstable time for the Roman emperorship in general. There's a whole lot of turnover when it comes to this top job. And I'm interested in what we know about Silbannacus, and how does he earn his place as a worst emperor? Well,
LJ Trafford 43:01 what do we know about Silbannacus? Almost nothing about Silbannacus. What we know about him comes from two coins that have been found, one in the 1930s and one in the 1980s and that is all the evidence we have for him ever being emperor. It doesn't appear anywhere else now. You I mean, this could debate whether you usurp or was he an emperor, but looking at the coins, they look as if they've got similarities to coins that were minted in Rome. So they think he must have had some kind of ratification with Rome to be an emperor. But this is all we know about him. And it's kind of like, how little do you have to do that nobody remembers you.
Dr G 43:40 Nobody remembers you. You don't get mentioned in a written source that we know at all
Dr Rad 43:45 bitch about you. Yeah,
LJ Trafford 43:49 this is the kind of the crisis of the third century where we get Emperor after Emperor after emperor, and the kind of average rule of reign is something like 1.3 years or whatever. But they do all get a mention, at least for the way they died, or, you know, at least that they how they became emperor and how they died. Most of them get a mention, but he doesn't appear anywhere. So I have to think, you know how insignificant a ruler you were, that nobody even cares how you died, even, you know. I mean, did he, yeah, was it a pleasure, you know, did was it a natural death, maybe, and that's why it's not worth recording. Or was it, was he assassinated by his own troops? Was he, you know, people care so little that it's not recorded anywhere. And that's kind of, I call him the book. I call him the Phantom Emperor because we were, you know, we've only known about him since the 20th century. But he makes his place as kind of worst Emperor because he's so insignificant, so so nothing. He can't have done anything of any note, not even died in any way of any note. Not even become emperor in any way of any note, because nobody notes it down, not even in passing, or, you know, in any other kind of document. When we may yet dig up a big chest somewhere in France and find, you know, all of all of this entire. Life story for all we know, but at this point in time, we know nothing about him. And I think if you leave that little imprint as emperor, then yeah, what was the point of you being emperor? You know, if a tree falls in wood and nobody hears it, did it ever fall? If you exactly nobody heard of it, were you ever emperor? And yeah, I wanted to include him, just because it just shows how reliant we are in certain periods on archaeological evidence, because there isn't written evidence, because everything's very chaotic. And yeah, I just think if nobody even records how you died or how you became emperor, you just you can't have been any good. You must have been getting
Dr Rad 45:37 older. Yeah, it is kind of hard to believe that you could have someone who was emperor of the Roman world. And no details, nothing,
LJ Trafford 45:47 yeah, nothing, yeah. I find it. I find that staggering. And so I wanted to include him, just to show that, you know, it's so chaos in the fifth century, you could become emperor. Nobody can
Dr G 45:58 notice. It's also that sort of thing that makes me sort of start to speculate as well, where I think Did he sort of preemptively get some coins done up, but then died before he actually became emperor, like he was getting prepared for it. He knew it was coming, and then he died in the interim? Did he rule for like, two days or something like this? And something happened all of a sudden there was sort of outside of anybody's control. But you would think even then, that might generate some sort of story that historians at the time would be interested in. And yet, nothing,
LJ Trafford 46:31 nothing. Yeah, it's just yeah, it's just Tumbleweed. Yeah, just just Tumbleweed. And like I said, that is intriguing itself. Why? Why do they not mention him? You know, maybe there is a an interesting mystery at the heart of that, but we will never know what it is unless there is a sudden discovery of a new coin that all kind of document explains everything,
Dr G 46:50 all right, archaeologists, the task has been set.
LJ Trafford 46:54 We need to know.
Dr Rad 46:56 So let's now turn to the final emperor that makes the cut in your book, and that is Petronius Maximus, who, I think sounds like a delicious cocktail, but he holds power in 455, CE, he rates a description in your book as an evil genius. So we have to know what makes him both of those things, evil and a genius.
LJ Trafford 47:22 He's a fascinating fellow, Petronius Maximus, because he he was one of those guys who seems to be very, very successful everything he turned his hand at he was brilliant. He'd held every single post possible. He'd had been in consul twice because he was so good at it. He was renowned for his dinner parties and for his literary pursuits. He was a man right at the top of his career, a man who'd done everything except being emperor and this. And the problem is, there already is an emperor at this time, a guy called Valentinian in the third who, um, he's only in his 30s, I think, at this point. So he's not likely to drop dead anytime soon. And there, and there are other people who are maybe a little bit more well respected than Petronius Maximus, but only just. There's a general called Flavius Aetius, who's very famous general who's defeated Attila the Hun, no less, and so is held in very high esteem by Valentin the third. And is kind of intermarriage between those families. But for some reason, Petronius Maximus decides he wants to become emperor. And there's kind of two, there's kind of two stories behind this. One is that it's revenge, because Valentine the third slept with his wife, or something like that. It's all very vague and confusing. And the other is that he, he was just, he just wanted the crown. It was the one thing he hadn't done. And I kind of, I kind of get it there. I get this because, yeah, I think, you know, as a writer, when you start writing, you kind of think, Oh, if I can just get published, that's all I want. I just want to get my book published. And then that, you know, I'll feel fulfilled then. And then it's like, I just want one person to like my book, and then I'll feel fulfilled. And then, you know, and then it goes on to, well, I want merchandise and a theme park based on my books, you know, an HBO 20 part TV series. And I want you kind of your ambitions grow with every small step you take, your ambitions grow. So I do kind of get why he thought he wanted to be emperor. But he goes about this in a very clever way. So the first thing he does is he gets um Flavius Aetius, a very famous general out of the way so he can step further closer to the throne. And he does this, and he's not involved, and he doesn't do the actual getting rid of Flavius Aetius. He somehow gets Valentinian, the third the Emperor, to kill Flavius Aetius. And it happens very suddenly. Aetiust is in a meeting, and it's just an ordinary meeting about budgets and budgetary concerns and the finances and probably troop deployment, and just a general normal meeting, when suddenly the Emperor gets out his sword and goes running full pelte at Aetius and just murders him there and then in the middle of a meeting.
Dr Rad 49:54 That's so Roman. That's so Roman
LJ Trafford 49:57 with the help of his kind of standby eunuch as well, and they just hack him to death, you know, in the middle of a meeting. Oh,
Dr G 50:03 which is guys,
LJ Trafford 50:05 I mean, you know, I mean, we all know these meetings are boring about budgets and that, but made it a bit more exciting, it does
Dr Rad 50:12 give a whole meaning to the idea of cutting the budget.
LJ Trafford 50:18 So the prelude to this is Petronius Maximus, has spent a long time talking to Valentinian the third and kind of building up Aetius as a traitor, of somebody who was looking to overthrow him, who was a danger to him. And because Aetius was very popular, because he's a very successful general. And so Valentinian the third, you know, is maybe quite right to be a bit worried about this. And it's built up, and it's built up, and his paranoia built up to this bit where he murders atheists, and so that gets him a bit closer to the throne. And then the next stage is getting rid of the Emperor himself. And this is made easier by Valentinian the third having killed Aetius because Aetius was very popular. So there was people there that he could hire or persuade to kill the Emperor because they wanted revenge. So it was a couple of guys who'd serve Aetius, who persuades to murder Valentinian the third, which they do, take him out, I think it's a hunting trip, and they stab him to death, and that's the end of him. So again, Petronius Maximus is not involved in this. He hasn't got his hands dirty at all. So Valentinian the third is now dead, but it doesn't naturally go to Petronius Maximus. He still has to bribe his way into power. So he still has to bribe a load of people, and then he's made emperor. So he's basically been made Emperor by offering two people and not getting his hands dirty at all. He's got other people to do it for him, which is where, you know, like, kind of super, like a kind of Bond villain, you know, kind of sitting there with his minions doing the work for him. He's managed to do, he's managed to assassinate someone without getting his hands dirty and without being involved, and now he's emperor. And you think that's a very clever way of doing it, because he's nobody's blaming him for the death of both of those people. He's got away with it, and he's emperor, and then this rule just completely falls apart, like just overnight, so quickly and so disappointingly. Because you think, if he's that clever, that he's managed to get himself to this position by getting other people to his dirty work for him, you think, Oh, he's going to be great emperor. He's going to have lots of ideas. But he's in a moment when he gets there, he's not actually up to the job, and, oh no, he makes a fundamental error. And what he does is he marries um Valentinian the third's wife, widow, widow, which now is widow, which she's not happy about and also, also not happy about. This is the king of the vandals, um, whose name I'm probably going to butcher, Geiseric, because they've been, they've been, um, all kinds of battles between the vandals and the Romans. And they negotiated, Aetius negotiated peace. And Geiseric's son was going to marry Valentinian the third's daughter. So the murder of Valentinian the third is a kind of family matter to him now, so and an excuse, presumably, as well. Valentinian the third's widow writes to Geiseric to ask for help, because she doesn't want to be married to Petronius Maximus. And Geiseric sees an opportunity, and he launches the vandals. And the Vandals come and they sack Rome. This is one of the famous sackings of Rome. And Petronius Maximus are hearing this news the Vandals are heading towards responds even worse, and did his duty, honest. He doesn't even try to muster a defence. He just legs it. He just hits on his horse and he legs it. But he's spotted by people and some Imperial freedmen who are so disgusted at him doing a runner that they stone him to death there and then. So it's, it's an intriguing story, because it starts off so well, and you think he's going to be a brilliant emperor, because, I mean, he's very well qualified to be emperor. He's got wonderful background. Everyone agrees he's very clever, he's very talented, he's brilliant. And where he gets there, he's brilliant. But first sign of trouble, he just folds. He just completely folds, and in the kind of sources, one of the things to say that he just didn't realise what a step it was from being a senator to being emperor, and it's compared to a story of a guy sitting at a beautiful banquet of all the best food you can imagine in your life, the best movie ever going to eat, but above your head is swinging an axe that could fall on your head at any minute. And that's what being Emperor is like. And he didn't know that. He didn't realise, I think, that he would be the target that the minute he set took that step up from being an ordinary politician to being the head everything is your fault. You're the full guy. You're the guy that everybody's heading for. And I think that that completely undid him. I mean, you think he would realise that if he's been around kind of Imperial politics that long, but
Dr G 54:33 you would assume so, but, and he's obviously got a lot of talent behind the scenes, so very much, one of those sort of people that is able to pull the strings of other people, so a great sort of, like, second in command, if you like, but maybe that step out into the sort of top gig itself. You can't be in the shadows anymore. It's much more difficult to be somebody who's pulling the strings you are now the one whose strings are being pulled. Yeah,
LJ Trafford 54:58 you it was a. He was exposed. Essentially, he was exposed, and all eyes are on him. And, yeah, like you say, he works best in the shadow. He's a manipulator. He's, you know, he's somebody who can pull the strings of other people, and work very has done very well there. But yeah, being exposed and then realising that everything is heading for him, personally, just him, not anybody else. It's that hatchet, yeah, and that's what being Emperor's like that, you know, again, going back to paranoia of Caligula and Domitian, that hatchet are constantly above your head all the time. It can fall. And, yeah, he just met, I guess you got to say kind of mentally. He didn't have the mental strength to cope with that.
Dr Rad 55:36 I can understand me, just because I think Game of Thrones has shown us this very well. There are some people that are suited to be the front man, and there are other people that are very good at being the helpers of the front man.
LJ Trafford 55:50 Yeah. And I think, yeah, I don't think he realised, till he took that step, that fatal step, that he was an emperor material. And he didn't realise what it meant to be emperor, it, yeah, until he took that step. And then, I guess he just panicked, panicked and, yeah, didn't even try to try to rule in any sense. He just legged it
Dr G 56:12 was panicked, yeah, panicked and ran away. He panicked and
LJ Trafford 56:16 ran away. Yeah, which is, you know, which is even worse than Didius Julianus. At least, did his Julianus tried. He tried badly with elephants, etc, but at least he made an effort. He didn't run away from the messy, mess he'd made, possibly, because he's surrounded by Praetorian Guard at all times, he weren't going to let him go without that gold. I was
Dr G 56:34 going to say, yeah, you always buddy. You got to stick around.
LJ Trafford 56:37 But yeah, he just, he just likes it. Just likes it. And it's, yeah, I think it's such, I think it's such a surprising story of the kind of build up, the two assassinations that he engineers, and then yeah,
Dr G 56:49 for what they're definitely expecting him to flourish, you know, yeah,
LJ Trafford 56:53 yeah, to have some really top ideas. But yeah, he just, he just folds. And I think that's, I think that's really interesting. And I think yeah, and that's why I wanted to include him as a kind of worst emperor, because it's that kind of like realisation of what being an emperor is, and realising that you don't want a part, that you don't want, that you thought you did, but it's Be careful what you wish for. Is the message of Petronius Maximus. He got what he wished for and then immediately regretted it. Yeah,
Dr G 57:20 fair enough. I mean, I feel like I would be the same, to be honest, I would probably also run away. I'd be out of there. I'd be like, this was I've made a mistake, guys. So thinking about how all of these different characters that have come through the Roman emperorship lead us to gain some insight into the nature of being human. There's certain strengths, there's certain frailties that can be read and understood through those who hold power. And I'm interested in the lessons that you've taken away from studying these people, lessons,
LJ Trafford 57:59 I think in my conclusion, I think, in my book, I say I don't have much of a conclusion. I think, I think what changes is what kind of person becomes Emperor over time. So you need a different skill set depending on what period of history you're in. You know, we talk about Caligula, having them having to make up battles for him to fight, because there aren't any, because it's relatively, relatively kind of calm during that period. You know, you get onto the era of Petronius, Maximus and Valentinian the second it's constant fighting third century crisis. Yeah. And like the kind of third century crisis, the people who come become emperor, people who have armies and who can inspire armies. And so that is a very different kind of skill set to what your Augustus and your Tiberius needed, which were kind of good administration, and kind of keeping the Senate, keeping the Senate on side, that becomes less and less important as kind of the the armies and the soldiers become more and more important. But yeah, I think what I learned from it, I think, yeah, I think there's a lot of ways in which you can be worst. I think there is a kind of the unqualified way of you know people who, you know, Valentinian the second becomes Emperor when he's about four, or something, you know, he's clearly not qualified for the post. So there's people who come in with no qualifications and no kind of background in what, what the job is, I would think, feature. Then there's a people like Petronius Maximus, and then people like Gordian, the first to get the top job, and then at the first sign of trouble, just fold, who aren't, kind of mentally prepared for it, I think, as well. Then you get the people that kind of the flaws in their personality, like kind of Caligula, that kind of fatal flaw of his awful childhood, that's kind of influences how he behaves as emperor, and kind of do mission simile, having that, that kind of teenage years in Rome in a very tumultuous period, very frightening period, and his increasing paranoia influences how he behaves emperor. And then there's the ones you know that on paper look like they're going to be great emperors, but then just just aren't. So people like Galba, who looks he's got all the right qualifications to be emperor, but. All falls apart quickly. So there's, there's all manner of ways in which you can be a worst emperor. I'm not sure there's one way, but, yeah, I think it, it's about personality, I think, at the end, and that is set up by kind of Augustus, who has the charisma and the strength of personality to build this thing called emperor and to hold it together. And then down to Tiberius. He's got the skill set, you know, even if he's not got the charisma, he's got the administrative ability to kind of, and the fear factor of keeping people in line. But then when later on, you get people who just are not the right personality for the times. So I think, yeah, you need a different personality for a different each of the eras, kind of, in ancient Rome, you need to be the strong man, the hard man, the general in the kind of third century you need to be the acute, charismatic politician in the first century, it kind of changes as Rome changes, which is a bit a very waffling answer to, I don't really know.
Dr G 1:00:55 I think, I think it's good, because it gives us a sense that it is about the context, like everything is affected by that first and foremost, and then it is what you're bringing to the table as an individual. And it's like, if there is a good marriage between what that context requires and the strengths of your character and your background, you might be able to make it work, but it's a risky thing every single time, every Emperor is always in that delicate balancing act across the whole course of their rule to make it work, because there's so many things that they're trying to hold together, and so many people have to fall in line. So it's,
Dr Rad 1:01:36 it's a yes, yeah.
LJ Trafford 1:01:39 I think I also I kind of learned, is that you can, I think the line between being a worst Emperor best Emperor is really quite thin. You can spin a lot of people either way, and the historians certainly do. And I think you could probably make a case for any emperor as the worst emperor. If you look at it, you could take Augustus and say, Well, you know, he dismantles the kind of Republic. Let's enter the report. Republic, you know, if his morality, legislation, you know, kind of bites him in the bum with his own daughter, and he's ruthless, he's, you know, he's not very nice. Morally, he's deflowering virgins in his 70s. That's not very, you know, Roman morality, is it? Um, you could take anyone like you take Trajan, you know, oh, he drank too much. You're like boy boys, you know, you can take anybody and you can spin it and make them a worse temper. And I think that's what's interesting as well. I mean, the way in which you become a Western Emperor is basically but having nobody to write up your story well. So you need that successor, that person who's going to write your story up well and kind of gloss over the lesser aspects of your personality and beef up the bigger ones. But I think, yeah, I think it's a fine line between the good and the bad. I like
Dr Rad 1:02:46 the idea that the historians are the ones with the real power here. Yeah,
LJ Trafford 1:02:53 they can spin the story. Yeah, they're spinning the stories and deciding who's best and worst. So we shouldn't really believe them over
Dr Rad 1:03:01 We're all liars, as our name suggests, the partial historians. So on that note, where can people find your book?
LJ Trafford 1:03:14 Usual book outlets, Amazon, etc, online. Just Yes, ancient Rome's worst emperors, available. And
Dr Rad 1:03:20 tell us. Do you have any exciting secret, upcoming projects? Maybe the eldre Trafford theme park coming up.
LJ Trafford 1:03:30 If only I want, yeah, I want merchandise is what I want. I think I'm coming actually. I'm stepping out of Hmong for the next book. Briefly, I'm doing sex and sexuality in ancient Greece. Oh, that would be exciting, which you'll pair nicely with the one I did in ancient Rome, which is interesting, very interesting. And it's very different. And there's some good differences there. So good differences. And, yeah, I kind of think the Greeks get away with too much. I think
Dr G 1:03:59 because you'll rein them in, I'm sure, with your whole democracy
LJ Trafford 1:04:02 and politics and art being the cradle of civilization, I think we give them, I think we rose tint them, and then we look at Romans, and we go, oh, geez, emperors, soldiers, gladiators. And yeah, I think it's time to it's time for the ancient Greeks to be to be exposed. I was gonna
Dr G 1:04:19 say, pull away the veil and reveal Ancient Greece. Well, that sounds exciting. I'm looking forward to that one coming out so we can delve in. Well, thank you so much, LJ, for joining us and taking us on a potted tour of the worst emperors. This is by no means all the Emperors that mentioned in your book, and so we definitely encourage people to seek out your excellent work and to enjoy some of these fascinating tales.
LJ Trafford 1:04:50 Thank you for having me. It's been a ball.
Whilst 401 BCE was a tense year inside ancient Rome, we can assure you that there will be a plebeian win to close the year. Victory at last!
Episode 152 – Victory at Last!
Surrounded by Enemies
The Romans were facing war with several enemies, thanks to Capena and the Falerii joining their conflict with Veii. And they weren’t going to take the loss of Anxur lying down. This calls for the mother of all levies! The magistrates had to try and enlist any man they could get their hands on, young or old. Rome needed to make sure all her bases were covered at home and abroad.
The catch was that a larger army required an increase in funding. Rome was apparently paying soldiers now, right? The military tribunes with consular power came up with a genius plan – a war-tax! What form did this tax take? Crops? Bronze? Your first-born child? The only thing we can rule out is coinage, as the Romans were not using that yet.
Regardless of the mode of payment, the people were distinctly displeased by this new policy. They were already having to work extra hard with so many men serving in the army. And of course, the tribunes of the plebs were NOT HAVING IT. This was a total scam.
Rome Just Can't Get Enough
With the people all riled up over these issues, the elections for the tribunes of the plebs fell flat. Not enough men were elected to fill the positions. The patricians saw an opportunity to try to weasel their way into the office, but they didn’t get away with that. However, they did manage to convince the newly elected tribunes to co-opt some colleagues that had been given the patrician stamp of approval.
This was in direct conflict with the Trebonian Law of 448 BCE, which was meant to prevent anyone being co-opted. As luck would have it, one of the descendants of the original Trebonius who had championed this law was serving as tribune in 401, and he vigorously protested this violation.
The people were furious about these signs of corruption and the three tribunes who had colluded with the patricians knew they needed to come up with a distraction. Why not turn everyone’s attention to Sergius and Verginius? They had made such a mess of things in 402 BCE. They were the perfect scapegoats.
Conflict of the Orders?
Tensions remained high throughout 401 BCE as Sergius and Verginius were put on trial, the tribunes fought the war-tax and the men on the frontlines weren’t getting paid. Somewhere in this strange mixture of collusion and conflict between the patricians and plebeians, something momentous was brewing…
Dr G and Dr Rad are celebrating the election of the first military tribune with consular power.
Touchdown!
Publius Licinius Calvus became the FIRST official plebeian to be elected as military tribune with consular power, set to serve in 400 BCE. Victory at last, Licinius, victory at last.
We're excited – can you tell?
If you want to know why he was the chosen one, you’ll need to tune in next time! The suspense….
Need to catch up on Sergius and Verginius’ epic bitch fight? Listen to our previous episode on 402 BCE.
Things to Look Out For:
Clever use of diversions
Laws being broken
SO MANY potential anachronisms
The spectre of the Gracchi appearing from the late Republic – again!
Suspiciously momentous events happening right at the end of the century
Our Players for 401 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
L. Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c. p. 414, 406, 403, 398
M. Furius L. f. L. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 398, 394, 386, 384, 381
M’. Aemilius Mam. f. M. n. Mamercinus (or Mamercus) (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c. p. 405, 403
Cn. Cornelius P. f. A. n. Cossus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 406. 404
K. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. y p. 404, 395, 390
L. Iulius L. f. Vopisci n. Iulius (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 397 [Paulus Sextus]
Tribune of the Plebs
M. Acutius
P. Curiatus
C. Lacerius
M. Metilius
M. Minucius
Cn. Trebonius
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy 5.10-12.
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.44.1; and Fasti Capitolini.
Arizza, M., Rossi, D. 2022. ‘The territory between Veii and Rome in the Archaic period: Rural structures as territorial markers of cultural frontiers’ Frontière.s, Revue d’archèologie, histoire et histoire de l’art Volume 6: 49-62. https://journals.openedition.org/frontieres/1297
Bartolini, G., Michetti, L. M. 2019. ‘Veii During the Archaic Period (Sixth and Fifth Centuries BCE)', in Tabolli, J, Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 107-116.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley).
Smith, C. 2019. ‘Furius Camillus and Veii', in Taboli, J., Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 219-224.
Sound Credits
Our music is by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Sounds and Orange Free Sound.
Automated Transcript
Dr Rad 0:15 Music. Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:18 We explore all the details of ancient Rome,
Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr rad and
Dr G 0:33 I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:57 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am Dr G,
Dr Rad 1:05 and I am Dr Rad,
Dr G 1:07 And we are exploring Rome from its foundation, and we are up to 401. BCE.
Dr Rad 1:15 Indeed we are Dr G. Now before we get into this particular year in ancient Roman history, looking at our different sources, let's do a very, very quick recap of the previous year, which was 402, BCE, I think I can sum it up very succinctly. There was a lot of fighting between two of the military tribunes with consular power, and it led to them massively embarrassing themselves in front of all of Rome.
Dr G 1:41 Awkward, awkward, yeah. Look, I think the thing that I talked about was the archeological record for what is happening between Veii and Rome from this time period, just to give some different context to what this relationship is like between these two places which are not very far from each other?
Dr Rad 2:04 No, they are not all right. So now that we done 402 we can dive straight into 401 BC, ah.
Dr G 2:36 401 BC, it is quite the time to be alive. There are six military tribunes with consular power. And
Dr Rad 2:46 I also have some names for some tribunes of the plebs. They're not just faceless opponents anymore.
Me too. This is very exciting. It is all right. So tell me who are the military tribunes with consular power this year. All right,
Dr G 2:58 first cab off the rank, Lucius Valerius Potitus.
Dr Rad 2:58 Heard of this guy before.
Dr G 3:05 We have seen this guy before. Previously, military tribune with consular power in 414, 406 and 403 so this is his fourth time in the job. I hope he's good at it. We also have Marcus Furius Camillus.
Dr Rad 3:23 Ah. Now this will be a famous name, not quite famous yet, not
Dr G 3:27 quite famous yet. So I feel like we've been touching on the edges of this guy. He was previously listed
Dr Rad 3:35 naughty, naughty.
Dr G 3:38 He was previously listed as a military Tribune with consular power in 403, but 401 this year seems to be a more secure date for this guy, sure. So we will see
Dr Rad 3:51 the cusp of his career
Dr G 3:53 every time I think he's about to start. We also have Manlius Aelius Mamercinus slash Mamercus, depending on how you like to spell it, yeah. He's
Dr Rad 4:07 actually held a consulship before, hasn't? He? Very fancy.
Dr G 4:11 Was consul in 410 and previously also a military Tribune with consular power in 405 and 403 nice. Yeah, so you know, he's been about traps. In addition, we have Gnaeus Cornelius, Cossus also previously a military Tribune with consular power in 406 and 404 Kaeso Fabius Ambustus also previously held the position in 404 and finally, Lucius, Julius Vopisci Iulius.
Dr Rad 4:46 He's about the only one that doesn't seem super familiar. All the rest obviously, repeat customers.
Dr G 4:52 Siege times. I think so. I mean, if there's anything to indicate to us that they. Might be a siege. I feel like it would be the fact that we've got some really recurring players right now,
Dr Rad 5:05 yeah. But also, I think probably the fact that the previous military tribunes of the consular power basically got dismissed from office in disgrace. I think that's another reason why the Romans might like to have some experienced people, yeah,
Dr G 5:19 fair enough, yeah. Let's get the experience guys out on the field, and let's get this victory happening
Dr Rad 5:25 absolutely now, I believe we both agree that there are also some tribunes to talk about here. There are, but
Dr G 5:31 before we go into that, let me just mention, and I know you will be unsurprised by this, but all of these guys holding this military tribunate With consular power are patricians?
Dr Rad 5:43 Well, just goes without saying, doesn't it? Dr G, do you want any grubby little plebeians getting any power?
Dr G 5:48 Only people from the elite know how to wield the sword
Dr Rad 5:51 Exactly, exactly anyway.
Dr G 5:53 So the tribunes are the plebs. We've got some. There's a whole bunch of them. For some reason, all of a
Dr Rad 5:58 sudden, we go from just having faceless people trying to cause problems to like, what is it? Six? Yeah,
Dr G 6:03 I think it's much easier, from a narrative perspective, to be able to be like, Oi Marcus. Stop it bizarre. So our tribunes of the plebs. Now listeners take note of these names, not the first names, because they're all pretty standard, but the last names for these guys give us a real sense that we're dealing with different families. So we've been really used to seeing patrician family names come up and get repeated over and over to the point that we're confused. Is one Claudius better than another Claudius?
Speaker 1 6:35 No? Like the Amelii or the Valerii, yeah, like all
Dr G 6:40 of the guys that we just mentioned, those names have been in the rotation quite a lot in very simple, yeah, exactly.
The Furii? How can I not mention them? Camillus is one of those Furii.
Exactly. And these guys, these tribune of the plebs, are all coming from different family lines, which give us a sense of the perhaps, what is the broadening birth structure that also is equivalent to class, potentially, that is going on in Rome at this point in time. So we have Marcus Acutius, Publius Curiatius, Gaius Lacerius, Marcus Metelius, Marcus Minucius, which might be maybe the closest that we
Speaker 1 7:23 get. That's right, yeah, that's the only one I've ever heard of before. Yeah. And you may
Dr G 7:27 have also heard of Gnaeus Trebonius. That's true, the Trebonius name, yeah. So these groups of names, Acutius, Curiatius, Lacerius, Metilius. These are just names that sound Latin, but they don't come to us through this sort of patrician lineup that we're used to seeing. Yes,
Dr Rad 7:48 absolutely. Well, Dr, G, 401, the reason why we might have so many named characters is that it is a bumper year for Rome. It's like they know it's the end of the century.
Dr G 8:01 You gotta give people something juicy for the end of the century.
Speaker 1 8:05 Yeah. So there's a lot of war going on in this year. We, of course have the siege against they but there's also going to be Capena and Falerii involved in that. And we've also got war against the Volscians on the horizons, because, of course, the Romans just lost Anxur, which they had stolen from the Volscians, but they consider it theirs now, and they want it back.
Dr G 8:28 I see very intriguing. Well, I have almost next to nothing or like, what
Dr Rad 8:34 happened I was gonna say, are you really gonna chime in here?
Dr G 8:37 I mean, I do have some things to tell you, but I will maybe hold off on most of them, except for one, if I may, okay, be bold initially, sure. So I just want to have a bit of a throwback to the Lex Trebonia of
Dr Rad 8:52 448, that is going to come into my narrative later. If you, Oh, you want me to hold tight? Well, it's up to you. It does come in, but just not until a bit later. Okay, I
Dr G 9:02 only mention it because we've just listed all of the tribune of the plebs, and there's a connection there. But I can, I
Dr Rad 9:07 promise. I can hold on. It'll be just a moment, and then we'll be there. Patience, patience. Background, yes, okay, before we deal with all the war that's on the horizon for Rome, naturally, there are some internal issues that we have to deal with, of course, yeah. Now, I think you can probably guess what these revolve around. They're kind of standard issues for Roman society, apparently, which is that if you want to fight a war, you need to have a levy.
Dr G 9:35 I hate that. That's very annoying. You've got to round up people. Get them on board. Yeah, get them excited. Now there's going
Dr Rad 9:40 to be an issue about that, and I'll explain what it is in a moment. There's also an issue, though, around the fact that people are apparently now paying a war tax,
Dr G 9:49 excuse me, yeah, that's never been mentioned before, a war tax.
Dr Rad 9:54 Look, this is, I think, revolving around the issues around funding that we've been talking about. You know, the fact that they've introduced. Use Military Pay, and that's the thing, the money has to cut from somewhere.
Dr G 10:03 Are you? Wait a minute. Yeah, wait a minute. Wait, wait.
Dr Rad 10:06 Question the narrative. Wait, wait, wait. Question, the
Dr G 10:08 narrative. No, no. Hold up. You're telling me, first of all, people are getting paid. So, I mean, this is something we've talked about a little bit. Now, that's fine, but who's now paying for the pay. It's being paid through through taxation. Who's getting taxed to pay for the pay? This
Dr Rad 10:26 is the issue that the tribunes brought up when originally the idea of military pay was introduced. So like, Sure, these guys, who are all elite and stuff, might be contributing to get a scheme off the ground, but who's going to be paying for it long term, it's going to have to be financed from somewhere, looking at you guys, and this is the whole issue that they were talking about when they were saying, follow the money. This is exactly what people are having issues with. Now, I feel
Dr G 10:52 like there's been a lack of transparency, and I have not seen the legislation get passed. It's obviously highly questionable. Rome is not functioning like a proper Republic right now. Yeah,
Dr Rad 11:03 it's all highly questionable, of course, because what would they be paying the tax in? How would they be paying the taxes? All sorts of questions that we want to really
Dr G 11:10 in the aes rude that I talked about last episode, giant pieces of bronze made of rectangles. Yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 11:17 Rome doesn't have coinage at this point in time. It's all very confusing, but I need to proceed with my narrative. So if you would please, okay, the military tribunes, of course, want to levy the troops, and naturally they're going to be recruiting young men, standard so far, so good. But they start enlisting older men too, because they want to make sure that Rome itself is to be protected,
Dr G 11:42 enlisting older men too. Why? Hello there, Rome.
Dr Rad 11:47 Now the issue of military pay becomes difficult at this point, because they're widening the levy. Because, obviously, the more men you're enlisting, the more money you need to pay for this army also,
Dr G 11:59 is it the same men that you're levying that you need to pay for the pay?
Dr Rad 12:03 Well, this is where it gets confusing. So this is why they need to pay for it by collecting a tax. This is where the tax comes into it. So you see, oh, yeah, completely logical so far. Yeah, the Roman citizens aren't thrilled about paying this tax because they're already having to help the war effort in generally and, you know, protecting the city and that sort of thing. And that sort of thing, and just working for the benefit of Rome in general. They don't feel like they should have to pay a tax. On top of that, the tribunes of the plebs, of course, come charging in at this moment. They sniff an opportunity. They accuse the senators of planning this all along. The senators were clearly intending to wreck everybody's life by not only make half of the citizen body serve in the army, they were then going to tax the rest to death,
Dr G 12:51 right? Okay, well, that does sound rather dramatic coming from the tribune of the plebs. I mean, the problem for the elites is if they tax you to death, or they send you to wars and you all die. Yes, is that there is no one for the elite to parade around in front of and pretend they're better than
Dr Rad 13:07 Yes. Well, look, they don't stop there. They say, clearly, you are also behind the siege at Veii lasting this long, it is your fault so that it is being strung out this long, it's because you have been mismanaging this whole affair that it's dragged on as long as it has, and now you have the nerve to levy armies for four wars, resorting to using mere boys and the elderly, who I presume are people in their 40s and 50s as Well, forcing the plebeians to serve all winter and work all year round, and now a tax on top of all of that. So let me just get this straight. The plebs work their guts out and fight themselves into early graves, whilst neglecting their own lives and their own properties. And finally, if they've managed to return, and they get a chance to put their feet up, they have to pay our tax. I mean, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes a military pay situation laughable. The idea that's benefiting anyone
Dr G 14:16 Say it ain't so!
Dr Rad 14:20 now, if you're sensing that there's some Gracchan parallels here, I would say yes, yes, there are
Dr G 14:28 Livy. What are you doing?
Dr Rad 14:30 Look, it's, once again, that whole idea of, you know, controlling land, looking after land, all of that kind of stuff that comes into it. So the people were completely consumed by these issues, and around the time that they are trying to process this whole levy tax situation, this is when the tribunes of the plebs are having their elections. Okay? And they actually didn't have enough men elected to the office, which means and. This is, I think, where we're going to come into what you're talking about here. They start playing with the idea that patricians be allowed to be introduced to the magistracies, to fill the spaces. And I think this is where your Trebonian Law thing is going to come in.
Dr G 15:15 I interject, throwback, 448, I know it's clear in all of our minds. Like was yesterday, yeah, practically yesterday we recorded the year 448 in 2021 Wow. It was a little while back. So something unusual does take place that year. So Livy records that two patrician ex-consuls are elected to serve as tribunes of the plebs in that year. There's doubt about the accuracy of that claim. Fair enough. It's Livy. It's a it's a weird time period. We're not sure about most things to do with this century, and we're right at the end of it. But there is this sense that people get up in arms about this concept. So some of the new tribunes had been consulting with patricians, and then there's this sort of co-option that sort of takes place. So it's getting messy. So it seems like there is a way in which the patricians have seen an opportunity to potentially undermine the tribune of the plebs by bringing themselves into it, yes, and the problem with that is that the plebeians are not going to stand for it. So Lucius Trebonius pushes for a law. Now, the name trebonius, we assume, must be a plebeian name, and we get another trebonius this year as well. So
Dr Rad 16:42 coincidence, I think. No, no, I
Dr G 16:44 do think so. Lucius Trebonius pushes for a law that stipulates that elections for tribune of the plebs need to continue until no fewer than 10 tribunes of the plebs are elected, and they should be plebeian. Yeah. So he ends up getting given a cognomen Asper (Prickly), in recognition of his fight to keep patrician power in check. So that's the kind of broader context. And here we are in 401 and all of a sudden we've got another Trebonius in there, but we've also got this sense that maybe the patricians are looking to get another foothold, because obviously the critique that's being leveled at them right now is severe. It is that you're pushing everybody to the brink of their livelihood and their economic capacity, and for what you're sitting outside they and your generals, your upper class guys are sitting there having little infights with each other rather than getting on with it. Yes, and the result of that is more lost life, losing places like unksel Because you're not watching them properly and you want to tax us for your mistakes. Yes, like you get to be in charge if you don't fuck it up,
Dr Rad 18:03 as RuPaul would say, yes, exactly. I think that's how things are kind of being set up. So we basically have these guys, Marcus Acutius and Gaius Lacerius, who are selected for the office after they couldn't find enough people. And it said that these guys are definitely chosen because of patrician influence, and this is what sparks the current day Trebronius, as in the one that's actually around in 401, to defend the Trebronian Law, obviously, because it has to do with his family in particular, and he wants to make sure that this law about the cooptation is being upheld. So this guy claims that the law is being ignored. And he's correct, and manages to create, obviously, a lot of unhappiness, because for the patricians to be taking away these positions and ignoring a law that's obviously to do with plebeian rights, it's a bad situation. So people are also really mad now at all the tribunes of the plebs except Trebronius, of course, whether they were the ones who were doing the co-opting or they were co-opted into it at this point in time, and there's just a lot of tension within Rome about the whole situation. So the three tribunes of the plebs, who had been leaned on by the patricians, are extremely worried about this situation. And this is Publius Curatius, Marcus Metilius and Marcus Minucius, and they decide what they're going to do is to distract people about the whole issue of co optation. Obviously, I think people are mad, because presumably it means that these current tribunes of the plebs were obviously under patrician influence as well, even though they might not have been patricians themselves, they decide they're going to prove themselves and distract people by going after Sergius and wagenius, you might remember as the military tribunes with consular power who were causing so many dramas last episode, and caused this huge military problem because they were fighting amongst themselves, and they decided, look, we can channel all the negativity that people are feeling surrounding the election of the tribunes of the plebs and the water. And everything into a particular trial against these two guys, and these guys will be the scapegoat, all right,
Dr G 20:06 so this is in some respects a distraction tactic away from the CO option of a couple of these tribunes as sort of stooges for the patricians by challenging some other patricians at trial. Yes,
Dr Rad 20:21 I think this is exactly okay. I think we've got the noble trebonius, you know, the holder of his family's legacy, as being the one who's sort of speaking out against what's happening. The others obviously seem like they have taken some sort of patrician bribe or something like that in order to make this happen. So there's all that ill feeling happening. So they decide, let's put these guys on trial. These three tribunes say that Sergius and Virginius are the problem and that they've just been pointing fingers at each other for this whole mess. They say it's probably something that was set up in advance by the patricians or the senators, because it is just too hard to believe the insanity that happened in the previous year, that they would allow the army from Veii to set fire to what the Romans had built. They obviously want the water drag on. So, yeah, exactly. This is like they're it's not just incompetence. This is a deliberate plan, and that they had basically just given things up to the Faliscans, who had joined in on the side of Veii at this point in time, the patricians, therefore, must be trying everything to use they to stop any other advances from happening for the plebeians. So they is basically one huge Sideshow to stop questions about land reform, to stop the plebeians from having lots of people at their assemblies because they're all too busy out fighting, you know, they're all too busy serving in the army, to stop them from being able to foil an evil patrician conspiracy.
Dr G 20:21 Oh, the struggle of the orders. It's not over, my friends.
Dr Rad 22:10 And basically they're saying that the Roman men had to fight their way back to the city because of what Sergius and Verginius had done. It's all the fault of these incompetent men. Like, how are these people, the ones that are in power? And whilst the gods are not necessarily directly punishing Sergius and Verginius, they're saying, Come on, Romans, let's use this opportunity which the gods have provided for us to seek our vengeance against what they have done, wow, conspiracy. Dr, G, yeah. And it goes deep.
Dr G 22:44 I'm feeling it all the way, all the way to the top, to the gods themselves. Yes,
Dr Rad 22:48 yes, exactly. Now the plebeians find them guilty fairly quickly. Well, well, well. And they order them each to pay a fine, of which I have given the precise figure of 10,000 pounds of bronze. Oh, that's quite a lot Nice. Sergius tries to blame fortune, saying that it's really just this that's to blame. War is unpredictable. It's a matter of chance. You know exactly. Stuff happens. What do you expect? Stuff happens. You
Dr G 23:15 roll the dice, and sometimes you win, and sometimes they marches on your army, exactly.
Dr Rad 23:23 So Verginius is like, yeah, look, you know, the whole thing last year was pretty bad already. Haven't I suffered enough without being put through all of this as well?
Dr G 23:34 Wow, two very different responses, like, I've been having a tough time, guys. And you know, you know what this trial has made me realize just how tough a time I'm having?
Dr Rad 23:44 Yeah, exactly. And it kind of works in that it seems that the whole issue of tribunes being co opted, the fact that the Trebonian Law is being ignored, that kind of seems to fall to one side, and the tribunes of the plebs decide that the people should capitalize on the fact that they seem to be on a roll with patrician vengeance at this point in time. We took down two and who's next, exactly. And so they decide, what better time than now to have a land law campaign? Oh,
Dr G 24:14 yes, let's get the agrarian campaign back on the agenda. Yeah,
Dr Rad 24:18 exactly. And they also say, and while we're at it. Let's just do away with the war tax. Let's say no to the war tax, even though the money is desperately needed now to fund all the armies. They're like, well, the armies aren't really achieving anything decisive, so let's just forget all about
Dr G 24:34 that. Now this sounds like potentially the kind of moment where the tribute of the plebs could shoot themselves in the foot. Yeah? Being like, Look, if we don't pay the war tax, that will teach the patricians who's who around here, and then Veii turns up at their doorstep and they don't have anybody because they haven't been able to levy anybody, because they've got no money anymore.
Dr Rad 24:56 Yeah, and the issue is that the Roman army is having. Some successes, like, certainly nothing definitive, which is what the tribunes are saying. They're like, Well, yeah, like they might be doing okay, but it's okay, good enough for attacks. I don't think so. So it seems that Manius Aemilius and Kaeso Fabius, they're in Veii. They're dealing with the siege, and they are under them the army managers to retake everything that they had lost, so the camp that they lost in the previous year. And they are also building up their defenses, building fortresses, garrisons, the whole work. So things are going back fairly well at ve then we have Marcus Furius, who is fighting against the Faliscans at this moment in time. We have Gnaeus Cornelius fighting in Capena. And these, of course, are the two groups that have joined vague, because they realized they were next in line. Didn't have decisive conflict with the enemy, but they managed to attack their land, burnt their houses, their crops, did not attack any towns, but, you know, they've done some destruction and that sort of thing. Okay, so general pillaging or whatnot, yeah? Okay, yeah. And then we have Valerius Potitus, who's fighting against the Volscians and attempting to retake Anxur. Now, it
Speaker 2 26:08 hasn't exactly worked, but they haven't been beaten off, and so they again establishing themselves defensively, you know, building a stockade and a trench and that sort of thing. So it could not be worse timing with the Romans having all these men out in the field that the tribunes are causing problems back home over the issue of paying these guys. Yeah, I was going to say, so it sounds like we've got some real military grind work going on out in the field. And I think what's interesting here is the idea that it has not taken very long for this introduction of military pay, which still might be up for being disputed at this point, for it to turn into narratively, to something that must occur in order for war to take place. Like you can't do a levy anymore, it would seem, unless there's going to be a guarantee of payment. Yes, war, attack.
Dr Rad 27:03 However, in the narrative that we've got, the unhappiness from within the city starts spreading because, of course, the soldiers aren't getting paid, which is what they have apparently been promised. And so they're getting all antsy because they're not getting what they thought they were going to be getting. And so obviously, patricians and plebeians are like at each other's throats because of this situation that is having a ripple effect all throughout the city and all throughout wherever Romans are serving. The tribunes of the plebs call on the people to re establish liberty. They say, We no longer want patricians like Sergius and meginius getting into power because they're rubbish. Quite frankly, look at what a shocking job they've done. They've just been found guilty of obviously negligent, like some sort of treason, basically against the state, or something like that, and they're calling out their fellow pabeans to make sure that these sorts of men can never get elected again. And Dr G, it's a moment. It's a historic moment, a plebeian gets elected for the following year as a military tribune with consular power. Oh my, I know I feel like it's a moment to celebrate. Where's the champagne?
Dr G 28:13 We must have a moment of silence.
Dr Rad 28:16 Unbelievably, that it takes this, it takes this level of incompetence, and also, seemingly the tribunes of the plebs being very sneaky, that we finally get a military Tribune with consular power being elected from the plebeian class right at the turn of the century. I was
Dr G 28:36 going to say how narratively convenient terms of our timeline. I know
Dr Rad 28:42 it's almost as though Livy planned somebody
Dr G 28:44 writing history a lot further away from the events and maybe tweaking things so that they happen on a specific timeline. Oh,
Dr Rad 28:54 and with particular families as well. I mean, a trebonius being around to protest the fact that his ancestor's lore is being overturned. The fact that at the time of the original lex Trebonia, there was a Verginius who was a consul, and now we have another one who's involved in the story the names as well of the tribunes of the plebs, it doesn't really make sense for this patrician plebeian divide. Okay, what
Dr G 29:21 you're trying to tell me is that truth is stranger than fiction. I know it's hard
Dr Rad 29:25 to believe, but as we've highlighted a number of times, one of the biggest issues with trying to unravel the patrician versus plebeian divide in ancient Rome is the fact that the names don't always match up. So we have had in the past people serving as consuls or military tribunes with consular power, who seem to be from plebeian families, which doesn't seem to make any sense at all. And then, of course, we also have people who are tribunes of the plebs who come from what we know as being patrician families. In this particular instance. So, for example, we think it must be the Curiatii Minucii. It seems like they should be patricians at this point in time, in terms of their where their family's situated. So the fact that they're serving as Tribune to the plebs, it's all very confusing. The Metilii, we don't even think they've arrived in Rome at this moment, and yet somehow they're in the mix
Dr G 30:21 so in terms of thinking about like, what are the fundamental issues here? It's like, it's the access to information that could be construed in as any way reliable at this point in time by the people who are writing this source material that we are so lucky to have. And this puts me in mind of some of the things that come up in the scholarship and through further research that people have done around the nature of language and what is going on here. So I don't have any sources. The best I've got for you is some Diodorus Siculus to let you know what's going on in Sicily, in Sicily. But what I do have is some names and the way that they come through in some of our source material that perhaps suggests that there's so little that we really know. So you might recall that the king Servius Tullius has an alternative name which is completely different. Yes, this Macstrna, yeah, which he's Etruscan self. Yeah, he's Etruscan name, which is recorded and sometimes associated with him, but doesn't have anything in appearance or sound to do with Latin, by the looks of it. But then we have other figures that come through, that come through the Etruscan record as well. There is a Marce Camitinas, who we think becomes Camillus, yeah, and he's depicted in a painting of the Vulci, and is in a tomb. There is also the other Etruscan name, Cneve Tarchunies Rumach, which seems to be the name of the Tarquinii. And so even at the point of the level of like, who's who, and the best we've got, besides Livy and other source material that might be writing from a much later perspective, is this Fasti Capitolini, which we lean heavily on as an artifact, but itself is quite late, yes, as well. And so teeing up these kinds of names, and then having a source like Diodorus Siculus, who's clearly been in touch with some of the Latin evidence, but doesn't always get it right, and then knowing that the Etruscans have their own system of language, and write down names that sound like they're going to become Latin names to us, and there seem to be some parallels it's just bonkers how little we know. So the fact that we have this beautiful narrative from Livy is incredible to me. I love it, and it's also like the depth and complexity that he's offering here of a society in a moment of transition is really powerful. And this idea that there is this sub sort of plus structure fight going on and families vying for power and control over the principal positions, it's amazing, and I want to believe that those stories are true, and it's really hard to reconcile with what we have from other sort of bits and pieces here and there, which stand outside that written material, but come from that archeological context. Yeah,
Dr Rad 33:27 and this is the thing I feel like I can't quite finish this story without actually going into the next year because there's a really intriguing detail that I think is going to blow your mind.
Dr G 33:39 Well, I put it to you that it will have to hold your horses a little bit.
Dr Rad 33:43 Okay. Well, can I, can I tell you this one detail? We can come back to it, but I have to tell you this one detail. Okay, okay, so the guy, because these two years blend together in the way that Livy is telling them, the guy who becomes the first plebleian military Tribune with consular power is Publius Licinius Calvus. Now we will come back to this, but I just want to leave you on this, because it's so unbelievable. Livy s sort of goes into why was this the guy, why was this the guy who was chosen to be the first because he hadn't held any sort of offices before, and I quote the English translation, but was only a senator of long standing now, well on in years now,
Dr G 34:25 whoa, what are you telling me? There have been plebeians in the Senate the
Dr Rad 34:29 whole time, apparently, so and it so. It brings us back to that essential question, which we've been wrestling with this entire time, of who the hell are patricians? Who are the plebeians? How do we define these things? I mean, obviously it makes sense. I understand that the Senate can't be made up of just ex-magistrates.
Dr G 34:48 That's right, that would be weird. Yeah, at the beginning there weren't any.
Dr Rad 34:50 Exactly, there were none. And then even if we go back to, you know, like 50 years ago, whatever, they still wouldn't have been enough to make up a Senate if it's given. Scale that the Senate is in our source material. So Oh, my God, we're going to delve into that more detail next time. But it just goes to show right at this moment, this very, very important episode where we finally reached a milestone how many more questions I have, and we are going to have to go back to that original question of patricians, papillions. Who are they and where do they come from?
Dr G 35:20 What is this and why does it keep happening? And are we sure it's real? Were they there at the dawning of the sun and at the setting of the sun? We shall remember exactly, oh, my god. Anyway, that
Dr Rad 35:31 just blew my mind. That
Dr G 35:35 is an incredible detail, and I'm going to ruminate over that between the end of this recording and the next recording let you go
Dr Rad 35:43 without telling you that, because I'm like, it's actually, I actually don't even care about the fact that he's the first plebeian military tribune with consular power. Once I read that, sentence I was like, holy cow!
Dr G 35:54 what's been sitting in the Senate for years?
Dr Rad 35:56 Yeah, she's been lurking there. Like, it's just like, What is going on? Who let him in. What's going on? So, yeah, so much that is intriguing right at the turn of the century and look, I agree with you. The thing is, what we have to remember is we're dealing with this situation with Veii, right? And this is a very important moment for Rome, and we've already sort of hinted to our audience this is going to be the last showdown with Veii. I think you all know how that ends up. However, we also are facing a disaster for Rome, the Gallic sack of Rome, which is coming up on the horizon. And this is the excuse that our sources give us. Excuse me. I know, believe me, Rome about to get trashed. This is the excuse that our sources use for how confusing this particular century is. And I actually felt very reassured I was doing some research for the show. And it sort of was this chapter that was all about how the fifth century is probably the most difficult in Roman history to figure out. It's even worse than the period under the kings. Because, okay, look, the Kings might be mythical, whatever, at least we have some detail. So you have some myths, you know, for this century, it just, there's so many questions and academics just they have such different opinions. It is
Dr G 37:04 baffling. And I think there is the potential to take an archeological perspective, which would leave us with not too much to go on, but definitely the suggestion that there was conflict in this century in the local region surrounding Rome, for sure. So I've got a bit of information from a paper by Bartolini and Michetti from 2019 vague during the Archaic period the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. And this is backing up that paper by Ariza and Rossi that I was talking about in the previous episode, that there is a reasonable amount of archeological evidence to suggest that we've got cultural exchange going on, but also a build up of military engagement across these two cities Yeah, so that all makes sense. Cool things like the introduction of the terracotta roof tile. You know, everybody likes a good terracotta roof tiles. They're
Dr Rad 38:04 so dangerous. They can fall at the moment. They
Dr G 38:06 could fall on your head. Then you could be dead. Exactly who'd ever tell a story about that? Terracotta roof tiles. They get developed and in the seventh century, and they start to sort of flood the market, as it were, it's like new roofing materials. Hello. We also get the introduction of the Opus quadratum, style of brickwork, which is something that the Etruscans do when the Romans definitely adopt, which is the nice interlaying of bricks, where you don't need mortar they just sort of Nestle up against each other in different patterns to create an interlocking system. Yeah, very cool, yeah. And the way that tomb structures change, which I mentioned in the previous episode as well. So there's lots of ways in which there is cultural engagement cultural exchange and an increase in sort of militaristic defensive fines from this time period. So it's not like Livy is wrong, yeah, yeah. He's not wrong about the broad brush strokes. But I think what we are ultimately uncertain about, and maybe we'll never be able to be certain about, is the really fine detail of who's who, where are these stories coming from? Can we make sense of this chronological structure. Why do we seem to have some added years in here and all of this kind of jazz.
Dr Rad 39:26 Look the whole thing about the tribunes, patricians, plebeians, co opting, a trial like none of it makes sense to me.
Dr G 39:36 I kind of love how it's become so circular, where it's like, wait a minute, we've, we've done this thing, and now that we're now we've got taxes, and we're paying people, and it's all getting out of hand, and nobody wants to sign up anymore, and where are we going to get the cash from? Nobody knows we don't have currency we
Dr Rad 39:53 just weren't ready for this. So I
Dr G 39:55 think this is probably a good moment to wrap up this episode. Mode, knowing that we've got this really great story
Dr Rad 40:04 of Yeah, the conflict of the orders is back with a vengeance. Yeah, coming
Dr G 40:08 up on this cliffhanger note, because I'm so keen to talk about 400 now, but I think there's
Dr Rad 40:13 no more to it. But I just had to tell you that
Dr G 40:16 I genuinely do have some things about 400 so I'm excited to get there, okay, but I think it might be time for the Partial Pick.
Dr Rad 40:31 Alright? Dr, G, the partial pick the moment when the Romans have a chance to win 50 golden eagles, 10 in each category. Tell me what are our categories?
Dr G 40:44 Well, our first category is military clout,
Dr Rad 40:47 right? Well, okay, the Romans are apparently having some success. And by success, I mean they are undoing the terrible performance of the previous year. Yeah. I
Dr G 40:58 mean, you can only go up, can't you?
Dr Rad 40:59 Yeah, no, I think they could go down. It could
Dr G 41:03 be worse. Yes, yes. Look, this is not a great situation for them to be in. They've got some troops in the field. They've been doing some minor pillaging. Yeah, they've recouped their losses from having their camp invaded by they. They've attempted to take back on saw but not been successful yet, running in that? No, so I think that they're engaging in military things. I'm not sure that they're demonstrating a lot of clout right now. It might be a three,
Dr Rad 41:27 yeah, yeah, okay, I'm on board with that. Okay, a three, it is
Dr G 41:34 new arguments. Excellent. Look,
Dr Rad 41:37 I'm weighing it carefully, and look, as I say, Yeah, regaining ground lost whilst they were being terrible is not the best.
Dr G 41:44 It's not the best. This doesn't constitute a huge success. No, all right, our second category is diplomacy. No, they
Dr Rad 41:53 are at war on multiple fronts. I think I've made that very clear.
Dr G 41:56 They are not talking to any of their enemies right now? No,
Dr Rad 42:00 there's just so much war going on that's no golden eagles. Yep, that's a zero, okay, expansion.
Dr G 42:06 No, they're
Dr Rad 42:08 not doing that. They
Dr G 42:10 certainly haven't gained territory, although, if they've gained back the losses from outside of Bay, that is an improvement on their camp situation. That's
Dr Rad 42:20 true, but that's just a camp. It's not like a permanent This is mine. That is your situation. I feel true.
Dr G 42:25 I think that is also a zero. I think so too. Weirdos, no,
Dr Rad 42:32 nobody seems to be very admirable, because, like even the tribunes of the plebs who put Sergio simogenius on trial, don't seem the most admirable tribunes I've ever come across like, I think the implication is meant to be that they're in the back pockets of the patricians. Yes, that does not seem ideal. And the other ones are apparently, you know, patrician candidates. So who cares about them? All
Dr G 42:55 right? So, yeah, I don't think any of this behavior necessarily constitutes a great Roman sense of manliness, although they might argue otherwise, because I'm sure they would even Sergey
Dr Rad 43:06 and vigineous. I mean, again, they just come off terribly. They
Dr G 43:09 do sound like very rich, spoiled boys having a Slappy fight with each other. At least they've been found guilty. Okay, so that's a zero for weird to us. Yeah, the citizen score. Is this a great time for Romans on the average, look,
Dr Rad 43:24 it's a hard one to judge, because technically, speaking, the first plebeian military Tribune with consular power does not actually start serving until next year. Yeah, we can't count that in this count, I was gonna say I don't know whether to count the election and the intention to have a plebeian military tripping with consular power. Well, see,
Dr G 43:41 the trouble is that you could have an election, and you could have a candidate who is, you know, the elect as it were, sure, but might lose it before they get into office. But he doesn't. And we know that, okay, but we but the Romans don't know that, okay? Like he doesn't start until next year.
Dr Rad 44:00 Okay, okay. But we do have the election. We do have the election happening, and we do, I suppose that's exciting. Yeah, we do have sergeys and wagenius being found guilty and being fined, so that's something. We do have tribunes who seemingly are pushing for things that the people would care about, but it seems to be very self interested, and if I don't know how to feel about it. Look, I
Dr G 44:21 don't mind if they're doing something self interested, if it still benefits the general people, if the populace is still the beneficiary here by and large, I know. I'm not sure that I'm not that worried about intention. True, that's
Dr Rad 44:33 true. It's very, it's a very tricky situation, this whole co option issue.
Dr G 44:40 Yeah, look, it sounds a bit like corruption to me.
Dr Rad 44:44 Well, basically, this thing, is it? This is the thing I feel like. This is just highlighting the fact that there have been pavilions and patricians who've been working together all along. Oh, well, we've looked at that. We've said that for years. You know that there are obviously pabians who are clients of the Patricia. How
Dr G 45:00 dare you. I would never talk to a patrician. I would spit on them in the street. But this is what we've always
Dr Rad 45:06 talked about. There are obviously going to be pavilions who have the same interests as the patricians, because they're both wealthy. Are you trying
Dr G 45:13 to tell me that things are more complex than they seem? Certainly, all right, well, I don't know if that helps us with our citizen score, though. I mean, I agree with you. I'm on your side here.
Dr Rad 45:24 I think that the at the end of the day, if we try and think about the situation that we're confronted without putting in any of Livy s little additions, we essentially have a lot of people at war, right? We also have them not being paid, which is the perk that they were promised. True. We also have the people back home, whoever they may be, whether they're patrician, plebeian or not paying a tax on this, which they're clearly unhappy about. So it seems like there's actually a lot of unhappiness about the only real perk, I would say, is that they've been able to hold Sergius and Verginius accountable, and that there's the possibility of more plebeian political involvement, all right, so
Dr G 46:05 maybe a one? Yeah,
Dr Rad 46:07 I have to say two. I have to say two because I feel like it's one for the trial and one for the election.
Dr G 46:13 It's one for the trial and one for the election. It's three for a military Tribune, exactly. Don't
Dr Rad 46:21 you dare step on my Roman leather shoes.
Dr G 46:25 I was like, I don't have the lyrics. It doesn't work at all. I'm sorry, everybody all right. So that leaves us with a final score of,
Dr Rad 46:35 I forgot to keep count. Five, five.
Dr G 46:40 I was gonna say I think it's five. We gave them three for military clout, two for the citizen score, and none in any other character. Yeah. No, it's five. Five. Yeah, five, five. Golden Eagles
Dr Rad 46:50 look it seems low, but I think next year will be an interesting one. Score wise, maybe the possibility of a high score, maybe,
Dr G 46:58 well, yeah, I look forward to next time so we can find out together,
Dr Rad 47:02 indeed, and hopefully we won't be consistently interrupted by my cat. Oh,
Dr G 47:07 we've had we've had a guest star. Have you heard Hamish in the background of our podcast? Write in and tell us what you think.
Dr Rad 47:15 Oh, dear. All right. Well, Dr, G, I look forward to seeing you and our plebeian military Tribune with consular power. Next one farewell.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman, you too can support our show and help us to produce more intriguing content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon in return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say hello, hello. Hello to LJ, Israel, Christine Anders, Naomi and Eric, some of our recent Patreon members. Thank you so much for joining our partial band. However, if you just got mugged out in the dangerous streets of ancient Rome, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review until next time we are yours in ancient Rome. Daaa you thought we'd gone, but we haven't. We're just back to remind you that you can pre order our upcoming book, Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire now. Head to our website for details. It'll be out November 2024.
Special Episode – Exploring Place in Regal Rome with Neil, The Ancient Blogger – Part 2
27 juin 2024
01:10:55
Neil returns to discuss more about some of the major sites of interest in the regal period of Rome. We recommend his podcast Ancient History Hound to you. You can also find out more details about Neil's work at his website: The Ancient Blogger.
Special Episode – Exploring Place in Regal Rome with Neil, The Ancient Blogger – Part 2!
When Life Gives You Lemons?
It's time to take a tour of Rome's most infamous subterranean chamber, the Tullianum, aka the Carcer.
What did Livy know about the place? And what that might tell us about the site in its earliest history?
Does the archaeological structure make sense with the historiographical timeline?
Possible connections to Tullius Hostilius or Servius Tullius? Other potential etymological possibilities?
The Essential Precursor to Rome’s Success?
Of course, we're talking about the Cloaca Maxima!
Water, human waste, rats, and methane – is the Cloaca Maxima just a little more dangerous than generally thought? We take a tour with Neil to find out.
The Circus Maximus – Older is Better?
There aren't many flat places in Rome, so the natural valley that is home of the Circus Maximus marks it out as special. The natural contours shape the space and set the scene for how the Romans then adapted that space into an early sporting arena. Major sporting events included horse racing (in various configurations) and boxing, though in a very different style than you’d see today.
It wasn't just about the sports though – it was also about being seen. Social standing takes on a new meaning when only some people get chairs.
Why Does Rome Need Ostia?
Well, a harbour can be a great asset to a developing city! Neil takes us through some of the important details associated with the site of Ostia, as the location of the early castrum, and the engineering modifications of the salt lagoons.
Horrea (storehouses) at Ostia Antica. Photograph by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra via Flickr.
Lightly edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr G 0:15 Welcome to The Partial Historians.
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of this city.
Dr G 0:57 Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of The Partial Historians. I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:06 And I am Dr. Rad.
Dr G 1:08 And we are really, really excited to welcome back, Neil, for what is part two of our extravaganza exploration of regal Rome in terms of its layout and what's going on with like, the landscape and things like this. So as you know, Neil is the founder of the popular Ancient Blogger website, and is also the host of the Ancient History Hound podcast. So welcome back now.
Neil – History Hound 1:43 Hello, thank you very much for for having me back on again, you just don't learn is what I'm getting at
Dr G 1:51 It is very few rare guests who get to come back for a second time.
Dr Rad 1:55 That's true, that's true
Dr G 1:56 Consider yourself in excellent company.
Neil – History Hound 1:59 When a teacher says when you meet up with a teacher later on in your life, and they say I remember you from school, and that's rarely a good thing.
Dr G 2:08 Often, that is the presage of some nasty stories. Oh wow, I was that kid
Neil – History Hound 2:14 Oh, I thought I was quiet. But thank you very much for having my back on apologies to everyone listening, I've decided to I visited London recently to go to the British Museum to see an exhibition there, which had great fun out. And of course, I've picked up the lurgy or a cold or something. So if I'm sounding a bit sinusy that is, I'm fighting against it with rapid amounts of various lem sippy type things. So I'll try and be as cogent and as clear as I can be, but stick with me if you can.
Dr Rad 2:44 I think you sound very smooth.
Dr G 2:48 I was gonna say as Australians we tend to like we really quite enjoy the English accent it does have a has a bit of a historical resonance for us. So you really can't do any wrong.
Neil – History Hound 2:57 Well, I actually got some feedback on I get some occasional feedback on my YouTube channel. And someone give me feedback the other day. Couldn't couldn't last one minute with his voice. A fair enough. I just didn't know my mom was on YouTube. A bit harsh.
Dr Rad 3:18 Like you can't please them all. We're constantly told our fellow laughing cackling and being immature so…
Dr G 3:24 How dare you do history and have fun at the same time. I take umbrage.
Dr Rad 3:30 This is very serious stuff.
Neil – History Hound 3:32 Yeah, I can very lightly I gotta be honest with you. I don't have much in the way of criticism. I have nice comments, which is always nice. But I appreciate that people sometimes get some real unfair, unfair stuff come their way. Just remember if you're listening to this, most people who do your podcast do it because their hobby. They do it because they love the subject. And all they're trying to do is share that subject with you. They're just trying to get ideas across topics across helping you think about a particular area. No one's charging you necessarily anything. And so sometimes just bear that in mind because I always think of it like shops if I'm walking along a parade of shops. And I don't need to go into a particular shop to buy an item. I don't go into that shop and tell them they're wrong for stocking that item. I just go past the shop. And I think with podcast sometimes we have I think it's because culturally we're not yet. fine tuned. We haven't worked out to critique podcasts correctly. So you can go into these as I said, the shops and think about it again. I go past things all the time. I'm not interested in buying I do not go into that shop and go you know what? That those those size nine high heels you've got in the window? Useless. I'd never wear those or not. Not only that, I don't even like them. I think you're wrong for having them the shop window. People will be just looking at you going. “Yeah, okay. Do we Do you need some help?” But that's the way sometimes.
Dr Rad 4:53 And ‘=they'd also be saying, Neil, come on. We know you want their shoes
Neil – History Hound 4:58 With those calves? Probably not? Yeah.
Dr Rad 5:03 Maybe Maybe wax first. Yeah, but no, you know, you're very right. I don't think everybody does understand podcasting, particularly for independents like ourselves. I've certainly talked to some very intelligent friends of mine who've never really put it together that we don't necessarily get paid per se. Like, we're very lucky to have patreon supporters as I think you probably are as well. But it's still not like a paid job. And it's certainly not enough that we can quit our full time paying jobs to you know, to go into the podcasting.
It's
Neil – History Hound 5:39 It's certainly one of the biggest misnomers most people do podcasting. In fact, they sort of 99.9% are doing it. It's a hobby, they're not making money out of it. And they're just trying to create something that people like, so when you're listening to it, if you can give back criticism, and I'm always up for constructive criticism, I'm fine with that. And people have come back and said, Actually, I've had some in the past, that might work better, or I enjoyed this. But you know what, that wasn't so good. Great. It's just that kind of mindlessness sometimes in the comment that What are you trying to do? What What's the achievement value for you by submitting me that anyway, I apologize. But if you are listening, and you are listening to podcasts, currently, you know, sometimes it's just nice to tell people that you really enjoy their stuff. And if you've got constructive, constructive criticism, give it but just just making constructive because, you know, we just, we just want to live our lives and go on with it. Because it's pretty tough sometimes. So yeah. Anyway, there we go.
How
Dr Rad 6:30 How dare you refuse to change your voice for a listener, Neil?
Neil – History Hound 6:33 Oh yeah, you're right. On another one, I did have someone call out that I was a bit heavy to be a hoplite. Because I was showcasing a shield.
Dr G 6:43 Ouch
Neil – History Hound 6:43 Oh no, to be fair, I was like, I didn't have any color that I'm like, Yeah, you know what? I'm a bit overweight, and I'm a bit over age. I'm not a live 19 year old leaping around the battlefield.
Dr G 6:54 But yeah, so also, we just have so much more access to food.
Neil – History Hound 6:59 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like the world feeds is very well, indeed. And it's like your chances of looking like a hot plate from the ancient world. Slim to none, when they're eating a very different diet. Well, actually, that's one of the things that often comes up. So there was a point that came out recently about Roman soldiers. And this is the whole thing about this height requirement for Roman soldiers. And it gets bandied around a lot. And it's, it works at a roughly five foot seven. And this comes from a source, which is late fourth century ideas for jetties who, who writes this treaties on the Roman army, he says, Well, you need to be this height. And people take from that, that was an absolute given out across all of the entire territory of the Roman army. And in fairness, I did see it when I went up to the Legion exhibition of the British Museum, which is great, and even at a photo taken at meet with of me next to the thing, not making the height requirement. People
Dr G 7:51 You're out, I'm sorry.
Neil – History Hound 7:52 Yeah, I was out. And what people don't realize is that I've had it sometimes people said, well, you know, everyone was just short about them. And it wasn't people were shorter. I mean, yes, they probably were, it was just they didn't have the ability to fulfill their, you know, they weren't exposed to the kind of diet that we are. Many people are not everyone, many people are in the Western world, as it were now, or just across the planet where you can eat, you're not starving, you're not nutritiously deficient anyway. So you could have plenty of people who may have been over six foot kicking around ancient Rome, as it were, but they never had the diet when they were children to be able to reach that, you know, genetics can set you up in terms of your physiology, as I understand it. But what you do to achieve that doesn't mean it'll always happen. So if you can get somebody might be six foot two, but if you don't feed them, right, they might, you know, their growth is going to be incapacitated in some way. You put blockers on that. But anyway, yeah, so there we go. We've brought it back to ancient Rome. So I'm happy.
Dr Rad 8:51 Indeed, I'm always happy to talk about the vertically challenged army of ancient Rome. All right, so let's let's go back to the geography of early room, if we may. And I'm going to kick it off with something that is quite near and dear to my heart, because I am going to openly admit, Dr. G, that I wrote the chapters on the kings Tullus Hostilius and Servius Tullius in our book, just in case there's people hadn't realized, just in case, somehow my unique style and never-ending popular cultural references were lost on you. And so that brings me to ask you about a particular building, the Tullianum, which may be named after either of those kings that we were just talking about. We're not really sure which one so Livy claims that these may have been constructed by Ancus Marcius, but I don't believe that Dr. G, because you wrote about him.
Dr G 9:55 No, I was gonna say that was my chapter.
Dr Rad 9:57 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now archaeologists have done their darnest, but the exact location of this structure is still a bit of a mystery. There has been a theory put forward that the Tullianum might be the ancient vault that was found under the Church of St. Giuseppe dei Falegnami. However, even the dating of this space seems to only go back as far as the second century BCE. So can you tell us what is the Tullianum? And what tales from regal Rome are connected to it?
Neil – History Hound 10:33 Well, I don't incite chapter wars. But obviously, if anyone's read the book, they can get back to both of the authors and tell them who wrote the better chapters. Don't just, I'll leave it there. But thank you very much about the Tullianum. Yes, the way to think about Tullianum and I did think about, the best way to understand it is almost starting at the wrong end of things. So we want to start around the time of Livy. And think what Livy was saying. So again, we'll work on the premise that it is under that church that you mentioned. So we'll take that, again, these all kinds of caveats of further things may give us more clues and more ideas. And we always have that. That's why whenever I'm talking about anything, I'm always very, very delicate about given an absolute because, you know, two days after you released an episode, you've written something incredible discovery, scotch is everything. Now, when Livy's was looking around, he would have noticed there was a structure and the structure by his point was quite famous this was and it's known in the modern, more modern time is the moment I'm present. Now, that's a much later reference to it. You had apologies, my pronunciation again, but you had two structures, the one above ground, which was the carcer or car-ker. And then you had one below it. And it's the underground structure, that's the one that interests us, Sometimes this is referred to as part of the carcer. But we also know it as already referred to as the Tullianum. Now for Livy, it made perfect sense, he had this structure above ground, so that must have come first. And the structure below ground presumably was was was later. So he retrospectively seems to apply the structure of the above ground structure to anchors. And then he sort of suggests that the second one was built later by, by Julius and and it makes sense, because after all, Look, Look, it's called the Tullianum. So it must be linked, because, again, naming conventions in ancient Rome, very often things are named after a person, or they're given that backstory, that's something that can be easily attached to them. And he is writing a story, let's never forget that with Livy. You know, he's trying to make his reader interested in things that have happened in the past. And he's also not going to conduct extensive archaeological interest or excavations into these buildings.
Dr G 12:39 Oh, come on, Livy. You got to work on your method.
Neil – History Hound 12:41 Yeah, get your trowel out, Livy. I've always said it. So what we're looking at there. So the Tullianum, and I thought of another way of considering it, and I daresay both your good selves, and everyone listening here, would have walked around, and they would have seen a building that's changed us. In the UK, there's a sort of chain of development that seems to occur, suddenly, it used to be a bank that turns into a pub, that gets shut down many years later, that becomes a block of flats, or become something else. And so if you Look at some of these buildings and go, well hang on a sec, that, that must have been always, it's just an odd looking building. But it must always have been an office or a block of flats, you actually know it's been repurposed, it's been rearranged. Originally, it was built like this. And there are famous examples, then it's the Louvre, the museum in Paris, that was originally a palace, and then it got changed. And that's not a huge, I suppose a huge leap of change for a particular building, particularly in France, where they didn't really have many kings kicking around after a certain point to have buildings for. But with Tullianum, it's really interesting, because what Livy's trying to do is make sense of what he's seen and retrospectively fit that but what we have is a bit of a bit of a curiosity. So the idea was that the to Leon was this underground or Livy's, time underground, called I say, dungeon. I don't like calling it that. But it was kind of a holding cell. And it was a holding cell for the famous peoplecert such as Vercingetorix. All of those people who were involved in the Catiline conspiracy were apparently held there. And after which they will they will be executed on sometimes there will be ritually strangled down there, such as I think it's pheasant gettering. So if that occurs, too. But the issue with it is that that's what Livy was saying, an archaeology and other sort of works. And again, with the caveat of more things will come out as determined there was probably a very different use. And this use seems to have been that of a spring or a system. And the rationale behind that is because it's an odd structure. This is and it's been changed a lot because in the modern, even in the Save the ancient Roman times, the later building of the car-ker or carcer, which I think dates to around the second or second century BC or there bout's, that seems to have changed the structure below it quite a bit. So they think it's several meters, two meters high. Also, circular building, I think it's .about seven meters in diameter, or there abouts. And the premise seems to have been that this was a third last type design, which if you if anyone who's listened or knows much about ancient Greek architecture, will immediately think of this as a circular thing with a dome sometimes. And it was a cistern. And not only was it a cistern, like many cisterns in ancient Rome, it was linked to a deity, it would have been sacred, it would have been given some religious provenance on some level, which is actually ironic, given what I'll come to in a bit. And so that's what they thought the original design was. And when they looked at a section of the walls, they actually came across the type of wall structure, where it seemed like ancient the way it was, was built, they said, This is archaic. This looks pretty much like a cistern, which has been found elsewhere on the Palatine. And around that time, it's a common pattern of the way that the wall was structured. However, when they looked at the stone, and I read a paper with incredible amounts of letters after numbers, because they did sort of various isotope stuff on the walls of the remaining structure where they could get to because again, it is a religious, it has a religious connotation now. So you can't just go around and start chopping these things up and removing and excavating. They found that the stone dates to probably around the fourth century BC, is a particular type of stone that Rome doesn't get access to around that time, seems to pop up a lot. And so the question is, why would you have an older structure with newer stone, and one argument which sort of appears is this, and I think works quite well is this wasn't really important religious or spring that had religious prominence to it. And therefore, it had been reclad rebuilt, which isn't an unusual thing. You're just using more recent and better tools and better construction materials to rebuild it. And you do that because it was important. So the idea was that this, in fact, was, as I said, a spring sacred spring, that filled the cistern. And then you go, Well, hang on a sec, you know, you've both said, Tell us, you know, we got we got totally us there, you know, we've got Servius, and we got Hostilius. So, where does that link in? Well, it's been argued that actually the word ‘Tullus' is Latin or comes from the Latin to mean spring or jet of water. So again, this links into Livy trying to find a way to connect dots, which may not be there, but building a logical picture, and I'm not going to criticize him for it, because I think it's a relatively good way of considering what he saw. There's also another element to all of this. And that's the power of there was a gate in the serving boards called the porta fontinalis. And this was a lead this allegedly gave access to a sacred spring. And it's thought that this gate was near to where the current site is. So this might be the sacred spring that was linked to that gate. And that there is an I'll finish up with what I finish up with actually three things of note. First of all, the Romans had some really, really, really, really cool, horrible stuff. But sometimes, as we'll see later, particularly, they had some quite fancy festivals that just in kind of, yeah, that seemed like a nice thing. But October 13, at the Fontanella, which was where wells were adorned with flowers, and I think that's really quite nice. Sort of, obviously, a celebration of how important these things were, and again, need to remember that flowing water often had this religious connotation to it springs are often where people I wondered actually, I couldn't find anything linked this in, but numerous. The nymph Egeria, whether or not she was linked possibly, to this to this spring, again, I don't know because she was said to hang around a spring, but I am now going to give you well, a bit of controversy and I can kind of see that the finger of Damocles is sort of hovering above the edit button on this one, because I'm going to say one thing, lemons. So there is quite a controversy in ancient Rome about lemons and when lemons became introduced. Now I know full well that there are some lovely frescoes from Pompeii. And they seemed to depict lemons or do they some people have argued that they depict the citron fruit as – I see Dr Rad looking around going, Hang on a second. I thought that was definitely a lemon is quite a controversial thing, believe it or not, because and again, things that you end up reading that you don't necessarily you end up going down rabbit holes. There's a whole there were various papers done on evidence of sausage from fruit now to identify some fruit particular lemons is really quite difficult because different pips you got to look at pollen, and it can be difficult to distinguish these and they have found evidence of citron pollen in and around Naples. Not enough apparently is in in quantities that are dense enough to suggest there was farming going on. But there was certainly citrons. And an argument has been lemons were around in the time of Pompeii. And that's probably true, because the only piece of definitive or the earliest piece of definitive lemon lemons being anything in Rome is found in the Tullianum where they found lemon seeds. They were able – and this dates to the Augustan period – they were able to specifically date or not date them, but identify them because citron pollen, citron seeds can often look very similar to each other. And they had this so there we go, in case you've you've got that gap in your life, it's now well and truly filled, you know that lemons were certainly a thing around Augustan Rome. And we know that from the Tullianum. The other thing is the fact that this whole idea of a spring and having religious connotations is shifted across. Because there is again, this is the I don't know enough about the Catholic Church to know whether or not this is fully endorsed, but I suspect it is in some way. But you can apparently visit St Peters, it was a site rather of one of St. Peter's miracles when he was held at Rome. He wanted to baptize a bunch of people. And guess what he's struck the earth of the Tullianum and a spring emerged. And from that, he was able to baptize a bunch of people. So again, you have this link of a spring being based within the the Tullianum, and you can't get away from that being a central function to it. It's just interesting how Rome again, adapted and evolved, what was already there to possibly something very separate. It was a by the time of Livy, possibly a holding cell. And it may have been this whole sacred spring thing that was lost in the memory. And then again, it points to something I've mentioned we spoke about in the the first episode, where even within ancient Rome, things got lost things got remember, things got reinvented, it wasn't this monolithic block of time where everyone is considering what happened in Oh, yeah, fifth century BC, that was just a week ago. You know, first century BC, nothing's changed. Everything's changed. So we always need to remember that, you know, there was within ancient Rome, there was an ancient or more ancient Rome that it knew of and try to work out. Anyway. So there's my thoughts and some things about the Tullianum.
Dr Rad 22:15 Oh, Look, I'm very intrigued by the lemon seeds. It makes me wonder what on earth was going on in that holding cell? Was it something nice like them saying, Yes, I'd like some water with just just a slice of lemon, please.
Dr G 22:29 Well, I'm down here, I'm gonna make some lemoncello. Why not?
Dr Rad 22:32 Exactly. What was it more like? Yeah, you made too bad life decisions. Here's some lemons, try and make lemonade out of them, I dare you!
Dr G 22:43 Classic Romans, I would say, Yeah, Look, I think that's really fascinating. There are so many springs in and around Rome. It's just the nature of the geography. And all of them are considered sacred in particular ways. So it's interesting to try and tease out particular details relating to a singular one. But I think this actually leads in really nicely this idea of springs into my question for you. And I know this is a topic dear to your heart, the Cloaca Maxima. So thinking about things that might be watery, but in a less pleasant way,
Neil – History Hound 23:21 I'm actually gonna throw a question back to the both of you good selves, it's more of a mental exercise. And for anyone listening, I suggest you do this as well. And the question is this, could Rome have developed and achieved what it did without the forum? So if it didn't have access to the forum, could it have achieved what it did? It might have done. But if after considering that question, your your answer, your conclusion is, no, it couldn't have done, then the Cloaca Maxima is possibly the most important structure in ancient Rome, certainly the early development of it, because without the Cloaca Maxima, you do not have the Roman forum. And I can get into the whys of that in a moment.
Dr G 24:02 Ah excellent, excellent, setting up the mystery.
Neil – History Hound 24:08 The mystery of something that I spoke about prior and this relates to flooding, and here we come with some numbers. So the problem that we have with the forum or the area that came to become the forum is it's it's in a in a valley, and it's between the Capitoline and the Palatine Hill. Now, being in a valley, it was prone to flooding. The bigger problem was quite extensive flooding. At the time before it was developed. It sat at around 6.9 meters above sea level, which sounds quite high up. You think that's not too bad, except the problem was that the seasonal floods from the Tiber could reach up to 9 meters above sea level. So what we seem to have at play then, and again, this is this is more identifiable through some of the archaeology that's done because we can sort of see what the work has been able to see has been these layers of material that have been laid on the forum. And it raised it up by around three meters. And it seems this work undertook a lot of time between the seventh century was probably discontinued and then carried on. And the amount of material required was around 20,000 cubic meters. Now, I don't know what 20,000 cubic meters Look like, I don't know how big that is. But I did some basic sums. And if you've got a wheelbarrow in your garden, I can average wheelbarrow, it would take 235,000 trips with that wheelbarrow to move that amount of material.
Dr G 25:34 Dear lord.
Neil – History Hound 25:35 Yeah, that's a lot of movement. Now, of course, the problem with raising this is that you had the issue of drainage, because in this area, it suggested that there was a narrow stream, but also you would have the floods. Now, you can go about raising the level of that area. But the problem is minute floods, the minute you've got that stream running through the middle of the forum, what he just wrote everything, all your good work, and completely gone. So what's been suggested that early on the Cloaca was simply a way of redirecting that drain. And as they raised the level of fluid, so it grew, so you build up beside of it. So what you seem to have had was a double channel. So we had parallel channels of a parallel channel, about three meters wide, or just over three meters with a wall in the middle. And three meters high by the time it was finished. And this seems to have done the job and be unable to redirect water away from the forum. So you then you could pave it over. The big kind of controversy over this is whether or not it was open or paved, because again, this wasn't a sewer, I'll get to that in a moment. This wasn't assuming that sewer in the conventional sense, this was just a way of draining the area. So it's been argued that the the fact that it was uncovered at one point with just some areas that were being covered, so you could move across it. Others say this didn't happen till the second century BC Some have said no, actually, this was from day one was always covered. And that was the standard because we can see drainage channels elsewhere. In fact, there was an interesting drainage channel that seems to have occurred a bit later on in Cumae. And that's funny enough, where the last Roman king ends up in exile. So this idea is that there's, there's this the technology is well known about. And it's something that people are quite proud of having. In fact, it's something you showcase, it was a mark of distinction to have this kind of engineering fee, because that's what it was within your city within your, your well, the city that you boasted of. So this is what this did. And it's it's quite, it's quite fascinating thing, because people and I've had chats with people since on this in the later Roman imperial period, it's really quite difficult to get across just how much surface water there was kicking around in the Cloaca Maxima. By the way it gets expanded. I mean, it gets really expanded it by the time of Livy, you had I mean, again, the the analysis and modern analogy I'll give is, think if you're old enough, like me, you can remember when the internet was about four websites. And you can remember when there was Ask Jeeves, and Netscape or whatever it was, that was the pre-Google times and all of this kind of thing. And obviously now you see, it's completely different. This was a very basic advanced in itself, but very basic structure that was then added to so now what you have is you have when people Look at it, and they excavate it, you've got these different parts of it that much newer than other parts of it, because it's had to be developed and changed, rebuilt, extended everything in subsequent periods, which can make things more difficult because how do you see what the original bid was? So that's what you have with the Cloaca. And it's, it's absolutely, I'd say absolutely fascinating, particularly in regards to how it functioned as a sewer because it was generally there to take away surface water. You've got by the time of the imperial period, you've got a lot of water that's coming from fountains, off rooves. There's been extensive repaving. So you've got this runoff, all this stuff. One of the big things that come out, and again, I was talking to kids in schools always loved this is the idea that they weren't. The toilets might have been connected, but largely weren't based on the evidence that we have, particularly at Pompeii, where there's quite a lot of surviving structures that you can see that toilets weren't connected to the sewer. They weren't connected to the Cloaca Maxima. Did did human waste end up there? Yeah, yeah, it did. But the thing was, we think of it slightly different for a Roman was certainly the Roman period. The idea of using water to flush away human waste wasn't really the most obvious way of dealing with it. Because human waste can be used in a number of ways. A main one was as fertilizer and you had people who would come along and collect it and actually buy it from people. Now imagine if you're someone who lives in a if you're a poor Roman, so the majority of Romans probably and you live in an incident live in a small building where you probably have a chamber pot, and your chamber pot with tea into a larger, I suppose larger pot or some container, that container might be taken, taken away, dumped outside, that seems to be the case at Pompeii, but also, the owner of the instalay might have a deal, and you might be selling it as fertilizer. If you were someone who had a house with a, with a toilet in it, it wasn't a toilet, this was a sort of waste disposal, often in the kitchen as well. The idea would be that solid waste would be put in there, it could then drain through the rock, and people would then come around and they would buy it off you you would have slaves if you had a toilet. I mean, most people had slaves anyway. But you'd certainly have a suite of slaves as it were, if you had a private home with a sewing home with a private toilet. And that will probably be one of the jobs, one of the things you wouldn't have occurred to Romans would be to use water to flush it away. Because why would you now this there's a separate arguments you made in the case of bards and things like that, but you got to think about Roman bards is quite an unusual, even though there are a lot of them. This is where later sort of Imperial time, when Roman Baths really become a thing in ancient Rome. Obviously there are summer, Pompeii, and there are some that day a bit earlier than they did we think that Rome in either case, just flushing and having that as the equation of dealing with waste just didn't make sense to Rome on many levels. And you know, you could do other stuff with it. And there was fine one final story. Well, actually, there are a couple reasons why you wouldn't want your toilet connected. If you did live in Rome to the sewer. The first would be well, if the type of floods you've got a lot of fun coming your way. The second one was rats, you've basically got a super superhighway for any kind of rats or anything to come back up through the toilet. And the other one and please don't laugh at this when I say the words gas traps. So you'd have a lot of methane building up. You've both been put on mute, but you're laughing like children I'm I'm disgusted, I thought distinguished academic discussion, Stop having fun, we'll get complaints. And the idea was that if you had buildup of methane in it's gonna come back up through that particular receptacle. And it's in a kitchen. Well, you know, Romans are quite big on candles. So you got to watch out for that. And one final one is one that I get similar reaction from telling kids is that do adult and it is a very much an outlier. Very much an outlier. So don't take this as a reason. But Elian gave a great story on animals. And I know if you've either of you heard this, it's a bit of a mystery. There's this merchant who owned a stockroom or a storeroom or something. And it wasn't in Rome. It was on the, he was a Spanish merchant and I think it's I forget so it was somewhere in Italy, but it was near the coast. And he had he had his stock room and one day he goes into the sock room and his pickled fish have been raided. There's bits of pot everywhere. And he's he's just baffled by it because the locks no one's going through the door. The locks fine. What's happened there? Well, he then hires, or he takes one of his slaves, and says why you'll stand up tonight. I just wanted to see anyone comes in, scare them off. Here we go. So he did. Slave come back the next morning slaves absolutely terrified, terrified, can't get many words out of him. Invariably they do because you know, he's a slave. And he talks about the fact that early in the morning, he was looking over in the corner, and the toilet was connected to the sewer. And out of the sewer came this huge octopus, who then continued to help himself to the all the pickled fish and everything else. And then went back. Yes, yeah. And unfortunately, they they end up getting octopus doesn't end too well. And it's one of those stories which you think sounds good, doesn't it? Until more recently when there was those number of those stories of octopus escaping various aquariums and ended up you know, getting into a you an Uber and going downtown having a good time event coming back home for in the morning. Oops, got to go back home. It they were just incredible. And perhaps something
Dr Rad 34:02 And telling the future as well.
Neil – History Hound 34:04 Yeah, they could do all sorts of things predicting elections, they can do pretty much everything.
Dr Rad 34:10 Yeah, yeah, he was gonna be anything, I believe that it was an octopus.
Neil – History Hound 34:14 I would, I would definitely be definitely a fan of that. So with the Cloaca Maxima, what you've got there to go back to it is originally this would have been built as the form has been developed. Because again, as this as you're raising the level of the forum, you've got to keep this drainage ditch intact and to do its job and to take away that surface water. You don't have the forum. Simply you do not have a forum because you do not have the ability to reclaim that land, which is a huge thing. Because when you walk around Rome now, you don't quite realize how different it was. And I don't mean the obvious things. I mean, just the topography. So I think the not the archaeological level for ancient Rome as it was around 10 meters below the current level or there abouts and obviously it's going in different places. Since, but it was far higher and far lower in certain areas than it is now. In fact, you'd be quite surprised if you could do that there is a model, I believe in Rome, which I've, I've seen a few times. And it's absolutely fascinating, where they've, they've got archaic Rome. And it's just a place of these hills and just hills and valleys. You don't get the sense of that as much now, but it would have been back then. So drainage was really important. And as such, the Cloaca Maxima was really important.
Dr Rad 35:28 And I definitely believe you, Rome does have a reputation for being a bit swampy at times.
Neil – History Hound 35:34 Well, that was one of the reasons they didn't all Rome had real problems with the Campus Martius. You know, they had this issue around there. It was really swampy. And it was they did have a big problem with drainage and Rome, certainly in the early early stages of it.
Dr G 35:50 No, I always think of Campus Martius. And I know it's named after Mars, but I always think what Marsh is in its name as well.
Dr Rad 35:57 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the marshy Martius.
Dr G 36:01 Exactly.
Dr Rad 36:02 So switching gears, a little bit from gas, and all sorts of delightful things that you might find in a sewer. Let's talk a little bit about the Circus Maximus. So it's not necessarily the thing that springs into people's minds when they think of Rome that usually goes to the Colosseum, which is now seen as a symbol of ancient Rome in the city. However, the Circus Maximus is much much older than the Colosseum, and therefore definitely worthy of our attention. So what made the Circus Maximus so special? And why is it an important structure to think about when were exploring the geography of the regal period?
Neil – History Hound 36:42 Okay, so I explained my boo to start with, I liked the Colosseum, I've been there, I've walked around, I've gone in it. But for me, I'm old school. I'm Circus Maximus. In fact, I thought about my dream job. And my dream job would have been marketing consultant for the Circus Maximus around AD 80. And it would have I would have had things on the wall saying, Yeah, Circus Maximus, but the clowns are at the Colosseum, that kind of thing I would have gone full in there would have been hashtags everywhere. So the Circus Maximus is actually linked in before I before I go in even more circus maximum is linked in to declerck maximum because it's thought that says similar technology that was being exchanged there because this is in a valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills. So if you're walking, again, we used our clock analogy. In the previous previous episode, if you're looking at Rome, and you've got the the forum Boarium at the center of the clock, you're looking at sort of between four and five o'clock here. And that valley is between, that valley runs sort of south, southeast or east southeast that that in that kind of general direction. It was prone to drainage. And there are elements of it, which seemed to have been forgotten, but sort of remembered in some of the rituals and associations I'll come to in a moment. But the initial problem they had was, how do you how do you get hold of this really nice piece of land again, Rome as it's trying to develop and expand, you can't just live on hills you need flatland to do stuff on and what you have in what is not I think it's a Mercier – Mer-kier Valley is actually the technical term for where the Circus Maximus is, is you have an alluvial plain, apparently, which was seems to be like an old flooding on the flooding plane or used to be a river there or some some such, and what you have two channels, and you have a sort of buildup of material between those two channels. And so what Rome does is it takes those, that physical topography and amends it slightly and creates the creates the Circus Maximus, those two channels become the tracks, that central buildup of material becomes the Spener, that bit in the middle of the track, where in later periods, you have all those fancy statues and whatnot. And so what they're doing is they're taking advantage of what's already there, but they're slightly rebuilding it. And it's also involved, by the way, drainage, it's thought that there was a drainage channels, either side of that central bank, and going around the edges of the tracking. If you were to Look at, Look at it above, think of a cartoon where you have a magnet, you know that it's like that big C shape, that elongated C shape, that's what you have sort of Circus Maximus. Now, obviously, at the time of the Regal period, you've got to get rid of any any thoughts of how it looked like when you probably think about it in its heyday, when it's got 250,000 people allegedly been able to turn up there. And all of this kind of thing. It was simply a track where you could run various events and there was one particular event that they they had there. And what they what they did was they took the track and they started to understand that you can have let's say contest there things which people like to watch. So what I found really interesting is a niche Surely, you have this social standing literal. So social standing, because early on, you've got Livy and Dionysius both explaining that you have temporary seating allocated. But you've got only only certain classes could do this. So you've got a space in Rome by which people can be seen. And they can be marked out as distinguished. So it's really important early on, because people get to show how important they are, because they can have temporary wooden seating. But if you're really poor, you don't get that. And there's in terms of dating it, we're looking at the, I'd say we're looking at the legal period, certainly, the earliest piece of that was a physical evidence, there is a stepping stone seat, which dates to 494 BC, and apparently was for Manius Valerius Maximus. So we have a definitive date there of something being and of course, you won't have a stone seat just overnight, that had to be as a result of further development. The early games they had there were horse racing, and boxing, both very important and very popular. You think of the funeral games at metropolis. You think of the Olympics, you know, these were events which which were central to both of those, both of those things. And these are also apparently from Etruria. So again, these this seems to be an important thing. And it was also it also was apparently the location of the Sabine women, the instance involved in the Sabine women. So I don't probably need to go over that I'm not sure that people will realize or understand that. One of the things Romulus arranged was a sort of mass abduction, hijacking and worse of women from the Sabine group at an event. And this event was said to have occurred at the Circus Maximus or the site of the Circus Maximus, and apparently it was the Consualia, which was a, in itself, a really nice festival. So to distance what happened at it, it was a really nice festival because the Romans as I said, as an animal level, one of the reasons I could never go to ancient Rome, and people How would you like to go about that? No, I couldn't. Most people, I think, wouldn't they say, I'd love to go to the Colosseum and watch. No, you wouldn't. Because most people, and I say this with a big caveat of most people haven't seen the sort of horrors that you'd see that you've seen it in films, not seeing it in real life, you'd be traumatized. I would be equally as traumatized by the way that animals are treated in certain instances. I know there's a recent thing that they found at Pompeii, where you had mules that were basically just walking around in circles for their entire lives. So yeah, there was there, this element of horrible treatment of animals, which I'll move away from, but this is a really nice instance of animals being treated nicely, because the Romans recognized how nice horses and mules were. And they decorated them. They gave them garlands, they had a kind of little My Little Pony festival for them, and they had little races for them. And all that all that sort of thing. And there's actually what's interesting is later on the Olympic Games, I'll just bring the Olympic Games in, because that's the other big famous games, that becomes the Olympic Games, incorporates equestrian events, because they're primarily about wealth. Originally, Olympic games weren't Olympic Games, they were a single foot race for I think it's a good few 100 years, or variations of it raises the question events start occurring a bit later on. And they're there purely because people realize that it's a really good place where they can showcase their wealth. So this is a good way of again, showcasing your wealth and everything else. And they did have events for horses, we always think of the big chariot races, but they used to have like mule races and little carts and traps, I think trap racing that sort of similar similar events to that they used to go and they even had one where you went, the last lap, you ran. So you would you would you would go on your horse around. And this again, is gonna make games. And the last event you get off and you'd run with your horse.
Dr G 43:59 We've got – I've got to buy myself some advantage by getting the horse out the front real quick. So…
Dr Rad 44:05 That also sounds like a fast track to being trampled.
Neil – History Hound 44:07 Well, the origins of this that it's thought that this is actually related to cavalry covering engagement. That's because one of the things that sometimes, again, isn't fully realized is that we think of cavalry engagements in antiquity. And there's some confusion exactly how they undertook. So you think of Alexander the Great, and you think of knights and you think of people charging around on horses, fine people? Well, that that didn't happen, but earlier on, certainly, it didn't. And there was definitely a school of covering engagement, which seems to indicate I think it's Livy who mentioned in one engagement where people would get off so it'd be like dragoons I think it is you draw you use your horse to get to the location neutral and then you fight on foot. Very often, you'd be you'd be using the horse to chase down or where you had full advantage needed mobility, but the idea that everyone was charging around and the horses fighting horses and not necessary, not necessarily the case, for a number of reasons. And when you look at some of the Equestrian Games in the Olympic Games, you see that there's a lot of I mean, there are other ones where you've got the dancing in the running Racing, racing armor, at the Olympic games and things like that. So there's a lot of sort of military virtue exposed there. And I suspect, that's a similar thing that's going on Circus Maximus, you've got boxing, which was brutal. If it went by the rules of the Olympic Games, then there weren't rounds, you just basically punched each other until, and there was some horrible stories of people swallowing their teeth, so they wouldn't Look like they've been hit too hard. And I even remember reading one instance was when when if it went on too long, they just had a punch off. So it's the case if you punch me, I punch you and whoever it thinks. So it was pretty brutal. But again, it was highly, this was a highly, this is a high cultural moment, which occurred at the at the Circus Maximus early on, and you're getting you've got that you've got the involvement of, of the horses, you've also got a bit of a and this is what I refer to earlier, with a mixture of things going on, because you have the mystery altar. So at the end of the other one in the turning points, the terme – so you had a simple track, if you're in you're in Rome, at this point, you've got a simple track with drainage channels on it. And you've got some people are able to stand on wooden seating. And of course, you wouldn't have wouldn't you wouldn't have anything permanent up, why would you have something permanent up, when it could flood when it could rock the rest of it now just put up when you need to. And there seems to be a god associated here called Consus. And Consus was apparently god of the grain and harvest. But he apparently also had an altar underneath that final turning point. And it was buried. And the way it was, it was unearthed and it seems to be of a secret nature, and it's interesting. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, actually, and I'll quote here that he says, “the subterranean altar was erected later to a certain divinity whose name may not be uttered, who presides over and is the guardian of hidden counsels.” Now, this might be because he can't say Consus, because apparently weren't meant to. If you consider he's the god of secrets. Not a very good god of secrets if you tell everyone your name, but even so there's something going on there. And people thought, well, what's the association with wheat and grain there, and it's the or perhaps prior to the prior to the Circus Maximus being being established there, it could have been a location where wheat was grown, which we also have possibly again, at the Campus Martius, you know, have these low lying areas where you can grow, you can have some agricultural projects going on, because again, Rome doesn't have many flat places. So it needs to find its growing things anywhere that it can do. And of course, by the time of living dynastic Vanek analysis, they've kind of mixing things up. So originally the Consualia is meant to be for Neptune, who is Poseidon for the Greek or he's a version of him, I should underline that heavily a version of him in the Greek pantheon is beside always associated with horses. So again, it's this weird crossover. So possibly, there could have been something earlier there involving concepts involving wheat, which apparently could also be stored underground, which is why they may have had this auditorium underground. And then later, it's absorbed and rolled into this wider festival that's held there at the Consualia, which is then allocated to a particular event with the sidelines. And this wouldn't be the first instance that Rome does that Roman religious system, which is quite ironic given how small c conservative Roman religion could be in some instances, loves, loves accommodating other elements to it. With it with the you have the Saturnalia, which incorporates the Lectisternium in the end of the third century BC, which was a Greek Festival. They there is this often enrichment of the Roman religion with other elements, so they quite happily repackage and roll things up.
Dr G 49:07 They certainly do. Yeah, so I think the this idea of the Circus Maximus is being part of a multipurpose space, I think, is really useful to think about, particularly for this early period. So there's the theory that is put out in some of the written sources that the Circus Maximus was kind of created by the Etruscan King par excellence Lucius Tarquinius [Priscus] and that may or may not be just a bit of a story trying to connect that cultural element. But the fact that we've got all of this sort of layered meaning over time, I think is really key and crucial for appreciating what is happening as Rome progresses through its own history, as you say, and also thinking about what might have been the touch points for the really early stuff as well.
Neil – History Hound 49:56 Just one final thing on there and I've just because I want to sell it even more. If something big happened in ancient Rome, it happened at the Circus Maximus. That's where most likely you had gladiator fights. That's where you had ceremonies. People think of the Colosseum, as being this big centralized it almost until Rome had a Colosseum. They just didn't put anything on. No, all the stuff used to go on at the Circus Maximus again later on. But if you're a general and you've got a you're looking to have a big ceremony or a big pomp and you know, triumph, that's where it's going on. Julius Caesar has big fights there between various sort of sections of his arm, or not his army, but kind of gladiator fight things going on there. It was a major, major cultural event. And it's weird, because when you go to Rome, you don't see it as prominent as other sites, because again, other sites steal the eye a bit more, because when you go to it, it looks a bit more like it does now was done back then. So flat piece of ground, but when you go to it just know that is real, old school, Roman.
Dr G 51:06 Yeah. And I think I think one of the things to keep in mind for people who are traveling to Rome and seeing it today is that the Circus Maximus retains some of its amazingness simply because that space continues to this day to be utilized for big events. So if there is a big concert happening, and a huge band comes to Rome, they will often be performing at the Circus Maximus, it is the perfect location for giant events where you want lots of people, the way that it's laid out, the way that it has this gentle sort of sloping area to it allows you to accommodate a whole bunch of people who are able to still have a view on whatever it is that's been put on. So it is actually continues to be a really multifunctional space for Rome in that sense. So leading to thinking a little bit further outside of Rome now. Ostia so austere is the spot that crops up at the mouth of the Tiber River as it hits the Mediterranean Sea. So Rome, as we know, is a little bit inland. It's even more inland today than it was in the ancient period, because ancient Ostia is about six kilometers inland now from where the mouth of the river is now. So there's that whole shifting way in which soil moves around because of river movements, means that austere is now inland. But I would highly recommend anybody go to Ostia Antica, it is incredible. I don't think I'm done exploring that site. But it becomes pivotal to Roman power, and pivotal to thinking about power in the region, in this early regal period, as well. So there are some traditional stories associated with Ostia crediting the founding of it to the fourth king Ancius Marcus. And this sort of initial colony seems to be based around control, but also maybe the potential for harvesting salt as much as anything else. But Rome is not the preeminent power in the region, when we're thinking about the Regal period. So I'm interested in your thoughts on why Ostia is important? And what sort of conflicts they may have faced trying to come to grips with controlling this region?
Neil – History Hound 53:30 Yeah, well, thanks. I think that you'll see some that you've hit across a number of really important points when you're considering Ostia. So the first thing is that you mentioned is about, again, I keep saying typography, but it is quite inland is four or six kilometers, or there abouts inland from where it would have been. And when again, when you're considering the ancient world, consider coastlines consider how much they changed. If you've been to Pompeii, it's it was thought that Pompeii was by the coast, a few I went to Richborough in Kent last year. And Richborough was a beachhead for the Roman invasion, or the Claudian invasion. It's around, it's a good couple kilometers inland. But if you look at how it was when Claudius it was, it was this little island, this little island of just on with a with this narrow connection to the mainland, and Ephesus, places like that these are places which would look very different. And when I spoke about how the Tiber moved as well, again, the Tiber does move in this instance as well, which kind of confuses things, or makes things more difficult to understand what really went on. So the points that you make about it being strategic are pretty much the rationale if you wanted to boil down. Why does Rome need Ostia? Well, it needs it for three main reasons. The first is that it has access to salt. There are a couple of salt lagoons there which are really important, very nice resource. It means that it can get access to wider trading networks. Because if you've got a port that sits just just inland that you mentioned, I think you described it really well, that this wasn't a port on the coast. This was a was a river port, but it was just in the mouth. In fact, Ostia, I believe comes from mouth of it's sort of association of that word, meaning that it was the mouth of the river. And it sits or would have sat just as you came in the river would have sat on the south bank. It was a natural harbor that they developed into a port, which makes perfect sense. And the the final reason why this is the third reason why why Rome needed this was because if you've got access to who comes in and out of the Tiber, then you've, you're far more secure, because after all, you are downriver of it, or up river or whichever way the tide goes, you needed it for three main reasons really security, you needed it for commerce, and you needed it for a second reason for commerce. So and again, I know we spoke about Civilization [the game] and the importance of salt. So yeah, this was really important for, for Rome, the difficulty with it all is putting together anything, which really builds up a picture of what osteo could have lived before the fourth century BC, mainly because there's one main building at Ostia that dates to that period, it's the earliest building to be dating, it's known as a sort of tower. It's the castrum, though that said, there is debate about what it did. And the reason I say that is because the the Tiber River changed its course, between the I think it's between the eighth and sixth centuries, or there abouts it changed its course quite heavily. And so where we think of the castrum being located now to the river, but then it would have been about 600 meters away from the river. So the idea that it was this defensive tower, protecting the river doesn't really seem to add up. So it's, it's not confused, but it's unsure, perhaps the classification of that building initially, may not be what it was originally intended for. So there's a bit of debate over as to what that was. But the the central to this is you have these sorted lagoons, you have these lagoons, which become enclosed by natural processes. Now, these obviously can get soaked from sorts very important. Determining, again, determining activity, human activity, there's quite difficult mainly because there isn't greater archaeological evidence that goes back. However, there again, there was a paper which I read and looked at some of the drainage channels that were dug, but connecting the salt lagoon to the sea. And it's, it seems strange that there had been a couple of drainage channels that are made maintained, or no one maintains channels naturally, they have to be done by people and the dating of this maintaining of these drainage channels to ensure that the canal, the canal is connected to salt lagoon, to the sea could date as far back as the ninth century BC up till the sixth century BC. So what I think we probably had, if we were, if we were forced to come up with a speculative suggestion about what's going on here is that you probably had peoples who were using that lagoon for salt. And what Rome did was early on, it seemed to have got hold of that resource. Exactly when we're not sure. But again, we got the earliest building as fourth century BC, but prior to that, it's highly probable that you had something there because again, stone buildings when it comes to Roman fortifications, stone buildings for the latter, you don't rock up and just build a stone thing. Generally speaking, that is crazy.
Dr G 58:35 You telling me the Romans didn't come fully formed out of the womb as world dominators?
Neil – History Hound 58:42 Nah nah, you're mixing it up because it's Swed- it was the Vikings who had IKEA so they could just have flat pack everything over to build it Romans didn't have that didn't have they didn't have there. Although they did do obviously that when I say flat pack, I'm immediately I'm thinking of the the Punic Wars where they make the boat design from the Phoenicians. But anyway, from Carthage anyway, that aside, what generally happens developments and we see this I did some work and I did a podcast with Dr. Andrew Tibbs. And he was speaking about Roman fortifications in Scotland. And what people don't realize is most of the time, due to drone technology, you can see these things far easier now because you see the pattern on the ground. Because otherwise from a you could be walking across one and not realize it's there. Because they would have been originally would the anti wall. A wall never got past the turf stage. It was just originally made of earth. It never is you'd make something of earth or word. And then you'd build it up if you needed to. Because again, sometimes fortifications were temporary. What seems to have happened the Tiber is it's changed course. So again, you don't have access to perhaps the areas which would give us evidence. So again, it's not that we don't have the evidence there. There could be some fantastic archaeological evidence to determine which day activity around this area. Problem is because the Tiber has moved course it might be directly under the Tiber now, or it could be under some houses near the Tiber. But locating exactly where everything was at this period is still a bit speculative. It's not where necessary, it is now, what you have now with Ostia, again, it doesn't suffer so much because it is a site which I'd love to visit, and I've heard is wonderful. And it annoys me that I haven't been there. So stop bringing it up is that you have a much more modern, and by that you have later Republic period, they go all in on Ostia because it's such an important location. It's so integral, particularly I think it's that's where the fleet for, again, Punic Wars, it's with the fleet space. So it's so important to have that developed. So you look at it then and think, yeah, but that probably wasn't what it looked like 400 years before fact, it might have been in a different place. And Roman port design on way that Roman linked up. Eventually Ostia is – not abandoned, because it's still kept there – but then move it you have Claudius who sort of redevelops the site. And then you have the basin, the famous basin, which is this – I think it's an octagon [hexagon], you can actually see from from the sky, if you look, apparently, if you're flying into one of Rome's airports.
Dr G 1:01:09 Portus
Neil – History Hound 1:01:09 Yeah, the Portus you can actually see it, it's there. It's this perfect, again, I don't know If it's an octagon, it's got a lot of sides to it. And it's not a circle, but it looks like a circle. That's my maths for you, you can actually make that out. And that was on the changing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it has lighthouse as well, which is very nice, if you like that kind of thing. But anyway, going back to Ostia, again, it's one of those places which we know is strategically very important to Rome for a number of reasons. But our hands are tied somewhat in understanding more about it because of the way it sits now. And because the structures that are on it now. And this is always a problem. Because if you've got a site in antiquity that becomes really popular. It's usually popular for a reason that that resonates, and later ages. So again, you don't have that you have that issue. I visited Bath, Roman Bath, good few years ago, and under under it, you can go up, go downstairs, and you look around the Roman remains. And they got the I think was this front of this temple. It looks amazing. And they said we can't, can't excavate it. We've got this fantastic [building], but we can't excavate it, because that will probably bring down Bath Cathedral, which would be I understand a bad thing.
Dr G 1:02:20 That would be a shame.
Neil – History Hound 1:02:21 I've been to Bath because lovely building it is I think it's a cathedral, I'm pretty sure. But it doesn't have great foundations. So you've got this. And you've got this in modern, modern Rome now and again, with the Tullianum. It's a great example, if I wanted to go and excavate the Tullianum now, it's probably not going to happen, because it's now sitting above a church. So how do you go about that it's got all of these not restrictions, but blocks to me being able to do that. So we have to go on what we know, which is again, limited, but frustrating. But yeah, Ostia,
Dr Rad 1:02:55 Ah, it's the curse of regal Rome.
Neil – History Hound 1:02:57 Yeah, they just did it too well. So you almost sympathize. And again, we're in a so this is great, because we're in a similar place to Livy. We're trying to work things out. It's just that we're a bit more responsible to our methods than Livy was, though he was obviously a very nice guy. He he's quite happy to say, Yep, it was named that. Stick it to a king who can reallocate it. Pick a number, any number, oh, you've had-
Dr Rad 1:03:21 The best kings, naturally.
Neil – History Hound 1:03:24 Stick to that and then we could talk about how great the Republicans in terms of you know, reshaping it. But these were important spaces, both culturally, and early on in Rome's development, they were they were developed early for a reason. There was a great importance placed on efficiency. You didn't just go, you know, fancy developing that area, because it's nice. And in a few 100 years, 800 years, 900 years, 1000 years, well be worth quite a few quid. People want to build flats? You're doing it because the immediate generation requires that that resource.
Dr Rad 1:03:57 We'd like a little less malaria, please.
Neil – History Hound 1:04:00 Yeah, a bit less.
Dr G 1:04:03 These hills are nice and all, but man, the mosquitoes
Yeah, too much. It's too much.
Well, thank you so much, Neil, for sitting down with us and taking us through some of these fascinating details, because I think it's always a useful exercise to go into that sort of exploratory space, like the intersections between what we can possibly know from an archaeological perspective, what we cannot possibly know because of the limits of that sort of understanding with continuous habitation and just our own inability to get come to grips with the changing nature of the topography over time, which is a natural process and also a human interference process, the further you go along, and to keep in mind that maybe we are all a bit like Livy, I really quite like that.
Neil – History Hound 1:04:57 Yeah, we're trying to make the best of it. It's a bit like when you have these detective, they they retrospectively find a detective in, you know, the medieval period or whatnot. And you're like, okay, they're working to the same methods, it's just different technologies. And okay, they may not be doing the same way that we would do it. So I forget the name of there's a, there was a brilliant show, Cadfael. So there's Cadfael kicking around. And if anyone's watched Cadfael, you know,
Dr G 1:05:25 I loved Cadfael.
Neil – History Hound 1:05:27 He's not got CSI Miami, you know, he's not, he can't do a zoom into someone's genetics on a Coke can or anything. But he's applying a simple metric that sort of works. And that's what Livy ultimately is doing. Because there is a lot of pride here. But also, I think the other tricky thing we need to remember. And it's something which, again, you cover and touch upon in your book – dunno which chapter though – and it's about – I'm still stirring – and it's just about how we how we think of the spaces back in antiquity, and how we understand what we can possibly know about them. And I said, that's something that I'm always I wouldn't say, tortured by, but you live in hope that something's going to pop up, that's going to give you a bit more of an understanding, you know, these are people trying to make decisions. And we're just going back to the point I made earlier, with Livy, I think there's a tension there, because how can you have all these great, fantastic things that were built by kings, who were the worst. I mean, one of them was okay. But they were the worst.
Speaker 1 1:06:35 Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, only one of them was really terrible.
Neil – History Hound 1:06:40 That could have been that could have been, this was the sort of bit of your book ‘Rex' the worst, just the worst. Because actually, again, it is an internal tension within the whole narrative of the regal period is this that yeah, so and so started it, and they built it. And Livy often takes potshots at people going oh, yeah, but they will you know, they it did for them. But you know, there were uncouth. They didn't mind their manners and the rest.
Dr Rad 1:07:06 Uncouth, my goodness. Shots fired, Livy.
Neil – History Hound 1:07:08 Absolutely. Livy's dead, right? He's dead. He's not coming for me. I'm gonna get someone pop
Dr Rad 1:07:13 Well, you've certainly given me a lot to think about. I know that I'm definitely going to go to sleep tonight imagining how Livy's history be different if he'd had access to drone technology.
Neil – History Hound 1:07:25 Yeah, and if nothing else, think of the My Little Pony show at the Circus Maximus where they dressed up their horses and and paraded them around and made them feel special.
Dr Rad 1:07:35 Well, listeners we hope that you have enjoyed listening to Neil's absolutely mind blowing knowledge of the early geography of Rome. As you can tell it is well worth listening to Ancient History Hound, if you haven't already started already. And Neil, thank you so much for joining us. It's actually a very special episode, not just because it's a part to a sequel, which we don't often do, but because it's actually technically Dr. G's in my 11 year anniversary today.
Dr G 1:08:04 Oh, today!
Dr Rad 1:08:07 It's actually on the first of March, but it's almost the first of March in our time, and it is also a leap year.
Dr G 1:08:11 Oh that's true.
Neil – History Hound 1:08:13 And if you hear a knock on the door, and there's someone with a present, that wasn't me, that's purely coincidence. But I just want to say thanks very much. I really appreciate you having me on and been able to talk and I hope the listeners have really enjoyed it. Feel free to blame me.
Dr Rad 1:08:31 Oh, the pleasure is all ours.
Neil – History Hound 1:08:32 If you haven't enjoyed it, If you haven't enjoyed it, you can find me on social media.
Dr Rad 1:08:38 I think we've established that we don't appreciate these sorts of comments.
Dr G 1:08:42 Five star reviews only.
Dr Rad 1:08:43 Thank you. Yeah, yes, exactly.
Dr G 1:08:46 Yeah, you can write whatever you want in the comment – five stars.
Dr Rad 1:08:49 You want to take your rage out anyone aim at the podcast on the massive networks. We're independents.
Dr G 1:09:08 Thank you for listening to this episode of The Partial Historians. A huge thank you to our Patreon supporters for helping make this show spectacular. If you enjoyed the show, there's a few ways that you can show your support. You can write a review wherever you listen in to help spread the word. Reviews really make our day and help new people find our podcast. Researching and producing a podcast takes time. If you're keen to chip in, you can buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi or join our fantastic patrons for early releases and exclusive content. You can find our show notes, as well as links to our merch and where to buy our book wrecks the seven kings of Rome at partialhistorians.com Until next time, we are yours Ancient Rome.
We jump into the year of 402 BCE and Rome and Veii are tooth and nail in siege mode. In addition to this, Rome is rapidly approaching the end of the 5th century BCE, a date that is meaningful for historians and scholars but less significant for the Romans who understood the years through the names of the magistrates more than being overly interested in the base ten system.
Episode 151 – Factional Foibles
Watch your back!
Rome’s siege of Veii continues so there’s good reason to see six military tribunes with consular power in the role this year. But it may be the case that Rome’s military preoccupation with Veii is about to become costly. Just ask the Rome’s new garrison at Anxur in Volscian territory…
Siege Developments
Now you’d be forgiven for thinking a siege is not the most exciting form of warfare. And if it was just Rome versus Veii, it may indeed have remained a boring affair. But sometime in this year, it seems that Veil’s northern neighbours have realised that Veii falling to Rome might be terrible for them. Enter the Capenantes and Falscians and cue siege chaos! How will the situation be resolved? Tune in to find out.
Map of Veii including cities to the north Capena (Capenantes) and Falerii (Falsicans).
Things to Listen Out For
The joys of Cornettos
Skipping through the daisies
A hideous sandwich situation
Consideration of the extent of the powers of the tribunes of the plebs
A potted introduction to the 3rd century CE writer Dio Cassius
Some details about the archaeological record between Veii and Rome during this period
A new record with the Partial Pick!
A very late background contribution from one of our star podcats 🙂
Our Players for 402 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Gaius Servilius P. f. Q. n. Ahala (Pat)
Quintus Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat)
Lucius Verginius L. f. Opetr. N. Tricostus Esquilinus (Pat)
Quintus Sulpicius Ser. f. Ser. n. Camerinus Cornutus (Pat)
Aulus Manlius A. f. Cn. n. Vulso Capitolinus (Pat)
Maelius Sergius L. f. L. n. Fidenas (Pat)
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy 5.8.1
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.38.1; Fragmentvm de Praenominibus; Fasti Capitolini; Dio Cassius Book 6.23ish
Arizza, M., Rossi, D. 2022. ‘The territory between Veii and Rome in the Archaic period: Rural structures as territorial markers of cultural frontiers’ Frontière.s, Revue d’archèologie, histoire et histoire de l’art Volume 6: 49-62. https://journals.openedition.org/frontieres/1297
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Map of Veii from The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria by George Dennis 1848
Automated Transcript
Lightly edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to The Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr Rad.
Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to a brand new episode of The Partial Historians. I'm Dr rad, no longer afraid to say my Ps
Dr G 1:03 And I am Dr G. Goodness knows what foreshadowing that entails.
Dr Rad 1:09 Well, I can definitely assure you there'll be lots of patricians and plebeians running around in this episode. So it's good not to have to worry about saying my Ps. Thanks very much. Patreons for the microphone buffery-sock type thing.
Dr G 1:22 Ah, the pop filter.
Dr Rad 1:24 Yes, exactly. I can say however many damn Ps I want now. Peas and ham. Peas and ham, peas and carrots.
Dr G 1:31 Mind your P's and Q's, please.
Dr Rad 1:34 I never do.
Dr G 1:36 Just like the patricians.
Dr Rad 1:38 Exactly. Well, welcome Dr, G, so good to see you again.
Dr G 1:42 Likewise.
Dr Rad 1:44 So we are hosting an ancient Roman History podcast, if you somehow manage to miss the introduction, and we are tracing the journey of Rome from the founding of the city and Dr G, I think this might be the last episode before we cross the boundary to a new century.
Dr G 2:07 That's very exciting.
Dr Rad 2:08 It is. I honestly kind of got very comfortable with the four hundreds. I kind of felt like we were never gonna leave.
Dr G 2:16 But time marches forward.
Dr Rad 2:19 Indeed it does. Before we get into 402 BCE, which is where we are up to, Dr G, I thought we should probably recap on what was a momentous year in 403 BCE.
Dr G 2:30 Yes. Now, if memory serves, 403 was the start of what will be the introduction of Camillus.
Dr Rad 2:38 It was, I mean, it was very, we're touching that. Yeah, exactly.
Dr G 2:44 That's the big standout for me, anyway. Me of few and fragmentary sources.
Dr Rad 2:49 Yes, yes, I understand you're grasping at straws.
Dr G 2:54 Ouch.
Dr Rad 2:55 Yes. Now look 403. For Livy, it was certainly a bumpy year, because we had lots of speechifying from Appius Claudius, of course, saying a lot of things that were quite frankly, downright offensive.
Dr G 3:09 Typical Appius Claudius behavior, I would say.
Dr Rad 3:13 Yeah, and yet, there was an element of pragmatism to what he had to say. I acknowledge that. But really the reason why he was speechifying, Dr G, was that there were enormous issues, once again, between the patricians and the plebeians, because we are, of course, still in the Conflict of the Orders.
Dr G 3:34 That situation, it will have to resolve at some point. Or will it?
Dr Rad 3:38 Yeah, and it's definitely the ongoing repercussions about this idea of soldiers serving all year round, the idea of military pay. These are the kinds of things that they are dealing with whilst waging a very long term campaign against the city of Veii, which is an Etruscan place.
Dr G 3:57 Yes, and Etruscans, they're just to the north of the Romans, there's a lot of cross cultural exchange going on, and it has been for a long time, but it seems that the conflict is coming to a head, as it were, in this period. So it is, we're seeing an escalation of the conflict.
Dr Rad 4:16 Yeah, it's been going on. It's been keeping us company, really, all throughout the four hundreds. You know, every now and then, just when we think things are getting peaceful, conflict with they appears again.
Dr G 4:25 Well, yes, and if you'll indulge me.
Dr Rad 4:27 Oh, I always am willing to indulge you.
Dr G 4:30 Since I lack vast amounts of source material
Dr Rad 4:34 fair enough,
Dr G 4:34 I thought I would do a little bit of a recap on, like, some of the touchstones of the relationship between Veii and Rome so far.
Dr Rad 4:42 Oh, okay, yeah, this is a recap. I'm settling in.
Dr G 4:46 Sit back and relax, listeners. So we have Romulus' victory over Veii very early.
Dr Rad 4:56 Just how short of source material are you?
Dr G 4:59 Very! It's embarrassing how few sources I have. Ancus Marcius also is reputed to have a victory over Veii. Then we have a couple of characters, and I'm not sure that we've touched on them very much in particular, Aulus and Caelius Verbenna.
Dr Rad 5:20 Now, these are people whose names are familiar to me because of the Servius Tullius connection.
Dr G 5:27 Now, these are brothers from Vulci, and Rome is thought to have been in some sort of mediation with Veii about receiving these two.
Dr Rad 5:38 Right.
Dr G 5:39 And then we have Servius Tullius himself having his own war with Veii.
Dr Rad 5:43 Hmmm, he does.
Dr G 5:46 And then there's a whole Tarquinius mystery. Is it Tarquinius Priscus? Is it Tarquinius Superbus? There is a request for Veii to send their master craftsman, a guy called Vulca, to come to Rome to do some terracotta work.
Dr Rad 6:04 Sounds important.
Dr G 6:06 It is because it's related to the gods, and apparently some of the things in the Capitoline Temple, the very early version-
Dr Rad 6:14 Ooo I remember that
Dr G 6:16 -were produced by this master craftsman from Veii,
Dr Rad 6:20 Typical Etruscans.
Dr G 6:21 So a little bit of cultural exchange, and then we're right back into conflict.
Dr Rad 6:26 Actual conflict.
Dr G 6:27 Actual conflict. So they support Taquinius Superbus when he's exiled from Rome; a bit of a safe haven for him there…
Dr Rad 6:34 Because they're the worst.
It certainly doesn't put them in Rome's good books. And when we get to the Republic, almost the first thing that happens is Valerius Publicola, very famous, very loved by the people.
Absolutely.
Dr G 6:49 He triumphs over Veii in 509.
Dr Rad 6:52 Naturally.
Dr G 6:53 Doesn't take him long to be like, You know what? Veii's no good. We need to deal with that, it doesn't matter if we don't have kings anymore,
Dr Rad 6:59 They're too close,
Dr G 7:00 They're too close, and we don't like it
Dr Rad 7:01 Too close. Too close for comfort!
Dr G 7:04 Way too close. And you know, who else thinks they're too close?
Dr Rad 7:07 Sammy Davis Jr.
Dr G 7:11 Well, yes. But also the Fabii
Dr Rad 7:14 Ah, of course.
Dr G 7:15 Yeah, the whole gens goes to war against Veii. Completely unsuccessful. Wipes them all out, basically. Except for one, apparently,
Dr Rad 7:24 Ohhh he managed to spread his seed.
Dr G 7:27 And lucky, otherwise, the family would have been gone absolutely. So part of the issue for the Fabii seems to be that their territory is part of the adjacent landscape of Veii's area of control.
Dr Rad 7:42 Wait, are you telling me that patricians were acting out of self interest?
Dr G 7:46 I would never suggest such a thing.
Dr Rad 7:49 Wow.
Dr G 7:50 But I might openly tell you, it's certainly what's going on. It seems in 477, and it's a big loss.
Dr Rad 7:59 It is.
Dr G 8:00 It's a blow for Rome. There's no question about that moment.
Dr Rad 8:03 A moment of silence for Camera.
Dr G 8:06 This leads to a truce between Veii and Rome in 474, which quickly is overturned by Veii, because they don't seem to care about that truce.
Dr Rad 8:14 Why would they? They just really, really won a massive victory.
Dr G 8:17 Yeah, and they use that truce to then take Fidenae.
Dr Rad 8:20 Ah Fidenae.
Dr G 8:22 Yeah, going back into the memory books
Dr Rad 8:24 Such a sore spot.
Dr G 8:26 And this really makes Rome mad, and they're like, You know what, not happy about this, and they're even less happy when they find out that they has elevated a guy called Lars Tolumnius to be the king.
Dr Rad 8:37 Ah Lars Tolumnius.
Dr G 8:38 It doesn't end well for him. I think there was some stabbing to the groin. It wasn't great.
Dr Rad 8:45 No, it wasn't.
Dr G 8:46 But the Faliscans, who are nearby neighbors as well, they support Veii in this offensive against Rome, led by Lars Tolumnius. Doesn't go well; Veii loses.
Dr Rad 8:56 They do.
Dr G 8:57 A new truce is formed.
Dr Rad 8:59 It is indeed
Dr G 9:00 So that's and that's what 437
Dr Rad 9:04 Well, if we believe the dates, yeah.
Dr G 9:08 I would suggest caution. But let's say hypothetically, 437 that we've got this whole relationship between Veii and Rome that extends back right to the early kingship period, as far as our written sources are concerned. And this would probably make sense, because they're so close geographically.
Dr Rad 9:26 Well, that's just it. I mean, there's always, I think going to be that conflict between the Etruscans in general and the Romans, because the Romans aspire to be a great empire in the sense that they want to expand. Obviously, like, I'm not saying right at this point. They're like, Oh, and a Mediterranean Empire would be lovely, but they obviously want to expand. They obviously are an ambitious people's, let's say, and the Etruscans therefore gonna stand in their way. You know.
Dr G 9:55 Yeah, and there's nothing quite like having your close neighbor sort of just. Sort of push the fence one meter, exactly, cutting off a little bit of your space, to open up a little bit of space for them taking your cow, yeah. And when you say, excuse me, yeah,
Dr Rad 10:13 excuse me,
Dr G 10:14 excuse me, what are you doing? And it's like, no, no. That fence has always been there, yeah?
Dr Rad 10:21 And that's when they go to the central records department and they have to put an application to look at the property boundaries.
Dr G 10:27 Everybody's got to look at the standing stone ring. Like, Oh, guys, did you move that rock in the night? No, certainly not. Not I.
Dr Rad 10:34 Not I. Way too heavy.
Dr G 10:36 And when the cows start moving in a different language, and you're like, wait a minute
Dr Rad 10:41 Excuse me?
Dr G 10:44 Are you speaking Etruscan? And it's like, moo,
Dr Rad 10:46 Yeah, exactly suspicious.
Dr G 10:48 So yeah, we've got this sort of long history of conflict. This long build up has is on the cards. So it's not a surprise that we're now in this what seems to be like a bit of a showdown situation.
Dr Rad 11:00 It is a showdown, as I said, Harry Potter, Voldemort, one of them has to die in order for this situation to work. And that's where we were at last time. So in 403, there was a there was a lot of debate about what was going to happen internally, as in, like, where were they going to take this whole idea of winter service and military pay, and how this was going to work. And this why Appius Claudius got on his little soapbox, but it took a disaster at Veii, you know, on the front lines during this siege warfare that they've got going on in order to win everybody over to the idea of, look, guys, we've just got a soldier on and do our bit. And Rome ended up in a really lovely place in that we had all these people volunteering to serve. Essentially, this story is clearly trying to tell us that this is a moment when we see an expansion of the cavalry in Rome, because we had the men-who-have-horses,-but-the-state-doesn't-pay-for-them-yet club turn into the men-who-have-horses-and-the-state-pays-for-them club.
Dr G 11:56 Sweet.
Dr Rad 11:57 I know. So we've obviously got the expansion of the army, which is following on the back of this idea of military pay and people who actually serving all year round, potentially, and that's kind of where we ended up. So Rome was in a really happy place, because everyone felt like, you know what, we're all working together.
Dr G 12:14 Although, having the equestrians have their cavalry side paid for by the state. Does sound like rich people giving a handout to other rich people? And I'm not sure that I'm on board with that…
Dr Rad 12:27 Isn't that what Rome is all about?
Dr G 12:30 No wonder the Conflict of the Orders isn't over.
Dr Rad 12:32 Exactly, exactly. And so 403, we did end up in a happy place, in that everyone felt really awesome about everyone volunteering, not just cavalry, infantry, two lots of people saying, Sign me up. I'll do whatever it takes. Appius Claudius, you're the man. And that's kind of where we ended up in a in a real party situation, yeah. And so I think it's time for me, for us, to delve into 402 BCE.
All right. Dr, G, given your paucity of source material. Please tell me who are the magistracies for 402 BCE?
Dr G 13:39 Thank you for this gift. It'll be the last time I speak in this episode. Listen carefully. So we have six military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 13:50 Six you say? Methinks Rome might be at war.
Dr G 13:54 It is an awful lot, maybe too many. Anyway, we have Gaius Servilius Ahala, one of our recent favorites, one of our recent guys, previously military tribune with consular power in 408 and 407 is bad. We then have Quintus Servilius Fidenas. This is the start of what will be an illustrious career.
Dr Rad 14:21 And clearly he has some sort of relation to the colony of Fidenae, I would say.
Dr G 14:26 One would assume or the conquest of Fidenae.
Dr Rad 14:29 Exactly.
Dr G 14:30 Yeah. Then we have Lucius Verginius Opiter Tricostus Esquilinus.
Dr Rad 14:37 Unusual name.
Dr G 14:39 Oh, well, see, this is why we're friends. I've written “most unusual name” in my notes.
Dr Rad 14:44 I mean, most of it's fine. It's that Opiter.
Dr G 14:48 Opiter is odd, and I don't think we've seen it before.
Dr Rad 14:51 We certainly have not. All the rest totally normal.
Dr G 14:53 Yeah. And Opiter is a praenomen. So to give the full extent of his name. He's: Lucius Verginiu, son of Lucius, granson of Opiter, Tricostus Esquilinus. So Opiter is the name of the grandfather. And you would think, well, that's odd, because the prinomens follow a very sort of specific pattern. There's not that many of them. We haven't encountered an Opiter before. What's going on? Now we have a very late source called the “Fragments of Praenomens”,
Dr Rad 15:27 Oh, okay
Dr G 15:27 Which is amazing.
Dr Rad 15:28 I've never heard of it before. Tell me more.
Dr G 15:30 The “Fragmentvm de Praenominibus”
Dr Rad 15:34 Well done. Well done.
Dr G 15:35 Yeah, thank you, tripping over my Latin wherever I can. And the suggestion there is that Opiter is the name given to a son whose father had died but whose grandfather still lived.
Dr Rad 15:49 Wow.
Dr G 15:50 Yeah. Like, yeah. This is a sort of complicated scenario where, yeah, the first generation is missing somehow at the birth of the child, yeah, but I don't know why that would necessarily so now you have to call so whatever happened in this family line? The guy called Opiter is the guy who must have been born without his own father, right, having been alive at the time.
Dr Rad 16:15 It's quite a family history in that name then.
Dr G 16:17 Yeah
Dr Rad 16:18 And the twist
Dr G 16:19 Plot twist! Yeah, not everybody lives. Disaster. So we might see some of those sorts of names coming up again, but it does tend to be quite unusual.
Dr Rad 16:30 I'm intrigued, yes.
Dr G 16:32 Likewise, we also have Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus.
Dr Rad 16:40 Sounds like a delicious ice cream.
Dr G 16:43 What flavor do would you like? Camerinus Cornutus, of course.
Dr Rad 16:46 Exactly. I love a Cornutus in the summer.
Dr G 16:49 This guy is also new to the role, but he does have form. There is a bit of a legacy with this family as well. Then I don't think we've seen a Cornutus for a little while.
Dr Rad 16:59 No, but I feel like we have. And, you know, I probably should mention, Dr G, because I'm assuming that Cornetto ice creams are found worldwide, but they may indeed just be an Australian delight. So I'm just going to say that that's what I'm referring to. I believe they're at least in the UK, but yeah, for anyone else who lives in a non Cornetto land, I apologize for my in-joke about ice cream,
Dr G 17:22 If you do not have cornettos, please like, share and subscribe and tell us all about what ice creams you do have.
Dr Rad 17:29 Exactly, we'd love to know.
Dr G 17:32 So the chief legacy of the Cornetto is that you can – it's about eating the cone as well as the ice cream. You think to yourself, that's not special. But somehow, when you're a child, that's very special.
Dr Rad 17:41 It is, yeah.
Dr G 17:44 So the Cornuti or Cornutii, I suppose I should say, go back to the Regal period.
Dr Rad 17:50 Okay.
Dr G 17:51 One of these guy's ancestors is somebody who was conspiring to restore the Tarquins back into power. Super. So we're talking an arch conservative family.
Dr Rad 18:02 Yeah. Uh-oh you're in trouble.
Dr G 18:09 And then jumping forward 50 or so years, yeah, another Cornutii was one of the decemvirs, so the form is strong with this one.
Dr Rad 18:22 I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Dr G 18:24 Let us not go back to those dark days.
Dr Rad 18:28 Where did that take us? Like 20 episodes to get through the Decemvirate which apparently lasted for two years, disaster.
Dr G 18:35 This is what happens when you make a mess out of the political situation. Guys, we have to spend ages trying to figure out what's going on. Our fifth military tribune with consular power is Aulus Manlius Vulso Capitolinus, also previously military tribune with consular power in 405, and you might see him again in the future.
Dr Rad 18:57 I think I might.
Dr G 18:57 And last, but certainly not least, Maelius Sergius Fidenas.
Dr Rad 19:04 Another with the connection to Fidenae.
Dr G 19:07 Indeed, and he was previously in the same post in 404. So yeah, we've got a so it's kind of like a balance between people who are new to the role, yeah, and people who have served before.
Dr Rad 19:19 Indeed, it is. Well, I'm exhausted, end of episode,
Dr G 19:24 And we're done. Thanks for tuning in.
Dr Rad 19:26 Yeah. Okay, so as you pointed out, we do have a real mixture of people who are serving as consular tribunes. However, one thing that we do not have a mixture of, Dr G, is patricians and plebeians. Once again, it's an entirely patrician cast of characters.
Dr G 19:40 It is a clean sweep for the elite.
Dr Rad 19:42 Yes, it is now, as you can imagine, given the fact that we had a disaster at Veii last time, the Romans are very focused on what's happening at Veii at this point in time. However, unfortunately, they don't seem to be able to multitask, because whilst they're focusing on Veii they neglect the new garrison at Anxur.
Dr G 20:04 Uh oh. Now Anxur has come up before, hasn't it?
Dr Rad 20:08 We just spoke about it. They have just conquered it. So it's a very recent addition to the Roman, dare I say, Empire…
Dr G 20:17 And they are about to lose it again.
Dr Rad 20:19 Well, okay, so what basically happened was they were obviously feeling pretty confident, I guess, about what was happening there, and they therefore gave a lot of the soldiers furlough. So a lot of the soldiers skipping through the neighboring fields and making daisy chains and going shopping in nearby towns, just having a grand old time. However, even those who were left behind because obviously, they didn't literally let everybody go, that would be madness. They do have guards, but the guards aren't really checking people properly. So they're not getting them to take off their shoes. They're not getting their laptops, you know, in the tray. They're just allowing people who are Volscians – and Anxur we should probably say was initially Volscians territory just allowing volscians traders in and out without properly checking. What are they carrying with them? Who are they? Where's your passport? Where's your five forms of identification? I'm
Dr G 21:15 I'm just gonna have to look into your cart for a moment.
Dr Rad 21:18 Exactly. Yeah, there's none of that happening. And so as soon as the Volscians realize, I guess, that this is what's going on, they very quickly overpower the tiny guard force that has been left behind, and Anxur is retaken.
Dr G 21:33 Oh, disaster.
Dr Rad 21:34 I know. I can't believe it, because it was such a big win when they took this place, sloppy work. It really is. Now, the only silver lining is that not a lot of Romans perish during this because, of course, they're all out shopping. I was gonna say they're all in the fields having picnics and stuff. They're in the neighboring area, but they're not actually in the town. Hence the problem. The only people who die are those who'd been left behind because they were too sick to go, which seems really sad.
Dr G 22:00 Oh, okay, so they had worked hard to capture Anxur, but they had been injured in the process, and now they had paid for it with their lives.
Dr Rad 22:08 Well, Livy actually does say sick. I'm not sure if they're actually I'm not sure if it's like an injury, per se. He's not, he's not very specific.
Dr G 22:15 They've just come down with a heavy cold, exactly like I can't get up.
Dr Rad 22:18 Yeah, go shopping for me. Guys, bring me back a daisy chain. Anyway, so that's not good news. Now let's shift our attention today, because I'm sure you're dying to know what's happening there. Once again, Dr. G, I find myself in a familiar situation, one which amuses me, but also frustrates me, and that is that the commanders who are in charge at they, at this point in time, seem to be far more preoccupied without doing each other than in actually defeating they. And we have seen this a number of times with our patricians.
Dr G 22:55 I was gonna say this is part of the trouble of being part of the elite is that your primary focus is one upmanship. It is not the good of the state.
Dr Rad 23:06 No, it isn't. And this is very evident. So basically, not much is happening at bay because they're just like looking at each other, going, what are you doing? I don't know what are you doing?
Dr G 23:15 Well, sounds like a classic siege. People have got their magazines out and, you know, solving sudokus together from across the wall, somebody on the defensive side is like, have you tried three in that square?
Dr Rad 23:28 And the commanders are saying, I solve the New York Times crossword puzzle. You what? That's impossible. Anyway, there's a little bit more pressure added, though, because all of a sudden, Dr G, Veii has some allies that join the siege.
Dr G 23:43 Oh
Dr Rad 23:44 Yeah, I know. Now, famously, when they went to the rest of Etruria and said, Hey, how about we Etruscan power this and just defeat Rome together? And they all said, How about no?
Dr G 23:56 With our powers combined, we are Captain Etruria!
Dr Rad 23:59 Exactly. And they said, No, we're not doing that. The suits are lame and we can't be bothered. So no one was perhaps expecting that this was going to happen. But Appius Claudius did warn that this was a possibility. You know that you don't know how long the Etruscans are going to allow Veii to fly solo. And sure enough, we get the Capenates and the Faliscans joining in the fun. Now, this actually makes complete sense. It's not because they're looking at Veii going, Oh, look at them all alone fighting Rome. It's because they are relatively close to Veii.
Dr G 24:36 I was gonna say, is it because they're the next dominos to fall?
Dr Rad 24:39 Exactly. They've put two and two and two together. It's taken a couple of years, but they've gone wait a second…
Dr G 24:44 Hold up…
Dr Rad 24:45 If there's no more Veii, that means that the Romans are gonna be looking at us.
Dr G 24:49 Veii is a great buffer place. We should probably retain that,
Dr Rad 24:54 Exactly, and they suddenly realize this. Now I actually do have a map which is uncharacteristic
Dr G 25:00 I was gonna say, goodness me. Dr. Rad, what is going on?
Dr Rad 25:03 Because I knew you're gonna say, I knew you're gonna say, where exactly are these places?
Dr G 25:06 Yeah, because I certainly haven't looked them up, because I don't have enough source material to know that they were even mentioned.
Dr Rad 25:11 Well, look, I'm glad I had a map, because it's really difficult to describe this. They are north of a, like, directly north of a so it is literally a domino effect that we're talking about here. Look, they're slightly, like the Capenates are probably slightly northeast, perhaps, but essentially, if Veii falls, you can totally see that they are the next in line, and the Faliscans are just a little bit beyond them.
Dr G 25:34 Alright, so they both have a pretty vested interest in making sure Veii has a high level of defense and gets through this siege unscathed.
Dr Rad 25:42 Yeah, absolutely. Now, in terms of who these people are, obviously, we don't have tons of information about them, but they seem to have spoken a dialect of Latin.
Dr G 25:53 Oh, intriguing.
Dr Rad 25:54 I know, right.
Dr G 25:55 This would make Veii then a cultural outpost amongst Etrurian cities, if they're surrounded by Latin speakers.
Dr Rad 26:04 A dialect of Latin. I mean, I don't know how close that we I don't know how close we're talking, but yes, yeah, it is interesting, certainly. But it just speaks to the melting pot that is this region where Etruria and the Latins are meeting.
Dr G 26:18 Yeah, definitely.
Dr Rad 26:19 Yeah. Anywho now, the Romans already did not like the Faliscans, which I think is a shame, because I find their name delightful, but this is because they had fought on the wrong side in the fight over Fidenae, which you mentioned in your recap.
Dr G 26:35 Mistakes were made.
Dr Rad 26:36 Mistakes were made. Now what this means is we have got reinforced troops massively hitting the Roman camp. Okay, the Romans are scared out of their little tunics because this is completely unexpected, and it seems like the people of they weren't expecting it either, like the Capenates and the Faliscans literally just like, rock up. And they're like, let's do this. I gotta get home before my slow cooker goes off. Yeah. Now where they hit the Roman camp is right where Maelius Sergius is commanding.
Dr G 27:12 Awkward.
Dr Rad 27:12 Yeah, okay. They think that maybe this is a sign that all of Etruria is uniting against them now, which would be terrifying.
Dr G 27:23 It's a sign, guys, they're all coming. It's just these ones got here first.
Dr Rad 27:27 Yeah exactly, these are the closest. Now the people in the town of a also feel their morale rising, because they're also like, oh my god, is this a sign that all of Etruria is uniting against the Romans. So everyone who's having very strong emotions about this scenario here. Yeah, and it basically means that the Roman camp is being attacked from two different sides.
Dr G 27:49 It's never a good sign in a military situation, when you're you've got to defend against two frontiers.
Dr Rad 27:55 Exactly.
Dr G 27:56 Anybody who study any warfare is already being like, Uh oh, yeah, not looking good.
Dr Rad 28:00 Don't be surrounded. Yeah. Now this is obviously totally surprising, and so the soldiers are really struggling with this sudden scenario, and they're not really dealing with either attack very well. As a result, it's, I think, a bit of a scramble, if we're being honest,
Dr G 28:15 I was gonna say, and it's like, you know, it takes time to put down your crossword and put your breastplate on, get yourself in formation and think about whether it's going to be a tortoise or whatever.
Dr Rad 28:25 Yeah. So this particular camp, they're hoping that the Romans in the main camp will see what's happening, or find out what's happening and send help stat. Then they would be able, with their reinforcements to deal with the fact that they're being attacked from completely different directions. However, the main camp is under the control of a different military tribune with consular power, one Verginius,
Dr G 28:52 Hmm okay.
Dr Rad 28:54 Now Sergius and Verginius. These are our military tribunes with consular power that have major beef and hate each other's guts.
Dr G 29:05 Oh no. Why do we think that is? Or does Livy give us some rationale here?
Dr Rad 29:09 No, just that they hate each other.
Dr G 29:12 It's just the way it goes. When you're a patrician, some of those guys you can't stand, and some of them are your best friends.
Dr Rad 29:18 Exactly, exactly. Now back in the main camp, Verginius does hear about the danger that the Romans are in, but he refuses to do anything about it, saying that, look, if Sergius needs help, he'll ask for it. I'm not going to send help. If he doesn't ask for it, he can handle it, obviously, up until that point, but he has to ask. Sergius refuses to ask for help because he does not want Verginius stealing his victory. He would rather lose than have Verginius come to his rescue and win.
Dr G 29:50 Oh well, Sergius, I hate to break it to you, but that's hubris, and I don't know if it's going to work out for you.
Dr Rad 29:55 It is not going to work out for you
Dr G 29:56 This is what. So I think this is where virtus, this idea of Roman manliness, which is all about the courage and being on the front foot and doing it yourself and all of that kind of stuff, gets twisted potentially into some dangerous behaviors, just ego that may not play out very well.
Dr Rad 30:19 Yeah, so basically, we have the most hideous sandwich situation I've ever seen, where Romans are being attacked on either side, they're just being slaughtered in the middle of these two attacking forces, and eventually they just have to give up and run.
Dr G 30:34 Oh no. And the central camp has done nothing.
Dr Rad 30:37 Done nothing because they've been waiting for a specific request for help.
Dr G 30:42 Lame.
Dr Rad 30:43 Yeah. Now only a small amount of those who manage to run away actually make it back to the main camp, the main part of the army that manages to get out, plus Sergius, they run back to Rome.
Dr G 30:57 Now, fair enough, I will probably do that as well be like guys, yeah.
Dr Rad 31:01 Now the advantage of this happening is that Sergius then throws Verginius right under the bus, places all the blame for what has just happened on wiginius and demanding that he be recalled and lieutenants placed in charge of the main camp.
Dr G 31:19 Oooh. So deposed actually from being a military tribune with consular power?
Dr Rad 31:24 Well, sorry, actually, reface that, I think. Just recalled from his command.
Dr G 31:28 Okay.
Dr Rad 31:29 Yeah, yeah, so recalled from being in charge of the main camp. The Senate discussed the issue. They are supremely unimpressed by what is going on here. And it kind of seems like maybe the Senate as well has split loyalties between Sergius and Verginius as well. There's a lot of slappy fighting going,
Dr G 31:52 Well, look, this doesn't surprise me. This is kind of we're now in the factional politics.
Dr Rad 31:57 It is 100% factional, yeah. So no one is really thinking about, hey, what about Rome? What about the state? They're all just thinking about these guys. Eventually, the leading senators say, You know what, rather than get caught up in this beef between these two guys, let's just not deal with their fighting. Let's just ignore them and just get rid of all the tribunes for this year and have elections early. But just like clean slate it guys, can't be bothered. Can't be bothered.
Dr G 32:29 Okay, but is the consequence of this that they will recall all of the armed forces that are sitting under those military tribunes that are outside Veii?
Dr Rad 32:39 I don't think so. Because obviously, given that we've got a siege going on here, and there would be people who are underneath these men, I think that they'd be temporarily in charge whilst they sorted out elections, right?
Dr G 32:51 Okay.
Dr Rad 32:51 They don't specifically say this, but there's no word of ending the siege, so I presume that that's what would happen, that they would just leave someone in charge and get some new ones? Yeah,
Dr G 33:01 Yeah, the Senate sends you a little letter being like, you're out of here having elections.
Dr Rad 33:05 Either that or those men continue to serve until their replacements arrive. But yeah, there's no, there's no mention made of ending the siege at Veii. It's just this situation of you know what? It would just be easier just to toss these ones out and get new ones, an attitude I do not endorse when it comes to consumable goods in our modern day world,
Dr G 33:24 but certainly applicable for politicians,
Dr Rad 33:25 It certainly is. Now the other military tribunes with consular power who actually really are the victims here because they've done nothing wrong. They're okay with this. So the senators are getting ready to vote, but then Sergius and Verginius come and say, oh my god, can like, can you just like, not do this? It'd be like, so embarrassing if this is how our careers end. Like, this is how our, you know, stint as military tribunes with consular power, like, came to an end? Like, please just like, don't like,
Dr G 33:59 But isn't this already having been instigated by Sergius in some way?
Dr Rad 34:05 Oh, he 100% brought it upon himself.
Dr G 34:07 But now, but he doesn't want he's like, now that the Senate has decided that they're just going to get rid of this lot, he's like, Excuse me, that's not the solution?
Dr Rad 34:15 I think he was hoping that Verginius would get recalled and he would be able to trot off and, you know, go back to the campaign.
Dr G 34:22 Sergius is having a sad in Rome.
Dr Rad 34:25 Yeah, absolutely. So they had decided that they were just going to veto what the Senate had decided. Because at this point in time, obviously senatorial decisions are not like legally binding. It's just like a recommendation, like, have you thought of having Have you considered elections? Yeah, and obviously, if everyone was going to go along with it, I don't know, you know, I don't know how much they really could have done here, but they were basically like, No, this is not going to happen over my dead body. I'm not going to give up power day early. And don't you dare ask me. Now this is where the tribunes of the plebs come into the story.
Dr G 35:03 Ah ha.
Dr Rad 35:03 They had said nothing up to this point. They've been very good. They had been itching to say something, but they thought it was best not to, after everything that happened the year before, what was Appius Claudius giving an epic speech that just never ended. We don't want to impose that on anyone.
Dr G 35:18 We don't want to sit through that again.
Dr Rad 35:19 We do not. But now they demand that the military tribunes, as in Sergius and Verginius, obey the Senate, or it's straight to prison with the two of you, and you can think about what you have done.
Dr G 35:33 We've got a naughty room. It's time to put some people in it.
Dr Rad 35:36 Exactly. Now, this is where Ahala makes his appearance.
Dr G 35:41 Mr Armpit himself
Dr Rad 35:43 Indeed. So he is one of the other military tribunes with consular power. He has done nothing wrong up until this point.
Dr G 35:49 A military tribune with consular power of the name Ahala?
Dr Rad 35:53 Yes, he was the first one on your list.
Dr G 35:55 Well, no, I mean, he's a military tribune with consular power, as far as I'm aware.
Dr Rad 36:00 Wait, what did I say? He's a military tribune with consular power. So,
Dr G 36:06 Yeah, I thought you said he was a tribune.
Dr Rad 36:08 No, okay, let me rephrase this. Okay, so the tribunes of the plebs have come along and done the threat, then one of the other military tribunes with consular power responds to this threat.
Dr G 36:19 Okay, okay.
Dr Rad 36:20 All right, so Ahala makes his appearance, and he says, I'd like to see the tribunes of the plebs try to throw one of us in prison. You have absolutely no right to do that. Once again, tributes of the plebs going mad with power and imagining they have all these magical possibilities.
Dr G 36:43 Yeah. I mean, they're supposed to be looking after the plebeian concerns. You know, you can't go after patricians like this.
Dr Rad 36:49 Yeah. He's like, You know what? I don't think you have the guts to do it anyway. All you guys do is hang around Rome and wait for fights between the military tribunes with consular power, and then you just swoop in and cause problems right now. If you keep making this an issue, Ahala is prepared to name a dictator. He'll name a dictator right now, and then the dictator can do whatever the hell they like, and the tribune of the plebs can't do nothing about it.
Dr G 37:21 Okay, well, there's a big threat.
Dr Rad 37:23 Exactly, and everyone's like Ahala, that was amazing. We love you and we love the sentiment. So the other military tribunes, they all agree, after this whole exchange, that it would do best just to throw the towel in and resign early. Okay?
Dr G 37:41 So rather than put a dictator in place, they're going to take the recommended measure by the Senate?
Dr Rad 37:48 Yeah, and just resign early.
Dr G 37:51 Yeah, so it's gotten – the whole thing – tensions have escalated to such a point, and people have been making all sorts of threats, yeah, and now they're like, Okay, we'll step down early.
Dr Rad 38:00 It kind of ends abruptly. I was, I was gearing up for something really epic here, but that's where it ends.
Dr G 38:05 Yeah, look, I feel like that. That is not the situation. It doesn't feel narratively like what you think it's going to be.
Dr Rad 38:16 It really doesn't, especially because I kind of agree with Ahala, I don't think the tribunes of the plebs have the right to throw the military tribunes with consular power into prison.
Dr G 38:25 No, that would seem unlikely. They could probably maybe suggest it to the people and see what happens,
Dr Rad 38:33 Yeah, sure
Dr G 38:33 And maybe put it to a vote, that might be a possibility.
Dr Rad 38:37 Maybe that's what they were hinting at. We're going to start a lengthy bureaucratic process. You just wait and see.
Dr G 38:44 Roll up, roll up. It's the first round of voting. Or will we put some patricians in jail?
Dr Rad 38:50 That's really all that happens in 402. That's it.
Dr G 38:53 Okay. Yeah, all right. Now I do have some details, most of which I think I can't relate to you right now, because I don't know where we are in terms of the actual siege itself and the fragmentary details that I do have, I don't think are currently relevant.
Dr Rad 39:18 Well, I think this is because of the dating issue. So I'm going to give you a bit of a hint, Dr, G because I feel like it'll be useful for you. So in the next year, in 401 BCE, there is this reference where one of the historical characters we are dealing with, he makes reference to how long the siege, slash, war against Veii has been going on. And it's wrong. Like, according to, according to what Livy has been building up, it does, like the numbers don't add up, which is exactly what I said to you and we got into this whole thing. Oh, numbers don't add up. They've added two years because they want to make it a 10 year conflict, so that it's like the Trojan War. So sometimes these little mistakes creep in, which let us know that the dating is a little off. So I think you're probably right to be suspicious of where I'm supposedly at and where you're supposedly at. But yeah, you can see that potentially, the Romans are stringing things out a little bit, and they've inserted some time, definitely.
Dr G 40:15 And we've known that Rome has this issue with chronology, and it's had it for a little while now.
Dr Rad 40:21 I have a chronological issue. It can't be fixed. It's chronic.
Dr G 40:27 How long has it been happening? A long time.
Dr Rad 40:30 Or has it?
Dr G 40:32 Ehh the questions. So the chronological issue seems most evident in the discrepancy between some of the source material, sure. So Livy thinks we're in what, 402.
Dr Rad 40:46 Yeah.
Dr G 40:46 And it has been the case that he has been in discrepancy with Diodorus Siculus for years now, about where they're up to in terms of the timeline, yeah, because Diodorus Siculus is following along pretty methodically. He doesn't always get everything right, but he is about two to three years ahead of Livy at every turn. So the year he tells us that Aristocrates is the Archon in Athens right is the year 399, to 398, okay? And that's the same year that he lists six military tribunes, although only names five, he says they're six, but only names five, and that list matches up almost in its entirety with the list that we get for 402.
Dr Rad 41:34 Gotcha.
Dr G 41:35 So this discrepancy has been around for a little while now, but we don't know how to resolve it, and the Romans don't know how to resolve it either. No. And there's obviously that really attractive 10 year Homeric element to the siege of a which you've mentioned before, yeah, as well. So there's a literary reason for why they want it to be 10 years.
Dr Rad 41:59 Oh, yeah. And look, I always say this also has something to do with, like, family traditions as well, like the Verginii being placed at this moment, as you'll see when I get into my next year as well. I think you'll see that, yeah, it all kind of, there's a reason that it's all coming together this way. So I'd say he's relying potentially, on bit of family traditions here.
Dr G 42:20 Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. And so one of the ways that I've tried to navigate real absence of source material is looking at Dio Cassius.
Dr Rad 42:31 Okay…
Dr G 42:34 So a small segue. Dio Cassius, dear friends of the podcast, this is a third century CE historian.
Dr Rad 42:45 So, yeah, hang on. Let me think so that means that he's like, Hang on. Let me think that means that he is about what, 600 years after?
Dr G 42:51 600 years out, yeah. So does he know what he's talking about? We don't know. But the trouble for us with Dio Cassius right now, because he does write a history of Rome from the beginning, he does the whole analytic thing, very ambitious, and he goes up to his own time period, which is kind of amazing. And we have good, good chunks of Dio Cassius, but not for this period of the history. We've only got fragments, we've got little bits that are preserved in later epitomes, right? And we've got little bits and pieces that seem to be preserved in a Constantinian source.
Dr Rad 43:25 Right.
Dr G 43:26 So the things that I can tell you about the siege that are in Dio Cassius, I'm going to keep in reserve, because I'm pretty sure they're going to come up later.
Dr Rad 43:36 I would say so.
Dr G 43:37 And I'm not going to mention them now, but I do want to flag that this is a historian who's also done some work on this, and we're not really quite sure entirely about his early sources. Either we're not certain that he's reading Livy or basing everything that he's written about this period from Livy.
Dr Rad 43:53 I was going to ask because obviously Livy would be an obvious source, because he's earlier.
Dr G 44:00 Exactly, and so chances are he probably had read Livy.
Dr Rad 44:04 Sure.
Dr G 44:04 But it seems like there's enough differences in his account that he's as well. He's using other sources as well. Yeah, some scholars think that he's using Ennius.
Dr Rad 44:13 Ooh, okay, an early source.
Dr G 44:16 An early source. So ennius is writing in what the second century BCE
Dr Rad 44:20 I think so.
Dr G 44:23 And Ennius writes this big epic, the Annales, which becomes quite famous for the Romans for a really good period of time before it's overtaken by Virgil's Aeneid. But that's also a history and a also interested in the figure of Camillus. So it's kind of like all of my sources are trying to get me to Camillus, and we're not there yet.
Dr Rad 44:46 Didn't even mention him, Dr. G.
Dr G 44:48 So we're not going to go down that path just yet.
Dr Rad 44:51 No, but He's coming.
Dr G 44:52 He's coming.
Dr Rad 44:52 He's on a horse, and he's coming.
Dr G 44:55 And then the other thing that I tried to do was, I was like, Look, Veii and Rome have been together unhappily for a while. Now, sure, chances are scholars have looked into this.
Dr Rad 45:05 Yeah, yeah, I would say so.
Dr G 45:07 And then I was like, what would be interesting to know is something from the archeological record?
Dr Rad 45:12 Ooh,
Dr G 45:12 Because we have lots of Etruscan tombs. That's what is most famously preserved.
Dr Rad 45:17 Absolutely.
Dr G 45:17 But there are other elements of the archeology that still exist, and even though they is very close to Rome, is kind of subsumed into greater Rome these days. There is a lot of excavation work that is happening on the Etruscans in that area, right? So one of the things that I was looking at is a piece by a scholar called Arizza and Rossi.
Dr Rad 45:17 Okay.
Dr G 45:20 And they're looking at the territory between ve and Rome in the Archaic period.
Dr Rad 45:29 Wow.
Dr G 45:29 So that's sort of like the sixth century down to the fourth century. So sitting right in the cusp of our zone of interest, actually. And there's a whole bunch of tombs, which is fine, all very interesting. Some of them are very typically Etruscan. And there's one in that they've been looking at that sort of stands out as being Etruscan in style, but with Roman style grave goods, interesting. So you've got this sort of overlapping thing starting to happen in terms of cross cultural fertilization.
Dr Rad 46:20 Would it be worthwhile telling our listeners, what does Etruscan in style mean? Because I think Etruscans have, they do have quite elaborate tombs and like we're talking about, like rooms, aren't we like what we might think of as semi mausolem-ish,
Dr G 46:33 Almost like buildings you could live in.
Dr Rad 46:34 Yeah, yeah.
Dr G 46:35 They're built, sometimes square structures, sometimes circular structures. Depends on the time period, but they do look like little houses, basically. And they're often inserted a little bit into a hillside where possible, not always, but or going down a little bit. And there is a combination of bodies that have been cremated and bodies that have been inhumed, essentially. So you could have been just buried, or you could have been cremated and put into a little cinerary urn. Yeah, the frescoes inside of these tombs are often an indication of elitism and wealth.
Dr Rad 47:13 Yeah.
Dr G 47:14 Not every tomb is so spectacular, but if you get to see some Etruscan tombs, I would recommend it, but in terms of grave goods, the thing that sort of tipped this example, so this is a tomb that's sitting between Veii and Rome in this early period is that there was one that contained an aes rude.
Dr Rad 47:36 I have no idea what that is.
Dr G 47:38 Well, an aes rude is like a precursor to currency.
Dr Rad 47:43 Ahhh.
Dr G 47:44 So Rome doesn't have currency yet. As far as we're aware, even though it keeps talking about, they keep talking about how much things are, but we're pretty sure they don't develop currency just yet.
Dr Rad 47:54 Yeah, I agree.
Dr G 47:55 But they do have what is proto currency, right? And it's these bronze, unstructured kind of shapes,
Dr Rad 48:04 Ooo like aes! Okay, yeah, okay, gotcha sorry.
Dr G 48:08 That's just my pronunciation.
Dr Rad 48:09 No, no, no, I'm visualizing it now, and I get where you're coming from. Yeah,
Dr G 48:12 They're kind of slightly rectangular, but they're also, they could kind of be any shape really, but they're not a coin.
Dr Rad 48:20 Yep.
Dr G 48:20 It's all done by weight, yes, of course. And so metal content, yeah, you slap down your bronze and you're like, What about some of this?
Dr Rad 48:28 Yeah, somebody's still in the Bronze Age, baby.
Dr G 48:32 Like, I'll give you 10 sacks of grain for it. So there is a trading proto currency happening. One of these is found in one of these Etruscan tombs.
Dr Rad 48:43 Okay, okay.
Dr G 48:44 but they're thought to be distinctly Roman-Latin in its sort of origin. The other thing that's happening is that we've got defensive locations that they've found, yeah, which appear to be on Veii's side of the Tiber.
Dr Rad 49:01 Ooh, okay.
Dr G 49:02 Yeah, so Rome's on the south side of the river, Veii's on the north side. Veii's already in the more strategic position, if you like, because they could just hop in the river and float down following the current. Rome can't be happy about this.
Dr Rad 49:17 Row, row, row, your boat.
Dr G 49:19 Yeah, for Rome to go up the river – mission.
Dr Rad 49:22 Yeah.
Dr G 49:22 For Veii, they're just like, chilling out,
Dr Rad 49:24 yeah,
Dr G 49:25 On their floating device.
Dr Rad 49:26 This is why the Romans are so agitated.
Dr G 49:28 Possibly – a little bit angry. But on this north side of the Tiber, there's a couple of spots where there's really clear defensive locations that date from this sort of sixth to fourth century BCE. One of them's at a place called Colle Santa Agata, which, if you're in Rome for the Romans listening, is now where the San Filippo Neri Hospital is.
Dr Rad 49:52 Okay.
Dr G 49:53 Must be on the top of a hill.
Dr Rad 49:54 Note to self, yeah.
Dr G 49:56 And another spot called Acquafredda, which is near. The Università Europea di Roma and the so both of these are on hills. They've got like a defensive wall, and they've also got some rudimentary substructures of drainage, interesting. So there's ditches and moats and things like, yeah, so using the hill as a bit of it's like a hill fort situation, yeah.
Dr Rad 50:19 Okay. So basically, the archeology supports this idea that Rome and they were in conflict at around this time.
Dr G 50:28 Definitely that there is a sense in which there's a defensive policy coming from Veii, and that is presumably in response to the offensive stuff that is coming from Rome.
Dr Rad 50:43 Always thought Rome spews out offensive stuff.
Dr G 50:45 And the other thing that we see in the archeology from this period is that there tends to be a cluster of sort of farms around the edges of the salt flats, which will ultimately become Ostia.
Dr Rad 51:01 Right.
Dr G 51:02 So they is already in control of that area, it would seem.
Dr Rad 51:05 Hoo. No wonder Rome wants to get their hands on it.
Dr G 51:07 Rome is itching.
Dr Rad 51:09 Yeah.
Dr G 51:09 Itching, they're feeling salty.
Dr Rad 51:11 Think of all those fish you can salt with that.
Dr G 51:15 Exactly, yeah. And so lots of defensive structures in places today, known as Malagrotta and Monte Stallonara,
Dr Rad 51:25 Okay.
Dr G 51:26 Which, again, that's for the Roman listeners.
Dr Rad 51:28 Yeah, so many of you.
Dr G 51:30 Get out your Maps. Google it.
Dr Rad 51:34 Ciao, Antonio Lara,
Dr G 51:36 So yeah, there is this sense in which Veii is doing a whole bunch of things in this point in time, and over the over those centuries, getting more defensive, and Rome probably becoming more offensive in response, or, you know.
Dr Rad 51:50 Sorry, it's never gonna stop amusing me that you call Rome so offensive.
Dr G 51:52 So offensive.
Dr Rad 51:53 So offensive.
Dr G 51:57 And I think that's, that's my contribution to this episode.
Dr Rad 52:00 That's an amazing contribution, because archeology is just so not my strong point. And also, you know, knowing where things are in Sydney is challenging enough for me. Rome is a whole other level.
Dr G 52:12 I did have to do some like, specific mapping exercises to try and figure out where things were.
Dr Rad 52:18 Yeah, anybody who knows me knows that I get lost going to places I go literally all the time. So out of the two of us, I'm glad that was you. I was just proud of myself for actually having a map this time. I was going to say that was very impressive. I know, I know. Thank you very much, Guy Bradley, fabulous, fabulous map. Anyway, well, Dr. G, I think that's probably a good time for us to wrap up. You know what? Turns out, I lied. I think we're going to need another episode for 401. And therefore it is time for the Partial Pick. All right, Dr. G, the Partial Pick is where we assess Rome's performance and what can they win in return?
Dr G 53:03 Can they get 50 golden eagles? Let's find out together.
Dr Rad 53:08 Let's find out. What's our first category?
Dr G 53:10 Military Clout.
Dr Rad 53:12 Who That's rough. I feel like it's a zero.
Dr G 53:15 They lost Anxur.
Dr Rad 53:16 Can we take off points that we given them previously?
Dr G 53:19 I don't think so. Sadly, that is a horrible way to mark. I refuse to do it. They lose Anxur. That's a problem.
Dr Rad 53:29 That is a problem.
Dr G 53:29 They don't support their own troops when they clearly need help, even though somebody didn't ask for help.
Dr Rad 53:36 Yeah, such a mess. Like step up, such a mess.
Dr G 53:41 We have Romans running away from a siege.
Dr Rad 53:44 Well, I mean, if they didn't, they were getting, yeah, they were going to get killed. Yeah, it is quite clear that that is what is going to happen.
Dr G 53:52 Yeah, problems, I think zero. I agree.
Dr Rad 53:54 Yeah. Okay, what's our next category?
Dr G 53:57 Diplomacy.
Dr Rad 54:00 I feel like, no, there's, there's just no, there's not even internal diplomacy, if there is such a thing, that there is not.
Dr G 54:05 There is not.
Dr Rad 54:06 No.
Dr G 54:06 Expansion?
Dr Rad 54:08 Definitely not. They've again, gone backwards.
Dr G 54:11 This is awkward.
Dr Rad 54:12 Oh my god, honestly, it does when you, when you do things like this, year by year, like episode by episode, it really makes you realize, how the hell did they ever get an empire?
Dr G 54:22 I mean, I have questions, because we're zero of three. We've only got two categories. Could this be the episode where Rome gets zero?
Dr Rad 54:34 You know what? The only consolation I can give them, if that is where we're heading, is that it's probably a made up year anyway, like, Livy's probably padding the narrative. I mean, like, obviously 402, existed, but whether it existed it, you know, in this way, in this way, that's the question.
Dr G 54:51 We've got questions.
Dr Rad 54:52 We do.
Dr G 54:53 Virtus?
Dr Rad 54:54 Nope, no, again, it's like the reverse of virtus.
Dr G 54:58 We've done a reverse Uno on virtus for this year.
Dr Rad 55:01 Yeah.
Dr G 55:02 And the citizen score?.
Dr Rad 55:05 I feel like it would be not great, I mean…
Dr G 55:07 It can't have been great, can it? Because, I mean, first of all, you've got the Romans who were sick in Anxur, and they get killed just for being there.
Dr Rad 55:14 And they've only been there for, I actually checked it was 406, that they took Anxur, so they've been there for a few years, that's it.
Dr G 55:21 Okay.
Dr Rad 55:21 Yeah, and that's if the chronology is right, it might be, like, it might be the very next year that this happened. Who knows?
Dr G 55:27 So they've been sick for four years, yeah?
Dr Rad 55:31 Well, that's why I said to you, when you were like, are they injured? I'm like, I don't think so. It's been a few years now.
Dr G 55:36 But okay, so there's Romans living in Anxur at this point in time, and some of them are unwell. They don't make it out, and they get killed.
Dr Rad 55:42 Yeah.
Dr G 55:42 All right, so that's not great. That's not great for citizens. And then you've got what I feel like has been overlooked in this patrician back and forth, ambitious, I'm I'm so good, blah, blah, blah, if he doesn't ask for help, I'm not helping him.
Dr Rad 55:58 Yeah.
Dr G 55:58 Well, it's plebeians out there getting killed on the battlefield.
Dr Rad 56:01 Absolutely, yeah, so I think it's zero.
Dr G 56:01 {coughing}
Dr Rad 56:06 You're choking, choking in your glee, my goodness. Well, there you go. It's possible that the greatest civilization so great that men think about it every day, multiple times a day, got zero for being a total loser in 402 BCE
Dr G 56:32 Oh, well, that takes the cake.
Dr Rad 56:35 Look, I think that again, I'm gonna silver lining this situation. If this teaches us nothing else. It's that there is a point to taking off your shoes at the airport. That's all I take away from this.
Dr G 56:46 Yeah, well someone has to uphold security.
Dr Rad 56:48 Oh, and then, okay, wait, wait, here we go. After school special, here it goes. You need to learn to ask for help when you need it. Dr, G.
Dr G 56:56 Ooo, it's not a sign of weakness.
Dr Rad 57:01 It is not a sign of weakness, although, in this particular case, militarily, I guess it kind of was, but, well, no, I mean, I mean, like, as in, you know, Rome wasn't doing so hot, but they had reinforcements there. So, like, they weren't, like, permanently weak, but yeah, certainly in terms of individuals, you know, got to step up and acknowledge I need help.
Dr G 57:23 Well, and look, and all I can say is, I hope it gets better from here, because this is a real low point for Rome.
Dr Rad 57:29 You know, look, I feel like there must have been probably another year where this happened, but I can't think of it off top of my head. So I'm gonna go and have to check
Dr G 57:36 I was gonna say I don't recall. But, you know, we've done so many episodes now that may be bound to maybe my memory is on the fritz as well.
Dr Rad 57:43 Yeah, I feel like it's bound to happen at some point. But, yeah, it's been a long time since we've had an actual zero across the board. Oh Rome.
Dr G 57:50 Goodness me.
Dr Rad 57:52 Thank god I know that 401 has some stuff in it, or this would be a very depressing All right. Dr, G, lovely. Chatting to you as always.
Dr G 58:02 Yes, a pleasure. Until next time.
Dr Rad 58:04 Can I ask? Can you help me to pack up this podcasting equip?
Dr G 58:10 I certainly can.
Dr Rad 58:11 Thank you.
Dr G 58:14 Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Partial Historians. On behalf of Dr Rad and myself, we want to say a huge, huge thank you to all of you for enjoying Ancient Rome with us, and a special thank you to our Patreon supporters for loving the show and enabling us to do amazing things like upgrade our audio equipment. So thank you so so much and have a great day.
Special Episode - Ovid's Metamorphoses with Professor Stephanie McCarter
06 juin 2024
01:05:59
It is not often that we get to say that there is a new translation of a classical text that has taken the world by storm. But that was exactly what happened when Professor Stephanie McCarter released her 2022 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. We were honoured that Professor McCarter agreed to talk to us about the mysterious Ovid and her process of translation.
Stephanie McCarter is currently a Professor of Classics at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She published a monograph entitled Horace between Freedom and Slavery: The First Book of Epistles in 2015 and a translation of Horace’s Epodes, Odes and Carmen Saeculare in 2020.
We would like to warn our listeners that this episode will touch on instances of violence and sexual assault. This is not one to listen to with the kids in the car.
Special Episode – Ovid's Metamorphoses with Professor Stephanie McCarter
Who was Ovid?
Ovid is one of our favourite Latin poets over at the Partial Historians. This is partially due to his work, which can be touching but also highly comedic. However, it is also because Ovid himself is hard to figure out.
He lived and worked during the reign of Augustus but claimed to have been exiled in approximately 8 CE. Academics are still trying to figure out what Ovid did that was so terrible… or whether he was making it up entirely!
Whatever he was up to, Ovid’s back catalogue is pretty impressive. He composed the Amores, the Heroides, the Fasti, the Ars amatoria, and his masterpiece, the Metamorphoses.
Translating Ovid for the 21st Century
Translation is an immensely difficult and often underappreciated task. We don’t mean getting out your dictionary and figuring out a passage here and there. We delve into the technique of translating an entire work, trying to make it accessible and enjoyable for a new generation, whilst staying true to the voice of the original author. Whew! What an undertaking.
Professor McCarter’s translation of the Metamorphoses is the first English translation of the work by a woman in many decades and it seems to have struck a nerve. There are many episodes of sexual violence in this work that have been softened or glossed over in previous translations. McCarter’s work aims to be more accurate and direct in the language, not shying away from the troubling aspects of these myths. This has allowed themes to emerge more clearly from text.
It was a delight to talk to someone as passionate and dedicated to their work as Professor McCarter. Her work highlights the way that translations often reflect the values of their creator and their context, hence the need for fresh interpretations.
The uterus and double helix cleverly woven into the mind-blowing cover art for McCarter’s book by Aiko Tezuka
Professor McCarter makes reference to concordances as part of her process. These are essentially word indexes – very handy tools for translators!
Exciting news about McCarter’s next projects!
Sound Credits
Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.
Automated Transcript
Generated by Otter AI.
Dr Rad 00:15
Welcome to the partial historians,
Dr G 00:18
we explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 00:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad. And
Dr G 00:33
I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad 00:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of this city. Hello, and welcome to a special episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad,
Dr G 01:06
and I'm Dr. G.
Dr Rad 01:09
Now, Dr. G, you know that I break out in a cold sweat at the thought of translating anything. It's
Dr G 01:16
true. I think I do as well at this point, I feel Yeah. So I'm
Dr Rad 01:20
super excited to have an expert in translation on our show. Today, we are going to be chatting to Stephanie McCarter, who is currently a Professor of Classics at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She published a monograph entitled horrors between freedom and slavery, the first book of epistles in 2015, and a translation of Horace's oppose, owed and calm and secular era in 2020. However, she has recently been spending more time with a man named of it, her 2022 translation of his Metamorphoses has received much acclaim, and this is what we will be focusing on today. However, before we start, we would like to warn our listeners that this episode will touch on instances of violence and sexual assault. Welcome, Stephanie
Stephanie McCarter 02:25
Thank you so much. This is this is a great treat. I'm super excited to be on this particular podcast because I spend so much time in Australia, my husband's and Aussie. So I sometimes try to my kids are all these. So this is exciting. It
Dr Rad 02:42
is very exciting for us to have you on the show and to talk about this particular translation. But before we get into the actual translating stuff, just so I can, you know, ease myself into it, not have too many nightmares. Let's start with a brief biography of of it, who is this guy? Well,
Stephanie McCarter 03:01
he is who he we think if he was who he would like us to believe he is. So most of what we know from him comes from his own poetry, we know very little about him outside of that. And you know, part of constructing his biography means picking and choosing the bits you want to believe, right. But we in terms of who he is, we know he was the last of the major Agustin poets, who were living in writing during the rise and reign of Augustus, along with Virgil and then Horace I tend to think of Virgil, Horace and Ovid is the big three. We need to be really careful with what he tells us because most of it comes from one poem, trusty 410, which he writes when he's in exile, and he's clearly trying to frame himself in a particular kind of quasi heroic light. So it's hard to know what's poetic fiction and what is fact. He was born in Salmo Italy in 43 BCE, but a year after the assassination of Julius Caesar almost to the day, March 20. Caesar, of course, famously killed on the Ides of March. And so he was about 12 or so when I guess this came to power. So when he really came of age during guesses rise, and then he died about a year after Augustus. So his life really straddles this period of Rome's own metamorphosis, right from a Republic into an empire. And so I think that might be one reason he's interested in the idea of transformation because one of the things he brings out in the metamorphosis is how states transform. So I think some of this is tied into his own experience in Rome. Um, his family was equestrian so that he was not from a super elite family, but certainly wealthy enough to send him to be educated in Rome along with his brother, who died when he was young. He clearly He received a stellar oratorical education which he put to great use in the poem. But he ultimately decided not to embark on a career as a politician or an order, and he decided that poetry was where he wanted to proceed instead, we know that he married according to what he told us three times, the last marriage lasted for many years, he had a daughter and he was a grandpa to which we don't really think of all of it as you know, a grandpa. But he tells us that he was. And perhaps the biggest event in his life was his exile. This is the one that we are spilling a lot of ink over. He was exiled probably the same year that Metamorphoses was published the year eight, he tells us that he was exiled because of a carmen et error, or a poem and a mistake. Most people would agree the poem was the Ars amatoria. Cause you could very easily if you wanted to argue that that's a manual for picking up married women and adultery was a crime under Augustus. But he wasn't exiled until eight years later. So the mistake is probably what really got him exiled. Nobody knows what that was. We know he saw something. I don't speculate because I think that's playing of its game. He wants us to speculate and he's never gonna tell us and He wants us to keep talking about this for 2000 years. And he wrote many poems in exile wanting to be recalled to Rome wasn't and so died, still in exile in Thomas on the Black Sea. So that's a very quick overview of his of his life.
Dr Rad 06:40
I would just like to highlight for our listeners that it is Augustus Yes. Augustus who is responsible for keeping this poetic genius and
Stephanie McCarter 06:52
some people think it has It has been speculated that maybe he's making the entire thing up. Oh, scandal. I actually I'm quite drawn to I don't think that's necessarily true, but I like the idea that maybe he's just, yeah, this is a persona. I don't we don't really think he was a pickup artist, do we? Even though he purports to be in the mores and ours on materia so it's the kind of funny thought that maybe we've been speculating for about something that he just just saw.
Dr Rad 07:21
The biggest prank? Yeah, I do. I do enjoy visiting him as like a creepy grandpa type of guy, the one that tells all the inappropriate jokes, and it's like, hugely embarrassing.
Dr G 07:33
Absolutely, that would be for sure. Don't invite him to family lunch, just in case. So the metamorphoses is a hugely influential text through time, and partly because it's so mythologically based tales of the gods tales of mortals. These are the stories that really draw people in to the ancient world in many cases for the first time. But it's more than that. And I'm interested in your view about what is the metamorphoses about and you kind of touched on that idea of the transformation of Rome itself? And I'm wondering if there's other ways into the text that are like that, or build from there as well?
Stephanie McCarter 08:12
This is such a difficult question to even start to ponder, because I begin to think, what is it not about? Right? It's, you know, it is about everything from the creation of the universe to have its own day, this is what he tells us the various transformations that have happened throughout all time, right? And so transformation brings us does is it simple, you know, it's sort of most straightforward theme. He tells us in the opening line, he's going to talk about shapes changed, right? New Task formats, that's metamorphosis. But it's about so much more like what changes forms, right? That's the big question. It's time. So it's about time and its movement, power changes, forms, frequently in this poem, and also, so much of it just focused around the body, right? This the probably the most important word, and the opening poem is corpora, which is bodies, its shapes transformed into new bodies. And so you think that's weird, because it should be body's changed into new shapes? And so, you know, he invites you to ponder, you know, what is a body? What does that mean? So this is why you can kind of think of the universe is a body, the state is a body. And then, of course, we as humans having bodies that are really subject to change and transformation. So it's about you know, what does it mean to have a human body? What does it mean to exist in a world that it changes the language of the body? And, and then it also invites us to think about identity. So it's about that what is the relationship between a body and the identity that inhabits it? Right when the shape is changed into a new body? What happens to the being that inhabited the body to begin with? Is it lost? Okay? So yeah, it's about so many different things. It's about gender, right? There's and and the way that that might relate to a body, you have so many characters in this epic who transform in terms of gender, and you have a big focus on female characters as well. And so how does an epic itself transform? When you shift the focus on to women? Right, this is I think, something that Ovid is really interested in, you know, so many of the epics that we think of the need the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Odyssey opens with the word man, right? It is a male focused genre for sure. And so just by changing that, that focus, he transforms the genre in so many interesting ways. So I could go on forever about what the metamorphosis piece has been about. But I think maybe what it's fundamentally about is how the force of change and transformation then connects us in so many ways, right? How all these things are connected, and you can't stop change. And that's actually a pretty good thing.
Dr G 11:05
It does mean that there's a sense that the text resonates continuously through time, because change is the one thing that we always are feeling and understanding. And even though we might resist change, there's a real compulsion to try and understand it better. And I think of it has done something supremely clever by tapping into this as that thematic focus.
Stephanie McCarter 11:27
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, it means he can he can be changed to write his texts can be changed and transformed through translation through art through adaptation in ways that will make him stay relevant always. It
Dr Rad 11:44
is kind of ironic, isn't it? That change is a constant in all of our lives. How important would you say this text was in his own time? And then in subsequent centuries?
Stephanie McCarter 11:58
Oh, goodness, I mean, from the very beginning, it was, it was important. I mean, he you can't have any of the epics that follow in the wake of it without this text. You know, one of my favourite epics is Statius is the by it, I absolutely love it. But it wouldn't exist without all of it, and Virgil. And so he's sort of folding both of those epics into the by it, you see its influence in art pretty immediately because of I mean, the frescoes you see in Pompeii that are clearly based on all of its metamorphosis, not just in Pompeii, you see this across the ancient world. And then of course, in our own time, and we, you know, in the English speaking world, he has resonated across the centuries. I mean, you have Shakespeare's most famous play arguably is Romeo and Juliet, you wouldn't have that without of its pyramids and Thursby you wouldn't have huge chunks of Midsummer Night's Dream without pyramids and Thursby as well. You know, I'm thinking of in terms of art, famously, art of it has inspired more art than any text apart from the Bible, and continues to one of my favourite painters working right now is a woman named Elizabeth colomba, who very often works with Ovidian material. She has a fabulous painting of Daphne that's responding powerfully to Bernini's Daphne and Apollo sculpture. So I mean, in some ways, because of it is so malleable, we can use him as something of a mirror in which we can see our own literary and artistic tastes change and react to what went before. So we've been using him for so long, I'm thinking also of, you know, his influence on you know, operat his influence on the stage in general, his influence on so many rewritings of myth that are coming out right now, I mean, you wouldn't have Madeline Miller's Circe, without all of its Circe, for example, you know, Mary Zimmerman's play the metamorphoses I'm reading right now another new play at Polaroid stories by Naomi Iizuka. I'm sure, I may not be pronouncing her name correctly, but you know, there's so many wonderful theatrical productions of all of it. Yeah, he's everywhere. He's absolutely everywhere.
Dr Rad 14:24
It sounds good that we're talking about it, then if it's such a crucial text from the ancient world, I think this is
Dr G 14:29
the sort of thing as well, well, this is like a small anecdote, but I was out yesterday with some friends from a broader circle of people. And they were kind of like, well, what are you doing tomorrow? And I was like, oh, you know, I'm going to interview this wonderful academic about Ovid's Metamorphoses. And they're like, what's that? And I was like, You will be surprised about how much you have already engaged with his text through one of the variations and adaptations that have happened over time. And I was like, I went straight to Shakespeare and I was like, Look, and then we move out from I'm there. And I want to, first of all just stand in all of you for a moment, because translation is a gargantuan task. And I think the further we go through time, the more history we have of translation and engagement with ancient texts as well. So every scholar of each new generation who engages in translation kind of has this whole history of what has come before, in order to encounter all of that before they get to their own translation, and how they're going to position things. And not even all academics get the chance to really engage in in depth translation work. So I'm wondering if you can walk us a little bit through your process as a translator? Oh,
Stephanie McCarter 15:41
goodness, this is, it's a little tricky to explain. I love my new shop. I love working in minutiae. I've always liked that. And I always was drawn to poetry. And so even from the time I was in high school, I loved poetry as a sort of secret poetry nerd. And I had to leave a lot of the English poetry I really liked behind when I chose classics over English literature. And so I guess about in the summer of 2016, I just sat down and started translating, but I had no process, I had no idea what I was doing. Really, what it took for me was to figure out that I wanted to write formal poetry in translation. And that became a real guide and friend, to me, because like a lot of classes, I was not terribly good at literary translation, we tend to be trained to do a hyper literal kind of translation, that doesn't sound so great to somebody who's reading the text for its literary quality. So it just, it took me a long time to work out any kind of process at all. With this particular translation I translated it's in iambic pentameter, I made it my full time job, I actually lived in Australia for most of the time, I was translating the initial draft of this, we were in Brisbane for the year. And, you know, woke up every day nine to five translating into iambic pentameter, so much that I started thinking. And then I, it took me several years to get the draft complete. A lot of that was due to COVID. And having two small kids. And then I one thing I always do, once I have a translation, as I always teach it, because I want to see how it goes with my students and how they react to it, where things are not working for them. And so I taught it. In a class, I was teaching on women's adaptation of Ovid, and they gave me great feedback. And then I spent months revising, and revising and revising and revising. But yeah, it's very mature. It's a meticulous process. So I'm sitting down with, I don't feel like translation for me is like a process of being inspired or anything like that. I'm using commentaries, I was having a conversation with somebody the other day about how I love concordances. I don't know if you know what concordance is, are, but they're the most boring possible, but so good. It's wonderful. Like, it's like every time, you know, an ancient author. So I was talking about my Horace concordance, and how much I loved it. But you know, you can Look up every time he uses the word good. Yeah. It'll tell you everywhere. So when it's really old fashioned kind of tools, like commentaries, dictionaries, concordances, spreading them all around and turning yourself into a bit of a, you know, maniac for buy, but I
Dr G 18:41
kind of love this. There's like the word nerd comes out, like, yeah, Look at this, and then it appeared here, and then it didn't appear for another 50 years, like what's going on? It must be special.
Stephanie McCarter 18:53
What? That's true. And so then how do you translate that word? That is a weird word that Ovid only uses? Once right? Then you have to reach for a weird word in English that that works there. So you know, just getting yourself into that space where you're kind of inhabiting lots of different roles at once it strangely so you're a scholar, right? You're using really scholarly tools where you've, you know, you're using your tools for literary criticism, so you're having to interpret the poem, always. And then you're also having to be an artist where you are trying to transform that into workable English literature. So it's a strange thing to try to do. But it's, I mean, it's I it's, it's a pleasurable thing. So I won't stop translating anytime they kind
Dr G 19:43
of love this as well, the idea of translation as another metamorphosis as well. I'm just going to put that out there. So are there particular translations that you that you that resonated for you when you were approaching your own translation?
Stephanie McCarter 19:56
Well, I think that I knew several of the translations pretty well. I mean, I've taught avid so many times over the years. And yeah, so I wouldn't say that I was committed to any translation I knew them. And because I had taught out of them so much I knew where the limitations of each one was, in the classes that I was teaching him in. It was mainly, I teach a course on women and gender in the ancient world. And then I teach another course on sexuality in the ancient world, so two separate courses. And then I also teach of it in like a Latin seminar where we are dissecting the Latin together very slowly. And so in the Women and Gender and Sexuality courses, I wasn't able to find translations that dealt with the aspects of sexual violence and what was going on in terms of gender in the body. I needed translations that brought those issues to the fore, and I just wasn't finding them. And then on the other hand, in my Latin seminars, I just wasn't finding translations that did poetically, what I needed them to do in order to teach the students who were dissecting the Latin and finding ways for them to see that reflected in the translations we were also looking at. So that meant that my goals became twofold. I really wanted to use a poetic translation. So this is, you know, formal poetry. It's iambic pentameter. I wanted it to be really success, like accessible rather, I, I tend to like poetry that is really accessible. And so my favourite poet is Philip Larkin. And he's, so straightaway, he's so accessible. And so much of the power of his poetry comes from its seeming simplicity of language. But then when you dig in, and you see how he's handling, metre, and alliteration, and all of these wonderful things, you can see it's artistry. And so it is, I think it's, it works, because it is so seemingly simple, but really artistically refined. And so I wanted to try to make something highly readable. But when you dug in, you can actually see the cool poetic stuff that Ovid is also doing. So you know, it's not hard to read, I don't think my translation I wanted to make something that you could read rather quickly, but then you can go in and it's okay, there's all this alliteration. Here's this enjambment. She's working with this Juras in the meeting, the line kind of like all of it is doing here's the reversal of this metrical foot that mimics what Ovid is doing. So that was one goal. So it's poetic readable. On the other hand, I want it to be really straightforward with with the sexual violence, and we've nothing ambiguous because it's not ambiguous in the Latin. And so I think a lot of that was me, being motivated through the feminist lens through which I had taught all of it for so long, and not wanting to know why I don't think that a lot of the previous translators were actively wanting to euphemized it, they just didn't have that goal. Right. It wasn't a goal that they had set out for themselves. And so they ended up you for maizing it for whatever reasons.
Dr Rad 23:09
Yeah, this is probably a great opportunity for us to delve in a little deeper and allow you to give us an example or two of how your new translation does allow for a more nuanced understanding of the meaning suggested by the Latin. So can you tell us a little bit about like one or two instances where you were, you know, meeting those goals about dealing with the sexual violence, you know, in a way that was probably needed in this sort of day and age, I suppose. Sure.
Stephanie McCarter 23:37
I mean, there are various ways in which this comes comes out, I think in the translation. First of all, I should say that it's an important thing Ovid wants us to wrestle with, right? I mean, he's really interested in the way power exerts itself on the body and causes it to transform. And I think he recognises that for for a lot of people. Rape is a transformative force that exerts itself on the body, and so it's part of the theme, and so you can't hide it. You shouldn't hide it, you shouldn't euphemized it, a lot of this is just in the link in the language he uses for rape. So, the basic word the Ovid uses to indicate rape is the Latin word for force, which is vis, V I S. and um this is a legal charge you could bring against somebody, and he uses two formulations of this one is to experience force that is, we would say, to be raped. The other word he uses is to inflict force, so when in theory, and that would be to rape they so there's no word in Latin that we can translate literally as to rape. I mean, this means only that and the way that the English word does, but his words are very clear he is clear Latin legal terms that would matter. add on to our word, or to rape and to be raped. So here's an example of that. This comes in Book Three. This is the mother of Narcissus. Her name is Liriope. She's a nymph. And obviously, he uses this formulation he at the river god Cessiphus inflicts force on her. So this is what we're, we're talking about, he raped her. I wanted to keep language of force in there because for me, it's really important to connect these things with other moments when Ovid discusses vis are force because it's not just rape, it's it's throughout the epic and it's just rape is one type of force that the Ovid designates with this term. They're all transformative. Right? So my translation says, kiss thesis once had trapped her there eIope in his curved stream and raped her forcibly is current snaring her. So I tried to use language so he raped her forcibly that's how I translated like he inflicted force. But also words that would suggest that this wasn't an embrace, right? He snake he ensnared her, he trapped her the word one word the Ovid uses in the Latin there is he wears it here implicavit, which means like, he entangled her right and, and then we have Yeah, vim tulit. So it is a very clear indication that he raped her. Some translations do this fine. David Rayburn, for example. He writes that the Cessiphus the river god caught her in the folds of His sinless stream, and then proceeded to rape. So it's clear right? Then you get other translators who are less less clear. So for example, we have Mandelbaum who says that within his waves he snared the Azure nymphs and had his way his way you're getting into very you can mystic territory with Yeah, then you get the one that is the most common way to translate a Ovidian rape and Humphries demonstrates this. This is Ralph embraces 1955. TRANSLATION were total denial of the river, the Liriope, whom the river guide Cessiphus embraced and ravished right in his and his watery dwelling, and you just get so many translations like that. So it's not about trapping, it's about embracing, and then ravishing, no longer means to re write when you can Look at the covers of a million romance book, not romance books, and they're gonna have the word ravish. in them. There's one I always show my students it's called ravish me completely or something like that you the in that way anymore. So to me, it just it becomes a comfortable way that translators can translate the language of rape without actually having to say, right, yeah,
Dr Rad 28:08
it's funny you say that because as soon as you said ravish, immediately, my mind went to a romance novel cover.
Stephanie McCarter 28:15
Absolutely. One thing I do all the time when I'm translating, I mean, all the time, several times a day is when I want to figure out what the nuances are of the words that I'm choosing. I'll go to Google Images and I'll type them in just to see what pops up. So if I want to avoid like language, that's too feminised thing or something for a character who's not in it's not in the Latin feminising language, I'll go type it in just to make sure. And so that brings me to a second way that I have tried to do things differently in my translation. And that is to avoid like gendering language when it's not present in the, in the Latin. So let me see if I can find an example of this. There's a couple of ways this happened. One is in the figure of Callisto, who you may know is a is a virginal Huntress who models herself on Diana and Diana is famously gender non conforming, right. And so Callisto also is gender non conforming in so many different ways. Not only is she taking part in masculine pursuits like hunting, she's also refusing to get married and have children she wants to say, a virgin forever so often describes her as as having messy hair. The Latin word is words are neglect toasts copy loose, so her neglected hair is really what this means. And the word copy loose with the word capillary from this, it has no gender connotation. She's just got neglected hair. So I translated this as messy hair. And I did a Google image search and I got lots of masculine presenting people and feminine in presenting people and I was like, okay, that works. When you Look at other translators, we have things like here's David Rayburn that she has loose, flowing tresses, right?
Dr G 30:12
Yes, men never dresses do they
Stephanie McCarter 30:16
never do. So if you go into Google Images and you type in loose flowing dresses, you're gonna get so many super feminine presenting hairstyles, right? So I was just being very careful with things like that. The way translate the body. What is this character wearing? If it's a female character R is her clothing. gender specific. Usually it's not so trying to avoid that it's very important for a character like Callisto. Right? Who doesn't embrace her femininity at all. She has no femininity to embrace. The other thing is little additions sometimes that translators will make. This is one I've talked about quite a lot. So Daphne's very similar to Callisto. She's a virginal Huntress. She wants to spend her time in the woods, and she actively rejects things that are associated with femininity, and Apollo attempts to rape her. Prior to this. He's looking at her body. And when he's looking at her, Ovid doesn't give her body any adjectives that would be feminising at all. He's just looking at her, her eyes and tells us that they gleaned it. They're kind of bright like stars. He mentions her lips, fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, so I didn't give them any adjectives. So I translated that as he sees her eyes gleaming like stars, her lips but those it's not enough to kiss to see. he marvelled at her fingers, her hands, her arms, her shoulders nearly bear the parts he cannot see he thinks are better. Other translators will add little things to end to feminise her. So for example, Ella Mandelbaum says that she has fingers hands and wrists that are unsurpassed. So he throws in an extra body part and gives it an adjective. David Weyburn says that he has that she has teasingly tempting lips, delicate fingers, shapely arms. And so it's just little things like that. That really does, they do make a huge difference. So it was not just the scenes involving the language of sexual violence, but also the way the bodies are described and the way that gender and sexualities are presented. I've
Dr Rad 32:36
just seen or the amount of effort that goes into this translation Sorry, I'm just like gobsmacked, I always suspected that this is what it was like. Hearing you talk about it, I won't even tell you how
Stephanie McCarter 32:46
many times translators mentioned breasts that are not there.
Dr G 32:51
I guess the temptation is real for some but so I think this is all really, really interesting, because it's allowing a way into the Latin through translation that maybe has not been available up until now. And part of this way of thinking about gender, I think, is also like, what sort of consciousness and experiences and ideas are translators bringing to the work that they do. And to segue slightly, you're the first woman to translate Ovid metamorphoses into English first in many, many years, there was Mary ins translation, which goes back to 1955. And more broadly speaking, how do you think your own perception and that you bring as a human being to translation? How do you think that has factored into the way you've approached this?
Stephanie McCarter 33:47
I think so much of this is to do with the fact that I teach young people who won't let me get away with anything else. I really think that that is what so much of it has boiled down to. There are, there are, there are women who translate who translate ancient texts all the time and replicate exactly some of these same things. So I don't and this is something Emily Wilson has talked about, as well. I think that one of the interviews she gave, I was just reading where she talks about, you know, she didn't arrive at her interpretations of these texts via the superpower of being a girl right?
Dr G 34:28
What No.
Stephanie McCarter 34:30
Women can women can replicate these these things as well. However, I think that for me, my own experiences, inhabiting my body and my identity as a woman, I think they have played in to my experience of the world that has led me to, to, to try to read and translate all that with a particular set of goals. Right. And so I just laid out clearly from the very beginning what my goals were. But so much of these goals have been formed by teaching young women, men, and I see what they go through in this world. And, and so there has been a real feeling of responsibility toward them. And so not just toward myself, but toward the young women who have had to live in a world that sees their bodies in certain ways that insists on seeing their bodies in certain ways that frames their experiences of coercion in certain ways. And, you know, I've been teaching women and men for, you know, it's awanee, for almost 16 years now, before that for a long time. And my motivations, were pretty much for my students and wanting to give them a text, no matter their gender, that would help them think more clearly about, you know, what is the relationship between their identities and their bodies? Like? What did you know? How can they see reflections in this text of what they're going through in this world, and I just felt they needed the tools to do that. And a really good, accurate translation that tried to capture those nuances was something I felt I could give to the young people who are going to be reading this epic, I hope for a long time to come.
Dr Rad 36:24
I think that's a really interesting thing. I think one of the things I like so much about your translation and reading about your translation is that you're not trying to hide your goals, as you say, you know, they're very much at the forefront. And I think I mean, personally, I believe that it's really hard for historians, Classicist translators to be completely objective when they're doing anything. And so I think being transparent about what it is you're trying to do with your work is important, because if you're not, it might lead people to maybe think that, you know, that you're maybe straying into the territory of say, inaccuracy, or something like that. But when you're when you're clear about, Look, this is what I'm trying to do. You know, I mean, they're you given some really great examples of where people you feel are being inaccurate to the Latin. But if you think about their context, it's probably their context that is leading them to make those choices, isn't it? Absolutely.
Stephanie McCarter 37:17
I mean, this is why I have felt fairly confident in calling it a feminist translation. Because I think that feminism has actually given me a modes and strategies through which to produce a more accurate translation. And I think that that inverts people's expectations in some way, we tend to think that a feminist translator is going to alter the text. But I think and again, this is something that Emily Wilson has also talked about, that a translator who is more kind of ideologically motivated, might better be better empowered to scrutinise their own biases in a way that a translator who automatically assumes that they, that they have no biases won't. Right. And, and I think that the to think of translation as ever being something we can do, completely, objectively is, is the kind of dangerous thing to do, right? We always need to recognise that any kind of interpretive framework is going to be shaped by culture, or whatever, we're gonna be able to exist outside of our culture and what we've, what we've learned, I think that what we should do is become not only good critics of ancient literary texts, but also good critics of our own culture, so that we can be aware of how we're being shaped by it. Oh,
Dr Rad 38:44
and you're juggling so many things when you're doing your translation that you're not necessarily doing when you're say, writing a history, which is not only being conscious of your own potential biases, but also the fact that you're juggling, as you said earlier, that artistic angle as well, you know, trying to translate that and it's a totally different language, you know, it's, yeah, it's just so many things you have to keep in so many balls in the air. That's
Stephanie McCarter 39:10
where the pleasure comes from. For me, it is the artistic process of translation, you know, so much. So much of my motive for doing this is, you know, to think about the themes of the gender and sexual violence and all of this, but on a day to day basis, I was wrestling with iambic pentamer.
Dr G 39:28
Like how am I gonna make this line work?
Stephanie McCarter 39:33
Why does it have to use this strange parenthesis here that sentence apart? You know, it's like you're
Dr G 39:38
ruining it for me over it's stuff that I think there's sort of like the technical elements of like playing with language because obviously, the way that Latin flows in its cadence is completely different from the way English operates. So the task is, is math to sort of go from the epic metre that of it is using one language to the kind of metre that works in English that is well established that people think of as naturally poetic and also mimicking natural a speech to a certain extent. Thinking about the modern reader of it, because I remember approaching of it for the first time in translation, and not being particularly enamoured of the text. And and I think so translation has a huge, influential role in the way that people get into texts like this. And for me, personally, the little historian inside me, I love the fastI because so it's packed with so much detail for the sorts of things I'm interested in, which means I haven't spent as much time with the metamorphoses. So what can modern readers gain from engaging with Ovid's Metamorphoses? Well, I think
Stephanie McCarter 40:49
for for any of his text, but especially the metamorphoses, I mean, the primary thing is going to be pleasure, right? He's a masterful storyteller. And probably, to my mind, some of his stories are the most delightful stories from the Roman world and the Greek world, you will read. And he's clever, right? His wordplay is something that drove me completely bonkers trying to reproduce, that's again, part of the pleasure. So so much of it is just going to be the sheer pleasure. We love stories, we love old stories we love. We love seeing that the playfulness with which all of it tells them and in those strange, inventive ways with which he connects them. So just the sheer joy of reading that. But I think probably more than in any other ancient work, we can think with all of it. I think he, he also, he challenges us continually across the ages, because they're always going to appeal no matter what the age is, that's reading them to the sense of abilities of that age, because he is so malleable. And so I think for some of my students, it's so shocking, that they will read this ancient text and you know, he has transgender characters, right? He has characters who are non binary, I mean, so explicitly, so if an incident can see that we haven't just invented certain concerns, right, that these have been here, we've been thinking about these things for so long. And so I think for a reader coming to this text, just you'll be blown away by the fact that we have the word we are still in our most current discourse, part of a conversation that's been going on for 1000s of years. And I think you can really see that with all of it pretty much more than with anybody, because I mean, in some ways, Ovid is so interested in exploring the experiences of characters who aren't going to be the centre, right in other stories. So the other epics that we have in the ancient world, as I was saying, they have, you know, a male protagonist at the very centre, they have a clear goal. Oh, it isn't interested in any of that. There's no protagonist in this story. There's no clear goal. And the most interesting characters are women. And so he's going to constantly be saying, well, what if we don't turn the lens on and do this, but we turn the lens on the people, the women around him, right, and we see the story through their eyes. So we see this in the Heroides, right, which is a series of letters that are written by mythological women who are often very victimised by these male heroes. And so from the very beginning of his poetic output, he's interested in in thinking, Well, what if we told this story through this side character's point of view. And so I think he's very good. As a storyteller of reminding us that there are more than one ways to tell every story, there's so many ways you can tell the same story and every single character involved in any event is going to have their own version. So he helps us to resist the idea of the singular authoritative tale. And so that's so fun to think with he, he leaves open so many alternatives. And so I think this is one great reason we returned to him again and again, because we are doing the very sorts of rethinking reframing that he himself has modelled for us. You know, so one carrot. One reason I love Elizabeth Columba'swork so much. She's the painter that I mentioned before, is that she is taking off his stories, and in completely reframing them, I think, in a way that he would love right? So he gives us a death or he No, He gives us a Daphne who has been shot by Cupid's arrow. Well, Elizabeth colomba has her standing there with Cupid's arrow. And so anybody who's listening to this, just go do a Google Image Search for Elizabeth colomba has Daphne. And so I think that he has he models how to be playful with stories and how to, you know, to see ourselves as as part of an ongoing dialogue in ways that no other ancient author to my mind quite does.
Dr Rad 45:12
You've definitely inspired me to spend the rest of the day perusing his work. Okay. So let me I have to finish off with another little peek behind the curtain in terms of this new translation. Because one of the things that struck me straight away when I first saw it was the cover art and the way that the text was formatted and that sort of thing. It just made me curious about how much input you actually had as to translate it into the publication and the formatting that went into this work and how you think the layout might affect the way that people engage with it. Sure,
Stephanie McCarter 45:47
I want to talk can I talk about the cover for a moment because I love I love I love the cover so much. I wish I were the person who would come up with the cover, but I am not. However, when I thought I was gleeful. What I told them was I didn't want an image of a woman being victimised on the cover. That was really important to me. Because again, it's how do we frame these stories becomes so important and so I wanted a way to frame it around women's agency rather than women's victimisation. So the one directive I gave to the art team at Penguin was I'm more interested in Philomela's Tapestry than her rape. And then they came back with this wonderful cover by it feature it features a tapestry by a Japanese artist, her name is Aiko, Tezuka. And she uses tapestry as a way to explore metamorphosis. So she'll often take old tapestries and weave them and re weave them, which is just wonderful for all of its perfect, perfect, and he uses tapestry so much is a metaphor. So his even from the very first lines of the epic, he asks the gods to spin out a song for him. And so it's a process of spinning, and he's going to weave it together. And then you have so many wonderful female artists in the epic. You have Philomela, who uses tapestry as a way to narrate her rape when she's lost her tongue because her rapist cuts it out. You have arachnid who weaves a tapestry in competition with Minerva, you have the mini ads, who are these wonderful set of sisters who tells stories while they're weaving. So it really I think it pits women's are in particular front and centre. And it's such an important theme. Because the colours are red and white. Those are the dominant colours on the cover. And those colours are so important throughout the metamorphoses, Philomela's Tapestry is red markings on a white background. And so that colour combination was important to me. As well, it doesn't Be sure its central myth, just as of its doesn't In fact, the middle is kind of wiped out by the and weaving of the tapestry that's happening. So it kind of shows you there is no central myth here that we're going to be dealing with. And also it features some wonderful modern images. There's like a DNA double helix. There's also a uterus, I don't know if you notice that
Dr Rad 48:20
there's a huge I do not see that.
Stephanie McCarter 48:24
So I like this idea of the undoing of the body that the cover kind of evokes. So I just I love the cover. So much. I can't even tell you how much. I just am so happy.
Dr Rad 48:35
It's gorgeous. It is gorgeous. Yeah, the formatting inside, it's
Stephanie McCarter 48:40
probably a bit different from us other translators of the Metamorphoses because it kind of sets each tale apart, like it separates them and gives each like its own big title, those big titles are invented by me. Those are not in the Latin text. And that's a little bit different. And on the one hand, it kind of breaks up the narrative in a way that maybe other translations don't. And, and I can see how some people might be frustrated with that I had no input into that. On the other hand, there's something really good about it and that I think it highlights stories that could easily get lost. I was talking with somebody I can't remember who who mentioned to me that they had never noticed that after Niobe's children are all killed. We are told that pilafs mourns for her. And pilafs is famously the victim of the gods as well he or sorry of his own father, he was kidnapped by his own father and has the average shoulder and he was said to the gods, and when the gods figured out what his father was up to, they put him back together. And so he, I don't know he's just it's an interesting moment where this character can find sympathy for now be he's the son of an impious father and she's an hurt impiety led to her own kids getting to destroyed, but he can find space in himself to sympathise with her. And in my version that set apart like it gets its own title Pelops mourns for Niobe. And this person mentioned to me they'd never even noticed it before until they read my translation. So maybe it does that formatting can highlight stories that can easily be lost otherwise. Well, in
Dr Rad 50:21
terms of what you said about your goal being accessibility, readability and also thinking about the fact that as you say, you use this text as a teacher, and therefore you kind of approach it, I think through a teacher's lens. I think it does assist people who are using it in an educational sense and might be wanting to dip in and out of it. So yeah, I must admit, I personally liked that aspect of it. Yeah. I'm
Stephanie McCarter 50:44
good. And some of my titles that I give the different episodes are very different from the way other people have entitled those episodes. So I think that the episode with Callisto I just simply call that story. Jove rapes Callisto. And other I know, at least one other translator calls it like Jove in Arcadia.
Dr G 51:08
Okay. Yeah.
Stephanie McCarter 51:12
So I was very influenced by feminist criticism of newspaper headlines that want people to say upfront exactly what has happened. And I have gotten a little bit of pushback by people saying, when you say rape, it implies the author is making a judgement. And I'm thinking to myself, well, he is clearly telling a story about rapes, if they were stories about murders, could I not use the word murder? Because that would imply a judgement? Yes,
Dr G 51:38
definitely. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it. And I think I found the Section Breaks really useful, actually. Because it does allow a sort of a bracketing off. And it can also, I think, be an overwhelming kind of text to approach. This is true for any epic, but when you see the translation that laid out on the page, and it's like, I think to myself, what's my commitment to getting through the text, you know, like, how long before I get a real break. And sometimes when you're thinking about something like the Aeneid, or we're thinking about the Odyssey, you're like, I got a whole book of poetry to get through before I get a break. And it's like, if I if I don't sit down and make a commitment, we are in trouble. Whereas this allows for a more sort of a dipping in moment, a dipping out moment. And so yesterday, I was sitting down, I was like, You know what I'm interested in how Medea's story is being told here. And so I could go to that section and go through that part. It's in specifics, and that would be obviously good for me to contextualise later by going out and looking at the whole book and doing that. So we had approach but he didn't have to read the whole book in order to get there, which I think was really handy.
Stephanie McCarter 52:48
That's good to know. I mean, sometimes you need to catch your breath to I mean, it gives you horrific things happen here, right? It gives you a moment to death.
Dr Rad 52:59
And let's face it, researches and historians, they don't always have the time to read an entire text just for the one reference that they really need. And so I'm really I'm really pulling back the veil here on what we do. Yeah, I mean, if you're given a deadline for an article or book or something like that, you know, you only have so much time and when you're looking at an epic text, you're like, oh my god, I just want this flooding reference. I hate this whole thing.
Stephanie McCarter 53:27
You know, having taught Ovid many times I can say I had never read the entire epic through before, of course I had and someone who sits down is even taller, but in poetry. So this is another reason to become a translator. It's going to compel you to read carefully, all the things translating Catullus right now and I realised as I'm going through like they were poems I know so well. I basically have them memorised. And there are some poems. I didn't even know this. So it's nice to be compelled to read more. Absolutely.
Dr Rad 53:57
That's that's exactly what we all do. Let's be real.
Dr G 54:02
So heading towards the wrapping up phase of this interview. I'm interested in rewarding or interesting reactions to your translation that have touched you.
Stephanie McCarter 54:14
I think the most touching one was the book was reviewed in the in the New Yorker by DANIEL MENDELSOHN, which was wonderful, shocking. I'm still in disbelief that it was reviewed there. This was a letter that came in to the New Yorker after Daniel Mendelssohn reviewed it and this anonymous letter writer writes, I appreciate it no Mendelssohn's consideration of Stephanie McCarter's new translation of all of its metamorphosis, which presents the sexual violence that appears in the poem clearly. I reread the metamorphosis earlier this year 19 years after I was raped during the summer of my high school graduation. After a decade of therapy, I was struck by avid sensitivity to the complex social and familial dynamics that follow in the wake of sexual violence. As in his poetry, victims aren't simply transformed into other bodies they are abandoned, exiled and sometimes punished. She goes on to talk about Medusa. Medusa story is especially illustrative after Neptune rapes her in the nervous temple, the goddess turns her hair into snakes and banishes her to the farthest corner of the world to live with the monstrous Gorgon sisters, all who Look upon her who witnessed her in shame turned to stone. I know this phenomenon well. I have felt isolated in my biological and chosen families and have lost friends and romantic relationships because I stopped pretending. Even briefly that nothing had happened to me. People often turn away from what they prefer not to see McCarter's translation with its attentiveness to these elements of its poem is a gift to those who are ready to reflect on their experiences as victims of and bystanders to rape. I hope that it helps people learn to talk about this trauma and softens hard hearts. So that having that letter published by The New Yorker and being able to read that was something I mean, I wept afterwards. That's good to say on tearing
Dr G 56:02
up just hearing that letter. That's
Dr Rad 56:06
really powerful. Yeah. So that was,
Stephanie McCarter 56:08
for me the most. Still the the I can read that and know that all the effort I put in was, without a doubt, or every
Dr Rad 56:20
bit of it. Well, I think it just goes to show that you have certainly reached those goals that you set for yourself at the beginning of the translation. And it's so touching for all of us who are involved in studying the ancient world to think about the power that an ancient texts can still have in somebody's life these days. Absolutely.
Stephanie McCarter 56:40
And I think a good translation does show you that, you know, all of it isn't. He's not revelling in these characters, victimhood, right. And he's, he's, he's very interested in, in analysing what they've gone through and their trauma and to, to see that happen across millennia, is, I think, quite powerful. And it's been very powerful for my students. And it's been very powerful for me personally, as well, to know that there is this connection there across time.
Dr Rad 57:08
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I've had a growing appreciation, I think, the translation and I hope that this particular episode, really highlights for our listeners in an age of increasing discussion of AI and Google Translate and those sorts of features. I think it just goes to show that these sorts of things really can't replicate what you do with a translator of any text. But I think, particularly these sorts of ancient texts, you have to become, as you say, so familiar with the metre, the person, you have to think about their context, your context, you have to think about how the audience is going to respond. There's just so much, and so much careful choice that goes into a translation. I mean, as I say, I'm always in awe of translators, because language never came easily to me. And once I, once I started looking into it, the more I learned about it, the more I was just utterly gobsmacked it, I think it's something that we sometimes take for granted that we can just have translations of things into the language that we want. But it's really not an easy task by any means.
Stephanie McCarter 58:09
Absolutely, which is why it's been so great for me to see more classical translators getting some recognition and attention. So there I am with you, for many years, I didn't I didn't think about them, I took them for granted until I became one. And now Now I, I really hope that the field will start to recognise translation a lot more, I'm hoping that, you know, I'm hoping that we're really embracing it. And not just, you know, popularly but also, you know, through things like tenure and promotion, which translation has not always counted towards. And
Dr G 58:43
I think this is incredible that this field that sits right at the heart of a lot of the ideas of the university as well in its sort of historical formation, that translation, still, in this modern era is not necessarily considered the kind of work output that is relevant for the discipline. And it's like, and it's so essential, so absolutely essential. Absolutely.
Stephanie McCarter 59:07
I think I think for so long, a lot of that is because we embrace the languages so much that if you know, to be a real classicist, you had to set up Greek and Latin, right? And rather than there being a group of Classicist who could produce translations so that these can be broadly accessible, right? Classes, classics has not always been a field that embraced accessibility. It embraced exclusivity. And I think that's played so much into the way that we think have thought historically about translation. And it's not unique to classics, but I think it's been especially prominent in the field of classics. Oh, Look,
Dr Rad 59:47
at USP, you're preaching to the converted, but the more I learned about translation, the more I was like, why would one person ever take this on? It's like, it's massive. You clearly need more than one brain working on this or you need here. Huge amounts of funding because the time that effort that goes into it is insane. I mean, this is the thing, when Dr. G and I are working on things sure, like if you know, if we sit down and really put our minds to it, we can do a translation. But is it going to be any good? Is it going to really capture what that person is released
Dr G 1:00:18
one episode every six months, maybe?
Dr Rad 1:00:22
Yeah, it's just, it's just like, oh my god, like, why would we even bother if we don't have expertise? Like we rely on people out there to produce really great translations, you know, who have given their heart and soul to it as you have, and who loves delving into the minutia. Because otherwise, as you say, it's just a literal translation of the Latin. And so yeah, I've often thought this is clearly something that calls for a group effort, rather than one person slaving away, you know, translating the text every, like 20 years when something's changed in the context, and we need to do translation.
Stephanie McCarter 1:00:58
But then there's so many texts that have no good translations like, yeah, at all. And I have been told I was told when I embarked on translation for the first time by a colleague not in classics, but in a different field. But in an r1 Institute. We in the US, ICANN R1 institution, so it's primarily research based university. So we wouldn't give you gratitude not tenure. For
Dr G 1:01:25
and I'll never forget this. So telling.
Stephanie McCarter 1:01:27
Telling, yes, absolutely. But I am lucky that I'm at a and I get I don't think that this phenomenon exists so much in Australia, but at a liberal arts college. And so we are dedicated teaching undergraduate students and have a very broad view of what contribution to the field looks like. And the stars on campus are the creative writers. So we have a great creative writing programme. We have the Swanee review, which is the oldest continuously published literary quarterly in the United States. The Sewanee writers come Conference, which is a few weeks every summer where I sort of hide in my office because all of these wonderful writers I'm intimidated by come to town. Oh, no,
Dr G 1:02:12
you'll have to be in there next. Come on.
Stephanie McCarter 1:02:16
This is this is what I realised that novelists weren't actually gods that they were real people. Just be walking around and I'd see some amazing novelists. So we have you know, our have been I've benefited enormously from the context of my institution, they've been very supportive. That
Dr Rad 1:02:33
is good to hear. And Look, we'd love to wrap up with a final question. Are you working on something new at the moment? Or are you taking a well deserved break by the sounds?
1:02:45
There's no well deserved break. So I have a few things. So I have a book book that's coming out in September, called women in power. It's also published by Penguin. And it is a it's kind of an anthology, not a source book, but an anthology about ancient women, both mythological and real. And so we have a variety of existing translations, and then some new translations, but the women that you can expect to read about are people like Dido and Hypsipyle, and Omphale, and Semiramis. So legendary women, I translated Aristophanes assembly women in full for that, which is a lot of fun. And we have historical women. So we have Boudicca, we have Alexandra Salome, we have Amanirenas, Queen of Kush, we have a wide array of real women and historical or and literary women. And then so that's coming out in September, I'm also translating khatola. So that will be at some stage.
Dr Rad 1:03:46
That'll be interesting, because he's language is certainly a feature.
Stephanie McCarter 1:03:51
Gonna be fun. And then I just signed a contract to translate the Ars amatoria, yes.
Dr G 1:03:57
Oh, this is gonna be very exciting.
1:04:01
I'm gonna be returning both to Ovid and to Australia, because I will be coming to spend another year to there in 2025 2026 to translate the Ars amatoria.
Dr G 1:04:11
I feel like we're gonna have to take a flight to Brisbane.
Dr Rad 1:04:14
I was gonna say I think if you're up for it, we'll have to do an in person episode on your latest work if you're up for it. That
Stephanie McCarter 1:04:21
sounds wonderful. You know, you could always twist my arm and get me to come down to Sydney. You're in Sydney says
Dr Rad 1:04:27
oh, sorry. Sure. Cool down here. Not today, but in general.
Dr G 1:04:33
Don't right now. This summer has been just moist and awful.
Dr Rad 1:04:39
Yeah, throughout the entire interview, I've been like dabbing my my heart and my athletic going. Oh my god. Oh, well, Professor Stephanie micarta. Thank you so much for your amazing translation and for speaking to us about it today. listeners. I'm sure you're all dying to run out and pick up a copy of the gorgeously A decorated of his Metamorphoses for yourself. Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes at WWW dot partial historians.com. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman, you too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes, just like this one. You can also pre order our new book right now. Your cheeky guide to the Roman Empire will be out later this year. However, if you lost all your money betting on a chariot race, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. Until next time, yeah yours in ancient room
It is 403 BCE and we’re about to be blinded by some rhetorical fireworks. The situation between Rome and Veii is getting more serious.
Episode 150 – Rhetorical Fireworks
We've Got Chills, They're Speechifying!
As the Romans prepare for a long siege, the suggestion was casually made that the soldiers will need to remain in winter quarters. The Romans were not used to being in the field this long and the tribunes of the plebeians were immediately suspicious. Is this why military pay had just been introduced? To distract the people whilst forcing them to live in a state of slavery? Outrageous. Nonetheless, this is what the plebeians get when they keep electing patricians into office.
One of the military tribunes decides to hit back at the tribunes with their own epic speech. Who better for the task than the uber-patrician Appius Claudius? Let's watch those rhetorical fireworks fly!
Appius’ speech, with its’ mixture of conservatism and logic, is so effective that he wins some of the people over. As everything hangs in the balance, word reaches Rome of a serious setback at Veii. A sneaky night attack led to all the Roman siege equipment being destroyed by fire and some of the soldiers had died trying to extinguish the blaze.
Aule Metele (The Orator). A hollow-cast bronze showing an Etruscan male known as Aulus Metellus or Aule Metele in Roman-style clothing, dated to early 1st century BCE.. While this figure is not from our time period, the combination of Etruscan and Roman culture and the speechifying aspect of this statue seemed appropriate! Courtesy of https://www.collegesidekick.com/study-guides/boundless-arthistory/later-etruscan-art
This disaster tips the balance in favour of Appius’ arguments. Patricians and plebeians put their differences aside so that they could focus on the war effort. Those Etruscans were asking for it!
The senate no longer had to worry about whether the people were on board regarding winter service. Romans from various backgrounds were throwing themselves at the senate, begging to be allowed to go to war.
Who knew that war could make people so happy? That’s the Romans for you!
Please Sir. I Want Some… More?!
Camillus, one of the Furii clan, makes his debut in this year as one of the censors. In order to pay for some of these new expenses, the censors introduced some new taxes on unmarried men and …orphans. Way to be harsh, Rome!
Our Players 403 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
M’. Aemilius Mam. f. M. n. Mamercinus (or Mamercus) (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c. p. 405, 401
L. Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c. p. 414, 406, 401, 398
Ap. Claudius P. f. Ap. n. Crassus Inregillensis (Pat) Cos. 349 ?
M. Quinctilius L. f. L. n. Varus (Pat)
L. Iulius Sp.? f. Vopisci? n. Iullus (Pat)
M. Furius – f. – n. Fusus (Pat)
? M. Postumius (Pat)
? M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381
? M. Postumius A. f. A. n. Albinus Regillensis (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 426
Censors
M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381
M. Postumius A. f. A. n. Albinus Regillensis (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 426
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy, ab Urbe Condita, 5.1-5.7.
Dr G reads Plutarch, Life of Camillus, 1-3; Valerius Maximus 2.9.1; Diodorus Siculus, 14.35.1.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Dr Rad: Everything from the political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other.
Dr Rad: I’m Dr Rad.
Dr G: And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.
Dr Rad: Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr Rad 0:32 Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historian's. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad.
Dr G 0:41 And I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 0:44 So exciting Dr. G, because we are in yet another new recording setup.
Dr G 0:51 Oh yeah, this is very exciting, dear listeners, through the valued support of our honoured patrons, we've been able to purchase some slightly upgraded microphones, hello,
Dr Rad 1:04 I know and a mixer and everything.
Dr G 1:07 I'm feeling like a genuine sound engineer who does not know what they're doing.
Dr Rad 1:11 I Look at probably sounds crazy to you that we didn't have these things before. But hey, you know podcasting on a shoestring. And to be honest, it's also been very much affected by the fact that I have moved so many times that we needed to keep changing our microphones. Somewhere I was living about
Dr G 1:28 changing our setup every year or so trying to figure out what would work in what space? Yes,
Dr Rad 1:33 exactly. We're
Dr G 1:34 pretty excited for this.
Dr Rad 1:35 We are hoping that this is the sound
Dr G 1:38 to
Dr Rad 1:42 insert one of our high quality free sound effects you
Dr G 1:45 Oh, I'm gonna keep the vocal.
Dr Rad 1:48 But that is not the only thing that is new in our life at the moment. Dr. G. From these microphones.
Dr G 1:53 I'm so excited. We are absolutely thrilled to announce our upcoming new book. I know we never thought we'd write another book again.
Dr Rad 2:08 We really didn't. Particularly Not so soon.
Dr G 2:13 But we were absolutely floored to be approached by Ulysses press. Yes. And they are really interested in ancient Rome, but like with a bit of fun involved and a little bit of like, new Greatest Hits elements. And we were like very happy to provide that were like there are so many Greatest Hits when it comes to ancient Rome. Yes.
Dr Rad 2:38 So we are currently in the editing phase with this particular book. It will be out in November of this year, but you can pre order it now. It will be a little bit different to Rex in that we are going to be taking a slightly more populous turn, I'm going to say in a very wanqi way.
Dr G 3:01 What that means what that translates to is less footnotes yes, maybe no footnotes, more jokes,
Dr Rad 3:07 More drag race references that I'm sneaking in. Even if Dr G begs me not to,
Dr G 3:13 I can assure you that there are some Monty Python puns and references. So I'm excited for that.
Dr Rad 3:20 Yeah. So basically, it's us doing what we've always done, which is taking academic material, thank you academics, and translating it into something really fun and a little bit lighter to read so that if you're going on a holiday and you want some Roman history, you don't have to take every volume of Edward Gibbon with you.
Dr G 3:40 Well, that's gonna free up some space in the old luggage to
Dr Rad 3:43 ducted Gee, can you tell us just to give them a bit of a taste? What are some of our sections in the book?
Dr G 3:50 Oh goodness. All right now. So thinking about some of the sections of the book, we went for puns all the way down. Yeah, in chapter titles.
Dr Rad 3:59 I can't help myself when it comes to my one true gift and
Dr G 4:05 the one that I'm working on at the moment is Better Call Sulla. Oh, which I quite
Dr Rad 4:12 like I do like that one. And that was actually all you.
Dr G 4:15 Why, thank you. But you've got some great ones. Deadtime Stories.
Dr Rad 4:20 That is one of the sections where you will find stories of Notable deaths in ancient Rome. I did also like your ‘Animal Tales'. Wink Wink.
Dr G 4:30 and ‘We built this city on rock and roads.'
Dr Rad 4:33 They certainly did. To be honest, that's not a pun. That's just true.
Dr G 4:37 It's just the literal truth. It's not my fault. Somebody wrote a song about it.
Dr Rad 4:40 Yeah. So if that sounds like your cup of tea, please jump on and preorder now because I suspect that the more pre orders they are, the more our publishers will think yes, we need more of this kind of stuff. We want to commission more books.
Dr G 4:55 And I think this is the thing with modern publishing as well like pre orders do count. We're a lot of the sort of hyping up of something as well. So if you're interested and you enjoy our podcast, and especially if you enjoyed Rex, I think because this will give you a sense of comparison between the different styles that these kinds of writing of history could take. Because they're quite they're our personalities, I think, are going to come through and shine through really strongly. In both books, yeah. But like the way that they're laid out, and the way that they do the history is going to probably Look like a little bit different. So I think that's really interesting as well. Yeah. What I would say I
Dr Rad 5:36 agree. And because this is written in a series of short stories, I suppose that's really what it is kind of like short stories, and trivia and that kind of thing from ancient Rome. There's just huge diversity there, not too long. And it really is one of those things where you can just dive in and dive out, you know, you don't have to sit there and read the whole book in one sitting in order to understand it by what I know. Although you will, of course, miss the cumulative effect of my drag race-themed references.
Dr G 6:06 And we wouldn't recommend missing that.
Dr Rad 6:08 Exactly. But yeah, it is one of those things where you could definitely, you know, take a chapter for a class, not one of the
Dr G 6:16 I guess it depends on the school's policy. Well, yes. I
Dr Rad 6:18 mean, we do have a chapter on phalluses Whoa,
Dr G 6:21 you've let the cat out of the bag. I
Dr Rad 6:24 know. But you know what, I figured it was gonna happen anyway, with a phallic Thursday. So why not do it now? Because today will be a Thursday by the time we released this episode. That is our choice. That is That's
Dr G 6:35 true. Yeah. All right. All right. So without further ado,
Dr Rad 6:39 let's do it. Okay. So Dr. G, we normally don't spruik our book, we normally talk about ancient Roman history. We go at a snail's pace.
Dr G 6:51 We are trying to win the award for the longest ever undertaking of Roman history on
Dr Rad 6:56 important. Yeah, I think we can do it. I mean, you know,
Dr G 7:00 I know that we ain't got no rivals right now. Everybody
Dr Rad 7:01 else has already finished. Exactly. And when you go to your lab section in your library, and you see all the volumes of liquor, you think, wow, that's long.
Dr G 7:11 Just you wait, and you're up to book five.
Dr Rad 7:15 Not finished it just up to it. Yeah, yeah. All right. So we're talking about early Republican history, we last time, we actually covered a couple of years because there wasn't a huge amount going on. But certainly, Rome was at war. They
Dr G 7:30 were and you know, I've had it a dearth of sources for quite some time now. And I've really just got like place names, hints and tips about where Rome might have been having some like military dissatisfaction or satisfaction, depending on the day
Dr Rad 7:47 Miliatry dissatisfaction. I like that way of saying war. Yes, well, last time, we were setting up the siege they, which we know is going to be something that's ongoing and long. But we also were dealing with warfare against the Volscians. Good old Volscians. Yeah.
Dr G 8:08 What are those classic ongoing nemeses of Rome. Yes,
Dr Rad 8:12 exactly. And they actually had a bit of a victory against the Volscians thanks to a treacherous slaved. Can't get good help these days.
Dr G 8:22 Servilius Romanus so I believe his name was That's correct
Dr Rad 8:25 that well, that's the name. He was given a course after he turned coat.
Dr G 8:29 And what do you think he was called before he got that name all the way to
Dr Rad 8:35 Loyalest Mostest.
Dr G 8:38 Shining Star of the Volscii I tried,
Dr Rad 8:42 He was the best slave they ever had. But anyway, so they had some victories, which was good, because you know, the situation at bay, it's just kind of a bit of a standstill, if I'm honest. But we did also even a little bit before that something which I think is going to be significant to recap, we've been dealing with the issue of military paid Dr G.
Dr G 9:00 Ah yes. Yeah. Look, Livy's seems to suggest that, what 406 is the first year where military pay gets introduced, but we're pretty sure that's just a sort of a hint of maybe the professionalisation of the army that will come much later. Yeah. This seems to be a bit of a one off, maybe based on circumstance. Yes.
Dr Rad 9:21 And I think that's very much tied up with the situation out there. And since that's our focus today, I thought I'd better mention that, because we went through the whole backstory. If you want to hear more about it, please go and check out our episode on 406 BCE to hear all the details. But certainly there's a lot of debate about actually what was going on why it was introduced, was it introduced? What form did it take? They're just questions that are unanswered, where does the money come from? Other than money. So I definitely suggest checking out that episode if you want the full backstory. But with that being said, Dr. G, I think it's time to dive into 403 BCE.
You can't see us right now listeners, but we always do wavy arms when that happens
Dr G 10:29 we insert music later in post.
Dr Rad 10:31 And we have to remind ourselves by doing the way. All right Dr. G. Now I'm guessing that Dionysius is still keeping his distance from you now,
Dr G 10:41 How dare he, I'm so sad.
Dr Rad 10:44 He's the first man that I've known who's able to keep away from you.
Dr G 10:47 I do have some very exciting news though.
Dr Rad 10:50 What is that?
Dr G 10:51 I do have a new source
Dr Rad 10:54 Is it Valerius Maximus.
Dr G 10:55 Yes. And
Dr Rad 10:59 Feel like I'm in improvisation here. What's your other source?
Dr G 11:05 Plutarch, – gasp – I know.!
Dr Rad 11:08 Of course, Plutarch, dammit, I knew that.
Dr G 11:13 I was like, filler respects was How did she know
Dr Rad 11:15 that exciting stuff. That is exciting stuff. But Look, even though you have Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus and therefore actually out-source me. I'm still gonna let you do the magistrates, because I feel like it's kind of become your thing.
Dr G 11:29 And also, like, as fair warning, neither of the sources that I have annalistic in nature.
Dr Rad 11:35 Well, I had a feeling .
Dr G 11:36 it's all over the shop. So alright, so military tributes with continental power is the name of the game for 403. Is
Dr Rad 11:43 it just I feel like there are a lot of people. There
Dr G 11:47 are many, many people. At the very least there are six and at the very most possible nine. Wow. Yeah, just madness. Well, you know, there
Dr Rad 11:57 is a lot of conflict going on right now. Well, yeah. And even they insist on telling us that it's not because of that. I feel like it is because there's definitely something going there's nothing going on.
Dr G 12:07 There's a bit of bloating at the top at this point. Six military tribunes It's a lot. So we have Manius Aemilius Mamercinus.
Dr Rad 12:17 A name i know well.
Dr G 12:18 or Mamercus. Nobody sure about that one. Yeah. He was previously consul in 410. Yes. And was also a military tribune with consular power in 405. Yeah. So he's had a couple of tours of duty at the top. Yes.
Dr Rad 12:31 And I think also, this is a name that we're familiar with. I feel like it's a it's a family name that's been passed down because we've had we've had a guy with a very similar name before who's been involved in some stuff. Yeah. And
Dr G 12:41 the Amelii gens is one of these well known. We've got these famous families and This list is populated exclusively with very famous families
Dr Rad 12:52 Are you suggesting that it shouldn't be a patrician?
Dr G 12:56 I mean, the whole point when they said they were going to have military tribunes was to allow plebeians go and that's never happened. Clearly
Dr Rad 13:03 just a gesture. Like exactly to make people feel like they had to say but I hate it when they do that. Alright, so we've got Aemilius.
Dr G 13:13 number two is Lucius Valerius Potitus. Okay, yes. Also a military tribune with consular power previously in 414 and 406. Ooh, the notable year notable Yeah, so maybe popular pants.
Dr Rad 13:30 Well, the Valerii I generally a pretty popular family out they
Dr G 13:35 they say to me, yeah. Then we have Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis
Dr Rad 13:42 Boo Hiss!
Dr G 13:45 The Claudii are back in town.
Dr Rad 13:47 Yeah, it's been it's been too long. To be honest. I've actually been kind of missing their presence as villains in our story. Yeah,
Dr G 13:54 my note here is cool. Cool. Cool. Yeah.
I love it. Great. Fantastic.
So glad for that. Marcus Quinctilius Varus.
Dr Rad 14:05 Okay, new kid on the block
Dr G 14:06 number four. Yep. And then number five Lucius Iulius Vopisci maybe Iullus. There's a there's a whole bunch of I feel like we need some complicated names in there. Yeah,
Dr Rad 14:19 whenever we mentioned someone with the Iulii ‘s name I feel like there's always like a question mark. Iullus. Yes Your name
Dr G 14:26 Yeah, like there's like a refinement within the family tree. Oh, my
Dr Rad 14:31 Are their parents this cruel?
Dr G 14:37 And then we have Marcus Furius Fusus.
Dr Rad 14:42 thank God. The Furii have really been dropping the ball if I'm being honest. They're back. Yeah, so back and yeah, here we sit in our Furii t-shirts ready for action?
Dr G 14:54 I'm so excited. So these are the six who we are feel relatively confident. And confidence is a pretty low measure of things when it comes to this period of Roman history, because we've got the FastI Capitolini is essentially the source for these names. And we know it was created late.
Dr Rad 15:12 I actually have the perfect analogy for this. It's about as confident as I feel in a bikini. Oh, that's not much listeners, not much, but
Dr G 15:21 you Look great. And then we've got these three other figures who shadowing Yeah, they don't appear on the Fasti. Also, it seems weird that they have to be somewhere because they do things in this year. Sure. The first one is Marcus Postumius. And this might be a real furphy of a figure because we're about to have another Marcus Postumius Albinus Regillensis. I did notice that they were to be the same guy. But one we don't know their full name. Yep. But the really important one out of these three is Marcus Furius Camillus.
Dr Rad 16:01 See? Suspicious? Because why do we have two sets of guys with very similar names? I know, Camillus is the guy that you were reading about in Plutarch. So I know he's a he's a thing. But it's just weird to have two sets of guys with very similar names and question marks around some of them.
Dr G 16:21 Yeah, so we've got that Marcus Furius Fusus. As a military Tribune, yeah, we've got our Marcus Furius Camillus. Yeah, like, Okay, well, I mean, they are different names. But there's only one name. That's different. All right. Okay. Yeah, that's possible. But is it? Is it what's going on? And then the two Marcus Postumii? i Yeah, yeah. So we've got lots of questions. And not only that, those last three that have the question marks around them, as potential military tribunes with consular power. Two of them may have also have served as censors with more question marks. Yeah,
Dr Rad 16:56 definitely. It's not just question marks about whether they were censors. I mean, we have question marks about how official any of these sorts of positions really are. I know that it was actually quite a while ago that we did an episode about the census in the Republic. But nonetheless, there are questions about how the Romans really at this early stage regularly taking a census of a Oh,
Dr G 17:19 there. Yeah, these are the things that again, you know, it's we're just not sure about? Yeah, there's definitely been instances where the census has been referenced before show that we've just absolutely, yeah, whether they're doing a census now open to question whether these two guys, are the censors, even bigger questions, because the way that we understand the census, from later periods when we've got much better evidence, is that the censorship is kind of this additional mastery that sits above and beyond and slightly outside of the cursus. honorum. Yeah. But it tends to be the kind of position that you only take up once you've reached that whole threshold within the Cursus honorum. So it would be usually given to somebody extremely wise, extremely powerful. Somebody who's had the consulship before. And in this case, we've got a couple of what appeared to me maybe no names coming through.
Dr Rad 18:14 He's a Furii!
Dr G 18:17 Oh, yeah. But even so
Dr Rad 18:20 to be starting your career with this, which is what it seems like
Dr G 18:23 that's that's the way that the evidence is presenting itself right now. Yeah. And that makes us wonder, what do we know about the censorship? Really? Yes, period, which is not a lot. How does that compare to the later version of the censorship? We're not sure. And who is this Camillus character anyway?
Dr Rad 18:41 Well, exactly. And I mean, I think one of the things we can say about the censors and the census in this period is that, Look, if I was going to bet on anything, it'd be that they're taking account of the citizens, because that's just makes good sense. But as for the other powers that a censor has, they're the ones I have real questions about. So I'm
Dr G 19:03 looking forward to the sorts of details that Livy might have on this. And so then I can share with you the really bizarre details that I think I might have.
Dr Rad 19:11 Let me tell you 403 is another bumper year. It's kind of like the way that I make my stepkids have like only big birthdays every three years, four or six was a big year now for three is a big sorry stepkids. Anyway, all right. So let me set the scene for you a little bit and you can jump in with your Plutarch and your Valerius Maximus when you feel the need. So peace was to be found everywhere in Italy, except between Rome and Veii
Dr G 19:44 Wow, okay, well, that does not explain six military tribunes with consular power.
Dr Rad 19:48 No. Now, as we said, we know that there was conflict brewing in this quarter that has been bubbling away for the last couple of years. Okay. Hence potential The Military Pay may be becoming a feature, right? So by this point, after a few years, they're both incredibly worked up. And I'm sorry, I'm just gonna have to use this analogy. It's a Harry Potter and Voldemort situation one of them has to go. They can't both survive at the moment. It's just at that point, it's going to be a war to the death this time. So both cities hold their different kinds of elections. Romans decided that they were going to go for military tribunes, as you've noted, and even Livy notes that there were more than usual, he gives me the number of eight. Oh,
Dr G 20:39 okay. Well, out of a possible nine. Interesting.
Dr Rad 20:43 Exactly, exactly. Now, the people are they they're channelling a bit of the feelings that the Romans had not so long ago, which is that they are O V A campaigning, year in year out. It's just military service. It's just fighting. So they decide that a way of dealing with this situation would be to elect a king. Oh, I know. Fascinating. I know. Right? Oh,
Dr G 21:10 well. I mean, so the Etruscans have kings. Yeah. They've had kings before. It's an option. Yeah. I didn't know they weren't doing it all the time.
Dr Rad 21:19 Well, yeah. This is the interesting thing, isn't it? Yes. And the other interesting detail I can add here is that the rest of the Etruscan people because of course Veii is just one city, out of many Etruscan cities, 12 ,in fact, and the other Etruscan people are horrified. They hate the idea of kings, apparently. And they also personally dislike the person who was elected. So it's a double whammy that that suggests
Dr G 21:46 that the politics of the Etruscans has really progressed since we last checked in with how they were running their show.
Dr Rad 21:51 I was gonna say they seemed very upset when Lars Tolumnius died. He was a king. Exactly. That wasn't that long ago. It was not that long ago. I mean, for us, it was years ago, of course, but for them, it was decades. Yeah, it is a bit strange. And it feels like
Dr G 22:09 a narrative of convenience. Livy? Look,
Dr Rad 22:12 it seems like it's been about 35 years since we've had an Etruscan King mentioned in a way that we can understand about Yeah, and nothing has been said about, you know, the Etruscans going down the Roman path of swearing that as God was theirwitness, they'd never have kings again.
Dr G 22:29 I'm throwing you out and you're staying out! Yeah!,
Dr Rad 22:32 so it seems like maybe the Romans are just assuming that everybody hates kings as much as they do. But it does also imply this weird thing that kings are somehow an optional accessory in the Etruscan state.
Dr G 22:44 Maybe they are an optional accessory, but doesn't sound like anybody Etruria is very happy about that.
Dr Rad 22:49 It's just so weird. But anyway, now the reason why crisis Yeah, yeah, that's true. Maybe Maybe their option of King is a bit like the Roman option of dictator. Maybe that's what it's about. But who knows, unfortunately, Livi gives me no more detail. He just goes on to trash the king in question. Now, the reason why he was disliked was that he was super duper wealthy and arrogant. What a terrible combination.
Dr G 23:16 I don't know why you'd put somebody like that in power
Dr Rad 23:18 I know. Now on top of that, his actions suggests that he's just not really a very kingly character. He had busted up a very serious sacred religious festival. I mean, that's sacrilege. Dr. G
Dr G 23:31 Literally. Okay. So the gods aren't on Veii's side at this.
Dr Rad 23:35 It was in a this is where we're going because yeah, basically, he was just angry about some perceived slights politically and so he was in a bad mood, and he decided he was going to ruin the Gods good time.
Dr G 23:49 Okay, do we have this guy's name?
Dr Rad 23:51 No don't think so. So anyway, he's not happy about the fact that the Etruscans had chosen someone else to be priest instead of him. He says get the better of him. Clearly somebody whose emotions not under control, which means it's weird that if they're only electing a king in a time of crisis, they turned to this guy.
Dr G 24:12 Yeah, you're not putting the best man in for the job. No wonder the rest of the Etruria is up in arms, being like, are you idiots?
Dr Rad 24:19 Yeah. And the Etruscans. As we know, the stereotype is in Roman sources that they are very religious, like more religious than the Romans. I mean, Livy basically given the impression in this account that they live for nothing but religion.
Dr G 24:33 Well, and a lot of Roman ritual seems to have been passed through in from that cultural lens of the Etruscans as well. So you definitely see where that idea might come from.
Dr Rad 24:43 Oh, for sure. Look, there's no denying that the Etruscans were religious people, but we know that something of a stereotype that they are, you know, it's like saying the ancient Egyptians were for religion like yeah, it was very important was very central, but we have to also remember, that's also just the kind of stuff that survived from their civilization. You know, the big stone temples and whatnot? Yes, they did take it very seriously. But we are only looking at part of the puzzle here. So I'm always a bit you know, hesitant about that kind of stuff but as we know they're also very big intellect religious rights, making sure that they are followed through properly. So this kind of thing, just not okay in the Etruscan rulebook according to the Romans.
Dr G 25:23 What a lens. Yeah, now
Dr Rad 25:25 the Etruscans decided as a people like as in collectively, that they were not going to assist very in any conflicts. If they insisted on having a king. They actually took a vote on it. Wow, okay, you're out in your own. Yep. You absolutely. Oh, boy. The people were they did not tell the king this because they were really worried that given his temper, he was going to shoot the messenger.
Dr G 25:48 Seems like this is going to lead to some future problem. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Rad 25:52 He basically would have seen anyone who told him this as the head of some secret rebel conspiracy against him, rather than someone who was just simply reporting what had happened. Oh, yeah. Yes. So the Romans hear about this. And this is obviously good news for the Romans, because they now know that they is kind of on their own. However, they're also aware that that might not always be the case. And clearly, they're kind of aware that this is going to be a long game situation, just in case they decide while they're doing their season, that they're going to build double fortifications. One set looking to vai and one set looking in the general direction of Etruria. Which to be honest, I feel like they both have
Dr G 26:39 a very similar position. Just in
Dr Rad 26:43 case they decided like once things started getting real, that they were going to come to Veii's aid after all. Okay,
Dr G 26:50 so is the idea here that these fortifications are relatively close to Veii as opposed to Rome, Rome is not taking a defensive position here, but more, they're putting a forward fortification in place to enable them to have a position to easily attack from I
Dr Rad 27:07 wish that he gave me that much detail. I don't I don't really know. But the way it's described, it does kind of sound like it might be defensive fortifications for Rome, perhaps. And that's why maybe they're slightly different directions. Because obviously, if you would literally at they, why would you build double fortifications, you're literally on the doorstep? Well,
Dr G 27:28 it means that you can have like, sort of an encampment,
Dr Rad 27:31 I suppose. Yeah, that's true. They are setting up an encampment, so not a
Dr G 27:35 terrible military strategic. Really?
Dr Rad 27:39 I mean, I know that they are obviously deciding on a seat. Okay.
Dr G 27:44 So if we're thinking about the position of a relative to the position of the rest of Etruria. Yeah, Veii is directly north, not very far away. No. So you could have something that sort of positioned at the edge of the Tiber River, presumably, on Rome side, defensive fortification, but you could also have something off to the north east, potentially, on the side of the Janiculum. That would allow a sort of more advanced forward defence fortification,
Dr Rad 28:13 let's run with that the Romans seem to know what they're doing. So I'm going to assume that they're being smart about it. Let's hope so. Yeah. Now, this is obviously an interesting situation, because once again, we do have this division between the Etruscans, you know that they're not automatically going to fight together. Now, we've seen this before, it's very clear that each of the 12, Etruscan civilizations are free to act independently. It's not something you can assume that they're going to all come together and come to your aid and that sort of thing. However, it does show what we see the common bond between them that they actually get together and vote on these sorts of issues, as well as having religious celebrations which can be interrupted. So
Dr G 28:54 it's a well functioning League of states, essentially.
Dr Rad 28:59 Yes, exactly. Yeah. All right. So the Roman generals who are in charge, they have decided upon a siege, not just a straight attack at bay, therefore, the soldiers are going to be setting up winter quarters, which they have not apparently done before. Well,
Dr G 29:17 that doesn't make sense. According to 406 BCE.
Dr Rad 29:23 This is the thing I think this is how these stories are connected. And Look, I told you the chronology is messy at this point in time and things might not be happening quite when Livy's says they are in quite the order, etc, etc. But this is exactly what the plebeians had been suspicious about some of the complaints I should say, when military pay was introduced. So kind of like, Guys, this stuff isn't coming to you for free. Like there's always going to be strings attached. The patricians aren't just randomly nice, even though that's what you seem to be taking away from this situation.
Dr G 29:57 I'm shivering in this new camp. The made and even though they pay me, I don't know if it's worth losing all my toes.
Dr Rad 30:05 Dear Lucretia I don't know whose idea it was for us to wear sandals all the time, but I hate it. And why do we wear skirts?
Dr G 30:16 My balls are freezing.
Dr Rad 30:20 All right, sir. People in Rome hear about this decision, and they're not happy about it. Specifically, an a tribune of the plebs. Oh,
Dr G 30:31 I have no named characters. Oh. They're just out and about. I mean, I assume they exist. Yeah.
Dr Rad 30:39 I don't know who the tribunes actually are, except for the fact that they are once again troublesome, unhappy with the situation. Yeah, exactly. So Livy's says that it's because everything had actually been quite fine. And they've been given nothing to be upset about that they decided to make a mountain out of a molehill about this whole issue, because they needed to find something to be upset about because otherwise the plebeians weren't going to be unhappy with the patricians and things would be peaceful.
Dr G 31:03 I don't know about that just told them that they're gonna have to overwinter as part of this new military strategy. I feel like the plebs are pretty capable of being upset all by themselves,
Dr Rad 31:14 Pish tosh Dr G. It's quite clearly a situation of things being spun so that they Look much worse than they actually are.
Dr G 31:22 Oh, Livy's, revealing your conservative leanings. Exactly.
Dr Rad 31:26 Yeah. So the tribunes of the plebs decide that this is something they could make the plebeians angry about. And so they start doing that. They start pointing out, we told you strings attached, those are strings Pinocchio, where you told you that there would be some reason that money was being introduced to military service. We knew it, we knew it. We told you, so we're going to do the I told you so dance. Because they had suspected the patricians would never do something just to be nice. Young men are clearly going to be required now to serve endlessly. Where's the time for self care? Where's the time for family? Where is the work life balance? Winter has now been taken away from us. It's not coming. It's going. Why? Why? Because the patricians were trying to get virile young bands out of the city, so they could not campaign for anything or help the plebeians as a group. These were going to be the young men who were sent off to Veii, they of course, they're going to be worse off than the people in Veii because clearly they're going to be left defenceless and alone.
Dr G 32:21 Or use bad times. And I can see that maybe the tribune of the plebs have an interest in like whipping up the plebeians?
Dr Rad 32:46 Of course. Oh, yeah. And they're not done yet.
Dr G 32:49 I'm still having the visual of them dancing on like the rostra being like,
it's happening. We foreshadowed it is happening.
And everybody being like Booooooo! Yeah.
Dr Rad 33:03 Well, they point out that the people of Veii because they're the ones being besieged, they get to live in their own houses. They get to live behind their own walls, where are the plebeians going to be out in the middle of frickin nowhere shivering, that's adopted you the
Dr G 33:19 convenience of being the besieged. I
Dr Rad 33:21 know, the ones enduring food shortages and famine, potentially, I don't know. So the Roman soldiers are going to have the pressure of being constantly on the watch on the job. And they're doing it in winter conditions. Oh, you wait for Dr. G. They can no whip out the S word. This is slavery.
Dr G 33:42 Oh, my God. Yeah,
Dr Rad 33:45 not even the kings. Not even the consuls, and I'm talking about the consoles before there was the option technically of military tribune with consular power where plebeians could technically run for office, but they never get it. Okay, dictators, decemvirs. None of them as bad as they were had to treat the plebeians like this keeping them at war. Always.
Dr G 34:10 Who's gonna grow the food? Yeah, who's gonna defend the city if another enemy like, I don't know, the Volscii show up.
Dr Rad 34:18 Oh, and you haven't even thought of the worst situation. Dr. G. What if the men now trying to impose these conditions on the people ever became actual consuls instead of military tribunes with consular power or worse yet, dictators, Dear God, it would be a blood bath. But of course Dr G, the plebeians kind of deserved it because after all, they have yet to elect a single to plebeian to the Office of Military Tribune with consular power and now they were flanked by eight patrician options. What the actual hell?
Dr G 35:03 the argument that the tribute of the plebs are putting forward? Like you've had to chance, this is what you've done. I'm
Dr Rad 35:08 still channelling their voice. These are my points of view. No, no, no. You got I just got she's lost it. Truck finally got to it. No, no, no, no, this is what they're saying. They're like, Couldn't there be just one out of eight? To remind the patricians that the plebeians would like to see their families from time to time? End of story.
Dr G 35:32 We just need a seat at the table, guys. Yeah. And you didn't do it never voted anyone in
Dr Rad 35:38 exactly. And you know it to be honest, if things are happening the way that they say I actually do not blame them. However, it seems super suspicious that the plebeians would never elect one of their own. Like, it's just been too long at this point in time. And this is one of those things where we have to suspect the narrative of the conflict of the orders. It just doesn't make sense. It is
Dr G 36:01 a problematic narrative in many respects. And I think also part of our issue is that we would love to know more about how the voting system actually worked at this point in time, but it's very early days in terms of the Republican system. And the very concept of saying that there is a Republican system is maybe too soon for that. Absolutely. So is it the case that the plebeians are not in a position politically in terms of the nature of the voting to be able to get up one of their own? I suspect that's what I feel like if we Look at the way that voting systems turn out in a later Republic, that might be part of the explanation. But it's also Yeah, it just seemed weird. I mean, from Livy's sort of rhetorical perspective, because he's definitely bringing some light, you know, big, bold characterizations here. Some sweeping brushstrokes, and quiet like of the drama. is, there's this suggestion that there's this ongoing process of struggle that sits behind everything. Yes. And so that question about what is going on here, is never really fully resolved. Now, from a historians perspective,
Dr Rad 37:15 I think that's exactly it. As we've often highlighted, I just find it hard to believe that if the liens truly are a outnumbering the patricians, which seems likely given everything we've been told, and be able to elect one of their own to the most prestigious office in the state, it just seems so unlikely that they wouldn't have done it at least once in the past, what, 45 years or something, they've been able to do it, it just doesn't make sense. There has to be something else going on here. Which if we Look at the voting system, as you say, it might be that technically the rich, their vote counts for more, or something like that. Who knows? But it's got to be something like that.
Dr G 37:53 That certainly plays into later understandings of voting systems. But yes, yeah, yeah.
Dr Rad 37:58 Yeah,
Dr G 37:59 interesting and dramatic.
Dr Rad 38:00 I know. I think the thing that we that I reason why I have to highlight it is because it's just so disgusting. That Livy's makes it their fault, that their situation
Dr G 38:13 Way to victim blame Livy. Exactly,
Dr Rad 38:15 exactly, yes. Like, you know, oh, you can't afford to turn the heating on for your family. You can't afford good food for your family, it was clearly your fault for being poor. I just find those narratives too similar to some that we hear today as well.
Dr G 38:29 Completely demeaning, and inappropriate. Exactly.
Dr Rad 38:33 Now, you may have noticed that the way I was speaking just soon, as well, you did notice that it's kind of odd, because I wasn't actually giving you like a speech, per se. And there was no one named right. Lean into that because I think that's also I think that's also a rhetorical device because we're about to have our response that goes for paragraphs to what the tribune of the plebs said, which is just reported, it's not an actual speech, okay. It's likely to be paraphrasing what they're talking about. Okay. And they are unnamed, and
Dr G 39:05 he's now going to give a real like a speech in quotation marks as far as he's concerned. Yeah.
Dr Rad 39:10 He is now giving a speech – flesh rabbits. Boing, boing! to none other than Appius Claudius. Oh, no. He's back baby. Well, I mean, he's not, but yeah, his family is back.
Dr G 39:28 The Boys are back in town.
Oh, well, I can't wait to hear what a Claudii has to say on this matter. Yeah.
Dr Rad 39:36 It is quite a long speech. So basically, one of the reasons obviously for having 8 military tribunes with consular power is that some of them obviously need to be off setting up the siege against Veii dealing with that kind of stuff, but he can't leave the people of Rome completely unattended, especially if they're mostly plebeians. Who knows what they get up to Dr. G, and therefore, some military tribunes had been late. Left Behind specifically to snuff out any potential treachery and it's just as well, they did, because the tribune of the plebs has played right into their hands.
Dr G 40:08 Oh, boy. All right. Okay, that's the setup. It's not the case that you would want to have a military Tribune located in Rome, like you do almost every year that we've had military tribunes in exactly just in case. Yep. Somebody comes up from another area. Yeah. And attempts to attack road nothing to do while the other guys are out and about.
Dr Rad 40:28 It's not normal. It's not normal. It's clearly something concerning, there's something sinister going on. Oh, there is now Appius Claudius comes from a family very experienced with dealing with tribune of the plebs, and they like, and their attempts to stir up trouble. Now, although this is not the famous Appius Claudius, in fact, there's been a couple of famous Appius Claudii that we have dealt with over the years. This is not one of the ones you know, from the December and that sort of thing, but these are their descendants and therefore, as we have highlighted before, the Romans actually think they are very similar in character. This is a guy that we have mentioned before there, he was the one who a few years ago suggested the strategy of turning the tribune of the plebs against each other. Oh,
Dr G 41:14 yeah. Okay, this guy, this Appius Claudius. Yeah. Okay. Now, of course, cut from the same cloth,
Dr Rad 41:21 educated Roman. He's got the gift of the gab Dr. G. He's good with his rhetoric. And that's why he gets an actual speech apparently, and a name. They could now be no doubt that the tribune of the plebs were not really working for the benefit of the plebeians. They're just troublemakers. It's obvious. Whenever there may have been something wrong with their lives, emphasis on the word May, the tribune of the plebs just blow it all out of proportion and make it into such a big deal. Now, they were even stooping so low Dr. G, that they were trying to spin something good into something evil. Military Pay was designed by the patricians to restore peace to Roman society, but it is a cool way to claim that the tribune of the plebs just want to hate whatever the patricians do, regardless of whether it actually benefits the plebeians or not so ungrateful. I know. The Tribunes of the plebs only exists to solve political problems so they can then create them. Or they can just so they can stay in a job.
Dr G 42:35 If it's not dramatic, like why are we here? I mean, the people don't need looking after if everything's good, right, so things must be bad.
Dr Rad 42:41 Exactly. Now, the tribune of the plebs, jealously guard access to the lands and won't allow contact between the plebeians and the patricians because they don't want anyone realising how kind and magnanimous and just frickin amazing the patricians actually are because their loyalties might get transferred. They need to keep them angry and separated.
Dr G 43:07 Are we talking about the same Claudii, who have treated everybody so badly so often over successive generations? They have not treated me and you're telling me this, Claudius is now telling us that, you know, they've got a heart of gold and they've just been misunderstood. I think
Dr Rad 43:23 you will find if you examine the historical record that the Claudii have been harsh, but fair, oh, boy. So he basically likens this again to slavery. Interestingly, saying it's kind of like when the Masters won't allow other people to interact with their slaves in any capacity whether to you know, beat them up or give them a little kiss or something, because they just don't want them exposed to you know, any outside influences. That's what this situation is like. The champions of the plebs should clearly have spent some time fostering their kindly side, and by their I mean the patrician's kind side. And they should have been working on the plebeians obedience. Oh, Harmony would be possible. If the tribunes just you know, got on the good side of the patricians and made the plebeians obey everything they said, clearly,
Dr G 44:18 I think this, this whole argument rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the role of the tribune of the plebs might be. Well,
Dr Rad 44:26 I think you'll change your mind cuz I've got quite some time. Now, if there was internal peace in Rome because the patricians and plebeians were actually getting along with each other, the sky was the limit for Rome. It's this internal division that's holding them back. They would dominate everyone in the area. But alas, Tribune's.
Dr G 44:48 Okay, all right. Appius. Claudius,
Dr Rad 44:51 now he gets the actual point of military pay. So the tribunes of the plebs, were suggesting that no pay should be good. Even now, because it had not been given in the past. You remember that was one of the arguments they put forward in 406 that like how are you going to, you know, back pay these people? Yeah, how are you going to sustain this exactly unfair, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, but you are missing something here. It makes no sense to back pay, because the work conditions are new. Therefore, it's a new situation. Therefore, new pay has been introduced, things are just evolving in tandem with each other. And it's also normal for people to get paid work.
Dr G 45:35 Well, but surely it would also be normal for them to get paid for their regular summer military gig.
Dr Rad 45:41 No, no, that is not the case. Because he's like, it's stupid. That pre that people who serve previously and like volunteered for it are upset now. That is stupid. And that is because they got six months of the year off. They got to go home and see their families and farm and stuff. These guys aren't getting that. That is why they're getting pay. Okay? You can't have everything. Don't get greedy. Now soldiers are happy to receive pay. And in return, they should be okay with being away for a little longer just to touch.
Dr G 46:16 little icicles hanging off their moustaches. Yeah.
Dr Rad 46:19 And this is just oh my god, this this just seems like something that someone today could easily say. It wouldn't be right, if they got paid for a year service, but only worked half. What. So he's basically saying like, if we introduce military pay, but still allow them to go home for six months for years, they'd effectively be getting paid for like a year's work, but they'd only be working for half. That's what he's suggesting. Now, I know what you're gonna say logically, why not just pay them a little less and pay them for six months? Don't get carried away with ledger have
Dr G 46:49 they considered having a two levee system where they've got the summer army and the winter army and they rotate and people who want to get paid sign up for the winter army. And people who just like to Swan around in the sunshine, volunteer for some of military work.
Dr Rad 47:09 You know, I texted you. I'm at a point in the speech where Appius is getting uncomfortable talking about money,
Dr G 47:15 classics, patrician, it's
Dr Rad 47:16 crass. It's mercenary and crass.
Dr G 47:19 It's time to move on to something else. This this point is not well, with the crowd.
Dr Rad 47:24 His point is that we shouldn't really be talking about money, because quite frankly, this is a civic issue. You're a citizen of this place, are you not? And therefore why are we even paying you? Yeah, it makes you seem like a mercenary.
Dr G 47:38 Yeah, you're just doing your civic duty. Exactly.
Dr Rad 47:40 Defending Rome, so
Dr G 47:41 we can all enjoy it. Yeah.
Dr Rad 47:42 Why are we even bothering to nice to you? We are the state we are the government. It's just a fact. That room should not have started the war or should just get on with it. Like room would, which is awesome, obviously. And get it over with ASAP. I mean, we all know that Rome is going to win. Now. That's a very convenient argument. Because quicker get this done, the less we have to pay. It's great for him to say well, clearly Rome should have started wherever there's gonna be an issue. But we have so we've just got to continue. Surely, surely the Romans are fired up about they surely they want to finish the war. For that reason alone. All of Greece was happy to fight for 10 years over one woman. What is room's excuse at the moment? The Romans aren't even in that bad situation. They're barely away from home. They is really close and it's all going to be over really soon. Stop you're complaining.
Dr G 48:47 I love how he's brought in a reference to the Trojan War. Well, literally the Peloponnesian War was right there.
Dr Rad 48:54 I think it's just you know that the Roman historians are leaning into the parallels to the Trojan War. They're making this their epic. There
Dr G 49:02 is no woman and I'm disappointed because we don't get to talk about women in ancient Rome enough right now. That's true.
Dr Rad 49:10 That teasing us seven times strategy seven times he has started a war. Oh, we're actually in counting will Appius Claudius Okay, all right. Yeah. They never mean it when they forged truces clearly, because otherwise, why would they that multiple wars. Yeah,
Dr G 49:29 I mean, the six other wars explains that.
Dr Rad 49:31 They keep invading Roman territory. They keep writing Roman fields rude. They was behind the betrayal of Fidenae. And the Roman settlers who were killed there and the murder of the Roman and voice Oh, yes, we're going all the way back there. Yeah, they tried to turn all of a true warrior against Rome. And to this day, they wants nothing more than for Rome, to be wiped from the face of the earth. Well, they only just recently after all, were rude to the Roman ambassadors. Ambassadors don't know why but in in in there and threaten them with death. Clearly
Dr G 50:12 also rude. Yeah, clearly. Yeah,
Dr Rad 50:15 right we should be giving 110% When fighting such utter bastards, they is in a vulnerable spot room needs to take advantage of this, they're surrounded Dr. G, now is the time they've not been able to harvest or farm because after all, this whole situation has been going on for a while now. So if room withdraws, of course, Veii will just kind of go back to plundering Roman territory because they need the resources. So Rome would not really get out of a war if they backed off now, but rather would find war moved into their own territory.
Dr G 50:56 Now, for all the Appius Claudius actually kind of is is a terrible human. Yeah,
Dr Rad 51:01 he makes some good points there that that's a good point. And he also points out, how would the soldiers feel about this situation? After all the siege stuff they've built after all the defences, so much effort? Are they just going to leave all of that behind until the next season? Which makes me think that, you know, we were talking about before that it must be like, close today, and this stuff isn't really at risk if they leave? I
Dr G 51:25 think so. Like they've set up some equipment already, I think, yeah. Yeah. That would be my assumption. And if they've already started a siege process, yeah. Then they would have set up some land works for that. Exactly.
Dr Rad 51:38 Yeah. Apologies to all the military historians out there. I know that we don't do a great job. Mind you, maybe Livy could do better do? Well,
Dr G 51:47 I think this is the thing is that we're reading Livy, Livy has whatever extensive knowledge that he might have about certain areas, but I'm not sure that military matters unnecessarily. He's strong suit. And also, as an annalistic. Historian, he does tend to story eyes. That's true. That's true. I mean, that's not really word. But you know what I mean, Storify. The military encounters in such a way that you don't seem to have a sense of confidence about where things were anyway, necessarily,
Dr Rad 52:17 history, this is true. He has given me no geographic markets. So in other words, the soldiers would be upset because they've gone through all this effort constructing all this stuff, and they're just gonna have to leave it there. And then do all that hard work all over again. Next season, why not just stay in place and push on until it's all over? And what else might a delay lead to? Right now, the Etruscans not willing to help Veii. But what if their feelings change over time? The trust can so mad right now about that whole anonymous King issue. But what if negotiations change that down the road, there were a lot of things to consider, and a lot of potential repercussions people. The tribune of the plebs are just being weak. It's like dealing with a sick person who needs a strict routine in order to get better. But the tribune of the plebs, they want you to follow a path where you're just going to make your illness worse, and lasts longer, and perhaps make it more serious by giving in to requests for food and drink, when clearly what you need is nothing, no sustenance do not feed this problem. He's not done yet.
Dr G 53:32 Like always building up to something maybe
Dr Rad 53:37 even putting aside the actual war, it is important for Roman soldiers to get used to persevering to sticking around until the job is done. And not leaving when victory is close. Just because you're off the clock.
Dr G 53:52 You guys haven't been trying hard enough.
Dr Rad 53:55 Well, he's saying, Are you suggesting that the Roman soldiers are not tough enough to endure winter? I think you'll find that they are. The Romans are the toughest. The soldiers would also be embarrassed to find that people thought they were so weak, they couldn't handle a little snow. Room also needs to consider its wider reputation. Oh, yeah, here we go. If they become known as those people who weren't see a siege through well, they're hardly scary.
Dr G 54:30 It's just going to encourage the Volscii. Yeah, and the Aequians and the Sabines. Yeah. And anybody else who's ever had a problem?
Dr Rad 54:39 Exactly. So the tribune of the plebs. If you Look at it from this perspective, Dr. G and I am looking at from Appius Claudius perspective, are really on the side of the enemies of Rome. They want to throw they have a lifeline here that people have they would be thrilled to hear of internal problems. was in Rome and in its army, they right now seems unified, you know, in its own little way. After all, they even have a king. Don't worry about even breaking a sweat. And that's without help from the Etruscans may remind you one small. Normally, Romans who run away from battle would be beaten to death with a cudgel. But the Romans are so used to hearing outrageous things from the tribune of the plebs that they are thinking about this possibility, even though technically it's about betraying room. The tribune of the plebs only need to take that final step and basically poison the army and get them to turn on their commanders. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's it. That's the next this is the article. They're gonna go to the army. They're going to turn them against the commander. So that's the way this is headed.
Dr G 55:54 Okay, so this is some strong rhetoric coming through from Appius. Claudius. Yeah. Not only are the tribune of the plebs, obstructive, but they are now enemies of the state. They are hostis. Absolutely. In the Latin way of talking about these things. Intense. Yep. Liberty
Dr Rad 56:13 in Rome. Dr. G, clearly means that there is no respect no respect at all, not for the Senate, not for the magistrates, not for the laws, not for ancestral customs, not for institutions of the Senate, or military discipline. This is where it's led us. It's madness. I tell you madness.
Dr G 56:35 You might as well fold up shop and I will just die right here because it would be a faster way to go than the slow death that they're setting us
Dr Rad 56:43 up for. Yeah. Have you relieved to hear that Appius Claudius is finally done.
Dr G 56:49 In the back corner of the forum, a whole bunch of patricians are being like (clapping) and tribunes of the plebs after one side being like,
Dr Rad 56:59 exactly. Now, all of this rhetoric all of these points, which we admit not all are bad. Some have some logic to them, but some of them whoo boy. Some
Dr G 57:08 of them are very strong appeals to emotion. Yeah.
Dr Rad 57:12 He is doing well, though, against the tribunes of the playoffs. Okay. He's his speech is obviously quite persuasive.
Dr G 57:23 To patricians, all right.
Dr Rad 57:26 Well, this is the thing. The speech was probably that speech was probably given in the Senate, I would say, but we get the feeling that he's giving similar types of speeches to anyone who will listen but anyway, he's doing quite well. He's, I think, causing definitely enough confusion that the plebeians are like, hang on a second. Wait a minute. Wait, just a cotton-picking second. And then something went wrong at Veii. Oh, yeah. So as we know, there is nothing that brings the Roman people together more than when they're facing an external enemy. This is pretty much what happens. This gives Appius the edge over the tribune of the plebs, and like his documents, and that sort of thing, because something goes wrong on the very front. And the patricians and plebeians start to be more unified and their purpose because they understand that we need they need more energy at this siege. Allow me to tell you what was happening at Veii. So the soldiers had apparently pushed forward the terraces towards the town. Now I can only mean that this is some sort of siege equipment that is getting very close to Veii itself,
Dr G 58:41 move the turret.
Push the wooden rabbit further.
Dr Rad 58:49 Yes, to the point where the mantles have this terraces practically touching the woods. Now, for anybody who's even familiar with like mediaeval siege warfare, I think you could kind of picture the kind of equipment that they are using here. It's the same kind of terminology you sometimes get coming through for like castles and the kind of siege equipment you get for that as well. And that's Mantlet. So basically designed to protect any attackers from projectiles that might be thrown at them. So let's get a little bit set, you know, come up in the middle. From like a death, it's hard to describe efficacy, just take my word for it. Okay,
Dr G 59:21 so this is allowing the advancing force of the siege Yes, to go forward to go forward. Yeah, be somewhat protected, get a little bit closer and hopefully, do something that's going to disturb that wall or disturb the defenders on the wall.
Dr Rad 59:37 Yeah. And they seem to be doing pretty well. Okay. However, the army focusing very much on building up their siege equipment. So you know, they're working hard constructing as much as possible during the day, but they neglected to watch them overnight. And then all of a sudden, very Roman seems really stupid. Maybe they thought they were too big. I don't know. But all All of a sudden one evening the people have a suddenly throw open the case a huge number. So just rush out with torches set fire. Yeah, set fires are all the siege equipment, and just in like an hour, all their work building up the terrorists and the magnets and all that kind of stuff went up in flames, which tells me that it was wooden or something. Plus Romans died trying to put the fire out. Oh, trying to save them. Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Dr G 1:00:28 This is bad news. Yes.
Dr Rad 1:00:30 And this is the news that really gives Appius the edge because obviously the Romans find out about this. Everyone feels very sad. The Senate is feeling very worried. They're like, what if we have to continue to deal with this, this questioning of the military pay? What if the tribune of the plebs decide to try and use this development to their advantage bragging that the you know, the war if it was all falling apart anyway, like, who knows what they're going to do with it? Suddenly, men in equestrian circles, but who did not have horses from the state?
Dr G 1:01:05 Oh,
Dr Rad 1:01:05 this specific group
Dr G 1:01:06 very true equestrians that got their own horses. Yes.
Dr Rad 1:01:10 came to the Senate. They had had a meeting, apparently, the meeting of the men who are equestrians but don't have horses from the state have their own horses,
Dr G 1:01:20 these the Knights who say Ni,
Dr Rad 1:01:23 they had talked and they decided they were going to volunteer to serve using their own horses. Well, that's very generous of those into chests, the Senate is overcome, and gives them an official vote of thanks. The people hear what is happening in the farm and the city of Rome, and they rushed to the Curia because the plebs don't want to be outdone by these jerks on horses, the infantry now want to do something special to and they declare, we will go anywhere, kill anyone, whatever you want, just tell us we'll do it. And if Veii is that location, well, then by God, we will stay at our person until that city is taken. They're
Dr G 1:02:08 like the problematic second child who feels like they never really had enough of dad's love
Dr Rad 1:02:13 Exactly. The Senate. I actually think this is probably a high point, I don't think they've ever been so ridiculously happy that they've got people throwing military service and saying we'll do whatever it takes whatever you want. They were so happy that it couldn't even just be taken care of with like a formal vote of thanks. They did not formally call the plebs into the Curia to hear their response. Instead, the senators overflowed onto the steps outside the Curia. They're going into the
Dr G 1:02:46 street doctor. They're thanking them in person. Each
Dr Rad 1:02:50 Senator personally called out or signed to the people how happy they were get out the party poppers stone for a celebration. The general message of the senators is that room was a blessed place. And because of the kinds of people that live there, they were going to live forever. No one was ever going to be ruined because they were unified. They were getting along the Senate, just lovely equestrians, the Senate has lots of opinions. The Senate has left this day. You knew what you have outdone even us the patricians for being awesome, sweet, kind and well intentioned, because I'm happy. And basically, this is where this all kind of starts to wrap up. For me. The patricians and the plebs all are out there, crying from happiness together until the Senate say this is really nice and all but like, time is money.
Dr G 1:03:44 It's been nice at all. I've just got this vision of senators, like doing slightly awkward hugs of plebeians. Kind of like I don't know when you love to wash. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:03:53 well, like just like getting out like a finger like an index finger and like poking them on the forehead and be like, BOOP.
Dr G 1:03:59 you're so cute.
Dr Rad 1:04:03 So what this means structure chain, and this is how four three kind of wraps up for me. The military tribunes, obviously, you need to hold a formal assembly to just thank everyone and tell them that the Senate will forever remember and treasure, this display of loyalty to the state. And they voted that all of these new volunteers who are not technically required to serve at this point should be paid.
Dr G 1:04:28 Oh my God,
Dr Rad 1:04:29 I know. And the equestrians were also granted money allowances making this the first time that the cavalry began to serve on their own horses but received money from the state for their expenses. It's like an expense account kind of thing, you know, reimbursing them for that kind of stuff. So these new volunteers they went today. They were on such a high that not only did they very quickly rebuild what had been lost, but they built even more. So the Roman They were pumping out the provisions with so much enthusiasm. It was scary because the Romans back home. After seeing everything that's been happening, they wanted to take just the best asbestos care ever have the best asbestos army that ever lived. The end.
Dr G 1:05:16 Wow. Okay, so some some queries. And so when we're talking about building siege equipment, yeah, in this period, yeah. This is vast amounts of manual labour,
Dr Rad 1:05:30 you underestimate how much happiness can help.
Dr G 1:05:34 But even in the original compliment of the siege equipment that they're trying to put together. Yeah, living makes it sound like there's quite a lot. All right, like there's substantial fires, people die and trying to put out those fires to save that equipment. Yeah, so you have to keep in mind that we're talking about cutting down trees. Right, that's labour, turning it into things that's labour, making sure that it really works. Turning trees into things, I think that I made the Siege Tower completely out of wood. Incredible. All it will take is one fiery arrow disaster. And all of that is happening. So they denuding parts of the landscape in the area,
Dr Rad 1:06:14 which I do not care for. No. Well,
Dr G 1:06:17 I mean, it's necessary. It's to be expected. There's lots of forest, I would assume much more in Italy, then than there is now. But the sheer manpower required for all of that is phenomenal. So the idea that happiness would replace all of that lost equipment within the year. It's
Dr Rad 1:06:36 not just happiness, it's tears of joy and song.
Dr G 1:06:41 They sang well, they work because I'm happy. Look, I understand that there was some joy, but the senators themselves aren't doing any of the work. It's all the volunteers. So the organisation of the manpower is substantial. Yeah. You think that the logistics of that getting them all out there getting that work done building rebuilding everything, essentially, yeah, turning up to that encampment for the first moment to realise that you're looking at a Bert field, essentially, of the things that used to exist. Like, this is tough work. I
Dr Rad 1:07:15 think getting caught up on technicality.
Dr G 1:07:18 I'm just trying to make this. Give it a sense of maybe if this is real. Okay, let's say where we're in a period of time where people are doing this kind of stuff. Whoa, what is
Dr Rad 1:07:29 If it's real? If it's real? I didn't just spend the last hour talking to you on the assumption this was fiction!
Dr G 1:07:34 Well, I know. And in the sense that this is a historical podcast, yeah. Obviously, something happened in the past. Was it this? I have some questions? Anyway, Look,
Dr Rad 1:07:46 to be fair, okay. And this is where I'm going to let you off the hook a little bit. I just enjoyed watching you try and put it together. He doesn't actually give me a timeframe. Okay. So when he says that this is what happened, he may not have meant it happened all in this one year, he might have meant that this is something that because of what happened in this year, this is what was possible. So this is what the Romans will achieve. Eventually. All right.
Dr G 1:08:11 I think this dovetails nicely into the small amounts of source material I currently have available.
Dr Rad 1:08:17 I hope it's another long speech from Appius Claudius,
Dr G 1:08:20 certainly not. I can reassure you on that excellent. I have died or a stimulus who gives us a few of the characters and military tribunes. Okay, get some of the names, right doesn't get the number, right. That's fine.
Dr Rad 1:08:34 Well, I don't know that we can say anybody like me,
Dr G 1:08:37 but then we also have this side quest, if you like, of what is happening with Camillus
Dr Rad 1:08:45 Ah, yes. Oddly, doesn't doesn't get mentioned in Livy.
Dr G 1:08:49 at all. And for me, this was the most exciting part of this year because we have somebody mentioned who's going to become really quite significant. So yeah, I'm not gonna give the game away about
Dr Rad 1:09:00 why but he's definitely like up there and like a career leanness kind of level. Yeah,
Dr G 1:09:04 he's gonna Yeah, watch this space. Camillus is gonna be a thing. Yeah. So Camillus comes to us for the first time. So I'm gonna start off with things that I like to do, which is delving into the name. Yes, please do. So his full name, as far as we understand it is Marcus Furius, son of Lucius Spurius, grandson of Spurius Camillus. Which means that his father was Lucius Furius. And his grandfather was Spurius Furius. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:09:37 The T shirt paid off.
Dr G 1:09:40 Never let it be forgotten that we were there first, Spurius Furius. Yeah. So there were there are a couple of Spurius Furii out there, yeah. So it's important to you know, hone in on who was who? Yes. And really we're talking about the father being likely to have been Lucius Furius Medullinus, okay, so he was a military tribune with consular power in 432 it's gonna tear
Dr Rad 1:10:06 I recognise that name so always makes me think of gold medals. He's
Dr G 1:10:10 won a lot of them. He has also in 425, and 420. So a relatively substantial career in that top job shop. And then we've got the grandfather Spurius Furius Medullinus Furus. Ooh, yeah, that's quite an name. And if it's this guy, he was the consul in 464 and the suffect in 453. So we've got this lovely family lineage that relates to the Furii and particularly our favourite Spurius Furius, who have come up in previous episodes, obviously. And then we have this guy Camillus, who's related into this group. Yeah. Not the first son. He's prime and Marcus, his father's name is Lucius. So he's presumably a second or third or fourth child, not the first one, always called the first one after yourself in that really weird Roman way. So we've got that. And then we have Plutarch's the Life of Camillus. Right, which is thematic in its nature. So I get very little about 403 specifically, I would say it should be here. It's a big year, clearly, but I mean, commercially,
Dr Rad 1:11:23 because of big speech. Mostly it is a speech.
Dr G 1:11:27 But, uh, let us give you a bit of a taste of things to come with Camillus through Plutarch. So he seems to be an incredible figure. And he wins many and great successes.
Dr Rad 1:11:43 I expect nothing less from a Furii
Dr G 1:11:45 Five times he will be chosen dictator. Wow. Four times he will celebrate a triumph. That's pretty good odds. And he will also become known as the second founder of Rome.
Dr Rad 1:11:59 Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Haven't we already had a guy?
Dr G 1:12:04 That'd be like that. You arguing with poor talk right now? I have it.
Dr Rad 1:12:12 Apologies, please check.
Dr G 1:12:13 So these are the sorts of things to keep in mind. We've got this sort of foreshadowing of of this great Camillus figure. And it's not at all clear about 403 Except that he's listed as the sensor. Yes, some materials.
Dr Rad 1:12:32 Ah, yes. And this is where attacks comes in, does it not?
Dr G 1:12:37 Well, this is where we get some odd things. So this idea of like, what is this censorship? And what is going on with that?
Dr Rad 1:12:48 profound questions all Yeah. And
Dr G 1:12:51 apparently the the ideas that are connected to the censorship, forcing unmarried people to get married
Dr Rad 1:13:01 or attend attacks them? Well, no, wait for it. Okay. No, no,
Dr G 1:13:04 don't jump ahead like that. Okay. So the unmarried need to get their marriage on? Uh huh. And apparently this is because there's been so many wars and Rome has lost so many good men. Well, yeah, there was a lot of widows and widowers around,
Dr Rad 1:13:19 you might say, actually, that all we need is a few good men.
Dr G 1:13:26 Indeed, and Camilla is going to make sure it happens because there needs to be more children. Obviously, Rome cannot succeed if it does not reproduce. It needs its own men. needs little baby Romans a
Dr Rad 1:13:38 battlefield of a woman. It's not yes to give birth in a time with new medicine. Yeah.
Dr G 1:13:44 And you can imagine, you know, the women are sitting around being like,
well, I lost Marcus last year. And then this year, it doesn't Look like Lucius is gonna make it through. I've
Dr Rad 1:13:55 godammn sandals, who just offer no protection against the cold.
Dr G 1:14:00 He came back and he didn't have any toes. What
Dr Rad 1:14:03 am I gonna do with this sweater? It ain't gonna fit my next husband?
Dr G 1:14:08 I just don't know Cecilia. I just don't know if I can keep getting married like this. I frankly, sick
Dr Rad 1:14:16 of this all these letters
Dr G 1:14:20 So, you know, it's tough out there for Roman women in general. And you know, this now new requirement, apparently you because you gotta get married. Right. So that's it. And then the other thing that seems to be associated with the censorship, which seems particularly cruel, is the taxation on orphans.
Dr Rad 1:14:38 I was waiting to say much.
Dr G 1:14:41 Because guess what orphans? Yeah, you have not suffered enough in this life having lost your parents. In fact, there needs to be a specific orphan tax because if you don't pay your way, no one will.
Dr Rad 1:14:56 I'm presuming this is to fund the pay and also the equestrian stipend. But is this because there are so many orphans. Now, it
Dr G 1:15:07 seems to be the case that the the one to do with the unmarried people is like, right, you've got to reproduce. And the one with the orphans is you were brought into this world you weren't given life. You must continue on, and you must stay away. Yeah. And just because your relatives aren't around to do the good job of paying the tax that the state needs doesn't mean you get away with
Dr Rad 1:15:28 it. Toddlers, this is not a state where you get a free ride. Yeah, exactly.
Dr G 1:15:33 Yeah, you can pay in grain. That's fine. You must pay. Wow,
Dr Rad 1:15:38 ha, I saw that. And I was like, that must be wrong. But I knew that you were going to be looking into it sounds like I'm going to ignore it. Because it just seems weird and cruel.
Dr G 1:15:48 It does seem weird. And I don't fully understand it. And I feel like maybe I'll source material hasn't quite wrapped its head around why that would be useful or good or necessary. Certainly with the unmarried, Roman population. They're kind of like you're alive and you have a duty to create life. That's kind of why you're alive. So it's a very sort of, like, evolutionary determinist perspective being like, Wait, you're here. You better get on with it. Yes, that's what you're here to do.
Dr Rad 1:16:14 You're here. You're not queer. Get used to it. Yeah,
Dr G 1:16:15 you must. And you shall, and we will find a way to make you married. Yeah. And then the orphan stuff? I don't know, that's just a bit baffling.
Dr Rad 1:16:23 Is that a way of forcing people to adopt the orphans?
Dr G 1:16:28 I don't know. The tax seems to fall upon the orphan themselves? I don't know. Yeah, I
mean, that's the thing. I don't understand wandering up to adults being like, Please adopt me. For the tags, and what
happens to an orphan if you can't afford to pay the tag? I
Dr Rad 1:16:44 know, it's so strange. Sorry, Camillus, covering himself with Real Glory with that policy. Yeah. So
Dr G 1:16:51 I can't wait to see what he does next.
Dr Rad 1:16:53 I mean, the idea that this might be slightly anachronistic somehow or something like that, it kind of makes sense, because obviously, some of the details that have been brought up in my account, I've definitely questioned as maybe being anachronistic, like the idea that there was that specific punishment for Roman men who were cowardly in battle, you know, the idea that they got beaten with a casual, like some sort of penalty or something. We're not really short, like, it is true. The Romans did take military discipline seriously, particularly later on, which is where we have records of it, you know, coming through sources like I believe Cicero, I believe there are references and Tacitus for those particulars. Polybius. And that sort of thing to this sort of idea that the command might somehow indicate this person has to be set upon beaten. Yeah, and that sort of thing. But we don't know how far it goes back. And certainly I think the question is, does it get back this one? And as as often is the case? The answer is generally no. Well, we don't know. We don't know. Probably not. Just because as we've talked about numerous times with the military pay aspects, we just don't really show how formal any of this stuff is. So the idea that you would have, I mean, you don't have a formal standing army. I mean, sure. This is meant to be the rumblings of that starting, but you don't have it. This is just a special occasion kind of thing. Surprise. So the idea that you would have formal punishments for this kind of thing is a bit iffy. I mean, it's like it's not out of the question, obviously, because Rome is at war a lot. So maybe there are penalties. But the idea that this was like some sort of official accepted punishment, that's what people are questioning. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. And certainly, definitely, this idea of equestrians receiving some sort of reimbursement or pay and that sort of thing, which again, does happen later. There are some issues that we will talk about. I mean, it actually gets, I think, quite technical, the whole idea of the cavalry. This doesn't seem likely for this time period, as we've talked about, and this whole military pay thing. And certainly, these taxes, I think are meant to be feeding into this, but so none of it kind of adds up. Yeah, we've
Dr G 1:19:17 got more questions than answers, another classic partial historians.
Dr Rad 1:19:23 All we can say is unlikely. I mean, it's certainly all of these things will be introduced, for sure. There definitely will be because obviously the equestrians are essentially becoming like the cavalry. Right.
Dr G 1:19:37 And I think there's that thing where it's like stuff has to be mentioned for the first time at some point. Sure. Yeah. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the first time that it becomes regular rise.
Dr Rad 1:19:49 Yeah. And the cavalry when they were getting paid, did get paid more because they do have more expenses, I guess, and they are also looked at as being pretty special. But yeah, the idea that Rome has a specific cavalry and a specific infantry and they're each trying to outdo each other is the Senate. I vote no. Yeah, it all seems a little a little immature. A little bit early than Yes. At least trying to figure out where the money's coming from.
Dr G 1:20:20 Orphans. Yeah, exactly. We're gonna fund the whole thing on orphan
Dr Rad 1:20:24 lately logical to pay for rich people's horses. Putting a tax on it. Just when you don't room couldn't get any more conservative.
Dr G 1:20:31 Weird. Yeah. All right. Yeah.
Dr Rad 1:20:35 Okay. But that's I think that is all I have.
Dr G 1:20:39 Okay, in which case, I think it's time for the partial pick.
Dr Rad 1:20:44 I'm looking forward to this.
All right, Dr. G, tell us what the Partial Pick is all about?
Dr G 1:20:52 Well, there are 50 Roman Eagles up for grabs, across five categories Ding Ding!. And so we will see how the Romans score against those categories, the first category being military clout.
Dr Rad 1:21:07 Okay, I feel like there's some good and some bad, they are besieging. But then their stuff gets burnt.
Dr G 1:21:15 It was all going great where they got Whoa, and they
Dr Rad 1:21:19 get more reinforcements. And they seem to be more numerous and better than ever before. And morale is high. So I don't know how you want to take that.
Dr G 1:21:25 Um, I mean, on the balance five, okay. Although
Dr Rad 1:21:29 I will just point out that you gave them a six are actually conquering something last week. I feel like maybe, maybe a four, you know, like, like, you know, like they're asking a
Dr G 1:21:41 consistency from me that I don't possess, I might vote solely on my feelings.
Dr Rad 1:21:46 Oh, I think that's clear. All right. Okay. Well, let's maybe say for Shall we like, because like, it's, you know, it's consistent. I
Dr G 1:21:53 can go lower? No,
Dr Rad 1:21:56 that's ageing. And they haven't been technically defeated. They just lost some siege equipment. And seemingly some people, you know, they
Dr G 1:22:02 lost some people burnt to death. Well, yeah. But that
Dr Rad 1:22:05 was to see the siege equipment wasn't in warfare, per se.
Dr G 1:22:09 I mean, you telling me that saving the siege equipment during an act of war is not somehow part of warfare.
Dr Rad 1:22:15 It's not like actual battley kind of stuff, you know? Oh, in my we're gonna disagree on so much. Before moving on.
Dr G 1:22:26 The second category is diplomacy. Well,
Dr Rad 1:22:29 no, no, definitely no diplomacy anywhere. I mean, okay. If we say internally, I guess the fact that our days
Dr G 1:22:39 I don't think we we've agreed that diplomacy is not an internal. I
Dr Rad 1:22:43 was gonna say, I guess if you were saying internal, there's like, a bit of speechifying going on, but I don't feel like it's particularly diplomatic, because it's Appius. Claudius, you
Dr G 1:22:51 know, diplomacy. They don't talk to me. They don't try to talk down the new anonymous King, nothing like that. They don't send more ambassadors. It's no. I don't know what the other six or seven or eight or nine, whatever military tributes are doing. Not talking to anybody being
Dr Rad 1:23:08 scattered. Hide behind a different bush.
Dr G 1:23:13 The category is expansion.
Dr Rad 1:23:15 Yeah.
Dr G 1:23:17 That's a zero. They're trying very hard. But I would love to have a love to have not happening now. The fourth category is weird to us. Okay.
Dr Rad 1:23:29 I really hate to say this strategy, but I feel that by Roman standards, maybe we're seeing a little bit of that from Appius Claudius. You
Dr G 1:23:38 think so? I mean, he's doing some pretty big speechifying. It's not military, though. We haven't really seen that for a while, but it's not like he's demonstrating classic Roman manliness.
Dr Rad 1:23:50 I suppose. That's true. I guess he's just just playing classic Roman douchebaggery. I was mistaken. Yeah. You know, the
Dr G 1:23:59 classic blinds, issue. Yeah, sort of focus on whatever.
Dr Rad 1:24:04 He's rhetoric is impressive. But yeah, I don't know. I agree with you. It's not perhaps that impassioned. And it's
Dr G 1:24:10 not like he sort of calls forth the idea of Roman masculinity being on the line here either. Like,
Dr Rad 1:24:17 you know, he does talk about you know, like the masculinity of the soldiers. Yeah, you know, like being put into question how they feel if you feel like you're calling them a Blissey. I kind of like it. Well,
Dr G 1:24:29 that's true. Yeah. But is it manly to call another Roman on manly? Well,
Dr Rad 1:24:35 no, he's I think he's I think they are. He's suggesting that they are indeed, but that the tribunes are implying that they are somehow not man enough to take a by saying that they can't hack it in the winter that they're too, too pricy to hang out in some proper winter quarters.
Dr G 1:24:52 I think where we might see what we're tourists, aside from potential for obvious quarters because I feel like that's kind of it is a bit which is we Yeah, it's the equestrians coming along and volunteering with their own horses. Oh, yeah. And then and then the plebeians coming along. Not to be outdone by that, yeah. Volunteering into a situation where clearly there's been a lot of tension about having people out there.
Dr Rad 1:25:16 What else would make the senators shed a tear?
Dr G 1:25:18 Virtus to us coming from below.
Dr Rad 1:25:22 Sounds raunchy?
Dr G 1:25:25 Is that your weird jokes? are you just happy to see?
Dr Rad 1:25:30 Because if I'm a very man, I get turned on by that. All right.
Dr G 1:25:33 I think that's definitely okay. Yeah, for sure. And maybe potentially higher, because we don't have to Yeah, this is the moment that seems to bring a very specific class of equestrians out, that we've never really encountered before.
Dr Rad 1:25:49 That's right. The equestrians who are technically part of that order, but have their own horses but the state don't pay for them yet, but they will pay for them after
Dr G 1:25:55 this. That club that club. Yeah, very specific club.
Dr Rad 1:25:59 It's very exclusive. Maybe
Dr G 1:26:00 a sixth.
Dr Rad 1:26:01 Okay. All right. And
Dr G 1:26:03 our final category is the citizens score. I
Dr Rad 1:26:07 am so torn on it.
Dr G 1:26:08 It's a tough time. Yeah,
Dr Rad 1:26:09 they are so clearly being manipulated, again. And they seem to be standing up for themselves at first. And we do have some good Tribune action happening here like the tribunes make some solid points. Mostly, I told you so. But the fact that they are nameless, we don't even know how many there are. They're not given a direct speech.
Dr G 1:26:29 And also, their points become completely ineffectual. Yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 1:26:33 As soon as things start to turn at bay, people are just too concerned about what's happening.
Dr G 1:26:40 So it's not great, because, yes, there is the potential for pay. It has been suggested that that's about to continue for the overwintering. But on the other hand, this seizure is not going well so far. And a whole bunch of them seem to have died trying to save the siege equipment in unruly fire, and
Dr Rad 1:26:56 the rest of them have gone off to serve, which okay, yes, they're getting paid. But they could be stuck there for a while. We don't know how long are they going to be there
Dr G 1:27:04 also the orphan tax, not great.
Dr Rad 1:27:08 sorrowfully.
Dr G 1:27:10 And also being told that you just have to remarry all the time. Just keep going, guys. I mean, by why a modern standard that's a bit harsh by Roman standard, that's probably people are like, they're like, Oh, well, I kind of expected that. But
Dr Rad 1:27:23 it's really just legislating what people expected of you anyway. Yes,
Dr G 1:27:26 yeah. Annoying. But yeah, that will Yeah. Oh,
Dr Rad 1:27:29 wow. Okay, so I feel like it's maybe a one because the tribunes tried. Oh, yeah. And that's, that's all that happened. Yeah. Well, let's face it, the plebeians ,bless their little cotton socks, which hopefully they're wearing in their winter quarters under their sandals. They seem very happy to be part of this movement to dedicate themselves in this way. You know, they seem to have been completely won over by everything's happening, the atmosphere, the vibe, if you will. So I feel like they're kind of happy. Even sickly that they shouldn't.
Dr G 1:28:08 As long as they're happy. We cannot judge them for their own happy. Exactly.
Dr Rad 1:28:11 Yeah. So Look, I feel like it has to be a one. Yeah,
Dr G 1:28:14 I don't think that condition is great. So what it is all right.
Dr Rad 1:28:18 That's me instructed me that we have a grand total of 11, which I actually I was expecting more honestly, just goes to show rhetoric it blindsides you, I thought it was going to be much higher, but turns out when all you have is a winker going on and on and on about conservative values. Don't get high scores.
Dr G 1:28:38 Yeah, Look, I'm like can it be a high school when there's an obvious Claudius in the mix?
Dr Rad 1:28:44 But you know, and I am pleased about the fact that I am switching douchebag for wanker occasionally now. That's new. That's gonna be a new feature. Yeah,
Dr G 1:28:52 yeah, Look, I mean, it's been a decade it's time to introduce the
Dr Rad 1:28:57 new century is looming. Oh. Well, thank you very much for tolerating.Appius Claudius' speech
Dr Rad: Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes at www.partialhistorians.com. Music by Bettina joy de Guzman.
You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes.
Today we would like to say salve to Stephanie, Teresa, Karl, Roman, and Dillon, some of our recent Patreon members. Thank you very much for your support! It is thanks to all of our supporters that we have been able to overhaul our audio equipment and debuted the new sound in this episode.
However, if the emperor has raised your taxes, Ancient Rome, please just tell someone about the show, our book, or give us a five star review.
Neil, or ancientblogger as he's more commonly known, studied ancient history at degree level and then completed an MA in Classical Civilisation. Though he has a full time job he spends most of his time creating content on Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok – just search for ancientblogger. He also has a website ancientblogger.com and several years ago started what is now the Ancient History Hound podcast, where he covers a wide array of topics from ancient history.
He also gets the chance to volunteer at schools around Brighton where he helps students with Greece and Rome, the latter usually whilst wearing his legionary armour. As his website states – he's all about ancient history and passionate about making the topic accessible to one and all.”
Special Episode – Exploring Place in Regal Rome with Neil, The Ancient Blogger – Part 1
Neil seems to have found himself in a museum of ancient vases while wearing a tshirt of ancient vases!
What was the landscape of regal Rome like?
There's no doubt that the topography of ancient Rome was very different to what we are able to see today. With the restraints around archaeological work you can expect in a city that is still as important and vibrant as the capital of Italy, it is partly through evidence on the ground and partly through reading the ancient sources that we can come to grips with what ancient Rome may have been like in its very early iterations.
The Palatine and the Aventine
Neil takes us through the importance of hills in general, in Italy, and for Rome in particular. Romulus has a connection with the Palatine hill and Remus is connected with the Aventine. Neil delves into the details of the wolves in this area including the development of the Lupercalia rites and the significance attached to blood sacrifice in cultivating the meaning of place.
The early pomerium
How did it the sacred boundary of Rome work? Where was it? What were the implications for trying to cross it with early armies? None of these questions can be answered definitely because evidence is thin on the ground archaeologically speaking, but considering later written sources offers some ways into the topic. Looking to read more on this topic, consider Koortbojian, M. 2020. Crossing the Pomerium: The Boundaries of Political, Religious, and Military Institutions from Caesar to Constantine(Princeton University Press)
The Campus Martius
The campus Martius ‘Field of Mars’ was the site of the potential murder of Romulus, Rome’s first king. The area covers a fair amount of land next to the Tiber and we consider some of its historical details.
The Tarpeian Rock
Bound up with the early defence of Rome is the Capitoline Hill where the earliest defences of the city were thought to have been built. We explore the stories that the Romans told about how the rock got its name. This leads into a consideration of how death was treated in respect to place.
The First Bridge over the Tiber
The Pons Sublicius was the first bridge recorded to cross the Tiber. Not only was the bridge of strategic importance, but it was also connection with rituals. Neil takes us through some of the geographical features of the Tiber and how understanding the ancient river is quite a different proposition to understanding the Tiber as it can be observed today.
The Janiculum and the Caelian
The importance of the Janiculum being on the far side of the Tiber as far as the Romans are concerned and the etymological possibilities for the names of some of the hills. The Caelian hill is often overlooked, but maybe it needs to find its spotlight especially for its connection to Numa, the second king.
Things to listen out for:
The Oracle at Dodona
Pallantium in Arcadia (Greece) and Evander
Zeus Xenia and Lyacon
The cultural significance of place and the development of the sacred
The sacrifice of Iphigenia
The clock face approach to understanding where the ancient hills of Rome were
Hercules and Cacus the Giant
Aelius Gellius’ Attic Nights
Miasma, the Ancient Greek understanding of pollution
Map of ancient Rome showing the theorised extent of the Servian Walls built by Rome's sixth king. The various hills and significant gates (porta) are also indicated. Note that the Janiculum is on the far side of the Tiber from Rome proper. Source Flickr.
Automated Transcript
Automated transcript lightly edited for our wonderful accents and the tricky terms in Latin!
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 1:03 Hello, and welcome to this special episode of the partial historians. I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:10 And I am Dr. Rad.
Dr G 1:13 And we are super thrilled to be joined by a special guest today. Welcome, Neil.
Neil – History Hound 1:21 Hello, thanks very much for having me on and call me special, which is something I haven't heard for years.
Dr G 1:27 We meant it in a good way.
Neil – History Hound 1:28 Oh I'm sure it was.
Dr G 1:31 So Neil holds a MA in classics and history from Birkbeck, University of London, and is the founder of the popular Ancient Blogger website. And for the last six years, he has also been the host of the Ancient History Hound podcast. So Neil has experience in ancient Roman reenactment. And yes, he does own a suit of legionary armor, we're so glad you've already asked. And he also engages in school outreach programs, bringing the ancient Roman world to life for the next generation. And we're super thrilled to be sitting down and talking today about a little bit of typography when it comes to ancient Rome, and thinking about exploring place, and particularly going right back into the Regal period of ancient Rome to do it. So welcome, Neil.
Neil – History Hound 2:23 Thank you. Yeah. Just on that, yeah. It's great to be able to go out and visit schools and do some volunteering work at schools wearing Roman armor. My back does not forgive me. Oh, it's, it's great fun. And it does make a difference. Because sometimes, I think if you introduce history, ancient history, to new people in a different way, that whatever age, I think it disrupts some preconceptions, because one of the questions I've asked, I asked, when I've had guests on my podcast, how did you get into ancient history? And for the most part, people tend to think, Oh, I was translating Cicero at the age of five on my father's knee. The reality is, I think, I think the one of my guests that she said that it was because she watched ‘The Mummy'. And it can be it can be stuff like that. So it's so important that people realize that it's somewhat the sometimes the incidental actions and events in your life that can lead you to becoming really fascinated by a particular subject. And so yeah, so it's good to be able to try and help with that. This is my only my second time I think I've ever been on a podcast that first time was right at the beginning. So I hope I'm a I'm a good guest. Anyway. So thanks again.
Dr Rad 3:33 Well, we're predisposed to like you is to teachers, I think it's very admirable that you are volunteering your time in such a way.
Dr G 3:41 Yes, I really hang out with children when they pay me.
Neil – History Hound 3:44 The I got to be honest with you, I don't know how the teachers do it. I always say that to them. But I get bossed around by a bunch of kids for the best part of sort of three hours or so. I've got I'm visiting a school in a couple of weeks. And we've got to the invasion of Britain for a bunch of nine year olds, which is easy and difficult, because there's some really interesting stuff there. But at the same time, it's quite difficult because you want to avoid the gruesome things, which is fundamental to what the Roman army did. So it's talking about other areas, and also try and develop extension exercises and things that different kids will do, generally trying to spread the enjoyment of the subject. And that's something I've always tried to do through my podcasts and everything else is just trying to get people who haven't necessarily come across the topic interested in the topic, and they can feel like an input because after all, ancient history is about people. And we sometimes forget that there. We have our basic emotions, and they would have been exactly the same in antiquity. People got up in the morning, they got worried about their jobs people had, you know, loves their breakups and everything else. And I'm just finishing on that there was an episode. I'm not gonna keep plugging my episode, by the way, but I went I just went I went through the oracle at Dodona. They found a bunch of lead sheets and the where people had written down their questions. And the questions, generally speaking, though, came from all sections of society, including women, which is great, because we don't have a great deal about that kind of information. But it was questions such as did, should I get a new job? Should I change my career? Should I move? Should one of them we should have an affair? There was quite a lot of can I? Who do I pray to to make my kids better? But these were genuine questions that people have today. So again, it's about trying to tie in what was ancient or what is modern and sort of shortening the distance between the two? So yeah, there we go. Anyway, we'll be we'll be talking about, as he said, about Rome, early Rome, about the typography and how important the typography was, and some of the spaces and areas in that and some of the discussions we can probably have that might throw a different perspective on things. So yep, looking forward to I've got my notes, and I'd be doing lots of research. So fingers crossed.
Dr G 5:54 Excellent, excellent. Well, we're pretty excited to explore this topic. Because as you know, we wrote a book recently on the Roman kings, and we're really focused on the human character side of it. So very much like you were saying, engaging with school children and bringing that curiosity to the subject. It's the people factor that really drives a lot of the work that we do as well. And so I think taking this different geographic angle is really interesting way to think about the whole thing from a totally different perspective. So one of the things that stands out when you think about Rome, and usually something that people tend to know about Roman geography, if they know anything at all, is that it's got seven hills. This is apparently a very special number gets bandied about a lot. But in the traditional foundation story, we have Romulus and Remus, and they start on different hills. And there are only two guys, one of them set up on the Palatine Hill, and one of them set up on the Aventine Hill. And I'm interested in what might be the significance of these two locations? And what could we know about them in this really early period, if anything at all.
Neil – History Hound 7:06 A great start, great place to start. Just before I go any further, I should say I bought your book downloaded onto my Kindle and loved it, it was very, very good. So if anyone's listening out there, this is not a promo, this is a genuine review, I really enjoyed it, because it does that thing of engaging people. It's got some really interesting stories in there. And it's got some interesting questions as well, which I think you should always be able to take away from a book. Before I start on the whole seven hills thing. I want to just cover a few basics about that, because people always think of hills and Rome, but not necessarily in the context of the causality and the importance of them. So to start with having hills was generally a good idea, because hills mean hillside forts, or hill forts, which means you've got a very good defensive position. That was a really popular thing. At that time the Etruscans are on it, you can pretty much go anywhere around the Mediterranean people like higher places because they're easy to defend. You can stick a wall around them, you can stick the important buildings in there, hey, presto, life is good. Where it becomes even more interesting and significant for Rome, or the area which became Rome is the actual location of Rome, because Rome is in Rome, it is at a affordable part of what you could fold the river Tiber around Rome. Why is that important? Well, if you think of the Italian peninsula, the Italian peninsula is quite narrow. It's around 180 kilometers, which is about 111 miles. I did a bit of working this out. And apparently that's the distance from Sydney to Mollymook. And it's also the distance from-
Dr Rad 8:39 Wow, thank you for the local reference.
Neil – History Hound 8:41 That's right. Yeah, I looked it up. And I always liked spending time on maps. And it's also if you're in Chicago, that's a distance from Chicago to Lafayette. So it's that it's quite narrow. And the problem or advantage the Italian peninsula has is down the center of that you've got the Appenine Mountains. So generally speaking, if you're traveling up and down Italy, you either do it on the eastern coast, or you do on the western coast, if you're doing on the western coast. At some point, you will have to pass and and traverse as it were the Tiber River. So just to just come back to it all. You've got a set of defensive positions right next to an incredibly strategic, important location. On that side on the western side of the app and ions. This is a great place. People sometimes ask why did Rome develop? Well, it developed for a number of reasons, and it achieved what it did for a number of reasons. But these were all fundamentally underpinned by the fact of where it was at this great starting location. And if anyone's listening who has ever played Civilization, the computer game…
Dr G 9:41 I was gonna say I was just having a Civ 6 moment.
Neil – History Hound 9:45 This is this is the ideal start position. This is riverside, plains, hills, your part is great. You've even in theory got some salt then nearby, which just makes yeah, the ears will be picking up for anyone who plays civilization on any of the versions. It's just a great start position. So that was really important. And we'll come shortly to the whole issue of the Tiber and how that changed and shifted, because that's really important to understand with early Rome. So you've got these these two hills, you've got the Aventine and the Palatine. So we start with the with the Palatine. The Palatine is very interesting in the way that it's handled. mythologically speaking, because it seems to have a prequel because it's linked to a number of events that happen prior to Romulus and Remus. But it also stitches in nicely with certain points in their lives. It stitches in with sort of Rites of Passage, which I'll get to shortly. So what you have, apparently, according to I think it's both Dionysus Halicarnassus and Livy. They both refer to Pallantium. Pallantium was a city or a small settlement whatnot, in Arcadia in central Greece, and it said that originally, Evander and some other Greeks came over, and they settled there. And I completely agree with the point you made in your book, Dionysius of Halicarnassus sees Greeks everywhere. He just did to him everything is greek.
Dr Rad 11:05 I see Greek people…
Neil – History Hound 11:07 Yeah, totally. Totally. He's, everything is great. Yeah, they just did it with a different language a bit later on. And in Pallantium, you have this initial settlement. Now that ties into Pallantium and Arcadia. Why is that interesting? It's interesting because Arcadia in the Peloponnese was an odd place. And it had some odd characters, even by the standards of Greek myth. One of them was King Lycaon. Now, people might have heard of him. King like Rome was famous because he did that one thing that you should rarely never ever do. And that's try it on with a God. He invites Zeus round for lunch, and to test if he's really that clever, he feeds in human flesh, which is just the more I mean, if you think that's a bad idea, just a map, just remember that Zeus was Zeus Xenia was an aspect of Zeus whereby he was the god of good good guests and hosts. So incredible amount of importance was based on being a good guest and a good host, presumably serving them human human flesh, bad idea that somewhat sort of crosses the line a bit, and you're doing it with a God who is in charge of that particular element. Zeus does not take this well, as you might imagine, changes him into a wolf. Now on Mount Lycaon, which is in Arcadia you had as an altar to Zeus, which was an a very long ash altar. And there were lots of things said about it. Without trying to go on a tangent. If you've ever listened to episodes on any podcast I've done by myself on werewolves, and werewolf myth. That is the that is the point that you always arrive at because people say, well, that's where you had some sort of wolf based ritual. Now tying that back in, why is that? Why do you tie that in with with Rome? Well, it's not necessarily just a tangent. It's because Rome obviously itself has some form of wolf cult, it has a wolf association, and in fact, I think it's living again who says that Lupercalia the festival where men would run around naked and hit people with goat hide thongs originated from the Lupercal, the cave of the wolf on the Aventine. And in fact, there's the Lupercalia is a very interesting festival because it seems to be one that existed prior to Romulus and Remus. It probably had them both of them grafted on to it. It has two functions. It seems to be a lustral rite, that is a purification, rite. But it also has some sort of fertility basics to it. So it was one of these, one of these things that by the first century BC/AD, people are trying to work out what it may have looked like but the reality is, like many Roman things, including the Saturnalia, for example, it started out in something very different, and ended up with something quite, quite divorced or estranged from its origin, shall we say? And yeah, so you've got this right before Romulus and Remus rock up. When they do. That's where they, they end up as babies. They're washed up there in their basket, which was a bit of a trope in antiquity, and also speaks to the point of flooding in ancient Rome, which again, is an important thing that we'll come to. It's also the place where they have their auguries, so you may have heard of the story where Remus goes the Aventine and sports has many eagles he can. Romulus does it on the Palatine, he spots more he wins, he gets to found Rome, it's possibly the location as well of where Remus is killed. What is interesting is there are a number of different myths. We have different versions for it. We have the version where it's just a straight out fight, because the two brothers are just not going to go on mainly because they're brothers and that's what brothers tend to do, though probably not that extreme. But also because their Romans and Romans were very good at civil war. They were very good at infighting and again, we have to remember that many of these myths have been created and worked on in the later periods or several centuries afterwards. We have Fabius Pictor at the end of the third century BC as the first acknowledged Roman historian who's writing in Greek. And then you have Livy's and Dionysius of Halicarnassus writing centuries after that. So the reality is they're getting to a point where they're trying to work everything out retrospectively, and they're seeing what what works for them in the modern world. Rome was a place of a lot of inner tension. And we have a lot of civil wars. So of course, it made sense that brothers would fall out and perhaps that would lead to a very nasty end. So there's a fight there, where Remus ends up, ends up it ends very badly for him. But there's also an element there of and this is something I'd like to check in with with either of your good selves of the pomerium, of this sacred boundary, because it's one of those things that sometimes it's a bit of an overreaction. Romulus killed his brother, because he jumped over his wall. And he mocked his foundations when I've been around. I've been round to relatives' new conservatory. I wasn't that impressed? I was not that impressed with it. But they didn't murder me. And so why is that? Why, why did you have this extreme reaction? And I think the thing is, we don't get the context. So foundations, particularly those associated walls had a sacred element to them. You didn't, You didn't mock them, it was it would be the equivalent mean there is no great equivalence, but perhaps it would be going to a cultural location where you just considered it on its as a physical presence. So for example, going to Uluru and just go and ask just a sandstone feature without realizing that that is Uluru. That's that's much more than what it is. Perhaps, I was thinking of the Statue of Liberty, you know, that's just a statue. But you don't get the cultural connotations, or the cultural connotations around those around that wall around that area. What's that it was incredibly important. And so by Remus mocking it and jumping over, it was committing a real crime, which, you know, instigated that response from Romulus, in that context, it doesn't sound too bad, again, extreme, but Romanus, as well, as you'll find, as you well know, wasn't, wasn't the most temperate of individuals, he often reacted-
Dr G 16:57 He was not a chill dude, Not a chill guy at all.
Neil – History Hound 17:00 But bearing in mind how he grown up, I mean, his entire existence, and the myth prior to them, it's basically family members falling out and hurting each other in various ways. So again, this sits within this whole myth of, if you've got a relative, it's gonna go Game of Thrones at some point, it's as simple as just a case of when rather than if. And yeah, so we have that there's also and something I always go to, and I, I apologize for this, because I got obsessed with human sacrifice after doing an episode on it. Not so much obsessed. Actually, that's probably that might get that
Dr G 17:30 That doesn't sound like a great way to phrase it.
Dr Rad 17:34 I was gonna say, Yeah, I'd stop, right there.
Neil – History Hound 17:36 Yeah, yeah, probably need to rephrase that. The, I found when I started looking and researching it, I saw it occurring more. Now, it occurs a lot in Greek myth, but they try and tidy it up. Great example, is Iphigenia, who's stolen away by Artemis, when she said to be sacrificed, and that was the idea of substitute sacrifice. So, you know, the Greeks do a kind of a good job of tidying up, though, occasionally leave it right in the open and just move on, such as Achilles in the Iliad, where he gets rid of the Trojan princess, and where Achilles is involved in the sacrifice of effort, you know, at the beginning, and where Achilles' involved in the sacrifice of Polyxena at the end of the Trojan War. So Achilles, yeah, he wasn't he wasn't particularly nice, or he had that element to him. But there is something of an argument to talk about how Remus dying is almost an essential requirement. Now, you can move that out into a conversation about how sometimes when cities were established large settlements, there is an argument that someone was ceremonially sacrificed to ensure the health of it, particularly around walls, Particularly around those liminal spaces. But I don't want to go into that too much, because I'm not entirely comfortable with the research on that I'm not that well acquainted to it. But when you look at the myth, and obviously, this is where I move fully within the realm of your respective expertise on this, the founding of the of the Republic, well, that was bloodshed that was that you have the death of Lucretia. You also have the death of Brutus' sons, you have these sort of repeated actions of if you're going to find something big, if you're gonna have this big, big setup, it requires a great cost. And that great cost can often be an individual being killed or being moved on as it were. So I think that's an important thing to notice about the Palatine. But there's also a good one Plutarch, Plutarch, it gives a more sort of amusing, and I wouldn't say he's throwing a bit shade but Remus gets annoyed at Romulus because he thinks he's cheated.
Dr G 19:38 I love that version of the story. That's my favorite one.
Dr Rad 19:41 I say I guess. Make sense. Yeah. Yeah.
Neil – History Hound 19:46 Yeah, it's a bit of a strange competition. It's like me going right? That we're going to win a car. The three of us gonna win a car, you just got to think of the highest number, but we'll say in order and I get to go last. I'm not saying one. I'm just gonna say the highest and yeah, so it's also interesting as vultures will often we have associations of eagle with ancient Rome, particularly with Tarquin when he gets his cap snatched by an eagle. But these were vultures, which again, is it? People may not know that much, but a trivia impress your friends stand stand your relatives. So we have that the so that's where we come to the Palatine. It was obviously pretty much where Rome is founded, and it becomes an incredibly important location. And before I go to the Aventine. Have I missed anything on that you think? Or is there anything?
Dr G 20:33 No I don't think so. I think there's something quite interesting about the idea of the blood sacrifice as a necessity, in terms of like establishing a sacral border. And what that means for other rituals that the Romans then participate in later on, for sure. And I think this extended narrative that has a way of connecting Rome back to Greece is something that Greeks across the ancient world would be very keen about, for sure.
Neil – History Hound 21:09 Yeah. Yeah, it's very difficult to really understand Rome without considering it through the filter of Greece and the Mediterranean was a real cultural melting pot, people were constantly exchanging ideas, cultures, you had Greeks in the south of Italy, and Magna Grecia, the Etruscans, who were heavily influential on Rome, big Greek fans. In fact, if you're, I guarantee, if you're listening to this, and you have a favorite Greek vase, the chances are, it was found in an Etruscan tomb. That's why it survived.
Dr G 21:37 They did love that stuff. It's everywhere there.
Neil – History Hound 21:39 Yeah, when I, when I first started studying I just studied all those years ago, I couldn't get my head around it: But this is an Attic vase, but it was found … what the heck was going to be? How did that work? And obviously, there's cultural transmission. But the stuff in Athens didn't necessarily survive as much. Or rather, if you're looking for, for an object to survive, you need to it needs to be in a tomb or somewhere away from everyone for a long time, and hopefully, dodge tomb robbers, and hopefully gets excavated, and it's still there in one piece. So the other thing about the Palatine is, when you're looking at the topography of Rome, it's quite important to understand where the hills were. Now I'm going to do a really basic thought experiment here, which is either going to fail or do well. You could see the looks on your faces. So when you think of the hills of Rome, the way that I try and do it is a clock face. And sort of, if you think at 12 o'clock, and going up north, you've got the field of Mars, that kind of thing. In the center of the clock face, you've got the Tiber which winds round from around 11 o'clock disappears around seven o'clock, and intersects with the Forum Boarium, which that's the main crossing point into Rome. At nine o'clock, you've got the Janiculum Hill, at six o'clock, you've got the the Aventine. And then you've kind of got that the Palatine just to the center just to the right sort of three o'clock ish, if you think of it like that. So if you're on the Palatine Hill, the Palatine Hill strategically is really important because you're right dead center on that crossing. So again, it is the most one of the most important hills, I mean, the Capitoline Hill is close as well. So is the Aventine Hill, they're not going to the Janiculum. These are not far from that that crossing. But if you're going to choose one first, you'd probably choose the Palatine Hill as being that initial place that you'd want to be. So again, we need to tie this in the myths into the sort of pragmatism of it all. Now I'm going to move to the Aventine. The Aventine Hill is interesting, mainly because it will it has an association with an unnecessary it's known right, so feel free to laugh with Cacus or Cacus, the giant who Hercules fights, and it's associated with him because again, you have a Hercules at Rome quite early on was certainly prior to Romulus and Remus. It also became a bit of a staging post, it became an emptying this is where people settle the Latins who were defeated on the anchors the third, fourth, fourth Roman king was given mixed up, a settles in there because he can't stop them anywhere else. So it's sort of a bit of a staging post overspill, that's where people are going to go and live. But the weirdest thing I found out about this when I there was something I hadn't realized. And again, I'm gonna defer to your expertise on this until the reign of Claudius in the first century AD. It was outside of the City's pomerium. This was not inside this, it was in there's discussion, it might have been enclosed by walls, but it wasn't inside the pomerium. And could you just for a moment just given because I've tried to find good definitions of what the pomerium was, but you able to just distill that if you can?
Dr G 24:48 Yeah, so the pomerium is, because it's the sacral boundary, it is marked out physically in certain ways. But it is is not something that is a physical barrier as such, so there's marker points for it. We understand it through archaeological evidence. And in order to shift, it becomes a huge deal, because that would be expanding the sacral boundaries of the city. So that has to be a very deliberate choice. The Romans are fundamentally a highly religious and God fearing people. So they don't make decisions without consulting the gods on any level, it doesn't really matter what it is. Whether it's in your home, whether it's in public, whether it's going to war, the gods have to approve, they need to feel that sense that their relationship is right with the gods. And so the pomerium is both an indication of what is inclusively believed to be part of sacral Rome, versus what is considered to be foreign and outside. So in the worst case scenario, it's not the physical walls of Rome that ultimately need to be upheld and defended, although they're very important, but it's making sure that that sacral boundary is never violated. So having the Aventine outside of that for a very long time, is conducive to the sorts of things that you're saying in terms of people coming into Rome, when they're slightly foreign. And they're considered to be migrant populations, they settle in the Aventine, because they're allowed to be there. And they're allowed to worship their own gods there without any problems. As soon as they cross that sacral boundary, it becomes an issue. You can't have foreign gods inside the pomerium. So everything to do with a multicultural life, which Rome increasingly becomes known for is going to be happening at those bleeding edges around the outside of the pomerium. And so having the Aventine outside of that for a long time super useful and will become super useful for the Struggle of the Orders. And I'm using my flash rabbits.
Dr Rad 26:57 I was I was going to say I remember thinking about this when we were talking about the second secession, the Aventine as a place in that particular narrative where there'll be an answer like, “You know what, screw you guys, we're not going to be proud of this thing anymore,” became important.
Dr G 27:13 “We're just gonna leave this whole town!”
Dr Rad 27:16 “We're just gonna leave and we're going to go to the Aventine,” Yeah.
Dr G 27:19 Yeah, “This is not Rome anymore. The Aventine is its own place, thank you very much.”
Dr Rad 27:27 “Yeah, it's its own thing. It's got different vibes, guys.”
Neil – History Hound 27:31 I live in Brighton. And there's a bit of a thing with Brighton because it's alongside Hove. And I know if you've you might have heard of this. But there's a sort of thing where people, whenever they say, Oh, you live in Brighton people would always say I actually, Hove actually. And “Hove, actually” became its own little thing. It got printed on T shirts. And I didn't grow up. I didn't grow up in Brighton, so I'm not aware of it all that much. But when I first started to talk to people, where do you live? Well I live in Brighton but I actually live in Hove. But I'm not saying that to be that person who's “Actually, Hove,” you know, that sort of thing. So we should get “Aventine, actually” T shirts. There we go.
Dr G 28:08 Yeah, probably!
Neil – History Hound 28:10 The idea of and I did a bit of obviously digging to work out why this might be so why wasn't wasn't included. And the general consensus in the sources seems to be no one actually knew. But they had some ideas. And there was a sort of historian who wrote called Aulus Gellius who write “Attic Nights”, which sounds like sounds like saying you find on Netflix and not know if she'd watch in front of your parents. I don't know. It's not quite sure when there's and he said he wasn't sure he said there are a number of reasons however, he quoted Messala who was a consul back in 53 BC, and apparently according to Messala he said that it was because of ill owned birds. The point of when that augury was taken.
Dr G 28:52 Right from the beginning Remus was wrong.
Neil – History Hound 28:55 Yeah, it was it was abandoned, and the whole hill that he did, and somehow that that had some association with it. But there is probably a more practical reason for this. And for this, I need to go back to that clock face I did earlier. So as you remember, you've got Field of Mars around 12 o'clock. And then you've got around nine o'clock, you've got the Tiber, and then you've got the Aventine at around sort of six o'clock. Now, when it came to moving troops around the field of Mars was where you marshal troops early on in Rome. At that point, Rome was obviously conducting military activities in a number of locations, but a lot to the south. If you take your soldiers from that point south, you face a big problem. Because if you have to cross the pomerium, as I understand it, and again, this is this is something I'm not entirely aware of. You've got to do a bunch of sacrifices and general rituals to cross over the pomerium. So you'd be it's a bit like when I suppose in some cities where you have a zone where you have to you can't you know, drive between these certain hours or whatnot or your car needs to be this type of setup or perhaps it's just pedestrianized, so you need to cross it, you'd be crossing it twice. And that could really forestall an army because it could take time. However, if the Aventine wasn't in the pomerium, then you can kind of take your men down the side of the eastern bank of the Tiber. And they don't have to worry about that. And they don't want to go the other routes because the two other routes from the Field of Mars if there was a pomerium immediately to the South would mean well, you've got across the Tiber, well, you can't cross the Tiber south, you've got to go all the way north and finding a decent crossing point. If you want to go east you've got to loop north and east around the hills. It that that when you're moving a large number of individuals, and again the logistics the Roman army is always an interesting thing, perhaps more so than what they actually did. On the battlefield though (I never said that). You move the slowest move the slowest thing in your army is the fastest you move. And often this will oxen, oxen, don't sprint, they don't move very quick. So you could lose a good day or two just making that progression, albeit if you have to cross the pomerium. If the pomerium isn't to the south, you've got easy dibs going. It's much easier to move troops. So why does Claudius do it? Well, apparently Claudius does it for a couple of reasons. Primarily because he's so amazing and he's expanded the Empire. Also it doesn't really matter it no one apparently really was that bothered by it. Because Rome at that time if you're an army you weren't stationed at Rome you weren't station really near Rome, you were stationed on the on the borders. So it didn't really have that same impact in terms of army and I think it's one of those things he he has his his big thing that he does or a big thing and everyone's like Yeah, cheers. Thanks for that. Yeah
Dr G 31:31 Whoooo
Dr Rad 31:34 New area code – yay
Neil – History Hound 31:36 Yeah, a really sad kind of a sad popper everything goes up in the background. And it's kind of just yeah, thanks for that. So yeah, so that's, that's primarily the to the to hills, or rather, that's the Aventine and that the Palatine. And it's interesting to see how I wouldn't say they necessarily take on the characteristics of their, of their forbearers, as it were, but there is something there to them. One is associated with everything about Rome, and how great it was. The other one is, yeah, well, and he's a bit weird. It's a sort of a black sheep of the Roman hills.
Dr Rad 32:11 I like that idea. So this is actually a good segue for us because we were going to ask you a bit about something to do with Romulus and to do potentially with troops and that sort of thing. So as you know, Romulus seems to come to a sticky end on the Campus Martius. So let's think about how the Romans might have understood Romulus as connection to this place and his legacy later on, because as you as you've already hinted at, the Romans are kind of trying to sometimes fit pieces together retrospectively.
Neil – History Hound 32:46 Yeah, it's really difficult as well, I think this is why I find the story of love the kings of the Regal period, so fascinating. Because it's a big disaster movie. That's what it is. It doesn't you know, it's not going well, you know, what's going to happen? They're not getting off the plane, it's, that's what's gonna happen. It's just how are they not gonna get off the plane? And sorry, if that sounded tasteless, by the way, but if you're gonna, if you're gonna put it within the context of modern day disaster movies, that kind of thing, this doesn't end well. And it's weird, because you have this internal tension in the narrative of isn't Rome, fantastic? Wasn't it founded, by the way, it's amazing. But also, it's not very good, because it ends really badly, because the thing that starts at all is ultimately a very bad thing, come come the seventh King. I mean, even if you make a good case for Servilius, the sixth king, he he's he does things, but he still acts in a sort of pseudo dictator fashion at points, because he does cheat the system. He doesn't have the proper elections and the interregnum and whatnot. It's just because everyone likes him that it's okay. So if you look at it from that the process is pretty broken by that point, in terms of how you elect a monarch, and what the monitor should be doing. And the idea of supreme power, and how it's wielded becomes a, you know, an issue, then it's not always just that when it's with the bad guys, and particularly the seventh King, it's more obvious because you were automatically not liking him. But it's one of those things that if your friends doing something that isn't morally good, you can be a bit more forgiving. But obviously, if somebody don't like doing it, well, then you're going to be entirely damaged. And I think that's that's what you have here. So it's interesting with a narrative of how how we move across with Romulus, and then you mentioned the Field of Mars, I find it and I again, it's laugh out loud funny when you hear the story of how he goes missing in the Field of Mars or alternatively is hacked to pieces depending on which you think's more likely, given that it's Rome, or we have Rome, where you never have political violence where it's always everyone's really happy with each other. And then afterwards, you have that senator appearing and telling the masses who are a bit worried about it. Don't worry, the ghost of Romulus appeared to me just mean no one else and told me don't worry, everyone, it's all good. Life is good. Don't kick up a fuss I've gone now be happy and that's it. But in terms of the actual location itself, nothing much happens. The Field of Mars in terms of have been developed until the late Republican period, simply because it's this big, marshy land, it's got lots of mosquitoes, very difficult to drain. And it's also useful. It's a useful kind of area where no one really knows what to do with it. Because you can have horse riding events there. They have some, they have a festival called the October Horse, which comes in later, I think, I don't think we can really date it to this period. But that that's linked to sort of horse races, and it doesn't enter work too well, to the winning horse. I should add, so I won't go much further than that. But in either case, it's a space that I think you've you've you said about how the promotion was important. This is outside so you can kind of anything, anything goes that you can get up to stuff.
Dr G 35:44 Oooo you can get away with hacking someone.
Neil – History Hound 35:45 Yeah, yeah. In theory, allegedly, allegedly, though, he know, he went up to heavens in a storm, because that's what you do. And I also found it interesting, because I think there and I haven't been able to get into going into this, but that's where you have the Theatre of Pompey, which is where Caesar met his end. So I think again, if someone listen to this, and they're tutting, I apologize. I didn't get a chance to look into this too much. But I know obviously, Caesar assassinated in the Pompey's Theatre, and I think that's where Pompey's Theatre was based. So if so you have two distinct events in Romans history where a a person in charge meets a rather unfortunate end, both in the Field of Mars. And it's also the only other thing that I can think of or found within the Regal period is it seems to have been the property of the seventh Quinctius Tarquinius Super-bus. Superbus obviously to have super bus because he's got a cape on.
Dr G 36:41 Superbus, I believe is how the Latin would would take it, but
Dr Rad 36:45 he's always Superbus to us.
Neil – History Hound 36:49 Put a cape on him, he's fine. It that's apparently that's that was his land. And when we're gonna call it Livy says the after he was dealt with, they took it back and dedicated it to Mars. So exactly what he was likely to do with that began perhaps that's, that was his land, perhaps had something to do with the the army perhaps it had something to do with controlling. It's not an area around really needs to develop at that point, certainly within a legal period, they've got more important places, which we'll, we'll speak about in a moment. Yeah. So that's the that's the I think, the Campus Martius or as much as we can, much as I've got anyway to talk about it.
Dr G 37:23 I mean, it's an interesting place, because it does have this famous sort of idea about it as this sort of area where people get together. And it's where a lot of voting happens later on. And things like that be precisely because it's outside the pomerium. But yeah, it's interesting that for the Romans, this idea that people could potentially be murdered, there doesn't necessarily mean that it changes the way that you engage with the space. And perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by something like that. I mean, that's true in the modern world, as well. as horrifying as that is if somebody is murdered in their home, for instance, it's not like the property will stand empty for all time, eventually, somebody will buy it, and it will be used again. So keeping on this sort of topic of violence for a moment, I think it's the Romans, it's not us, that's for sure. There is also the Tarpeian rock, which is this sort of infamous ledge that juts out from the Palatine [correction Capitoline!]. And you can still kind of make it out today, you certainly wouldn't want to be pushed off the top of it, it would definitely hurt. But it We're interested in how it comes to have that name. And this might be a bit of a Dorothy Dixer question, because I love the Tarpeian Rock. But also, why does it become so infamous?
So you just done that thing of asking me a question or a subject you're an expert in and I'm gonna fail horribly. Now. I'm gonna fall from that ledge.
You're not You're not.
Neil – History Hound 38:50 Okay.
Dr Rad 38:50 Not at all.
Dr G 38:53 If you if you get close, we'll catch you don't worry.
Dr Rad 38:56 Yeah, we also wrote that book a while ago. So the details are getting fuzzy.
Neil – History Hound 39:00 Just gesture at me wildly, no one can see. Yeah, when we got the Tarpeian Rock, I think the Capitoline as I think it's as alleged that's it's on the the Capitoline, which is interesting, because where it's located is also near a couple of other places that we're talking about, which are also to do with imprisonment or disposal, as it were. The story goes back and the story is the I mean, when you talk about stories in ancient Rome, and you say that doesn't really add up there a plotholes. The story of Tarpeia is one of the more bizarre ones because it really doesn't add up. So the story goes that you've got the Sabines who've taken the Capitoline Hill, and they've taken the Citadel, this is a really important defensive position. There's lots of problems, and they've done so by being betrayed to the Sabines. And the person who does that is Tarpeia. It depends which version, the myth you read, but she's either the daughter of the main man or who's in charge there, or she, I think, in some instances been referred to as a Vestal. I think that's, that that might be another version of it. And she basically says that she likes what the signs have on the left arms, which are bracelets, golden bracelets. If you give me some of those, I'll let you in. And so it happens. But she is then crushed by the shields because the [leader] Titus Tatius at the time, he's got the best name second best name in the Regal Rome after Mettius Fufetius. Who's who should be in the cast of Cats. I don't know why. But when you read a name, something pops up. I visioned him as some someone from Cats. So yeah, Titus Tatius, he ends up – treats her as a traitor – because she is so betrayed that she doesn't want to pay her also could be because he's not gonna give her the golden arm bracelets. And he's, she then gets sort of crushed by shields, and then that that location takes its name from her traitor, being a traitor. And that's where people who betray their own state and do very, very, very bad things are held from it. What's quite bizarre about this story, even within the context is that there was actually a version which I think Dionysus of Halicarnassus talks about Lucius Piso. And he says, actually, they got it wrong, because she was what she was trying to do was disarm the Sabines. And so she was kind of doing, she was acting as double agent, “I'll let you in, but you just dropped the shields, lever shields, and I'll let you in.” And then she would have presumably then told her father, whoever they were in command, and they would have been able to take out the sidelines easily. But it's a bit it's just a very odd. It's very odd myth by mythic standards, because there's so much internal tension. And there is a history of this sort of thing, in terms of people giving away unfortunately, betraying as it were, and being punished for betrayal, there was an individual forget their name who have betrayed a city to Achilles and she was killed. She was stoned to death because it's a case of well, you betrayed to me it's I can't trust you. So there are these sort of it belongs, I think white to a wider morality, tale of betrayal never ends well, as opposed to anything else. But I think it's also linked to an important point that you make in the book about how women are used, or women appear at really, really important moments within the legal history to make a statement about something or they use to make a statement.
Dr Rad 42:23 Moments of crisis. Yes.
Neil – History Hound 42:26 It can't Yeah, it can't be a man wouldn't betray them. And it had to be a woman who had betrayed and why would a woman betray them? Because of shiny things. And you look at that and just thinking, oh my gosh, it's just really?
Dr G 42:38 Thanks, Rome. Thanks. Yeah, establishing the patriarchy in such a visceral way for us all.
Dr Rad 42:43 It's a real vote of confidence.
Neil – History Hound 42:46 Even even people from 1970s British TV would look at that and go, “Well, that's bit That's a bit harsh. We can't do that. That's, that's, that's too much for us.” It's what the misunderstood heroine aspect, which I think is an important thing. We've also got this concept of bloodless execution. Now, one of the things that that is important, both that Rome and more so I think Greece that that's probably reflects more my study of it is the concept of pollution, miasma. The idea was that if you murdered someone, you are both polluted by the act, and this act could even extend to the objects themselves. In Athens, there was actually a law court that would prosecute objects used in murder. And those there were elsewhere. There's a story of a I believe it's in thesaurus or face us an island where there was a statue of a famous athlete. And it was a bronze statue. And every night, this guy turned up who hated this person, and hit it with sticks. And one day, it falls on him and kills him.
Dr G 43:52 Serves him right, stop hitting it with sticks, man.
Neil – History Hound 43:54 Yeah. There's a sort of it get out sort of, again, I don't know if people thought this might be a very nice reference, but Basil Fawlty, hitting the Mini with the branches. It's kind of a thing, and that they took the statute and got prosecuted by the deceased brother, and he got thrown into the sea. And we know about this because afterwards, they started suffering from various problems, harvest problems. And the Oracle of Delphi said, Well, that's because you need to recall all the exiles, and they recall the exiles, but it still kept happening. And then they said, Well, it's actually the athlete, you need to bring the athlete back. So they had to get fishing nets, go and find the statue and bring it back and stick it back into place. The point is that certain acts were both manifested pollution at Rome, not just and when we think of pollution, we think of it in the modern context, you think of fumes, you think of bloodstains, things like that, but it could be the act itself and having a top end rock, if someone's thrown from it, no one's actually killing you. Which sounds weird because obviously, you know, if I was to push someone off a cliff, I'd be convicted of murder. But the but the way it was seen so differently, it wasn't that you were sticking a sword in someone's head. or doing it in a more up to up close and personal manner. And it's also extended to how the how the Romans would sometimes deal with the defeated enemies that bring in that strangle them. So a lot of the execution What strange and so it What's strange in all of this is that you have the sort of the gladiators, you have the Colosseum and you have before it the Circus Maximus or other locations where you know, bloodshed is absolutely required. But it's a very different context. It's a very different space. So you've got this, this strange thing, and I again, I've got a question about the pomerium for you. Because technically, are you above the pomerium if you've been pushing a rock? So does this act still occur within and that's a thought exercise more anything else? Because there was paper, one paper I read and it suggested that you have these two spaces in Rome where people are disposed of or could be disposed of one of them is the Tarpeian Rock the other one is later becomes the Cacer or Tullianum, which we'll speak about. And in the in the one that's underground, people could be strangled in the one that's above ground people thrown from it. So, again, how does that interact with a pomerium? Because it's not happening on the ground? Is it still? Is it still affecting it or interacting with someone? I'm not gonna answer necessary expecting the answer on that. I just it was one of the things that came up and I thought, can I just throw them that one? They'll probably hate me for it. But
Dr Rad 43:56 I look, I think this ties into Dr. G's interest in the sense of the way that Vestals are disposed of when they've been thought…
Neil – History Hound 45:26 Oh, sorry. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Sorry. That was the best example. Why didn't I think of that? Sorry? No, no,
Dr Rad 45:41 No, there was really no, I was just saying, Yeah, I think it's very much in Dr. G's realm of interest. Yeah.
Dr G 46:39 Yeah. And I think it is a really interesting question. And it is one that I would want to think about more as well, because there is that sense in which the Romans do like creating scenarios where they can say that the gods kind of made the decision about that person's outcome, rather than themselves. And if you manage to convince somebody, either when you're putting them at a spear point, or whatever, to jump off that rock that's now in the gods' hands. And that would be then considered a naturally occurring death rather than one in which life has been taken by another human, and therefore the pollution doesn't happen. strangulation, I think would be a more challenging one to get the vibe, right for in terms of the moral justification. So I'm intrigued by that, because certainly, as a parallel to that, the situation with the Vestal Virgins was that the burial spot was always outside the pomerium, just just outside, so like, right on that edge, okay. And by having that underground chamber and providing a little bit of food and beverage, and then locking those women in, they could reasonably and morally claim that no person in Rome had killed that woman, the gods had decided that she had to die.
Neil – History Hound 48:05 I know in theory as well, I suppose you're, you've got the world if the gods really liked her, they've come and saved her.
Dr G 48:10 Well, exactly. She would have gotten out of there and presumably run away from the city, not come back. So did any survive? We don't know.
Neil – History Hound 48:19 Yeah. There is there is a philosophical exercise or an exercise that was done by in rhetoric, apparently relating to this. So there, you have Quintilian, apparently, who talks about what happens if someone survives the form? And the argument is, do you take them back up and ask for them? And ask them? Do you mind? Would you take them back up and redo it again?
Dr G 48:48 Yeah. Could you quite possibly, I'm sorry?
Neil – History Hound 48:50 How awkward for us. This is really embarrassing from us. So can you help us out here? And there's also these types of sort of, I don't know if there's necessarily an answer to that thing. It was just one of those sort of rhetorical discussions that you had as part of training, because another one that was similar to this was that tyrants were forbidden to be buried in in the city. But if you're struck by lightning, apparently, you had to be buried wherever you were struck by lightning. So if a tyrant was struck by lightning in the forum, they would have to be buried in the forum, or don't you? And again, it's one of those there's probably not a right answer. It's just a sort of how you how you would argue and how you don't argue counters and stuff like that. So again, the other thing about the Tarpeian is that apparently that's what the hill was called before it was called to cancel. Yeah, and it was only changed. I left this, they they changed the name because they found ahead when they were digging for the temple, the foundation of the temple.
Dr G 49:48 That head's pretty important. I think we need to change the name of this place.
Dr Rad 49:53 It's a sign that Rome was meant to be the dominant place in the whole world…
Neil – History Hound 49:58 I like the idea that it was found by someone and they're like, “Oh, I found this head.” “Yeah, it looks like the guy you had an argument with in the pub last night.” “Might be, no idea. I think what we do is obviously come from the gods we obviously meet need to change the name – doesn't look anything like that guy I had an argument with at the pub last night? No.”
Dr Rad 50:14 it's clearly a symbol of our domination.
Neil – History Hound 50:18 Yeah. So yeah, that's I mean, I think I've covered some of the aspects to it. But it's just the way it looks. Now, I understand is very different, because again, it wasn't something that should be said, if you're walking around Rome, now you're walking around in incredibly different Rome, even to the point of going back to say, the first century AD, I think the current archaeological level is around 10 meters below the current level, in most obviously. So in some places, it won't be, but in other places it will be. And in fact, when we want to come to talk about the Tiber, even the Tiber itself is in a very different place to when it was and this changed throughout the Republican period as well, which is a point again, that I'll come to I got obsessed by the Tiber River after a while. I read so many reports and geological surveys and gosh knows what.
Dr Rad 51:05 Well, you've given me a perfect segue here because the next thing we wanted to ask you about were bridges. So Rome's second king Numa is generally given the credit for building the first permanent bridge over the Tiber, known as the Pons Sublicius. Now, obviously, there are practical reasons that one would build a bridge over a river. However, this particular one also seems to have had very significant religious connotations for the Romans. So how was the Pons Sublicius entwined with Roman ritual practices in this early period?
Neil – History Hound 51:46 Thank you. Thank you, right. Yeah, I got obsessed by the Pons Sublicius, because when I was reading up and doing research on it, to talk about the bridge, you have to talk about the river to talk about the river tie, but you've got to make a couple of points about it. The first is the river Tiber now is in a very different course to where it was even in archaic Rome. So in archaic Rome, the likelihood was that it was around 100 meters, where it bends round and comes into what is the Forum Boarium in that area, it was 100 meters further to the east. So if you think the Via Petrocelli that was pretty much the riverbank of the time, if you look on a modern map, if you stood by the bank, now you'd be underwater. That's important for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Tiber was wider, therefore slower. The type of the course of the type of changes and it changes for a number of reasons it changes because of human activity, it changes because of natural mechanics such as siltation. There's also other things apparently are going on it's do with tectonic features, and whatnot. And everything else far too complicated for my for my shallow mind, pun intended, when it comes to that kind of thing. So that explains one practical – because I wanted to what the practical aspect of the bridge first – because it's famous because it's a wooden bridge built without iron. And it takes its name Sublicius, apparently, from piles, which are what it's built on. Now, anyone who's lives near river will realize that bridges are very dangerous. If the rivers starts misbehaving, if you've got a permanent bridge, a stone bridge, that can really cause problems, if the rivers changing if the rivers changing, cause if it's widening or shortening. If it's flooding you can cause it can cause you some serious problems. And it's not until the second century BC that you have the Pons Aemelius, which is the first stone bridge, possibly reconstructed from a wooden one. If you've got this little wooden bridge, and it's on piles, and it can be its mobile, you can do a lot with it, you can make it longer, you can make it shorter, if you think you can raise it, it gives you much more mobility, which is essential when you've got the Tiber which is changing, the Tiber seems to narrow at this point. So when you have a narrowing River as a general rule, said with my geography GCSE how often it gets faster, it gets deeper, so it becomes more dangerous. And that's why that's why we have the bridge in its form. And again, I can't overestimate just how much this does change. For example, the Tiber Island builds up apparently due to sortation in this period, so it's not that and I did read one, one account one myth, I don't know if this links in necessarily, because I'm not sure if it was this they were speaking about. But the myth related to the field of Mars, and apparently some wheat was grown there, because it was sacred to the god Mars, they couldn't, they couldn't eat it or do anything with it. So they will throw in the river and throw it in the river. And it's so cool, so big that it built up over time. And that's how you get the type of river type Tiber island. So I think I think that's one explanation that the Romans had. But in any case, even and this is really important, even if you you were living in the time. If you live for 300 years in from the Regal period onward, you'd have seen the type of move massively so there's something that I try and get across to people and it's very difficult because I I always thought of it as we think of ancient history as monolithic. So the people in 500 BC are the same as the ones in first century AD got the same taste, same technology, they're all ancient. Whereas the reality is, even in sort of between centuries, you've got big changes going on. You've got big change in attitude. When Martial has epigrams he does a guest he does a list of the gifts in the Saturnalia in those includes ancient vases. So what's an ancient vase? Well, well yeah, because it's not it's 300 years old 400 years old, it's gonna be ancient it's we don't have this one advantage for looking or one privilege looking now backwards and going everything before you know the year doll year zero as it were, was ancient and it belong to the same thing people within that period considered time as we do in the same way that we might look back and go the industrial revolution that was a long time ago, people in Republican Rome were looking back and going Romulus a long time ago. Or in theory anyway, if if we knew what they were thinking because bearing in mind that myth doesn't start coming around till later on. Anyway, I'll get back to the bridge. So you have the you have the bridge, which is said is built wooden, and I got it I got a question for your good selves on this. During – and this is where it links in because we have Numa as linked into the bridge, because he was said to have brought in the pontifex or the pontifices – pontifys – pontifesses. It doesn't sound right, it's probably the way I've done it isn't a scientific case. I'm stuck. I'm so gonna mispronounce that and make it a swear word. So I'll just I'll just say priests, I'm just gonna say priests from now on the so you have the priests that are associated with a bridge and the repair. And Plutarch speaks about this. But he says, I don't believe it, everyone else does. But I've I've got I have a thought. And it's not going to be an original thought. It's like many thoughts I have, I think they're really, really good. And then I googled them, it turns out, someone wrote a book about it in the 1920s. But at this time, you have Rome, really, really creating ritual associated to so many things. And one of the things is warfare, you have the doors at Temple thing is Janus, which are opened, close, depending on when Rome is at war, you have the fetiales the priests that you have to declare were in a rich war in a ritualized way, and Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus both tell us that this bridge was removed in times of war, primarily for practical reasons, it made sense, because that's the front door to Rome, they're not going across that if you leave the drawbridge down, problems are going to happen. So if you think about the declaration of war, and then you've got a move an object, and they're shutting doors, and they're dancing to declare war, why wouldn't that be as part of some sort of religious ritual? I mean, again, I'm asking the both of you if you you've probably read books on this already. So it's not a new thing. But could it be in that that declaration of war in the movement of the bridge was was a religious or brought into the religious sphere?
Dr G 57:51 Yeah, I think so. And look, you're not alone. It is, I think the bane of every researcher of the ancient world to come to the sad realization that a German scholar in the 19th century has gazumped you. And, really, you're playing a tough game of catch up. But yeah, certainly this idea of the bridge as being one in the caretakership of the pontifices. So already, there is a ritualized aspect to it, it's something under their purview, they need to think about it. And the idea that a waterway wouldn't have huge symbolic and ritual significance, in any case, I think would be misplaced. There's nothing quite as fundamental to ensuring that urban life is successful, then making sure that you've tended to the river and you Look after it, and it's part of the care and concern. And so having rituals developed around this kind of thing is super important and useful. Water is a cleansing agent. In many respects, it's one of the ways that you shift pollution away from the the sort of the urban area. So it's not a great idea necessarily to put heaps of stuff into your river. But if you'd need to it moves, and that's great, it's probably the fastest way to get it away. And in that sense, having something that traverses that space, allows you to open up one powerful opportunity ahead of you on the other side. But also, as you say, that's that really profound sense of the defensive quality that comes with a waterway and what a bridge does to sort of counteract that. So I think there is ways in which having rituals built up around a wooden bridge that you can shift and move and perhaps adapt to the situation. Super useful and important. And there's certainly no way that I can think of that that wouldn't be a religious thing from the Rome's perspective, from the Roman perspective. They see gods in water, they see gods on land, they see gods in the sky. It's all happening everywhere all the time.
Neil – History Hound 1:00:01 Thanks very much for that. And I'm glad that I wasn't having a moment just thinking that that was something and I completely understand what you're saying about how, when you have these fantastic ideas, you find out that someone has written a book in German in 1912 about it. That happened to me quite a few times. I remember when I was at uni, and I was coming up with great ideas and then finding various books written about it. No, it's quite, it's great, because on one level, you think you've made a real achievement. On the other hand, you get that that dashed quite quickly. But going back to the bridge, there is an episode the bridge is associated with, that falls out just outside just after the recall period. It involves a great name, another great Roman name, and I apologize for my associations when I read this name. Its name is Horatius Cocles. But I read it as a right when I first read it, it's Horatius, Horatius Cockles, made me straightaway, I was thinking of that he's in Dickens, he feels like he should be a chimney sweeper in Dickens or something. But he's, he's a he performs a heroic act. So what happens is you have the Etruscans, who are being led by Lars Porsenna. And they're attacking Rome, they take the Janiculum Hill, which I'll speak about in a moment. And then they look to attack Rome and get through the front of it through that bridge. And Horatius is still on the bridge. And he's defending against all of these individuals. And he asked that the bridge is dismantled behind him, so they can't make they can't make progress. He successfully defeats a few of them and then jumps in the river and swims to the side after being injured a few times.
Dr Rad 1:01:38 Excuse me, we have to mention that he was injured in the buttocks.
Neil – History Hound 1:01:42 Oh I didn't want to say anything? Well, actually, I didn't want to say anything about that. It links in if when I thought of that. I don't know if you familiar with the Battle of Stamford Bridge?
Dr Rad 1:01:53 Ah, yes, I think I am. Is that are we talking about something to do with 1066?
Neil – History Hound 1:01:59 Yeah. 1066. So prior to the Battle of Hastings, you have the Battle of Stamford Bridge, which is up in the north of England, where you have an invading sort of caught this army. Forget the name of it, is it Harold Bluetooth? Someone.
Dr Rad 1:02:12 Harold, Harold Hardrada, I think yeah. Yeah,
Neil – History Hound 1:02:15 Sorry, yeah. And they, they, they were attacked, and you have one individual defending against all of the, the the English as it were army on a bridge. And he puts up a heroic performance until someone goes under the bridge and stabs him from underneath it, and presumably in the groin, stroke, buttock area again. So, if just a just a general thing, if you ever find yourself defending against superior forces on a bridge, where everyone's got pointy things – just watch your backside, that's all I'm gonna say. That's a big weakness. Yeah, just handy hint there, you know, do what do what you will with it. And this, this became a huge, hugely important thing. And again, to the credit of your book, you write about exemplar, you write about the idea of particular events in Roman history being held up as this is how we do it. This defines this as a culture. This is how Rome saw itself, this is a defining moment, it I think, in a way it kind of gets overlooked, because that's at the time where you've got the Republic, being sort of born, you've got lots of things going on. It's like one of those years where you see what won the Oscar and you think my god that won the Oscar and all these other amazing films didn't win the Oscar, you think that would have won the Oscar any other year, but you had like four of them on you. And around 509 BC, you have all these big events are some big events going on, they they kind of almost, they take, they steal the attention from each other. But Rome was very, very keen on this becomes a sort of household thing within Rome. You have later emperors, using the imagery to announce how they're taking Rome back to traditional values, and how they're going to defend our own and things like that. So again, it's it's really important that bridges ultimately associated with that, because how you define that visually, is with a bridge. Because otherwise it's just someone stood there with a spear. You have to have something else in the image. Presumably you're not gonna have his buttocks being stabbed. You're gonna –
Dr G 1:02:42 Make sure you've got a strong pair of underpants.
Neil – History Hound 1:04:22 Well, yeah, that the artists were so limited, you got coin, I've got a coin. That's all I've got. So it becomes a really defining moment for for Rome, and that bridge is part of that. So it can and it's also when we talk about space, in a way we have to talk about time. And when you have somewhere like and I should have mentioned this about Tarpeian rock, and about the bridge. These are both places that Romans can go to and feel and connect with the past as it were now not saying that we will kind of doing nice, guided tours of Rome getting in touch with it in a row. Humans, but at the same time, culturally, you have these points where you can say, this is where this happened. We have that now, you know, we have pretty much you can go to any city and it will have this is where so and so lived or this is where this particular event occurred. And the the actual location might look very different to how it did back then. But you can still, in theory, connect with it. So I think this is very important for Rome on a couple in a couple of ways. The only other thing I can mention about the bridge was because I'm gonna speak about how it linked in with the Janiculum. But the expansion, you know, the bridge allowed the broom to expand past its initial borders, it was that that thing which allowed it to get past the Tiber, which was ultimately there's something that hugely defined it, you know, the hills, keep it there, but the type is the thing that really defines Rome, or that's how I, that's how I perceive it. And you also have the, again, my pronunciation with Argive, the Argives, which has a ritual of purification that finished on the bridge, where they threw straw doles into the water as a part of purification of the city. So yeah, the bridge is really, really important. And it's something which doesn't necessarily underlooked think there's a lot of things to consider it right. But if you're thinking about Rome, perhaps think about the bridges next time we visit Rome, think more about the bridges as a way of going somewhere, just you know, go and stand and have a Look round. Think what what might have been,
Dr G 1:06:22 I was gonna say, you know, you're not going to have him like bending over showing his butt cheek to everybody. Disappointing Rome, you had a choice and you missed it.
Dr Rad 1:06:33 What would happen if you weren't wearing steel underwear at that very moment?
Dr G 1:06:43 Think of what would happen if they were made of wood and how difficult they would have been to cross? So we've been thinking about the major hills of Rome, we've been thinking about the Tiber River. And we've talked a little bit specifically about the Palatine and the Aventine because they sort of stand out in that sort of foundation moment for Rome. But there's definitely more than to the fabled seven. And you've mentioned already the Janiculum. A little bit. And I'm also wondering maybe about the Caelian Hill as well. And how did these hills start to feature into the Regal history as it starts to expand out and we get further into the Kings?
Neil – History Hound 1:07:29 Okay, yeah, I mentioned the Janiculum. So the Janiculum is inherently linked to Rome, because of that bridge. And it's the other side of the Tiber. The Janiculum in a sense is there for one reason, and it's there because you want to get it before anyone else gets it. And again, if you've if you've replaced civilization, you're thinking that big hill, it's near my city, I've got to put some units on that. Because guess what will happen if I don't. And it's, it's justified. Partly, and I think this is the this is interesting, because the other things about the hills is they get much more of a sort of cultural feel to them. With a genetic, you know, it's there. The sources pretty much say it's there because of trade. Because then if you've got that hill, you can govern what goes on on the river. And now the trade routes the other side of the Tiber, which apparently could be exposed to banditry, which is very common. It's also defense because if you've got the hills, someone else can't win. Interestingly enough, when you've got Horatius the reason that the advancing Etruscan army are able to do that and take the bridge or try and take the bridge is because they took the Janiculum first, it's the first place they went. So it's really important purely from a strategic point. Other Hills tend to be more cultural. The Caelian Hill is was settled by Tullus Hostilius from those people that he took from Alba Longa, which is where yeah, where he devastated it more or less after some thorough betrayal by Mettius Fufetius, who was torn asunder by horses. I think it's even even Livy's says that was wrong. Yeah, that was not a good time You crossed the line.
Dr Rad 1:09:04 That's one of my favorite names.
Neil – History Hound 1:09:09 Yeah, what again, I just think of him as the Cowardly Lion type character, but he wasn't; he was very – he was an ardent politician and, and a treacherous one at that. Which surprised really, because you would have thought you could have gone to the Tarpeian rock instead. But hey, you got horses, what are you going to do? Now in terms of it being named, it was named after apparently an Etruscan soldier called Caelius Verbena, or my personal favorite – and I like this more – it could have been named after oak trees. And if you think why would you name somewhere after oak trees I did. Did read that the Aventine apparently in association with the myrtle tree so that could have been a reason why it took its name. Esquiline Hill was apparently named after chestnut trees or could have been, and the Viminal after willow trees.
Dr G 1:09:56 That's a beautiful way to think about Rome. Just yeah, that's surrounding forest and much more peaceful but other options.
Dr Rad 1:10:03 Yeah, I was gonna say it sounds too much. It sounds uncharacteristically gentle.
Neil – History Hound 1:10:08 I know, it did stick out when I was reading. And I thought, that will be nice. I don't believe it. But that would be nice. It's more likely that we're going to name this hill after someone we through from after someone we cut in half, or it's, you know, doesn't always seem to be the most pleasant way that they find their names, but, but also considering just think of how Romans considered their space. And it was dominated by woods, forests, and trees. And obviously, you don't get that so much. If you go to Rome. Now, obviously, even they got some wonderful plane trees. And they they do have some, some lovely shrubbery, too. But as a general, you forget just how much it would have been dictated by so far, we spoke about hills. So far, we've spoken about geographical features, topological features, as it were. But we're also talking about sort of, you know, woods, trees, things like that.
Dr G 1:10:59 And I think this is ties in very much to what you've been saying earlier about, like that sort of monolithic approach to history. And the mistake in doing that, and it's like, this is a place that's just starting out as a place where people have settled and decided to build a life for themselves. It is immersed in nature, they're surrounded by it. And it's not like when you go to Rome today, and it's obviously a very urban place. And they do have a lot of big and beautiful gardens, but they're very contained. This is much more sprawling wildness. And the thing that is unusual is the fact that there are people living here.
Neil – History Hound 1:11:32 Yeah, yeah. The only other thing that I could really come into when it's talking about the calean is something that is, is I can find a great deal of evidence behind it. But the link to possibly Egeria or Egeria, she was the nymph who advised Numa Pompilius, the second Roman king, and who apparently helped him do anything there was there's a sort of shrine, apparently, or, or, or something near the Porta Capena, which was on the foot of the hill. And it for those that don't know, you can look at numerous in two ways. You can look at him this kindly, old man, or you can look at him as a bit of a bit of a traveling salesman. I always think of kind of those those in those films where you have the sort of preacher from the self in the United States, and they're sort of they're gonna cure you, and you know, all of that kind of stuff. And he feels a bit of light at times, mainly because he sorts of does things like, he convinces people to come around, look at his place and say, look, I've got nothing to serve anyone for a feast? Come back in a couple hours. Wow, look, I'm magic. There's, there's lots of food. And apparently people in Rome said, well, that that must be magic, as opposed to just knowing the caterer, which is more plausible response. But he was very much linked into this sort of spiritual mythology of Rome, he gave Rome or furnishes Rome, with a set of really religious, religious spaces where they just compete, because he seems to have taken root, he didn't want a job as king, he turns up, and then he realizes that you've got this really, really gruesome band of highly undesirable people who are being very violent to each other. Rather than keep it you've got to keep them away from declaring war. So we just give them a space where they can compete with that when he does that through setting up all the magistracies all the all the presets and stuff like that. So people can now sort of, I suppose, work out how they can graft across those that that competitive element into the religious element. And so presumed now people just getting annoyed that didn't get the right priesthood as opposed to running across and chopping someone's head off. So he kind of contains that. So you got to feel from that respect, but apparently he has a nymph, who teaches him lots gives him lots of special advice and information. She was linked in some way to this hill, or has a possible association with this hill.
Dr G 1:13:49 Numa he's one of my favorite characters from the Regal period, I have to say, and the fact that he spends what seems to be at least 50% of his time hanging out with imaginary friend in the forest is just fantastic.
Neil – History Hound 1:14:03 Well, one of the things I don't, I don't won't get the chance to talk about is Jupiter Lisius, or Licius the, the the magical sprats that he had, which would stop him getting hit by lightning and the fact that he could use an altar to Jupiter to conduct a storm and then read portents from it. I just think that's wonderful. That's just such a fantastic myth that you had him or rather in association with him, it sort of moves more to the whole of trust and brontoscopy, which is how you read the portents through through storms and I've actually got a copy of the brontoscopic calendar and I put it up on my Tiktok whenever it storms or go out and I read what it portrays do what it you know, it says weird stuff. Sometimes it's like, everyone will die. The crops will be ruined. Sometimes it's some sometimes it's it's nice. Most of the time it's not. Sometimes it's nice saying anyone called Clive, they probably need to check their their car insurance. It goes from the big to the really, really incidental, because presumably you've got 365 entries. So once you get the big things done,
Dr G 1:15:08 you just got to fill out the rest of the thing. You're like, okay, all right,
Neil – History Hound 1:15:12 Check. If there's Thunderhead check the back of the fridge, something might be off. It's that sort of a thing.
Dr G 1:15:20 Well, thank you so much for sitting down with us. And taking us through some of these sort of sprawling landscapes that make up this early, early period of Rome's sort of typography, the way it thinks about itself. And the way people might be engaging with those sorts of spaces. I think it's really great food for thought, to start to reimagine what this place Look like, how it operated, and how people operated within those spaces. And obviously, the modern city today inspires your imagination for some of those sorts of things. But when we're thinking about the Regal period, we're going back well before all of those ruined pieces of architecture that you spot in the forum, for instance. So it's like, we really have to get ourselves into a whole different zone to start thinking about the Regal period. So thank you so much.
Neil – History Hound 1:16:11 No pleasure, thank you very much for letting me come on give you weird analogies. jokes that probably to do well, and tangents, which is generally what I do.
Dr G 1:16:19 Oh no, I'm always up for a good shrubbery reference, you know.
Dr Rad 1:16:26 And I think that you have showcased to our audience if they aren't already avid listeners of your podcast, that in spite of the fact that you keep calling us experts, your level of research is amazing. And people should definitely go and check out your wonderful work.
Neil – History Hound 1:16:42 That's very kind of you. You're not expecting money for that. Are you? I have no, I have no budget. I can't.
Dr Rad 1:16:48 Well, naturally I don't want to have to pay you for plugging out book earlier, obviously.
Neil – History Hound 1:16:52 Yeah, obviously. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate being being on a on a podcast such as yourselves, which is obviously very, very helpful very well in high esteem.
Dr G 1:17:22 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. A huge thank you to our Patreon supporters for helping make this show spectacular. If you enjoyed the show, there's a few ways that you can show your support. You can write a review wherever you listen in to help spread the word. Reviews really make our day and help new people find our podcast. Researching and producing a podcast takes time. If you're keen to chip in, you can buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi, or join our fantastic patrons for early releases and exclusive content. You can find our show notes, as well as links to our merch and where to buy our book “Rex: The Seven Kings of Rome” at partial historians.com Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
Who is Servius Romanus you might ask? Well, in this episode we’re about to find out. But when we tell you it’ll be brief – we are telling only the truth! On the back of the putative introduction of pay for Roman soldiers in 406 BCE (a much disputed idea in scholarship), Rome is facing challenges from their neighbours. These challenges are coming from many directions, so it’s no doubt a relief when someone helps them out. Enter: Servius Romanus.
Episode 149 – The Brief Life and Times of Servius Romanus
Siege at Veii!
Watch out Veii, Rome is coming for you! Veii seems to be well aware of the Roman threat, however, and might just be looking to call in the broader Etruscan peoples to support them. How will things pan out for Veii in the years 405 and 404? We consider the fairly limited details for your listening pleasure.
But what about the Volscians?
Rome is facing trouble on multiple fronts (perhaps indicated by the sheer number of military tribunes with consular power listed for both the years 405 and 404). It comes as no surprise that pursuing an aggressive policy against Veii opens the way for more conflict from the Volscii. Listen out for mentions of places including Ferentium, Ecetra, and Artena.
Aerial photograph of the modern town of Artena in Lazio, Italy. Photo by FrancescoSchiraldi85 via Wikimedia Commons.
Our Players for 405 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Titus Quinctius T. f. L. n. Capitolinus Barbatus (Pat)
Quintus Quinctius (L. f. L. n.) Cincinnatus (Pat)
Gaius Iulius Sp. f. Vopisci n. Iullus (Pat)
Aulus Manlius A. f. Cn. n. Vulso Capitolinus (Pat)
Lucius Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat)
Manius Aemilius Mam(ercus). f. M(arcus). n. Mamercinus (or Mamercus) (Pat)
Our Players for 404 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Gaius Valerius L. f. Vol. n. Potitus Volusus (Pat)
Manius Sergius L. f. L. n. Fidenas (Pat)
Publius Cornelius (M. f. M. n.) Maluginensis (Pat)
Gnaeus Cornelius P. f. A. n. Cossus (Pat)
Kaeso Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat)
Spurius Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus (Pat)
Things to listen out for
Challenges with the extant source material
The organisation of the Etruscan federation
The Shrine of Voltuma (the Central Perk?)
What’s going on with the politics of Sicily and Carthage?
The intriguing modern history of Artena
Military strategy re citadels in action
Food security in the ancient world compared with climate change today
A sneaky mention of Velitrae
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy, ab Urbe Condita, 4.60-61
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.17.1; 14.19.1; Fasti Capitolini for 405 and 404 BCE
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Painted terracotta Etruscan antefix depicting the head of Medusa. From the Portonaccio Temple at Veii, c. 510 BCE. Held in National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome. Photo by Carole Raddato via Flickr.
Automated Transcript
Lightly edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad.
Dr G 1:02 And I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:04 Welcome back, everybody! We are getting so very close to the turn of the century. Here, we're edging our way closer and closer with every episode. In fact, I think this episode, we're going to do two years in one episode, I'm just I just have a feeling.
Dr G 1:21 Look, I definitely have that feeling. But that might be because I have so many gaps in my source material.
Dr Rad 1:28 You're not alone. I don't have much in my particular source material this time. But we're excited to be talking once more about ancient Rome listeners, and what was happening at this particularly interesting time in their history.
Dr G 1:43 It is 405 BCE. And that's where we'll, that's where we'll be starting out in this.
Dr Rad 1:50 But before we do that, Dr. G, I think we need to do a bit of a recap, because the last year was pretty significant.
Dr G 1:58 It was, but I'll level with you. I can't really remember. But I think that's my source material.
Dr Rad 2:04 That's the best way to remember that something was important!
Dr G 2:08 It was all about the vibe. Wasn't it?
Dr Rad 2:10 Okay. So whilst there are, obviously, you know, some questions that we had, if we're going to believe the account that we have from Livy, who is our major narrative source at this point for ancient Roman history, it was the year that military pay was introduced. That's what we were talking about last time. Finally, there was an actual kind of more or less state funded military pay that was introduced in the previous episode, and everyone lost their collective minds.
Dr G 2:43 They did, because we also have what amounts to a dual or triple military sort of pronged situation where the Volscii are causing an issue. The Aequians might be also a problem. And then there's also the issue with Veii.
Dr Rad 2:58 Yes, the Etruscans once again, rearing their ugly heads in the north.
Dr G 3:04 And I think we should put a big asterisk next to soldiers pay, because this seems to be in at best, maybe a one off payment for some difficult conditions being faced, and potentially the need to overwinter in a location rather than return home, stay warm at home and nice and cozy, and then go back out in springtime, which is the usual way that Roman campaigning seems to have operated.
Dr Rad 3:32 Yes, this is a chilly money situation. It may not even be money –
Dr G 3:37 Show me that cold hard cash!
Dr Rad 3:39 Yeah because I will be cold. Yeah, no. It might not even be money. Obviously, it might be goods of some kind, obviously, food, food resources, food related resources.
Dr G 3:52 Nevertheless, it might set an exciting precedent for what soldiers might expect in the future.
Dr Rad 3:58 Oh, absolutely. As hard as we know, it's always hard to put a genie back in a bottle, Dr G. So whilst there are a lot of questions about how are they getting paid? Why were they getting paid? Were they even getting paid? Livy tells us that they were and that they were just so excited about the idea. And of course, the only people that were holding back a little bit were the tribune of the plebs. They were suspicious from the get go.
Dr G 4:27 Probably rightly, so. I'll give them that.
Dr Rad 4:29 Yeah, and that's because we kind of started out 406 last episode with this conflict with they starting to rev up. But nobody really having the enthusiasm or the energy to go and deal with it because they were already, as you say, fighting other enemies and dealing with other issues, and they were just kind of over it. But this whole military pay scenario and the way that the patricians handled it in particular, has really won them over and they're so excited that the Romans were able to declare war on they and have basically like a full volunteer army like there's no talk about the levy and that sort of thing. Ready to go.
Dr G 5:10 People are like, ‘Payment? Sign me up, I'm in.'
Dr Rad 5:12 Oh, absolutely they were like, ‘Hell yeah. Because, if you're going to pay me, I'm absolutely there.'
Dr G 5:17 Wait a minute.
Dr Rad 5:19 Yeah. I mean that to be fair, that's that's kind of my line as well.
Dr G 5:23 Fair enough. Yeah. All right. So that means it is time to turn our attention to 405 BCE.
Dr Rad 5:31 Certainly is.
All right, Dr. G. Now, I know that Dionysius has left you after some creative differences.
Dr G 6:09 We disagreed on whether he should leave his fragments behind for posterity and he just absolutely refused.
Dr Rad 6:16 I know that you probably know who the magistrates are, at least, so thanks to Broughton.
Dr G 6:23 Ah, dear Broughton, where would I be without Broughton's superior work? So apparently, and things are starting to feel a little chaotic from a magisterial perspective. Because apparently, we have six military tributes with consular power for the year 405, which is a lot, maybe too many. And so I'm going to give you a whole list of Latin names and everybody listening – and us – are going to feel slightly bad. Get ready for it. Get ready for it, because none of these names actually mean anything. Because I have no other source material. So I don't know what sort of weight to give them. Titus Quinctius Capitolinus Barbatus
Dr Rad 7:05 Familiar, familiar
Dr G 7:07 Previously consul in 421. So must be getting on a little bit now.
Dr Rad 7:12 I was going to say the Quinctii are definitely a family that we know well.
Dr G 7:17 They are. And we also have Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus who previously military tribunes with consular power in 415. So two Quinctii already
Dr Rad 7:29 And not the famous Cincinnatus. This would be someone from that branch.
Dr G 7:35 Yeah, we're done with famous Cincinatii for now.
Dr Rad 7:38 Yeah, he's dead. Yeah.
Dr G 7:40 He's gone. Gaius Iulius Vopisci Iullus
Dr Rad 7:44 Ooo a Iulii.
Dr G 7:48 Indeed. And a recent military tribute and as well from 408.
Dr Rad 7:53 True, very true.
Dr G 7:56 Aulus Manlius Vulso Capitolinus
Ahhh the manly Manlii.
Watch out for this guy. He's on the up and up. Lucius Furius Medullinus.
Dr Rad 8:11 Excellent. Gotta have some Furii in there.
Dr G 8:13 You certainly do, and a very illustrious one as well. So he was previously consul in 413, and 409. And also military tribune with consular power in 407. And is in the middle of a career, so he's going to come up again and again. And finally, we have Manius Aemilius Mamercinus, or Mamercus? There seems to be some confusion.
Dr Rad 8:40 There always is with this guy.
Dr G 8:43 This guy, yeah. Consul in 410. And we'll also have some future since as well coming up. So some pretty familiar names, I would say, I don't think anybody sort of stands out as being really unusual here, except maybe Vulso Capitolinus. But yeah, there's just a lot of them, which suggests that Rome has got a lot of military issues where they want commanders in the field.
Dr Rad 9:12 I think that's how we should probably read this, given what we know is happening in the background. But it's also really interesting to say this, because it's really like a who's who of the famous gens – the clans – of ancient Rome at this point in time. These are these are families that have just come up again and again.
Dr G 9:29 Yeah, they're all the big families. All of them have had previous positions. None of them are new families to these kinds of roles. So we've got a sense in which there is an elite that has really established itself over the course of this first century of the early republic, as far as our records take us. And we have to admit that they're kind of sketchy, I guess. So. Yeah. For instance, the Fasti Capitolini is the big inscription that we tend to refer to to get these names from initial late, but we understand that the Fasti Capitolini was a late creation.
Dr Rad 10:06 Yes, exactly.
Dr G 10:07 And we're not sure what documentation it was necessarily leveraged from? Was it from linen scrolls? Or is it from other inscriptions? Was it from family oral histories? So, I mean, the big questions are still there to be asked what is going on? And I feel like Livy is going to have the answers.
Dr Rad 10:26 Well, look, we do have a fairly big event for this year, but not a lot of detail at the moment. Okay, we're gonna have a banner year in 403. 405 and 404 are important just for the build up towards that point. So basically, what Livy tells me is that we've got all these different military tribunes and these are the guys that start the siege of they the first siege of Veii, so Veii being this Etruscan city that Rome has particular beef with probably because geographically, they just come into contact a lot more than some of the other Etruscan city. So they start this siege, not long after the beginning of the sage, the Etruscans come together to have one of their federal meetings. Now, just a refresher, in case you have forgotten, the Etruscans not all ruled by you know, like one major city or one person or even one group of people. As far as we can see a trust can share, you know, kind of like a cultural, linguistic connection with each other. But, you know, they can come together and unite. But there are 12 major cities that kind of form the basis of Etruria to the north of Rome.
Dr G 11:53 Yeah, so they tend to have what we think are 12 kings, so 12 regal representatives. And in a way you can think of Rome having gone through a similar kind of process, with having a king very localized the king of the place. Yes, and what Etruria has done is to sort of harness that kind of leadership into a broad coalition.
Dr Rad 12:15 Exactly. Yeah.
Dr G 12:16 And you might see this as similar to the what the Latin people were also doing. So we know that Alba Longa, up in the mountains to the south east of Rome had a king, for instance. So this idea of really localized magisterial power is not new for the whole Italian Peninsula. But the way the Etruscans are able to harness it into a coalition does seem to be a little bit more fruitful for them than it is for other groups within Italy.
Dr Rad 12:45 Yes, exactly. And we have talked about them having these group meetings before, so I kind of like to think of them as being like Power Rangers. They come together, and they discuss, ‘Is it morphing time? Is it?' So in this particular instance, we know that over the past sort of, you know, 50 years in particular, there have been some pretty epic clashes between they and drone. And we know there have been instances where the Etruscans have come together to talk about how involve everyone else should get in these clashes between their environment. This is again, one of those moments, where they meet at this place called the shrine of Voltumna. So again, we've mentioned this place before, when we've talked about these meetings, it seems to be their favorite hang. It's their Central Perk, if you will. Now, you're probably going to ask me, Dr. G. Where is this shrine? I cannot tell you.
Dr G 13:41 Oh, no, come on.
Dr Rad 13:43 I know. So we don't know an awful lot about either the goddess Voltumna, who is associated with this particular shrine, we know she's a very early Etruscan goddess, we know that there seems to be some sort of connection between her and the Volsinii or the Volscini. So presumably, somewhere in their region, their part of the world, but we really have no firm idea of where this particular shrine was. And we don't know an awful lot about her as a goddess, we just know that this is obviously an important place for the Etruscans to come together and it gets mentioned a few times.
Dr G 14:23 All right, so they get together this shrine of Voltumna, goddess of the unknown, to see about what they're gonna do. Sounds exciting so far.
Dr Rad 14:33 Yes, exactly. So there's heaps of people at this meeting as they're discussing whether they should get involved and make this a wider Etruscan versus Rome showdown, or whether they should just let they deal with it themselves.
Dr G 14:47 Do we come together and grind Rome under the Etrurian heel? Or do we just let they try to navigate this situation?
Dr Rad 14:55 Well, we can probably understand why they're a little bit should we because lest we forget this all apparently started because the people have they suddenly were very rude to. And so maybe the dress codes don't want to go to war because the people have a had bad manners.
Dr G 15:16 And that should never be rewarded.
Dr Rad 15:18 Exactly, exactly. So they're very unsure. They're going backwards and forwards and they're, they're really not sure what they want to do. Meanwhile, the siege that the Romans have started against Veii doesn't really go anywhere, because some of the military tribunes as well as a portion of the Roman forces had to go and leave to deal with the Volscians. And it was like, ‘Come on, Volscians we're sieging here, we're sieging here!'
Dr G 15:46 Oh, Rome, nothing is gonna let down a siege more than moving your troops away from the siege position.
Dr Rad 15:53 It is siege rules of warfare 101. And that's really all I've got for 405, Dr. G.
Dr G 16:03 Intriguing. Okay. Now, the things that I do have for 405 do not pertain to Rome in any way, shape, or form. I have Diodorus Siculus.
Dr Rad 16:14 Oh, okay.
Dr G 16:15 And as we know, he's a little bit untrustworthy at times, but he's trying to do a universal history of the Mediterranean. And Rome isn't where it's at right now. He knows that, the Romans don't. And so he generally speaking doesn't have a lot to say about them. But he does have some things to say about the unfolding situation in Sicily, and what's going on with the Carthaginians. Because Sicily has on the eastern coast of Sicily, it is now under the control of a tyrant called Dionysius. And that's fine, clearly a Greek. But he now wants to take the war to Carthage. Now the Greeks and the Carthaginians have been squabbling over Sicily for a while. And that's fine. But now we start to learn more about this tyrants character, right. And he's not just willing to take Carthage on, he wants to sort of launch an offensive rather than waiting for the Carthaginians to come to Sicily, he's like that, we got to take the fight to that. And then he's like, ‘how am I going to raise the morale of my people in order to bring this about?' And so he gets down in the trenches, basically, and starts putting in the hard yards to help build defensive walls. And to put in the work required just in case the Carthaginians do turn up before he's able to do the offensive. So there's a sense in which he's building his charismatic profile as a Greek tyrant in Sicily, and the people like he's out in the field, he's building a wall. Look at those, Look at those well oiled arms.
Dr Rad 17:53 Now, we should just say that generally people shouldn't feel excited about a political leader building a wall.
Dr G 18:01 I wouldn't recommend it generally.
Dr Rad 18:02 No, no, it's very different in ancient times.
Dr G 18:05 In ancient times, the wall is a pretty good idea. In modern times, I wouldn't, I'm not on the side of the wall. But nevertheless, he seems to recruit this reputation for one being willing to be part of the building process, which I can't foresee in this modern period ever really quite happening. But yeah, that's it. That's all I've got. I did not know about the shrine of Voltumna, although I'm going to look her up because that sounds really interesting to me.
Dr Rad 18:36 Definitely.
Dr G 18:38 And that's it, there's nothing going on. There's nothing going on.
Dr Rad 18:41 There's nothing going on apart from a siege that has stalled and presumably, we've got some more conflict with the Volscii on the horizon, so let's transition into 404 BCE.
So Dr. G, do we have as many military tribunes with consular power for 404 as we did for 405?
Dr G 19:29 Oh, Look, it's a mess. There's six more military tribunes with consular power. And again, I don't have heaps of detail to give you but I mean, I do have slightly more than I had last year. So it's good news. But like let's get through this epic list of names. We have Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus consul of 410, military tribune with consular power in 415. Manius Sergius Fidenas: we're not sure about his exact name. So Livy apparently has Marcus as the praenomen. But the Fasti Capitolini lists the abbreviation M with the apostrophe, which is Manius. So there could be some discrepancies there in our source material. We have Publius Cornelius Maluginensis.
Dr Rad 20:25 Oh that's a horrible name. Maluginensis.
Dr G 20:30 Maluginensis. Hmmm, yeah. When and we're not really quite sure how this particular Cornelii fits into the broad again structure, either. Not really. It's a bit of doubt about where this figure fits in. Nevertheless, we have a Cornelii in here. We have a second Cornelii in Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus,
Dr Rad 20:53 Ah one of the Cossii.
Dr G 20:54 Yeah, and very familiar as well, was military tribune in 406.
Dr Rad 20:59 Yes, yes.
Dr G 21:01 Then we have Kaeso Fabius Ambustus.
Dr Rad 21:04 Ooo a fabulous Fabian.
Dr G 21:05 Yeah, so fabulous Fabian, and they still seem to be some discrepancy about the praenomen of this guy as well. Some people see it as Gaius. So that would be the C abbreviation. And sometimes it's the K abbreviation for Kaeso.
Dr Rad 21:25 That is unusual.
Dr G 21:27 It is unusual. And it means that we might actually be dealing with two different people, right? Is this Kaeso? Or is this Gaius? Later on we're going to have somebody with a very similar name, but a different praenomen. And so we're not sure two people, maybe one person with two heads.
Dr Rad 21:44 One of these is just like the other.
Dr G 21:49 And lastly, Spurius Nautius Rutilus, who was consul in 411 and military tribune with consular power in 419 and 416. So a lot of a lot of names. But what is going on?
Dr Rad 22:06 I know, I know, it's a lot. Okay. So there is definitely some military action in 404. Let's start with the Volscians because of course, they had to interrupt this seige against Veii to go and deal with them. So there was a big pitched battle with the Volscians between Ferentium and Ecetra, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr G 22:30 Okay.
Dr Rad 22:31 And the Romans were victorious.
Dr G 22:35 Intriguing.
Dr Rad 22:37 I know they've been doing pretty well against the Volscians of late. The tribunes then decided they were going to besiege a Volscian town, one Artena.
Dr G 22:49 Ah, yes, now I do have some details on Artena.
Dr Rad 22:52 Excellent.
Dr G 22:55 Now, unfortunately, it is one of these places, like so many in the ancient world, where we do not know the location of it. But there is a modern town called Artena, which is about 40 kilometers south east of Rome.
Dr Rad 23:11 Okay, that sounds kind of about right.
Dr G 23:14 It sounds kind of about right. Yeah. And the reason it sounds kind of about right, is because that this place changed its name in the 1870s, based on the theory that it was the location of the ancient Volscian town. So this town was known as Montefortino for many years. So a completely different name.
Dr Rad 23:38 Oh, I actually have heard of that place. I have no idea why. But I have, yeah.
Dr G 23:42 And they got this idea that maybe it was the location of the ancient Artena. So then they changed their whole town's name to reflect that. So it's a bit of a furphy because we're still not sure.
Dr Rad 23:56 Well, that's confidence. Yeah.
Dr G 23:59 And it's also the case that this modern town of Artena is also speculated to be one of the potential locations for the Volscian city of Ecetra.
Dr Rad 24:09 Right. Okay.
Dr G 24:10 So, we don't – to add confusion into the mix. The geography is all over the place.
Dr Rad 24:18 Yeah. That seems to be the theme that we're talking about places that we don't know where they are. All right, so the Romans do this by doing a bit of a sortie against Artena. This this place that apparently does not exist. The Volscians were therefore driven all the way back into the city by the Romans, the Romans were able to penetrate the city and they were able to capture everything except the citadel of Artena.
Dr G 24:50 Wow, okay. That's pretty devastating for the Volscii, I would say.
Dr Rad 24:54 It is, but it does mean that it's not quite the complete victory that the Romans would want. They've got A bunch of warriors that are holed up in the citadel. So the Romans have to then besieged the citadel.
Dr G 25:06 Oh, no!
Dr Rad 25:08 I know no matter what they tried Dr. G, they just could not win. The people inside. I mean, what's, what's their motivation, I suppose for giving up at this point in time, they're not going to surrender, they're going to stay there until the end, they had very cleverly move the town's green supply inside the citadel before the Romans had arrived. So they're also not going to starve to death super quickly, apparently.
Dr G 25:37 Okay, this spells bad news for Rome. Not only do they have their ongoing yet kind of failing siege with Veii, they're now in a situation where they're trying to besiege somewhere else, which has got a really clear food supply. And when we're thinking about the ancient world, I think we have to keep in mind that food supply and food security is a really big concern.
Dr Rad 26:02 Absolutely.
Dr G 26:03 So I think in our modern age of like, hyper convenience and food availability, that we don't tend to think about this in terms of the the worry and concern and the ongoing engagement with food supply, that would have been part and parcel of the ancient world.
Dr Rad 26:22 Definitely. But I mean, I think the interesting thing is, as we often talk about that, that will probably change. Climate change is going to affect what we can grow, where we can grow it, I mean, it already I shouldn't say is going to affect it is already affecting our ability to grow things. Like for example, if you're a fan of wine, I know that there are certain regions in the world that have had to change the types of grapes that they use, because the previous types of grapes can't grow in the warmer climates that now exists. But eventually, you know, it's going to get too warm to grow things anyway. So it's just going to be one of those things that we are going to have to I think engage with because, yeah, it is going to become part of our reality. And that's also applies to things like the damaging fishing practices that we use are damaging agricultural practices that we use. We have at the moment, sure, plenty of food in certain parts of the world. But that's not going to remain the case unless we start paying more attention to where our food comes from and how it is produced.
Dr G 27:21 Indeed, exactly. I echo your sentiments.
Dr Rad 27:26 Anyway, to return to this particular citadel with its grain supply. So the Romans obviously wanted to capture this place, lock, stock and barrel. They don't want to give up with a citadel. You know, still being held on to that's not going to be the victory that they're after. So they're in a terrible mood, because they're like, ‘God, dammit, we've done so well up until this point. The citadel is just a thorn in our side.' But then a slave betrayed the people inside the citadel.
Dr G 27:59 Gasp how dare they?
Dr Rad 28:01 I feel like we've had stories a bit like this before doesn't mean that they're not true. Obviously, it makes sense that things would play out in this way, but…
It is a bit of a literary trope as well, isn't it?
It is it is. Yeah. So the slave apparently allowed some of the Roman soldiers inside by showing them Sure, a more difficult, steeper approach, but like an alternative route that they weren't perhaps aware of, or thought that they could use because it was a little bit more challenging. And so as a result, the Romans were able to capture the citadel, they killed all of the sentries, and the rest of the people obviously, who were left inside the citadel, were just so freaked out that the Romans suddenly appear in their midst that they surrender without too much more of a fight.
Dr G 28:47 Wow. Okay, so the slave's like, ‘So if you're partial to being a bit of a mountain goat, yeah, I can show you the secret entry.'
Dr Rad 28:56 Exactly. I thought. Yeah, so this is obviously good news for the Romans. Perhaps this next bit explains why we aren't entirely sure where Artena is because the Romans apparently demolish the entire town, paying particularly close attention to the pesky citadel in the process.
Dr G 29:16 Well, well, well, somebody needs to write a stern letter to modern Artena and be like, ‘Excuse me, you were destroyed.'
Dr Rad 29:24 Exactly. Yeah, the Romans were so annoyed by that whole situation that they tore it apart brick by brick.
Dr G 29:31 Fair enough.
Dr Rad 29:32 So with that done, the Romans feel like they can officially leave Volscian territory and they can now fully dedicate themselves to this conflict with Veii.
Dr G 29:44 All right, okay, so the siege is back on.
Dr Rad 29:47 Well, I don't know that this siege was ever off. It was more just said it was maybe it wasn't getting all their attention and taking on they you know, the Romans know that they're not a pushover, so they they probably need to throw everything they've got at it, you know?
Dr G 30:02 Yeah. And Veii seems to be in a pretty defensive position, it sort of jumps out on a bit of a ledge. So it's not like it's an easy place to just rock up and take, you're definitely going to have to spend some time figuring out how to take it.
Dr Rad 30:18 Yes, exactly. Now, as for our slave who helped the Romans to achieve this victory, they were apparently, I should say, he was apparently given his freedom, and given the name Servilius Romanus, plus the property of two families as a reward for his betrayal.
Dr G 30:41 Oh, how strange.
Dr Rad 30:43 I know, I know. This is kind of an interesting little naming thing for us. Because that name, it's obviously trying to make us try to give him a name so that he would fit in with the kids on the playground, you know, he's got like a Latin name. But it is obviously signaling something about where he came from. In theory. Now, there's, as we know, there's huge amounts of discussion about the name Servilius, because one of the kings of Rome had that same name. And we know it doesn't necessarily mean that you were a slave.
Dr G 31:17 But there are a hints, like, it's that sort of thing where it's like, you've got a like a little bit of a rhyme, you've got like a sound connection. So you might be able to say, strictly speaking, doesn't mean that they're a slave. But when you say their name, everybody's gonna think it.
Dr Rad 31:34 Yes, exactly. Yeah. And it might be indicating something about the origin. You know, like, not everybody in the family obviously, is a slave. But it might be saying something about where the fame the family came from. So this particular name, Servilius, Romanus that's giving a fairly clear idea of what this guy's origins were.
Dr G 31:53 Like, ‘Sure, you can stay with us and be free. What we're going to call you though, is a slave of Rome.'
Dr Rad 31:58 Yes, exactly.
Dr G 32:00 That's your name.
Dr Rad 32:01 That's your name now. Yeah, exactly.
Dr G 32:03 Like, ‘Oh, gee, thanks, guys. I feel so free.'
Dr Rad 32:07 Now, there is a bit of discussion, actually, in Livy himself about the confusion about Artena and its location.
Dr G 32:15 Okay, well, that does not surprise me at all.
Dr Rad 32:18 Yeah, so apparently, some people thought that Artena was actually part of Veii's territory, not Volscian territory.
Dr G 32:26 That would be awkward for the people who have named their modern town Artena.
Dr Rad 32:32 I know, Livy, however, does not believe this, because whilst there was a city, more towards the north that had the same name, it was apparently demolish under the Roman kings.
Dr G 32:47 Okay, well, that's even more unusual.
Dr Rad 32:51 I know. I know. So there's just a huge amount of confusion about this particular place. Some scholars have even suggested that maybe it shouldn't be ARtena, but ORtena?
Dr G 33:02 Wow. I'm not gonna wait into that debate. OR not maybe.
Dr Rad 33:09 Yeah, exactly. I think we can just safely say, nobody has any idea where this is. We simply do not have the evidence. No, but I think it does make sense that, you know, this is a little Volscian conflict. You know, it makes sense that wherever they were fighting, it was the Volscians they were fighting at this point in time.
Dr G 33:30 And also that sense in which Rome's forces are split. So they're trying to do things on a number of different places. And that means that their chances of success in any place is compromised, because their forces are stretched thin.
Dr Rad 33:48 Yes, exactly. Now, that kind of wraps up for for, for me, they both pretty brief years, we can start 403 if you would like and it's a pretty monster year.
Dr G 34:00 I think we should save 403.
Dr Rad 34:02 Okay.
Dr G 34:03 Because it is it is an epic time to embark upon. And I think the I want to savour that.
Dr Rad 34:12 Fair enough. That's fair. No, it is going to be a bit of a gigantic year, I think but definitely
Dr G 34:16 Foreshadowing, foreshadowing
Dr Rad 34:17 For sure. Yeah, definitely. I think we can say by the sudden increase in the amount of military tribunes with consular power, we can see what's happening for Rome at this point in time.
Dr G 34:28 So the only other detail I have to add to any of this is that Diodorus Siculus does hint that there is an increase in the number of colonists that Rome sends to a city called Velitrae.
Dr Rad 34:43 Oh, okay. We did we have talked about Velitrae, yeah.
Dr G 34:46 Yeah, so this is a Latin city. It's in the southern foothills of the Albian Hills, which are the ones just just to the southeast of Rome. You can see them from the city and this means that maybe trying to like, establish a greater foothold in that area. It's not at all clear why they would be doing that, at this stage, particularly when they've got forces stretched over a number of different battle fronts. But nevertheless, this is a little detail that we're given. So Velitrae is part of the broader Latin league in 498. And then then it's conquered by the Romans in 494. And from that point onwards, it's a Roman colony, apparently. So even though there's some tussles and disputes they seem to be trying to reinforce an area, which is a little bit closer to Volscian territory, as well, potentially.
Dr Rad 35:41 I remembered reading about that. And I just suddenly thought, Oh, my God, like, it's just one of those things where it's a timing that's out, but I thought I was just quickly sneakily trying to, to check it. But
Dr G 35:52 Look, there doesn't seem to be – it's not adding to the narrative, particularly because I don't know what, like I don't have any sort of the puzzle pieces of like Livy's narrative to hook this into. This is something that comes up in Diodorus Siculus, he might be off by a couple of years, that's possible as well. But he does also name a whole bunch of the military tribunes for this year, and he gets most of them right.
Dr Rad 36:15 Well, yeah. And it does make sense because we know that Rome is suddenly becoming much more aggressive and expansionist, and they are, they are establishing more colonies and that sort of thing at this point in time and more control, sometimes, you know, they capture it, and then they lose it fairly quickly, again, but certainly the intention of not just focusing on their internal problems and defending themselves. They're definitely trying to build something here. Definitely.
Dr G 36:43 Exactly. All right. So that's – what – 405 and 404.
Dr Rad 36:48 That is 405 and 404, which means, Dr. G., it is time for the Partial Pick!
Dr G 37:01 The Partial Pick. So Rome has the possibility of gaining a maximum of 50, golden eagles. They are rated across five categories with 10 each. Let's see how they do.
Dr Rad 37:17 Let's see indeed. So what's our first category Dr. G?
Dr G 37:21 Military clout.
Dr Rad 37:23 Okay, not so great in 405. But there's some stuff happening in 404.
Dr G 37:30 I feel like they kind of balance each other out. It's not like they're successful of their seige of Veii. We know that's going to continue on for a long time.
Dr Rad 37:38 That's gonna take a while. Yeah, yeah.
Dr G 37:41 And they are eventually successful in Artena.
Dr Rad 37:44 They are.
Dr G 37:45 So…
Dr Rad 37:46 Artena seems to be fairly easy. It's just a citadel that takes them a little bit of work. And even then it doesn't seem like that much effort.
Dr G 37:54 Yeah, like, once they know the secret path. They're all good.
Dr Rad 37:56 Exactly. So, look. Ahhh but I didn't know what as you say, I don't know what a big deal Artena is. Certainly the fact that they raze it to the ground, they're sending a pretty clear message.
Dr G 38:07 It is, I probably give them maybe a four. Like it's a pretty big thing to take something and then raze it to the ground. That doesn't seem to be the Roman way very much in this period. They tend to take things and then leave again. Or they tend to take things and then put colonists in and hope for the best.
Dr Rad 38:24 This is true, but four? I mean, come on. That's a failing mark, Dr. G. I think we gotta give them a six, surely?
Dr G 38:30 Well, it's not like they're really winning. I don't even know where this place is.
Dr Rad 38:37 That's because they razed it to the ground! No, I think it has to be a six. They did capture this place and they were also successful in the other battle.
Dr G 38:46 All right. I will I think we need to be careful here because if I let you have a six, I won't negotiate later on a low score.
Dr Rad 38:51 Okay, that's fine. I just feel like this one. This one needs to be a six, I think.
Dr G 38:57 All right. All right.
Dr Rad 38:58 Okay. I, I appreciate the six.
Dr G 39:03 Our second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 39:07 Okay. Well, yeah, not a lot of that going on with warfare on pretty much every front.
Dr G 39:13 Yeah, I mean, can you consider their discussion with Servilius Romanus as a negotiation? I think it's a defection.
Dr Rad 39:23 It is. It's definitely that yeah, no, I think that there's no diplomacy to be had. I mean, we this would this wouldn't be points for the Romans, we definitely see the Etruscans practicing some diplomacy, but I don't think that right, we should get the score for them having a meeting.
Dr G 39:38 We're gonna have to change the whole Partial Pick, when Rome has like substantial enemies who are doing better than them.
Dr Rad 39:44 Yeah, exactly.
Dr G 39:44 We'll come back to that. So zero.
Dr Rad 39:46 Okay.
Dr G 39:47 All right. The third category is expansion.
Dr Rad 39:51 Well, as you say, like I'm willing to say that this could be a lower score because there's no mention made of what they do with this Volscian city that they raze to the ground, it doesn't seem like they have any interest in holding it.
Dr G 40:09 So they don't seem to be including it as part of their territory…
Dr Rad 40:13 No…
Dr G 40:14 if they're raising it to the ground, they kind of just getting rid of it and being done with it.
Dr Rad 40:17 Yeah.
Dr G 40:18 Having said that they send more colonists to Velitrae
Dr Rad 40:21 If Diodorus Siculus is to be believed.
Dr G 40:24 Well, how many options do I have up my sleeve?
Dr Rad 40:28 I agree. Okay, so maybe what like a two or three?
Dr G 40:33 Well, look, maybe a one. Look, let's face it. They already had Velitrae.
Dr Rad 40:37 Right. Yeah. True.
Dr G 40:38 They said you're just adding people to it. Maybe if we believe Diodorus.
Dr Rad 40:42 Okay, one.
Dr G 40:45 Okay. The fourth category is Virtus.
Dr Rad 40:49 Okay, not really, we don't I mean, for all the military tributes with consular power that we have none of them mentioned by name apart from when they actually get the position.
Dr G 41:01 Yeah, none of them are coming through a standout characters who have led the charge lead the sage broken into the citadel, gained the glory gotten the triumph.
Dr Rad 41:12 I know.
Dr G 41:13 Livy's letting us down. There must be a real gap in his source material as well, at this point.
Dr Rad 41:17 Yeah, well, and I feel that the next year is going to be a big one for personalities. So maybe he's saving himself.
Dr G 41:26 Alright, so zero on virtus.
Dr Rad 41:29 Yep.
Dr G 41:29 And our final category is the citizen score.
Dr Rad 41:34 Very little detail on this front. Dr. G. I mean, they're away at war, which they're either winning or not losing. So, I don't know.
Dr G 41:44 Wow.
Dr Rad 41:47 They're still perhaps feeling pretty pleased with themselves for this whole military pay situation, but…
Dr G 41:53 This is true, but we can't judge the citizens on their past efforts, really.
Dr Rad 42:00 No, I know. It's an awkward one.
Dr G 42:02 I think we don't know enough to really give them a score. So that's, in a way, this is not Rome's fault. We because we just simply don't know. It's not like there's any detail coming through of a conflict of the orders, or a levy, or citizens falling a battle or poor strategic decisions being made that leads to the loss of life.
Dr Rad 42:23 This is true, this is true. I mean –
Dr G 42:25 We don't have anything,
Dr Rad 42:26 We have the victory. And we have the fact that they capture the city and everything inside it, which presumably means there's some booty to be had. But even then there's no specific mentions. I don't know how we want to handle that.
Dr G 42:40 Well, I would definitely be taking the grain out of Artena, that citadel so that's going to be a win.
Dr Rad 42:46 Yes, exactly. That's what I need. But where's it going? Like who's getting it? They dividing it up amongst the men, Dr. G?
Dr G 42:53 Hmm, these are the things that we cannot account for. And I think by that kind of standard, if we want to be really generous, we could assume that those things are benefiting the citizens, in which case we might give them a two or something.
Dr Rad 43:06 Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. I'm happy to give them a two. All right. All right. So Dr. G, unfortunately, that means Rome, not doing so hot. They get a grand total of 9 out of 50 golden eagles.
Dr G 43:22 A solid loss.
Dr Rad 43:26 Not looking great, but next year will definitely be interesting, I think. So we'll have to see.
Dr G 43:29 I suspect they might be on the up and up.
Dr Rad 43:33 There's definitely going to be some action around they the question of Veii, yes.
Dr G 43:41 I'm looking forward to finding out what's coming up in 403.
Dr Rad 43:45 I'll see you then.
Dr G 43:54 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. A huge thank you to our Patreon supporters for helping make this show spectacular. If you enjoyed the show, there's a few ways that you can show your support. You can write a review wherever you listen in to help spread the word. Reviews really make our day and help new people find our podcast. Researching and producing a podcast takes time if you're keen to chip in. You can buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi or join our fantastic patrons for early releases and exclusive content. You can find our show notes, as well as links to our merch and where to buy our book, ‘Rex, The Seven Kings of Rome' at partialhistorians.com. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
Special Episode - Augustus' Mausoleum with Dr Victoria Austen
28 mars 2024
01:06:35
It is not often that we are fortunate enough to get to chat to one of our amazing guests a second time, but sometimes the gods are just that kind. We sat down to speak to the one and only Dr Victoria Austen about Augustus’ mausoleum.
Special Episode – Augustus' Mausoleum
Dr Victoria Austen holds a MA and PhD from King’s College London. She has lectured in the Classics at the University of Winnipeg and is currently the Robert A. Oden, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Humanities and Classics at Carleton College, Minnesota. Her monograph Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: (Re)Framing the Hortus’ was released in 2023 as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Environments Series. Vicky has recently been speaking for the American Institute of Archaeology on gardens and commemoration.
‘The Mausoleum of Augustus’ from Pietro Santi Bartoli, Gli antichi sepolcri ii, 1727. courtesy of Carleton College Special Collections.
What is Augustus' mausoleum?
Augustus did not rest on his laurels after winning the Battle of Actium against Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He set about consolidating his political position and figuring out exactly what that would entail.
Augustus set about transforming the city itself as part of his political machinations. Some of his key monuments include the Ara Pacis, the Horologium Augusti (think giant sun dial), and the mausoleum.
He started construction on this tomb in 28 BCE and positioned it on the Campus Martius (Field of Mars). This is much earlier than you might expect. Augustus’ position was not unchallenged and there was still much to be decided regarding his status in Rome. Nonetheless, Augustus set about building this large circular mausoleum, intending to use it not just for himself, but his family.
Eventually the tomb would house the remains of numerous members of Augustus' family, as well as the princeps himself. Names you might recognise include Agrippa (his BFF and the husband of his daughter Julia), Marcellus (his nephew), Octavia (his sister), and Gaius and Lucius (his adopted sons).
After Augustus’ death, his family continued to use the mausoleum. Livia (his wife), the emperors Tiberius and Claudius, Germanicus, Antonia Minor and Britannicus would all find their way to this monument.
However, there was not an open-door policy for anyone with Julio-Claudian blood. The mausoleum became a sort of litmus test of who had fallen from grace and would be punished with exclusion… forever! You might already have spotted that Julia, Augustus’ only biological child, and her daughter Julia, did not make the cut. Ouch! Nor did the emperors Caligula and Nero. You had to earn your spot.
Donati, A. (1584-1640) Roma vetus ac recens, courtesy of Carleton College Special Collections.
What happened to the mausoleum?
As with so many ancient monuments, the mausoleum has been repurposed many times. Tune in to hear about the Soderini family and their resurrection of the space, as well as good old Mussolini, who just loved to forge connections between himself and figures like Augustus.
Things to Look Out For:
Augustus getting BURNT by Dr Rad on numerous occasions.
Good-natured tolerance from Drs A and G about afore-mentioned Augustan burns.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Read. And
Dr G 0:30 I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 1:01 Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of the partial historians. Dr. Rad and myself, Dr. G are thrilled to welcome back Dr. Victoria Austen to the show. And you might remember her fantastic conversation with us a little while back now about Augustus and temporal space and representation. And today we're going to be looking at Augustus his mausoleum. So a quick bio. Dr. Victoria Austen holds an MA and a PhD from King's College London. She has lectured in the classics at the University of Winnipeg and is currently the Robert A Odin Junior Postdoctoral Fellow for innovation in the humanities and classics at Carleton College Minnesota. Her research interests span the Latin literature of the late Republic and early empire, ancient Roman gardens and landscapes race and ethnicity in the ancient world, the reception of classical myth and the integration of digital humanities into the classroom. Austen's monograph Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: Reframing the Hortus was released in 2023, as part of the Bloomsbury ancient environment series, and coming up, Vicky is currently partway through a series of talks for the American Institute of Archaeology on gardens and commemoration. Welcome back, Vicky.
Dr Victoria Austen 2:34 Yeah, it's so great to be back. I'm so so excited to talk more things, Augustus as we know, I'm a big fan.
Dr G 2:41 Me too. Dr. Rad is already
Dr Victoria Austen 2:44 Eye roll already.
Dr Rad 2:46 I was I was going to say, Look, I'm very happy to see you again, but less happy to see your friend. Look, you know what, I am going to embrace it because I have some fantastic dad jokes here. So Augustus is mausoleum, you might say that everyone in the Julio Claudian period is just dying to get in.
Dr Victoria Austen 3:14 I mean, I
Dr Rad 3:20 so Look, let's start with the basics. Dr. Austen, or Vicky, if I may be so what is this thing? How did it come about?
Dr Victoria Austen 3:30 Yeah, so this is basically where Augustus wants to be buried. bold move in that, you know, he creates it when he's still living like this is very much his project. It's not like something that people put up for him. He's like, No, I'm gonna create my own team structure. And I'm gonna model it on potentially one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Because, you know, he never He doesn't do anything small. So this is why it's called the mausoleum of Augustus, because it's based on we think maybe the Mausolus tomb, which was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. So timewise it was finished in 28 BCE. So this is, you know, still kind of pretty early on actually, in his principle, you know, when you think he was there for you know, good, good more 30 years or so. So he was he was thinking about his afterlife, very concerned about his commemoration.
Dr Rad 4:26 Yeah. Like, yeah, like an Egyptian ruler. Yeah, thing. He's just very focused on that end goal.
Dr Victoria Austen 4:34 And kind of like structurally as well. It's obviously it's very impressive. It's like this huge kind of concrete structure, which and concrete in itself is a kind of Roman innovation, which was kind of relatively still new at this time period. You know, they're still experimenting with oh, we can use this new material. So we can do round things instead of like, oh, square things. So it's this big kind of dark, circular structure. domed and it's planted kind of all the way around, we think to kind of emulate what create a kind of monumental version of a traditional elektrischen type tomb, which is called a timless, which is, you know, in its most primitive form, that would be kind of like just a mound of earth. That was kind of your tomb spot. So August just kind of seems to have taken that idea, and then just done it, you know, huge, huge monumental scale as as he likes to do with everything.
Dr Rad 5:29 It sounds extremely presumptuous. Yeah. Within keeping of his character, yes.
Dr G 5:36 Very much. So. And I'm particularly thinking about the date of 28 BCE, because this is right before 27, which is usually considered a landmark for him in terms of like sealing the deal on his power. And he's already out there being like, oh, no, guys, I am a big deal. I know it, you guys know it, I've killed everybody who hates me by now.
Dr Victoria Austen 5:57 And I think particularly because there's this idea of it's such a big structure that clearly he was thinking of it in terms of it wasn't just going to be for him, it was going to be for other family members. So it's like, it's going to be like a dynastic kind of monument in itself. And I think, like you said, the fact that he's creating that so early in his principles that kind of speaks to, oh, he may have been doing all of his, I'm just restoring the Republic schtick. But, you know, I'm beside he's like, No, actually, I'm going to create this huge monument to the my family, or my heirs. So like that idea of like the family, dynastic structure, I think is very telling that he's already creating a very obvious building and structure like super early.
Dr Rad 6:48 Really to be fair, he wasn't a well man. Well, no,
Dr Victoria Austen 6:52 I think I think that's part of it. He had so much anxiety over death. And you know, then all of his heirs keep dying, as we know, along the way,
Dr Rad 7:01 it came in handy.
Dr Victoria Austen 7:02 He didn't die, you know. So I think I think it also the early day also represents a bit of that anxiety over you know, I've got to start thinking about my death and what happens when I die. Like, pretty early on. Really? Yeah,
Dr Rad 7:18 definitely. Yeah, Look, that's
Dr G 7:20 tough, isn't it that anxiety and and also that monumental ism, what a fascinating character. Yeah, I don't understand Dr. Rad while you're not so interested. I
Dr Rad 7:29 am intrigued, but it's more of a fact that I'm like, Why can't people just see through him?
Dr Victoria Austen 7:37 This last time, like I like I love him to study. But doesn't mean I think he's a great guy. I also see through him.
Dr Rad 7:47 Yeah, I think it's well, I think it's more Dr. G. I'm talking to me, she she genuinely likes him.
Dr G 7:56 I think it's just because in the portraiture, he comes across as being relatively good looking. So I'm willing to forgive him from things. So, but that's just me being really basic. Yeah. But thinking about the mausoleum and its location, like To what extent is it sort of part of his broader sort of sense of building sort of like a topographical thing for himself in a Gustin sort of way of thinking about Rome? Yeah.
Dr Victoria Austen 8:20 And so I think I was actually talking about this very topic with my students, actually, last week, because we were, we were doing the Augustan period, and Roman Art and Archaeology. And I was, I was saying that one of his innovations really is, you know, late Republican building projects, like kind of Pompey's theatre complex, Julius Caesar had his forum. You know, it's this idea that you're kind of entering a bit of a zone that is, it's like the Pompey zone, or the Julius Caesar zone, and we're kind of entering those spaces, and it's framed by that individual power. But what Augustus does is he's like, all of Rome is now my zone. It's not just a small bar. It's like, I'm doing this everywhere. So again, like in terms of scale, that's what's kind of innovative and the mausoleum is part of the Campus Martius which he is one of his kind of three main areas in the city that he really focuses on for his redevelopment. So we have the mausoleum, but we also have the our pockets, which I spoke a lot about on the last time I was with you. And then there's also this monumental sundial as well the heartland and they're all very close together in this Campus Martius area and I think again, it speaks to this kind of projection of a new type of power, because you know, you have your mausoleum, which is thinking about kind of commemoration long term, but at a family kind of dynastic level, you've got the altar of peace, the our parkas eventually, which is, you know, commemorating I've bought peace to Rome for the first time. And then with the sundial, I think that's, that's particularly interesting because it kind of I think it's also symbolic that he is kind of not just In charge of space, but also his controlling time, as well as all these three monuments, kind of we're all working together kind of past, present, future, there's like this temporal element. And I think so you can't just think of the mausoleum, you know, as a static kind of isolated entity in itself, I think a lot of its meaning also comes from the fact that it's connected to these other very important Augusto monuments. And you have to imagine, if you're a Roman, you're walking through the Campus Martius, like, you're gonna be able to see all three of these things within a very short walk, you'll be able to see them from each other, like they're very, very close together,
Dr G 10:40 and this association with the Campus Martius, in particular, this idea that there is a whole Augustan precinct and there is a really long history of how the Campus Martius is used. And now it's being sort of it's evolving under Augustus is sort of building regime as well.
Dr Victoria Austen 10:56 Yeah, absolutely. And I think what, what I think is fascinating, and also just kind of very telling about the building project in the campus. Martius is it's very representative of so many things that will go sisters in that he's kind of seen kind of political figures kind of use art and architecture and space and these building projects, to project their own individual power, but they never had the opportunity to kind of extend that on mass scale. And so now he's in this position where he can start to do this, in a way he kind of takes all of the seeds that have been done at an individual level. And he's just putting it all together, doing it to a huge, huge scale, and just really hammering it home, like everywhere you go. There's this sense of Augustus kind of framing your experience of the city like you have to imagine that there's not many places like right in the core, where you're not far from an Augusten building project because if you're not in the Campus Martius you might be near the Palatine Hill, that's where his house is, or you're in the forum and he redevelop the forum. So there's like, everywhere you go, there's this kind of just presence of him. And kind of framing your experience of the whole city, I think, which is very, very innovative. I
Dr Rad 12:14 think of him. It sounds like my waking nightmare.
Dr G 12:19 You're surrounded on
Dr Rad 12:21 escape. But I do appreciate I do appreciate that long before Doc Brown and Marty McFly, Augustus was thinking about the space time continuum and how to disrupt it. Yes,
Dr Victoria Austen 12:31 he really was. And I think there's there's a famous that kind of famous theory, I suppose about these kinds of three, three monuments, or kind of like working together in the campus. Martius is it has been suggested that the shadow of the sundial would go directly through the entrance of the Ara Pacis on Augustus' birthday. So it's like, yeah, it's basically I have conquered time, like I am in charge. And I think, you know, Julius Caesar, his uncle had her redone the calendar. And so the sundial was now with the Julian calendar in mind. And so again, it's just this Yeah, it's the way that space and time and with the mausoleum, there's then this idea of like an afterlife. Like, even though I'm not there, you're going to still be thinking about me. And it's the same with our parkas. You know, it was set up with this annual sacrifice in mind, and that's going to keep going on even when Augustus dies. So there's this again, it's like a kind of cyclical, eternal presence. I think that he's trying to establish there.
Dr Rad 13:37 I'll give it to him. He certainly does pay attention to detail and it suddenly hit me that Dr. G being an absolute Virgo. This must be what appeals to her. Oh my god.
Dr Victoria Austen 13:47 This is this is the connection. It's I'm
Dr G 13:54 it is all beginning to make sense. I use just so organised. He's thought of everything.
Dr Rad 14:01 I get it now and I will stop giving you crap about it.
Dr Victoria Austen 14:06 We can't help it. It's in the stars. Absolutely.
Dr Rad 14:09 Yeah. And I Look, this is probably my favourite part of Augustus has more saline to talk about because I mean, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it. But he's such a dick, in that it's very much about who's allowed in who's not. It's my club. I'm gonna control that. Are you on the VIP list? Or are you not So who gets buried in this thing in the end and who gets left out because they've done something to upset him?
Dr Victoria Austen 14:35 Oh, that's a really good question. I'm trying to think exactly. Who was in there. I know the last person that is in there is Nerva actually, but in terms of in terms of like the Julian accordions, I don't know who is who
Dr Rad 14:49 we know that famously Julia obviously,
Dr Victoria Austen 14:53 does not. I bet she doesn't get in there.
Dr Rad 14:55 She does not say for those of you who haven't listened to our Millions of discussions about Augustus Julia is his one and only actual child, you'd think she'd be a shoo in. But no,
Dr Victoria Austen 15:08 yeah, but no, she's, she's morally Not, not on. Yeah, you would
Dr G 15:13 think in the end that, that in depth that he might allow it, you know, like, there'll be some sort of forgiveness, but he's absolutely no.
Dr Victoria Austen 15:21 And I think it really speaks to like the harshness of that like relationship and that he like, the the ability to, like, cut off the personal from the political that like, I'm, again, this speaks to its a dynastic monument, which is different from a family monument. And obviously, there are times when that overlaps, but the fact that as you said, it's not a, it's not by default that you get in there, like there are choices being made.
Dr G 15:53 And we see some like tragic moments, because obviously, Augustus is thinking about his own mortality, but he's also spending a lot of his time trying to figure out who's going to sort of come into place after him and a whole bunch of them die early. So like, my seller sends up in their Gaius and looses end up in there, you know, and it's like, in a way, despite the fact that Augustus is probably a terribly power hungry kind of individual, you have to feel a little bit of compassion for the fact that he's burying a lot of his young, male relatives that he had great hopes for. Yeah. And
Dr Victoria Austen 16:26 I think there is this sense that, you know, again, this may be speaks to why this was such an important building for him and that anxiety over the succession, you know, his entire project, it was only ever going to reach its complete fruition, if there was some kind of succession because the, you know, if that had not been secured, then there's nothing to say that you couldn't have just like gone back to a republic system, like, you know, it's not until that moment that Tiberius actually comes in, and he becomes like the next emperor, that it's like, oh, we can actually say now that we're doing something different here than just like a one man thing. So I think I think it's kind of possibly underestimated the amount of anxiety around that and just pick Yeah, he keeps picking these people, and then it's like a curse and then they die. Like, I choose you, and now you're dead. Like
Dr Rad 17:26 at the touch of death is like when Augusto says you're gonna succeed me.
Dr Victoria Austen 17:30 And then he's just left with Tiberius by the end.
Dr G 17:33 So it says explains Tiberius is reluctance you've seen the pattern. And he's like, just say, No,
Dr Rad 17:38 yeah, don't don't Look at me. Yeah. But I mean, it to be fair, to be fair, because I suppose it functioned in this way during Augustus lifetime. It's not just during Augustus, his lifetime that it is used as like a who's in favour and who's not kind of monument, that whole dynasty continue to use it in this way. Yeah.
Dr Victoria Austen 18:01 Yeah. So again, it's like that idea of so much. It's when we're thinking about commemoration. And I think this idea of like memory, and who is allowed to be part of that memory, like so many, that is a political choice that is being made along the way. And I think I think that's why I'm kind of fascinated with this temporal aspect and the the playing of time, because, you know, commemoration in general, it's something you're you're doing in the present, but it obviously engages with the past, because it's about kind of ancestors, but it also looks, Augustus is kind of looking to the future when he creates it, because it's this idea of any kind of ironically ends up burying their, like, who would have been the future and then the future is kind of like changing in real time. And so I think there's this really interesting, dynamic there with time. And, you know, one of the things that I'm particularly interested in, obviously, thinking about Gardens is that, you know, it's created with lots of plants and greenery around it, which I think, again, speaks to this temporal kind of cyclical aspect that, you know, the plants are always there, but they, so they kind of are the same, but they're not because they're continuing because nature is continually evolving. So it's like, it kind of appears to be this ever present feature, but that that feature isn't itself kind of always moving. It's not static. And so I think, again, he kind of taps into the power of plants, I suppose in that way to really enhance that kind of temporal aspect of the commemoration.
Dr Rad 19:38 Yeah, and it is kind of interesting to think that a lot of the people that end up getting buried in there are younger members of the of the dynasty, which I think kind of speaks to the fact that if you're if you grow up to be an adult, if you live long enough, you're gonna tick somebody off. Someone's gonna
Dr Victoria Austen 19:57 Yeah, all the all the young ones, it's just like didn't have enough time to do anything?
Dr Rad 20:01 No, no, they were like, Well, you were five. We didn't. We
Dr G 20:06 didn't hate you. Yeah, except for Agrippa Postumus. Yes, you know, there's always the exception.
Dr Victoria Austen 20:12 He's, he's, you know, he's, he's okay. He doesn't annoy anyone.
Dr G 20:19 But I getting back to this aspect of plants. So when we think about the Roman architectural landscape, it tends to be the case that people talk about the buildings a lot. And sometimes trees get mentioned. So in people's like, sort of imagination of that space of Rome, it's kind of like marble structures, clean streets, you know, it's all happening. There's carts and everything everywhere. And there's not necessarily a lot of room or space to think about how nature is incorporated into some of that, but with Augustus is mausoleum, there is a deliberate incorporation of nature into parts of the structure. And I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to that. Yeah.
Dr Victoria Austen 21:00 And I think the mausoleum is like a microcosm of what is going on in the Campus Martius, in general, in that there's this idea of, rather than how our modern eyes might see it, as you said, it's like a series of individual monuments and the monuments that comes first. And that's the kind of thing that you focus on. And then maybe ideas of plantings and stuff are more peripheral, or you're like, Oh, sure, they planted some trees. But I think we need to kind of invert that idea. And think of the Campus Martius itself is this huge kind of landscaped green kind of Park, almost like a kind of sacred grove, the sacral Adeleke type landscape, and within that are dotted a series of monuments. So I feel like actually, we need to think of it as the monuments are kind of part of this broader, kind of sacred esque type landscape, as opposed to, there are these monuments, and then there happens to be a few plantings around it. And I think that's really crucial to kind of understanding the experience of the Campus Martius in general, because, you know, Augustus wants people to experience the sights and be there. And so you, you're giving this kind of broad, open green space to a population who if you're living in the city of Rome, you know, you don't have your own garden. I mean, I think you have Roman Gardens is like from Pompeii, where you've got these individual houses, and they each have their own little nice courtyard garden. If you're living in Rome, you're in a stuffy apartment complex, sharing one room with, you know, 10,010 other people, and you don't have access to nature in that way. And so these kinds of more, quote, unquote, public areas become really important. And I think Augustus really understood the importance of like, putting greenery and kind of open space as part of that, because it creates this distance, I suppose, from their very urban, maybe small scale reality. And then suddenly, you can go to this wide open space that you're very much aware, I presume that Augustus is kind of its public, but you know, he's allowing us to be here, in that he's opened it up in this way. But it's just dotted by all of these reminders of Augustus being there. So I think, I think the plantings are actually, we shouldn't think of them as being, you know, marginal, I think actually, that's kind of like, that's the main thing. And then the monuments are within that. Interesting,
Dr G 23:39 interesting. All right, I will hold on to these thoughts because you're giving me food for thought. And now and, and I'm thinking about the kind of potential for a natural fallacy to emerge that somehow Augustan power is immersed and is part of and it's coming from nature. And but I won't go too far down that path that is an unformed thought. No,
Dr Victoria Austen 24:02 I completely agree because like so much of his imagery, and like we spoke about this on the previous episodes, so much of his imagery and kind of this connection to the gods he he created through the use of symbolic plants like plants were plants as symbols were so central to his kind of image image making in that way. And in fact, on the mausoleum, we don't have much of the kind of decoration that would would have gone on the exterior. It wasn't just like plain concrete, there would have been kind of marble decoration. And we know that either side of the entrance way. There were kind of carved marble panels that featured Laurel and like this is very probably symbolic of the fact that he has two Laurel trees either side, you know either side of the entrance to its house, which itself is meant to mimic the use of Laurel trees outside of religious buildings. And you know, the Laurel is associated with Apollo Augustus sees himself as Apollo. You know, even on coins, there's just these two Laurel trees and it's like that's an Augustan coin, like that's a symbol for him. And so I think the fact that it's like consciously on his mausoleum, like flanking the entrance, again, it kind of speaks to this idea that he's kind of harnessing these planty symbols. And and it's not by accident. There's like these repeated patterns. And so, yeah, with these two Laurel trees, it's like they're at my mausoleum. They're at my house. They're on coins. I wear them in my trial for crowns. You know, it's like, this is my plant. It's effing everywhere.
Dr Rad 25:39 Yeah, Branding! Well, I mean, this, this is this is not quite the same thing. But there is also that idea that comes through or Gustus that urban city life is not what made room great, it's an eight shades, the rural existence, it's being connected to the land and agricultural practice and that sort of thing as well, which is not quite the same thing. But
Dr Victoria Austen 26:05 But I think it's part of it, because I mean, the fact that he's doing this in the Campus Martius, which in itself is like representative of this kind of like it's like original kind of public type land. There's a lot of kind of literary by, say a lot, there's pieces of literary evidence from this kind of late Republican into the Augustan period, where one of the kind of moral tropes that kind of comes up is, there's a lot of anxiety about the loss of kind of sacred landscapes in the context of the Civil War. And so I think he plays a you know, he's a smart move, he's creating a new sacred landscape within his marshes, and he's like, I am at the centre of it. So my guess is, and again, that's, you know, about as close to declaring yourself a god as you can get.
Dr Rad 26:54 Like, I think I think I'm also sensing one of the reasons why I've perhaps instinctively disliked Augustus and that's the Australian in me is very uncomfortable with someone who's so openly being like, yeah, I am at the centre of everything. I am the shit.
Dr G 27:10 You want to some tall poppy syndrome.
Dr Rad 27:14 There is actually honestly, it is a cultural thing that Australians aren't comfortable with ambitious people.
Dr Victoria Austen 27:22 Interesting. Okay. Yeah. But I think yeah, Augustus would not fit in there then.
Dr G 27:29 Definitely not.
Dr Rad 27:31 I actually to come back to our earlier thing, I just thought her out of interest, I would have a have a Look at the list of people that ended up making it in his lifetime. So obviously, we know Marcellus Yeah, he's, yeah, he he's intended as numero uno, who unfortunately died very, very young and unexpectedly, the son of his sister Octavia Octavia. Of course, yes.
Dr Victoria Austen 27:56 There is in there. Yeah. So it's not just limited to men as well. We know it's quite like they allow he does allow some women in there. Yeah. Well, I
Dr Rad 28:03 mean, I get Octavia because after all, she's like the opposite of Julia the elder his daughter, and that she's very dutiful. Does what what is asked of her, you know, does her bid for the succession? Agrippa who is not a blood relative? Of course.
Dr G 28:21 No, but they're like brothers in that. Yeah. Say?
Dr Rad 28:24 Anyone deserves it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I've asked this would have been Augustus without Agrippa. But he acknowledged that that much. And then of course, my man, Tiberius after Augustus. His death obviously, yeah. ends up in there, but so do people like Germanicus? Yeah. Yeah. Who we might expect as well. And Antonia Minor, huh? Yeah. Mother of Claudius Britannicus.
Dr G 28:55 Oh, yeah. Poor Britannicus.
Dr Rad 28:57 Tragically murdered by one of his own relatives, which is why it's kind of weird that he ends up in this really
Dr G 29:01 well, first I killed him. And then I put him in the mausoleum because that's the right thing to do.
Dr Rad 29:06 Exactly. Yeah. And, of course, of course, Claudius himself. Now I'm just going to point out, we are missing Of course, yeah. Nero, and he doesn't he's not in there. No, no, he's definitely not.
Dr G 29:21 So being a relative is not enough to get you in there it is, being an emperor
Dr Rad 29:25 isn't enough to get you on.
Dr Victoria Austen 29:27 And again, this is this is the point about that. A dynastic monument. We think of it because I think we're so maybe skewed by our idea of like modern monarchy, which is very kind of like family oriented, oriented and this idea that then it's the family and the dynastic part, they're not one in the same and obviously when it ends as well overlap, but you know, no one is there's no father son succession in the junior accordions, it seems, it's that's true. He's alive and who would we not want to merge I think you'll be the next one.
Dr G 30:02 Congratulations, you survived. Yes.
Dr Rad 30:05 It would be fascinating if the modern British monarchy was run along the same lines who's alive? And who do we not want to? Pick? Yeah, yeah. Oh,
Dr G 30:15 that would open up the field goodness not really worth it. So thinking about the mausoleum, not just in the Augustan period, but it does have a huge legacy over time. Like there's obviously part of the structure still remains to this day. And it's not like people after Ancient Rome or like, you know what, never going in there don't know what that's about. It was definitely it had many afterlives if you. And I'm wondering if you can take us through some of the ones that have really appealed to you when you've been thinking about this structure.
Dr Victoria Austen 30:47 I mean, I think this is this is what I found so fascinating. And this, this really started as a very small I was like, Well, what did kind of happen after the Augustan period, and it has opened up this whole new world of research to me, and now I'm looking at Pope's, and Who's In Who's in charge of Rome in the pre modern period. And it's, it's fascinating, it's but it's not like a linear kind of journey. It, yeah, it kind of comes and goes in these cycles in a really, really fascinating way. So as I think I just said, like the last burial that we can kind of officially associate with it is Nerva in 96 CE, and then it kind of, we have very, very fragmentary and limited evidence from when from that kind of peak use period as a burial plot. And then it really kind of like drops off. And we don't have like a tonne of information, it pops up in the 10th century. It's called the mons Augusta. By Gregorius, I think it is. And he refers to the site as this, like Mons Augusta. And then in the 12th century, we have this really interesting reference in the Mirabilia. Urbis Romae, which is essentially like a guidebook to the ancient city. And it's referred to as the Augustan. But it also includes this really interesting legend, which is actually not found in the ancient sources, but it's described in the Mirabilia, and it says that the mound itself has been is special, and people still, like kind of go to it and worship it. And it's still a special site, because he talks about the author of the memorabilia of that Augustus bought mounds of earth from all different parts of the empire, and put it on top of his put it as part of the plantings of the cool, so fascinating. And like, I wish we had any kind of hardly any hint of this in the ancient sources, but I mean, the, they obviously got this idea from somewhere in the mirror, but it's discussed as something it's like, this is the well known site that you're gonna go visit and you know, said that Augustus bought these mounds of earth from all over and like, that is such an imperial statement, again, this like, control of space and time, he's like, I'm literally bringing the Earth from all of the places and putting it on my tomb where
Dr Rad 33:13 I was gonna say sounds so on brand
Dr Victoria Austen 33:16 on land. And so I think it's also just really interesting that in the mirror abelia, it's like, the earthy part, is seen as the most kind of famous part of the commemoration. It's not the structure, he like talks about the Earth as being like, this central thing that they're gonna Look at, which again, when I think about these kind of the temporal aspects of plantings is and why people use them in commemoration, again, it's like it's always there. But it's changed over time. So yeah, that's a really fascinating little reference in the 12th century. And then we basically have like, nothing, and we don't really know what happened. This is a contentious time and in pre modern Rome, you know, the city in itself goes through various phases or kind of decline, and then people try and, you know, put more effort into it and all this kind of stuff. And you know, there's lots of anxiety kind of from the 12th to the 14th centuries about, oh, Rome, it was so great. And now we've let it go to ruin and, and you can kind of think about the mausoleum in that way. What we do then know is that then in the 16th century, when you know the Pope's they've been away in France, and then they come back to Rome, and they start to like really rejuvenate the city. And so as part of that kind of regeneration in the 16th century, it gets the site in itself gets bought by an elite gentleman called miss your Soderini is part of this Florentine family. And they're like, We want to invest in Rome and so we're gonna buy we're gonna buy some ancient sites. We're gonna make our mark in Rome and and The Soderini family they buy the mausoleum. And this is the kind of thing that I've been looking at the most is that they then Soderini turns it into his own sculpture gallery slash garden. So he kind of uncovers it. And there's this amazing letter, I'm going to bring it up so I can read it to you from 1549. And there's an Italian Giovanni Battista Vicini, and he writes to his friend, and he says, I am writing this letter to you in the middle of the tomb of Augustus, which my once in your Soderini has undertaken to redo and he has transformed it into a rather lovely garden with some rooms there for eating. And this is his past time, this place called the mausoleum is now a vegetable garden. And there are some fine salad leaves here. He's using the language of like a vegetable garden and leaves, but he's talking about the sculpture. So he's like, again, super interesting for me in terms of the language because he's playing on that dynamic, which Augustus did as well, of like, we're being all rustic, and, and old school, and we're tapping into old school nature. And he's describing these very aesthetic kind of sculptures, as like the rustic salad leaves. And so in terms of like commemoration, for me, this is really interesting as well, because by turning it, he has his like, private collection of ancient sculptures, and then they're being displayed inside the tomb. So it's like, it becomes like a site of commemoration to the ancient world in general, but also still to Augustus, because they still refer to it as the mausoleum of Augustus. But then it's also now starting to commemorate sort of renew his own identity, as well as like this elite kind of culture, like, I can collect all of these ancient sculptures. And again, it's a private collection, but then he opens it up to the public, and it becomes this site, it then again, it gets featured in a load of guidebooks from like the 16th to the 18th century. As like, this is a place to go like you got to go to the mausoleum. You got to see the sculptures. And yeah, so just think that's really fascinating that he like, kind of took took the outside plantings from the Augustan period. It's kind of turn the concept inside out to some extent now the gardens inside, and it's got all of his quote unquote salad leaves for us to Look.
Dr Rad 37:33 Well, you Look, I'm gonna thank you, because you've just given me a great idea for Dr. G's next birthday, so I'm going to start saving so that I can buy the mausoleum and turn it into a little place for her, you know, little thing with you. Honestly,
Dr Victoria Austen 37:47 I want someone to buy the mausoleum that will actually let me in there because I had such high this summer when I was there. And I met Dr. G. And we were like, yes, we're here. We're gonna do what Augustan things. And then once again, the mausoleum was closed, it's close to the public, because they are doing even more renovation work. I was gonna
Dr G 38:07 say there was a moment a few years ago, pre COVID, where it had reopened. Ah, I'm so excited because I was just about to go. And then I had to cancel the trip because of COVID. Thank you very much. And then by the time I could get back, it was closed again. I was like, Oh, no.
Dr Victoria Austen 38:23 I was like, This is my moment. And, and what's really fascinating though, one thing I did notice, when I was there in the summer is around the kind of construction they obviously have kind of barriers and on the barriers they have highlighted, like key dates in the mausoleum's history. And they've got dates related to Augustus. Obviously, they've got dates related to Mussolini, which we can come on to. But then also one of the key dates in this timeline is this 1549 day they actually have it as as a key kind of date. So this Soderini garden, I'm kind of interested when it's reopened if they're going to make a bit more of that part of its history in terms of like exhibitions or something like that, because there is like not a lot written on this. The kind of want one kind of key article kind of speaks more about trying to identify the sculptures that were in it, as opposed to like thinking about it as I am as this kind of continuation of garden, space and commemoration. But I think yeah, I was really surprised to see that the government or the kind of museum like it had this 1549 date on as part of like, the kind of key timeline and I was like, because I'm pretty sure not many people know about that. So yeah,
Dr G 39:41 I think it speaks to what is this broader legacy because there is something about circular buildings. It sounds like a segway. But there is something about the attraction of circular buildings or oval shaped buildings, which because they're quite rare. In terms of the architecture, generally speaking, they tend to stand out and they tend to garner attention. But this also affects how they might be repurposed and how people think about their repurposing as well. And so there is something about the visual of having a circular gallery, that you can kind of wind your way through and around. And that allows sort of ready to do this moment where he's like, Look, I'm a bit like Augustus here, and I've created this space, which allows you to engage with time and, and all of this kind of stuff as well. And perhaps there are some replanting is going on, who knows.
Dr Victoria Austen 40:37 And again, we don't have any evidence for this particular like the remnants of how Santorini had utilised it, there's no physical evidence of it, because as we can go on to like, it's then it goes through other phases of redevelopment, and it gets buried and built on and attached to and all of this stuff, but we do have a lot of engravings from these guidebooks are very consistent in terms of the imagery. And so I think we do have a pretty good idea of what it may be Look like. And so like, I'm looking at one on my screen now, and I can send you on for the for the website, is this idea of you've got this kind of walkway up to the front, and it's flanked by ancient statues, and then you kind of go in through the entrance way. And then the interior, it kind of looks like the sculptures were kind of round the edge. And then you've got like a planted series of kind of walkways, and like box hedges in the interior. And as you said, it's like you're guiding, you know, different pathways. And you're maybe you know, leisurely strolling round. And yeah, I just think it's, it's really, really fascinating I and yeah, just the kind of consistency of the engravings, I think, from this couple of centuries, I think we can get a fairly good idea of what it maybe looks like. But for some reason, from the 18th, kind of century onwards, it goes into another period of decline. And we don't really get much going on then until kind of, we get a period of like 100 years of kind of decline. And then we've got the next kind of key, infamous phase, I think, is when Mussolini comes along. I'm again, in terms of like commemoration and memory and identity. You can see this building is being used by different people at different times. You know, Augustus does it. Santorini is doing it in his own way. And then you've got Mussolini coming in. And his whole shtick is that, oh, it's gone into disrepair. Again, this idea of it being like buried and earthen. It's like undercover. And then miscellaneous thing was he comes along, and he's got his pickaxe, and he's like, I am uncovering or revealing the ancient city and it's like a make Rome, great, again, kind of idea. He's like, we have let our history go into disrepair. And so the Campus Martius area for him, become central to his whole kind of reorganisation of Rome. And like, this is an area that had been kind of turned into almost like a residential district. And he basically just cleanse like cleared it out completely. You know, people didn't get a choice. It's like, No, I'm going in there. I'm getting rid of all of the residential stuff. And yeah, I actually went down a rabbit hole a few weeks ago on YouTube and found some amazing YouTube footage of, I guess they were kind of like those, like Italian Government, like type newsreel type things that would have been shown. And it's like, here's Mussolini, like going and he's like walking up this what looks like this kind of mound of earth. And he's got his pickaxe, and it's like, Mussolini is revealing the mausoleum of Augustus. And it's like, caught on camera. And this is one of the things that he goes to and it becomes part of his whole kind of memory and, and his use of the ancient city, and recovering quote, unquote, the ancient city to regain this kind of power for himself, kind of again, shows this idea of like, the space time continuum.
Dr Rad 44:22 Well, Look, this will be familiar to many students of ancient history in Australia, and probably other places, but I know the syllabus in Australia, because we have close Look at the way that Mussolini and his cronies are involved in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Okay, so yeah, that the idea that Mussolini obviously is connecting to ancient rumours, propaganda, basically for his own regime will be will be familiar territory to them. Yeah,
Dr Victoria Austen 44:51 um, I mean, I don't think it's not unsurprising that he also really wanted to uncover Augustan monuments, like He's my guy like, yeah.
Dr Rad 45:03 Like, you're-a speaking my language. Yeah.
Dr Victoria Austen 45:05 You know, he would probably have called him a fascist, it doesn't come as a surprise to me that like, that is that is a particular area and like he wanted to do with the Ara Pacis as well, like he actually bought. He's the, I mean, he's the reason why we have it all nicely kind of reconstructed in the nice, beautifully air conditioned museum that it's in now. I mean, it's, it's just kind of fascinating to me that, that Augustus, these Augustan, monuments are kind of they keep being reused, repurposed. And for different forms of memory and kind of like tapping into memory, I think. Yeah.
Dr Rad 45:44 And like, it seems obviously objectionable that someone like Mussolini would be able to do this. But at least as you say, there is some preservation and interest involved, because I remember the only time I've ever been able to see it, it had fallen, as you say, into one of those states of disrepair. When I was there, which would have been in the early 2000s. It was covered in rubbish, I was told it was even unsafe to be in the area, because it was used as kind of a temporary refuge for people who maybe didn't have anywhere else to go. And so yeah, I mean, not that I'm saying Mussolini was a good thing, or that Fascism is a good thing. Yeah, he'd be very clear on that. But there is some good ideas behind the idea of governments investing in heritage. Yeah.
Dr Victoria Austen 46:30 And I think I'm, I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that, I don't know whether it's because of the size, or it's just kind of so unwieldy, or people don't really know what to do with it. But you would think, as such a key Augustan monument, that it would not have maybe gone through these periods of decline. I feel like it's one of the least well known Augustan monuments, probably because so few people have actually been able to like engage with it in any way. But it was like so sent like, To him, it would have been so central, he had been very disappointed at the lack of the deterioration. But, but then not
Dr G 47:11 to mention that Hadrian's mausoleum on the other side sort of now has precedent.
Dr Victoria Austen 47:18 So there's this idea that like, why, why did it fall into disrepair? And this is kind of the frustrating thing about this kind of gap in the evidence that we have from, I guess, like from the Imperial period, up until when it kind of crops back up in the in the pre Modern Period. I'm just kind of intrigued as to why why was it allowed to get into that state? Yeah, that compared to other buildings, that that's what doesn't make sense to me? No, I mean, part of me wonders, one thing I do want to Look into is that, I think as well, possibly the area that it's in the Campus Martius obviously, one of the things that good older gripper did was, you know, putting in this drainage system, which allowed them to build there in the first place. So close to the river. But it does, it has suffered over time from a lot of flooding. And I have to wonder, like, was a famous flood, I think, in the 11th, or the 12th century of the Tiber. And I have to wonder, like, whether that's part of why it got into this state of disrepair because of its location, and then if there was flooding and that kind of thing. So that might be part of it. But But yeah, it's kind of interesting how when it does get rejuvenated, it's always in the same kind of way like this. They're kind of using the Augusto model, but then doing their own kind of thing with it, which I think is really interesting
Dr Rad 48:48 evidence. It is really weird, as you say, because if we think about what Agassiz is doing here, as being a little bit similar to like, what an Egyptian Pharaoh would do is tend to thinking about, you know, long term, where am I going to end up what kind of monument do I want? You know, how am I going to use it design etc. I mean, the Egyptian government does not neglect that, you know, the pyramids, you know, to be on those are all the tombs in the Valley of the Kings like it's, if I mean, if I think about we've just had the Ramses exhibit, what sort going on actually at the time of recording to the Australian Museum here and going to that it was like being in a mosh pit. There were so many people crammed in to see this stuff. And it's like people care about this kind of stuff. And it certainly not neglected. So it is a weird thing to overlook, especially because I'm something we haven't really mentioned. It was weird to have people buried inside the city of Rome to have to have human remains inside the city that is rare in this particular culture.
Dr Victoria Austen 49:48 Yeah, I think that is again, that kind of speaks to this kind of bold, the initial bold statement that Augustus is making in is just it's not just in The location in relation to his other monuments, which we've already talked about, but as you said, the fact of having this, like grand burial monument, so, like, so close to the centre of like the central air, like, I mean, people kind of still want to think of the Campus Martius it's like, oh, it's like a little bit out there, but I'm like, it's still very set. Like it's not, it's not the suburbs like, it's
Dr G 50:24 like, Guys, it's an easy walk from the forest. You're gonna be fine.
Dr Victoria Austen 50:29 Yeah, you know, you can have a nice, you can have a Sunday stroll at the Campus Martius no problem. But But yeah, just kind of that in itself of that statement of, again, it speaks to his arm doing things differently, that he places it so centrally, you know? Yeah. Very interesting. Definitely.
Dr Rad 50:50 So broadly speaking, after having looked at the mausoleum and the Augustus context, and then looking about the legacy of that and the reuse of it over time, what do you feel we can learn by looking at this particular monument? Yeah,
Dr Victoria Austen 51:04 I mean, I think it for me, it's interesting on many levels, but I think currently the kind of things that I'm most interested in this idea of the kind of reuse of ancient monuments in lighting, and how, how they in themselves, can take on new ideological meanings, whether that be on a personal level, like Santorini, or a political level, like Mussolini, this idea of monuments in themselves, the kind of multi valence and the ever changing nature of like, how these monuments are received and what they mean. And I think this is like such an interesting, neat case study in how you've got this one thing. And it's like so many different things all over. I mean, I haven't even said like, it was also the site of a bullfighting ring at one point, I mean, that
Dr G 52:02 how did we skip over that,
Dr Victoria Austen 52:05 that kind of like continual reuse, and, and this, this kind of cyclical nature of like decline and regeneration of monuments and reuses, I think, is a really nice case study of of that. And then also my, my idea, my focus on on gardens and landscapes. Again, it really speaks to me of this need to not think of the kind of monuments as like physically monumental structures, and then kind of maybe plants or plantings or landscape as being this kind of marginal kind of nice to have thing. I think we really underestimate the importance of the collaboration of those two things. And I think we tend to think of things that have that relationship hierarchically, with monuments, like the thing. And then, oh, we've got some nice, like gardens and stuff that we may be looking at. Whereas I think the more I'm looking at the ancient world, and even kind of later receptions, the more I think that we shouldn't be thinking about these hierarchically, and instead in conversation with one another, and again, I just think the Muslims are really fascinating example of, of that trend. And so I think it can teach us, you know, quite a lot about those two broad ideas.
Dr Rad 53:27 Well, I mean, that's a very good point, because I think what we see increasingly in modern eras is a neglect of the natural world and the importance of that to ourselves, to our peril, basically, I
Dr Victoria Austen 53:40 mean, you have to think about, I mean, when I, when I lived in Winnipeg, a lot of a lot of people would always comment like, the downtown it had like, no trees or like plantings and like that, that conversation around like urban forestry. And like that idea of, we need to we, we created these urban environments that were like so devoid of nature. And now everyone's recognising the need that we actually need to put it back in. And I think the Romans were ahead of the game in that in that they, you know, they were not, they were not afraid to kind of just because it's an quote unquote, urban area. That doesn't mean it's devoid of nature. And I think, again, we've kind of thought of these two things as in our modern frameworks with thinking of these things very separately. But I think I'm kind of hopeful that with this idea of replanting, and kind of urban forestry and putting plants back into more traditionally urban environments, I think is a move a move in a in a more positive direction, because I think we kind of lost that idea that we can have both at the same time.
Dr Rad 54:48 Yeah, well, I think that's comes to that. That very popular idea of room being a city of marble and it's, no, that's just one part of it. And it's the same thing for us in Sydney. I mean, there are places like in Western Sydney and that sort of thing where we're recognising increasingly for mental health to help with, you know, heat waves and that sort of thing, it's really important to integrate nature into, you know, places where people are living, you can't just have brick and concrete. No,
Dr Victoria Austen 55:15 I don't mean Yeah, thinking about, like, the heat in itself. I mean, like, when you're just surrounded by concrete it is, it's like so much more oppressive than Yeah, if there's like, the minute you get into a bit of nature by some trees. And so you got to think of like the climate of Rome, like, this is part of the enjoyment of this area that Augustine created in like, it wouldn't have been nice if it was literally just like, I'm like, You're not gonna pave the entire Campus Martius in marble, and I mean, like parts of it were, but it just makes so much more sense to have this kind of collaboration of the natural and the, the ornamental.
Dr Rad 55:54 Yeah, I'm just picturing a lot of Romans like, you know, running along in their sandals and slipping around when it rains.
Dr G 56:03 Certainly, there was some grass around here. So to wrap this conversation up, and thinking about the way in which there is a tendency today, and maybe through time as well, the desire to restore structures to honour their original purpose, why they were first built. So Augustus is mausoleum has never been forgotten as being related and connected to Augustus through all of that time. And though people have reused it in various ways, such as the galleries and the bullfighting, and things like that there was that recognition that it did have this original purpose, it was related to Augustus. And now when we see the restoration work that's underway today with the structure, it is really about that gustan period of its history, and not so much about the things that came after it, or at least, it doesn't seem to be that way. However, I'd be curious to see what it looks like if they ever let me. So I'm interested in what are some of the implications you see in this sort of contemporary desire for restoration to original purpose? Well,
Dr Victoria Austen 57:09 I think there's such a fine line to be worn with that, particularly with the Mausoleum of Augustus, again, it's kind of an interesting case study for that conversation, because we actually don't know what it really looked like in its original format. Like, we have an idea, but because of all of the many layers of rebuilding and reuse, like it is actually impossible from the archaeological record, to actually figure out what the structure would have been like. And so most of the time, we're relying on the description from strijbos geography, which talks about that there's this monumental structure, and it's planted and, and all of this kind of stuff. And then there are these kind of all of the reconstructions have been based on that. And also, on its relationship, potentially as a model for then Hadrian's mausoleum. So, originally, like, there's this idea of it being this kind of multi tiered structure. And that's what people think of when they they try and trying to kind of recreate the original Augustan context. But we don't actually have we can't definitively say, based on the archaeology, if it was a multi tiered structure, because we've only got the base level of it. So I think it's a really interesting study and like projection of when we can't know the original, like, what then are we trying to create? Like, what? I struggle with them? Like, why do we need to actually know what it may have exactly Look like, I think there's often like this idea of like, we need to know what it actually looked like. So we can reconstruct it or like, show what it was, and you're getting that, quote, unquote, original sense of the monument. But we will never know the original like, because it's framed in the landscape in a completely different type of way, like the way we are engaging with it. We now are engaging with these, with these monuments, based on all of the layers of history, and we're coming to modern lens, like I said, very hard for people to think about it as nothing more than like a monumental structure. Like they're not thinking about the trees. And I mean, part of my research is like, you know, we're trying to if we are obsessed with the original, then we need to try and get back to well, like, how would they actually be viewing it? So I think sometimes we can get a bit caught up in trying to find some kind of essence, to individual pieces that we're like trying to hold on to and I think, you know, I think as humans we want that certainty and stability of like, we can say, this is what it looked like for people walking around in the Augustan period, and this is what they would have, quote unquote I experienced but you know, when we're moving through space and time, like that's a, we're just totally different individuals in that way. So. So I think it's important to recognise or try and figure out what it would have originally been like. But I think it's also important to recognise that these things are always evolving, and that there's not like this one static way of viewing.
Dr G 1:00:29 Yeah, and there's kind of like an impossibility embedded in that isn't there? It's like, I mean, I would love to know what it originally looked like, the chances of that ever. And
Dr Victoria Austen 1:00:41 then also, we limit ourselves by if we only focused on, but what did it Look like? I'm like, that's one part of investigating these monuments. But also, there are so many other questions that we can ask and, and interesting things we can kind of think about when it comes to monuments and memory and kind of what they mean. And, and yeah, I think just just focusing on like trying to reclaim some original purpose is, it's just kind of missing the point, I think of monuments and memorialization in general, because the whole point is that it's a continual process. So like, why would we want it to be exactly the same? Well,
Dr Rad 1:01:24 I think we can safely say that without modern technology, Augustus would not be averse to us making some improvements if it would make him even grander. So by all means, build it up, make it a frickin skyscraper.
Dr Victoria Austen 1:01:38 Yeah, it's interesting, we still we still kind of, even though it is rundown, and there's still a desire to reclaim it, even now that they've not given that no one's given up hope, like there have been these periods of decline. But it's like we should, we should do something with this, because it's kind of that implicit recognition that this is important, but we're not entirely sure why it's important, but we're gonna do something with it.
Dr G 1:02:06 And it has a substantial footprint in the spot where it is like, it's huge to try and walk around it, it takes a little while. And you're like trying to peek in through the gates being like, what's going on in there guys. Like it's a whole blocks worth in size.
Dr Victoria Austen 1:02:19 Yeah, the best view you can get it actually from inside the Ara Pacis is museum because you're a bit raised. And then, I mean, it's still blocked. Now it's blocked now because of all of like the scaffolding, but from the inside of the museum, you can at least kind of Look a bit over into what it is. But yeah, you're right. Like this is huge. It's not something you can never take it in in one go. Really, because this is like like the Colosseum, like you've got to like you're experiencing it from multiple angles and ways. And you can't just it's not a small thing that you can just stand there and Look at, like, you got to experience it in space. So
Dr Rad 1:02:57 well. And I think this also speaks to something about people. I mean, obviously, we've increasingly got digital areas and spaces for ourselves. But at the end of the day, much like we can't lose our connection with the actual natural world, we can't lose our connection with physical spaces, they still really matter to us. Because of the way that we're wired. We're not wired to exist only in a digital space. And so you've given me a lot of hope that I will be able to repurpose this as a space for people to come and ponder the greatness of people like Dr. G. Dr. Austen and also reflect on what a manipulative evil son of a bitch Augustus was.
Dr G 1:03:40 I knew it was coming and
Dr Rad 1:03:46 End episode. Exit stage left.
But it'd be Yeah, I mean, I think having a space to go and and yeah, and think about Augustus and all the things that he did. It's, it's good.
Dr Victoria Austen 1:04:05 I agree. One of these days, you know, the last conversation we had we manifested that we would meet in Rome, and Dr. Jean did meet in Rome. So now if we manifest that we'll be able to go in the mausoleum of Augustus. Maybe it will happen. Maybe this.
Dr G 1:04:22 Oh, yeah, we'll get Dr. Right over there. Yeah. surreptitiously record that conversation.
Dr Rad 1:04:28 Dr G and I are saving away for a partial historians expedition.
Dr Victoria Austen 1:04:34 So we will, we will hope that the mausoleum is part of that experience for you.
Dr Rad 1:04:40 Yeah, like I want to I want to Look at the remains of Augustus.
Dr Victoria Austen 1:04:44 Look him In the eye and tell him what you think.
Dr Rad 1:04:50 I see what you were doing. You didn't fool me.
Dr G 1:04:54 Goodness me. Well, on that note, thank you so much, Vicky for joining us and chatting all about the mausoleum, it has been fabulous to have you.
Dr Rad 1:05:09 Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy to Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to special episodes just like this. Today, we would like to say a special hello to Roman, Jesse and Dillon some of our recent Patreon members. Thank you very muchly for your support. However, if you just got mugged out in the dangerous streets of ancient Rome, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. That goes for our book as well. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome
Money, money, money! We’re in 406 BCE and although its well before ABBA's pop hit, let's this be a small hint of things to come. Rome finds itself in a bit of a tricky situation. Not only are they navigating the fallout of their conflict with the Volscians, but with the long running tensions with Veii seem to be coming to a head.
Episode 148 – It's All About the Money, Honey!
There’s a distinct lack of enthusiasm for more fighting from the people who would be levied. Things are not looking positive on the morale front! Combine that with some meddlesome tribunes of the plebs and the recipe is ripe for a changing time ahead.
What if we paid you?
The big topic that makes the 406 stand out is the assertion in some ancient sources that this year is the first time the Roman soldiers receive pay for their service. That’s right, Rome’s been trundling along for centuries without offering those who risk life and limb anything but the potential thrill of booty. But is this claim to be believed? We consider some of the challenges.
The Geography of Central Italy
Spoiler alert! Rome extends their sphere of influence further into Volscian territory in 406. Anxur is on the coast just to the east of Circeii. Map below for reference for just how afar afield Anxur is from Rome! Tune in for all the tactical details.
Our Players for 406 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Publius Cornelius M. f. L. n. Rutilus Cossus (Pat)
Gnaeus Cornelius P. f. A. n. Cossus (Pat)
Numerius or Gnaeus Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat). NB Diodorus and the Fasti Capitolini have Numerius as the praenomen
Lucius Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus (Pat)
Legate
Gaius Servilius Ahala (Pat)
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy 4.58-59
Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.12.1; Ennius’ Annales 4.162 V; Florus 1.6.8; Fasti Capitolini for 406 BCE
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
The view of Anxur (known today as Terracina) from the sea. The cliff is VERY dramatic! At the top you can see the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Anxur, which was built sometime in the mid-second to mid-first century BCE. Photo by Gugli73 via Wikimedia Commons.
Automated Transcript
Lightly edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 1:02 Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians and I am one of your hosts, Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:11 And I am Dr. Rad relieved that you know who you are, Dr. G.
Dr G 1:16 This time, for once.
Dr Rad 1:18 Call back to an episode a couple of months ago?
Dr G 1:22 Yes, well, you know, I mean, the thing is, so we are tracing the history of Rome, from the founding of the city. And we are in what I think is going to be a very exciting year, because we're going to be talking about 406 BCE.
Dr Rad 1:43 We certainly are, but before we get into that, of course, Dr. G, I would like to recap where we were in 407 and I can do that pretty succinctly because not a huge amount happened.
Dr G 1:55 I was gonna say you really have to do the recap for 407 because I don't know anything.
Dr Rad 2:01 Well, we got the hint that something was happening with me it was very peaceful, very diplomatic. But they is once again being mentioned which okay, I mean, there's been some big conflicts with Veii and you know, issues with the Etruscans in the past, but it's been a little bit quieter for the last couple of decades. But they did appear on the horizon in our last episode, but nothing very exciting really happened. And then we of course had the slaughter at Verrugo, which I'm sure you remember because I know you hate that place name.
Dr G 2:35 I do. I mean, it just doesn't roll off the tongue nicely.
Dr Rad 2:41 Verrugo, Verrugo.
Dr G 2:41 Stop that, I'm shivering. Oh, okay. So Rome has this issue with Verrugo.
Dr Rad 2:50 It did.
Dr G 2:51 And that's that's kind of it.
Dr Rad 2:54 Yeah. Basically, they recently captured it. And they were feeling very smug. And then it got captured back by the Volscians, and the Aequians. And it wasn't a great Look, it wasn't a great Look, because they probably could have stopped that from happening if they'd been a little bit more on the ball.
Dr G 3:12 I was gonna say if they had sent a full military force.
Dr Rad 3:15 Yeah, well, I mean, they sent a military force, but they were just like, late. It was kind of the issue that they took their sweet time. And that poor little garrison out there. Killed.
Dr G 3:29 Well.
Dr Rad 3:29 All dead.
Dr G 3:31 Oh no, Dear Marcia, I write to you as I die on this battlefield.
Dr Rad 3:40 The blood is leaking from my veins, but my heart still pumps for you.
Dr G 3:50 The Romance.
Dr Rad 3:50 I know.
Dr G 3:52 All right. Well, I think that it is time then 406 BCE.
It's 406 BCE, and we have military tribunes with consular power. There are four of them, which is a pretty standard number at this point in time. We have Publius Cornelius Rutilus Cossus.
Dr Rad 4:46 I believe we know that name from recent years.
Dr G 4:50 Perhaps we do, perhaps we do certainly the Rutilii Cossi as a group as a sort of gens and then that particular family line well own at this point. And we also have Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus. So some more Cornelii in there. We also have a guy called Numerius or Gnaeus Fabius Ambustus.
Dr Rad 5:18 Ah haaa
Dr G 5:21 Numerius seems to be the more preferred of the praenomens here.
Dr Rad 5:25 Okay.
Dr G 5:27 Livy might disagree. We'll see.
Dr Rad 5:28 I'm not going to repeat my joke from last time.
Dr G 5:30 Booo! And Lucius Valerius Potitus.
Dr Rad 5:38 Another familiar name.
Dr G 5:39 Yes. Previously consular tribune in 414. And will also go on to hold that role in the future as well. Watch this space.
Dr Rad 5:49 Okay,
Dr G 5:49 So far what I can tell you so far is Potitus doesn't die.
Dr Rad 5:55 Spoliers! Yeah.
Dr G 5:57 And we also have a legate who has survived. So a military legate, we don't really know what they do right now. They're in charge of troops.
Dr Rad 6:05 We don't know what military tribunes do right now!
Dr G 6:07 We don't really know a lot. All right. But here we are. And we have Gaius Servilius Ahala Ahala Ahala. And you will definitely recognize this name because he was a military tribute in regards to the power in 408 and 407. So as early as last year, he was hanging around.
Dr Rad 6:36 So the Ahala definitely making a comeback through this particular man.
Dr G 6:40 They are they definitely are. So that's all the names that I've got. And I do have some details about this year. But I feel like Livy probably has a narrative to hook some of those details into so I'm keen to see what he's got.
Dr Rad 6:57 Okay, well, Dr. G, get ready to strap yourself in for what is going to be an epic year. So epic. I may need two episodes to tell you about it. And it's been a while it's been a while since we've had a year I think quite this epic. I mean, 409 saw some big developments. But this is action packed.
Dr G 7:19 Stuff happens
Dr Rad 7:20 Stuff does, stuff does happen. It does, indeed. Now, a lot of the stuff that happens is connected with Veii. So last episode, we talked about the fact that allegedly, the truce between Veii and Rome that had been established in their previous conflict was running out. And so everyone was like, We got to renew it. Gotta get that least happening again.
Dr G 7:45 Hurry hurry!
Dr Rad 7:46 Yeah. But 406 is generally given in our ancient sources as the year in which war with Veii began again.
Dr G 7:59 Now, okay, that sounds momentous.
Dr Rad 8:02 Yes. Now, it's not necessarily obviously all going to be the action of that war in this year, because this is going to be a 10 year conflict or so we are led to believe.
Dr G 8:14 Oh goodness, all right. Strap myself in indeed.
Dr Rad 8:17 Yeah. Now look, obviously, as I highlighted last time, dates, the amount of time that the Romans are going to go to war. It's a little bit, it's a little bit questionable at this point in time. Do they want it to go for 10 years because the Trojan War allegedly lasted for 10 years? Maybe? Who am I to say? Who am I?
Dr G 8:38 You telling me Rome views its conflict with Veii in-? Like in Trojan War terms? It's Homeric in its scope. Wow. All right. Okay.
Dr Rad 8:38 Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of that. So I'm just I'm just highlighting that now. Just to begin, what will be a constant warning, every episode I'm going to have to say this or now on that. Maybe the dates are off. Maybe it didn't last as long maybe it lasted longer really held this? Certainly not us, and certainly not Livy. Yeah. Anyway. So there are many ways we're starting in 406, a conflict that apparently is going to go all the way down to 396.
Dr G 9:17 Okay, okay.
Dr Rad 9:19 So, because this is a big deal, I thought maybe we should do a little bit of a recap about Veii. Okay. So geographically, I know you're very well acquainted with where Veii is now because it is super close to Rome.
Dr G 9:35 It is. So realistically we're talking it's about it's less than, like 20 kilometers away from Rome, centre proper
Dr Rad 9:43 Which in Australian terms is basically next door.
Dr G 9:47 Well, and even in Italy, it's basically like, let's not kid ourselves. You could walk there on a good day, and be like, Oh, hey, guys, it's the Etruscans a completely different people.
Dr Rad 9:57 Yeah, So because they're so close, it makes sense that they are constantly fighting these people, because the Romans are constantly fighting all of their neighbors. But they, I suppose having those a trust and connections, I guess that makes them perhaps more ripe for conflict in some ways, because you know, the Etruscans are a major power, they're a major player, you know, there's glory to be won here, Dr. G.
Dr G 9:59 Yeah, and faith does have the capacity to leverage much more support than the neighbors in the other directions surrounding Rome at this point. So Rome has got this thing going on with the Volscii and the Aequii who are kind of to the south east-ish. And those people don't seem to be interconnected into a broader empire of sorts, or a broader conglomerate. There's kind of like, Latin peoples, and they're all kind of milling around in the same sort of area as Rome. But they're not necessarily power blocks, whereas Veii represents the most southern tip of Etrurian power. And the Etruscans are known for having quite a reach up through central into northern Italy.
Dr Rad 11:14 Yes, exactly. And on a more local level, they being so close, they probably have control of some territory, that'd be really handy for the Romans to have, not just so they can say, mine is bigger, but so they have control of, you know, like trade routes, you know, more access to resources that are pretty damn close by.
Dr G 11:36 Yes, it would be nice to knock Veii off its pedestal, wouldn't it?
Dr Rad 11:44 Yes, it would. Just to do a bit of a recap of where we've been with a because Okay, I'm sorry, I have to do a bit of spoilers. This is going to be the last of the big conflicts with Veii –
Dr G 11:56 Oh, no! Close your ears listeners!
Dr Rad 11:57 Well, I didn't say who was gonna win. But I mean, you know, put two and two. So this is going to be the last. So the first really big conflict with a and I mean, obviously, there's been issues with the Etruscans. We believe the sources which we we tend to because there's nothing else to do. There's obviously been some Etruscan questions in the regal period, notably, thanks to Tarquinius, Priscus, etc. But in terms of the Republic, there was a war with a that lasted from 43 to 474. And they definitely was pretty hot in that conflict did pretty well for themselves. And this is the time period in which we have that very famous moment of the fabulous Fabian strategy.
Dr G 12:50 Yes, they were fabulous. right up into the point where they all died. Yes.
Dr Rad 12:54 All, apart from one that would carry the name. Down through the centuries.
Dr G 13:01 But you were the chosen one!
Dr Rad 13:03 Yes, yes. So that didn't end well. For the Romans. The people have they got to keep Fidenae which they are, which always has its greedy little eyes on and that sort of thing. They'd been embarrassed even though obviously, the Fabians seem to have just like gone out on their own bat and be like, yeah, if we just take our clients and our family and sort this out? Sick, bro. Yeah. Yeah, in spite of that, still embarrassing, because they still obviously come from Rome represent the room and interests, and that sort of thing. So that wasn't great. Then more recently, and our listeners might remember this, we of course, had the conflict over Fidenae, which flared up again in the 430s. And the for 20 years, although the dates of course, were super confusing.
Dr G 13:53 Ah, yes. This is one of those instances where all of the events around Fidenae seem to either happen at one time, or they happened a completely different decades. Nobody's really quite sure really, but it happened. This is where Lars Tolumnius comes into play.
Dr Rad 14:09 It is, it is, yes, the Etruscan King.
Dr G 14:12 I knew I remembered something about history,
Dr Rad 14:14 Indeed, slain on the battlefield. It's very sad. So that obviously was a pretty big thing, because with the source material being so confusing, it seemed like that conflict was going on for like a good decade. And maybe it was maybe it was, but certainly there was a lot of changing of allegiances with Fidenae being like, you know, well Fidenae was the hot potato. They were throwing backwards and forwards and was also trying to pick what was best for itself, which was very difficult with Roman and Veii being like you should be with me.
Dr G 14:46 I think they chose Veii and that made Rome mad.
Dr Rad 14:48 It did, it certainly did. It certainly did. So we've had that. But it's been fairly quiet, obviously, because of the way things ended. You know, there was a truce to know. However, hostility is about to recommence, Dr. G, and it really all begins because the Senate in they are just so rude.
Dr G 15:07 Really? Rude about what? They don't want the new treaty they don't want to renewal?
Dr Rad 15:15 So as we know, treaties running out Romans are dealing with this people may seem too interested in this too. But they had asked the Romans for a little bit of you know, timeout because they were dealing with some internal problems. When the Romans approached them in this year, allegedly, the Senate as they tells the Romans to get the hell out if they don't want a taste of what Lars Tolumnius had dished out to the Romans before. In other words, death.
Dr G 15:41 Interesting. I wonder what provoked that?
Dr Rad 15:44 I know. I know. So.
Dr G 15:47 It seems to have come out of nowhere, really
Dr Rad 15:48 I know – they were so nice to each other last year, and yet here we are. Maybe they are, maybe they are being strategic. Maybe they just wanted a little bit more time to prepare lower them in exactly false pretenses. Anyway, needless to say, wherever this hostility came from, the Romans are living so insulted so they say to the military tribunes, could you please just go to the people and ask them to declare war against pay for I will not stand for such an insult.
Dr G 16:23 Fair enough. Yeah. I wouldn't either.
Dr Rad 16:25 No. So the military tribunes do this, of course, but they meet with a less than enthusiastic reception. And this is an interesting episode, I think. Apparently, the young men are kind of like, ‘Oh, my God, seriously, like another war? Like, do you not realize that we're still like fighting with the Volscians? I mean, every year were still fighting and it's just so much war and you want to do it on like, multiple directions. I can't even.'
Dr G 16:58 ‘Guys, I'm still in therapy after Verrugo,'
Dr Rad 17:01 ‘My trauma, my trauma.'
Dr G 17:05 Fair enough. I would be like that, too. I'd be like, it's too soon. Guys, I've already seen blood.
Dr Rad 17:10 Yeah. Well, I mean, that is fair, because they are still engaged with ongoing tiffs with the Volscians every other year.
Dr G 17:17 Hmm. I was gonna say it's not like things have settled down to the southeast.
Dr Rad 17:21 No, Verrugo just happened, you know, they remember that, you know, and so they really don't want to go to war. And they particularly don't want to go to war with Veii because they know from experience, that they're tough. They're really close. And because there is obviously an Etruscan power. There's always the potential that they're gonna call it all their buddies, all the other Etruscan cities and kingdoms, and it's just gonna get out of hand.
Dr G 17:50 Yeah, okay. Yeah. I don't want to do that either. I mean, there's got to be a way.
Dr Rad 17:54 Yeah. Yeah. So this is interesting. You know, as of time of recording, we just recently spoke to a magnificent guest, Bret Devereaux. He reminded us how little we actually know about military operations at this point in time. But I do think it's interesting that there is the story of like, you know, the lack of interest, you know, people not wanting to sign up. Yeah, it does highlight, obviously, the volunteer, somewhat ad hoc nature of Roman military at this time.
Dr G 18:25 Yes, this idea that we've got a sort of a citizen militia that's kind of can can be called upon, but also gets to express its viewpoint about what's happening.
Dr Rad 18:35 Yeah.
Dr G 18:36 So they're not just, it's not just a state military apparatus.
Dr Rad 18:41 Certainly not yet.
Dr G 18:42 No, it is kind of like a group of people getting together being like, ‘Well, we really should poke sticks in those people over there?' And, and people in the group being like, ‘I'm not sure I want to do that right now.'
Dr Rad 18:53 Yeah, exactly. Like, I can't.
Dr G 18:57 I'm really busy.
Dr Rad 19:00 Really need to get some farming done, guys.
Dr G 19:02 Do you want to eat grain? I want to eat grain.
Dr Rad 19:04 I would love to have some bread. Yeah. So this unhappiness is made a lot worse by our old friends the tribunes of the plebs.
Dr G 19:13 Oh, no. Do we even know the names of any of those guys right now?
Dr Rad 19:16 That'd be silly.
Dr G 19:20 I was like, I don't have any of the plebs in my list, but maybe you do know.
Dr Rad 19:24 Yeah, just generically troublesome in my account.
Dr G 19:27 Okay. Yeah. nameless, troublesome figures. I like it.
Dr Rad 19:31 Yeah. Well, which works kind of either way, I think for a little while. But anyway, so they of course latch on to this. They're like, excellent. We'll use this and they start making a lot of public declarations saying things like, the Senate don't really want to wage war and the Volscians are they they're really waging war on the plebs.
Dr G 19:51 Oh, this is actually a new line for them. I think I like it. Yeah. It's a war on the people. That's what it is and I won't have it.
Dr Rad 19:57 Yeah. And then like, don't you see, can't you see the pattern, the way that they're going about it is that they constantly keep running in a state of war, which means that the beings are constantly having to fight, which means that they get injured or die, or at the very least, it's keeping them out of the city, often far away from the city. Whereas if they were allowed to just kick back, sit on the couch, once in a while, stay at home, not be distracted by the constant threat of death and battle, then they might have had the time to think about, you know, freedom, how they want it, how to get it, setting up colonies, where they can have land and that sort of thing. After all, let's not forget that they are apparently the people who are winning these public lands, and they should be able to vote wherever they want, whenever they want, do whatever they want. They do everything!
Dr G 19:59 All right. Okay, I appreciate this argument. I really do. But I can also see how this is not going to fly with the elite in charge around here, who are looking at the horizon, seeing Veii beating some sticks together and being like, ‘Look, if we don't do something, they're going to take this place and then we'll have nowhere to live. Guys, guys!'
Dr Rad 21:23 For sure. I can totally see that too. And when we're there in Rome, I mean, the ancient city a very is now within the modern city of Rome. That's how close these places are. And therefore, it is probably a bit of a, ‘Look one has to go eventually.'
Dr G 21:41 Yeah. There ain't enough room in this town for the two of us
Dr Rad 21:47 There ain't enough room in this top or valley for the both of us. But anyway, Look obviously into I agree with you, I get where they're coming from I do I get whether the patricians are coming from I also get that this is horribly anachronistic.
Dr G 22:05 The best we can say
Dr Rad 22:06 Exactly. Probably didn't actually happen. But anyway, let's continue on because it's a great story. We're about to get to my favorite part. So they then start speaking to the old veterans in the group, get them to talk about their campaigns, what they sacrificed over the years. And of course, Dr. G. It's time for a plebeian to get his shirt off.
Dr G 22:27 Whoohoo
Dr Rad 22:27 Oh, yeah. It's be way too long since somebody ripped off their tunic and showed their battle scars.
Dr G 22:34 I haven't seen anybody's wounds on the front for ages.
Dr Rad 22:36 I know. I know. I was very excited. A little too excited. But anyway, so hey, rip off their tunics. They show their battle scars.
Dr G 22:46 I was in Fidenae. I saw it all.
Dr Rad 22:50 I remember when Lars Tolumnius was thrown from his horse by Cossus into the ground and a place where the sun don't shine, if you know what I mean. Now the tribune is pointed out that there's barely any space left on their bodies for new scars.
Dr G 23:11 We can't send these guys they're not gonna get through
Dr Rad 23:13 Which is a grizzly image. If you think about it. I mean, I think about people that are addicted to tattoos and get tattoos all over their bodies, but scarring is like a different issue. That's, that's a lot.
Dr G 23:26 It is. It is a lot. The tunic was taken off and everybody was like, please put that back on.
Dr Rad 23:31 Oh, my god,
Dr G 23:34 Stop.
Dr Rad 23:36 Does your skin stretch at all?
Dr G 23:39 Alright, we weren't send you It's fine. It's fine. We'll send somebody else.
Dr Rad 23:42 Given ancient medicine, you're a frickin miracle. Anyway, they're like, What blood could they possibly now shed for Rome? They've already given so much. There's barely any left in that body. They basically blew and not in a good way. So the sorts of speeches and demonstrations naturally make the plebeians even more anti war than they were before.
Dr G 24:11 Fair enough. Yeah. Sounds about right.
Dr Rad 24:14 So our magistrates, therefore decide that you know what, why don't we just wait before we vote on this issue? And a feeling that it might not go our way if we vote immediately.
Dr G 24:26 There are some clever ones in there. All right.
Dr Rad 24:28 Yeah. So feel like insult must be advantage but pick your battles. You know, pick your moments. It was decided, therefore, that the military tribunes should move into Volscian territory with an army.
Dr G 24:43 Hmm,
Dr Rad 24:44 yes. And then we're going to leave Gnaeus Cornelius behind in Rome, you know, just to keep an eye on things.
Dr G 24:50 Okay,
Dr Rad 24:51 Yup. The Volscians: Not in the mood for battle today. No, thank you. They didn't even have a camp. They were caught without their makeup on, without their clothes ready, without their hair done.
Dr G 25:04 Oh, no. Yeah. They were like, ‘Word has it that the Romans are gonna be moving north this year. So I'm just gonna sleep in.'
Dr Rad 25:13 Exactly. Yeah, I can take take a beat. Take the year off. Yeah, no, you can't. Now. So we got one military tribune in in Rome means we got the other three add on campaign and the strategy that they use is that they divide the army up into three sections. And each military tribune therefore gets to plunder and destroy a different part of Volscian country.
Dr G 25:36 Oh, I have a few details about this. But I am willing to hear where how Livy's structures the narrative.
Dr Rad 25:45 Okay,
Dr G 25:45 And then and then I'll jump in with what may be some irrelevant extra detail.
Dr Rad 25:50 Let's go with it. Alright, so I feel a bit like I'm telling the story, the three little pigs: Valerius went to Antium. Cornelius went to Ecetra, Ecetrae, et cetera, et cetera.
Ah et chetera
Et chetray
Dr G 26:08 I don't know.
Dr Rad 26:08 Yeah. Something.
Dr G 26:11 It starts with ‘e' guys.
Dr Rad 26:13 Etc Et ketray. It probably is Et cet-tray.
Dr G 26:15 Et cet-tray
Dr Rad 26:16 Yeah,
Dr G 26:16 Let's say Ecetra.
Dr Rad 26:17 I like calling it et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, by of course, they do the usual you know, like attacking buildings attacking farms, whenever they find them causing chaos. What a merry lark. And our final tribute, he went to Anxur, and this is of course that fabulous Fabian tribune. Now Anxur was the major target for this particular campaign. Now, I think the reason for that, Dr. G, is I don't actually know that we've even mentioned this place before. And it's further-
I don't think we have, no.
Yeah, it's further south, I think then they've generally gone like, as far as I can tell, this is even beyond Antium. Still
Dr G 26:59 Oh, yeah, I can tell you all about where it's located.
Dr Rad 27:02 Thank you. I believe that it's currently, if you were to go and want to see this site now, it'd be known as Terracina.
Dr G 27:10 Hmmm, yes, it is. So this is a place that is about 56 kilometers, or 35 miles southeast of Rome,
Dr Rad 27:23 My, you are prepared.
Dr G 27:25 I am prepared. If I know anything, I'm looking at places where I haven't heard of them before. So it becomes the place where the Via Appia extends all the way down to it not in this time period. But in about another 100 years time, the Via Appia will head all the way straight into like a deadline for Rome down to this spot, right. And it's on a really strategic location. So Italy has all of these sort of like mountain ranges that are formed through the volcanic activity in the the tectonic plates and stuff that sort of go down the middle of it. And this is a spot where a set of hills becomes the cliffs that fall into the sea.
Dr Rad 28:11 Okay.
Dr G 28:12 So when you're in Anxur, you're on the top of a hill. And you can see in every direction, basically. So pretty exciting stuff, because it's in what is known as the Volscian hills. And you can see over what is known as the Pontine Marshes. Now this is the really super flat area that sits in between these hills and Rome itself. And when you're like driving around in Italy today, I recommend you do it. All the roads there are really straight, because it's just flat land. But you've got these amazing hills on one side, and then you've got the marshes and it's just flat. You're like, Okay, so you've got like a really clear view for a whole bunch of things. And we think historically, way back even pre Rome, wait for it that this was an Etruscan area.
Dr Rad 29:07 Oh, okay.
Dr G 29:08 Yeah, back in the seventh century BCE, right. And that it sort of splits away and the Volscians come in and it becomes their kind of thing. And, and they've been hanging out there. But Carthage also has a history with this spot as well.
Dr Rad 29:26 They do. It's coastal.
Dr G 29:27 Yeah. Yeah, anything on the coast. Carthage is interested. The Punic peoples, they are a seafaring peoples. So they've had a treaty setup there since about the early republic. So this whole situation is really interesting because it is you're right, it is much further south than Rome has gone before with a military enterprise. And they're now taking what is a highly strategic Volscian location.
Dr Rad 29:59 Venturing where no Roman than has dared to go before.
Dr G 30:04 A small step for man, a giant step for a Roman military tribune with consular power.
Dr Rad 30:10 That's right. All right. So, as you've highlighted because of the way it's positioned, this is not a place that the Romans are just gonna be able to waltz in and plunder. This is a siege we're facing, people. Now, as you said, there are marshes nearby, like the city apparently kind of slipped in the direction of the marshes. So that is where Fabius is kind of positioned. He has no other choice.
Dr G 30:39 I was gonna say that is not the strategic location to start your siege, but okay, Mr. Mr. Fabius.
Dr Rad 30:45 Yeah, well, that's where he's going to, that's where he's gonna position himself and he's, he's getting a little punchy, you know, he's got a little keen taste, taste for battle. However, this is where our legate comes in. So Gaius Servilius Ahala, takes four cohorts. And he starts to move around the hill, which overlooks Anxur, and he starts attacking the hills from that position, which apparently is a very good position to do this from because there are no real troops there to fight back. Maybe they thought that no one would take that line of attack. I don't know.
Dr G 31:22 They're like, ‘these hills are hard to climb. Nobody's gonna come that way.'
Dr Rad 31:25 Definitely. No one's gonna do that. They're also making a huge amount of noise whilst they're doing this. Okay, so a huge racket to the point where the people who are inside the city are like, Oh, my God, could you just keep it down with trying to wage a war state or rock concert? Jeez.
Dr G 31:44 I'm trying to think about what the purpose of the noise would be, and maybe to scare the people into thinking that there's a bigger army and
Dr Rad 31:49 It's a tactic. It's a technique. So obviously, the people who are focusing on Fabius, who's doing his little like, jab, jab, punch from down in the marshes.
Dr G 32:03 Come down here and say that, I'll take you down.
Dr Rad 32:06 They're confused by the noise. It's very distracting. And because they are distracted by the noise that's being caused by Ahala. It allows Fabius apparently to sneak in some scaling ladders.
Dr G 32:23 Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Dr Rad 32:25 Exactly. And Anxur is soon swarming with Romans. And this is a pretty brutal conquest, Dr. G., they are slaughtering everyone and anyone citizen soldier, armed, unarmed, who cares. You're on the end of my sword.
Dr G 32:45 Huh? Okay, so this issue, this moment in time between Rome, the Volscians and Anxur, yes, this is one of those rare moments where we have a fragment from Ennius.
Dr Rad 32:59 Oh, okay. Tell me more about this early, early source.
Dr G 33:04 Our, early early source. So Ennius is most famous for writing a poem called the Annales and he was born in 239 BCE, we think so he's third century. So this puts him much earlier than Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, any of the sources that we're reading really? Yeah. And so this becomes one of these moments that we're able to locate, because we've got a much earliest written source, okay. So, Ennius is somebody who is not Roman, he is somebody who comes to Rome later in life. And he speaks a number of different languages. So he is from what is ancient Calabria, which is part of broader Magna Grecia. Right? So he speaks Greek. He also speaks Oscan. And he also speaks Latin, handy. And this seems to be like pretty typical for what is going on in Italy during this way.
Dr Rad 34:11 Yeah, you've got the Greeks in the south, you've got the Oscans on the – wait – you've got the Oscans to the east…
Dr G 34:18 The Oscans are kind of to the east a little bit, but they kind of spread like a little band that separates the Greeks and the Latin speakers if you like so he's kind of got like this sweep of things from sort of south to center in terms of his languages. This means that he's got not just a sort of an interest in Roman things. He's got an interest in the broader region as well. And he mentioned this as he mentioned the Roman ladders in Anxur and he also mentions the way that the Volscians lose. So these are the two details that that we get from a different source for this.
Dr Rad 34:54 Okay. Well, okay. Let us corroborate: ladders – tick.So obviously with Romans all about their city, too dangerous etc, as they tend to be, the people who live there, they've got nothing to gain at this point by surrounding because the Romans are just too indiscriminate in their violence. And so it looks like they just gonna have to power on regardless which, again, it's not going to end well for them that I guess at least I took a few Romans with them, right. But suddenly, the Romans are receiving instruction that they're not to harm anyone, unless they're holding a weapon. And so the people of Anxur are very quick to drop it like it's hot.
Dr G 35:37 ‘What are you talking about? Mah? That touched me, I didn't pick it up.'
Dr Rad 35:43 ‘That's not mine. I mean sure it's got my name inscribed on it, but whatever.' So this is how this is how it ends? It means that the Romans are able to capture approximately 2,500 people.
Dr G 35:59 Okay, that's a lot.
Dr Rad 36:00 Yeah. And I mean, considering that we haven't really talked much about, you know, prisoners of war of late. But it wasn't that long ago that they also captured, you know, a few 1,000. And so yeah, all of a sudden, we can see that, with the Romans being a bit more aggressive. Being a bit more expansionist in the region. We're starting to see prisoners being taken again, allegedly, the numbers are very round. That's all I'm gonna say.
Dr G 36:27 You telling me somebody's not keeping a proper count. Goodness me.
Dr Rad 36:32 Anyway. So Fabius now comes in, and he tells his man, ‘Look, you need to leave the booty here until the other military tribunes arrive on the scene.' Okay, after all, you know, this is this is a joint effort we're talking about here. And also, you know, Ahala, he also was key, they managed to do the ladder thing, because they were just so damn noisy. So once all of the three military tribunes and Ahala represent as well sort of all converged on Anxur, the three armies and all get to lay waste to the town together, because the family that raids together stays together. And Anxur is a real win, not just strategically, although that is obviously a big thing. That's the main reason why they want it. But it's also a very rich place at this point in time, they've been doing pretty well for themselves. So, you know, it's it's a good time had by the Romans, it's a good day.
Dr G 37:35 It does seem like they've gone in the very opposite direction, and quite far in the opposite direction though, from Veii.
Dr Rad 37:43 Yes, yes. Well, I think you'll see why in a second here. So because all the soldiers were able to come together, and raid this very rich city, and they've had their success. This starts to make the plebeians think, maybe the patricians aren't so bad. After all, there's no better way to say that you're sorry, then with goods stolen from the enemy?
Dr G 38:09 Oh, that's true. I'm feeling buffed up by all of this booty.
Dr Rad 38:13 Yeah, and again, if we if we unpack this a little bit with what we know about the Roman army, or rather, what we don't know, at this point in time, because it is made up with people who are volunteers, as far as we can tell, and they are people who obviously, therefore, you know, they go to work, and they need to, but otherwise they're living their lives, and that sort of thing. Being able to raid like this makes sense. This is probably what warfare at this point in time is really about. It's not huge state run armies. You don't probably have magistrates, who get to say, who gets to keep what and who gets what, all the time, you know, it would have to be that these guys are, they're not getting paid. So them being able to take stuff when they win a battle. That's their pet. That's what they get for doing this for risking their lives and for leaving their families and their farms.
Dr G 39:12 Yeah. And this sort of going out as far as Rome has, at this point, taking this place that they've never taken before. This would be a real, I don't want to say cash injection, but it's kind of what I mean is like there's like a wealth accruing there from taking somewhere new and different.
Dr Rad 39:30 Absolutely. Yeah. Now, this is where we get a very big decision being made, Dr. G. And nobody had even asked for it, which we know as women. That's what matters the most right that you didn't actually have to ask. So the Senate makes this big decision that they're going to start paying soldiers.
Dr G 39:55 What?
Dr Rad 39:56 Yeah, yeah,
Dr G 39:57 No.
Dr Rad 39:58 Yeah. So the state-slash-public treasury and now going to pay the man who are fighting for them, which is described by Livy as the most seasonable boon, which has ever been bestowed on them by the chiefs of state.
Dr G 40:14 Okay, now, I'm not sure, first, that I believe that this is going to be the start of sustained payment.
Dr Rad 40:21 I don't think it is either. No, I don't think so.
Dr G 40:25 The only other source that I have for this year is Florus.
Dr Rad 40:28 Mmm Okay?
Dr G 40:30 And Florus, he talks about this 10 year siege of Veii, the foreshadowing thing. And he talks about how this is the first time that a Roman army has to spend the winter in campaign. So all of a sudden, they're out in the cold. So rather than usually the idea of the Roman campaigning season, as far as we theoretically understand that we have no idea how it's actually working at this point in time. But the idea is that in spring, you get together, you do the levee, and then you go out, and summertime is battle time.
Dr Rad 41:09 Yeah.
Dr G 41:10 And when things start to cool down again, in autumn, you definitely want to bring everybody home. Things don't happen in winter time, everybody's busy trying to stay warm, to stay out on campaign through the winter, is a whole extra sort of layer of challenge. You would need different equipment, better equipment, perhaps more weatherproof equipment. But if you're going to do a siege properly, and it's going to keep being a siege for as long as it needs to be a siege, you kind of have to stay in the field. And this is the moment that Florus suggest that because winter service was required of the soldiers. And this is in relation to Veii so we might be getting ahead of ourselves here. They get compensated with a special payment.
Dr Rad 41:59 Yeah, so I think you I think you hit the nail on the head, you have jumped ahead a little bit in my narrative. But yes, you are right, it does seem to be tied very much with Veii with the fact that there seems to be a much more sustained campaign. Is it 10 years? Who knows. But it definitely does seem to be more sustained than what the Romans have recently been doing, which is basically, you know, running across borders. And running back again. And certainly, so we can believe that there is some sort of payment in terms of it being like cash, like we would think of it like cha ching coin.
Dr G 42:35 Yeah. You rock up and the coin store is like and that's your check. Cash it wisely.
Dr Rad 42:41 Yeah, it seems unlikely that that's what's happening at this point in time. The Romans don't have coinage in this moment, it's more, it's more likely that they're getting paid in a sense of they're getting certain goods and food would be the most likely source of payment, I would imagine.
Dr G 42:59 Yeah. And we sort of get that sense that prior to this, the informal way of compensating people is through the booty system. So the idea that you go out, you do the reading, you grab the other people's stuff. And that's how you compensate people because then people either use that stuff, or maybe they trade that stuff.
Dr Rad 43:17 Yeah. And as was very usefully highlighted by Bret Devereaux. I'm going to keep mentioning him because it's just a very military episode. As he mentioned, when you have an army like this, the people that who are going out and fighting even though the whole accounts been very much swept up in this conflict of the oddest narrative, which we keep going on and on about, it probably isn't the super, super poor people that are going out and fighting at this moment in time. It's probably still people that are, you know, relatively well off. So they've been able to do this kind of warfare up until this point, but being away on campaign for a long time. Well, that is different. And also if you want more manpower, then you have to make it possible for the poorer people to serve.
Dr G 44:09 Yeah, there needs to be a way to make sure that it's possible for them to take the time.
Dr Rad 44:14 Yeah. And for the state not to suffer you know, you do still need people to stay at home and farm. Yeah, anyway, so as you highlighted, this pay probably is linked to the future campaign per se, but there hasn't been mentioned yet, Dr. G. But just giving it to people they just didn't dancing it okay and are so excited. This is like Christmas.
Dr G 44:43 Oh Livy, this narrative is wild.
Dr Rad 44:46 So crowds start to gather together in the Curia. And this is okay, apparently, it would be amazing. Of course,
Dr G 44:53 In a nice public building if they've got one.
Dr Rad 44:55 Yeah, exactly. Men are shaking the hands of senators as they come out of this historic meeting. They're saying to them, ‘You know what? We've had to call you, the fathers. But now you really deserve it.'
Dr G 45:12 Daddy,
Dr Rad 45:14 Oh my god you are my real dad.
Dr G 45:17 I feel like I'd be a real son now.
Dr Rad 45:20 It's just like all these years. It's kind of felt like you didn't really care but you did. And you are my father. You are the patres. You are the patres.
Dr G 45:36 Wow, the emotion. They're running high.
Dr Rad 45:39 Yeah, exactly. Everyone's saying, ‘You know what, now no one would mind serving in the army. Blood shmud, death schmeth, who cares? I mean, Rome, as a state is just so insanely generous, that it's just a pleasure and an honour to serve.'
Dr G 46:00 Guys, you've made it easy for me to say yes. Now you really have.
Dr Rad 46:02 Yeah, they really extra tickled, like the joy is really, you know, just gone. Right up there. Because not only were they not losing money anymore, when they went out of fight potentially, obviously, depends if you get booty and that sort of thing. But it's really the fact that the Senate did this without being asked. They hadn't even been pushing for this. It's a spontaneous gift. It's like when your partner takes the rubbish out without having to be asked, you know, when they put their plate in the dishwasher without having to be asked or they tidy their room without having to be asked.
Dr G 46:39 Well, I don't know what's going on in your house, but it sounds very exciting.
Dr Rad 46:44 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now, the tribunes of the plebs, of course, are not pleased. They're the only party poopers in this situation.
Dr G 46:54 I wonder why? They've been undercut, haven't they?
Dr Rad 46:57 Exactly. Whose scars are going to show now? They felt like the plebeians were deluded. They're like, ‘Guys, this is not going to benefit you quite this much like take it down a notch. It's just one of those things that the Senate do, where I assure it looks good on paper, or whatever it is we're using right now to record things. But it's not going to play out that well in real life, or telling you this, this isn't how the Senate is work. This isn't how patricians work.'
Dr G 47:27 Yeah, ‘you need to be more suspicious, guys. A little bit more skepticism could go a long way right now.'
Dr Rad 47:32 Well, they do make a very good point, Dr. G. And it's what a question that we still asked to this day, which is, where's the money coming from? Follow the many people! Who's going to be paying for this?
Dr G 47:46 I mean, if it's bags of grain if they're being paid in food, that food has been produced by the very people who it's been given to.
Dr Rad 47:54 How dare you interrupt my delightfully anachronistic account of Livy? Where we are apparently talking about money?
Dr G 48:02 I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Dr Rad 48:04 He basically says, ‘Look, it's gonna be the people that are funding this. The senators? Oh, sure. They're so generous when it comes to making payments with other people's money.'
Dr G 48:15 Exactly.
Dr Rad 48:17 Which, okay, let's just take a break. Even if we're not talking about actual money, it might be other people's goods or grain that we're talking about here. So I take your point. Yeah.
Dr G 48:31 Either way, I don't think it's coming out of the pockets of the rich.
Dr Rad 48:35 That's the point. That's the point even if whatever we're talking about whether we're talking about grain, whether we are in fact talking about some sort of valuable metal, whatever it is, we're talking about, and I'm putting my money on the grain. It's not going to be coming from they're not privately funding this. The tribunes of the plebs also point out. What about the people who had already served? Right okay to be happy that people are now getting paid. There's no back pay system. Come on. No, no, don't like it's going to be coming out of their pockets, but they didn't get paid. That's a bit of a you know, a bit of a nice to the heart right there.
Dr G 49:15 That's a recipe for discontent.
Dr Rad 49:16 That is it is yeah. Now some of the plebeians are like okay, good points, fair points. I hear what you're saying. and I are going to wind back my enthusiasm just a tad.
Dr G 49:32 Daddy, thank you. I'll write you a card.
Dr Rad 49:36 The tribunes don't come out and say – sorry, the tribunes of the plebs – I always have to qualify that because there's so many tribunes at the moment. They say we will make sure that anyone who refuses to pay any sort of tax for soldier pay, we will protect you. We will look out for you because this is not a good system. This is not fair. This is not what should be happening.
Dr G 49:58 Interesting.
Dr Rad 49:59 I know So even though the senators are being very clever here, because as you highlighted, they're totally thinking about very when they're introducing this. They've been very clever not let on that. That's what it's about. The tribunes are also being very clever, and foreseeing that there's a problem with this in that, where's it all going to come from? However, the senators are determined to this is going to go through. So determined that they do put in some of their own money, and I'm using my flesh rabbits there, because once again, what money? There is no coinage. And Livy apparently says that the way that they pay is they bring in unclaimed bronze in wagons to the Treasury. Now, I did actually talk about this in another episode thinking I had already mentioned this. But this is where we have to be like, really? Is that what they did? I'm not sure like maybe, I don't know, but it does seem-
Dr G 51:02 Where did they find this? This bronze?
Dr Rad 51:05 It just doesn't seem like the way that Rome is operating right now.
Dr G 51:11 Okay, yeah. Look, I, I don't have a perspective one way or the other or that I but I think I have questions.
Dr Rad 51:18 At least Livy knows that it should be uncoined bronze. But anyway, but they make sure that people see them doing it. That's the whole point. Yeah, so like, oh, this wagon so heavy, my animals was straining to bring it in to the Treasury. However, wil I carry so much uncoined bronze?
Dr G 51:42 The blanket that's covering it slips off and like, ‘oh, goodness, is that what's in there?'
Dr Rad 51:46 Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't want anyone to know, this is meant to be anonymous. I wanted to hide my name. Anyway, so with the senators bringing in some of their own cash for lack of a better term – goods. They also want their clients I think to start bringing in contributions.
Dr G 52:10 All right, yeah. They have to raise funds somehow now. If you're gonna pay people, you need to pay them with something. Yes, regardless of what that something is.
Dr Rad 52:19 Yeah. And it seems that they might be recruiting some of the wealthier plebeians to do this. Which is really interesting, because we've always talked about the nuance of the supposed Conflict of the Orders. So it is interesting to once again highlight that it's not as clear cut as patricians versus plebeians. It's probably wealthy people versus other people, much like every other society. Anyway, the crowd start to see a course that people are bringing in their own money, and that these people were being praised by the patricians for doing that. People of military age, who always are going to be the ones on the front lines, and who are going to be obviously benefiting from this. They're like, wow, this is amazing.
Dr G 53:06 Sign me up, I'll go anywhere, I'll do anything.
Dr Rad 53:10 They're doing their duty by making these contributions and allowing for this payment system to be possible. So this starts to turn them against the tribunes of the plebs here, and everyone starts competing with each other to make their own donations. Now, when I say everyone, I'm presuming again. Everyone wealthy.
Dr G 53:30 Every rich person.
Dr Rad 53:31 Yeah, exactly.
Dr G 53:33 Like this is how we're going to get them on side.
Dr Rad 53:35 It's at this point, that war is declared on Veii, because of course, they have no problem fielding an army after all of this.
Dr G 53:44 It's time guys. were bursting at the seams with troops.
Dr Rad 53:48 Yeah. Now, as you've said, although we have to question a lot of the material from this early period. It does make sense that there was a payment of sorts involved in this campaign, at least at some point, maybe not straightaway, maybe straightaway, who knows. But it probably wasn't something that the Romans kept in play consistently from this moment on. It was probably exactly because they is going to be a special case.
Dr G 54:19 Yes, I dare say so. So whatever is going to happen. And at the moment, in Livy's, narrative, nothing yet has happened with Veii except for the decision to go to war. But it seems like whatever is going to happen in Veii is going to be significant enough that Rome has to change the way it does things in order to pursue its military objectives.
Dr Rad 54:41 Absolutely. And Veii is a valid military objective.
Dr G 54:46 Look they have been a thorn in Rome side pretty much since the beginning.
Dr Rad 54:50 So maybe even before, after all the Etruscans seem to have been earlier.
Dr G 54:56 That's true. Yeah.
Dr Rad 54:58 Now that is where 406 actually winds up for me with the beginning, the beginning of conflict with Veii on the horizon.
Dr G 55:07 All right. Well, I think that's probably an excellent place to then wrap up this episode. I certainly don't have too much to add. I think I've, I've sprinkled in the little fragments of sources as they've appeared in relation to things. The only other thing that I could tell you is Diodorus Siculus does go into the broader Mediterranean politics a little bit,
Dr Rad 55:32 I'd love to hear that.
Dr G 55:34 And mostly focusing on Sicily at this point. So Sicily has been taken over by tyrants. We're kind, we've got a guy called Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. And he is now looking to expand his power and territorial influence. So he's sitting in a pretty strategic location already with Syracuse. But he's like, You know what I would like to dominate all of the east coast of Sicily as my like branching out process. He's really interested in taking over Naxos, which is a little bit further up; Catane, which becomes Catania.; And Leontinoi, which is a little bit further north of Syracuse, but before you get to Catane. So he's keen to do that. And he's sort of like eyeing off how he's going to do it. And facing some pressure from Punic forces, because a lot of these places are being contested right now. And the Carthaginians have a presence in Sicily already. So that's kind of like this tussling going on in the south. And that's it.
Dr Rad 56:55 Okay. All right. Well, let's get into it. Dr. G, it's time for the Partial Pick
So tell me, Dr. G., exactly how does the Partial Pick work?
Dr G 57:11 Alright, so Rome, could potentially win 50 Golden Eagles across five categories, each out of 10. Let us see how they do according to their own systems of valuing themselves.
Dr Rad 57:25 But judged by us.
Dr G 57:28 We certainly wouldn't judge the Romans. The first category is military clout.
Dr Rad 57:33 Okay. Well, I think this is a bad a year for that. I mean, they can't get Anxur which seemed difficult. And yet, they did it with relatively little trouble.
Dr G 57:46 Seems to go pretty well, really, once they got the mountain caterwauling going on, and they were fine.
Dr Rad 57:55 Ahala they have it? I don't it's also the apparent year that military pay was introduced deep reservations. But this is what we're told. And I believe it is corroborated by a number of sources. So gonna have to believe Livy here. So I kind of am tempted to give them 10 out of 10.
Dr G 58:16 Wow. Okay.
Dr Rad 58:19 I mean, I could go as low as eight. But I don't think it can be any lower than that.
Dr G 58:24 Let's say nine. I'm always the ever the diplomat. I think yeah, I'm wondering what would be a 10 now for me, but uh, I think it would be more than the taking of one place, and the putative introduction of military pay. But yes.
Dr Rad 58:46 Look, I think we can believe that they are introducing some form of compensation, potentially just for the time that they are fighting with me.
Dr G 58:56 Look, I think my concern is, first of all, that in the very fragments resources that I have the siege with they would have had to start in 406. Because it's, the payment is a consequence of a military situation. Not the inducement to encourage a military force
Dr Rad 59:19 Dr. G., the patricians are way too clever. They knew they knew that this would win the pavilions onto their side again.
Dr G 59:29 I have a high degree of skepticism about Livy's timeline here, even within the narrow bracket in which he's providing so
Dr Rad 59:40 Timeline schimeline.
Dr G 59:42 it seems far more likely to me that military payment is introduced as a consequence of certain things happening. But yes, oh,
Dr Rad 59:51 Oh the patricians are far more devious and you give them credit for politicians par excellence?
Dr G 1:00:01 That is not what we have seen so far and you know it. Nice try. All right. I'll give them a nine. That's fine. Okay. And then we move on to Diplomacy.
Dr Rad 1:00:14 We may. I don't know that there's not even vague, vague.
Dr G 1:00:19 I was gonna say he doesn't try to be diplomatic and Rome certainly doesn't try to solve that situation with diplomacy.
Dr Rad 1:00:25 The insults are for lying.
Dr G 1:00:27 That's a failure on every level.
Dr Rad 1:00:29 Unfortunately, a zero
Dr G 1:00:31 Expansion.
Dr Rad 1:00:33 Yes.
Dr G 1:00:35 I assume at this point, it's obviously hard to know. But the the assumption that seems to be built into Livy's narrative, and the fragments that I've got as well is that they get to hold Anxur for a while if not forever.
Dr Rad 1:00:51 Yeah.
Dr G 1:00:51 So this is the moment where they do expand their territory. And it's significant because it is much further from Rome than say something like for Verrugo and even Antium, which they have struggled to hold in the past.
Dr Rad 1:01:04 Well fairly recently it would seem. Yeah. Okay. So what are you willing to give them Dr. G?
Dr G 1:01:12 Look, I think a six.
Dr Rad 1:01:13 What, what? It's of strategic significance!
Dr G 1:01:20 It's one place.
Dr Rad 1:01:21 I know, but it's going to be just one place for a while now.
Dr G 1:01:25 Which is, you know, I mean,
Dr Rad 1:01:27 how about a seven?
Dr G 1:01:31 Fine.
Dr Rad 1:01:32 Yay.
I'm on your side Rome. Together, we'll get over 25 and 50.
Dr G 1:01:40 Meanwhile, I'll keep giving them low scores. I just want to see more effort guys. All right. Okay. The fourth category is Virtus.
Dr Rad 1:01:51 Okay,
Dr G 1:01:52 Their idea of Roman manliness. Like, how courageous How significant is their expression of their masculinity right now?
Dr Rad 1:02:06 Well, I think there's a bit of virtus in this episode.
Dr G 1:02:08 It's been a while. We've definitely seen some scars. We have maybe too many scars.
Dr Rad 1:02:14 Definitely too many. I have scars for life.
Dr G 1:02:19 But I think as soon as anybody takes off their tunic to show their scars, I think we can safely say we're in a virtus moment.
Dr Rad 1:02:27 Yeah. It's not the best moment.
Dr G 1:02:29 It's not the best moment. But it is an inducement. It is a display in public of how they've contributed to Romanness through their body.
Dr Rad 1:02:41 Yeah.
Dr G 1:02:42 So this idea that Roman manhood is embodied in a really particular way. And one of those really particular ways is through that military sacrifice, and the courage that it takes to not flee from battle, because the thing about showing your wounds is the wounds have to be on the front of your body. Or on the back in order to count for waiters. Nobody wants to see that you ran away, and somebody tried to stab you.
Dr Rad 1:03:09 I'm super curious as to why Livy's Like there's not even any space on their bodies. For most guys. I'm like, Well, they'd want to be on the back.
Dr G 1:03:18 Well, maybe, and maybe he's talking exclusively about the front,
Dr Rad 1:03:23 I assume as much is the case
Dr G 1:03:23 Maybe it's the case that some of the skirmishes do lead to a lot of other kinds of scars.
Dr Rad 1:03:29 This is true, but yeah, Look, I mean, especially for someone who is a Roman citizen, and although I might be projecting backwards a little bit, but I think that this is probably true for this time. In theory, also showing your body in public is not something that you do on a regular basis.
Dr G 1:03:49 Yeah, the Romans aren't into that. They're not very, they're not very cool with bodies. This is where well before the time that they come into, like strong contact with Greek culture and really embrace some of that stuff. Yeah, but even when they do embrace the Greek cultural side, there's a whole bunch of Greek things that the Greeks are comfortable with that the Romans are never never comfortable with to do with body
Dr Rad 1:04:10 The Romans as a people were there like there's a time and a place and a status. Slaves are the ones you know, slaves and prostitutes and gladiators. You're all the ones that show off your bodies in public, not I.
Dr G 1:04:25 The Romans are an awkward people when it comes to some stuff to do with bodies. So yeah, yeah. They'd be like, Oh, okay, all the scars are at the front. Verified. Please put the tunic back on.
Dr Rad 1:04:35 Put it away. So what like a three do you think?
Dr G 1:04:38 Ooh, maybe a four.
Dr Rad 1:04:41 Oh okay. Hey, big spender.
Dr G 1:04:43 Hello.
Dr Rad 1:04:45 All right. All right. Okay. final category.
Dr G 1:04:47 Our final category is the Citizens Score
Well they are very excited
The citizens do score don't they
Dr Rad 1:04:54 They really do they do. They know what's coming but they think they do.
Dr G 1:05:00 Like, Oh, hail the fathers.
Dr Rad 1:05:04 I mean, to think about all the times that the citizens have been so unhappy, and all of a sudden had to do was institute military pay.
Dr G 1:05:13 The solution was right there, guys.
Dr Rad 1:05:15 I mean, having said this, obviously, as we've, as we've talked about, this is presumably opening the door for a wider range of people to serve. So presumably, it's people who haven't served much before that might be super exciting.
Dr G 1:05:33 Yeah, Look, I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. Yeah, no, we shouldn't I don't think this is evidence of a system of payment.
Dr Rad 1:05:41 Oh, no, it isn't. Like at the moment, they're just like, Oh, my God just came out of nowhere. took me by surprise.
Dr G 1:05:49 You know what, I'm gonna volunteer. That's what I'm gonna do.
Dr Rad 1:05:52 So you know what, actually, this is very much this. I don't know if you remember this scene in Sliding Doors, and it's popped up in a few other comedies since the idea that men only buy flowers spontaneously when they've done something wrong. I feel like that is what is going on here, Dr G. The patricians only gave us so when they've got any evil plan working in their back pocket. Bad luck. The citizens are very excited. Presumably, this is affecting a wider range of citizens and we're normally talking about
Dr G 1:06:26 Yeah, and it does seem that on the flip side, the military campaigning that Rome has engaged in in this year with Anxur has gone well,
Dr Rad 1:06:37 Absolutely. Booty.
Dr G 1:06:41 Very good for the Romans.
Dr Rad 1:06:43 That's what we care about at the moment, we can deal with we can be sympathetic, but once we're scoring, it's all Rome.
Dr G 1:06:48 That exactly, so I think it's a pretty good time to be a Roman citizen.
Dr Rad 1:06:52 Yeah. Should we give it like a seven?
Dr G 1:06:55 Oooo Let's.
Dr Rad 1:06:56 Oh my god. Dr. G., to you realize that that means that for the first time in a really long time, their variants have got just over 50% they're on 27 Golden Eagles.
Dr G 1:07:12 Oh, well done, Ancient Rome. Yeah, all it took was a big military victory and paying your troops being nice to people who would have needed the basics, the basics, guys.
Dr Rad 1:07:28 All right, well, what a high day I can't wait to talk about four or five with you. It's gonna be another big year. I think. I'm excited.
Dr G 1:07:40 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. A huge thank you to our Patreon supporters for helping make this show spectacular. If you enjoyed the show, there's a few ways that you can show your support. You can write a review wherever you listen in to help spread the word. Reviews really make our day and help new people find our podcast. Researching and producing a podcast takes time. If you're keen to chip in, you can buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi, or join our fantastic patrons for early releases and exclusive content. You can find our show notes, as well as links to our merch and where to buy our book ‘Rex: The Seven Kings of Rome' at partialhistorians.com Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
Special Episode - The Roman Military with Dr Bret Devereaux
29 févr. 2024
01:33:40
This is a very exciting special episode all about the Roman military. We were incredibly fortunate to speak to an expert in the field about the Roman army in the early and middle republic.
Special Episode – The Early Roman Military with Dr Bret Devereaux
Dr Bret Devereaux is a historian specialising in the ancient world and military history. He holds a PhD in ancient history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in classical civilizations from Florida State University. He teaches at North Carolina State University.
His research interests include the Roman economy and the Roman military. Key to this is considering how the lives of people were shaped by structures of power, violence and wealth and the ways these factors shaped military capacity.
His monograph Why the Romans Always Won: Mobilizing Military Power in the Ancient Mediterranean is under contract with Oxford University Press. We cannot wait to get our hands on a copy, and we’re sure you will want to put this on your wish list too!
Dr Devereaux is an incredibly passionate and eloquent scholar, and he was very generous with his time. In this episode we were able to explore the evolution of Roman warfare from small-scale, localised conflicts to epic clashes with civilisations like the Carthaginians.
Dr Bret Devereaux
Things to Look Out For:
Lots of issues in our source material! How unusual for us
If you are keen to learn more about the academics mentioned during the interview, you can find a list of the scholars mentioned below:
Nathan Rosenstein
Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Republic. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. (1990)
Rome and the Mediterranean 290 to 146 BC : the Imperial Republic
Jeremy Armstrong
The Consulship of 367 BC and the Evolution of Roman Military Authority
Romans at war : soldiers, citizens and society in the Roman Republic
Early roman warfare : from the regal period to the first Punic War
Walter Schiedel
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (2017)
On Human Bondage: After Slavery and Social Death (2017)
The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy (2012)
Peter Connolly
Greece and Rome at War (1981)
Lawrence Keppie
The making of the Roman Army from Republic to Empire (1984)
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad. And
Dr G 0:30 I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 1:03 Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am Dr. G,
Dr Rad 1:11 and I'm Dr Rad
Dr G 1:13 and we are super thrilled to be joined by Dr. Brett Devereaux. Hello.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:19 Hello. Great to be here.
Dr G 1:21 Thank you so much for joining us. We are going to be talking today all about Roman military things, which I think is a super interesting topic and one that Dr. Rad and myself confess that we know not so much about so we wanted to bring in somebody who was a specialist. So Dr. Brett Devereaux is a historian who specialises in the ancient world and military history. He holds a PhD in ancient history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has an MA in classical civilization civilization from Florida State University, and He currently teaches at North Carolina State University. His research interests include the Roman economy and the Roman military. Key to this study is considering how the lives of people were shaped by structures of power. How violence and wealth are factors that influence and shape military capacity. He currently has a monograph under contract with Oxford University Press, which will be entitled Why the Romans Always Won: mobilising military power in the ancient Mediterranean. And he is also very famous online for running the popular blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry: A Look at history and popular culture. So this is super exciting. Thank you.
Dr Bret Devereaux 2:43 So I'm excited. Thanks for having me on.
Dr G 2:46 I feel like our first point of controversy is going to be setting up the periods which might be under discussion. So I have said that we're going to be talking about things possibly from the early republic, likely from the middle Republic, and we might touch on some things from the late Republic. And I feel like if you're listening to this show, you might be like, Okay, that's cool. The Republic has different phases. And you will be unsurprised to learn that historians don't necessarily agree about these. And only some of the dates are on fuzzy. So the early republic, I'm going to say, start in 509 BCE, when they chuck out the kings, and takes us all the way down to around about 264 BCE, which is the start of the First Punic War. But I will defer to you, Brett, what would you say about that?
Dr Bret Devereaux 3:41 I mean, I think that's a defensible end date. It's the mark of when Roman military activity begins to push outside of Italy. And the First Punic War is the first moment where we get because our sources are improving over time, we get to see the Roman military machine very clearly. Because we have Polybius all of a sudden, and so I think that's a defensible date. I would be tempted to push the transition to the middle Republic earlier, probably in the late fourth century, something like 338 340 Because I think the military system is functioning more or less the same way that far back but the evidence is is weaker, but but somewhere in that space. Yeah. And then the middle Republic runs question mark, question mark. 133? 107? 101? Somewhere in there. Before we begin the Late Republic.
Dr Rad 4:34 Somewhere with the Gracchi. And Marius.
Dr G 4:36 Yeah it gets a little bit dicey as soon as Tiberius Gracchus is elected tribune of the plebs. Yeah, so around about 133 anywhere down to about 101 is the bulk of the end of the middle Republic and the start of the late Republic. And then you get into the controversy of when does the late Republic end and that depends on how you feel about Augustus. So you know, I know I know you have some feelings about it. So do I. Strong feelings about Augustus, I'm going to say that I think the late Republic is fully over in 27. When he gets the title Augustus, it's at that point where it's like, he basically owns the whole of the Senate and anybody who's willing to say anything. And at that point, I think we can say that functionally, the Republic is no longer doing its thing. It's doing something else now.
Dr Bret Devereaux 5:32 But Augustus told me he restored the Republic, are you telling me he lied to me?
Dr G 5:38 This dude that would have guessed this lie? I mean, I wouldn't want to say yes to that.
Dr Rad 5:44 Brett, I hate to break it to you on this podcast, but never leave believe anything a man says.
Dr Bret Devereaux 5:51 That's, that's gonna be my role in this podcast very difficult.
Dr G 5:55 This is gonna get tough as it goes along. Alright, so with that sort of chaos of periodization, somewhat resolved. Let's jump into the first sort of topic. And we're going to start broad and hopefully narrow in as we go through. Brett, what does it mean, to talk about military force when it comes to ancient Rome?
Dr Bret Devereaux 6:18 So this is an excitingly open ended question. Obviously, we are, for the most part, talking about armies. But already I think when I use that word, especially when we're talking about the early Republican, especially when we're talking about the first century of the early republic, as moderns we are incorporating ideas when we use that word army that we should maybe be sceptical about like we say army, we are imagining a formal military institution with things like regular issue weapons and uniforms and standardised trainings. And oh, boy, are the Romans not doing that this early. Some of these, you know, military forces that we're going to talk about in the late regnal period in the early republic, are not state run armies, they are clan militias. You know, the whole extended family can go to war with your neighbours. We're talking about states that are or that dispersed in power. We also are going to get centralised armies, as we're going to see one of the major debates about the warfare in the early republic is really when can we understand that Rome actually has a centralised army under central leadership? I think at no point in this podcast, will the Romans get a uniform?
Dr G 7:38 This is very disappointing.
Dr Bret Devereaux 7:42 Roman soldiers are expected to acquire and supply their own equipment through the middle Republic and then there is argument as to when exactly in the late Republic, we start to see state issued equipment, you will sometimes see arguement that Gaius Gracchus does this but I would say that the textual support for that is functionally non existent. That is not what Plutarch says. And so no, he doesn't. And so we don't know, we know that by the Imperial period, there is state issued equipment, and it is being manufactured by the state, but we don't know when that starts. So for most of this period, people are bringing their own kit, there are eventually regulations as to what kit they should bring, we'll get into the arguments about when those regulations are made. Not as early as Livy thinks. So you might like okay, you have to have a shield and has to be kind of like this, but like the shields you bring is like whatever you want, you've decorated it how you want maybe you want it a little heavier, a little lighter, a little bigger, a little smaller, that's fine. On these aren't uniform like that. And then there's a whole sort of secondary question of okay, what does that mean for how these guys fight? How tactically uniform are they? Certainly by the time we can see this army, clearly which, you know, I mean, I would say Polybius, I think you could push this back to the Punic Wars, the Romans have a tactical system. And it's fairly sophisticated, how far back you can push that tricky, as we'll get into, but also the kinds of military activity they're engaged with. Our sources are for the most part writing in the first century, we're talking about the early republic, because we have cut the early republic off 10 seconds before Polybius shows up, which is fair. And those first century sources have a nasty habit of reading the army of their own day into the evidence they have in the army of their day, is a sophisticated, well funded, well equipped, semi professional, centrally controlled force. It is, by ancient standards, a highly sophisticated and centralised army. And so, you know, Livy will read about battles happening in the four hundreds, and he conceives of these as like, Oh, we're besieging this town for five years and he is thinking of a high intensity cedar, the centralised army and like that could be cattle rustling, that could be raiding. This could be little more than brigandage. The Army may not be this centralised. And it's clear in some cases that it wasn't, we'll get this is going to be a repeated touchstone to the battle of the Cremera. In in 477 Sure major episode that I'm going to come back to over and over again, but like, what the famiIy were clearly doing here was like raids. They're not he's like, you know, they're like laying waste and seizing the place. And like, there's 300 of them. They're not doing anything of the sort. There's like stealing cattle, and like pillaging barns, you know. And so, it becomes really tricky to identify moments of increasing sophistication. Because Livy or, you know, Dionysius or Diodorus, or Cassius Dio, other universal history writers that are even later, like, they read, like the army went here, and they think the army of their day, and you know, so you know, it's, it's, there's a huge range, and it's, this is a continually changing institution, that we get snapshots up, and then those snapshots are distorted. With lots of blanks.
Dr Rad 11:08 Yeah, it's very reassuring to hear an expert say that, because I must admit, we've been quite shocked to see how much our sources are reading backwards, when they're talking about the army and the fabulous Fabii.
Dr Bret Devereaux 11:25 Notice how notice how unwilling Livy generally is to give army numbers in his early books, when Livy's Gonna pop back up right when we Livy's surge is back to us in 218. And we get that wonderful stretch from 218 to 167, where we have a continuous narrative from Livy's. And his sources don't suck, he loves army numbers, and they are precise. He's like, there were this many men, and every year the legions were filled up and everything and he's very, and he is nothing like that early on. And that's a clear signal. He doesn't have that information. He has no idea how big these armies are. I mean, ironically, the baby's an exception, he thinks there are 300 of them. Though, that's a number which should immediately make us sceptical because, of course, there are lots of famous bands of 300 warriors.
Dr Rad 12:15 gonna say that feels like a selective choice.
Dr Bret Devereaux 12:20 right, that's a number that we should not believe. But it's clearly been communicated to Livy. And so, yeah, the sources here are, are rough. Livy to his credit, is doing his best. Not fully credulous. He is occasionally sceptical. He occasionally indicates things he doesn't know. He complains about invented triumphs and consulships. There are points where he is just clearly confused in ways that perhaps a savvy writer would have concealed. But on the other hand, you know, he's mostly what we have. And, you know, we're talking about the four hundreds in the three hundreds, the Romans only start writing their history themselves at the end of the third century Ennius and Fabius Pictor are a long way away. And so Livy doesn't have a lot to work with. And that makes it really hard to know what's going on.
Dr Rad 13:14 Yeah, it's kind of like history is Mad Libs.
Dr Bret Devereaux 13:18 And then, and then the sources Livy's does have, he doesn't always understand. Or he has sources that don't understand their sources. And the classic example for this is this battle. This is in book four of Livy. The the capture and then recapture of Fidenae in Latium. Ah, yes, the notes it's it's 434 that he's like, and some analysts say that there was a fight cum classem, between fleets. And he's like, but that's ridiculous. There's no water here. What we know from some of our other sources, what is confused living in his sources? Is that a classis in Livy's de means a fleet, but in early Latin, it means an army. In particular, it means the whole citizen body is an army, when his sources are trying to tell him is that were once like the central army, the army that is controlled by the consoles or the king like the big army showed up and had a fight with the other guys big army, not just a cattle raid or something. We had a big fight, but live he doesn't understand that and so he's like, a battle with fleets like what on this stream? Are you joking? And so he is counted. He's like, that obviously didn't happen. This is a made up battle, because he's misunderstood how the word classes is being used because its meaning has changed. There's a similar sort of, we can get to the train wreck of Livy's Eight Eight, and his description of the Roman army, but a similar problem with like, what is you know, what does it mean for someone to be before the spear antepilani? What are the Ordines? What are these units? What the hell are a accensi and what do they do? These were have changed their meanings, in some cases between Livy in his sources, and he is just terribly confused. And you feel bad for the fellow he's doing his best.
Dr Rad 15:10 You know, and I feel empathy with Livy. Because I feel like that a lot of the time.
Dr Bret Devereaux 15:16 We're doing our best.
Dr Rad 15:17 So Look, obviously, as as we've just hinted out in that conversation there, you know that we're following the ancient written sources for the early republic, because that's where we're at in our episodes right now. So we're mostly focusing on Livy's, Dionysios, and Diodorus. And that sort of thing. And we can see that they, they did at least understand that Rome's rise to world domination was gradual, and that they obviously have to do stuff, you know, to stop and explain some of these military things, as you were saying, without necessarily understanding them fully, or really appreciating how they worked in this early period. One of the things we keep coming up against is this idea of the levee, because this is often used as a weapon in the conflict of the orders, where we have tribunes of the players who are like there's not going to be a military levy. I don't care how severe the military situation is, and consuls who are like, Oh, you don't understand there's a crisis going on. We have to deal with it. Now. We didn't have time for this crap. So how do we understand the levy of the soldiers in this very early period and the sixth in the fifth centuries BCE? Right.
Dr Bret Devereaux 16:24 So And here's one of those are going to be like our sources say, and then I'm going to tell you that they're full of it. So our sources and this is Dionysius and Livy's, present the creation of a formal and centrally commanded system for the raising of Roman levy as originating with the semi legendary King Servius Tullius. This is the Servian constitution. I know you've discussed it, that would put it in the mid sixth century. We know the Serbian constitution, as described to us cannot date from the mid sixth century. The the most obvious issue is, are the wealth classes based on currency amounts. Now, the good news, this is one of these rare moments of good news, Dionysius, Livy, and Polybius all provide a wealth figure for the cut off for the first class of the infantry in the Roman army. And even better yet, though, they all give it in different currency units. They have given us the same figure, I think Dionysius is in minae, Polybius is in drachma and Livy's in asses. And you're like, Wow, a fixed piece of data reported by multiple sources, this must be good. Bad news. The currency conversion only works if Livy is giving it with the sextantal asses, which is the the the as, the bronze Roman currency goes through a long series of permutations. The first bit of bad news is that it straight up doesn't exist in the fifth in the fifth or sixth century, the Romans developed currency late. But the really bad news is that the currency standard Livy's Clearly using is the sextantal as, and what must be happening, of course, because the Romans did not lay out their wealth classifications in Greek currency figures, the real number must be an asses that Polybius and Dionysius have converted. But the sextantal asses introduced in 212
Dr G 18:15 are no, that's nowhere near the sixth century. So this is Livy's. What do you do unto us?
Dr Bret Devereaux 18:23 What are you doing? And so all three sources, their system, at least their numbers, must date to the Second Punic War. And I think for reasons we don't need to get into here that Polybius is describing the army of the Second Punic War, which is the army of about 40 to 50 years before he's writing. And Polybius is savvy enough to know that and tell us that, because he's occasionally like, they used to do this, and now they do this. But obviously like, then that raises all sorts of questions for the entire system. Does it even make sense, for instance, for Servius Tullius, to lay down a wealth system based on monetary units at all? No, there's no coinage in Italy at this point. Um, the Greeks have barely adopted coinage. It hasn't made it this far. Ironically, glanced over at Athens in the same century, and you will see so long crafting wealth classes and not defining them by coinage but by bushels of wheat that your farm produces, which might make a lot more sense. But of course, that's not what our sources tell us. So the Servian constitution is like, is this later and retrojected? it's clearly something that the earliest Roman historians believe existed way back then. Are they anachronism, the wealth requirements? Is this later if it's later, how much later? And so there's sort of all of these, all of these problems. And here, I'm going to break and I'm going to make this distinction repeatedly. There is a sort of traditional interpretation, and then I'm going to note A specific scholar who has recently taken issue with this, which is Jeremy Armstrong, who is effort to push all of the dates I'm going to be kind of budget Jeremy Armstrong for you all, for most of today. The traditional reading is to Look at the Servian constitution and say, okay, the wealth classes are kind of nonsense. But the equipment described could actually be right for the sixth century, especially the implication that the wealthy who aren't super rich and on horses, don Greek style equipment, and everybody else has local style equipment. Yeah, that's what we see in artwork. That's what we see in elite grave depositions. That makes a lot of sense. And so the traditional view is to say that what Livy and Dionysius have done is they have taken and probably not them, but their predecessors have taken a military system that did exist and embellished it into something more organised, but that there is some kind of central levy that the king is in charge of arguing against this right, Jeremy Armstrong pushes back at this and says, No, what you want to understand here is no centralised army. What there is, is a collection of elite gentes of these clans, and that if there is a centralised Roman army under the Kings, what's happening here is that the king has gotten the heads of all of the gentes together, and those gentilic armies, which is like these elite patrician families and all of their clients. Those are the compositional units of the army. It is certainly the case that we have evidence in our sources, that Roman army sometimes work like that. I will note that Livy's certainly doesn't think the Royal Army works like that. He, for instance, thinks that the Brutus that founds the Republic is a tribune of the Celeres, he thinks that there is an office of cavalry commander, that it is an office that is like a military Tribune and has that title. Interesting because military tributes aren't going to pop up in Livy's narrative until much later and under weird circumstances. And what's also striking is that this unit is called the Celeres, a term that I think it's a term Dionysius also uses, and which is not the name of a later Roman unit. So Livy is probably not inventing this, there probably really were Celeres, the Swift ones. And that was the name for the cavalry before they were the equites. And so my own view and here I fall somewhere between the traditional view and the kind of Jeremy Armstrong revisionist view, because he's convinced me on some points, is to imagine a kind of hybrid military under the kings, that there is sometimes this kind of centralised military and the king could appoint officers to it though, evidently, he always appoints them out of these elite patrician gentes who, of course, the leaders of which are the guys in the Senate, and the Senate advises the king. So you can see how these institutions locked together. But we definitely have what we might describe as gentilic warfare, a clan based warfare that is happening in the background that might not involve the king. And we should also keep in mind that the Kings authority here is not maybe as absolute as we think when we hear the word King. It's worth noting that the semi legendary and legendary Roman kings we have don't tend to come from the same family. This office isn't hereditary, they seem to be picked by the aristocracy, they do seem to have the job for life. But that makes the transition from King to elected magistrate a lot less stark. We have gone from the aristocracy picks a war leader for life to the aristocracy picks a world leader for a one year limited term. In either case, he's drawn from the aristocracy. And he has this set of powers. And in fact, he has this legal power called Imperium, which is the same power, unlike the Greeks who when they kick out there kings, abolish royal power and split up those jobs. The Romans are like you can't do that. Imperium is indivisible. So theoretically, I think the levy is sort of kind of working this early, at least occasionally. There is the secondary question, how far down does the levy reach? And I think here, the answer cannot be very far. The Romans aren't paying their soldiers. And we certainly don't get the sense early on in Livy, that the resource in manpower steamroller of the middle Republic, is in any way in operation. So when we're imagining this army, under the kings are the early republic, the centralised army, the non gentilin army, we're probably still imagining a pretty aristocratic institution where the elites roll up with their fancy imported style Greek arms and armour. Their clients have shown up with local italic stuff, and that's probably it. It is really striking for instance, levy imagines that the Roman census has been conducted continuously from The dawn of the Republic. But then he sheepishly admits this is Livy's four eight that the censorship is created in 443. And he's like over the consuls were doing it before then he doesn't give a census figure before 465. And we know at least in the middle Republic, when our evidence gets better, the census was the vital tool for general conscription, that the Census provided the documents by which the Romans decided who was in the Army this year. So if the census isn't happening for the first 40 or 50 years of the Republic, this army must be quite narrow indeed, because there's no way to draw the full body of the citizenry into it.
Dr Rad 25:40 It sounds almost feudal in nature.
Dr G 25:42 Yeah, it does. I mean, it took it does resonate with the sorts of things that we've been drawing from what Livy and Dionysius and Diodorus have been suggesting, because it does seem like we've got a situation where it's like it's family based, that this sort of the conflict of the orders that keeps coming up and dominates the narrative of this early Republic is a bit of a mishmash of various things that we know are going to be happening later on. And this levy sort of allows them to introduce a conflict within the citizen body about the direction of Rome. So it kind of allows for a character development, if you like, like, what are Romans and how the Romans come to the Romans. And I think reading it through that kind of lens is really quite helpful. Now, you said that the they don't get paid. And then we get this really interesting moment, both Diodorus Siculus and Livy's mention that they get paid for the first time in 406 BCE. This is a spoiler for any listeners, Justin had to cover it. Because we have literally not recorded that episode yet. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say all of my thoughts on 406 BCE yet, but it might be influenced by what you tell us, Brett. This idea that the soldiers get paid, all of a sudden appears and when I came across it and the source materials like, oh, my god, somebody paid them. And I was like, What are the chances. But this is a massive year for the Romans. As far as our annalistic sources are concerned, they're facing trouble on multiple fronts. This is an issue that Rome seems to be facing a lot during this period, where they've got conflict coming up from the south, from the Volscians, and the Aequians, to the more to the east, they've also got this pressure coming down from the Etruscans. And that seems to be hotting up again for them. And now all of a sudden, there's this sense in which they need a large a reasonably large force in order to be able to be on all of those fronts at the same time. But we
Dr Bret Devereaux 27:47 don't a couple of decades out from having serious Gallic problems.
Dr G 27:56 Just know, people aren't ready to do that they haven't watched the whole series.
Dr Bret Devereaux 28:01 Romans aren't ready for it either. So we're all on the same boat here.
Dr G 28:05 Definitely not. So I think it is reasonable to assume that 406 is maybe a bit of a furphy of a day. But I am interested about when and how we know that payment of soldiers develops for Rome.
Dr Bret Devereaux 28:21 I mean, so we are, are this substantially reliant on the reports of our sources, but we have this from Livy and Diodorus, and Plutarch. And I mean, like, Plutarch is like a quarter of a source when it comes to these kinds of things. And they all put it on the same date. And so there might be something to it, I think, sort of the traditional scholarship, because I'm gonna get to Jeremy Armstrong in a second. Because I do think that contrast is useful for listeners to hear and it'll give them a sense of like the range of what we think the traditional scholarship sees 406 Sometimes scholars will get spooked and they'll just say, circa 400. Ish, but our sources are really clear that it's 406 that see this as a key moment of development in a process that has probably be gone way back in the 470s. And is going to culminate again, massive spoilers after the Gallic sack of Rome, probably. And, and so if we sort of wind back, right, we want to ask, Okay, where did the gentilic armies go? Because obviously, you don't need to pay your soldiers if they're all your family members and clients, right? There's a relationships are governing this. The traditional answer to this is to point at the Battle of the Cremera and 477, which I know you've discussed Livy's to dot 49 and following where we get like the one point where Livy's Like, here is some gentilic warfare that is happening. The Fabii go out, start their own war and then lose it catastrophically. And then just to, you know, add on, like the Roman state then intervenes and also does poorly for a number of years. So things are not going well, the traditional view has been to see this sort of catastrophic defeat. And the fact that our sources never mentioned against doing warfare like this ever, again, is to say, this is the moment gentilic warfare stops. And to see this in the context where Look, states and communities in Italy are getting more sophisticated over time. Italy is a rough neighbourhood, the warfare here is is getting increasingly no holds barred. You can sort of see that with the rough way that the nascent Roman Republic treats its flattened neighbours to the south and like we're going to inflict a pretty unequal treaty on you. Obviously, they're going to resettle that treaty in the 3340s and 330s, which we'll get to because that's going to change the military system, and so to see is like the Fabii go out thinking that it's still like the 560s. And a single gens can do this kind of warfare, and are rudely informed by Veii that no, you can't stay. It's become too centralised, and they get steamrolled by a major state army of Etruscans. And the Romans are like, let's not do that ever again. Now, what Jeremy Armstrong will point out is that that neat divide is too neat. The Fabii start their war in 479, when it is worth noting that the head of their Gens Caeso Fabius is the consul or praeter, maybe later. So this may have in fact been a Roman war. This Fabian clan army may have been a consular army people can't see but I'm making sneer quotes to begin with. And so this is sort of this is sort of tricky, and Armstrong uses this in some other evidence to argue that gentilic, warfare may actually be continuing later than this and Livy may just not know it. That said, as noted, shortly thereafter, we start to get census figures from Livy. Notably, compared to our other sources that give us earlier census figures Livy's census figures do not round off tonight's neat numbers, his figure for 465 is 104,714. The other convenient thing, you if you Look at the demographic math, you think about the size of the Roman state, that number is possible. That could be a real number. some level of undercounting, surely, presumably the very poor not being counted, it's definitely only counting men, all those issues. But civium capita tote right which is the formula Livy's always gives the census figures with that could be the real number. So Livy may not be kidding that the Census is started up at this point, that would suggest a greater desire to expand the army. And we're of course, seeing that Rome is under a lot of military pressure in this period. And as that pressure intensifies, the Romans reach for manpower, you need to get more guys. And as you know, 406 is a gnarly year, the security situation in Italy is getting rough. And it's only about to get rougher. And so the Romans may have felt like we need to make this move. And so again, the traditional scholarship sees this as the break point where the army is now beginning to incorporate the plebeians generally, is of course gonna matter for the struggle of the orders, but even poor plebeians, and that certainly fits with when we see the army of the middle Republic. One of the things that is very striking about it is that Roman recruitment clearly reaches very far down the socio economic ladder, while you still have to have some property to qualify for the Roman army. It's not a lot in the middle Republic, you know, probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 85 90% of the citizen male body are wealthy enough to be eligible for the army, right, the capite censi those who are too poor to serve seems to be a very small slice of the Roman citizen body. And he Nathan Rosenstein sort of tackle this question, and I think proved it. And so the introduction of pay is kind of a necessary step along this road. Now, of course, immediately Livy's says they introduce pay the stipendium Militarum. And then he doesn't give us any details. We know how legionary pay works in the Second Punic War, because Polybius tells us but we're immediately questions can we retro eject them? In the Second Punic War, we know that Roman soldiers get paid a daily wage, but that the cost of their food and supplies is subtracted from it, if they are missing any equipment or lose any of it that is also docked from their pay. And we can certainly assume the clear implication of the system is described is that most of this pay is is booked pay. It's being kept in the coop quaestor's logs, they're not getting handed money very often. Sometimes. Clearly. When Rome sends armies they feel the need to send coinage with them at that late date. They certainly can't be doing it in 406 because they don't have any coinage yet. So once again, how are they paying these eyes, it could be interesting grain. What Livy's may understand is military pay may just be the state now feeds you.
It could be something that simple, and therefore the poor can come along. Because they don't need to bring an allowance in may be something that simple. Conveniently for us, like the reason we can be sure that Polybius isn't blowing smoke about the Roman pay system is that the Roman pay system continues to work exactly that way into the imperial period, when the Romans politely send soldiers to Egypt, where their pay stubs written on papyrus can survive. And so we can read them and we can be like, Oh, that's how they did the accounting, which is really, which is really fun. And you see the same deductions, deductions for food deductions for clothes. This guy wore out his sandals like minus 15 denarii there, that kind of thing. But is it working that way? In 406? Is it that sophisticated God, I'd be shocked if it was. I mean, it would be startling because again, this is not yet really a coinage society. This early Jeremy Armstrong would I think except most of what I just said, but he would kind of push the dating of the implications further back and he would want to see like the incorporation of poor plebeians eeehhhhhh. Let's Let's date that a little later. He sees the formation of a kind of centralised Roman Army as a process as he puts it that runs the incorporation of the plebs that runs from 450, all the way out to 390. And a little bit further. Whereas I think traditional scholarship is like 406, like, dot dot done. And I'm pretty sympathetic with Jeremy's arguments here, that this is perhaps a longer process, but it's still an important breakpoint. And it's setting the groundwork for what is what is to come. I would also know here, there are a bunch of other really interesting things that are happening in the late fifth and early fourth century when it comes to warfare in Italy. And here, I will note an extraordinary frustration created by the Romans. It is the case that we're ever the Romans expand, starting in the three hundreds at least. So as they begin to pull Italy under their control, wherever they go. Warrior burials and elite warrior artwork stop. This is extraordinarily obnoxious, like you get the third Samnite war, Samnium is finally Roman territory and like boom, the Samnites are not burying aristocrats with their armour anymore. And so Rome is this creeping gap in our evidence. Nevertheless, from what evidence survives, we can see that the early three hundreds are evidently a period of pretty radical, tactical and equipment change, whereas elite equipment prior to this, the wealthiest guys are mostly using Greek style stuff, which is both the big Greek shield the Aspis, Greek style body armour, both Greek style helmets and then also like local interesting variations of Greek style helmet, he had some really wacky looking like apulo Corinthian helmets, some of which I doubt that anyone ever actually wore. I mean, some of them really do Look like display pieces rather than real armour. Always something to be worried about. Armies create parade equipment in all periods. Folks who know the Roman army somewhat later may be familiar with Imperial period cavalry masks where you get these helmets that has like a full face mask on no one wore that to fight that was that was for parade that was not a battlefield piece of equipment that was that was you know,
Dr G 38:36 you don't you don't want to you don't want to see things when you're on the battle field. No. Madness
Dr Rad 38:42 It would help me go into battle if I couldn't see what was laying ahead. That's true.
Dr Bret Devereaux 38:47 But so we have that sort of system. And what we see in the three hundreds is the clear in blocks of a lot of external we might say military material culture, the the round Greek style aspis drops away. Livy explicitly says that this happens with the introduction of military pay, it is replaced by the cheap guys shields, which are these larger rectangular shields. We know from artwork that rectangular central boss shields like this existed in Italy earlier, but it's also pretty clear from the structure of the Roman shield once we can see clearly later that the Romans have borrowed design elements from the Latin shield the Gallic or Celtic shield from the north. So this is a sort of a fusion of an Italian shield shape, with design elements that are Gallic to create a kind of distinctly Italian riff on the Latin oval shield. At the same time we get Greek sword forms, the corpus and the syphilis begin to vanish, replaced by our evidence is really thin, but it seems like Gallic Sword forms. We have one really neat sword from this period that God bless it is inscribed. And it Smith has said, I made this in Rome. Nice, beautiful Look after that.
Dr G 40:17 offer a better piece of evidence really.
Dr Bret Devereaux 40:19 I know it's beautiful. And then someone deposited it in a sanctuary so that we can have it. What's striking is its form. If the inscription wasn't on it, we would have said this is an early Latin sword. A Latin one sword and so we're like, okay, so the Romans have picked up a Gallic style shield. They're picking up a Gallic style sword. This is not yet the Gladius to be clear, or let me rephrase. This is not yet the Gladius Hispaniensis it's not the famous Gladius Gladius itself is not a native Latin word that looks to be a Celtic word. The Romans have imported a word to describe the sorts they're picking up. Latin has its own perfectly serviceable word for sword Ensis which becomes poetic and very archaic, and no one uses it. In addition, at the same time, we see some of these fancier Greek style helmets beginning to get pushed out by the montefortino helmet type, which is also an Italian take on a Gallic helmet, and by the First Punic War, montefortino was replastered. This is just what the Romans were all of them everywhere. You can tell when the Romans have shown up because suddenly you have a tonne of montefortinos in the archaeological record and every other helmets vanishes.
Dr G 41:35 Look, it sounds like they learnt a lot from whatever happened when they lost to the Gallic when they
Dr Bret Devereaux 41:41 deed, and so, so you have a number of things that are happening. I should note also the pilum, the Roman heavy javelins seems to be adopted in this period too. And I think Jeremy Armstrong is right to say probably also from the Gauls. The Romans think it's from the Samnites. And Jeremy thinks they're wrong. And I think he's right, that they're wrong. It's probably from the Gauls. And so you have military pay is introduced in 406. The Romans lose badly to the Gauls in 390. By 338, Livy's Describing a military system that has begun to Look like the one we'll see later, although again, Livy's terribly confused. And it is predicated on a lot of Gallic kit. And it does now seem fully centralised state run based on a mass conscript, levy. So this seems to be the critical period where the sort of Polybian Roman army that we know and love is coming into being. Now, the great news is, hey, we finally know what's going on. The bad news is, suddenly, we have to question any retro rejection of any of these things earlier than this point. Because they're like, Wait, there's clearly from like, for tannish to like, 380 ish, a period of significant change, not just in, in how they're paid in who serves in how they're organised and how they fight in the stuff they use to fight. So what can we know before that? And Jeremy argues that actually, the Servian constitution probably dates to this period. He is a break from older scholarship in this regard. But you can see why that argument would be seductive, but it would render us even more blind to what's happening in the earlier four hundreds.
Dr G 43:28 Now, now, we're missing a whole 100 years where we don't know anything.
Dr Rad 43:33 And not saying anything is actually
Dr Bret Devereaux 43:37 right. No exact exactly what I'm seeing is Roman history starts in 264. And I mean, really, like you guys are a myths podcast.
Dr G 43:43 New tagline, mythology brought to you by
Dr Rad 43:51 Let's end the interview now.
Dr Bret Devereaux 43:54 I know right now, I'm never getting invited back.
Dr Rad 43:58 The next question I'm about to ask you seems like a really stupid question, given what you've just said. I mean, obviously, when people are writing about these sorts of periods, they have to come up with some numbers sometimes to get an idea of, you know, the scale of the battles and all of that kind of stuff. And given everything you've just said, that seems nigh on impossible. But can you give us any idea about the size of the army? Like how big do you think it would have been in the early republic? How big is it in, you know, where we get to the more of the reliable periods like later on in the middle Republic? And even maybe, how on earth do you get to this? This is just so terrible,
Dr Bret Devereaux 44:40 right? And so for the early republic, like any answer has to lead with, we don't know. You know, as noted, we only get census figures that I think are remotely reliable in 465. And even then, I think a lot of scholars would not trust anything before the 300 census wise, but with it, you know, if the Romans do enforce 65 have a citizen body of like 100,000 adult males, well, not all of those are going to be some of those are going to be old people. So, you know, that's a pretty limited manpower pool, you're not calling all those guys out all at once. Or if you are, then you can't keep them out. Because they somebody needs to form. And so I mean, that implies a Roman army that is radically smaller, I would be shocked if the Roman army of the four hundreds could feel more than five or 10,000 men at a time. It is really striking that when our sources start talking about the Legion, it sure seems like there must have been a point where there was just one legion and the etymology of the Legion, literally the people picked out sure sounds like there's just one of them. And then later, they have multiples. And the Legion standard size later is around 5000. And the Romans stick to that standard size throughout their whole history. And so one wonders if like the early Republican Army was a legion. Like, here's like, 5000. Guys, this is about what we have. Now, of course, that suggests something a lot more regular than than we should probably imagine. But maybe that kind of scale. But the broader answer is we don't know. And so much of this military activity must have been much smaller scale cattle rating and and pillage. It
Dr Rad 46:17 does sound like that. There's a lot of mention of they raided us we raided them, they stole some cows.
Dr Bret Devereaux 46:23 Right? Well, and there's a lot of there's a lot of battles where it's like there was a battle, and the Romans were utterly cut to pieces. And then next year, it's like nothing happened. Yeah, like, well, that couldn't have been that big.
Dr Rad 46:34 Yeah, that's what we find. We find these dramatic statements like the Volscians were wiped from the face of the earth. And then it's like, and the next year, the Volscians are fielding an army. Right?
Dr Bret Devereaux 46:44 And you're wondering if what your sources are looking at is like, there was a fight between maybe a few 100 Volscians and few 100 Romans and the Romans utterly crushed those guys. But that this is just one episode in a larger conflict. And then Livy comes to this description. And all Livy has is some sources, we met the Volscians. And we killed all of them. Yeah. And so Livy is imagining huge army, he's imagining like second Punic War 80,000 Man armies wiping each other out. And it has not occurred to him that like that cannot be the case. As we move into the three hundreds, the Roman citizen body is getting bigger, in part because Roman territory is expanding. And as noted, we're imagining they're reaching a lot further down into into the sort of manpower pool. We might by this point beginning to something like the system we're eventually going to have where each console normally raises two legions. I mean, conveniently 367 is when we're finally gonna get to the point where we get to consoles every year with any regularity mean like God only knows how the army when you had military tribunes with consular powers how that was even structured, like we don't know live, he doesn't know. Chaos, I say, yeah. But, but you might have something like that if each consul has two legions that would imply maybe about 20,000 troops. The Romans in the early three hundreds, the Roman alliance system doesn't really exist yet. So the enormous resource advantages that it provides it probably not kicked in. The Romans sort of have control over relation. But the Latins are still at this early point understood as like quasi independent allies, they fight under their own armies and have their own leaders, that's going to change in the 340s and the 330s. The Romans gonna have another Latin war, we're not told. But the general assumption is that this is the point where the Romans shift and I believe he actually does kind of say this, that this is the point where the Romans choose to shift from their old system of alliances, which federal leagues and alliances like this were very common in Italy, to the souci system that we're gonna see them conquer the world with where all of the allies only have a bilateral treaty with Rome. They are required to supply soldiers to Rome's armies, those soldiers serve in small units under their own officers, but those are just attached straight to the Legion. And the number of Allied troops is roughly equal to the number of Roman troops in Scenario Okay, so if both consoles are out, it's not 20,000 men. It's like 40,000, man. And now you're starting to get like the beefier Roman armies as we move into the two hundreds and uses sort of armies and then sometimes the Romans double up these armies, so maybe you put both consoles in one place, you know, before you 1000 man field army. Right, that's quite sizable by ancient standards. That's about as large as Alexander the Great's army invading Persia, that sizable, and that might be the kind of thing that the Romans are throwing around in, say, the second and third Samnite wars as we get into the Punic Wars. And then of course, when we get into the Punic Wars, we watched the Romans deploy absolutely still aggroing mobilizations estimates I think the peak mobilisation for the Romans in 214. I think it is, is 185,000 men under arms in a single year. Wow. Which is and what I would just stress is, you do not want to imagine that the early republic can do something like the Romans can do something like that because they've constructed a system to draw the resources of all of Italy together. For more about this, see my book project in a year or two. Because this is what I'm, this is what I work on. You can hear me get excited. But that system is coming into being in the three hundreds, and we probably want to imagine it as an even longer process of state centralization pulling the plebeians into the army, probably Rich will be in first, poor plebeians later, through the four hundreds into the early three hundreds are motivated by increasing security pressures. And we're certainly seeing in Italy increasing security pressures, the Etruscans are cooperating more, they will eventually make one big alliance to try to contain the Romans in the third Samnite war. The Samnites are forming tribal confederacies that seem to work together, even the Greek states and my god to get Greeks to cooperate. But even the Greek states seem to be occasionally working together. And then you have the Gallic threat, which obviously, post 400 is clearly intense, occasionally large armies of golds from Northern Italy rolling and wreck everyone's afternoon. And that's going to remain a threat, right? The Romans are going to subdue Cisalpine Gaul in the 220s. And then Hannibal is going to roll over the Alps in 2 8. And unsubdue Cisalpine Gaul, and then the Romans are going to spend the next two decades re subduing Cialpine Gaul before the sort of Gallic threat kind of finally recedes, although it's going to explode back into focus at the end of the first century with the Cimbians, the Teutones. So those those tricksy goals are never gone. They're just they're just over the Alps, with their dastardly oval shields and long, long swords waiting. Your day. Just
Dr Rad 52:11 makes me long for written material from them so badly.
Dr Bret Devereaux 52:14 God, you have no idea how much I wish we knew more about their about their society. I mean, the fact that their societies only described from the outside our most sustained description is from Julius Caesar while he's genocide. And you're like, yeah, that's, that's not great. Okay. Yeah, similar frustrations about how little we know about what's happening in pre Roman Spain. But that's sort of neither here nor there. For this, I come back for the Punic Wars. And then we talk about paying for,
Dr G 52:45 I think, what you've set up with thinking about, like, you know, there's this kind of influx over time of Roman expansion, the way that Rome brings other peoples underneath it sort of ages, and then start to draw upon those resources for its own ends. This is something that is increasing in pressure over time. And I think you've touched on this already. But I'm interested in some of the sort of details, the size and composition of the Legion in the early and middle republics, if we can even talk about it in early, you're saying about 5000 is probably where it sits. And he was like,
Dr Bret Devereaux 53:25 wild guesstimate there. Mm, right. Right. I mean, it's based on almost nothing.
Dr Rad 53:31 Welcome to our podcast.
Dr G 53:34 Welcome to history, where it's like, we've just got gaps, and we're trying to figure out what to do with them. And but the Roman legion becomes hugely famous, for many reasons, particularly because of its success, I would say,
Dr Bret Devereaux 53:48 I was gonna say it does a lot of winning, it does a lot of winning. And
Dr G 53:51 people really hold on to that. And I, it turns into this whole sort of modern masculinity element as well, where people see that kind of like victory element, and they accrue that to themselves, which I think is really fascinating. But maybe a bit odd as well.
Dr Bret Devereaux 54:05 Often they accrue it to themselves in ways that would be utterly alien to the Romans. It's very, it's very striking. There
Dr G 54:15 are there are many byways that this conversation could go there right now, and I'm gonna resist those. But is there anything that we can say about the internal organisation of a legion? And when might we be able to say that at its earliest point, do you think?
Dr Bret Devereaux 54:30 Yeah, so looking back to the Servian constitution, although remember question marks about when that suggests a kind of army in in what we might say, it's like three tactical components. You have really rich guys on horses and there aren't very many of them. You have the regular elite on foot equipped as hoplites older historians assumed that they also fought like Late Archaic Greek hoplites that has come under a lot of question now. The kid does not require the fighting style, so this may not be a failing Thanks. And and Lord knows, like arguing about what a phalanx even is this early as a tar pit. And so we can just not go there.
Dr G 55:08 I was gonna say let's, let's resist that too,
Dr Bret Devereaux 55:11 which is certainly an equipment that implies that this is what we would call a shock formation these guys expect to march into Spears reach and stab you up close and personal. By contrast the lighter infantry of the poor guys, they certainly seem to pick up javelins really quickly. That fits with what we see in artwork and archaeology across Italy. We see lots of of infantry with javelins, so you'll have a shield and a sword and maybe a spear and then one or two javelins also. And so you could imagine these guys, you could put them in close combat, and they have that big shield for a reason. But probably they're also peppering each other with javelins. And so that's a lighter infantry component. And if we understand the army of say the four hundreds as they think we should, as a predominantly aristocratic element, then we should probably imagine that the guys with the Greek style stuff are the centrepiece and that the poor soldiers are a screening and supporting element, though again, how much this is guesswork? Certainly, we get no indication and livie that cavalry is ever central to the Roman way of warfare. So the really rich guys on horses never accomplish a whole lot unless they devote themselves and die gloriously so that the infantry can win.
Dr Rad 56:29 And they get to charge Yeah, and you know, unexpectedly
Dr G 56:31 makes Lucius Tarquinius' rise to power through his leadership of the cavalry somewhat questionable now,
Dr Bret Devereaux 56:38 well, but of course, the cavalry are the wealthiest in the most elite are the social upper crust. But tactically are they the most important guys? Of course, in the regnal period? Who the hell knows? Maybe But, but by the four hundreds? No, I mean, warfare in Italy really does seem to be an infantry first military system. Similar to what we see in Greece, were also the very rich in Greece right into battle sometimes, but like, nobody expects the cavalry to win battles, unless your Thessalians. As we sort of move forward, the as I noted, the first moment where we get an organisational description of the Roman army is Livy's, eight, eight, which he places in 338, though he's not saying that this organisation is created in that moment, he's just like, This is what the Army looks like in 338. So it may have looked like that for a while. The equipment that makes that army function the way it does, has been around for several decades by this point. Livy thinks the shield has been around since 406. So maybe it's been this way for a while. The traditional Yes, is that the military reform happens in the immediate aftermath of 391 tells us this, so it is a guess, put no weight on that leg. It's plausible, though. The army that Livy describes in 338 clearly does not derive from the Servian Constitution. It is a heavy infantry based force. There are three key lines in heavy infantry, they are hastatii, principes, and triarii. And we're like, ah, we know those from Polybius. The hastatii may have already lost their spears, but they clearly must have had them because they're hastitii and the hastis is a spear. The hastis is a spear. So they're they're naming spearmen. And yet, the moment they're visible to us, historically, they no longer have spears, which tells you they once did. And then there are other kinds of troops in this picture that confuse Livy's There are rorarii, he doesn't know what they are, and neither do we. And then there are the accensi. Livy's imagines the accensi, as like he's trying to fit them into like the battlefield deployment of the Army, that would probably mean something like attendance. And we generally assess that these guys are non combat. It's your butler, you brought your butler to the battlefield, this guy carries your stuff, or they're the cook or the carpenter or what have you. And we know, the later comitia centuriata, gives the accensi their own century, grouped with the musicians and the artisans, as groups that don't serve as combat soldiers in the army, but do get their own century. So they're not all slammed into the century, the very poor, suggesting that these maybe are like professional, non combat support personnel, something like this attendance.
Dr G 59:27 I love this though. You're on the battlefield, you've just hit somebody with a sword. You're like, I need a drink. Somebody
Dr Bret Devereaux 59:32 named me my friend, you're probably so I must say you're probably not doing that the cancer you're probably hanging back at the camp when you're actually fighting the battle. And in some of these battle narratives, and of course, I don't have the citation to hand for this. When the camp comes under attack, it seems like then the Kensi may fight and defend the camp. So they're not frontline guys, but maybe they're like logistics troops. Yeah, they know how to hold Livy's Battle narratives also attack us two guys that he describes as low as militates, light troops. And if those of you who know the later Roman army are like, Why aren't you just calling these guys will lead hates? That's what Polybius calls them, because the elites don't exist until 212. When Livi actually stops to tell us that this body of troops called will the tasers come into existence. The general kind of consensus of the scholarship is to imagine that the rivalry II probably are the lowest militates the light troops, probably drawn from the lowest classes in Rome that still have enough property to fight and that they probably have a similar role to the willie tastes. And then the question becomes, what exactly is the reorganisation that leads to the name change? And the answer is we don't know. irritatingly Livy does not tell us how the rorarii are equipped, which would answer a lot of questions. But he doesn't give it to us.
Dr G 1:00:55 But no wonder he's confused and he doesn't know what they're holding. So he can't come up with a way
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:01:01 to do it. didn't exist by the time his sources did. So he's like, these guys are there.
Dr Rad 1:01:09 I imagine it's their job to go RARRRR.
Dr G 1:01:15 That whole job? Yeah, to be scary. Luckily.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:01:18 There's been some arguments about the etymology of rorarii and maybe like what this word means and that, that maybe it's it's a word that kind of indicates like, essentially, like something little more than a mob, just like you've grabbed some peasants with their pitchforks and you're going at it.
Dr Rad 1:01:34 I think I just settled that debate.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:01:36 The guys that go RARRR right. And now I just want to note because I realised I haven't given this caveat. But I've spent the last five minutes talking about Livy's, eight, eight, the amount of confidence we can put on the Livy eight eight is not great, generally speaking, so. So there are layers of problems here. I've already indicated Livy doesn't understand his sources. You know, he has Polybius. He clearly has some other sources. He seems like he might be trying to harmonise sources that do not harmonise, because he's got maniples and ordines, antepilani, and he does not know how these units fit together. And it may be because they don't. The other problem with Livy's eight eight, because you know why not? Is that the text is also clearly corrupted points. This is a case where there are clear scribal errors in the text that we have, which just adds so Livi is confused. And then we don't even really have a perfect sense of what Livy's wrote. As a results. Most scholars will put Livy's eight eight and say apart from like really general information. Even this form of the Roman army is beyond salvage. Roman military history really begins with Polybius and Polybius dates his army to 216. And obviously by then we're we're really late. I think the last person I can think of who made the sort of sportsman like effort to salvage Livy, as Peter Connolly tried back in the 1980s. Lawrence Keppie, by contrast, looks at Livy's eight eight and is like no, cannot be done. And most scholars have have sort of discretion is the better part of valour. No we can't know very much about about this source. But there are a few things we can say the three lines of Roman heavy infantry exist, that speaks to a different tactical system. If you've got your Servian constitution then you probably have one body of heavy contact infantry and Greek style equipment in one line. That's you know, probably like six 8, 12 Men deep something like that. By contrast, by Livy's eight eight we have a Roman army in a triplex acies in the three Roman battle lines that we see layer later. That presumably means that the manoeuvre method of changing out one battle line for the next exists, which is attested in our later sources, that probably means that the Romans are fighting in smaller units with intervals between them, because that's how they do that interchange later. So the implication is that the Romans have, by the late three hundreds discovered the tactical system, that they will then ruin everybody else's day with and interestingly living notes. The Latins opposite the Romans for the battle is about to happen. He says fight exactly the same way with exactly the same kit. Lord knows this will be true later, the Roman allies the souci fight exactly the way the Romans do, they are tactically indistinguishable. And so this process of convergence of homogenization seems to be well underway at this point. And the archaeological evidence seems to back that up that the sort of what becomes whatever becomes the standard Roman equipment pushes out all other forms, and those forms vanish. And so that that seems to be seems to be happening there, but more broadly for organisation, I mean, it's hard to say the organisational element Of the Livy eight eight is the part that is the worst of a mess. I mean his math doesn't work he's like there's this many guys in this many guys and this many guys and that leads to this many guys hold on like Livy, I added your numbers together, and they don't give me that number.
Dr G 1:05:18 Dammit, the math doesn't work.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:05:20 And the question is, has Livy's made a math error possible? Or has a scribe made a math error because we know the text is damaged. And so you know, Lord only knows. Presumably this army is commanded by consuls. Now, if you if you read Livy's somewhat on a surface level, which I know we don't do here, you're gonna be like, Oh, the moment the Republic is formed, we have two consoles in the very first year. This is great. If you read a little bit more closely Livy's admits and our other sources note that the earliest Roman officials were not consuls but prateors. But then Livy turns around and says the praetorship is established in 367.
Dr G 1:05:58 So it does create some confusion, I will have
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:06:01 some confusion. And of course, you've also been working through already the problem that the Romans start deciding to also have years where they don't have consoles, but they have a variable number of military tribunes with consular powers. The name is almost wholly obscure. Yeah, and then dictators as well. And dictators, yes, we have dictators flying, you know, working around to. Um, so the Romans have like at least three different speeds for Chief Magistrate that they seem to pick almost at random on a year to year basis. What we know about the military tribunes is that after 367, they stopped getting consular powers. Interestingly, the standard number of them the most common number seems to be six. When we get to Polybius, we are told every Legion has six military Tribune's assigned to it. And so that's suggestive like is this, the Republic has one legion in this early point, and it is either led by a consul, or if we don't have a consul, then his power devolves onto the six military tribunes he would have had otherwise. That's how it works later. Is that how it works earlier? In any case, you later on these military tribunes, they do come in sixes though, of course, six is not a consistent number in the Livy and you have years and years with three and years with nine and like, it's usually six. And this is another case where we're confused Livy's confused the consular fausti is confused, right? The Fasti Capitolini, which proudly lists consuls in those first years when we know they must be praetors. Yeah. And so like it's one of these cases where like, we know our sources are wrong and and undermines what we can tell. And
Dr Rad 1:07:47 then the military tribunes with consular power, so often represented as being selected as an option because of internal politics. They're very rarely connected to the military stuff and your like.
You said, not some connection, perhaps some to some of the time. What
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:08:08 you wonder is a situation or these guys, just Tribunes, that is, tribal officers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And after 367 When Rome is off, Roman officer will then becomes regularised. These tribal officers pick up that military nature. And there's also a need to distinguish them from the other tribal officers that from the interviews. Yeah. And so you start calling the military tribunes? Are they even called that this early? Or are they tribal officers? Because remember, we also had a tribal officer for the celers in the last days of the kingdom. So you can have a lot of different kinds of tribunes? And the and the answer here again, is we don't know. The The other question I always want to throw out here because we mentioned dictators, that I just want to say the other problem out is living in our sources understand the dictatorship. And thing to understand is, the Romans have the dictatorship from between 501 and 202. The Romans have, I think, 85 dictatorships, involving about 70 individuals some excitement and trying to figure out when they're the same guy or when they're not. After two between 201 and 84, the Romans appoint zero dictators, the office ceases to exist. Sulla then reinvents the dictatorship and it is a completely different bag. It is clear that it functions radically differently. Sulla has way more powers he has the ability to legislate by fiat which dictators don't seem to have earlier on. He can't be countermanded by attribute which dictators do seem even people in the first century seem to have been aware that dictators should be the tillable by attribute but Sulla is not. And so and the appointment process is completely wrong too. So Sulla recreates the dictatorship as a much more absolute, much more powerful office. And that's the dictatorship that Livy knows. Because of course, Caesar uses it again then subsequently, but it is almost unrecognisable from what we see earlier on. And so every time you see a dictator, you also have to ask, is this position anywhere near as powerful as Livy thinks it is. Because the image of the dictator he has in his head, or these late Republican figures where it's a very different institution, separated by more than a century, from what I term, the customary dictatorship, as I like there's, there's a mos maiorum dictatorship, the customary dictatorship, and then there's the Civil War, dictatorship, the sort of late Republican dictatorship, and we should think about these as separate institutions, but the Romans definitely don't. And so you have to ask, how much anachronism Are you getting out of that, too,
Dr Rad 1:11:01 I kind of love the early dictatorships and Livy, because he'll describe, you know, the amazing things that they managed to accomplish, and then he'll be like, and seven days after being appointed dictator he laid down his house, you're like, that was seven days.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:11:15 Right? Well, remember, it's a much smaller community. I know. And as it's funny, is much more tightly entwined, it seems around around the elites around a handful of elite families. So yeah, I mean, like, when there are like 30 families that matter in this society, and you're one of them, and you're given the other 29 gives you absolute power, and everybody can meet on a soccer pitch. Yeah, you can get everything done really quickly. Yeah.
Dr Rad 1:11:41 Bob, it's you for the next few weeks, and then you're done.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:11:45 And the military crisis that you have to resolve is maybe that there are like 600 Guys from that town over there that had been stealing cattle. And so you roll out and you beat them up? And then you're like, and Look what I've done, you know, right, levy again, levy imagines this as major wars, but they aren't necessarily major wars.
Dr Rad 1:12:05 I don't know if you'll get this reference. And I apologise because I'm not sure how familiar American audiences are with Blackadder. Uh, but whenever I talk, okay, good, excellent. Whenever we talk about some of these conflicts, I always imagine that scene in Blackadder are where they have the chunk of turf in the office, and they're like, this is how much territory we won today. What's the scale? 1:1
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:12:26 Yes. No, I mean, and and, I mean, it has to be because Rome is fighting these wars and winning them and losing them and what have you. But the radical Roman expansion doesn't happen until the three hundreds, right? Yeah, Rome, in 406 is not much stronger, wider, more controlling than Rome was in 509. And so like, these conflicts cannot have been very decisive, or there would be no one left.
Dr G 1:12:58 Yeah, this is one of those things where it's like, there's there's must be this bootie exchange going on, where it's like you do some writing, you pick up the stuff that you lost last year? And you're like, Yeah, we got our stuff back. And then they come and raid you. And they steal stuff. Again, you're like, Oh, no. And so this is sort of perpetual, inter neighbour warfare that is going on. So Rome is really small on the Mediterranean stage at this point, that's really clear. And there are some big players, and they are not one of them. But and I think this
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:13:26 moments, the big players are far away. Yes.
Dr G 1:13:29 Yeah. And they're not interested in them.
Dr Rad 1:13:33 Tiny area?
Dr G 1:13:35 Well, I think they they actually want to be big in their tiny area. That's what's clear, but they're not like they're constantly having issues from their literal next door, neighbours. It's not even the guys like one tribe over the hill away. It's the guy on the hill, who's looking down at me
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:13:51 is right there. Exactly. Veii is inside the urban boundaries of the city of Rome as it exists today. Yeah. And like, it's not particularly close. Yeah, Rome is the leading city of Leishan, but lation is not like the hub of Italy. So, you know, Rome is like, you know, we're like, the biggest town in like the third largest region.
Dr G 1:14:16 Wow, guys. Wow.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:14:19 Right. Like, yeah, the real action is clearly either in the Greek states clinging to the southern coast, or the Etruscans. To the north, you know, at this early point, and, and there actually had been, I should note efforts to sort of understand like the early Roman Army as a sort of imitation Etruscan army. This is certainly the lens. I mentioned, Peter Connelly's the lens Peter Connelly takes Jeremy pushes back a little bit on this, which is fair, but the Etruscan influence is clearly not nothing. And it's like well, yeah, their cities are bigger than you and they're stronger than you, like the Etruscans at this point, are telling the Greeks in the Carthaginians to piss off out of their waters pardon my language. and something the Romans are doing, and won't be doing for a while.
Dr G 1:15:04 Yeah. And I think that the idea that somehow Rome is somehow unique, even though it's sitting directly on this sort of southern tip of a curio and a trust and influence. And there's clearly inter crossovers and cultural exchange going on. And if a trust and warfare is something that is happening in a way that they're getting to win, obviously, you're going to adopt that kind of style and tactics in order to combat that.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:15:34 Yeah, it's clear, one thing that we have in in Italy is what the fancy political scientists will call convergence under conditions of interstate anarchy. When you have a whole lot of states that are all fighting in a kind of winner take all brawl. They're in a kind of arms race of militarism, where every successful military innovation is almost immediately copied by all of your neighbours. If folks want to think about more, more recent period, like think, early modern Europe, for this kind of like cockpit of fighting, where like, if that guy now has cannon, you need cannon, and you needed them yesterday, and part of what we see and we see this borne out in Livy's narrative, and I think we may be questioning the particulars, I suspect we can trust the theme is that the Romans are repeatedly put under conditions of military duress, and forced to alter significant social structures to maximise military potential. Yeah, we'll say if there was one genius of the Roman Republic, it is that the Roman ruling class seems never to have missed an opportunity to develop military power. When their neighbours have good weapons, they adopt them. If you need to see it, a little bit of power to the plebeians in order to get their guys in your army. You do that, when the Romans do begin expanding in Italy, what's really striking is most empires conquer their neighbours, and are like, I'm going to get rich by imposing tribute on you, I'm going to put taxes on you. And then I'm going to spend lavishly. And the Romans are like, actually, we're not going to do that we're going to keep our very minimal state budget, we're going to continue funding our own army through our own land tax. So like nothing empires do. Instead, what we want from you is troops, and we want them to arrive equipped, and we would like you to pay them so that you handle all of that. So what we're asking for is like a unit of military power, pre processed for us so that we can use it immediately. And as the Romans expand in Italy, they repeatedly make this decision to structure their arrangements internally and externally in ways that maximise military potential. And in the end, of course, produce the preposterous Roman war machine of the middle Republic that becomes absolutely unstoppable and the Romans bowled over the other great powers. With the exception of Carthage, it ends up looking almost effortless, like only the Carthaginians put up a halfway decent fight. You know, when it comes down to it, outside of Italy, obviously like Paris can get some credit here too. But all of the Romans just like they just drown Paris, in men and equipment, there's like we will keep losing armies until you lose interest. And we we will definitely you will definitely run out of interest before we run out of armies. And I do want to stress because iron arms and armors guide do not think about those kinds of decisions purely in terms of manpower and men. It's not just people, they're throwing out this. It is money. It is equipment, it is animals, horses and Pack Mules. It is supplies for these camps. They are mobilising economic resources on a preposterously staggering scale. But that is all the product of 100 100 decisions, most of which are invisible to us, often presented to us in like these Livy's. And just so stories about Roman virtues that we probably shouldn't trust. But I think the underlying process is clearly happening. And it's a strikingly different decision making process than many other states made. I mean, my mind always jumps to when the Athenians found themselves in possession of an empire. They taxed it and built really big temples in Athens and created social welfare programmes like jury pay. When the Romans find themselves in possession of an empire, their first question is, how can I turn this into more armies to get more empire? Which comes down, of course, I think, to the political motivations. If you're the console, you don't get a triumph for bringing in tax revenue, you get a triumph for winning battles. So your question, whatever resources you have is like, How can I turn these into winning battles? Because that is what my political system rewards and
Dr Rad 1:19:40 even has to be even certain types of battles, right, like ones that are going to be in glory. Like if like, if you're like Crassus and fighting a bunch of slaves, they're like, Oh, good. Thanks for taking care of that.
Dr G 1:19:53 triumph for that one.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:19:54 And the other thing I would note is that by all indication, Rome in Italy is not unique in this militarism race, everybody else is doing this too. And Rome's last big shattering wars before it completes his conquest of the peninsula are against giant federal entities like it the Etruscans all band together to try and stop the Romans, they get a whole bunch of Gauls and Samnites in their coalition to try and contain the Romans. And the moment the Romans are done with that all of the Greek cities pool together invite Pyrrhus of Epirus over and also make a kind of combined effort. Because the same pressures that are working on Rome are working on everybody else. Rome just happened to be the state that mastered the system. But I'm not sure if it had been an interest in state, if it had been another Latin state, if it had been a Samnite. State, I'm not actually sure the system would have looked very different. The one thing I will say is probably unique about the Romans is precisely because they sit on this meeting point of cultures with Latins and Sabines and Etruscans. They do seem to be better at handling Multicultural Alliance systems than just about anybody else. And I suspect that cultural competence comes from their geographic position. Hmm, interesting,
Dr G 1:21:10 interesting. So I think this taps in nicely to the idea that you've touched on, which is the logistics side of things. So one of the things that happens in this early Republican period that we're navigating is they they talk about the way that drawing people out into the Army is maybe a recipe for leaving the fields, which need to be tended by somebody open to becoming fallow to not being harvested properly. And the consequence down the line in the first year is that you don't get a great crop. But the consequence in the second year is that you haven't grown anything at all. And feeding an army is obviously a massive undertaking, as Rome gets bigger and bigger. But these early periods suggests that maybe this is a lesson that they're learning gradually as they go along.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:21:59 Yeah. Although, of course, we also want to be on guard against our sources. This idea of manpower shortage and of leaving the fields on tended, or at least untended by free labour is a major theme in our late authors. And so one wonders is Livy reading the civil wars into his sources and like, well, they're going to war all the time. So clearly, the fields must be empty, this must be the problem. On the other hand, if you're going to war all the time, yeah, you may be straining your labour reserves. And now an army on the march is not supplied from home. Usually in this period. The problem is what I refer to as the tyranny of the waggon equation, although the Romans aren't using waggons. For this, they're using mules, anything in the ancient or indeed, anything in the pre 1800s ad world that moves food eats food, except for sailboats. And so at some point of distance, your army you can't ship food from base to supply them, at least not without tremendous expense. You have to set up magazines and relays and it's a whole thing. And the Romans certainly aren't doing that yet. They will later. The Romans you know, again, by the middle Republic, the Romans are shipping grain across the Mediterranean to support military operations, their logistics become staggeringly sophisticated, not this early though. So instead your armies you can carry a bit of food with you, but not a lot. Who does heavy. So what you do is you pillage the farmlands, you're moving over, you take their food, we know that by the middle Republic. Again, the Roman legion is incredibly sophisticated in this regard that the Roman legion can do the entire wheat processing cycle within it. Um, the Roman soldiers, they carry threshing tools and sickles and portable mills and these are hand Mills there. They are hand mills in my hand.
Dr G 1:23:51 Yeah, it's a bit like a coffee grinder with you. Yes,
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:23:55 it's about a 50 pound stone object though you keep it on the mule. And so Roman army can turn a field of enemy grain into bread on its own. Which is a remarkable logistics advantage. And that capability is clearly central the Roman army and it had to have emerged at some point, would you have needed it to fight ve in 406? No, because you can just bring a lunch. I was gonna say rather than
Dr G 1:24:24 a day's walk away, there'll be fine
Dr Rad 1:24:27 Crunch and sip as you go.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:24:28 But clearly is Roman warfare spreads out the logistical sophistication builds. On the flip side, especially if you're trading raids back and forth with Veii over and over again. You raid their fields, they raid your fields, you're both pulling people out of the fields, and at the same time, you're both wrecking each other's farming. You can see how this would produce food shortages, and I can believe that it did it it is it is worth noting this is a really long standing argument mostly in Greek historiography. That is the story of ancient Greece not the historiography. be written in modern Greek, it is really hard to permanently damage ancient farms. But it is really easy to disrupt them for a year. And so you can absolutely see how this kind of warfare when its high intensity would become disruptive enough to become inconvenient, though, again, having doubts about Livi reading manpower shortages, when these armies may not be large enough to pull that many men, most societies can't get enough people into an army to cause leader labour shortages. The Romans certainly can by the Second Punic War, and that's shocking. But most societies can't. They're simply there, they, they're not well organised enough to recruit that hard. Well, and
Dr Rad 1:25:43 as you highlighted, again, as far as we can tell, from the references we get in source material, slavery was a thing, you know, from very early on, and so the slaves wouldn't necessarily obviously been going off to fight rather not. And so if you're leaving them behind, presumably, Daikon tend to feel?
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:26:02 Yeah, though, of course, awkward questions about how many are exactly? Generally speaking, so one, straight up before like, 225? We don't know. But But generally speaking, and here, there's a lot of scepticism, but I'm Walter Scheidel, and a few arguments kind of laid out like here's got to be what the range is. Italy is, weirdly enough, it seems in in the middle Republic, it is definitely a slave society, but it is perhaps less so than Greece, we might assume maybe about a third of people in Greece are enslaved versus maybe 10 15%, in Rome, in Italy. So you can imagine that not being enough to keep the economy running, that figure will rise dramatically as a result of Roman conquests to something like maybe even 20% 25% By the early Empire, which is probably the peak and then the figure then would begin to fall again, we think, but yes, this is definitely a slave society. And so you do have, you do have labourers who are viewed as unfit for military service. And this is a clear theme for the Romans. If in a crisis, you want to put slaves in the army, you must free them first. Which is really interesting, because you have a lot of other societies that will enrol slaves in the army with the promise of freedom at the end of the campaign. And the Romans are like, no, no, no, no, no. Before you hand, anybody a weapon, they have to be a free person. You cannot have enslaved people in the Army or the Navy, you have to free them first. And you know, that's a sort of striking Roman cultural quirk that probably fits with I mean, the Romans are also a more Manumission slave society than most they be more slaves than most, though, again, so that people don't get the wrong idea, ancient slavery saw, and I just, I don't want people to walk away with too rosy a picture of what was a very ugly institution. Oh, definitely.
Dr Rad 1:27:55 Yeah. All right. Well, this has been absolutely fascinating. I have learned so much, and I do believe you. So just when I say that, to wrap up, we thought it might be a good idea for you to tell us maybe like your top three misconceptions about the early Roman military that you'd love for people to have a more accurate view of,
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:28:20 I'm actually I'm gonna I'm going to have consuls rather than military tribunes with consular powers. Because I think there's sort of twin pitfalls for the Roman army in almost every period. And it's even more true when your evidence is weak. And to the right, the pitfall is excessive modernism, it is the assumption that the Roman army looks like modern armies, and has the values of modern armies. And you get a lot of popular facing stuff, both supposedly nonfiction, but also a lot of historical fiction that reads into like, well, the Romans were basically like Marines, right? Like they had the values of like the US military. I'm going to call it an offer Steven Pressfield. Books are awful for this. Um, he does it to the Greeks too. And it's nonsense. The man has very little grasp on ancient value systems, I'm afraid I'm sorry if you enjoy his books. So that's sort of one pitfall is assuming excessive modernity uniform equipment, that they have values like modern soldiers, as I have been arguing about lately that they view gender issues the way moderns do. And then of course, the other danger is excessive primitivism. That is that falls off on the other side is like, well, these are just kind of like disorganised warrior bands and like no, I mean, these are intelligent thinking human beings who are trying to organise armies and win battles and not die, and they are doing their best to organise that and, you know, at least by the time we get to the middle Republic, the level of sophistication here is significant and it has been developing for some time. And so you I want to resist the idea that these guys are just banging rocks together. And so I mean, I sort of see those as like the twin pitfalls. And then the question is, how do you navigate the difficult space in the middle? And the answer is, I think, to let the sources guide you as much as they can, albeit with your healthy dose of scepticism. Away always.
Dr G 1:30:23 Look, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us. Oh, thanks
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:30:28 for thanks for having me. This
Dr G 1:30:29 was great. This was a real pleasure. And yeah, it's one of these areas, which it is so full of information on the one hand, and so full of questions on the other, that it obviously has this propels a sense of curiosity about like, how do these people live their lives, how is the Roman world really working, and it becomes such an increasing part of what they do and what they ended up having leaving as a legacy. So to be able to understand it better to see where these gaps are emerging? To know what we don't know, I think is really, really, really useful. So thank you so much, again, for coming on the show. Well, and
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:31:08 I don't know, in another 10 or 15 years, when you guys get to the middle Republic, I can come back and talk about that army.
Dr G 1:31:15 Yeah, we'll be so confused by them. They'll be like, oh, man, another battle.
Dr Rad 1:31:22 Talking about like troop movements, my eyes just like glaze over.
Dr G 1:31:26 I think it's pretty clear that from where we're coming from, like our background is more like social history. And and Fiona's is reception. And so thinking about how this really intricate and really sophisticated, important element of the Roman world operates is really useful. So yeah, it's been great.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:31:47 And, and as I as I repeat over and over again, when I talk about military and when I teach military history, social history and military history are not separate, because no army can help but recreate the structures of its societies on the battlefield. Every army does it. Ours, there's all of them. So you have to understand both.
Dr Rad 1:32:09 No, that's a very good point. You made me may be more inspired to learn about military history. I am going to preorder your book
Dr G 1:32:20 Oxford University Press, please put me on your waiting list.
Dr Bret Devereaux 1:32:26 I have to get them a manuscript first. Easy peasy, right? Just a simple thing Yeah.
Dr Rad 1:32:39 Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman, you too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. If monthly patronage is just not your style, we also have merch, a book or you can buy us a coffee on Ko-fi. However, if your Imperial coffers do not overfloweth, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. Why not both? Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
Back in 409 BCE, the Romans had captured the fortifications of Verrugo from their Volscian foe. Unfortunately, in this episode we must discuss the bloody fall of Verrugo.
Episode 147 – The Fall of Verrugo
The Romans had seized Verrugo after Carventum was retaken by the Aequians, allies of the Volscians. Verrugo was located in Volscian territory to the south of Rome. This had seemed like a huge triumph as they had secured lots of booty along with the fort.
In 407 BCE, the garrison that had been left behind sent an urgent message for help, hidden in a small droid. The Romans took their sweet time to send reinforcements. When they arrived, a terrible scene greeted them…
Join us in this short episode on the fall of Verrugo!
Our Players 407 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
L. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat) Cos. 413, 409, Mil. Tr. c. p. 405, 398, 397, 395, 394, 391?
C. Valerius L. f. Volusi n. Potitus Volusus (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c. p. 415, 404
N. (or Cn.) Fabius Q. f. M. n. Vibulanus (Pat) Cos. 421, Mil. Tr. c. p. 415
C. Servilius P. f. Q. n. Ahala (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 408, 402
Our Sources
Dr G reads the Fasti Capitolini and Diodorus Siculus 14.11.5-6, 14.3.1
Dr Rad reads Livy ab Urbe Condita 4.57.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
This transcript has been automatically generated by Otter AI.
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad. And
Dr G 0:30 I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to another episode of the Partial Historians and ancient Roman history podcasts. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad,
Dr G 1:10 and I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:13 Hey, hated Dr G, what's happening?
Dr G 1:16 Oh you know, just sitting down ready to talk about Ancient Rome in all of its glory.
Dr Rad 1:24 We are in an exciting moment, Dr. G, because we've been tracing the journey of Rome from the founding of the city and we are slowly edging our way towards the turn into a new century, which I find very exciting. I don't know why because of course, centuries are arbitrary that, hey,
Dr G 1:39 I think it is exciting. Partly because as historians, we tend to periodize things mentally. So it's like, even though it might not just be another year, it holds a certain significance, because we start to think about, well, we'll call it a different century. And maybe there'll be some different evidence coming through and maybe events will shift who knows what we'll discover.
Dr Rad 2:04 Indeed, now, if you haven't been listening to the podcast up until now, I highly recommend you go back because we've been talking a lot about the conflict of the orders, which is between these two supposes groups, the patricians and plebeians. And quite frankly, we can't read capital here.
Dr G 2:19 It's long and arduous. And let's just say the patricians are probably on the balance still on top.
Dr Rad 2:29 Indeed, and the plebeians are, on the whole, not. So Dr G. We're up to 407 this episode, but before we get into that, what happened in 408 BC? Well,
Dr G 2:43 if my recollection serves 408, was marked by a little bit of military tribunes with consular power, then that gave way to a dictator and his master of the horse.
Dr Rad 2:58 Not without some slappy fighting though.
Dr G 3:00 No, there was there was some upset folk amongst that. But nevertheless, it went ahead. And they headed down to Antium, which is south of Rome, but on the coast. And they took back what I think Rome thought was theirs, which was control of Antium. Because Antium had sort of started to get into a little bit of a situation with the Volscii and the Aequians. And although it seems like they were laughing at those guys, at in any case, there seem to be a confluence of these groups of peoples in the south towards Antium. And Rome was not having that they were like, that's gonna, that looks like collaboration. We're not into that kind of thing. Let's go down and put a stop to that right there. And they did,
Dr Rad 3:49 indeed, with remarkable ease.
Dr G 3:52 So easy that we have no details about the battle. Exactly.
Dr Rad 3:56 Which means that I think it's time for us to dive in to 407 BC.
Dr G 4:18 It's 407 BCE. What a time to be alive.
Dr Rad 4:24 It is now I did. I did give a bit of a spoiler last time, which is that we know that we've got military tribunes with consular power, which means there is a possibility for the plebeians. But once again, I did ruin it by saying that they weren't going to be any elected. So we know it's going to be all patricians. all the time.
Dr G 4:42 Patricians all the way down. So we get four of them voted in as military tribunes with consular power for 407.
Dr Rad 4:50 Indeed, now I also did let slip that they all have previous experience in this position
Dr G 4:56 they do which kind of suggests that Rome whether our animalistic sources are telling us or not seems to suggest that Rome in this period, maybe had some military qualms, and were concerned about things that were going on in the general neighbourhood. So maybe they wanted some experienced players in there. I
Dr Rad 5:16 think they had an evil plan. I think Rome was planning to take over the world and by the world I mean, some more tearing
Dr G 5:28 things next door at the very least.
Dr Rad 5:32 God dammit, I want those things next door.
Dr G 5:36 I see whatsoever on that fence. The grass is greener, and I shall have it
Dr Rad 5:40 that we mark we mark but by this point, Rome is actually the preeminent power in this area at this point in time.
Dr G 5:49 They are they seem to be consistently winning now. At least from what we've seen from the last few years. That wasn't true before. No.
Dr Rad 5:59 And like the Etruscans are They're more just there. They're not like, you know,
Dr G 6:04 oh, well, let's Look for that one too much. Wait for it, guys.
Dr Rad 6:08 Like they did they are there but they're not like menacing Rome really.
Dr G 6:13 They haven't come south for some rains for a little while. No, like, anyway, we'll see. We'll see. I'm looking forward to what happens in this year because all I have is a great passage to read out to you from Diodorus Siculus yet again. And in terms of evidence, literally the FastI Capitolini Which I've supplemented as always with Broughton, who I adore. Yeah, so our military tributes are Lucius Furius Medullinus. A Furii.
Dr Rad 6:47 Yeah. Now we have met this particular Furii before I believe we
Dr G 6:52 certainly have and very recently as well, he was previously consul in 413. And also in 409, which was not that long ago. No,
Dr Rad 7:02 and that was the big you and everyone was very upset because a plebeian being actually got somewhere. How
Dr G 7:07 How dare they? Very rude. Then we have Gaius Valerius Volusi Potitus Volusus.
Dr Rad 7:17 Another familiar name.
Dr G 7:18 Indeed. So he was previously consequent 410. Yeah. And also a military Tribune with consular power in 415. Hmm.
Dr Rad 7:28 So he swings both ways. He
Dr G 7:30 doesn't mind what you call the position as long as he gets it.
Dr Rad 7:35 Oh, yeah.
Dr G 7:38 That kind of guy. We have a guy who's praenomen is up for grabs, but only because Livy is wrong. I know.
Dr Rad 7:49 Shocking, shocking. So that's fine.
Dr G 7:54 Majority of sources for this period suggest that he's probable nomen is going to be Numerius. Okay, but Livy seems to think it might be Gnaeus.
Dr Rad 8:08 Well, I mean, isn't that just fitting in with the whole idea that he has numerous praenomens.
Dr G 8:18 I have sad news listeners. I have to retire from this podcast now. So we've got Numerius or Gnaeus Fabius Vibulanus, okay, previously consul in 421 and military tribune with consular power in 415. So an old colleague of our Volusus friends friends indeed are friends in indeed, yeah. And finally, to round out this group of four is Gaius Servilius. Ahala.
Dr Rad 8:53 Well colour me completely unsurprised.
Dr G 8:57 Yeah. This guy's back for the second year in a row. Yes.
Dr Rad 9:00 But he made quite a splash last year. So yeah, I'm not surprised. I understand that the Romans probably like him very much. Indeed. It certainly would seem that way. Yeah, I mean, Livy's explicitly says that Ahala was reelected because he was just so awesome.
Dr G 9:19 It makes sense. I mean, he done a great job being the sensible one of the military tribunes and 408 and was rewarded with his upgrade to master of the horse for being sensible. So everybody knows he's a good egg and are very reliable at this point.
Dr Rad 9:36 Well, yes, everyone patrician but sure.
Dr G 9:40 ruin the illusion.
Dr Rad 9:44 I got my elite goggles on. I'm ready.
Dr G 9:47 So that's basically all I
Dr Rad 9:50 know. This whole year. All right. Oh, good. Let's get into it. Okay, so this is going to be a little bit confusing, I think for the next we'll actually Probably the next 20 years, but maybe particularly now. So Livy tells me that this is the year in which the truce that room had with they runs out. As I as we've noted that after, you know, quite a lot of shuffling, things have been fairly quiet on the Etruscan front, you know, up until now, like it's hasn't been too bad. And they is definitely a part of that Etruscan northern people. They're not united as we know, they are, they all have their own little thing going on there. But they obviously share culture. They, however, is the one that we keep coming back to probably because it's obviously like the closest to Rome. Indeed.
Dr G 10:47 So Veii is considered one of the southernmost points of a Etrurian influence in terms of established city. Yeah. And it's like they do have a sort of remit of influence that goes further south than that to a certain extent. But this is their last sort of big settlement to the south.
Dr Rad 11:06 Yeah. Now, the reason why I say this is going to be a bit confusing is that there is there I should perhaps say, questions about the dating of this. So as you highlighted, actually, in previous episodes, the timing and other sources like diet or set we've been seeing for a few episodes, now, it doesn't really always match up with what Livy's is saying. And it does actually say that levy is potentially wrong. It seems like they've maybe tweaked the dates a little bit, because they've wanted things to happen at particular time. Oh,
Dr G 11:46 what? interference with the source material? Livy, what are you doing?
Dr Rad 11:52 I Look, it's it's probably also the fact that as we know, there's you know, like, not the best source material probably for this time period. So what's the year here or there between friends when the source material is patchy and unreliable anyway? Yeah. So is actually quite likely that the truce, potentially doesn't happen in this year.
Dr G 12:16 Like that, as in the truce doesn't run out?
Dr Rad 12:19 Yeah, yeah. Okay. It doesn't seem to quite add up. At this point in time. This is what we're dealing with. So let's just run with it. So the Romans want to, you know, find out what's going on and probably renew it, I suppose. And they want to do it in a very formal way. They want to make sure everything's correct. So they're sending out ambassadors and the fetiales strategy. Oh,
Dr G 12:43 I think that's a good idea. If you want to get something done properly, it's got to be right in the eyes of the gods.
Dr Rad 12:49 Indeed, if you could, perhaps remind us what the fetiales are.
Dr G 12:53 The sweet fetiales? Well, we haven't heard from them in a while, and haven't but I suspect that that is not because they've not been doing anything, I suspect, it's because our narrative sources have just sort of passed over them and assume that the reader understands that they're turning up to things. So these guys operate as a pair, usually. And they're very involved in making sure that if a conflict is likely to occur, that the signs are right with the gods, that Rome will be victorious. So they go out and they're looking for things. And usually, if the situation is looking a little bit dire, and it looks like war is going to happen, they'll get pretty dressed up, one of them will, where they're very formal attire, the other one will be a bit more plain, and they'll start doing eating again, sequence. Yeah, you know, a little bit of purple, a little bit of gold, you know, you gotta Look good. And they will deliberately walk towards me enemy territory. And they're both looking for signs, and they're also reciting certain things. So they're making sort of a ritual gesture, everything about the sort of the speaking component of this is really important. If you're a priest, you always wanted to have very clear and precise enunciation of words, it becomes one of the ways in which you communicate appropriately with the gods. So they'll get to the edge of Roman controlled territory, and the enemy territory and they'll recite appropriately be like, you know, this is a situation we call upon the gods, you know, bow down to Rome, etc, etc. If not, war is coming for you. And then they'll proceed into that territory and keep reciting that kind of thing at intervals until they get to the city itself. So ultimately, the ambassadors are kind of like your diplomatic mission, and they probably have gone on ahead to sort of negotiate and work out some terms, and then the fetiales turn up and that's kind of the time where negotiations should have been concluded by now. The enemy should have a good idea that they're not going to make war with Rome appropriately and would respond in kind to the press. Slowly sort of incantations that are being offered to them, if they don't wash alphabets, if the signs are good, and ruin doesn't get the response that's required, it's time sending the armed forces. I think the very worst thing anybody could do would be to kill the fetiales. If they turned up in enemy territory, that would be a huge issue.
Dr Rad 15:19 Yeah, that's like killing the Red Cross or something. Yeah.
Dr G 15:23 So we don't have a report of that. At least not yet. But I guess we'll find out soon.
Dr Rad 15:28 All right, well, I actually kind of love the way that this is all playing out. Because it's very much like the Romans are like, cool. I got to renew my car insurance, better get ahead of that. Because the Romans trotting out with their little band of people. And when they get to the frontier of I guess they're tearing their respective territories, because of course, there has been conflict between these guys in the past. And I think they know very well, where, you know, their sphere of influences are they actually run into an embassy from Veii? Oh,
Dr G 15:57 that's convenient. Again,
Dr Rad 16:00 I just love the fact that they're both like, Well,
Dr G 16:03 wait a minute. Are you coming to see me? Because I'm coming to see you. Yeah,
Dr Rad 16:07 it's been 20 years now. Yeah. So they say, Look, would you mind not going to Vegas right now, we'd really like to speak to the Roman Senate first. Oh, interesting. So the Romans agree the Senate agree to say that because apparently everybody knows that they is having some embarrassing domestic problems.
Dr G 16:31 Ooh, somebody pooedtheir pants? Well, if
Dr Rad 16:35 we've learned anything from doing this podcast up to God, we have learned that room would kick somebody when they're down. And so at least that's what they seem to think about themselves. And so they're like, there would be no honour in dealing with Veii right now, because they're having internal problems. And we respect that
Dr G 16:55 as a place that has many internal problems ourselves.
Dr Rad 17:00 Indeed, yes. And now, apparently, this is kind of backed up with what we know. Now, as you know, Dr. G, we don't have great sources from an Etruscan perspective. Like, there's some archaeology and you know, there's bits and pieces, and there's stuff that rocks, you know, that turns up in our room and sources or programmers sources, but we don't have like long narrative histories from an Etruscan point of view, which is a real shame. However, it does seem like there was potentially some internal unrest, and that this does have something to do with the fact that the Etruscans do start to peter out.
Dr G 17:41 Okay. So as far as we're aware, at this point in time, the last time that we really, or at least the last time, I really remember Veii, it was the issue with Lars Tolumnius. And he's one of the Etruscan kings, and he was his remit was included Veii. So the fact that they lost one of their key leaders, they don't, maybe they've not necessarily bounced back from that in a strong way. Look, it
Dr Rad 18:08 could be that but apparently, a trust in society does seem to have been quite classist. And this may have contributed to additional internal problems, as well as the fact that you know, that King got pretty severely killed anyway. But for now, room is like, yeah, no problems. Well, we'll chat we'll chat you know, later, no problems. So now we switch to the other people with a V that we've been talking about, Volscians, ah, the Romans, as we know, have recently conquered a place called Verrugo.
Dr G 18:45 But that that name will never not make me laugh, Verrugo.
Dr Rad 18:51 Verrugo, I go! So the garrison that they had left behind to hold Verrugo sent a message saying, Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. Yeah. Now, there was a chance that the Romans, of course, could have managed to tough this out, make it work. But unfortunately, the relief horses that they sent just didn't arrive in time, which makes me think that the Romans when they received the urgent message, were like, Can I just finish my snack and I've only got like five minutes left in the TV show. And then I've just got to have a quick shower and change. Oh, my God, where did I put my shoes and umbrella, it looks like it's going to rain and I can't leave until I found my umbrella. But anyway, by the time the Romans show up, the Volscians, busy plundering away after having slaughtered the Roman garrison. That is not good. Yeah. Again, apart from my, my little aside, that actually the reason that caused them to be a bit slow, was to do with of course, the leadership, the military tribunes and this Senate, they had heard That, obviously they needed help, because well, they're the people that the message was addressed to. But they seem to have kind of overlooks the fact that a garrison is just a small force and therefore, they weren't going to be able to hold out, you know, indefinitely. Okay, so they just kind of were they were in a rush. Yeah, they will just go. Yeah, we'll get around to it.
Dr G 20:21 Yeah, that's a garrison there. That's what really we have a military presence. It'd be fun. Yeah. Because the Volscii have
Dr Rad 20:28 exactly like, Look how easily we defeated them just a year ago, maybe not even a year ago.
Dr G 20:33 I see. So yeah, maybe a little bit of hubris, and maybe a little bit of miscalculation, perhaps.
Dr Rad 20:40 But of course, such a horrific outcome. Could not be overlooked up today. No,
Dr G 20:47 it's embarrassing. I mean, if room wants to say face, they really do need to retake for rugo. Now,
Dr Rad 20:53 they really do. And that's going to take me into 406 BCE.
Dr G 20:58 Ooh okay. Well, before we launch into 406 vc, yes. Let me introduce you to what I think is so far, the greatest passage of Diodorus Siculus. Oh, please. So he starts a new book, that oh, it comes into this year, okay. And this frames, everything. So he kind of is like putting a nice little present around this new book. So I just want to read the opening to you, which is it, it's reasonably long, but I think it's fine. And then I'll give you a little bit of insight into like the sort of broader politics that are happening here. Okay, so over to Diodorus and I quote, All men, perhaps naturally, are disinclined to listen to obloquy keys that are uttered against them. Indeed, even those whose evil doing is in every respect, so manifest that I cannot even be denied. Nonetheless, deeply resented when they are the objects of censure, and endeavour to make a reply to the accusation. Consequently, all men should take every possible care not to commit any evil deed, and those especially who aspire to leadership, or have been favoured by some striking gift or fortune. For since the life of such men is in all things, an open book because of that distinction, it cannot conceal its own on wisdom. Let no man therefore, who has gained some kind of preeminence, cherished the hope that if he commits great crimes, he will for all time escaped notice and go uncentered. For even if during his own lifetime, he alludes the sentence of rebuke, let him expect that at a later time, Truth will find him out. Frankly, proclaiming abroad matters long hidden from mention. It is therefore a hard fate for wicked men, that at their death, they leave to posterity an undying image, so to speak, of their entire life, for even if those things that follow after death do not concern us, as certain philosophers keep chanting. Nevertheless, the life which has preceded death becomes far worse throughout all time, for the evil memory that it enjoys. Manifest examples of this may be found by those who read the detailed story contained in
Dr Rad 23:17 this book. I love that that would be quite the thing to read to, oh, I don't know, all politicians,
Dr G 23:26 I think so. I feel like there's a real resonance for the world as it stands right now. And there are many people who would have benefited from thinking about this lesson.
Dr Rad 23:35 You know, I'm gonna throw in leaders of large corporations and small ones and medium sized ones to
Dr G 23:44 in fact, anybody in a position of power will benefit from this advice,
Dr Rad 23:48 absolutely. Parents too, what the hell.
Dr G 23:52 So this is whatever is coming up in Diodorus. And it's not going to be really about Rome, I would hazard a guess because he tends to lay it nearly gives them like one sentence every couple of years, and moves on to other things. But this is a really big time for Athens in particular. So in Diodorus is narrative we're in about 404 – 403 BCE, and this means that although the Peloponnesian War is over, we're immediately thrown into the situation with the Spartan oligarchy known as the 30 tyrants. Ooh, let
Dr Rad 24:28 me have talks about this. Yeah. Which is pretty
Dr G 24:31 bad. Yeah. And that's the thing that's happening. Meanwhile, in other gossipy news, for those who are interested in a little bit of Greek history, the really famous or infamous Alcibiades ides of Athens is put to death by Pharnabazus. A satrap of King Darius in Persia. So that doesn't go well. Also, this is the year where We lose the philosopher Democritus. For those interested in nature and philosophy. He had a good innings, he got to 90, it's not so bad. And also we do get a mention of, again, I'll quote in Italy, the Roman garrison of Erruca in brackets Verrugo. He doesn't know the name of the place. A city of the Volscii was attacked by the enemy, who captured the city in slew most of the defenders.
Dr Rad 25:29 This is very true. And that it has been well correct apart from the name of the
Dr G 25:34 plane. So correct except for not knowing where it is, what it's called. But yeah, he gives one whole sentence to that situation.
Dr Rad 25:46 I love it.
Dr G 25:47 So we will say that it's a cliffhanger episode right now.
Dr Rad 25:53 Yeah, so unfortunately, I know you're dying to know how the Romans are going to deal with this situation in Verrugo. But I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait to the next episode. Because 406 is so gigantic, that if we talked about it now, you'd be here for like, the next two hours, I think.
Dr G 26:09 We certainly don't want to deprive you of that. But we're gonna give it its own two hour slot in the future.
Dr Rad 26:14 We will all right, Dr. G. Well, that means that it's time for the partial pick
Dr G 26:18 up boy. Miscellaneous ego noise here. It's the partial pick, it is the time where we rank Rome, against its own qualities, the things that it values most. So there are five categories each are possible to get 10 Golden Eagles in so that means if room is doing its very best to be its best self, it'll get 50 Golden Eagles.
Dr Rad 26:43 Look, I'm not gonna lie. I feel like we've kind of set room up for failure here. Not a lot happening. And four, seven, certainly not a lot to their advantage. And they've would I think, have had a more interesting score if we'd been able to do them together, but it's just not gonna happen. We're just gonna have to, you have to cop it on the chin.
Dr G 27:03 I think there'll be fine. They'll survive. Yeah. All right. So
Dr Rad 27:06 what's our first category Dr G?
Dr G 27:07 Our first category is military clout? Definitely. No. That is a big no. What they do is what they dilly dally, and they leave their garrison unsupported.
Dr Rad 27:21 And they all get killed.
Dr G 27:24 Even Diodorus noticed, that's how bad it is.
Dr Rad 27:28 Exactly, exactly. I feel like yeah, it being corroborated is reassuring. Okay.
Dr G 27:33 So 00 Okay, diplomacy.
Dr Rad 27:38 Okay. Now, there is something to work with here. Because the Romans actually seem to be trying quite hard to get along with they.
Dr G 27:45 Yeah, I think there is something to be said for them accepting that they will receive those ambassadors from Veii rather than just powering on with sending their own and talking at cross purposes.
Dr Rad 27:58 Yeah. And they're also imagining that they are a kind and fair people. Cute. So I Look, I'd be willing to give them an aid for that. Well, I mean, it's some diplomacy. Like we very rarely see this.
Dr G 28:10 Yeah. I mean, it's some diplomacy. It's not like they've conceded anything. They've just said, Sure. We'll listen to you.
Dr Rad 28:19 But then they were like, Look, we know you're having issues and you don't want to talk right now. So we'll give you some personal time.
Dr G 28:26 What more could one ask from a friend?
Dr Rad 28:28 Okay, I'll go for like a six. How about a six?
Dr G 28:31 I think that's far more reasonable. I can. Six. Okay. The third category is expansion. Definitely
Dr Rad 28:40 not. It looks like they're facing some serious reverses. If anything, they've slightly contracted. Oh, they definitely have. Yeah. So that would be a zero. Yep. All right.
Dr G 28:51 We're to us now. Yes, good old fashioned Roman virtue is not on display here. I don't think we get enough sort of characters coming through in our source material right now to make an assessment. So I think we have to give them nothing. Exactly. And finally the citizen score.
Dr Rad 29:11 Well, Look, they're not technically at war, but I don't feel like citizens would feel great about the whole vertigo situation. I mean, it's their countrymen that are being slain, seemingly because the Senate and the military Tribunes forgot that a garrison is not a large army.
Dr G 29:31 Wow. Oh, maybe they just thought oh, who knows?
Dr Rad 29:36 I probably more being overly confident in their room and numbness but you know,
Dr G 29:42 alright, so it's not a great time to be a citizen. But it's not the worst time there hasn't been like a forced levee. Some people have died, but not a lot of people have died because they didn't send any backups. So
Dr Rad 29:57 not yet. But Look, I'm willing to only give it like too seriously, because we just don't get enough information like it's what's to say, Yeah, I'm fine with that. Okay. That means after Dr G that the Romans have finished 407, on a grand total of eight out of 50 Golden Eagles. Oh,
Dr G 30:14 now that is, yes, this is what happens when you only Look at a single year without a lot of source material. It's
Dr Rad 30:22 true. But you know what it was worth it to hear that passage from Diodorus
Dr G 30:26 Diodorus. I I'm like he's given us a really sort of nice sort of moral outlook for what is to come. And I know, although he's not very interested in Roman history, necessarily, that it stands as good advice to all those who achieved positions of power. How do you want to be remembered for your legacy? How do you want your memory to come through in subsequent times? Those things that you think you're getting away with? Now, we'll come back to count against your memory?
Dr Rad 30:57 Unless, of course, because world leaders and corporations are failing to do as much as they need to on climate change. History ceases to exist with humans.
Dr G 31:10 Yeah, Look, let us pray and hope and take a local action wherever we can to do our best to ward off such a fate.
Dr Rad 31:20 There definitely like let's face it, climate change doesn't mean that, you know, if we fail to act enough, which we are, it doesn't mean that humans are going to be extinct like that. And therefore miss deeds will be remembered, at least for our future.
Dr G 31:36 They certainly will. And we can we can see the globe changing all the time in terms of its climate. So yeah, and
Dr Rad 31:43 the good news is we actually have all the technology and all the science that we need, what we the only thing we're really lacking is action.
Dr G 31:52 Action. Yeah, moral leadership.
Dr Rad 31:56 Indeed. Well, on that very philosophical note, Dr. G
Dr G 32:00 it has been a pleasure to chat as always.
Dr Rad 32:13 Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. We always like to thank our beloved Patreon but today we would like to give a special shout out to some lovely people who bought us a coffee on cofee. Tina, Jackie and Anne Marie. Thank you so much for your caffeinated thoughts. However, if you're feeling like your currency has been devalued by an evil Emperor, then please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. And that goes for our book as well. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
In this episode, the people of Antium start provoking the Aequians and the Volscians into war with Rome by calling them COWARDS. How else could they respond but to say, “Nobody calls me chicken!”
Episode 146 – Nobody Calls Me Chicken!
With the Antiates, Volscians and Aequians ganged up against them, the Romans decide it’s time for a dictator! Not all of the military tribunes were terribly happy with this decision. Ahala seems to have been the only magistrate who could put the state before his own ambitions.
As a reward for being such a dazzling military tribune, Ahala was chosen to serve as master of the horse, the assistant to the dictator.
Leaving his grumbling colleagues behind, Ahala and the dictator headed off to face the foe.
Tune in to hear how the Romans fare against THREE of their rivals.
Patricians resorting to incredibly desperate measures
Smug tribunes of the plebs
Dr G having a small identity crisis
Armpit farts
A mosaic of roosters fighting. Nobody calls them chicken! Courtesy of Amphipolis on Flickr.
Our Players 408 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
C. Iulius Sp. f. Vopisci n. Iullus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 405
P. Cornelius A. f. M. n. Cossus (Pat)
C. Servilius P. f. Q. n. Ahala (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 407, 402.
Dictator
P. Cornelius M. f. L. n. Rutilus Cossus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 405
Master of the Horse
C. Servilius P. f. Q. n. Ahala (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 408, 407, 402
Our Sources
Dr G reads the Fasti Capitolini and Diodorus Siculus 13.104.1, 13.108.2, 13.109.
Dr Rad reads Livy ab Urbe Condita 4.56.
Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press).
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Sound Credits
Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of Orange Free Sounds.
Automated Transcript.
This transcript was automatically generated by Otter AI.
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad. And
Dr G 0:30 I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 1:04 Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of your favourite ancient Roman History podcast. The partial historians I am Dr. Rad
psych it's a new year.
I'm Dr. G
Dr Rad 1:30 Excellent. And I am Dr Rad. I am a very confused little Dr Rad.
Dr G 1:36 I was just thinking, you know, new year we'll switch it up. We'll see if anybody notices you notice straight away though.
Dr Rad 1:43 Well, you know, it's a fairly distinctive name. I've had it all my life.
Dr G 1:48 Well, well, well.
Dr Rad 1:52 Well, welcome back. Dr. G. We are indeed in a new year. It's 2024.
Dr G 1:57 At time of recording, yes,
Dr Rad 2:01 it is a time of recording. And in terms of tracing the journey of room from the founding of the city. We had a very big episode last episode where we were talking about 409 BCE.
Dr G 2:16 Yeah, not only is this like the landmark year that marks this first century of the Roman Republic, but oh, boy, was it full of plebeian action.
Dr Rad 2:28 It was indeed, I believe that after some lengthy handwringing, and some classic conflict of the orders narrative, we did finally get a plebeian into the quaestorship.
Dr G 2:42 That's madness. It's crazy. I won't stand for it.
Dr Rad 2:46 Please, well, just going to end I mean, that's all equality ever really needs, isn't it?
Dr G 2:51 It's all over guys. I don't know how the patricians are going to hold up anymore. There's not enough fast cars or enough muscle to get them through this.
Dr Rad 3:00 They certainly did Look at it as a sign that the world was about to end,
Dr G 3:04 indeed, but I don't think it has fallen apart completely. Because we're here to talk about what happens after 409.
Dr Rad 3:11 We will the privilege maintain their position of privilege? Or will they have to concede more to whoever mysterious people that will be? And actually,
Dr G 3:25 I guess we'll find out. The other thing that's running parallel to this whole situation is what appears to be an expanded conflict with the Aequians and the Volscians. So Rome is going through a bit of a military upheaval.
Dr Rad 3:39 They are indeed I mean, we've talked about these guys on and off, you know, for a while now, but it does seem to be particularly flaring up at this point in the century.
Dr G 3:51 Indeed. So with that sort of background in place, I think we might be ready to step into 408 BC.
Dr Rad 4:00 408 BCE. Now, Dr. G, I'm presuming Dionysius is still keeping his distance from you.
Dr G 4:27 That man is hiding from me in his fragments, and I don't know what is going on.
Dr Rad 4:33 Oh, Dr. G, has no narrative source material once again. I'll bet you anything. She can tell us who the magistrates are for this year.
Dr G 4:42 Yeah, Look, I mean, it's not so bad. I can tell you things like who's who? I do have the Fasti Capitolini, which is the ultimate guide to who's who as far as most of us are concerned. And I have some little snippets from Diodorus Siculus as well. So we'll get to those in due course. Okay. Okay. But we start off with a year where military tribunes with consular power appear to have been voted in. Yes. And we have three of these guys this year. Yes, we have Gaius Iulius Vopisci Iullus. A patrician. We have Publius Cornelius Cossus a patrician. Yeah. And a Gaius Servilius Ahala, a patrician.
Dr Rad 5:31 Well, Dr. G, I can't say that I'm surprised. But given the way the patricians were carrying on last time, I really thought that maybe this was going to be the year when finally we were going to slee or see a plebeian elected into this position. But now, once again, I am amazingly disappointed.
Dr G 5:53 It's too soon. The quaestorship is one thing but how dare the plebeians attempt to make a grab for anything beyond this station?
Dr Rad 6:02 That's clearly what the patricians were worried about last episode, they thought that, you know, the quaestorship was, you know, just a stepping stone and it was all going to be downhill from here, as far as they were concerned, whereas for the plebeians it seemed to be very much uphill from here.
Dr G 6:16 There does seem to be a sense in which there might be multiple issues at play, though, because usually, when the patricians become quite scared of plebeians rising in influence and power in an official capacity, they opt for the consulship as a deliberate move, to lock out plugins. So we've got this kind of understanding that's given to us through our annalistic sources. Obviously, there are some question marks there. But the consulship is still the preserve of the leads, and that if a plebeian were to get into a high position, that would include a military command, it would be as a military tribute with consular power. That's, that's one of the rationales that's been put forward for why this position developed in the first place. Yeah. And yet, on the back of 409, where we see a rise in plebeians coming into the quaestorship, we now see that 408 has military tribunes with consular power. So is it there's military issues on the horizon that Rome is concerned about, and they're going to take a risk because they haven't opted for the consulship? Here.
Dr Rad 7:24 Now, remember that last episode, that was a point of contention, and the patricians were dead against this idea, because of the reasons you have outlined, but at least I suppose the plebeians had the opportunity. Someone elected once again and yet, didn't take it. It's
Dr G 7:44 like how you had your chances, plebeians and yet fluffed it?
Dr Rad 7:49 Well, I mean, Look, this is where we have to get back to the voting system, of course, as far as we can understand it, which of course, we may not be able to, because we may not really have an accurate record of what exactly was happening in order to get elected at this point in time. But I think we've talked before about the fact that the voting system is also rigged against people who are poor. Now, plebeians aren't necessarily poor. That is, but if we're talking about there being a more nuanced class divide, as we have before, where you may have wealthy plebeians who are actually voting along with patricians because their interests actually align more with the wealthy, regardless of whether they're patrician or plebeians, and then you've got maybe a sizable group of plebeians who aren't as economically stable or whatever. Yeah, that might lead to issues in the voting system, which might have been simplified over time. That's one possible way of looking at it.
Dr G 8:53 For sure, and I think this is the sort of thing where networking and your allegiances through society become one of those things as well. The patricians have a very particular network. And I would say that the plebeians are probably trying to build those kinds of networks, but maybe aren't necessarily getting themselves across the line with the amount of influence they need for these electoral processes to work out in their favour. Oh,
Dr Rad 9:19 absolutely. And that's really I think, what this whole suppose and conflict of the orders is all about really, it's not really about whether you're patrician and plebeian in a sense, it's about the level of privilege that you have and the amount of opportunities that are open to you. Hmm,
Dr G 9:34 well, on that note, yeah, not only do we have military attributes with consular power, but I have to assume that something does happen this year. Because we also get a dictator and their companion a master of the horse. So Publius Cornelius Rutilus Cossus Hmm, possibly a relation of the military tribune with consular power, Publius Cornelius Cossus.
Dr Rad 10:08 Disturbingly similar,
Dr G 10:09 very similar, very similar. It comes into the dictatorship. Now, I'm assuming that you might be able to tell me the story about how and why that will come about. Oh,
Dr Rad 10:22 live, you might have told me a thing or two.
Dr G 10:25 Well, well, well. And he also brings with him one of the military tributes with constellar power, guys. Servilius Ahala, the armpit brings him across from that roll into being his master of the horse, just
Dr Rad 10:41 in case people haven't listened to that episode, which was a while ago. Now. She's not just calling this guy in here. It's not like a horrible slur. That's what made me that's
Dr G 10:52 that's definitely yeah, I'm just running with the Latin guys. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's put the armpit in power. Sure. Why not?
Dr Rad 11:01 Well, this is interesting, actually. Because I mean, if we go back in time, briefly, Dr. G, it wasn't Ahala. He was involved in a very dramatic series. I can't even remember how long ago it was, was it last year? Was it even the year before? I think I think it might have been the year before 2022, that we were talking about the Ahala that really put this family on the math? Yes,
Dr G 11:24 I think it's around about 439. BCE, or 431, somewhere in there, at least, nearly 20 years ago, by Roman standards, and maybe a couple of years ago by our own.
Dr Rad 11:37 And it kind of makes sense that this family is, you know, starting to creep back into the records a little bit because just to give everyone a very brief overview, the Ahala that we enjoyed talking about so much before, was involved in the scandal around the nacho king of Rome
Dr G 11:54 Spurius Maelius. Yes, yeah,
Dr Rad 11:57 there was this whole issue. To be honest, we couldn't really figure out what on earth was going on. But it kind of seemed like an attempt by someone who wasn't from the patrician class to curry favour, or, or he was maybe given power, and the patricians were like, oh, hell, either way, this guy ended up being essentially murdered in broad daylight. And the guy that seems to have done the murdering was Ahala. Well,
Dr G 12:23 and there's some speculation that he got his name from that moment, because he had gone into the forum with a hidden weapon under his arm.
Dr Rad 12:32 Indeed, indeed. And the upshot of that was that he had to leave room. It's interesting that he's, I mean, this isn't the same guy, obviously.
Dr G 12:43 No, but the family is clearly back. Yes, but yeah, definitely
Dr Rad 12:47 after that whole incident and the leaving of room and that sort of thing. We definitely didn't mention that name, you know, for a while, but now it's starting to creep back in a little bit.
Dr G 12:57 Yeah, they've returned and they ready to take their place in the top tier of political spots.
Dr Rad 13:03 They have spawned a generation has passed in Roman times.
Dr G 13:07 So what does happen this year? How do we get a dictator please tell me I've like I've been like tenterhooks of suspense being like, Oh, I got two names.
Dr Rad 13:18 What an excellent question. Well, let's go back to the elections for a moment, shall we? This question of military Tribune with consular power. So Livy very smugly says that although technically, in 409, the plebs won the battle to have elections for military Tribunes, rather than consuls as you outlined for the various reasons. The patricians were the real winners in the end, because of course, only patricians got elected. Ha, ha, ha. actually knew I need to make that more upper class. Chortle Chorle Chortle.
Dr G 13:50 I was gonna say, I would like you need to be holding a glass of whiskey give me Oh,
Dr Rad 13:54 I definitely am. I sparked up a Cuban. Yeah, so obviously, we have our tribunes he got elected. So the way that the way that this happened, it wasn't just what we've seen before, which is that Livy keeps telling me that, well, sure the plebeians are technically able to elect a fellow clap to this position. But why would they? I mean, how can they be persuaded to do that when there are all these amazing blue blooded candidates standing out there that dazzled by the blue blood, Dr. G, and the diamonds on the soles of their shoes? Well,
Dr G 14:29 Look, I mean, if somebody had diamonds on the soles of their shoes, I would be bamboozled.
Dr Rad 14:33 So instead, what had happened in this particular case, is that the patricians being worried obviously, because of course, they're probably in getting this position would be the actual end of the world, not just a sign that the end of the world was coming. They and I'm quoting directly here, mix some unworthy competitors with the deserving. So yeah, basically, it was like a ruse to to choose and people that clearly weren't going to appeal weren't going to get elected and sort of confuse the voters. So they didn't, they didn't just put forward rubbish candidates or like allow rubbish candidates to run. But they made sure that it was confusing enough that a puppy and would not to get elected. Okay,
Dr G 15:19 so you want to stick with the safe bet? You're like, oh, there's a lot of names in here. I'm not sure if I know these people. I'm just gonna go with the ones I recognise. I think
Dr Rad 15:30 they actually do know these people. I think they know that these people are crap. And so because I presume I mean, this is where knowing a little bit more about how elections actually work would be helpful, I guess. But I think it's by mate. Somehow the patricians and I don't really understand how they did this, but I guess they must have some control over organising the election. I guess they just made sure that all of the plebeians who were running when not great choices. Interesting.
Dr G 16:02 All right. So this would make sense. On some level, I think you're right to assume that the patricians are largely in charge of organising elections. I think this is a delegated function. How that actually looks right now, in this very early period of the Republic, I don't think we're quite sure. But it would make sense for magistrates to organise and lead that and that's certainly how it develops later on. Yes. Hmm. Interesting.
Dr Rad 16:34 The plebeians aren't fooled by this entirely. I mean, obviously, they're full enough, not for beginners. But when I say plebeians, I mean the Iciii. they reenter our story, Dr. G, excellent. Yes. Now the Icilii are a very prominent plebeian family who apparently were like the only people worthy of being named the plebeian side of things last fsra because they tend to pop up in our sauces when there is a particularly big moment or a huge development in terms of patrician plebeian relations taking place. And last episode definitely was what with you know, a plebeian becoming auaestor, and, you know, then all the conflict of the order stuff that ensued as a result of that. Yeah, they do become
Dr G 17:23 synonymous with probably in uprisings and sort of movements and shifts for power from the plebeian side.
Dr Rad 17:33 Yes, but the patricians very carefully had arranged it so that we apparently had three of the Icilii as tribunes of the plebs last episode.
Dr G 17:44 I mean, I don't know if I believe that, but okay.
Dr Rad 17:49 Yeah, I mean, this is what we're told that I mean, I like to believe it, because if we don't believe it, then who's trailing the senators or the consuls you know, trench coats and spying on them? Yeah, exactly. Which is apparently what happened. But anyway, so the Icilii are aware of what's going on. But the patricians had made sure that they couldn't be tribune to the plebs, again, in 408. And they'd also made sure that these particular men couldn't run to be military Tribune. So they've made sure that these very popular plebeian leaders weren't going to be on the ballot as its were
Dr G 18:30 interesting. Okay. So the capacity for the plebeians to be able to vote in people that they know are effective, that sort of sit within their social mileau is off the table. So not only is the the voting allocation confused, and there's some weird names in there, but the names that they would want to vote for haven't made it on?
Dr Rad 18:51 Well, yes, I mean, the Icilii, the Icilians, whatever you want to call them, they certainly strident and they're not afraid to obviously stand up for puppy and rights, etc. So I think taking them out of the running certainly is a bit of a blow because obviously, they would have pushed for something quite radical, if we're going with the storyline that we presented with, which is that faces a family trait this runs, you know, throughout all the members of their gens for generations, you know?
Dr G 19:22 Yeah, the Romans are very much into that kind of thing. Like what you pick up through your family line to find your character in many respects.
Dr Rad 19:30 Yes, so they clearly I know what's going on, but there's not much that they can do about it at this point in time. Let's segue now Dr. G. To a rumour that arrives in room External Relations. The Volscians in the Aequians have got back together and apparently stronger than ever. I mean, I feel like I say that every time
Dr G 19:54 they're back.
Dr Rad 19:56 Yeah, now it's levy very helpfully tells me that maybe This is related to the fact that we did have the scandal of Carventum that we've talked about in the past where there seems to be trading hands between the Romans and their enemies at this point in time. We don't know where it is, but it's somewhere in here. And it's going backwards and forwards like a hot potato. At the moment, the Volsican and I guess some Aequians forces have managed to get that back from Rome. So they are perhaps feeling you know, a bit smug, good about themselves strutting around, you know, or it could be that they are livid Dr. G, because they lost a place called Verrugo. Yes, either way, they've got fire under their asses.
Dr G 20:48 Yeah, so we've got this situation where we think these places are east of Rome, and sort of SE and sitting on the juncture between what is Roman territory? What is Aequians territory and what is coming up from the south the tip of Volscian territory. So this kind of contested area between the three groups is now hot potatoes. Hitting 408. Yes,
Dr Rad 21:14 definitely. Now, this is where we got another location coming into the story. The people from Look, I'm gonna say is Antiates? Antiastes?
Dr G 21:27 Are they some people from antium? Yeah,
Dr Rad 21:30 I think so. Yeah. The Antiates. The AnTIates.
Dr G 21:36 I'm just gonna say the people from Antium. I'm not gonna try that one.
Dr Rad 21:42 The anti 80s? Yeah. Anti 80s. Yeah, the anti 80s. So they send envoys to the Volscians and Aequians, which basically says this
in case you miss that very subtle explanation. They were calling them chickens. Because they were like how and embarrassment that? Okay, sure. You have Carventum back in your possession. But you did that by remaining behind the walls? Safety. Safety seriously? Where's the bravery in that? And they allow the Romans to capture Verrugo? All right,
Dr G 22:31 so So you're telling me that the Volscii and the Aequians are copying some derived version from the people of antium? Is this what's going on? Okay. All right. antium is sort of directly south of Rome on the bay? Yes, yeah. As you're heading around towards Campania. So it's got this kind of section where, if we're talking about antium, and I think we are Yeah, Rome has had this sort of conflict with the Volscii over time around control of Antium. And they had that moment where they put some settlers in there and stuff like that. But antium is a bit of a live wire, and really just sort of picks and chooses whose side it's on, depending on what's going on. And this means that the volsky is getting laughed at by people a little bit to the west, and a little bit to the south. But they're also facing a situation where they've gotten back together with the Aequians. So, you know, there's some mixed feelings here. They're feeling bolstered up and strengthened by their renewed friendship with the Aequii, but they're also feeling a little bit like antium is not respecting them the way that they should. Yes.
Dr Rad 23:41 And I think that they're concerned. I mean, as we said, there is a bit of a trend happening in Rome at this point in time after being actually kind of a little quiet on the expansion front for actually a number of decades. And is and this would make sense, because we've talked about the fact that economically, it seems to be in a bit of a tough time in that sort of middle to late century that we're in. But at this point in time, as we're getting more towards the tip into a new century, it does seem like Rome is not just you know, finding people when they have to, or dealing with kind of like territory control, it does seem like they are more interested in actual expansion adding to their territory. And that's kind of what we're seeing over time here. And that's, I think, what people in the air supposedly picking up on as well. So they're saying, how low Are you not seeing the warning signs, guys? The Romans are clearly just going to keep sending out armies and then once they've managed to secure a triumph, they'll just set up more colonies. And they're like, did you know that the Romans have got all your stuff? Did you know that they've divided it all up? Did you know that they had taken Ferentinum and just given it away to to Hernici, did you know this? Did you know this and the Volscians?
Dr G 25:04 Are you paying attention? Wake up, she
Dr Rad 25:07 Aequians Like, you know what we did know this, because live, he told us.
Dr G 25:13 I read that book. You know what, when you put
Dr Rad 25:15 it like that, and you put it all together, I'm pretty angry, we're all pretty angry. So the envoys start travelling around and enlisting young men, and people from antium, the Volscians, and the Aequians, all eventually meet up Antium and establish a camp there and then they just sit back and wait for the Romans to arrive.
Dr G 25:44 We just gotta kick out heels back when near the seaside, it's gonna be nice. It's gonna be nice.
Dr Rad 25:49 Yeah. Now, as you've highlighted, definitely antium It is a place of interest. It has been a while since we have explicitly mentioned it. If listeners want to check out some stuff on our team in the past, please go back to our episode on 459 BC. But it does kind of make sense that there would be potential conflict over this area, as you said, at this point in time, given that it seems like the Romans are making a concerted effort to once and for all, get the Volscians the Aequians out of this area and make sure that their hold on territory in this region is secure, because and it's obviously it's part of this narrative that Livy's constructing because it doesn't really make sense that the people from antium would potentially be that concerned about like, say, Verrugo, no, I think they'd probably not be concerned about Verrugo at all. Really? No, but it's obviously being constructed so that we understand why I guess these people are coming together.
Dr G 26:55 Hmm, I think I also before we move on, I'll offer a small correction on the location of antium. So it is where modern Anzio Yes, so we're talking a little bit south of Rome, but it's on the coast, not that far from modern Rome, if you're driving a car, but like a reasonable March if you're on foot. So these people historically considered to be a different linguistic group. They're not Latin speakers necessarily, though, there's bound to be some of them by now. But this whole sort of area that sort of forms or ring around Roman influence in every direction is starting to come under more pressure. That's pretty clear. Yes.
Dr Rad 27:36 Yeah. And that'll make sense because the Volscians in the Aequians are also not Latin peoples either. So yeah, well make sense. So anyway, the room is of course hear about all of this and they are abuzz with the news of what is happening the Senate decide that the fact that three peoples have came to this is clearly an emergency Do many people are against we must Yeah, we can deal with the Volscians and Aequians, but you throw Antium in there. I don't think so.
Dr G 28:07 Especially after they've already gone out of their way to conquer antium at least what they
Dr Rad 28:12 definitely have. antium is definitely meant to be there.
Dr G 28:17 Yes, I'd say Rome sees antium as part of its broader sphere of influence and the idea that antium doesn't agree is not okay,
Dr Rad 28:26 absolutely. So the Senate decide that because this is an emergency it's done for a dictator.
Dr G 28:33 Well, that results that narrative quick for me,
Dr Rad 28:36 thank you. However, it doesn't go as smoothly as the Romans might have been hoping because to the military tribune is decided they didn't like this decision
Dr G 28:50 is that the two that got left out and weren't chosen to be master
Dr Rad 28:54 has something to do with a pony. But So Julius and Cornelius okay, they decide to have a right old bitch session about the fact that they've just been elected into this premier magistracy and outs being seemingly taken away from them.
Dr G 29:13 I was gonna say it's all lemons over there for those two years.
Dr Rad 29:17 Their unhappiness was so palpable, that the leading senators complained that the military tribunes were not being very respectful of senatorial control. Rude goodness, hi, nay, oh, dear. So much so that they even turn to the tribune of the plebs, and they say, Hey, would you mind weighing in here and using some of your powers?
Dr G 29:39 I mean, this is a big moment. I'm really sad that I don't have any narrative material now for the Senate to rock up to the tribune of the plebs behind you. We don't know who those guys are. So this clearly doesn't work out very well for them. But what did the Senate think that the tribune of the plebs are going to do? I'm not sure that they necessarily care about this petty infighting amongst patrician le Well,
Dr Rad 30:00 I mean, they can in that they always like to see the patricians divided amongst themselves. In fact, they're actually ecstatic that the senators are fighting.
Dr G 30:10 I mean, it's good to see a bit of an internal collapse over there. But
Dr Rad 30:15 you're right, you're right in the sense that it doesn't seem to really be within their remit to deal with
Dr G 30:19 this. I was gonna say so this is not really something that the tribune of the plebs would necessarily deal with. I mean, they're allowed to sort of step in for plebeian matters. And obviously, they might contentiously make a situation where the patricians aren't getting along worse by siding with one or the other. Exactly.
Dr Rad 30:39 I mean, there's this like weird reference to the fact that they'd use their powers before against consuls had gotten out of hand. And I'm like, well, but in what context, like to do with uppity consuls who were causing issues for the plebeians like,
Dr G 30:57 yeah, I was gonna say, generally, it's an interference on something like the levy, or, you know, turn a turn up when the consuls are giving speeches to be disruptive. I'm not sure how they how the Senate thinks the tribunes are going to support them. It's
Dr Rad 31:12 one of those moments where like, I had a brass back through and I'm like, I don't remember what this could possibly be referring to. Unless it's like something that hasn't been mentioned, because we have talked about the fact that the tribune of the plebs aren't always actually on the side of the plebs, or at least, I should say, the dispossessed per year.
Dr G 31:35 Yes, they might be on the side of the very elite. plebeians, who in many respects are indistinguishable from the patricians. So
Dr Rad 31:44 Look, if anybody else has a clear recollection of what an earth LIvy is talking about here, please enlighten me because I couldn't figure it out. Yeah. Offer a
Dr G 31:52 comment on our website. Tweet us or send us a message on Instagram. Anyway, so
Dr Rad 32:00 apart from getting some popcorn ready, and sitting back to enjoy the show that tribute is refused to have anything to do with this situation. Because they're like, you know, what? Why should we help people that don't even think we're purpose citizens or even human beings as you made very clear last year snap? Yeah. They're like, maybe, if all the magistracies were just open to anyone, you know, like a patrician could be attributed the class, which actually we have seen. So technically, that's true. Oh, you know, a plebeian could be a consul and there wasn't any distinction, then maybe the tribunes would be I don't know, remotely interested in helping out the Senate here and making sure that the magistrates are doing what they're supposed to do and behaving. But you know what? That's fantasy land. Again, as you made very clear in 409, the patricians just do whatever they want. They don't even care about the laws. And so you know, what the tribunes are going to do whatever the hell they want to, oh, boy.
Dr G 32:58 Okay, so we've got a little bit of like chaos rules in Rome, meanwhile, on the fringes of Roman territory of influence, all of their non friends slash neighbours, banding together with some sort of dastardly plan. And
Dr Rad 33:16 so because there's apparently no help from the tribunes, although dubious, the Romans still very much caught up in the internal drama, even though they're facing a huge external issue right here. And that's what they should be focusing on, because Julius and Cornelius are still going on and on and on about how unjust it is that they couldn't just run the campaign themselves. I mean, hello, it's in the title, military tribute and with constant power, we were elected to the position. I'm in Hello, they could totally do it, put him up put him
Dr G 33:55 I think this may be indicates that even the patricians did not have confidence in the outcome of this botched election process, where they threw in a whole bunch of names. And they got a whole bunch of people coming out the other side, including and Ahala, who seems to be the only one who's making it for himself as well, sir. But nobody was expecting that family to make a comeback. And then the other two are like we come from illustrious families. Why are we getting the gig? I can only imagine the dinner table conversation between Publius Cornelius Cossus military Tribune with consular power, and he's possible cousin of some kind, Publius Cornelius Rutilus Cossus, who becomes the dictator and just being like, why why would you do this to me? was so close
Dr Rad 34:43 to have my name and could you? Why are you always doing this to me? I hate you. Any anyway, so speaking of Ahala this is where he enters our story. So you might have noticed that he's been very silent on these matters, even though he is also a military tribune with consular power. If
Dr G 35:01 I assume he only talks by doing armpit movements
it's just a little a little trumpet going on.
Dr Rad 35:11 Then he finally breaks his silence. And he says, Look, it's obvious what I think about this situation. Any decent, good. Roman always puts the state ahead of himself. And he was just sitting there, with his head in his hands, hoping that his colleagues would come to their senses. concede to what the Senate has decreed is the best course of action. But now, it's got to the point where the tribunes of the plebs, the plebs, Dr. G, are being asked to keep them in line, and it's obviously gone far enough. Oh, Look, I
Dr G 35:51 feel like that's a very safe and easy position for this man to take considering keys benefited from an upgrade. Shoo, shoo.
Dr Rad 36:01 So Ahala is like, Look, if it was up to me, I would just let them talk themselves out. I wake up to themselves and they're in good time. But there's a war on people. This is urgent, hence the dictator situation. And he's like, I have to put Rome first. And if the Senate thinks that a dictator is the course to take, then a dictator should be chosen that very night,
Dr G 36:28 huh? The drama.
Dr Rad 36:30 Now, of course, everyone is very impressed by this because we know that the Romans cannot help but swoon for someone who allegedly is putting the state before any personal motivations.
Dr G 36:45 Women fainting in the streets, like
Dr Rad 36:48 Oh, in the streets, I think Nefertiti in the privacy of their homes. Now, this I might just add, really ties into a theme that has been detected in this particular section of Levy, which is that of modern Rottier. Yes, just a little side note anyway, so Ahala choosers Publius Cornelius as dictator and then Cornelius says, You know what? Ahala, You're allright. And therefore, he is chosen to be master the horse because of course, he wants to make a point. The dictator is like you see, power comes to those who don't actually seek it, which again, is another thing that the Romans cannot get enough of. Yeah,
Dr G 37:33 there's nothing like the reluctant leader.
Dr Rad 37:35 Honestly, whenever anybody starts going to town on Gladiator. I'm like, You know what? I can't help but love that movie. Because it is so right. That the hero is like, what me? You want me to do this job? I couldn't possibly Yeah,
Dr G 37:53 it is embodying some really particular Roman values. Now
Dr Rad 37:58 as it turns out, this whole War and emergency situation was very anticlimactic. It was a very easy battle and it was very quickly over which
Dr G 38:06 where did they end up fighting antium I mean, this is how little little detail I have. Oh, okay, so they they head out to antium do the
Dr Rad 38:15 rally where the people from Antium and the Volscians in the Aequians were just like a now we wait.
Dr G 38:21 We're just gonna sit here and see what happens next. Oh, no, the Romans turned up. Now
Dr Rad 38:26 the Rome is obviously because they've had such an easy battle. They had lots of energy for pillaging and rampaging through Volscian territory. Not only do they manage to steamroll the enemy, but they also apparently managed to capture a fortress at Lake Fucinus.
Dr G 38:44 This is outside the ken of my knowledge.
Dr Rad 38:47 I think this this occasion will come up a bit actually, I remember it because of Agrippina the younger and Claudius having a bit of a thing here later on. We'll get to that you know 20 or 30 years it stands mentioning that only do they capture a fortress but they also apparently capture 3000 men as their prisoners of war. Yeah,
Dr G 39:07 okay impressive.
Dr Rad 39:09 Yeah. The remainder of the of the enemies just try and hide behind city walls where they can and just really leave that territory to the Romans I was like yeah, we're not gonna we're not gonna stop you
Dr G 39:20 All right, so a resounding victory for row
Dr Rad 39:22 it is now that geography is a little off again. So it doesn't 100% seem to add up if you just like looking at naps, etc. Yeah,
Dr G 39:35 I was gonna say I'm like one why the Aequians all the way over in antium for instance,
Dr Rad 39:40 because the Antiates called them chicken.
Dr G 39:42 Well, it's true. Anytime somebody calls me the chicken I immediately go over to where they are like OI.
Dr Rad 39:50 If Back to the Future has taught us nothing, it's that calling someone a chicken is the worst thing that you can do it but it doesn't entirely make sense that why, winning at Antium, the Romans would be like with capture that fort by the Fucine Lake.
Dr G 40:05 the Fucine Lake, the Lago Fucino it says that it's going to be in Abruzzo? So, which is the region that is sort of next to and south of Lazio?
Right. Right. Right.
But the trouble with that is that still seems like it's too far away from where we are. Right?
Dr Rad 40:28 Exactly. It does seem to be too far away. And given that Verrugo, and Carventum seem to be about Latium, the geography. Yeah, I would expect that like to be somewhere nearby as well. Yeah, exactly. It just doesn't entirely add up in the account that we've got here. It may be because Livy is using a different source material, or at least he's in transition with his source material, and therefore, is trying to pull various things together, or he's been following one source for some period of time, and now he's switched to another source. And therefore, the details are kind of contradicting themselves. And this is the kind of stuff that people cite when they say, That lady is not a great historian, because he's not necessarily stopping and thinking in himself. Wait a second.
Dr G 41:20 Yeah, Look, I mean, if you've only got three books to read, they're all good books. Well, I
Dr Rad 41:24 mean, for example, I think we have got to this part so far. So I'm going to mention it. There has been a point where, where Livy's is, obviously labour, the fact that the patricians are wealthy because of the land that they control and own all that kind of stuff. But in another part of his narrative, he talks about the patricians being able to like rock up with waggons, full of bronze. So you know, just a few things here. We're like, I don't know if this is all applicable to this time period. I don't know if this all makes sense. It we can't be sure, obviously, of what's going on. But yeah, they're just like little things like that, where it seems to be, you know, maybe a bit of confusion in terms of the details that he's got here. Well,
Dr G 42:05 and fair enough. I mean, he's dealing with a period that's well before his own time, the source material is bound to be quite limited. And I don't know about the process of authorship either. Like, generally speaking, we understand that writers like Livy are probably not putting pen to paper themselves. They're probably dictating to somebody who writes it down.
Dr Rad 42:29 A young woman with spectacles. Yes.
Dr G 42:33 And she's doing shorthand the whole time. But to what extent they might go back and read over the things that they dictate. Yes, exactly, exactly. I don't know, like, what are the processes like within that? So there's lots that we don't know, which might explain some of the sort of changes in details and the odd anomalies that come through that wouldn't fly with a publisher nowadays? Yes,
Dr Rad 42:57 exactly. Exactly. We can't help them to the same status, because what they're doing is inherently more difficult than typing something up. That
Dr G 43:03 is true. So are there any more events in this year from Livy's? Perspective? Okay. All right. Okay. I will, I will hold tight on my little clump of
Dr Rad 43:17 detail. So obviously, after Yeah, after all the raping and pillaging and all that kind of stuff. The Dictator heads back to Rome. I mean, he was hardly in charge. Dr. G. It was a blink of an eye really, after all this fuss, and he resigned his position as any good day dictator would do. Now, there was nothing said about what was going to happen the next year, as in, we're going to have military tribunes. Oh, we're going to have consuls it just goes straight to an election for military tributes, which is interesting, given all the concern, you know, that was, has been exhibited, historically, by the patricians over this particular type of election. Livy is wondering if maybe it's because there has been a dictator I'm not really sure if that's like, I don't know, mess with people's heads or something like that. But the patricians are certainly worried they like are all patricians on board here. Shouldn't we be worried about this? The whole tribune of the plebs thing, and this year, that seems concerning. I feel like we're not a unified force anymore guys.
Dr G 44:28 Rome is politically falling apart. So
Dr Rad 44:31 as in the election for the year that we're currently in, they make sure that the worst plebeians are chosen to run alongside some worthwhile ones, to make the people hate the plebeian candidates as a whole, and then only chose the very, very best people to run from the Senate and patrician, who live he lumps in as being like one group basically. And therefore, spoilers. We're going to have all patricians for the next year as well. out. But also people that had also served as military tributes before, which might say something about their family, you know, being on the rise. But it might also say something about this, you know, combative, aggressive expansion kind of place we seem to be in right now.
Dr G 45:19 Yeah, I think this tells us something about what is going on with Rome and her neighbours at this point in time that they've decided that they need more people who can command armies, although they did make an interesting choice this year to just subsume all of those into a dictator. Yes. Okay. So I don't have any details to do with anything to do. Sad, sad news. I have Diodorus Siculus. Great. And he gives us the names of the military treatments with consular power. And they're
Dr Rad 45:51 all correct. Well, girls, for you Deidara.
Dr G 45:56 Nice work Diodorus. Now, he places these events in around 405 to 404 BCE, which makes sense because he's chronology is running at a slightly different pace to be Roman chronology for these things are a few years out, and that's fine. But this means that we're in the last phase of the Peloponnesian War. So to put the broader situation of Rome in its Mediterranean global context, the Peloponnesian War is in its final phase, it's about to wrap up. And things are still holding up in Sicily as well, with the Carthaginians. So they've done some raising of some cities, they've jumped in there. And they're, they're still sort of milling about people in Sicily, which are mostly Greek settlers at this point in time, and like the Carthaginians, North Africa. So there's a lot of that going on. And then part of what Carthage decides to do. And this might tell us something about their reach in this period of history. They decide to embark whilst they're also having this conflict in Sicily to embark on another campaign against this Gideons which are nowhere near Sicily,
Dr Rad 47:08 I was going to say that seems random. It
Dr G 47:12 does on the face of it. But then I think about Carthage as being one of these Punic colony settlements. And so the Punic peoples in general, and the North Africans are a very seafaring group of people in this period of history. That's how they do all of their trade. They're very much interested in being all across the Mediterranean and as far as they understand it. So Scythia is going to be around Greece, keep going up, get to the top of that part of the Mediterranean, which is going to be near where we have modern Istanbul, for instance. And that kind of region to the to the north, and to the west of that is going to be ancient skills. Yes. So they embark on this sort of quest, like a war on two fronts , two Naval fronts? Why not, we're Carthaginians, we could do it. And while, that's going on. The Sicilian Greeks get together with the Libyans, another group of North Africans and the Iberians, who are the coastal people in the Spanish peninsula, and they decide to then also get involved in this Scythian conflict, to try and sail behind the Carthaginians and just create disturbances for them to ruin their supply chains and things like this. So while Rome is very near actually placed, fighting it out with their very close neighbours trying to figure out who they are and how they're going to run themselves. And it always sounds like at this point in time, Rome is on the brink of a really big collapse where it doesn't get it together in time, and will get overrun by everybody around them. The broader peoples in the Mediterranean are doing lots of big things. The Peloponnesian War is huge. What the Carthaginians are doing, if we believe Diodorus Siculus, with their multiple naval fronts is massive in terms of its undertaking. Yeah. So Rome is a really small player right now on this Mediterranean stage.
Dr Rad 49:16 It definitely is. And on that note, Dr. G, I think it might be time for the partial pick.
All right, Dr. J, tell us what is the partial picker that
Dr G 49:32 the partial pick, we are going to write Rome by its own standards spoilered I think it's going to do great. And there are five categories of which they can gain a maximum of 10 Golden Eagles. So for a total of a possible 50 Gold eagles, which would mean Rome is at the height of all of its powers. We will see how they do this time round for the year 408 BC to
Dr Rad 49:59 tell me Dr G, What's our first category?
Dr G 50:02 Well, first of all, we have military clout. How well have the Romans equip themselves in battle? I always
Dr Rad 50:09 say, like pretty well, according to this. I mean, it's certainly not like the best battle because we don't get any details. And it apparently was really easy for them. So I'm not sure I want to give them too much credit. But
Dr G 50:21 well, that might be a sign that they're great. Well, yeah, no, that's
Dr Rad 50:25 what I mean. Like, sure. I'll give them something but like, I don't want to go really any higher than like, I think a seven or an eight. Because it seems okay. Just seems too easy.
Dr G 50:35 They did also take what 3000 people captive, that's a huge number and
Dr Rad 50:39 allegedly captured a fort, although, who the hell knows?
Dr G 50:42 We don't know where it is. We're not sure
Dr Rad 50:45 we know. We know where it is. But it just doesn't seem to quite make sense. So I'm not sure if this narrative entirely adds up. All right,
Dr G 50:54 well, let's say a seven is pretty impressive. Yes. We don't get any of the dramatic details, which would make it even more impressive.
Dr Rad 51:03 I've gotta I've gotta hold it back for when we get those really impressive ones. Yeah.
Dr G 51:07 Yeah. Okay. Our second category is diplomacy. negotiation?
Dr Rad 51:12 Well, as we always say, I don't know that you have much of that going on. When you're at war,
Dr G 51:19 I don't think they asked antium to stand down. We didn't get a narrative where they sent any embassy out to be like, Guys, have you considered
Dr Rad 51:27 exactly not doing that? And internally, they're also not doing great. So I think I'm gonna give it a zero. Actually.
Dr G 51:35 I agree. Expansion. Well, okay.
Dr Rad 51:38 I mean, we have got some capturing, you know, happening here, control team, you know,
Dr G 51:44 yes. But does that count as expansion? It wasn't necessarily clear that they decided to reestablish some sort of colonial outpost in and
Dr Rad 51:56 this is the thing I feel like, I feel like the implication of the narrative is that they they've had a relationship with this place in the past. And I feel like this is really like, reestablishing that they are, in fact, in control of this area.
Dr G 52:12 Yeah. All right. Give them a one for that.
Dr Rad 52:15 Way. What about this apparent fought apparent for it?
Dr G 52:19 Where is it? You know,
Dr Rad 52:20 how big is that? Well, it's a few saying, like, I don't know how big it is.
Dr G 52:25 I mean, to feel like we should give them a two Yeah. To the fourth category is weird to us. Not really.
Dr Rad 52:33 I mean, you know, Ahala has a moment but it's more speechifying kind of moment. Sometimes. speechifying can be weird. It is but I don't feel like it's that grand a speech, you know? No.
Dr G 52:45 And it doesn't have any of those sort of classic. We're tourists kind of elements to it, of like displaying wounds and things like this and and then we've definitely got the other two military Tribune's who don't quit themselves, well, it's sort of like, they're kind of just like whinging a little bit about their situation.
Dr Rad 53:06 Even Livy's says the dictator kind of had a very easy time. He was like, Yeah, you know, he's actually probably kind of lucky, he didn't really face any major action just got to return home alive.
Dr G 53:16 You know, quietly. Nice, nice. All right. So
Dr Rad 53:20 I think also is a Zero. All right.
Dr G 53:24 And the final category is the citizen score. Look,
Dr Rad 53:27 it's not the worst we've ever seen. But again, I don't feel like it's a great time to be a citizen because there is still this conflict of the orders stuff nagging away, they're, you know, they're not get able to get any pavilions into power, not that a citizen is a plebeian. But to be honest, we've actually kind of treated it that way.
Dr G 53:50 Well, and also the way that these elections are described by Livy as unfolding with a deliberate sort of confusion in order to create a particular outcome. I think that's in a way that's a dishonest approach to the citizen body.
Dr Rad 54:08 Yeah, well, that is an identity again, they've done it twice. Yeah,
Dr G 54:13 how dare they?
Dr Rad 54:14 Yeah. And so I mean, Look, the war is not the worst, it doesn't sound like lots of Romans died, there is no fight against the levy,
Dr G 54:22 I think maybe a five then so like, on the balance, it's not well, it's it's not terrible, but it's not great. It's kind of just like the halfway house with like, you know, what this person calls to being a citizen around?
Dr Rad 54:35 sure that that's how we've given citizens scores.
Dr G 54:40 I'm allowed to change my mind.
Dr Rad 54:42 Sure. Look, I still feel like it's got to be weighted on the downside because of the election thing. Like, I don't you mean, like it's not the worst, but I feel like it's still not great. I would be more inclined to give a three How about we cut it in half and go for four years and that's why I said three All right, Dr. G, that means that we have wound up with the Romans on a grand total of 13 out of 50 possible Golden Eagles
Dr G 55:12 13 Oh, well, that's unlucky. But
Dr Rad 55:16 I think it's because our rating system is quite frankly, all over the place.
Dr G 55:22 I Look, I mean, I, it depends on how I feel on the day. I don't claim to be consistent and Rome is always changing. So
Dr Rad 55:31 it's true. All right. Well, I Look forward to seeing how this whole you know election fraud. I get that it's not that but I Look forward to seeing how this election strategy plays out and 407 BCE. Looking
Dr G 55:43 forward to it. I'll catch you soon Hi.
Dr Rad 55:54 Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today we would like to say a special Salve to Arne, Sally, Desmond, Lisa and Peep, some of our recent Patreon members. Thank you so much guys for your support. However, if you've just got mugged out in the dangerous streets of ancient Rome, please, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. And that goes for a book as well. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
It's here! We delve into the wonderful world of Roman names. How do we understand who’s who? How did the Romans understand who was who? We’re here to consider the complexities of Roman naming conventions.
Special Episode – Roman Naming Conventions
We look into some of the key elements of the Roman naming conventions of the Republic and the Early Imperial period. This includes the praenomen (the first name), the nomen (a reference to the clan or gens that the person came from), the cognomen (this name could have a variety of meanings!), and the agnomen (nickname).
This is by no means the extent of types of names that Romans deployed over the course of their history, but it's a good start on some of the tricky bits including why Roman loved repeating themselves.
We look at some very interesting examples included:
Romulus
Numa Pompilius
Livia's dad
Augustus
And a certain Spartacus may also get a mention
Is that Augustus with a bunch of fancy titles? Oh yeah. This comes from a statue base in Rome.
[I]mp(eratori) Caesari / divi f(ilio) Augusto / pont(i)f(ici) maxim(o) / trib(unicia) potest(ate) XXXVII / co(n)s(uli) XIII p(atri) p(atriae) sacrum
This is sacred to Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of Divine, pontifex maximus, holding tribunician power for the 37th time, consul for the 13th time, father of fatherland.
Naming conventions differed depending on who you were, the family you were born into, and what happened to you during the course of your life. Elite families had specific naming conventions, while different rules applied to enslaved people and those who were manumitted.
Got famous for all the wrong reasons? You probably had one or more unflattering nicknames.
Got famous for all the right reasons (according to Romans)? You likely had a name to recognise your superlative achievements.
Interested in our favourite Roman name so far? It's none other than Spurius Furius! There's been a few gentlemen with this name, but for a real blast from the past, check out Episode 91 – The Furious Romans.
Sources
Brill's New Pauly entries on the Praenomen, Gens, Cognomen, Agnomen, and Personal Names: Rome
Edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:16 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:54 Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:03 And I am Dr. Rad. But what does that mean Dr. G?
Dr G 1:08 What is in a name? Would a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?
Dr Rad 1:14 One of us had to go there.
Dr G 1:17 It didn't take long for this to fall down into a big heap did it? Roman names. That's what we're going to be talking about today.
Dr Rad 1:23 We are this is a special Patreon listener request. And you know what? It is about bloody time that we talk about names because God knows we trip over them all the time.
Dr G 1:37 Look, there's nothing like a Latin name to really wake up the tongue when you're trying to get all of your announced creation happening on a podcast about ancient Roman history.
Dr Rad 1:46 Yeah, I think my favorite one which always looks really daunting on the page is Tricipitinus or Tri-cip-itinus.
Dr G 1:54 Yeah, stay right away from that.
Dr Rad 1:57 So the Romans are known for having seemingly bizarre naming conventions where a lot of men are named the same thing, which makes things very confusing. And they also have seemingly very long and phonetically challenging names. So we thought it is a good idea to talk about this because it's actually there's actually so much more to it, I suppose there might first meet the eye and like an episode where we're just rattling off console names and that kind of thing. Indeed,
Dr G 2:27 and I think I'd like to start I'd like to take us right back to the beginning the very early days of Rome just to sort of set the scene a little bit back in the olden dear listeners, welcome to The Land Before Time.
Dr Rad 2:45 A tale as old as time. Okay, the scene is set.
Dr G 2:52 Rome was open fields ruled by kings
Dr Rad 2:56 Houses were built out of mud.
Dr G 3:00 It was a beautiful time, a time of peace and prosperity.
Dr Rad 3:04 I actually just realized that most of the time the houses were built out of mud.
Dr G 3:08 Yeah, it makes sense. So the Roman kings have names right? So we've got guys like Numa Pompilius, and we've got Tullus Hostilius. And these are like precursor names. This is kind of like the first type of naming convention and Rome has to move away from it pretty quickly. Because it gets bigger, its population expands and they need to differentiate in more complex ways.
Dr Rad 3:33 Yeah,
Dr G 3:34 This initial naming system. Sorry
Dr Rad 3:36 No no no, sorry. I was gonna say, yeah, cause like the most famous part obviously, of rumoured names that most people know about is the three names. That man supposedly have the tria-nomina, which belongs to elite men. But right back at the beginning, it was not tria.
Dr G 3:52 It was not no, no. Sometimes it was just one. Romulus is just Romulus-
Dr Rad 3:59 He's a bastard!
Dr G 4:02 We know nothing about him his name, definitely. Because how did you get in charge of anything?
Dr Rad 4:09 Outrageous.
Dr G 4:11 And then we've got these guys like Numa, who have two names. Numa Pompilius-
Dr Rad 4:15 Getting more complicated
Dr G 4:16 And this follows. Yeah, it does get more complicated. So this is where they use a patronymic naming approach, which is pretty common, and you see it in a lot of ancient cultures. It's a very Indo-European thing to do, where the second name lets you know, who Numa is the son of. So the patriarchy is kind of like a little bit baked in already. So Numa is his praenomen – and that's his first name. It's probably what people call him. But he was the son of a guy called Pompeius. Which is cute. So we've got this -ilius suffix, which indicates “son of”.
Dr Rad 4:51 Right, okay. And the weird thing about the Romans, I suppose, is that the praenomen, which is like his personal name, There's not really a lot of them. Yeah, at least when we look back over the evidence, you know, not compared to nowadays where we probably put a lot of emphasis on what is that first name so much so that there are people who do just have one name like Madonna, Cher. Beyonce. Just me. I know they got one of them. I know. But you know what I mean? We put so much emphasis-. Yeah.
Dr G 5:22 Where somebody more regal is always known by their two names. Taylor Swift.
Dr Rad 5:27 Ooooooo wait wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait. Are you saying that Taylor Swift is more regal than Cher Madonna and Beyonce?
Dr G 5:36 I'm not. I'm literally just like nobody ever refers to just by her first name. They always call her Taylor Swift. I don't know why.
Dr Rad 5:43 No no, that's true. It's the same as like Kim Kardashian. But I think that's because it's Alliterative.
Dr G 5:48 Mmm that does not explain Taylor Swift at all. No. Moving away from that. Yeah. So the names get more complicated as time goes on. And the praenomen. First of all, it expands out a lot. We get heaps of praenomens in the early period of Rome's, sort of naming convention period, the early republic, yeah. And then it sends to really narrow back in again, by the time we get to the late Republic, definitely. So this tells us something about how the significance of names changes over time, and also the potential for that name to be distinguishing changes over time as well.
Dr Rad 6:24 Well, definitely, because I think that if we look at around the first century AD, whilst we have uncovered quite a few of these praenomen there's really only between sort of 15 and 30 that are probably used with any sort of regularity. By the time you get to like the late Republic.
Dr G 6:44 Yeah, if you're not a Gaius, and you're not a Marcus, who even are you?
Dr Rad 6:47 I know. A Publius? Don't me laugh!
Dr G 6:50 No gross, the whole name is a joke. So this trinomina is the combination of the praenomen (the first name), the nomen (which is the gens name, the clan that the person comes from) And there's the cognomen, which could be any kind of additional name, really. So it could be a personal name, it could be a nickname, or it could be a branch of your gens. So the family – the specific family within your gens.
Dr Rad 7:23 yeah. And it kind of makes sense that they ended up adding on a cognomen because of course, as you get more and more people, it helps to set them apart more, it distinguishes them more, and it tells you obviously more about where they're from potentially or something about them or their family. That's kind of the whole purpose of these names. Right.
Dr G 7:42 Exactly. And so you might have somebody who is known as Publius Cornelius Scipio, for instance. Publius is his first name, you know, it's a bit of a diamond a dozen. He comes from the Cornelius gens. So that's his nomen. And Scipio is the family branch within the Cornelii And that might be his three names. Now, unfortunately, that branch of the family ends up being massive. So you've got Publius Cornelius Scipio, a number of times and Roman historians get confused. But that's kind of the gist of it. You've got those three names. Now that guy is probably somebody who's coming up in the middle Republic, one of the most famous of the Cornelius Scipione's is Africanus.
Dr Rad 8:31 I was gonna say, I was waiting for it.
Dr G 8:34 He's coming, he's coming.
Dr Rad 8:36 It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you.
Dr G 8:41 So Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus has got four names. Wowzers.
Dr Rad 8:48 Well, you guess the thing you can just keep adding, if you really need you can
Dr G 8:51 Yeah, well, he doesn't necessarily add this one himself. So that last one Africanus known as an agnomen, which is an honorific name that is given to you by other people for something great that you do.
Dr Rad 9:06 That is pretty cool. I must admit of all the Roman naming conventions. I kind of wish that we still practice that.
Dr G 9:14 So like our key example from I think the early republic, who we did many episodes on, is Gnaeus or Gaius Marcius (nomen) Coriolanus (agnomen) Because he gets that name after the siege of Corioli, the Volscian and city.
Dr Rad 9:33 Yeah, absolutely. And it's probably interesting to note, I suppose that when these names are developing, they start off having certain meanings as well. Like the praenomens that we are dealing with, particularly in the early republic, they do have interesting names, which I actually had not thought about up until this. So so Marcus, one of our most common ones, probably originated because someone was a born in March so it used it you might have signified something about like when you were born. And and, for example, Manlius. It might have signified that you were born in the morning for manes.
Dr G 10:10 Okay, oh, that's cute. Like Septimius Yeah, born in the seventh month, or Tiberius, who is known, named after the river god. So Marcus could also be a declaration of the gods Mars.
Dr Rad 10:23 Yeah, exactly. And so originally, these praenomens also had probably meanings probably to parents, I would say. But as we move on in time, and then that would have been probably very early on as we move on in time, I don't think that they tend to pick those for those particular reasons. The only one I think that might still have some meaning later on is the habit of numbering.
Dr G 10:47 Oh, yeah, yeah. But they don't usually use those for praenomens, necessarily, although sometimes – Quintus is a good one.
Dr Rad 10:55 Yeah,
Dr G 10:56 number five,
Dr Rad 10:57 exactly.
Dr G 10:57 Decimus, number 10. And some of them also come from different sort of language extractions. So Spurius, we think comes from Etruscan language. So it comes into Latin as Spurius. But it comes from the Etruscan ‘Spura' to mean community.
Dr Rad 11:17 Very nice. Now, when it comes to the nomen, Dr. G, this is probably the most important in terms of indicating your gens, right? When it comes to political life in the republic that we're going to be focusing on today, just because it gets too complicated. As time goes on, to carry on. Names continue to evolve the, um, the Republic, but we're starting with the origins.
Dr G 11:41 So yeah, the origin story of the gens. So as Rome's history is starting to flourish. So we've been looking very much at the early republic, in our founding of the city series, the gens becomes their sort of primary mechanism for establishing your place in Rome's hierarchy. Yeah. So even if Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, and our other sources are sort of imposing this struggle of the orders a little bit on to this period of time, it's probably still the case that your gens – the family from which you derive- is a super important element of who you are, what your politics is going to be, and how you participate in ritual practice as well.
Dr Rad 12:34 Definitely.
Dr G 12:36 So this is part of the broader Roman understanding of patriarchy as well. So the gens name comes from the original ancestor, if you like, of the family. So it doesn't take long for that sort of ancestral connection to be enough generations back that people don't know who that person is anymore. It's just a name. And also, that it's a little bit murky enough, that if you're really in straights, about what to do with your life, you might start to lie about where your family came from,
Dr Rad 13:12 Scandalous!
Dr G 13:14 It is illegal, the Romans don't like that. They try to crack down on that. So if you've just pop up out of nowhere with a new name, that's going to be very suspicious. But for people who are trying to figure out where they fit in the mix of things, if they've got a few obscure family connections, and they're not really quite sure, there is a reasonable and plausible moment where you might be like, oh, yeah, no, I'm a Cornelii, obviously, just makes so much sense.
Dr Rad 13:43 Yeah, and it's so interesting, because again, if you go back to the origins, again, some of these probably had obviously, particular meaning something to do with that particular family. And it could be something to do with where they are geographically located. Once upon a time as you say, it might be to do with an ancestor. It might even be to do with some sort of like agricultural thing, you know, if you think about like the origins of Roman society, so for example, we often talk about the fabulous Fabians. Fabius might come from ‘faba' as in bean, which you might have with a nice chianti.
Dr G 14:22 A delicious Fabian, that's what I like to hear
Dr Rad 14:26 It sounds a lot less fabulous. When you go back to the origins of it
It does explain why they're so full of fiber.
Oh, yes. And, and as we said, with the praenomens as well, originally, there were fewer of these gens and then gradually it expands until there are lots like when we're talking about the early republic, our listeners, I'm sure have noticed that we keep going back to very similar gens. Most of the time when we're talking about people who are holding high office and that sort of thing is a bit of a repeat repeat thing going on with some of those families.
Dr G 15:01 Yeah, we have quite a few very well known genses (gentes) in the early republic. So the Aemilii, the Claudii, the Cornelii, the Fabii, the Manlii and the Valerii are real standout families that continue to dominate the politics of the early republic if our following the records that we've got of consuls, and military tribunes and so forth.
Dr Rad 15:29 Absolutely. Now we move on to cognomens, Dr G. So we've definitely been coming across a lot of those, it's pretty common by the time you get to our period, which is still early republic, but the period we're looking at the moment is, we're very close to getting to 400 BCE, right. And pretty much everyone that we talk about who holds an important office tends to have a cognomen and not every single person we talk about has one, but a lot of them do. But when we get into more reliable times where the records are a bit, you know, bit better sort of late, mid to late Republic, I'd say. It becomes way more common, as you said, for people to have two of these subsequent names. So it might two cognomen. Or you might want to say it's a cognomen and an agnomen. And so you see, like, as time goes on, again, like the names just get more complicated, and people add more on to them.
Dr G 16:21 They certainly do. So this idea of for cognomen, this additional name, and it extends out to even being able to have not just one, but eventually also to so you can just kind of keep building if you like as you need to, to let people know what your family lineage is. So some of the ones that are going to crop up in the middle Republic when we get to it a names like Dolabella, Scipio, Lentulus, Sulla, Cinna, all of these names are probably in isolation familiar to you, if you're interested in Roman history anyway, because some of these names go on to be quite famous. Yeah, but they're actually all of those are examples of a cognomen. That is part of a branch of a bigger gens.
Dr Rad 17:12 Yes, yes.
Dr G 17:13 So all of those names are examples of cognomen that go with the Cornelii gens. It's always going to be Cornelius Dolabella, Cornelius Scipio, Cornelius Lentulus, Cornelius Sulla, Cornelius Cinna. These guys, they're everywhere.
Dr Rad 17:32 And is that one of the interesting things particularly again, in the earlier periods is that these cognomens, they might have originated obviously some sort of like nickname or something to distinguish that branch of the family. And they're not always the most positive names that you could come up with. So for example, we've got Cincinnatus who someone we've talked about before, which we think means “curly hair”. Now that's probably not really like I suppose a negative thing, although, as someone who has curly hair, I struggle with that on a daily basis. So I guess I interpreted that way. But also-
Dr G 18:06 It's a super cute name, though, like, think of the reputation that that family has throughout the history of robes, early Republic, and everybody's just like, why don't we go and talk to Curly Hair over there?
Dr Rad 18:16 That's true. And then of course, Brutus is a name that we've definitely mentioned before, and even when we were talking about it, we explained that it meant “stupid”, which is not the best nickname.
Dr G 18:30 Definitely not as nice as a cognomen, like Faustus which you might think has negative connotations, but that's much later and not ancient it. It has really positive connotations in the ancient world Faustus means “fortunate, auspicious, lucky”. So you have a little baby and you're like, it's just so Faustus!
Dr Rad 18:50 I'm going to throw in another couple that you that are a bit more negative Galba. Galba who we will get to eventually. I mean, actually, we have talked about it. And but that was, you know, back in the day. Galba means “fat belly”.
Dr G 19:05 Hmmm. Does it sound appropriate? I think it does.
Dr Rad 19:10 Crassus also means “fat”. Another guy we've talked about is Scaevola. And that obviously has to do with the hand incident. Okay, where he like punches his right hand into the fire and then he's like known as “the left hander”. And then of course, we've got my personal favorite, which we haven't come to yet, because it sounds rude but it's not really Cunctator: “Ditherer”.
Dr G 19:35 Which means?
Dr Rad 19:36 Ditherer.
Dr G 19:39 We've also got things like Cato “smart guy”. And Blaesus, “the stammer” and things that are a little bit more descriptive and maybe a bit more boring things like Pictor “the artist” and Sura – I think you're gonna like this one – “the man with the striking calf”.
Dr Rad 20:01 Whaat? That from two syllables?
Dr G 20:08 Look, that's all you need when you've got, like, he walks past me like, “Mmm that's a Sura right there.”
Dr Rad 20:16 Hilarious. Now of course, these nicknames could also be attached because of, again, some sort of like geographic connection with the family. It could also spring up because of some sort of office or something that you hold. Okay, so for example, you might get the name Flaminia. Just because you held the position of say Flamen Dialis, which is like a priesthood.
Dr G 20:41 Yeah, yeah. And you might be called Censorinus because you were twice censor.
Dr Rad 20:49 Yes. And Cicero's friend who most people would know, just as Atticus. He got that name because he really loved Greek culture and spent quite a bit of time in Athens.
Dr G 21:01 Ah, the old Attica. Well, this also helps us with names like the king. Lucius Tarquinius. Priscus, who is letting us know that he has an origin story. He's got this connection with Tarquinii. Yeah, this other city elsewhere. Although, if we're sticking with Priscus for a moment, he's a little bit unusual, because that Priscus name is something that's given to him much later than when he's alive. Priscus means kind of ancient, renowned, and doesn't seem like the sort of name that you would add to anybody who was still alive.
Dr Rad 21:42 Maybe he was an old soul. So I guess-
Dr G 21:48 And then ee've got like, you know, cute things like Rufus
Dr Rad 21:52 Red hair.
Dr G 21:53 Red. Yeah. Cossus Wait for it. I like Cossus because we deal with Cossus – Cossus people a lot. The consul of 413 BCE was Aulus or Marcus Cornelius Cossus.
Dr Rad 22:09 Right.
Dr G 22:10 And Cossus means “the lavae that lives under the bark of trees”.
Dr Rad 22:14 Oh my god. Okay, I honestly like, first of all, I'm not even gonna ask how that one word leads to all of that. But how on earth would that come to be associated with a person? What is he like? A tree hugger? Like what does that mean?
Dr G 22:31 I think he's a little bit wormy.
Dr Rad 22:33 Yeah, that's weird, man.
I don't know.
Wild.
Dr G 22:36 Maybe there is something something slimy about him.
Dr Rad 22:41 So, when we're talking about these names, I think it seems like the Romans are very unimaginative. And that these names are super unhelpful. But when you start to unpack them, you actually realize that no, no, they're trying to give a really clear idea of where someone's from, what is their family name, that's going to give you a bit of an indication eventually about where they belong in this society, their rank, and that sort of thing. And certain families will become obviously better known than others. And that really matters in a place like Rome. And the names continue to evolve. And they get more complicated as the society does, they actually reveal a lot. It's not that it's just that we didn't have the full map, I suppose. We're trying to figure it all out from it from a distance.
Dr G 23:27 Yeah, that's true. And so to take things right back to the way that the kings were sometimes using that patronymic element to that nature, that reference back to the father does creep back in in a different form, as Roman names get a little bit more complicated, right? So as families grow, so your clan group grows, grows enough that you need to have these branches of the family within the gens, then you might also need to have a distinction about where in the branch you sit, for instance, and so the idea of having the filiation comes back in, so we have things like, Lucius Valerius – son of Lucius, grandson of Publius – Potitus. So this guy was a military tribute with consular power in 414 BCE.
Dr Rad 24:26 Right.
Dr G 24:26 So we've talked about this guy before. And he's letting you know, not just that he has this praenomen Lucius, that he comes from the gens, the Valerii, but he is also the first son of the father Lucius because they've got the same name. So there's a pattern to be drawn there. And his father was not the first son of the grandfather Publius. And then he has his cognomen as well Potitus. So the specific branch within and so they're really trying to narrow down. So you can precisely locate where somebody sits in the overall hierarchy have anything to do with Romans public understanding of themselves. And it's like you should be able to position him straightaway. And I suspect that in day to day life, everybody would have had a nickname.
Dr Rad 24:26 Yeah,
Dr G 24:26 That's my suspicion.
Dr Rad 24:27 Oh for sure
Dr G 24:35 Because this is the sort of thing where it's like, this is your official name for official documents. And if you have the honor of getting yourself onto an inscription somewhere, obviously, you have to use your real name because it's super important for family business. But in day to day life, I don't think people are in the street, seeing somebody across the way and being like, Lucius Valerius, son of Lucius, grandson of Publius Potitus. Like, you know, just like to get their attention. I don't think that just seems completely unreasonable. Everybody, I think would have had a nickname anyway, that they probably picked up in childhood. And that becomes their, the way of distinguishing them in day to day life.
Dr Rad 26:00 Absolutely. And I think it probably very much like in our society, it depends on your level of familiarity, as to which name you might be using to address these people. So I would imagine that you'd have to be relatively familiar with an elite Roman man to be calling him by his praenomen. And if that's what ever is, that's what his family, for example, calls in just the same way that I wouldn't necessarily go up to you and say, “Hey, Peta,” I would say, “Hey, Dr. G,” becasue we're on formal terms.
Dr G 26:31 And we shall never depart from such formality.
Dr Rad 26:34 Exactly. Exactly. We always have to use titles because I hardly know you!
You'll always be Dr Rad in my heart. We don't know each other at all. It'd be insane to use our first names with each other.
Yeah, just like when you you know, as a child, you first meet an adult or like your teacher or something, you're going to call them, you know, Miss so-and-so. You're not going to say, “Hey, Sally, trying to figure out my coloring over here. Can you get some help?”
Dr G 26:57 “Excuse me, Mr. Cornelius?”
Dr Rad 27:01 Yeah exactly. Like, I feel like it has something to do with that. Because after all, these people with lots of names, these are the elite. And as usual, these are the people that we have an enormous amount of information about, because they're the ones who are writing history. They're the ones who are making history in their own minds. So we have a lot of their names recorded. And of course, they're the ones that are generally wealthy enough to erect things like tombstones. Now, that's not to say we don't have evidence about other people are going to get to them eventually, either in this episode, or in another episode. But definitely, we have, I think, the most idea about how their names work, and they have all these complicated names, because it really matters to them, about status, you know, and family and that sort of thing. The lower down the social spectrum you go, the fewer names people tend to have in the early period of Rome.
Dr G 27:51 Indeed, indeed. And to give you a sense of how this elite tendency is operating as well. When we get into the late Republic, we start to see more and more evidence for elite family adoptions. So somebody shifting out of one very fancy family, and finding themselves legally situated in another very fancy family. And my go to example for this is Livia's dad.
Dr Rad 28:24 Oh, I thought you were gonna use Augustus. Okay.
Dr G 28:28 Forget that guy. Livia's dad, so he is born Appius Claudius Pulcher. So he's born into the Claudian gens in the Pulchri branch of the family, but when he's quite young, he is then adopted into the Livilli Drusi family. So another fancy family. Yeah. And this means that he picks up a whole bunch of new names. So he starts off with the praenomen Appius, but he becomes Marcus; starts off with the nomen Claudius, but becomes Livius; starts off with the first cognomen Pulcher and becomes Drusus. So almost completely unrecognizable. Like you said, “Who's Marcus Livius Drusus?” you'd be like, “Well, it ain't Appius Claudius Pulcher!” And you'd be mostly right about that. But the second cognomen that he's got lets us all know, where he came from, and also what has happened to him, because he picks up Claudianus as a second cognomen and this is going to happen a lot and it's going to get more complicated as people get further into the imperial period. But at this stage in the Republic, the -anus ending of a name – and shout out for people who have talked to us having noticed that anus comes up a lot. You are correct. And it's gonna keep happening – The old -anus ending is indicating that he was born into the Claudii gens. So he gets to retain his gens affiliation in his name, but that Claudiaus is indicating that he has been adopted out of the Claudii. And he is now part of the Livius. Drusi instead.
Dr Rad 30:19 Yeah, cuz the Romans take adoption very seriously in practice, like you are literally legally removed entirely from your family of birth and put into another family. And it's not like they look at you like, “oh, yeah, you're not as good as my other children.” Or “I'm not taking you as seriously as my other children.” They take it very seriously. Like, it's a done deal. Like you. You are one of them.
Dr G 30:44 When you're adopted into a Roman family, you become part of that family? No question.
Dr Rad 30:49 Yes.
Dr G 30:50 Yeah, you are just as important as the other children that they have you are you have a legal standing that is comparable to what they have. And from that point onwards, that is where your allegiance lies. So that's really interesting, I think, because the family is the bedrock of everything in Roman politics.
Dr Rad 31:07 It is. And I feel like it has to do with obviously, you're taking on that name. And therefore you are part of that, you know, political legacy, in terms of that's the name that we're putting out there. It's important, it's associated with that family, but I feel like it also has to do with property. You know, because now that you're Yeah, yeah, now that you're legally a part of that family, you are going to be legally entitled to whatever it is that they have. And so that means that they kind of have to take you just as seriously because you're gonna get just as much as the other male people and the female, you know, so women can inherit property and Rome after a certain period. So you're going to be inheriting most likely so that that part is important, too.
Dr G 31:52 Yeah. So this is telling us something really significant about the way that the legacy system in Roman families is operating as well. So part of what happens for elite families is that they are trying to figure out ways to keep the property that they own within their family lines. So if you are in a situation where you have daughters, elite women are able to inherit under certain circumstances. And certainly progressively over time, it becomes more common that they can, but there is a period in which it's still quite challenging for that to be for sure, legally, okay. And one of the ways you can get around that is to adopt male children into the family to secure that stuff.
Dr Rad 32:38 Okay, so I'm going to use the Augustus example, because it's just an easy example for people to understand just to sum this all up. So very similar to the one that you highlighted, but maybe with some more familiar names for our audience. So Augustus is a special name, that this douchebag who ends up becoming princeps gets-
Dr G 32:59 Excuse me?
Dr Rad 33:01 Just making sure you're still listening!
Dr G 33:04 So, so Augustus is an agnomen, one of these honorific names that's given to him in 27 BCE. Fancy times!
Dr Rad 33:13 Absolutely. So he starts life as Gaius Octavius Thurinus, which I don't think most people would recognize as having any resemblance to the names that we mostly use to refer to him.
Dr G 33:27 Are you he's telling me he comes from a backwater equestrian family from the middle of nowhere?
Dr Rad 33:33 That might be what I'm trying to indicate by his name. Yes. So he gets adopted by Julius Caesar in his will, which is unusual, I'm just gonna highlight by the way. So he becomes kayas, Julius Kaiser, Caesar, whatever, however you want to say it. So obviously taking on the name of the man who adopted him, Julius Caesar. And then he has Octavianus at the end.
Dr G 34:01 Yes, which he hates.
Dr Rad 34:04 Yeah, which is why you'll read books, which sometimes refer to him as Octavian. And as a way of sort of distinguishing the different periods of his life when he's Octavius. It's before he's been adopted by Julius Caesar, who is his great uncle. When he's Octavian. It indicates that he has been adopted by Caesar, but he hasn't got the special honorific name of Augustus yet. And you might also find books that refer to him as like the young Caesar or something like that.
Dr G 34:35 Yeah, because Augustus didn't want to be called Octavianus. He spent a lot of time tramping around being like, “No, I'm Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius Julius Caesar.” And then he gets Julius Caesar deified and he's like, my name is “Gaius Julius Caesar, son of the deified Gaius Julius Caesar.” Somebody will be like, “Well, Octavianus,” and he's like, “Nooooo!”
Dr Rad 35:06 I feel like it sounds very much like he was like Marsha Marsha, Marsha. But yeah, he's a good example because it kind of shows the process of him taking on the name and that being probably one of the most important things that Julius Caesar gives him – Dangerous, but important.
Dr G 35:24 It is definitely definitely the most important thing, Julius Caesar gives him because without that bit of paper, none of the stuff that he did would have been possible just there was just no way nobody would take him seriously. So the fact that when it gets anglicized they lose the honours ending of Octavianus-
Dr Rad 35:47 They've lost his anus? Aww no!
Dr G 35:52 I just hate it when that happens! why did they lose the anus?
Dr Rad 35:56 It's hilarious because I think of nothing but arseholes when I think of him.
Dr G 36:02 You're wounding me deeply, Dr Rad.
Dr Rad 36:04 I'm sorry. I'll stop, I'll stop. I'm very serious now.
Dr G 36:08 So his name is Octavianus. And it gets anglicized into Octavian. So that sort of creates even maybe more confusion for modern readers who are looking at things being like, is it Octavius. Is it Octavian? Is it Octavianus? Is it Augustus? What's going on?
Dr Rad 36:24 Yeah, exactly. And it's all to do with, as you say, those last few letters of the name, the -ius, the -ianus, Or the -anus and then, of course, the -us.
Dr G 36:36 Yeah, I mean, the -us is everywhere. So that's just kind of how it goes. But yeah, the -anus, the -ilius, like these little nuances in those suffix – those endings to those words – is really important for what's going on with the name. So when they drop off in, you know, modern translations and things like that, you know, it can lead to confusion.
Dr Rad 36:59 And when you have law at the end, that often is like a cute little nickname type of thing. Like if you think about Caligula, that's meant to be “little boots”. Like, it's like a little diminutive, where it's meant to be like, “Oh my God, he's so adorable. He's a toddler and a little military uniform. And Look, he's got little boots on!” Because the boots that the soldiers wore were caligae. And even for women as well. You might have someone who's called for example, Livilla, which is like “little Livia”, you know, like, she's so cute. She's like, the smaller version.
Dr G 37:36 Yeah, and although this just makes me think of Ahala, which is “armpit”. And I was like,does that mean cute armpit now?
Dr Rad 37:45 I don't know that Latin enough to be definitive about that. But you do tend to see when you see those sorts of names, then it can be like a little diminutive or something like that. But I don't know that there's a hard and fast rule about that.
Dr G 37:59 And I think you've opened up the the gateway into thinking about women's names.
Dr Rad 38:04 Thank you, I'd love to talk about women's names.
Dr G 38:08 Because women do get a pretty raw deal in the Latin language when it comes to names. There's no doubt about it. If you need any evidence whatsoever, that we're dealing with a highly patriarchal system, the way that they deal with women's names is a key piece of evidence.
Dr Rad 38:26 It really is. So women get basically a feminized version of the nomen. So like the gens name, that's how it starts. So to stick with the Julian's, it's probably the most obvious example. If you have a chick in that family, she'll probably be called Julia or Yulia, depending on how you want to pronounce it. And if you have more than one, you'll just number them off. So might literally be a number or it might be like a major-minor situation, but it's basically indicating the order in which they were born.
Dr G 39:03 Yeah, now as far as I can tell, the the major-minor element is more to do with historians trying to distinguish historical figures, then how the Romans would have done it. Yeah. So for instance, we've got like Julia Maior – Julia the Elder versus Julia Minor – Julia the Younger – both of those women would have just been called Julia for the Romans.
Dr Rad 39:27 That's true, and they would have just would have been confused.
Dr G 39:30 Yeah. Like which one are you talking about? Like, give me something? And that's where I think everybody must have a nickname. Likewise, the issue with Agrippina Maior – Agrippina the Elder, wife of Germanicus – and Agrippina Minor, the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus. Now those two are just, they're just both Agrippina.
Dr Rad 39:50 Yeah, that's true.
Dr G 39:51 That's how it works. So if you've got more than one in the same family, so say the mother gives birth to three daughters. Well, then they start to get numbers you've got Julia? Julia Seconda. Julia Tertia. Yeah, we know of a famous example from the mid to late Republic, Claudia Quinta, suggesting that she was one of five sisters. Youngest at that.
But then you get like with the really sort of the boring things like you say like the feminization of the gens, and it could also include the branch within that gens. So Livia is known to us as Livia Drusilla. Because she comes from the Livi Drusi. Like her name is not special. It's just letting you know where she comes from.
Dr Rad 40:38 Yes, absolutely. And this is kind of to do with the way that Roman marriage evolved. So very early on, we think that the Romans had a more sort of all encompassing version of marriage, the manus marriage, which is where a woman was properly, legally kind of absorbed into the family that she married into, almost as though she was in fact, like a daughter of that family. But that becomes unfashionable. And there are many reasons for that. It kind of has to do, I think, with the fact that women could be used as marriage pawns. And it was just easier to untangle a marriage if you didn't go through the smartest marriage. But that's just my personal opinion.
Dr G 41:23 And also increasingly, as women became able and more likely to inherit, you did want to retain them in the birth family, if you needed to.
Dr Rad 41:32 Yeah, exactly. And so when that happens when you get the sin monos marriage where a woman remains part of her original gens, even though she's married to this man, she will obviously, her name will be like a living advertisement of where she comes from, you know, it'll go obviously, it is like a feminized version of her original gens name. And as time goes on, I know we won't get into it too much, but as time goes on, if women come from particularly elite families, sometimes later on in Rome's history, they actually start to use those names sometimes when they're fashioning names for children sometimes, but that's much that's much later on. And it's, it's too complicated for today.
Dr G 42:19 Yeah. And when the wife comes from a more illustrious family than the husband, you might want to lean into the prestige of where the wife and mother comes from, rather than the husband.
Dr Rad 42:30 Exactly, yeah. And as again, as time goes on, and again, we're not going to get into this too much now. But as time goes on, women do acquire more than just like the one name it we do see women getting more names as time goes on. And if you're not a higher class woman, you may very well get like a nickname or have like a stage name, I suppose of sorts. You know, like, if you're, for example, I'm thinking of women who are like, sex workers, but like elite kind of sex workers, you know, they might have a proper name, but then they might also have like a, a nickname or a working name. So specifically, the one I'll give you an example of, there's a mistress of Mark Antony, known as Cytheris. Now, that wouldn't have been probably her actual name name, but more of like a nickname, because she was an ex-slave of a guy named Volumnius. So her name probably would have been like, Volumnia, or something like that.
Dr G 43:26 Interesting. So like, nicknames. When we've got nicknames that are noted down, they're often really quite rude. We've got one of the infamous examples in the Late Republic is Clodia.
Dr Rad 43:41 Oh, yes.
Dr G 43:41 Now, Clodia is one of three sisters. But then you're like, Well, how are we gonna get her to stand out from the bunch? It turns out that she gains a bunch of nicknames, most of which are really critical, a lot of which come from Cicero, who doesn't like her. She's known as Nola, “the unwilling”. She's, she's also referred to as Medea Palatina, “the Medea of the Palatine”. And sometimes just as it seems, maybe a particular insult or maybe just a literal description, Clodia Metellii. I, because she's married to Metellius, right. So she's Metellus' Clodia, as opposed to anybody else's.
Dr Rad 44:25 So all about the ownership, isn't it?
Dr G 44:28 Yeah. But she is also speculated to be the figure who appears in Catullus' poetry, referred to as Lesbia.
Dr Rad 44:37 Yes, yes.
Dr G 44:38 So she is a woman of many names.
Dr Rad 44:40 Yes, I suppose it's not so much like a stage name. It's like a code name.
Dr G 44:44 Indeed, and look, Catullus, he's, he's got a lot of code names for people. I think my favorite one is his reference consistently to Mamuura – a guy he doesn't like – as Mentula, cause Mentula is is a rude Latin word for penis.
Ah yes, the Romans.
So witty, so clever.
Dr Rad 45:12 Oh, dear, Well, should we talk about slave names? So do you want to wrap up there?
Dr G 45:16 I reckon we should talk about enslaved people, what is happening to them? And how do we know what their names are?
Dr Rad 45:22 Well, this is the thing, Dr. G, slaves very much like women, were low low down in the rank of things, you know, I mean, in terms of what they can actually do in life. Can they be involved in politics in a formal way? Hell no. Can they run an army? Absolutely not. So I think that their lack of role in public life is kind of reflected in their lack of names in terms of they don't have very many, they're that they're certainly not gonna have a trianomina. That is definitely an elite Roman thing.
Dr G 45:56 And it seems to be the case that mostly what happens to them is they get given a name. And it's a cutesy kind of nicknamey kind of thing. It's a bit of a throwaway. Yeah, really emphasizing the fact that they're a possession. And then it's the reference to the gens of the owner, essentially, but not in a way that would suggest that they were part of that family just that they were a possession of that gens.
Dr Rad 46:25 Yes, definitely. And so we do actually have a reasonable amount of slave names, I suppose. We don't always get names like you and I both know, we've talked about a number of like slave uprisings or slaves in forming another slaves with like conspiracies and that kind of thing. And very rarely do we come across a name with that, because they're not important. You know, they're not significant figures to the people who are writing these histories.
Dr G 46:49 Not to the elite writing histories.
Dr Rad 46:51 Yeah, no, no, no, sorry, go on, go on. No, I'm not saying that. Yeah, no, they they're not considered to be important by the Romans who are writing the history. However, this is where archaeology becomes very important. We do have items that have been left behind which record slave names, it might be something to do with like maybe tombstones, or it might be, for example, slave collars. So slave collars sometimes have records of names. So there's one that was found that had engraved on it, “I am called Januarius. I am the slave of Dextrus.”
Dr G 47:23 Hmm. All right. So the slave is called January.
Dr Rad 47:26 Yeah, which might be when he was purchased.
Dr G 47:31 Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty nondescript kind of name in the same way that sort of praenomens end up being as well.
Dr Rad 47:37 Yeah. And then there's also one that we found that “Marci Puer” which means Marcus's boy. So as you say, it's all about ownership. And the way of calling him boy might not reflect his actual age. It's just that way of kind of referring to someone in a very patronizing way. I think like, you know, that they are Yeah, yeah, it might, but we don't know.
Dr G 48:00 This is a bit like the inclusion of so was slave as part of their name. So this is the sort of thing that gets tested as well. So they might have a bit of a throwaway name. So we've got an example. Like, for Phillipus is their name. They're part of the Caecilii. So they're owned by the Caecilii. And they're the slave of Lucius. And that's it, that's their complete name, right. So their name really emphasizes their servitude. And it's clearly not the name that they would ever choose for themselves.
Dr Rad 48:40 No. And one of the interesting things about Roman slavery, unlike other places in the ancient world, is that manumission – or being freed from slavery – does become increasingly common. So there isn't necessarily an expectation that you're going to be a slave forever now, very much I think depends on when you are a slave in room's history, and also, what kind of employment you are given as a slave, for example, I think you have a fairly high chance of being manumitted if you are a household slave. However, if you are working in mines, for example, you're far more likely, unfortunately, to probably just die in those mines and you are to ever be freed.
Dr G 49:22 Yeah, for sure.
Dr Rad 49:23 However, when you are freed, you actually, it kind of starts this process where you can actually start to kind of enter your family into this room and system now, not straightaway, don't, don't get carried away. Don't get ahead of that straightaway. But certainly, your name will reflect as you say, the family that used to own you because you're bonded forever, even though you might be freed. You become a client of that family. And you might even stay physically close to them. For example, they might live near you and you might run a bakery on their behalf or something like that, and they might take an interest in your business, who knows. So your name is going to reflect that new identity. And your children will be able to take part in the Roman system like pretty fully by the time we get to late Republic early empire.
Dr G 50:16 Yeah. So in terms of thinking about how this looks as examples, I've got a couple of examples for you. So one of the things that one of the key things that happens with the name is the inclusion of the libertus or liberta, depending on whether you're masculine or feminine. And so indicating very clearly that you're freed person. Yep, you might retain your old slave name, like your praenomen as a cognomen. And then the other parts of your name, are indicative of who used to own you. So like, it's almost like the ownership continues in an informal way, because like you now carry the name of the person who has enslaved you Yeah, for the rest of your life. So we've got some examples like Aulus Pupius Aulus Libertus Antiochus. So the Aulus Pupius Aulus is about the slave owner. Libertus is indicating this as a freed man. And Antiochus is the name he goes by. So it was probably the name that he had while he was a slave.
Dr Rad 51:32 Right, yeah. And these names as well, as you can kind of tell from that example, they might reflect obviously, where they were from, might have might have something to do with that, again, geography, potentially being a bit of an indicator there.
Dr G 51:46 Potentially, although there did seem to be a trend for giving enslaved people foreign names. So there was a real trend for like Greek slave names. Even if they weren't Greek-
Dr Rad 51:58 Because of the the status of having a Greek slave?
Dr G 52:02 Or just a real recognition that they weren't Roman, even when they became Roman, if you like,
Dr Rad 52:07 True, true. It can also be the slave market where they were bought.
Dr G 52:11 Yeah, exactly.
Dr Rad 52:13 Because they might have no idea.
Dr G 52:15 So like, we've got this continuation of that relationship with the enslaver. And then we've got the capacity in the next generation. So when that freed person if and when they have children, those children will gain more citizen rights. Yes, they will, was the freedmen is always going to be in a restricted kind of position.
Dr Rad 52:35 Yeah, true. And I suppose one of the interesting things is that, say when slaves are still enslaved, they may just go by like the one name, okay. And unlike, when we were talking about Roman cognomen names, and how they developed how they can sometimes be negative, it's unusual to find slave names that are negative, they're usually like positive character traits. So yeah, they don't tend to be which is weird, because you think that the Romans wouldn't care so much about that, but maybe they're trying to I don't know, is that like a morale thing? You're trying to inspire them?
Dr G 53:12 I don't know. They probably just thought it was cute.
Dr Rad 53:15 Yeah. And it might also have something to do with your profession, the name that you're given. So for example, one of the most famous inscriptions, what not inscription, sorry, I shouldn't say that. One of the most famous pieces of graffiti that has been found to do with gladiators mentioned is a gladiator named Celadus, or Seladus, depending on how you want to say it. And this is a yeah, there's a piece of graffiti talking about him and the reaction that the crowds have to him and that sort of thing. And that means “The Crowd's Roar”. So that obviously has something to do with the fact that he is a gladiator. And if you think about of course, the most famous example, I mean, I have to bring him up Spartacus.
Dr G 53:56 It's really hard to get through an episode without a Spartacus mention.
Dr Rad 54:00 I know, I know. But once again, he's just he's just got the one name, okay. Because at the time he's getting this name, you know, he is in fact a slave. And this may potentially be a name that's trying to give him some like Thracian origins, how valid they are or not, who knows, you know?
Dr G 54:19 Yeah, no, fair enough. So I think to wrap up, I just have a couple of hilarious examples to share with you of names.
Dr Rad 54:27 I'm always up for hilarious examples.
Dr G 54:31 You gonna have to bear with me. Okay. So jumping ahead into the high imperial period. The year is 169 CE. And we have the consul of that year, who holds the record as it happens for the person with the most names.
Dr Rad 54:51 Oh.
Dr G 54:53 He has 38 names.
Dr Rad 54:56 What??
Dr G 55:00 But wait for it. Let me give it to you so you can feel the full force, okay?
Dr Rad 55:04 Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready.
Dr G 55:07 Q(uinto) Pompeio Q(uinti) f(ilio) Quir(ina) Senecioni / Roscio Murenae Coelio Sex(to) / Iulio Frontino Silio Deciano / C(aio) Iulio Eurycli Herculaneo L(ucio) / Vibullio Pio Augustano Alpino / Bellicio Sollerti Iulio Apro / Ducenio Proculo Rutiliano / Rufino Silio Valenti Valerio / Nigro Cl(audio) Fusco Saxae Amyntiano / Sosio Prisco.
Dr Rad 55:49 I think you forgot to Alfa Romeo. That is so ridiculous. Like, I can't even make sense of like, like, I know that names are supposed to give some indication of like, where you came from and stuff that like you lost me after about the first three.
Dr G 56:05 I hope his nickname is 38 names. So they just call him 38.
Dr Rad 56:11 I love it. Oh my god.
Dr G 56:13 Goodness me, what chaos.
Dr Rad 56:16 But that's what I mean. like, if you're trying to advertise where you came from? Like, did the Romans even get that?
Dr G 56:23 I mean, I there's a lot to take in there isn't there? But yeah, that that appears on an actual inscription. So-
Dr Rad 56:35 So we know it's real. We know it's real.
Dr G 56:38 It's out there. Which is pretty hilarious, I think. And the last example I want to draw your attention to is one that was sent to us by a listener.
Dr Rad 56:49 Yes, I remember this one. You have better eyes than I do. I couldn't read the inscription. Just a FYI, just an FYI, by the way, if you want to send us stuff in, we're both getting older. Can you please send us as many photographs as possible? Like even even like the little caption that goes with the thing in the museum just because our eyes are not what they used to be.
Dr G 57:11 I mean, speak for yourself. She'll be right. So we want to say a huge thank you, first of all to Florian from Switzerland. Thank you very much for sending us this inscription.
Dr Rad 57:25 We were thrilled.
Dr G 57:25 Yes, we were thrilled. It did make our day. This inscription can be found in the Museo Nazionale di Ravenna. So if you happen to be in Ravenna, we totally recommend you go there and have a Look at this. Because this guy's name is Phalleus.
Sounds a bit cheeky.
Sounds like a little bit like phallus. Was his nickname Phallus? I mean, I certainly hope so. That people made a lot of dick jokes about this guy.
Dr Rad 57:54 For sure.
Dr G 57:54 He looks pretty serious on his tombstone, I'll give him that doesn't look happy.
Dr Rad 57:58 Well, it's not really the time for like a big grin, is it?
Dr G 58:04 So Phalleus is the son of Diocles, this we know, he's also the helmsmen of a ship called the Galeata. And his tombstone was erected by his freedmen, Pieris and Nice, or Nike, depending on your preference. And it's got a description here of size. And it says, you know, six feet in front and 15 feet in the field. And I'm hoping that this is not a reference to the size of the phallus, more, more likely a reference to the size of the ship.
Dr Rad 58:40 I was gonna say that sounds like well, more than I can take, Dr G!
Dr G 58:44 That is exceptionally large. So Phalleus, thank you for all that you've done. Searching hard and wide, it's, it's not at all clear what this name might mean, it's pretty unusual. It's fairly unattested. So, we're very lucky to have this example. I think,
Dr Rad 59:04 Did you say that there was a date for this one, as we know when it's from?
Dr G 59:07 Ahh we think so. And I'm not talking here on my own behalf necessarily. Some scholars have looked into this.
Dr Rad 59:14 The royal we.
Dr G 59:16 The royal we. Kind scholars out there who have looked into this because they're mostly interested in this inscription, because it's describing somebody who's in charge of a ship, right? Not a military leader or such or a naval officer, but the person who's actually running the boat, okay? And they think this is from the end of the Julio-Claudian period, or somewhere like sort of like Augustus up to the end of the Julio-Claudian period somewhere in that sort of-
Dr Rad 59:46 Somewhere in that 100 years. Okay, so now so names have started to shift a little bit by then.
Dr G 59:54 Well, we don't get a sense like from this kind of name. It doesn't see seem like we're dealing with like a highbrow Roman family at all, doesn't sit in that category.
Dr Rad 1:00:05 No, it does not.
Dr G 1:00:06 And I'm not sure how to necessarily position this name. But I mean, we've got somebody here called Phalleus, and I personally find joy in that.
Dr Rad 1:00:16 Oh, definitely. And it actually attests to what we were just talking about with the relationship between slaves and their masters, or should I say, former slaves and their masters the fact that this guy's freedmen, organized for his burial, seemingly, which happened even to a very elite people like Pompey, the great when he had, you know, fallen afoul of a whole bunch of people, including Ptolemy the 13th, and had his head cut off. It was his freedmen, I believe, who helped to organize his burial – organize his remains and that sort of thing.
Dr G 1:00:48 Ahh – way to bring some spoilers into this!
Dr Rad 1:00:51 Sorry! Oh dear. Well, I hope that that was a really useful kind of overview of Roman names. As you can see, it's kind of hard to rein in because there's so much change over time, but there is a fascinating topic. And if you would like to hear more, so if you want to hear more about how they evolve over time, and we can look at things like Christian names, or we can look into certain types of names, maybe in a bit more detail, please do let us know.
Dr G 1:01:20 Oh, yeah, if there are topics that you'd like us to consider, or there's little bits of trickiness of ancient Rome, that you would like a more in depth explanation of, please get in touch. We're on many social medias, you can leave a comment on our website, all of those good things, we look at all of the places. And yeah, we'll definitely see what we can find out and put together for you. So Roman names. Excellent, somewhat confusing. And gonna get more confusing as time goes on.
Dr Rad 1:01:48 I was gonna say. To be honest, I still find Roman names very confusing.
Dr G 1:01:54 They are. I do spend time really carefully looking at them when I'm navigating them, because it's easy to – when you're not a Roman – just sort of, like get trip yourself up a little bit. And go back and have to correct but yeah, there's definitely a pattern to what the Romans are doing, depending on where you sit in the hierarchy of Roman society.
Dr Rad 1:02:20 Yeah. And there is a reason for it. I think that's the thing when you when you see like this constant, passing on of names, like, you know, Appius Claudius, Appius Claudius, Appius Claudius, you're like, “Oh, my God, why are they doing this!” But you realize that there is actually a reason, there's a reason, it's not just them trying to be cruel to the generations.
Dr G 1:02:41 You know, it's not that they hate historians.
Dr Rad 1:02:46 If anything, they love history. They build the history right into the name.
Dr G 1:02:50 Yeah. They want us to know exactly what's going on with this guy is very generous of them.
Dr Rad 1:02:56 I think the big takeaway for me, and I'm just going to use this to sum up my thoughts, Dr G, is that they seem so foreign, but when you actually think about it, it's to do with stuff that we still care about, which is your status really like telling people something about yourself. And that's why parents still put so much effort into naming their kids these days, like, they kind of know that the sound of a name, the sound that it makes the meaning of it, and that kind of stuff, it might kind of give certain connotations to people who hear it. And we still obviously have people who have very famous, recognizable last names in our society. So I think that that really resonates with me the status, the kind of recognizable aspects of names. I think that's what I take away from this.
Dr G 1:03:43 Yeah, for sure. And I think you can clearly see the legacy of how influential naming conventions are, when we think about how society works and operates, even within the sort of paradigms of the modern world. There is, depending on where you live, there is the tendency for women to change their name after they get married. And that is a legacy of sort of patriarchal structures. And it's letting people know that there's a kind of a primacy of a masculine line.
Dr Rad 1:04:21 Yeah.
Dr G 1:04:22 And those sorts of things tell you something about the way society works. And people who resist it, or people who accept it are either embracing or criticizing elements of that structure. And the Romans are doing similar things as well, like their naming conventions are not set in stone. Now. They do change over time, and they adapt for the need that they have for the way that this society is operating as well. So you know, poor 38 names. He's trying to do something there. He's got a plan and it's built on a legacy of names adding to your legacy over time. Like he didn't just come out of nowhere, presumably somewhere in his ancestry is somebody with 22 names and bumps out to 28 names and so forth and so on. So it's kind of, he's just sitting at this real crescendo, where it's like, okay, is this it? Is this where we say enough is enough?
Dr Rad 1:05:22 The man isn't, I mean, I'd almost say that he's trying to get away with something and like, be fraudulent in his ancestry, except that it's so frickin obvious that I can't believe that I have to believe it has to be true. Like, it's just crazy otherwise.
Dr G 1:05:34 Look, the the sense in which he's got, he's got that huge legacy from all different parts of all different families. This idea that, that actually, the history of his family is so transparent, that he can tell you the depth of his legacy, and the legacy that he stands upon. That's really fascinating to me, because, I mean, it's, it's outrageous, but hilarious.
Dr Rad 1:05:58 Yeah. And I suppose it's probably good to note, although I'm sure most people know this. But just in case you don't, because we don't know where in the world you might be from. In Australia, and places like America and England and that sort of thing. You still have quite a lot of names that are derived from Latin that are used quite commonly today. So if you're a Mark, if you are an Anthony, if you are an Amelia and Amanda, a Miranda, you have a name that is derived from Latin.
Dr G 1:06:31 I think that's a happy note to wrap up on.
Dr Rad 1:06:33 I think so too. Well, goodbye Dr. G, I say formally in respect of your academic credentials.
Dr G 1:06:42 So Well, Dr. Rad, respecting also your academic credentials. A huge shout out to our Patreon supporters for suggesting this topic to us.
Dr Rad 1:06:54 Absolutely.
Dr G 1:06:55 And a huge thanks to everyone who listens to our show. If you'd like to support our work, there are many ways you can do it. You could leave a review of the podcasts wherever you listen to it. You could also buy us a coffee on Ko Fi. Or you could sign up to be a Patreon as well. We'd love that! No obligation, the episode will be free to you anyway. But, you know, thank you for listening.
Dr Rad 1:07:23 Indeed. And we'll just quickly say that if you want to check out the sources that we use to put together this episode, and also our sound credits, you should check out the show notes at the partial historians.com And you can also use that to find out how to support us but really, one of the best ways to support us and the cheapest is to just tell someone about the show and tell them that you love it.
We've all been waiting for YEARS for this… more power to the plebs! Yes, you heard us correctly. For once, the patricians will not get exactly what they want.
Episode 145 – Power to the Plebs
Icilii, Icilii, Icilii
It is 409 BCE and another exciting year in the conflict of the orders (allegedly). The plebeians were enraged when elections were held for consuls instead of military tribunes with consular power.
The plebeians decided to channel the advice of the First Wives Club. Don't get mad, get everything! Denied the chance to elect their hero from the previous year, the plebeians rallied together and secured THREE plebeian quaestorship.
The quaestorship had technically been open to plebeians since 420 BCE. However, it took a decade for the plebeians to finally take the plunge. They were assisted by several tribunes of the plebs from the Icilii family. The Icilii often appear when something important happens for plebeian rights. Don't you just love the grand narrative of Roman history?
Hungry for more, the plebeians decided to push for elections of military tribunes with consular elections. They were determined to elect a plebeian candidate in 408 BCE.
The patricians were already aghast at the prospect of plebeian quaestors, so they were hardly going to let that happen.
Once again, we find ourselves in a stalemate, with neither the patricians or the plebeians willing to back down.
Join us for another action-packed episode!
Things to Look Out For:
Tribune of the plebs in trench coats and sunglasses
Way too many Icilii running around Rome
Dr Rad’s phone alarm going off and her not hearing it because, you know, she’s deaf. Really sorry about that, guys!
Cn. Cornelius A. F. M. m. Cossus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 414
L. Furius (L. f. Sp. n.?) Medullinus (Pat.) Cos. 413
Tribune of the Plebs
(L.?) Icilius
? Icilius
? Icilius
Quaestors
P. Aelius
K. Fabius Ambustus (Pat.)
P. Papius
Q. Silius
Our Sources
Dr G reads the Fasti Capitolini and Diodorus Siculus 13.80.1.
Dr Rad reads Livy ab Urbe Condita 4.54-55.
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
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Automated Transcript.
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Dr Rad 00:12
Welcome to the partial historians. We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad. And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts. Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the Hello, and welcome to another episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad,.
Dr G 01:04
and I am your other host, Dr. G. Hey,
Dr Rad 01:08
Hey, Dr. G. Welcome to a history of Rome that's being told in excruciatingly painful detail,
Dr G 01:17
Just as the Romans would have liked it, I think.
Dr Rad 01:19
Exactly. I mean, we're just fulfilling their wishes.
Dr G 01:22
Yeah. Their fame lives on as long as we talk about them.
Dr Rad 01:26
That is correct. So Dr G, last episode we were dealing with 410 BC. Today we're going to be dealing with 409, it all makes chronological sense.
Dr G 01:40
Yeah, it looks so far. So good. I do not quibble at all with that logic. And 410 was an interesting year because we got introduced to a new location that we hadn't heard of before. Called Carventum. Ah, yes, we still aren't entirely sure where it is, the mystery remains. But we do think it might be part of a important strategic location that sort of forms the edge of Roman territory and Hernitian territory. And obviously, the Volscians and the Aequians want to get their little dirty paws all over it.
Dr Rad 02:19
Like they do everything. Indeed,
Dr G 02:22
Indeed, that's just the way those guys
Dr Rad 02:24
Oh, I know, don't they knew that Rome is destined to be the superpower in this corner of the world.
Dr G 02:29
Not yet. Not yet.
02:33
So what we had last time was some classic conflict of the order stuff, I think, hmm, yeah. So we had our command commander called Valerius, who ended up being quite an unpopular, man.
02:51
Wow, how so? Is it even possible for Roman to become unpopular?
Dr Rad 02:56
Well, he was so harsh, I think after the conflict that had happened between the patricians like himself and the representative of the people, the tribune of the plebs, Menenius, that he kind of alienated them just just that much. They didn't like him at all. And they really liked Menenius. Yes, well, that's the kind of the way it goes at the moment, isn't it? There's a lot of backwards and forwards with this kind of class political struggle, which is really evidence as far as we're concerned, I think the nature of our annalistic sources, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, whenever if ever he put us back into the scene, really trying to figure out what it meant to be a Roman in this very early period of history, where they don't have a lot of good written accent evidence from the time in question. Exactly. So basically, we ended up with this situation where because Valerius had made himself so unpopular, and Menenius, the tribune of the plebs looked even better by comparison, that the patricians were incredibly nervous because they were sure that if they went with elections for military tributes with consular power, that Menenius would end up being the first plebeian to actually get elected to this office, which is technically open to anyone.
Dr G 04:26
Quelle horreur, we cannot possibly have a plebeian and charged around here. I
Dr Rad 04:33
It simply cannot be tolerated, it will not be tolerated, and therefore we're going to have concealer elections and concealer elections alone. Well,
Dr G 04:41
Well, this all makes sense for what comes up in 409 BCE.
Dr Rad 04:46
It does I think it might be time to dive in
Dr G 05:06
It is 409 BC A exciting time in Romans history as is every year I have to say. And I have some excellent news for you, Dr. Rad. Oh my god. Am I about to fall off my chair? Have you rediscovered Dionysius of Halicarnassus Oh sadly no. But the Fasti Capitolini is back, baby.
Dr Rad 05:30
Well, I'm glad you have something.
Dr G 05:33
Literally two names
Dr Rad 05:37
it's better than a big fat nothing you bring into these episodes. Oh,
Dr G 05:42
yeah, like a historian is only as good as their material. You
Dr Rad 05:46
always do your research.
Dr G 05:48
I try but it's hard to cobble together things for me at the moment. Yeah, Yeah, to be honest, I think I have the easier deal, actually having something to read. Oh, Look, you bring the narrative and I give you a whole bunch of names. And I don't know what happens to any of them. And that I think is fine. That is how we're sharing the load right now. Well, there
Dr Rad 06:06
certainly are a whole bunch of names for the year for now. So why don't you tell us who they are.
Dr G 06:12
I show we have two consuls, which is very much in keeping with that fear in 410. About anybody coming into position as military tribune with consular power. You can solve that by just having consuls. So we have Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus. We have had him in our mix before he was a military tribune with consular power in 414 BCE. And we also have Lucius Furius. Medullinus. I know ,a Furius back in the mix. One of our favourite genses right now. Now he was previously consul in 413. And he is in the middle of an upwards career trajectory. He doesn't know it. But foreshadowing we
Dr Rad 07:01
do think
Dr G 07:05
we certainly do. Thanks a lot.
Dr Rad 07:09
It looks like yes, we
Dr G 07:11
are. And we've also got in addition to the consuls, we've got three possible tribune of the plebs. And to make things even more interesting on this front, every single name that I have attached to the role of tribune of the plebs is an Icilius. At least three named possibly different. Icilii in the tribune of the plebs mix.
Dr Rad 07:37
Okay, hilarious. But it does make sense because if we're ramping up the conflict of the oddest narrative, this duel between the patricians and the plebeians, who better to have in office than an Icilii?
Dr G 07:53
it does present us with some problem so. So the tribune of the plebs position it's been talked about in previous years, we've definitely talked about it where it seems like our sources are written sources are assuming that there's already 10 of these characters. Yeah. We don't have any good evidence to establish that the body of the tribune of the plebs was that large this early inroads history.
Dr Rad 08:21
How are you? He's just had a very large dinner.
Dr G 08:25
What do you mean this 10 of him? Just one man, where are you very large coat. So we've got three possible Icilii as tribune of the plebs, no other group is named, but that would be a substantial faction within the tribune of the plebs, if they were a group of 10.
Dr Rad 08:43
It is. But as we've highlighted, this is a family that has a very strong association with the office of the tribune of the plebs, they often pop up just when things get dramatic,
Dr G 08:53
They do. And this gives you a sense that maybe something dramatic might be on the horizon this year as well. So I guess we'll see motion. If you times your Icilius by three, do you get three amounts of drama three times, I don't know, I guess we'll find out together. The other group that I have names for quaestors.
Dr Rad 09:15
you might say this.
Dr G 09:18
And in lieu of the fact that I have very little actual evidence to provide you. What I've done is I've gone through the names of the quaestors to try and sort of place them in the broader scheme of like, what might be going on in Rome, with Roman families.
Dr Rad 09:34
I always love when you do this, because as you know, anything to do with Latin, including names is not my strong point.
Dr G 09:42
And Look, I don't think it's really mine either. But I do enjoy sort of building a picture for myself, like where do all these characters fit? Yeah, because the names often end up sounding a little bit samey because the names all have the same kind of endings. And then, after a while, you're like I'm sure I've heard this name before. But is it a different guy? So for just for like the sake of like trying to keep everybody straight in my head, I enjoy sort of delving into the family side of things. Absolutely. So our first quaestor is Publius Aelius. Now I Aelius is known as a plebeian gens
Dr Rad 10:24
I'm not going to give too much away, I'm just gonna react calmly.
Dr G 10:28
Calmly, calmly. And they do have a recorded history from around about this period. So the fourth century BCE, so jumping head just a few years into the next century, and all the way through into the late imperial period. So this is a family that has real longevity in terms of their history and legacy across generations. Now, we might be getting this name now, because of the associations the family takes on in the late Republic, okay. Now, I don't know, I like I'm just, I'm talking really slowly because I'm waiting for you to be like, I'll jump in and tell you what's going on.
Dr Rad 11:13
I'm not gonna jump in at any point. I'm just gonna let you talk through all of these names and shock you.
Dr G 11:19
Okay, okay. I'll prepare myself for the shock. Okay. So we have some figures, like Quintus Aelius Tubero, and this is heading into the this late Republican period who's the nephew of Scipio Aemilianus. And he's infamous or famous depending on which side of politics you're on as an anti Gracchan figure. So somebody who's like on the conservative side of politics, yeah, the Gracchi a very progressive and not everybody's into that. And then there's also a Quintus Aelius Tubero, same night name different guy. Yeah, who is a jurist and historian. And he wrote a 14 book Roman history from the foundation of Rome to the Punic Wars
Dr Rad 12:12
Suspicous.
Dr G 12:15
Well, this is really interesting, because we think that this Aelius Tubero is a common source for Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Aelius Tubero himself. Those books are no longer extant. Yeah, so anybody if you find a manuscript hiding in a monastery, you get in touch, yeah, get in touch. We'd be very excited historians everywhere would be very excited to find ideas to grow, but we think he's utilised by both. So there's a sense in which living and Dionysius are being influenced by an Aelius in their own writing. And so they probably have particular ideas about what Aelius' are like in terms of their character and disposition. Okay, we move on our second quaestor is Kaeso Fabius Ambustus. Definitely a patrician, a fabulous Fabii. Yeah. And likely related to Quintus Fabius Ambustus, Vibulanus who was the consul of 412,
Dr Rad 13:19
I was gonna say this, this name feels like more familiar territory.
Dr G 13:24
Yeah, yeah. And I think the expectation is that you would assume that the quaestor was would be patrician at this point. So it is quite interesting that we do get a mix of names that seem to suggest that both patricians and plebeians were in the quaestorship this early on.
Dr Rad 13:42
I'm not gonna give in I'm gonna say
Dr G 13:46
just keep putting a little hoping that your bite. Okay, all right. Now third quaestor is Publius Papius. Now, this gens, the Papius gens is an italic gens. And you might think to yourself, yeah, but surely all genses are Italic genses us we're talking about the Romans here. But when we're talking about italic peoples, we're generally talking about people beyond the Romans. Because we tend we tend to classify the Romans as their own thing, even though they're clearly part of the broader italic community. But the Papius gens has connections to the Samnites and Oscan speakers. So this is thinking about the sort of the hilly region to the east of Rome, but also South heading towards compania in the same sort of mountainous region. This is really the Oscan speaker kind of territory, they'ee plebeian, considered to be plebeian. And then we also see the Papii family go on to hold positions of tribune of the plebs. So there's some spoilers for you, dear listeners, coming up in a podcast near you, but the Samnites I think we We've mentioned them maybe just an episode or so ago, well, they
Dr Rad 15:04
are going to become a regular feature this time. Now
Dr G 15:08
that they've sort of entered in to being mentioned, they're going to continue to be mentioned, they are going to grow to be quite important to the way the Romans understand themselves. And
Dr Rad 15:20
they must be crushed up to G. Let me make that clear, they must be crushed,
Dr G 15:25
we may have a series of conflicts known as the Samnite wars coming your way soon, in the next century.
Dr Rad 15:32
It does make sense we have talked about the fact that they are possibly on the move a bit in this time period, that there's a bit bit more of them coming into rooms or bet in this time period, which is I think, the kind of stuff that's been coming up so far more complex. Yeah.
Dr G 15:50
And I think this gives us a sense that Rome and its influence is not just constrained to Latin speakers, this idea of the foundation of the city, which although we might think of it as being quite mythic, this idea of Rome as a place of asylum, it does seem to be the case that people are moving around, bringing their family history with them retaining their identity, and then also becoming integrated into a Roman social mindset and then gaining political currency within Rome. Yeah. So Rome itself has this history of cosmopolitanism that stems back really quite early into its history. Yes, it's not. So it might help explain some of the things that happen with Roman citizenship later on. Absolutely. Our last quaestor Quintus Silius. Though the temptation to pronounce it as Silius is quite high,
Dr Rad 16:48
I was gonna say, I'm disappointed in you, you're not the co host I thought you were.
Dr G 16:54
really missing all my opportunities. Quintus Silius, as we shall call him. Silius is a plebeian gens Well, of course, he's Silius. This is how the patricians keep you down.
Dr Rad 17:12
What's in a name? I'll tell you what's in it.
Dr G 17:15
It's ridiculous. I tell you, he's very silly. And I refuse to call him anything else. We're not really sure about this guy. I put it to you that Livy seems to be our key source here. And
Dr Rad 17:29
I think I've been proving that fairly emphatically.
Dr G 17:35
I'm agreeing with your Dr Rad. That was me agreeing with you. I think I think maybe we're misleading each other. So the trouble with this is that the Silius gens seems to only really come into prominence in the first century BCE, which is a good 300 400 years away from where we are now. And the question might be asked, What the hell is a Silius doing this early?
Dr Rad 18:11
I'll tell you, he's got late Republican ancestors, and I'm like, quick, put my family like way back as an ancestor somewhere,
Dr G 18:21
please. I mean, the phrase insert an ancestor does, it leads me down dark paths, but I'm not gonna mention what I'm visualising.
Dr Rad 18:30
Romans are always open for that Kind of foreplay.
Dr G 18:37
Well, that is all that I have on the names. I've got other things to talk about. But I think I should defer to you and what is actually going on in this year with any of these people. Can you help me now? I
Dr Rad 18:48
think I set this up really well. And I'm loving the family details here confirms a lot, I think. Excellent. All right. So here we are. We've got consuls being elected. Now Livy tells me that never before have the plebeians been so upset that they were not allowed to elect military tribunes, which implies that the patricians were correct to suspect that this was going to be the year when they were finally angry enough to go for a plebeian candidate over a patrician candidate. If that kind of thing were allowed. So the audience therefore, act out that they have to share their frustration in some way. And the way that they do this strategy is that for the first time, they elect plebeians to the quaestorship we been talking about the conflict of the orders for so long. Finally, finally, allegedly, and probably mistakenly we have plebeians in the quaestorship. Oh,
Dr G 20:03
wow. Okay. I mean, I was just so confused. I was like, What are these plebeians during it here? Everybody knows this is not for them.
Dr Rad 20:11
Yeah, you are correct. You are correct that there was one token patrician was elected alongside little bands. That must have been a comfortable election for him.
Dr G 20:23
Every time he goes into the room to sit down with the other quaestors, he's like, Man, this is a travesty.
Dr Rad 20:29
Exactly, exactly. And Livy does note that it is simply crazy that these three Plebeians Silius, I will adhere to your superior Latin. Aelius and Pupius, Papius is whatever his name is.
Dr G 20:48
Papius, I'm going with
Dr Rad 20:49
it. It does sound wrong to say Pupius. A lot of fun. It was crazy that they were selected over the years from and I quote, distinguished families, which is code of course for patrician family. Yes.
Dr G 21:08
How cruel. Yeah, well, when you put in some names in here, I can see that.
Dr Rad 21:16
Now Livy, therefore had to investigate how it was that the three men finally came to be elected. And he has uncovered that it was indeed the Icilii who were behind the whole plan. They were the men who motivated the plebeians to vote in this insane fashion. Wow.
Dr G 21:39
Okay, so this might help explain. We don't have a complete list of tribune of the plebs. But the idea that there are many Icilii swaying the situation. It's like a political coup is
Dr Rad 21:52
going on. I know. Well, as as we know, a couple of years ago, we were talking about an Icilius, who got elected to be tribune of the plebs, and he was pushing what may have been a very ambitious agenda. But It got cut short, because there was an outbreak of illness, and therefore he couldn't really do anything. He was stymied, Dr. G. Hmm. And now however, when everyone's Well, bouncing around being angry with the patricians, now is the time for them to revisit their radical programme on equal rights for all.
Dr G 22:33
Look, I wish them all the best. I don't think I don't think the patricians are gonna enjoy this at all, or let them get away with it for very long,
Dr Rad 22:43
man not enjoying this. So the Icilius as we know, as a family, one of their character traits, hatred of patricians
Dr G 22:53
classic
Dr Rad 22:55
Passed down in mother's milk. Now the reason the reason why there is confusion, as you say is that Livy's Does explicitly say that there were three men from this particular gens who are elected so that's why I guess we have the question marks and Broughton where it's like is it Icilius, Icilius, Icilius?
Dr G 23:15
that's what I've got one of them is potentially Lucius, question mark, Icilius. And the others are just question mark, Icilius.
Dr Rad 23:22
No one who is rich should Look into a mirror and say, Icilius, Icilius, Icilius three times because it could get dangerous in there.
Dr G 23:30
You will summon the quest for equal rights
Dr Rad 23:34
and a more equitable world. So the Icilii I, I presume all of them, apparently made a lot of big promises about what would happen if plebeians could be elected. And the plebeians being stupid, just ate all of this up, as they always do, according to Livy. Now, I questioned this account, because if the plebeians did just lap up whatever promises were sent their way by Tribunes of the plebs, and you know weren't at all critical of it and all that kind of stuff, then surely we would have actually had this happen in quite some time ago because they would have elected people a to be quaestors, but be to be military tribunes with consular power, that would just make sense. So I think Livy's Being a douchebag Dr. G.
Dr G 24:28
Well, I'm glad that that came from you this time. Because I yeah, this. This is tricky. I mean, why the quaestorship instead of the military tribune with consular power. Like I can see that ultimately, you would want people in all of the positions, those positions to be all available to people regardless of their family background if they can accrue the support for their election, which would include definitely rich plebeians. families who can spend the money to Canvas and put together a kind of election sort of promotion of themselves. But the quaestorship is at this stage very much we think attached to the Treasury. Yeah. And the idea that the politicians would let this out of their sort of hands, I think is a little bit questionable. Like are you going to let the plebeians get their hands on the money?
Dr Rad 25:30
Well, this is where I think you see Livy's or in time period, perhaps coming in and I think you'll see what I mean in a moment, certain, the way that the Icilii had persuaded the plebeians, I think to elect one is that they basically said, Look, there's three of us serving as tribunes. And we're not going to lift a god damn finger, unless you people finally vote plebeian into office now, I'm just going to highlight once more, that doesn't sound like a bunch of crazy promises. To me. It sounds like a hostage situation.
Dr G 26:04
Sounds a bit like a threat.
Dr Rad 26:08
Yeah, that's how they really, I think, got the plebeians over the line and got the plebeians to elect someone from their own class. I hate using that word to describe the bands. But
Dr G 26:21
I think this reflects a big deal of our issue with this whole period of Rome's history, which is we don't understand how the society is structured, necessarily, except that we know that some families are more prominent than other families. But the idea that there is a sort of a class unity doesn't seem to be borne out by our evidence, like Livy and Dionysius have been trying to promote this idea of the class struggle, because clearly the way that class works in the late Republic, it's pretty intense. Yeah. But the way that things are working here, we get the suggestion in most of our written sources that there is this struggle happening, which is failing to manifest as proper struggle, because the plebeians and I'm using my flesh rabbits, that plebeians fail consistently, to vote for their class. Exactly. So I think this leaves us with a situation where maybe class isn't the best way to read any of this. And what Livy and Dionysus are doing is trying to shoehorn these things into a narrative. And I think then the further trouble if we're looking even like more 1000s of years ahead, is that then we get a scholarship from the modern period that tries to read all of this within a Marxist lens as well, because Marxism is very much about class struggle. Sure. So that's a whole nother layer of sort of class confusion, if you like, because people seem to be interested in their families getting ahead. Absolutely. It's about it's about their gens. And what we might be seeing is the real struggle that some genses, gentes in the Latin but I always say genses, because I like it. Some genses is having one accruing the sort of leverage that they need in terms of popular support in order to get elected in the first place.
Dr Rad 28:30
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's been a while since we've talked about this, I think but there certainly has been times when we've been talking about consul, I think particularly so it really has been a while but I remember there being some names that we mentioned, for Consular positions. And there was definitely some question marks about whether they were actually patrician family names. Hmm, yes, yeah. And we talked about that. So go back and listen to it because I'm not gonna do it now. If obedience, I feeling pretty chuffed. They feel like they've really accomplished a lot, even though they haven't elected everybody in to the premier position in the state at this point in time. No military Tribune with consular power has been pulled in officially, they still feel like they've won Dr. G. They've won the larger battle here.
Dr G 29:26
They're chipping away at the seats of power. They'll get there just your weight yet
Dr Rad 29:31
and leave you kind of scuffs at this at this point in time because he says, pathetic. Were they really considering what a classic could do? They have a pretty limited office. Clearly, these fools were thinking that the quest to ship was some sort of stepping stone to having plebeians as consuls and getting their own triumphs.
Dr G 29:56
Oh, Livy's Yeah, we're gonna have a cursus honoroum emerge, It's just not that bad.
Dr Rad 30:01
I know I will do this is where I feel like maybe some of the light Republican vibes are kind of coming through in that, oh, maybe he generally does know more than we do. And he's just not told us very clearly exactly what a quest entails at this point in time. Like, I do understand that there are connections with money. But I do also understand that given the way that Livy's talked about it, it does seem to be kind of a bureaucrat. Yeah,
Dr G 30:28
yeah. And I guess my question is, as well, and I don't have a good answer to this right now. But the quaestorship, generally, if we're thinking about it in terms of like, funds, and managing sort of the Fiscus, and things like that, which it becomes known as, maybe that's not exactly what it's doing at this point in time. But even so, they are somebody who is likely attached, either in a military capacity going around with legions, or maybe attached to the consulship. And why is there four of them right now, when we only have two consuls? So there's, what do we not know there's a bunch of missing information here. As far as I'm concerned. I was like, Do we have some praetors that they're attached to, but when they're not being mentioned? What is it exactly that Christ was doing right now? I'll tell you, we really need four of them.
Dr Rad 31:26
They're saving patricians from a lot of red tape. I think we've established that family clearly. Yes,
Dr G 31:32
the paperwork side of things. Yeah. And how much paperwork could there be? The Romans, they love paperwork.
Dr Rad 31:39
So now we get to my favourite part of the story. The patricians are furious. I mean, it's bad enough that the plebeians were theoretically allowed to be elected. But now they actually have to share the office of quaestor in reality? disgusting
Dr G 32:00
horrifying. Yeah,
Dr Rad 32:02
so now the patricians are feeling like it would actually be immoral for them to even have children, because their children would have to witness the horror, the horror of seeing dirty little plebeians taking their rightful place in the world. I mean, how can a parent actually subject their child to seeing oh my god, like the office of quaestor being occupied by a plebeian, you know, my God
Dr G 32:35
I would rather bear witness to this like this is gonna take everything
Dr Rad 32:43
that you do they get to take everything they get to take a position before you know it like, what are patricians gonna have left? I mean, all they will have left are the sacrifices, Dr. G the sacrifices?!
Dr G 32:55
Guys, guys, I'm gonna have to sell my Ferrari there's no point trying to impress the young patrician ladies anymore.
Dr Rad 33:02
I know I'm not gonna live in a big batch it I think I get very upset. But all they're gonna have is their roles as the salii and the flamens on behalf of the people, which as you would know better than most people. priesthood positions, they
Dr G 33:28
are very important because you must keep your relationship with the gods sound. But it's going to be a problem for the patricians if they do not reproduce.
Dr Rad 33:38
Well, I mean, I guess it's a bit like how some people feel about having children in a climate emergency such as we live in right now. That's how the patricians literally see it as being the end of the world whereas we actually are contemplating the end of the world.
Dr G 33:58
Yeah, it is tragic. Any action you can take the listeners to help preserve our beautiful home. We trust that you will take it Yeah.
Dr Rad 34:06
Well, the patricians are prepared to take action, Dr G.
Dr G 34:10
Let us take the patrician example as our model of excellence.
Dr Rad 34:14
Yep. So anyway, so both the plebeians and patricians are therefore in a state of complete emotional overload, the pavilions are on a super high, because they are just so frickin thrilled that they're plebeians in office. And they do they do indeed see this as we finally pop that cherry, take that step. This is just gonna be a sign of greater things to come that they are, yeah,
Dr G 34:38
I can just imagine the plebeian quaestors being like, Guys, I've seen money for the first time. It's incredible.
Dr Rad 34:45
Yeah, flying high. The patrician see this as complete and utter Doom, the beginning of the end. There's no other way of saying it. It
Dr G 34:55
is the end of times. It's been great while we've been here, but it's all Ever now 100 years is all we had? Yeah.
Dr Rad 35:03
So this leads to another classic conflicts, which is very similar to the one we had the year before. Where the patricians are therefore, absolutely 100% determined that there are going to be consular elections held Fair enough. You gotta you gotta keep the main power in the patrician hands. This is dire times. Exactly. I mean, it's the only way that they're going to be able to continue to have sex and have children clearly. The Achillea on the other hand, are absolutely determined that it's going to be military tribute and whose conceal the power, because they do think that this is going to be the time that Kobe and is going to get elected into that office.
Dr G 35:42
We're so close guys, we've got them into the quaestorship. We're all over the tribune of the plebs. Next up the top job.
Dr Rad 35:50
Exactly. Yeah. However, as luck would have it, Dr G, the Aequians and the Volscians enter our story.
Dr G 36:02
So okay, the Aequians and the Volsci.
Dr Rad 36:05
All right. Yes. Yes.
Dr G 36:06
Can I pause us here just to give us a sense of like, where we are in the geography of
Dr Rad 36:12
things. Absolutely. Tell me San Diego, where are we?
Dr G 36:15
I will put up my little hat. Yeah, yeah. So the Aequians thought to be the, to the east of Rome. So this is classic near where this Carventum location is we're not really quite sure. The Volscians are to the south east. And the Hernicians are kind of wedged into the in between those two. Yeah. And that's Rome's ally. So that's great. Yeah the Herncians are one of these Oscan speaking peoples and so while the Volscians Yeah, the Aequians though, maybe a slightly different language group. We then have the Latin peoples in general, which includes the Romans, yeah. And they're kind of demarcated by the Tiber River, which cuts sort of East West, and the Arnio tributary, which is a bit of a north south tributary River. Now the Etruscans are the neighbours to the north, anything above the Tiber. We've also got the Faliscans who have come up a little bit so far there to the north and northeast, and thought to be connected to the Etruscans. We've also got likewise a little bit further out the sabae finds also to the northeast, but beyond the fullest skins. And everything sort of South East beyond the fall skins is also considered to be Oscan speaking. So Rome is kind of surrounded by a whole bunch of different people who could cause them problems. And the Aequians Oh, Volscians are definitely the closest in the east and the south east that are causing problems at the moment.
Dr Rad 37:53
Definitely. Yeah. So they cause problems specifically in this year by attacking the territory of the Latins and the Hernicians How dare they? I know. So Rome's allies, clearly, therefore, the council's had to raise an army and the Senate gives the order, go and conduct the levy. Now, I think you probably know where I'm going with this story. You'd be
Dr G 38:19
surprised that I might not.
Dr Rad 38:22
Well, the tribune of the plebs fight the levee, because, of course, that's their, that's their way of resisting and trying to, you know, get what they want, which is elections for military champions with consular power. So they are giving it everything they have, and they are thrilled, actually, that external conflict has arisen, and therefore, once again, that petitions need something from them, and they can withhold it until they get what they want. I think they would very much understand the tactic of like using sex as a weapon. It's well,
Dr G 38:59
you got to use what you got. And when you're the tribune of the plebs resistance is key resisting that levy is a powerful move. Yeah.
Dr Rad 39:08
So Livy's very specific that all three of the Icilii tribunes getting involved here. The plebeians see them as the most noble family that they have on their side. He's like, I mean, they may as well almost be patrician which is like saying a lot as far as the plebeians are concerned, because they're just that elite.
Dr G 39:30
Wow, that's almost offensive. How dare they?
Dr Rad 39:33
Yeah. Now again, this is my second favourite part strategy. Two of the Icilian tribune of the plebs take on the job of essentially tailing the consul around room. Cue the Pink Panther music. They get their sunglasses on. They've got their trench coats on, they've got their slouch hats.
Dr G 39:57
I love it. So because the contents will be going around presumably with some lictors and then trailing a little bit further behind.
Dr Rad 40:05
I guess that makes it makes it easier and you know, it's easier to hide in a crowd. It is. Now the third Icilii, I, you might be wondering, what is he up to? Why is he not in a trench coat? Well, his job is to stir up the plebeians. So making sure that he's, I suppose, keeping their emotions high over these sorts of issues, you know, pushing them to demand what is theirs, and to act in a way that's going to support what they're trying to enact here.
Dr G 40:38
Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good. Yeah. Good to have somebody whipping up that crowd.
Dr Rad 40:42
Exactly. Yeah. So he's, he's like crowd control while the others are trying to
Dr G 40:46
blend in. Is he wearing a trench coat just to keep, like up with the brothers. You know,
Dr Rad 40:52
I know. I feel like he must have been in this cabinet just in case. Maybe they maybe they switch out. Alright, so the consuls are therefore prevented from raising the levy. And the tribunes are unable to get what they want, which is the election of the military Tribune, because nobody is going to give because that's just how the conflict of the orders works
Dr G 41:16
beginning to sound like a terrible stalemate while the enemy inches ever closer.
Dr Rad 41:21
Oh, tell me about it. It was looking like the plebeians were going to get what they wanted. But then dramatic news bulletin on the six o'clock news,
Dr G 41:36
breaking news, breaking news we have incoming from Rome. We've got somebody on the street, throwing to our local reporter now. The Aequians
Dr Rad 41:45
have attacked the Roman garrison left behind at the citadel of Carventum When the men there had left to raid even though it was proven before that that was a dumb idea, because that's how they got Carventum in the first place. Oh, no. That's few men who have been left behind on guard have been killed, I repeat have been killed. And it has been recaptured by the Aequians. That's right. Carventum has been lost. I repeat, Carventum has fallen. Carventum has fallen. We don't know where it is. But it's
Dr G 42:16
disappeared back behind. It's in its cloud of invisibility.
Dr Rad 42:20
Yeah. Now, some more Roman soldiers had died in this battle. Because of course, when they saw the Aequians taking it back, they'd be like, Hold it right there. Drop it, we drop that citadel. But unfortunately, there weren't enough of them. I guess they were pretty scattered. If they were, you know, at raiding, and they were maybe coming back in bits and pieces and that sort of thing. So they were killed trying to recapture the Citadel or keep a hold of it. There were others out in the field, who apparently were randomly killed and that sort of thing. This narrative is a little bit confusing, I suppose. But I think the bottom line is that the Romans had perhaps left this mostly unattended, and they were killed, because they were trying to get back in. It doesn't really make sense, I suppose.
Dr G 43:08
Yeah, it sounds like they maybe weren't on high military alert. So they were just doing the sorts of things that you do when you're a military that has to hold somewhere. But you don't have like a standing order to be in defence where you're like, well, we need to go out foraging and we need to do some field work. We've got to eat and, you know, you end up doing other jobs. And people like, oh, well, we could fix this place up if we just had a nicer log of wood. And we could prop it over here. Like let's do some renovations.
Dr Rad 43:37
You know? Yeah. And if you're in for the long haul, yeah, actually, yeah. And so people
Dr G 43:41
get distracted, and maybe they're they got caught unawares, and they weren't at all ready. And if you're not in the Citadel, when the Citadel gets attacked, that's a huge problem, because that's a massive defensive structure. And to get back into it, when it's being attacked already from the exterior, your chances of surviving aren't great.
Dr Rad 44:04
Yeah, absolutely. So the champions of the playoffs with this news backed bleeded stop opposing the levy. You've got to we're in a really bad situation right now. But they stand strong Dr G, they valiantly refuse and they say, You know what? We could like give two hoots about the danger that the state is in and we don't care if everybody hates us. This is our job. And we're not budging. This is exactly what you always do. And we always give in because it's so dangerous out there. But not this time.
Dr G 44:42
Oh, this is a brazen position. How is this gonna work out?
Dr Rad 44:46
Well, I'll tell you how it works out. It freakin works. They win. Yeah.
Dr G 44:51
That was unexpected. And
Dr Rad 44:54
quick, I know, but I couldn't really string out any fear that they win, because there's no other option here I guess. So it's to say added that the next year there's going to be military treatments with consular power being elected on condition. This is very important read the fine print. Okay, scroll down. Check it. No one is allowed to run for military tribune with consular power for 408, who had been tribune of the particular year. And no tribune of the plebs could be reelected the next year. So the patricians are like right, we want your one none of you Icilii, I are allowed to serve as tribune of the plebs in 408. And none of you are allowed to stand for this office. That's the compromise.
Dr G 45:45
That's a pretty big concession, I think from the patricians in it, which gives a sense of just how strong the support for the Icilii has been across the sort of years so far.
Dr Rad 46:00
Absolutely. The Senate 100% aiming to get this family out of play politically, they want them gone. And they want the people to hate them. They are 100% convinced that this family have the consulship in their sights, you know, they want to be like the first for the and family to hold the consulship like some kind of ridiculous reward for being giant pains in the ass.
Dr G 46:30
Well, that would make them very similar to the patricians would not
Dr Rad 46:34
write like anything. They should see the similarity. Yeah, because we're in this together. These are all kinds of people. Yeah. So as a result, this means that the levy can finally proceed, because everybody is happy with this. Yeah, the Icilii are like, check! Well, you will take that, and they are getting getting ready for war. Everyone is on board. Now, there's a little bit of doubt about exactly how the campaign plays out. Livy is unsure if both of the consuls are sent to Carventum, or whether one is sent out and one remains in Rome to run elections. Live. He notes that he has different accounts in his sources. Does he go into further detail? No, he does not.
Dr G 47:18
Livy's So tantalising.
Dr Rad 47:21
Yeah, levy can only be certain that the Romans did not win back the Citadel at Carventum, but instead had to hang out there in a very long siege, which went No. Oh, okay.
Dr G 47:34
So yeah, they they got the army out there. And it was a bit of a stalemate in the end. Yeah.
Dr Rad 47:40
Okay. Instead, the Romans decided that they're going to recapture Verrugo, which is a Volscian, in the Volscian. area, again, just to irritate their enemy.
Dr G 47:53
Yeah, if if we can't have convinced them back then read definitely taking Verrugo. Yeah.
Dr Rad 47:59
And this is a huge blow apparently to the Volscians in the Aequians. Because when they take Verrugo, they get a lot of bootay. Oh,
Dr G 48:08
interesting. Okay, so that's where the Volscians had taken it all out of Carventum. And sounds like maybe they just stored it in Verrugo. Okay, well, okay, so it's not as clever as it previously seemed that there was no booty to be had with the original taking of Carventum. So Verrugo is the is the place that came up for us in 423. And the moment that Sempronius Atratinus lost a battle against the Volscians, and when the day was saved by the plebeian decurion, Sextus, Tempanius. Who could forget
Dr Rad 48:47
Yeah, I did but.
Dr G 48:51
But this has changed hands a number of times now because it was recon reconquered by the Volscii in 422. And now the Romans have just taken it back again. 409. So this particular location seems to be quite sought after now that people have started attacking it. And it's just sort of going either way, depending on what's going on.
Dr Rad 49:16
I think this is my hot tip. If you do time travel, dear listeners back to this time period, because clearly, why wouldn't you it's a delightful time to be alive. Do not choose Verrugo as your place of residence. I suspect it's probably pretty unpleasant. Well,
Dr G 49:31
and also like it doesn't sound like a great place like Verrugo rolls off the tongue badly, I think. I mean, it doesn't feel like it doesn't conjure great things for me. Yeah.
Dr Rad 49:42
And that's going to be people's main concern and this constant warfare. How it rolls off the tongue
Dr G 49:48
Exactly. Like it doesn't sound like a holiday town.
Dr Rad 49:51
Yeah, like when you were screaming, oh, my God. Take it again and my children have just been massacred in the streets. You're gonna be concerned that it doesn't roll off the tongue easily.
Dr G 50:01
Wow. You know, everybody has their preferences. That's all I can say.
Dr Rad 50:07
All right, well, at least it's not Crustumerium.
Dr G 50:10
Crustumerium also a classic. I love the
Dr Rad 50:13
disease of a town to live. And so that's all I have for this year, Dr. G. But I think you'll agree. What a year.
Dr G 50:22
is actually ended up being a far more significant year than I suspected it was going to be with this transition of the plebeians into the quaestorship, which was not expected at all. Now, before we get into the partial pick, I just want to give you a sense of the broader world politics right now. via a detour into Diodorus Siculus.
Dr Rad 50:48
Ooh, the man who sometimes gets the names of the consuls, correct?
Dr G 50:53
Yeah. So Carthage is having a bit of a situation with Sicily. And yes, we have talks about this. Yeah. So this has been going on for a few years now. Yeah. And ultimately, the Carthaginians want to take over Sicily. That's their dream. They want to run that whole island. Really strategic, it's going to be
Dr Rad 51:16
a mafia who doesn't want this?
Dr G 51:18
I know, it's a very popular spot and great in summer, so very much would recommend. Yeah, but they've elected a general Hannibal, not the Hannibal. And he has razed to the ground, a couple of cities in Sicily. So he's had some success, and we like this takeover one by one, we're going to raise the cities and just move across this island. But then he's getting on in age as well. It's Hannibal character. And he's like, Look, I think, you know, I've had a couple of good city raisings. But I feel like I'm getting to the end of my days. And he appoints another general called human icon to take over the campaign against Sicily. So, whatever is happening into the south, this is all sort of, like, background sort of contextualization for the kinds of conflicts that we're gonna see and maybe a couple of 100 years. I know right? That's all I got.
Dr Rad 52:24
Yeah, I appreciate that. The context of the wider world because sometimes I feel like I can never get out of this boot okay, that means Dr. G, that it is time for the Partial Pick. All right, thank you very much Igor for sharing your dulcet tones. Dr. G, tell us what the partial pick is all about. All
Dr G 52:53
right, we are going to evaluate Rome against some of its own standards. So there's going to be 10 Roman Golden Eagles up for grabs across five categories. So ultimately, it's going to be a mark out of 50 Roman golden eagles. Okay, so our first category is military clout.
Dr Rad 53:16
Hmm, well, it's gonna be a bit of a downer as until
Dr G 53:21
they it was a stalemate. I believe.
Dr Rad 53:25
That's true. They didn't exactly get defeated. They just gave up. They certainly didn't
Dr G 53:31
really win. Verrugo They took Verrugo. That's true.
Dr Rad 53:37
And they did get booty and the Volscians Aequians. were unhappy about it. So that's something that maybe I don't know, like a fine. Yeah. Because it's like when one lose one. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, it was not like they were really trying that hard to cover. And to me, it was a surprise attack. Clearly. They were clearly unprepared. Yeah, exactly. Okay, that's a five. All right.
Dr G 53:59
Diplomacy. Do you negotiate? Really with your army? I think you do.
Dr Rad 54:06
Do you use threats to get what you want? Sometimes? Yeah. Yeah, I think that says, oh, food.
Dr G 54:14
Yeah, expansion. Now,
Dr Rad 54:18
I guess for rigour. Yeah,
Dr G 54:19
but if you lose Carventum, and you gain Verrugo,
Dr Rad 54:24
you end up at a zero.
Dr G 54:25
Is that a zero?
Dr Rad 54:26
I don't know. I feel like do we start at 10? And it goes down to a five it's hard to say
Dr G 54:31
or is it win some you lose some? Oh, do we need to know exactly how much territory was taken versus how much territory was lost?
Dr Rad 54:38
God, how are we ever gonna figure that out? We didn't even know where Carventum is. It's a tough one. Yeah, like I think it's a fairly small scale at this point in time, so I don't know I feel like
Dr G 54:47
I think we can give them a one for getting Verrugo But I don't think we can give them heaps because they did lose Carventum, so they must have lost something as well. Yeah,
Dr Rad 54:57
I mean, very good. It was a spite capture.
Dr G 55:02
I caught Verrugo. It doesn't sound good. Okay, so why All right, our fourth category is virtus.
Dr Rad 55:13
No good
Dr G 55:15
old fashioned Roman masculinity. I mean, Look,are the Icilii demonstrating it?
Dr Rad 55:21
I was gonna say, I mean kind of.
Dr G 55:24
no lighting and trench coats. But
Dr Rad 55:28
to be honest, if I could give points for that, I would,
Dr G 55:31
you might need to update the categories as we get further on.
Dr Rad 55:35
I said it, I said, a monkey. Look, I feel like the Icilii are actually kind of demonstrating virtus. But it's not the kind of where to see patricians would particularly admire. But it is actually taking action. It is standing strong, but it's not involved in obviously, like any sort of armed conflict, per se.
Dr G 55:58
Yeah, it kind of sits in a slightly different category, like and I think the trouble for us at this point is that if we had say, a big like sort of set speech from Livy, for one of these characters, we'd get to see how they position the arguments. And we might be able to make a case for we're to us with those kinds of arguments that the two that were provided, but
Dr Rad 56:20
we really, we just did miss opportunity, isn't it? Yeah,
Dr G 56:23
I Look, I don't know why Livy doesn't go down that track a little bit more often. I'll tell
Dr Rad 56:27
you why. Because it took us forever. When
Dr G 56:31
we're, as part of Dionysius, his charm, he was always keen to show off his rhetorical skill. And that gave us a lot of leverage for thinking about where to us. But when we don't have those speeches, it does mean that we have to base it solely on the action that is recorded and passed on to us. And sometimes that's a little bit more ambiguous. And it's not necessarily clearly we're tours. Yeah,
Dr Rad 56:55
that's just in a long speech was made for which I have no evidence.
Dr G 57:00
I could do the old Thucydides on it. And it's like, I'm just gonna put the words into their mouth that I thought they should say,
Dr Rad 57:08
exactly. I mean, what do you expect? I? I live in an ancient time guys, this new recorder? Yeah, I wasn't doing my best. And I don't know anybody who was alright, so just back off. Just listening to my story, doing the best that I can, and it's going to be plenty accurate as you can get. Yeah,
Dr G 57:27
this is this is amazing journalism, given the circumstances. Our last category is the citizens score. Well, I
Dr Rad 57:36
think this is a category for us today. I mean, that plebeians are absolutely thrilled,
Dr G 57:43
they finally quaestors. Look at him go.
Dr Rad 57:46
I know, I mean, there's not much else that could be better apart from being a military Tribune or a consul. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. You
Dr G 57:55
know, one step closer is one step closer, and there's lots of them in the quaestorship. There's a really strong sense of the iqi. Looking after the little guy by delaying the levy. Now, there is a point – through threats and being incredibly stubborn. But there is also a point where delaying the levee can lead to the risk of the citizens if the enemy gets too close to Rome. So it's a fine line.
Dr Rad 58:22
It is, but I think that it's it doesn't seem like it's that.
Dr G 58:35
No, it seems fun. We don't know where these places are. So they can't be close to Rome.
Dr Rad 58:41
It's a fine line between pleasure and pain. But yeah, yeah. Yeah, I feel like the people would have been more freaked out if they actually thought they were in danger. Because if we've learned nothing from Livy's account, the Romans actually panic quite easily when they hear bad military news..
Dr G 59:00
And there is a tendency for the plebeians to capitulate on their demands as soon as they think there's a risk to their lives, which is fair enough.
Dr Rad 59:10
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I mean. Like the minute we ever hear of like a military disaster being reported back in the city, they lose their freakin minds. They're running around all over the place. The person who's left in charge, it's like, holy crap, how am I gonna get this crowd under control? So the fact that they're not doing that
Dr G 59:28
as part human part chicken
Dr Rad 59:32
that's how that plebeians portrayed I think, and maybe
Dr G 59:36
there's just chickens running around everywhere in the city. Yeah,
Dr Rad 59:39
so Look, I feel like I'm gonna give this an EIGHT Yeah, all right.
Dr G 59:45
I'm not gonna quibble with that. I think the citizens need some bucking up so happy to have had a good run this year. Let's face it.
Dr Rad 59:55
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't really see much that is bad about this. Yeah, I'm I'm happy for them. And you know what? I'd also like to say Dr. G, once again, because I'm a broken record on these sorts of matters. But I took pictures as the events of 409 may, in fact, actually be, it is heartening to read about stories where people are willing to, you know, put it all on the line and their protest movement. And to see how when you actually put your mind to it, and you have unity, you can accomplish your goals, no matter how impossible it may seem, I
Dr G 1:00:35
sense that you're making a bigger claim about the world today through the power of what we can learn from history, and I applaud you, there is a huge people power and strengthen community and community action. That is how you make change.
Dr Rad 1:00:50
Absolutely. I mean, they have done studies on this, which obviously don't directly apply to a room, but looking at all sorts of people power moments, like civil rights movements, and people petitioning for political rights and that sort of thing. And it's shown that you actually only need a very small percentage of a population to be on board with something. But you just need like, you just need to get to like a certain level, a certain small level for people to be on board, to be supporting it to be campaigning it to stand unified to actually achieve change. And I think that we should wear this particular example into that basket, because, of course, the patricians aren't on board. In fact, I would wager that not even all the plebeians are on board, because as we've highlighted before, they are not like this unified class. Okay. There are people that have different interests. I mean, where the hell are the other Tribune's in their story who don't
Dr G 1:01:45
even get a mention, but they don't. It's amazing that would the ones that we have named, we're still talking about, presumably a small group of individuals with space. So yeah, pretty amazing stuff.
Dr Rad 1:02:00
Absolutely. Don't lose hope guys. Get involved with some groups show people that you care talk about it. In history of the early republic has shown us anything, talking about it endlessly. Eventually, we'll get into some way it went long as you combine it with stubbornness, be
Dr G 1:02:20
resilient, know your values and fight for what is good and right, indeed.
Dr Rad 1:02:25
All right. So that means Dr. G, that we have got the Romans finishing 409 on a grand total of 14 Golden Eagles. Actually, that's
Dr G 1:02:36
pretty impressive.
Dr Rad 1:02:37
It's not bad. It's been a lot worse. It has.
Dr G 1:02:42
Rome, you're going up in my estimation.
Dr Rad 1:02:45
Yeah. And we've obviously got potentially a very exciting year ahead of a strategy because with military Tribune with connsular power elections lying ahead, and a plebeian quaestor. In fact, sorry, I shouldn't say a several plebeian quaestors elected in 409. What does the future hold?
Dr G 1:03:08
Well, we will find out soon. Ciao.
Dr Rad 1:03:21
Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. and today we'd like to say a special hello to some of our patrons who entered our second alien giveaway. Alex, AJ, Dr. Kate, Dendrio, Kylie, Vincent, Dana Gray and RS Laugesen and of course Kyle De Cant. However, you can also support our show by buying us a coffee on Kofi. However, if those coins just aren't jangling in your pocket these days please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. And that goes for our book as well. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome
What a confusing decade the 410s have been. It's definitely time for a Partial Recap! We run through what the ancient sources tell us about this decade.
Dr Rad – Welcome to the Partial Recap for the 410s BCE!
Dr G – I’m Dr G
Dr Rad: and I’m Dr Rad
Dr G: and this is our highlights edition of the 410s in Rome. We’ll take you through from 419 to 410 in an epitome of our normal episodes.
Dr Rad: Perfect for those mornings when you don’t want some lengthy rhetoric with your coffee – but please be warned – the Roman world is a violent one.
Dr G: Get ready for a recappuccino.
419 BCE
In 419 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Publius Lucretius Hosti Tricipitunus, Spurius Nautius Rutilus and Gaius Servilius Axilla.
This was a year of high drama, mama!
Some of the slaves in Rome decided to stage a pretty audacious uprising – setting fires all over the city and then taking control of the Capitol whilst everyone else was distracted.
Naturally, Rome’s best bud – Jupiter – made sure their plot failed.
In other words, some of the slaves turned informer and were rewarded with their freedom and a healthy bonus
As for the rest of the slaves – they were simply showered with attention – of the sharp and pointy kind. It’s a sad tale that does not end well.
The Aequians and the Labici started rumbling in the distance this year – there was no major military action, but the Romans had their eyes peeled.
418 BCE
In 418 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Lucius Sergius Fidenas, Marcus Papirius Mugillanus, and Caius Servilius Axilla.
Ambassadors from Tusculum arrived in Rome in this year with very expected news – the Labicani were ready for war. They were so ready, they had already teamed up with the Aequians and started attacking areas in the countryside.
The Romans did not need to hear any more – it was war!
The Senate dispatched two of the military tribunes to campaign whilst one would remain in the city.
The military tribunes immediately started slappy-fighting over who got to command the armies
Quintus Servilius – the dictator who had captured the slippery city of Fidenae and father of one of the military tribunes – had to step in and send them all to their rooms whilst he sorted out the mess.
Servilius placed his son in charge of Rome and packed off the other military tribunes with a hefty smack around the ears and some stern marching orders – “You’ve bragged an awful lot about yourselves so – You’d better WERK!”
Almost as though the ROmans knew something was going to go wrong, only ten tribes were levied – and it was just as well because the military tribunes started swinging their ….swords around before they had even left the city.
They could not agree on anything – the struggle was real.
Things were so out of control that their lieutenants had to insist that the military tribunes held supreme command on alternate days
Now, none of Rome’s wars happened very far away, so word made its way back to the city.
Quintus Servilius told his son to get ready – disaster was on the horizon.
Sure enough, Sergius ended up falling for the Meryl Streep performance given by the Aequians in an engagement and many of his men were slaughtered.
The following day, the Roman camp was almost entirely surrounded and they had to abandon ship. OH THE SHAME!
The leaders managed to grab their standards on the way out and headed for their most adorable allies – the Tusculans.
With the rest of the Roman forces scattered as they fled – confusing reports reached Rome
The general impression was – WORLD APOCALYPSE.
Thanks to the wise leadership of Daddy and Sonny Servilius, the rest of the tribes were levied and readied.
Sonny Servilius’ scouts tracked down the surviving soldiers at Tusculum, and it was a real morale booster to see that they were, you know, alive.
The Romans felt a little more positive, but they knew they weren’t out of danger yet! Just to be safe, Daddy Servilius was made dictator.
Servilius Snr chose Jnr to serve as his master of the horse – or perhaps he chose Mr Servilius Armpit (AHALA)?
The Servilii trotted off into the fray and wouldn’t you know it? The Aequians were so overly confident after winning that Oscar in the previous battle, they started to get sloppy.
In the very first engagement, Servilius Snr caused major disruption amongst the Aequian forces.
Just to prove that he was the most serious Servilii in the camp, Servilius Snr killed a standard-bearer who hesitated when he ordered his troops to advance quickly. There’s no time for thinking!!! Just act, now, move, move, move.
The Romans were feeling his energy and went full berserker
The Aequian defence collapsed and this time they were the ones running back to their camp in total disarray.
The Romans seized their camp and snatched that bootay.
Perhaps feeling like he could relax a tad, Servilius Snr allowed the soldiers to share the spoils.
The Romans had won the battle – but what about the war?
The Aequians had retreated to Labici, to hide with their allies – and the Romans soon showed up with a cake and some ladders.
Labici was pillaged, allowing Servilius Snr to lead his forces back to ROme, where he laid down his powers after eight days of exhilarating action. What a thrill ride!
The Senate were pleased, but they also knew that they needed to be on guard. Those tribunes of the plebs would want to get their greedy paws on that new land that had been conquered.
A quick decree was passed and a colony of 1500 was set up in Labici.
417 BCE and 416 BCE
In 417 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Publius Lucretius Hosti Tricipitinus, Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Caius Servilius Axilla or Structus, Spurius Rutilius Crassus OR Spurius Veturius Crassus Cicurinus.
In 416 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, Marcus Papirius Mugillanus, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, and Spurius Nautius Rutilus.
The events of these years blend together a bit, so be prepared for a double act.
As predicted, some tribunes of the plebs started making the most unreasonable of demands about land.
Spurius Maecilius and Marcus Metilius wanted a law that would divide captured land up amongst Roman citizens.
Does this make any sense at this point in time? Probably not! But it’s classic conflict of the orders stuff – the plebs not getting their fair share, concerns over land allotment, greedy patricians… just lean into the narrative and try to ignore those gaping holes in the story.
The Military Tribunes with consular power started chatting with the senators and other elite dudes – clearly, this was time for an EVIL PLAN.
Appius Claudius, descendant of the infamous decemvir, came forth to uphold his family legacy of douchebaggery
He suggested that they should keep it simple stupid! Just divide and conquer – convince the other tribune of the plebs to use their veto against their colleagues in exchange for patrician favour.
The snaky senators successfully won the wallflower tribune of the plebs over and sure enough, the law was vetoed.
All Maecilius and Metilius could do was call them CLASS TRAITORS and throw a huge hissy fit in front of an assembly.
415 BCE
In 415 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Publius Cornelius Cossus, Caius Valerius Volusi Potitus Volusus, Numerius or Marcus Fabius Vibulanus, and Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus.
Conflict was brewing with Veii AND the Aequians – but then both of them postponed the warfare for another day.
The people of Veii were scared away from a fight due to the flooding of the Tiber River, which ruined some of their farms.
The Aequians were still smarting from a previous defeat when they had been defending the Bolani – an Aequian tribe.
The Bolani seemed to have provoked battle by attacking the Labici and the new Roman colony, but hadn’t managed to secure a victory.
Lucius Decius, a tribune of the plebs, tried to push through an agrarian law that would send colonists to Bolae as well as Labici, but his fellow tribunes would not agree to a plebiscite without the Senate giving their okay.
Bolae would not be in Roman hands for long – so perhaps it was for the best!
414 BCE
In 414 BCE, the military tribunes with consular power were Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus and Publius Postumius Albinus Regillensis.
Postumius was placed in charge of a campaign against the Aequians, and he enjoyed a lot of success.
His troops seized Bolae and beat the Aequians without too much effort.
Unfortunately, Postumius continued the family tradition of stuffing up royally.
There was some confusion over exactly where it all went wrong, but it definitely had something to do with the war booty from the captured city.
Whether Postumius broke a promise about their share, or there was not enough in the city to please the army, the soldiers were Spurius Furius about the lack of goods.
Before the situation was resolved, Postumius was summoned back to Rome to deal with an uppity tribune of the plebs – the seductively named Marcus Sextius.
Sextius was pursuing Decius’ dream of colonists in Bolae. Give the land to those who bled for it!
Postumius could not help but make a nasty comment upon hearing about Sextius’ agrarian law – he essentially made a threat about those who fought under his command.
The Plebeian assembly and the Senate were seriously perturbed when they heard what had been said – their subligaculums were definitely in a twist!
Marcus Sextius made sure to bait Postumius – how dare he threaten his brave men? How DARE he even suggest that they be punished like mere slaves? And BTW – how are patrician twats still getting elected to the highest office when THIS is how they treat the people? #plebeianmilitarytribuneforoffice
However, the group that were most upset were the army back at Bolae.
The quaestor, Publius Sextius (or Sestius), picked up on the mutinous energy and decided that the situation called for a violent solution.
He used a lictor to arrest a brawling soldier – and surprise surprise – this only inflamed matters.
In the subsequent riot, the quaestor was either seriously injured or killed by a stone to the noggin.
Postumius had to return to Bolae to sort matters out.
He came with the trademark harshness of his gens, and decided to execute some of the ringleaders in a particularly painful way.
The cries of the condemned caught the attention of a crowd, and when Postumius and his forces tried to get the angry people under control, they turned on him – stoning him to death.
With one of the leading magistrates murdered in broad daylight, his colleagues quickly set up a senatorial inquiry into his death – but had to hit the brakes when the plebeian tribunes used their veto power.
Terrified that the plebeians were angry enough to elect one of their own as military tribune in 413 BCE, the senate tried to run consular elections.
Once more, the plebeian tribunes blocked their plans, and an interregnum ensued..
413 BCE
The interrex, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, organised elections and so In 413 BCE, the consuls were Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Lucius Furius Medullinus.
A senatorial resolution was passed to investigate the death of Postumius.
Given how popular Postumius was, the investigators wisely only punished a few for their role in his murder – and most of them seem to have been allowed to commit suicide.
The plebs were not appeased – a lack of punishment cannot make up for a lack of agrarian reform, people!
Leaving the sulky atmosphere in Rome, the Volscians attacked Herncian territory and the consul Furius was dispatched to slap them back across the border.
The Volscians were nowhere to be found when Furius arrived, so instead he captured Ferentinum – just to annoy them.
There was a real lack of booty in the town – leading to a rather anticlimactic conquest that the Romans casually turned over to the Hernicians.
412 BCE
In 412 BCE, the consuls were Quintus Fabius Ambustus Vibulanus and Gaius Furius Pacilus.
The real star of the year was one of the tribunes of the plebs – Lucius Icilius. You might recall this family as they have a history of being plebeian heroes.
Icilius tried to revive the old agrarian laws – but he did not get far as a pestilence hit ROme.
The population of Rome was not decimated but they were certainly way too sick to be worrying about politics.
411 BCE
In 411 BCE, the consuls were Marcus Papirius Atratinus and Gaius Nautius Rutulus.
After the outbreak in 412, Rome was in danger of a famine.
Whilst some people were a little tight-fisted in this time of need (cough cough – Samnites) – others made sure that the Romans were well-supplied.
410 BCE
In 410 BCE, the consuls were Marcus Aemilius Mamercinus and Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus.
The Aequians were gearing up for another bout with the Romans, and the Volscians were happy to sign on as their auxiliaries.
When they started attacking Latin & Herncian territory, the consul Valerius started conducting the levy.
In swept the tribune of the plebs – Marcus Menenius.
Seizing his moment, Menenius refused to let the levy proceed without an agrarian law FIRST.
Whilst the Romans squabbled, the citadel of Carventum was captured by the Aequians.
The patricians tried to use this loss to turn the people against Menenius
Playing on their divide and conquer tactic from earlier, the patricians had already managed to talk the rest of the tribunes into siding against Menenius – and his refusal to allow the levy after this loss provided them with an airtight excuse for their bizarre stance.
A Mexican stand-off ensued, with neither side willing to back down and a lot of hysterical posturing.
The rest of the tribunes decided to take a very dramatic step – publicly supporting Valerius’ right to use force and fines to get people to enlist in the army.
With this authority in hand, men who were refusing to enlist were dragged in front of the consul.
This example was enough to scare almost everyone else into signing up.
The Roman army was now able to march off to the citadel of Carventum,
It wasn’t the happiest union between commander and troops, but the ROmans got the job done.
The enemy was routed.
Valerius was not about to give the army the meager spoils after the trouble they caused, so the quaestors were put in charge of auctioning off the goods.
This endearing act meant that Valerius was showered with abuse during his ovation back in the city, whilst Menenius was showered with praise.
With all of these anti-patrician vibes in the air, the elite were looking around nervously and organizing consular elections for the next year.
Whilst our sources are clearly pushing the conflict between the orders, the Romans seem to be taking on a more aggressive policy of expansion in this decade – makes you wonder what lies ahead!
Dr Rad: And that was the 410s in Ancient Rome… or was it?
Dr G: Remember, this has just been the highlights from the ancient sources, so if you want to delve into the complexities of the different evidence from this period, check out our narrative episodes. Jump in at Episode 140: The Commonwealth of Slaves to join us for a deep dive into the 410s BCE.
Dr Rad: Thanks for turning in to this Partial Recap!
Carventum enters the annalistic narrative of Rome and raises some questions. But in order to get there, we need to consider what Rome faces in 411 BCE. And it seems that the Roman elite are having a run on consuls recently, which, if we follow Livy, means that the plebeians continue to be locked out of the highest magistracy…
Episode 144 – Where in the World is Carventum?
411 BCE – A Year Better Forgotten?
Sadly there’s not much to report about 411 BCE and what there is to know if the kind of thing the Romans would probably rather forget. Turns out that there’s a pestilence on the loose! To compound problems, sick people can’t farm and this has compromised the harvest. Rome faces challenges to its grain supply and they turn to their neighbours for aid.
410 BCE gets off to a bad start when the Volsicans and Aequians decide to try to squeeze Rome’s allies the Hernicians… how will Rome respond? First they’ll have to find the citadel of Carventum (location unknown). And that’s only after they resolve the challenge of pulling together a fighting force.
Whenever there’s a tribune of the plebs, we can assume there’s going to be something going on between the elite families of Rome. The tribunes come into their own when there’s a military affair in the off-ing because they can push for rights and recognition for the plebeians in potential exchange for military service. Will the patricians negotiate land rights in order to field a force against the Volscians and the Aequians?
Map of central Italy including Rome and Praeneste, one of the theorised locations of Carventum to the east of Rome.
An ovatio with the a side of verbal abuse…
The Roman populace may be under the pump of the patricians much of the time, so perhaps a protest action at the scene of an ovatio is a very legitimate form of criticism! While Valerius attempts to process through the city to celebrate a military win, things don’t feel so much like a celebration as the people hurl abuse. Who will the crowd turn their support towards in the aftermath?
Things to Listen Out For:
Disagreements about Livy
What’s happening in the Mediterranean?
Who is Cassiodorus?
Samnites and Sicilians
A tribunician veto? In this economy?
What is the tribune of the plebs and how did this position really work in the early Republic?
Mercenaries????
What are the quaestors up to?
Our Players 411 BCEConsuls
Marcus Papirius L. f. – n. Mugillanus (or Atratinus?) (Pat.)
Spurius (or Gaius) Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus (Pat.)
Our Players 410 BCEConsuls
Manius Aemilius Mam. f. M. n. Mamercinus (Pat.)
Gaius Valerius (L. f. Vol. n.) Potitus Volusus (Pat.)
Tribune of the Plebs
Marcus Menenius
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy 4.52.2-4.53
Dr G reads Diodorus 13.68.1, 13.76.1; Cassiodorus Chronica
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Sound Credits
Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Beta and Freesounds.
Crop from “A new map of Latium, Etruria, and as much of ancient Italy, as lay between Gallia Cisalpina and Græcia Magna, shewing their principal divisions, cities, towns, rivers, mountains &c.” Sheldonian Theatre (Publisher); Wells, Edward, 1667-1727 (Cartographer). Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Automated Transcript
Edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to The Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to a brand new episode of The Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Red,
Dr G 1:02 and I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:06 Welcome, Dr. G. I'm so excited to be back in this century with you.
Dr G 1:10 Woohoo. We're nearly at the end of the fifth century BCE. It's kind of incredible that we've made it so far.
Dr Rad 1:18 I know. I know. So welcome, everybody. Welcome to our world of ancient Rome. Here we are traipsing our way through the 410s BC as we look at Rome's journey from the founding of the city. So Dr. G, before we head into a new episode, let's do a bit of a recap, shall we? Where were we last time we met?
Dr G 1:42 Look, the big standout for me was the return of an Icilius into the role of the tribune of the plebs.
Dr Rad 1:51 That's right. We have been dealing with all this conflict of the orders stuff for decades now. And I mean decades in the sense of the Romans decades.
Dr G 2:01 Maybe nearly a century now.
Dr Rad 2:03 A decade for us. But for them almost a century, this classic struggle between the patricians, the plebeians, who these people are, God only knows. But it certainly presented to us, like a battle between the elite and the powerful, and those who only wish they were.
Dr G 2:24 Yes, the old class struggle writ large in the early republic of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 2:30 Yeah, and Icilius is from a family that's very much historically been on the plebeian side of things.
Dr G 2:37 Yeah, they famously a family that has held the tribunician of the plebs on a number of occasions, each of them landmark events in the struggle of the orders in this classic tale. And yet, what we seem to discover in this third iteration of an Icilius coming into the role is that the potential for revolutionary changes kind of swept away by other matters, there seems to be a pestilence of some kind.
Dr Rad 3:09 There is a pestilence, it's not the worst pestilence that room has ever seen. Because you know, we've had some bad ones in the time that we've been talking. I remember that time there was meat falling from the sky. Worse. I think that was I think that was in like the 450s. Maybe, maybe I should have checked that before I brought it up. But yeah, so we've had some bad things happening in the past. This one's not the worst, but it's certainly serious enough that people are very much focused on just getting by day to day.
Dr G 3:37 And this kind of leaves Rome and the situation of where we're up to with this history on tender hooks, if you will run with the meat analogy a little bit further with me, because we're like, what, what's going to happen in the next year, and luckily, we're here together to find out.
Dr Rad 3:55 We are indeed so without further ado, let's delve into 411 BCE.
Dr G 4:21 is 411 BCE. It's a very thrilling time. We've this means we have new consuls.
Dr Rad 4:29 We do have consuls. Note that we still don't have any military tribunes with consular power. I think the patricians are still feeling a little bit concerned about who might get elected if they opened that door.
Dr G 4:42 Yes, much better to make sure it's a patrician only situation and what better way to do that. And by having consuls in power,
Dr Rad 4:53 Exactly. So who we got Dr. G.
Dr G 4:56 All right, we have Marcus Papirius. Mugillanus, possibly Atratinus We're not really quite sure.
Dr Rad 5:06 So I think some of those names sound familiar.
Dr G 5:08 Yeah, some of those names sound familiar
Dr Rad 5:14 Have I ever heard Marcus mentioned on this podcast before?
Dr G 5:18 Never! And fair enough. I mean, it's a very rare name. So this Marcus Papirius Mugillanus was previously the military tribune with consular power in 418 and also 416. So he's in the middle of quite an illustrious career at this point.
Dr Rad 5:38 Yeah, this is his decade, the 410s.
Dr G 5:42 It's happening for him. And he is joined by somebody known as Spurius or Gaius – we're not quite sure of the praenomen of this fella – Nautius Rutilus.
Dr Rad 5:54 Oh behave.
Dr G 6:00 Spurius Naughtiness, what are you up to? He was previously military tribune with concular power in 419, and also served together with Papirius Mugillanus in 416. So these guys have even held the top job together before.
Dr Rad 6:17 And yet, we're still not certain of their names.
Dr G 6:20 And we still don't know whether they're friends.
Dr Rad 6:24 I love the confusion of the source material. Everybody has different names, and nobody can figure out where they go.
Dr G 6:31 Yeah, and the Roman propensity for naming everybody after everybody else in their own family does leave a legacy of some confusion for everybody else studying them 1000s of years later.
Dr Rad 6:44 Absolutely. So what are these consuls facing Dr G? We've got a pestilence on the loose, we've got a tribune who's just itching to get an agrarian law passed, it doesn't bode well for them. I'm not going to lie. And sure enough, the year does not start well. As we know, when people are too sick to get out of bed, they tend not to farm. Lazy.
Dr G 7:07 How dare they? And the trouble with that is that it has some knock on consequences. Because if you don't farm while you're unwell, nobody does that farming for you. And then nobody's got food to eat. So then not only are you sick and hungry, then you're also starving.
Dr Rad 7:25 Exactly. And this has happened to Rome before after pestilence. We've seen this pattern again and again. And it looks like this year was going to be no different. Rome was in dire need of some corn, and it would have been headed straight for a very serious famine, except they asked around, they kind of pass the hat around and said, “Please, sir, I would like some corn,” to some of their neighbours.
Dr G 7:51 “Could you possibly spare any grain?”
Dr Rad 7:53 Yeah, exactly. They were asking up and down the Tiber. They apparently were like, you know, looking around the Tuscan Sea area saying, “Excuse me, I don't suppose you have any surplus grain?”
Dr G 8:07 I suppose they do have some are friends in the local region? Of course everybody would trade with them.
Dr Rad 8:14 No, this is true. So specifically the Samnites, who at this point in time, well ensconced in Capua and Cumae, would not engage in trade with Rome even in this dangerous hour of need, Dr. G. For shame.
Dr G 8:32 Yes, look, the Samnite relationship with Rome is going to be a rocky one. Let's put it that way.
Dr Rad 8:40 Yeah, foreshadowing, foreshadowing. Yeah, absolutely. I think
Dr G 8:44 We haven't seen a lot of the Samnites in the Romans yet, but just you wait.
Dr Rad 8:48 Yeah, exactly. But the person that does apparently come to their rescue is and I'm quoting Livy here: Sicilian tyrants.
Dr G 8:59 Hmm. Fascinating. Well, that's quite interesting, actually, because the Sicilian tyrants haven't been having a great run of it themselves, because they've just been under the military invasion of the Carthaginians. So it's not like they're in a great way right now.
Dr Rad 9:17 Well, this is the thing, right? So most people have pointed out that Livy must be a bit off here because there actually aren't any tyrants ruling Sicily in this year.
Dr G 9:27 Ah Livy. He's a lair!
Dr Rad 9:30 Well, how dare you? How very dare you. Look, it's possible like it's close in time. It's possible. Obviously, we've just got the order things slightly out of whack, and it is possible.
Dr G 9:47 You're being very generous to Livy here.
Dr Rad 9:49 Well, look, let me put it this way. We're fairly certain that the person that he's referring to even though he does not name him is Dionysius the First, who came to power in 409. So you see it is very close.
Dr G 10:04 Very indeed. All right.
Dr Rad 10:05 Yeah. And it is very possible as well that the Sicilians would have been wanting to win Rome over as an ally at this point in time, because as you said, last episode, Dr. G, there's some issues going on in Greece, a little thing known as the Peloponnesian War.
Dr G 10:29 There are some things going on in Greece. And one of the consequences of that is that the Greeks are trying to push their way into Sicily. That is one of the grounds in which some of the battles are taking place. There's a Carthaginian interest also in Sicily. Sicily, historically, as I'm sure listeners are aware, is its location, right smack in the middle of the Mediterranean makes it kind of like a very strategic location for all concerned, who's who live around that Mediterranean edge. So interest is high. Sicilia is facing various incursions from different directions. So maybe they are desperate, even if the tyrant is not quite in place yet.
Dr Rad 11:17 Yes, I think that's exactly it with the Battle of Syracuse, which has just been waged in 413 BCE, or in the whole campaign sort of running from 415 to 413 BCE, as Athens is trying to strike out at people who are allied to the Spartans and supplying them with grain. And as you say, with Carthage rumbling around, and Carthage and Rome at this point in time are technically allies, it probably was a wise move for them to help root out whilst you know, Rome is looking around for some friends. No. Yeah. Now, most of the corn, however, comes from the Etruscans.
Dr G 12:00 Curiouser and curiouser.
Dr Rad 12:03 I know. So it seems that the Etruscans, who, by this stage are mostly located to the north of Rome, they obviously don't want Rome to take their business elsewhere, i.e. Sicily.
Dr G 12:18 “How dare you? We've got the best prices on grain.”
Dr Rad 12:22 Yeah. And the Etruscans also have a hostile relationship with the Samnites. Because the Samnites have kind of displaced them in Campania.
Dr G 12:30 Typical typical, the local politics is starting to get messy around here.
Dr Rad 12:36 I know an all over corn.
Dr G 12:40 Well, you gotta eat, what can I say?
Dr Rad 12:42 Yeah. So that's kind of about all the detail that I have in that basically, there was almost a very serious famine, but Rome managed to find some allies and managed to pull itself out of that, and the danger was averted. It does seem like there was a bit of a shortage of manpower, following on the back of the pestilence, it seems like the consuls need to bring in extra people to help them with things like embassies, because they just don't have enough people who are available to help them out with the day to day administration. But that's kind of it. So 411 is a very quiet year. But don't you worry, we're about to enter 410 And we're about to get some serious developments happening.
Dr G 13:29 Well, before we enter into 410, just to give you a sense of just how thin on the ground, my source material is currently-
Dr Rad 13:38 You're joking. You don't have any source material?
Dr G 13:42 I know I've been chatting about Sicily for like 10 minutes now, but I know nothing! So, in 411, the Fasti Capitolini is missing. So that's our big list of consuls and magistrates.
Dr Rad 13:57 Yeah. Which explains why we have all the issues with the names. Yeah.
Dr G 14:00 Well, yeah, we'll explain some of it for sure. Yeah. And then I have Diodorus Siculus, who we've talked about recently, is useless, but he comes and goes in terms of accuracy. And when nobody else was around, he gets to be very accurate because he's the only one who's got the names.
Dr Rad 14:20 This is true.
Dr G 14:21 That that may or may not mean that he's correct. But nevertheless, so he has Mamercus Papirius and Spurius Nautius listed. Now there is the ongoing date discrepancy that happens with Diodorus Siculus. Because he always tells us the consuls in the same sentence as he tells us who's the current eponymous Archon in Athens, right and this is always out by a couple of years. So by Diodorus is reckoning worried about 408-407
Dr Rad 14:57 Well, there you go. Tyrants in Sicily and Livy wasn't lying.
Dr G 15:01 If Livy is following the same sorts of source material that Diodorus is following, then yes, he's, he's on the right track. And the other source that I ended up going to for this, and this is again, testament to the thinness of my source material. Cassiodorus.
Dr Rad 15:22 Wow. Okay. Well, I don't think we've mentioned him at all ever before on this podcast.
Dr G 15:28 Look, I could have gone to him before now. But there was no need in some respects. And yes, things were so desperate for me that I decided that maybe Cassiodorus could help me. Now, who is Cassiodorus? I'm glad you asked. His full name is Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator. Now, Senator is not a title. It's part of his name. He is living in the late fifth century and doing most of his writing in the sixth century CE II.
Dr Rad 16:04 Okay.
Dr G 16:05 So he serves under Theoderic, the king of the Ostrogoths at Ravenna.
Dr Rad 16:13 Wow, so we're not even really under Roman rule anymore.
Dr G 16:19 I've got some bad news, listeners of this podcast, the Romans are gonna take some heavy blows. And they shall be no more. Yeah, by the time we get to Cassiodorus, the Romans it's a little bit over. We've got the Ostrogoths that Ravenna. Ravenna is the new capital in some respects, in the Roman West. It's it's pretty over. Anyway, he writes a work that's known as the Veriae – it's a collection of letters. And he also does some epitomes of other historians. So he's got a whole list of magistrates, which is very exciting. And it has been translated very kindly by people who live on the internet.
Dr Rad 17:06 Thank God
Dr G 17:06 I know, aren't they delightful? Scholars who are like, You know what, this will be a great service to all concerned. Translating is a time consuming task. And so we do have the names for this year of the consuls, also from Cassiodorus. But this is where the Gaius Nautius name comes in.
Dr Rad 17:31 The controversy
Dr G 17:32 So yeah, we think he's Spurius. But Cassiodorus says you might be Gaius and such being the thinness of our sources, we let Cassiodorus get away with that one. But that is all I've got. That is literally it. I've got like three sources, maybe with some names.
Dr Rad 17:54 Okay. Well, I'm glad we got to meet Cassiodorus because I'm sure he will come up again.
Dr G 17:58 I hope so. I hope so. I'm not sure that he's going to have too much more to offer us besides names, but, you know, it's fun to know he's out there.
Dr Rad 18:06 Okay, well, let's move on from this year of trade and corn and potential famine, and talk a little bit about 410 BCE. So who are our magistrates for 410? Dr. G.
Dr G 18:18 All right. I have a few magistrates, so I've got consuls, and I've got a tribune of the plebs.
Dr Rad 18:23 Mm hmm.
Dr G 18:26 Okay, so our first consul is Manius Aemilius Mamercinus.
Dr Rad 18:34 Know that name.
Dr G 18:37 This guy is gonna go on to have a bit of a career. It's a it's a time for people having new careers. This is his first time I think is consul, maybe his first time in any particular high level magistracies that we've we know about. So this is an exciting year for him. He is joined in the consulship by Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus. Now this guy we have heard of before.
Dr Rad 19:04 I was going to say I think I remember that name. Volusus.
Dr G 19:07 Yeah, Potitus Volusus. Sounds a bit like a terrible cough actually was a military tribune with consular power in 415. And tribune of the plebs, Marcus Menenius.
Dr Rad 19:25 Ooo interesting name.
Dr G 19:30 Are names all I have? Maybe.
Dr Rad 19:35 All right. Well, let me tell you, let me give you a little bit of narrative to flesh this out. So in 410, we abandon the peacefulness of the previous year because the Aequians are once again getting ready for war, Dr. G.
Dr G 19:48 I hope the plague's over.
Dr Rad 19:50 Yes, now. Well, I mean, I think the plague was just affecting Rome. They don't really talk about it being more widespread than that, but we'll we'll see. Now the Volscians are going to be teaming up with the Aequians. Once more, however, not in an official capacity, they kind of just want to earn a bit of pocket money. And they're like
Dr G 20:12 “We're just going into this as silent partners.”
Dr Rad 20:14 Exactly. Yes, “we will fight as your employees but we're not going to fight officially.”
Dr G 20:21 Wait a minute, the Volscians are now mercenaries?
Dr Rad 20:24 Yes. Absolutely. So the Romans start to hear of the usual signs that trouble is afoot, which is that the Aequians and the Volscians have teamed up and are attacking Latin and Hernician territory.
Dr G 20:42 Hmm. All right. Now this makes perfect sense because the Aequians are to the slight north east of Rome. And the Volscians are to the south and south east, and Hernician territory lies right in the middle between the Aequians and the Volscians.
Dr Rad 21:02 So they're like, Let's get together and make a Hernician sandwich.
Dr G 21:06 Well, with a big huge pincer movement, we can punch that Hernician sausage straight out of the sandwich!
Dr Rad 21:14 Yes. Now the Latin-Hernicians are of course going to call on Rome for aid. Rome is going to obviously make sure that they're going to fend off these attackers. So one of our consuls, Valerius starts getting the troops ready for battle. Except there's a little thing called domestic politics that he hadn't counted on, even though we've seen this pattern so many times before, and that is our tribune of the plebs ceases as his golden opportunity to stop the levy and try and push for an agrarian law before anyone goes into battle anywhere.
Dr G 21:52 I kind of love these tactics. I mean, they don't get old and they just keep happening.
Dr Rad 21:57 Yeah, well, exactly. So we're getting into sort of the classic conflict of the oldest stuff that we have dealt with before where the pavilions know when they've got the patricians over barrel. They know that the patricians need them to go to war deal with these issues, and that therefore, they're going to actually pay more attention than they might normally do, to their cries for land reform. Fair enough. So the men who don't particularly want to go to war now have a perfect out, and they can go to Menenius, tribume of the plebs, for protection, okay, and they can refuse to take the oath to serve. However, disturbing reports start flowing into Rome. The citadel of Carventum is captured by Aequians forces. Where is Carventum? Nobody's really sure.
Dr G 22:51 I do have some details on that.
Dr Rad 22:53 Okay, excellent. Do you want to say them now?
Dr G 22:58 Carventum. This is known as an ancient city of Latin. And listed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, yonks ago as one of the 30 states, that's part of the Latin League.
Dr Rad 23:12 Right.
Dr G 23:12 So definitely part of this Latin group, which means that they probably are on the border line on the edge of Hernician territory. The Hernicians aren't Latin speakers as far as we're aware?
Dr Rad 23:28 Yeah, that's right.
Dr G 23:29 They speak at a slightly different language. So for Carventum to be a Latin city, we'd have to assume that it's slightly, it's one of these border land type places. So this means that people have speculated for ages about like where this place could be. And one of the big speculations is that it's somewhere in the Alban Hills.
Dr Rad 23:52 Yes, that is what I found as well,
Dr G 23:54 Specifically a place called Rocca Maxima. Now, there's an alternative theory, because that's pretty old theory. And that's one that's mostly discredited. Now, more recent scholarship suggest that the town is near Praeneste. Which is also a member of the Latin League. And if you you can still see it on maps today. And it's basically due east of Rome. And the Alban Hills are kind of in the middle between them. So to get past the Alban Hills, after you still go east, you hit Praeneste, and they think that this town of Carventum might be there, and the Citadel was obviously inside it somewhere. We haven't found any trace to prove any of that. But that's kind of the gist.
Dr Rad 24:45 We;;, there you go. It all makes sense to me that regardless of where this place is the fact that it has been captured by the Aequians. Whilst the Romans are bickering amongst themselves is highly embarrassing. The patricians are not happy. Yeah. The patricians are really not happy and they decide, “You know what, we're going to use this to our advantage. We are going to use this military setback to shame Menenius, we will manage to turn him around, he will allow the levy because we can't allow this to stand.” Allegedly, the rest of the tribune of the plebs that are serving this year, who are nameless, of course, have already been won over to the patricians side in this argument, in fact,
Dr G 25:34 But how? But why?
Dr Rad 25:36 I know, I know, there's so many details I'd like to know, I kind of think this relates back to something we spoke about a few episodes ago, where they had this idea of like dividing and conquering, you know, using like a classic method from way back in the beginning of the conflict of the orders, where, I guess they promised the tribunes, you know, favors, or, I don't know, some sort of unofficial alliance or something like that. And therefore, the tribune is like, well, you know what, this is a pretty crappy gig that I've got here. I may as well make friends with the powerful people in this place. I may as well betray my kind, yeah, I'll betray my kind and everything that we stand for, so that I can get ahead in this work.
Dr G 26:17 I feel like the only thing that would lure plebeains over at this point would be the promise of becoming a patrician. But I feel like that's normal on offer that is not on.
Dr Rad 26:28 Yet, we don't really know the hows and the whys and wherefores, but we know that a few years ago, one of the younger Appius Claudius as of the world has suggested that they bring this tactic back. And I feel like it's actually never really gone away. Even when they're not talking about it. I feel like they're patricians, are continuing to keep the tribune of the plebs divided and winning over some of the ones who may be a little less scrupulous to their side, because apparently, they've already been turned against the idea of an agrarian law and land reform or that kind of stuff. And now they're just using this military defeat to publicly sided against Menenius. And it gives them like sort of the perfect excuse, like they don't have to try and cover up the fact that they're doing something a bit weird by siding with the patricians on this issue.
Dr G 27:16 I wonder if this might also be related to the changing dynamic over time of that, what does the tribune of the plebs represented? I feel like potentially Livy's doing a bit of a retrorejection here, where one explanation you could posit for why tribunes would behave this way is that they actually come from very rich plebeian families.
Dr Rad 27:41 And so as we've spoken about before, this is not a class struggle between the rich and the poor. It's a struggle between the people that hold a lot of power in an official capacity and people that are barred from that.
Dr G 27:55 Yeah. So it might be the case that some of these people who get into the role of tribune of the plebs see this as the top job for people with their kind of background. Yeah. And they're willing to use that wealth in whatever way sort of furthers their own ambitions rather than looking after as much as we might like them to the little guy who could use some representation.
Dr Rad 28:18 Yeah, exactly. And this is what we've talked about before that probably a lot of the people that we hear about from the tribune of the plebs position, or even some of the named plebeains that we get in our sources, they probably have more in common with the patricians that are named in our accounts than they do with the average person in Rome at this point in time. Because if they're this involved in politics, then you kind of have to imagine they've got a fair amount of free time on their hands.
Dr G 28:46 Oh, boy.
Dr Rad 28:47 Yeah. Now, so you think that this would obviously be really bad for Menenius? You know, Hey, there he is the sole tribune standing out against the levee. Militarily, things are not looking great for Rome's allies, the Aequians are making incursions into their territory. Is this the moment that he caves? Oh contraire, Dr. G. It only makes him stick to his guns all the more. And so we have a really long drawn out argument apparently ensuing. Between the patricians who were like,” please, for the love of God, just let us hold the levy. We got to go and deal with this,” and Menenius being like, “Not on your life, not until I get some land reform. God dammit!”
Dr G 29:35 It's like as soon as you do land reform, you can have a levee.
Dr Rad 29:39 Yeah. Now the consuls obviously at their wit's end, they do not know what to say to this guy to convince him. So the consuls call on the gods and all of Rome to witness that Menenius personally, is to blame for anything bad that is happening or would happen in the future. Whether it's defeat, whether it's the ultimate disgrace, whatever it is, it's all going to be Menenius' fault because he has held up the levy.
Dr G 30:08 This does sound pretty disturbing. So they brought the gods into this.
Dr Rad 30:14 They have.
Dr G 30:15 This is a bad sign for the patricians.
Dr Rad 30:19 Now Menenius comes back to this, you know, big threat. I said, well, not threat. But you know what I mean? Like Menenius comes back to this big call, I suppose, and says, “Look, it's quite simple. Just give up the land that the patricians are illegally occupying. And I will allow the levy to go ahead. That's all I'm asking.”
Dr G 30:39 Yeah, that's very simple.
Dr Rad 30:41 Yeah. And again, we return to this idea which you highlighted again, and again, seems so weird that the land is being occupied illegally, which, as we've said, just doesn't really seem to make sense for Rome in this period. But this is the narrative that they're sticking with.
Dr G 30:58 Ah look, Livy's not going to give that up. And I would assume that if Dionysius of Halicarnassus were here with us, he would not give it up either.
Dr Rad 31:05 Yeah, exactly. So we've got this very late Republican idea of land and land reform and what that should look like, in the early republic, nonetheless, let's power on. This is where something incredibly weird happens. And I honestly don't think there is a good explanation for what I'm about to say,
Dr G 31:05 Oh, this sounds exciting.
Dr Rad 31:06 Yeah. So there are nine other tribunes of the plebs. These are the guys that have already turned on Menenius and now publicly have a reason to be calling him out and saying that he shouldn't be holding up the levy. Okay. So all of these other tribunes agree to back Valerius if he starts using harsh measures to get people to enlist in the army.
Dr G 31:56 Oh, they're going to use violence to enact the levy?
Dr Rad 31:59 Not just violence. Money too. Valerius is allowed by these tribunes to start using fines and other forms of coercion, which I presume does mean physical force to get people to enlist, even though Menenius is using his veto power to hold up the levy. Now, this is apparently passed as like some sort of actual decree. It's not just like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge will back you up, buddy. It seems like there is something made very official about this so that Valerius can go about his business.
Dr G 32:40 That is very interesting, because and it doesn't make sense. I agree with you.
Dr Rad 32:44 It does not.
Dr G 32:44 Because: one, it calls the whole concept of the veto into question. And the veto power of the tribune of the plebs is something that we haven't really strongly historically established yet anyway. And so for it to be sort of dismantled so robustly in this moment, is a bad sign. And I would question whether that would be the case. But also, what the hell is going on?
Dr Rad 33:16 I know, I know, I think this highlights as you say, it definitely highlights I think the fact that supposedly, we have this position of the tribune of the plebs that has come out of the conflict of the orders, you know, it's been one of the only big wins that really had, I mean, I've had a few, but that's probably the biggest one. However, you and I have also talked about the fact that we're not really sure if any of the magistracies actually exists, all their consuls are there, I don't know! And so it's very possible-
We definitely have lists of names.
Yes, we have lists of name. Exactly, we have lists of names. But as we've talked about before, you and I very much run with this theory that actually it's probably a lot more ad hoc, and you know, clan based power, you know, at this point in time, rather than having these very structured systems in place.
Dr G 34:11 It's pretty clear that Rome is working out its systems of governance. And we were just on the cusp of hitting one century of the Republic, if those sorts of timelines are ones that we sort of notionally want to agree to. So we're in a working out kind of phase. And arguably, and I think this is true for Rome throughout all of its history, there is never a moment of clear political static stability. The whole thing is always, always dynamic. So, what is happening here, this clash between what seems to be various magistrates, that might be clashes between families, as you say This could be gens versus gens, some with more prestige, some with more wealth. Some who maybe want to see Rome go in a different direction, but that doesn't get articulated or recorded, and it doesn't make it into our annalistic histories that are written like centuries later.
Dr Rad 35:18 Yeah, exactly. And as we've talked about last episode, this is a period where Rome does seem to be militarily getting back into its game, you know, we do have some expansion happening, like nothing too crazy. It's not like they like capturing Greece. But we are definitely seeing a slightly different direction for rowing than we have seen for some time. And it seems like the dark cloud that it kind of settled over the latter half of this century is starting to lift and allow for more of these kinds of moves on Rome's behalf. But certainly, I think it does. It definitely highlights once again, this idea that the tribune of the plebs has like fully is fully formed. And we know exactly what the tribune of the plebs can and cannot do. I think that this highlights that that's not the case. But it, it's possible, like if we say for a second that okay, maybe there are people that hold some titles, at this point in time. Maybe one of those titles is tribune of the plebs. Let's run with that for a moment. If we go along with this idea that they maybe have some sort of veto power, that they're invested in some sort of sacrosanctity. What this incident might be highlighting is that that isn't really worth a lot if your colleagues aren't willing to back you up.
Dr G 35:18 Yeah.
Dr Rad 35:18 Because we're talking about at this point in time, and we talked about this when I think the tribune is very first came about, literally, the idea is that that the tribune would physically be there to offer protection if someone was in need. Usually, when we were talking about it originally, in this sense, I think we were talking about, you know, being dragged off into debt bondage or something like that. But the idea was, the tribune would be there to physically offer you his protection. And if he wasn't physically there, you may not get that protection. And I think you can kind of see that potentially, in this instance, as well, in that it's all very well and good for Menenius to say, “You shall not pass.” But it doesn't really mean a lot if people aren't willing to, you know, go along with and back him up and that sort of thing. And he can't be everywhere at once.
Dr G 37:37 Yeah, that's that is part of the problem that if he is going to, if he does, indeed have a body, which is considered sacrosanct while he is in this role, to allow him to do that physical kind of protection, he does have to be somewhere really obvious and have everybody who needs his help run to him. So he can then attempt to run a circle around them of protection. You know, this is the only way that it would work. You might have people coming into his house, he might be able to save one or two, maybe 10 people. But if the consuls are getting their military officers to enact a violent levy to enforce enlistment, it's going to be very hard for Menenius to be everywhere to see that off, particularly if he doesn't have the support of his other nine tribunes.
Dr Rad 38:30 Absolutely he is absolutely an island right now. He's the walrus. Now the consul Valerius, of course, now that he is backed by this power that's been given to him by the other tribunes, it seems he starts dragging people who are refusing to enlist in front of him and making such a spectacle of their set. Everyone else gets really intimidated and is too scared not to enlist so that the tactic works perfectly.
Dr G 38:58 Sounds about right, sounds very patrician, I have to say.
Dr Rad 39:01 It does. So as a result, the Romans are finally able to send an army marching off to this citadel that has been captured – Carventum – wherever that is.
Dr G 39:11 East! Let's say east.
Dr Rad 39:13 Yeah, to the east. Okay. Now, with everything that's happened. There isn't a lot of love happening in this military buddy, Dr. G.
Dr G 39:23 Are you telling me morale is low?
Dr Rad 39:26 It is a little bit the troops hate Valerius and Valerius hates them right back.
Dr G 39:32 Ah, you know, one could have guessed if you violently beat people up to force them to be in your army that maybe they wouldn't care for it very much.
Dr Rad 39:41 I know. Yeah. I thought when I read this, okay, so we're headed for one of these classic Roman military defeats or something like that. And this guy is going to end up getting into so much trouble for being a terrible commander. But that's not actually what happens in spite of the fact that there's this tension between them. They all do their duty. They serve well and they manage to drive off the joint Aequian- Volscian force, the Aequians having kind of made it easy for them by not putting up a particularly strong defense.
Dr G 40:09 They sent the mercenaries that they'd hired from the Volsci home?
Dr Rad 40:13 Well, I think that rather than maybe having everybody you know, in the Citadel holding on to it, they'd said to people, yeah, you know, if you want to take five, go for a wander, Look for some stuff, do some pillaging, do some rapping, that kind of stuff, you go right ahead, just be backed by six.
Dr G 40:30 Hmmm, discipline was lax.
Dr Rad 40:33 Exactly discipline was lax. And so it was quite easy for the Romans to sort of breeze in and take over. And it's becoming a bit of a sad and typical story, they did not find a lot of plunder, because of course, the Aequians and the Volscians know that there's a war going on, and therefore they'd stash anything that was really valuable for safekeeping.
Dr G 40:52 I kind of love that it's taken like a good century for everybody in the area to figure out that it's like, “Let's hide the spoils somewhere else.” You know, first steps first.
Dr Rad 41:04 Let's not just keep it in the living room.
Dr G 41:07 Let's hide it somewhere. That could be good. This has taken a while, but we got there.
Dr Rad 41:12 Yeah, so they obviously captured some stuff, because what happens next is that Valerius allows the quaestors to auction off any booty that they have captured. And whatever money is raised is going straight into public territory. Is this a strange thing for the questions to be doing? You betcha.
Dr G 41:31 Very odd. Public territory. Does this mean? Is this a tacit sort of suggestion that there's ager publicus involved here?
Dr Rad 41:42 Look, I think it's more the fact that that kind of a job would usually fall to an urban praetor. So someone who's located in the city of Rome, they might potentially be involved in something like that. But if we're talking about military quaestors here, which I think is what is meant to be happening, that is not usually part of their role. It just again, it just doesn't seem right. It seems anachronistic.
Dr G 42:11 It does. I would say that that may be what's happening here is that the writers – potentially Livy's thinking about the quaestorship in it's much later form exit where it does become this kind of the financial attache of the military commander. That's not really quite where the quaestors are at far as we can tell.
Dr Rad 42:34 Yeah. Yeah, at this point in time, it doesn't really make sense if we are reading this the way it's being presented. And so this is obviously meant to be a big public statement. To the army. “You're not going to get a cut of anything that we capture until you are obedient. So stop your whinging. Stop your whining or no more spoils for you!”
Dr G 42:58 Aw man.
Dr Rad 43:01 Now, this of course, does not endear Valerius to his man.
Dr G 43:06 Well, there's a surprise.
Dr Rad 43:08 Yeah. And because most of the people who are serving as your regular rank-and-file soldiers are plebeians. They, of course, let other plebeians know that they are unhappy and the mood spreads. Now Valerius is granted an ovation.
Dr G 43:23 Oh
Dr Rad 43:24 Yeah. Yeah, fancy. And it doesn't seem like that big a deal. To be honest. It seems kind of like he just waltz into this.
Dr G 43:33 Seems like it wasn't hard to take back this citadel. So is it really deserving of an of an ovatio? But I guess it's desperate times. And Rome hasn't had heaps of military success for a few years until the last couple. So maybe they're excited and their standards are low.
Dr Rad 43:50 Well, yeah. And also, I mean, you know, he's also from, I guess, one of those families like the Valerii. Like, we've talked about them a lot. They're pretty prestigious.
Dr G 43:56 Yeah, they are very prestigious.
Dr Rad 43:58 They're really powerful. I'm sure they know who's back to scratch, if you know what I mean, then anyway, so Valerius rocks up for this ovatio – not quite a triumph – but still, you know, Rome going, “Well done.” And finds that Rome is not actually saying well done. Instead, he's being pelted with abuse.
Dr G 44:16 Oh, okay. So he's so he's been awarded the ovation by the Senate, presumably,
Dr Rad 44:23 it looks it doesn't actually say but I mean, you would presume so
Dr G 44:27 I would presume so. I think it's kind of that sort of suggestion would come through like, you don't get to just have an ovatio, it gets granted in some way. But yeah, if the general urban population is not into that, I can see how a walking procession through the city in a very slow and deliberate – supposedly celebratory way – could be great fodder for your rotten vegetables.
Dr Rad 44:55 Exactly. So he starts getting abused and that's not really what you're here with me. tend to be about to be a special moment. And everyone's kept calling him. And then interestingly, praise starts to be showered on Menenius. So Menenius starts to become, you know, a figure of appeal again, I mean, not that I think everybody like turned on him, for example, but I would imagine that he obviously lost a bit of credibility after everything that had happened. But when everybody starts shouting at the name Menenius, it kind of spreads through the crowd, the enthusiasm just builds. Menenius is now the man of the moment. And he's the one who's getting cheered, and everyone's really crazy for Menenius. And that's not really how ovatios work.
Dr G 45:46 I love this redemption arc, though, where it's like, the people have realized that Menenius was the guy that was on their side, and they're like, “You know what, this has gone badly. And the only guy who stood it our corner? Menenius.”
Dr Rad 46:00 Yeah, and this is the thing, I don't think that people ever doubted that he was their guy. I think they were just intimidated into obviously behaving a certain way. But now that they've seen the way that Valerius has acted after this victory, I kind of think they've got nothing left to lose at this point in time, and they're just being they're just being vocal. They're just expressing their feelings, Dr G.
Dr G 46:22 Nobody can get into trouble for that, can they?
Dr Rad 46:25 Exactly. Now, the patricians are extremely nervous by this public display. They're like, okay, it's not out of the ordinary for there to be some tension between the regular soldiers and their commanders, who are at this point in time, usually consuls or military tribunes with consular power. They're like, that's fine. We can deal with that. That's apparently how things normally are. We can also accept that there's usually a lot of tension between patricians and plebeians. Apparently, that's what our society is all about this century. It's hashtag trending. But this demonstration kind of puts them on high alert. So once again, we see the paranoia coming out. They feel incredibly certain after everything that's gone down recently, that if they allow military tribunes with consular power the next year, rather than consuls, Menenius will be the first plebeian to be elected into that position.
Dr G 47:31 Oh, they've been paranoid about this for a couple of years. Now. That's why we keep getting consuls, isn't it? Well, at least that's the rationale we've been given.
Dr Rad 47:37 They have been paranoid about the plebeians. Finally, getting to that point, however, in this particular instance, is because they've actually got a guy like they're like, “this is the one, this is the one that's going to cause all these problems.” Okay. Now, this is interesting, because this is where I'm going to highlight this Menenius is not a name, I think we come across much again, there was if we go back to 483 BCE, there was mention of a tense relationship between a Valerius and a Maelius. But that's not the same name.
Dr G 48:21 No.
Dr Rad 48:21 Okay. So that's a bit of a – hmmm, not sure about that.
Dr G 48:26 That's questionable.
Dr Rad 48:27 Mm hmm. Yeah. Literally, the Menenius family certainly is a well known plebeian family, but it's just this particular guy, we don't really hear about him again. So it's interesting that they're like, this is the one. This is the one we've been afraid of. But yeah, if we, if we go all the way back again, you know, as you highlighted before, we were talking about the Icilius of the previous episode that we were talking about. He's obviously from a very well known plebeian family with a long history of you know, these important moments of resistance against patrician rule. Menenius, we actually do have a Menenius mentioned back in the First Succession as well. But that's a Menenius from a patrician family,
Dr G 49:11 I was gonna say this name is unknown to us. We've got this patrician side of the gens, and we've got a plebeian side of the gens. So…
Dr Rad 49:21 We do. Yeah, yeah. And the plebeian side is well known. And they will be associated with this position again, but yeah, this particular guy, he's going to be disappearing into the mists of time.
Dr G 49:33 Look, I think this might end up being like a number of things that we see in this time period with our annalist historians, which is that they're inserting potentially names that are quite familiar from later generation-
Dr Rad 49:47 Exactly, yes
Dr G 49:48 -into this narrative, one to sort of maybe flesh out the details a little bit. And to maybe there's some legacy of those family oral histories where people tell of the great people They're great ancestors, and the stories are coming through in those sort of family traditions. So, without sort of having more independent evidence to think about, it does get quite messy to figure out whether this is like, is this guy real? Is he more of a symbol for something in this narrative, and he needed a name. So we'll associate him with the kinds of qualities that we associate with the Menenius family from a later period. All that kind of stuff might be going on here.
Dr Rad 50:30 Yeah, absolutely. But anyway, they are so paranoid, they're like, “not in our treehouse, pal! You're not coming in, none of you plebeians are coming in! We're locking the doors!” And so they make sure that there are going to be consular elections, because as you said, not only have they been paranoid about plebeians, you know, crossing that threshold, but now they see this guy, and they're like, they're like, “he's got the fire, you know, he's got, he's got the gifts. He's got the charisma. He's got the uniqueness. He's got the nerve, he's got the talent, he's going to make it!”
Dr G 50:57 The name on everybody's lips is gonna be, Menenius.
Dr Rad 51:06 I'm amazed that you managed to make all those syllables fit.
Dr G 51:10 I was really proud of myself that.
Dr Rad 51:14 Anyway, so that is where 410 ends for me. And I can tell you now we are in for more fascinating, bizarre, probably anachronistic, maybe fictional moments in the conflict of the orders in the years ahead.
Dr G 51:30 Stay tuned.
Dr Rad 51:32 That means, Dr G., that it is once more time for The Partial Pick. All right, Dr. G, tell us what The Partial Pick is all about
Dr G 51:42 The Partial Pick, there are 50 golden eagles on offer for Rome, Judge across five categories. So for each category, they could get a score of 10 Golden Eagles if they perform exceptionally well. And we're just going to judge them by their own standards, really. So we'll see.
Dr Rad 52:01 How will Rome perform for me today. All right, what's our first category, Dr. G?
Dr G 52:08 Our first category is military clout.
Dr Rad 52:11 Well, I do think they deserve some points, because obviously, we have got the recapture of the citadel of the mysterious place that nobody knows where it is, except that it's east.
Dr G 52:22 Is this the place that they also lost? Or do the Hernicians technically lose it?
Dr Rad 52:28 No, that they didn't, I mean, they didn'y. They didn't lose it. It was just taken by the Aequians. And then they took it back.
Dr G 52:34 Hmm.
Dr Rad 52:35 Yeah. And this is why this is why Valerius got the ovatio.
Dr G 52:38 Well, yes. I mean, I understand that concept, but who owned it in the first place?
Dr Rad 52:43 Well, I guess we don't really know where it is. But given given the narrative that I have, to me, it seems like it must be in either Latin or Hernician territory, because that's, that's what the Aequians and the Volscians are doing. They're attacking, Rome's allies. Yeah, I'm
Dr G 53:00 Yeah, I'm just wondering, like, you know, does it count as a, as a substantial victory worthy of high praise? And thus, a lot of Roman golden eagles? If they're just sort of taking back something that maybe wasn't really part of their stuff anyway, like,
Dr Rad 53:19 this is true. I mean, we don't it's not really clear if it's even maybe it's this maybe
Dr G 53:25 these are the questions I'm asking.
Dr Rad 53:26 I mean, the consul certainly are very worked up about it. It's definitely seen as like a really big deal that they've allowed this to happen.
Dr G 53:36 It strikes me that Carventum and its citadel may stand at this point in time as kind of like a buffer for Rome on the edge of it's on the edge of Latin territory, this is just a guess. And so it's maybe strategically important, and that's potentially why they're so invested in making sure that they retake it.
Dr Rad 53:58 Oh, yeah. I mean, it's obviously a huge deal. It's not like they're like, “Eh what's one citadel?”
Dr G 54:03 A citadel here, a citadel there. Whatever.
Dr Rad 54:07 Yeah, they definitely kind of allow it to happen. So I think it's, I mean, I don't know, I guess I see it as, if Valerius is getting an ovatio. That's what I'm using as my barometer here. I feel like it must be significant enough to matter. And therefore I feel they deserve like maybe like a two or three.
Dr G 54:27 Oh, all right. I was gonna give them like a four or five. And I was like, Look ovatios are hard work. But I you know.
Dr Rad 54:34 Let's saym three. I think it's three because as you say, I don't think it's that big a deal because it was taken by the Aequians of the Romans just got it back again. It's not like it's new territory. Yeah,
Dr G 54:44 All right.
Dr Rad 54:46 Although, I mean, again, we don't really know if it's theirs or someone else's, but…
Dr G 54:52 The vagaries of history.
Dr Rad 54:56 Alright, so we got three. Alright, what's our next category?
Dr G 54:58 Our second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 55:02 Okay. I don't think although I suppose if we go back to 411, sorry, they're getting 411 because it was a bit of a blah year. There is obviously the whole issue with, you know, securing grain which they do very nicely. They don't steal it, they buy it.
Dr G 55:17 That's true. They make friends with the Sicilians. They do the tyrants. Wow. And they also seem to buy some from the Etruscans. So things seem to be going well with that relationship, kind of.
Dr Rad 55:31 Definitely. Yeah. Okay, so what, like a two?
Dr G 55:37 Yeah, I think this has to be held in balance with the fact that diplomacy within Rome doesn't seem to be going great.
Dr Rad 55:45 I'm still so not sure that we should even be talking about diplomacy if it's within Rome. I don't think that makes any sense.
Dr G 55:52 Well, you know, negotiating is negotiating.
Dr Rad 55:56 Yeah, that's certainly war with the Aequians. It's not diplomatic now that they started it, but that's true. They finished it. So we're gonna give them two points for the grain. Okay. All right. Next category?
Dr G 56:09 Expansion.
Dr Rad 56:11 Hmm. This comes back to the question. Again, I'm really not sure.
Dr G 56:16 I feel like it has been mentioned little enough. That it's not Roman. It's yeah. And Look, the Latin place and it's run by some Latin people.
Dr Rad 56:26 Look, the places that I've seen mentioned in connection with this spot, none of which were the ones that you mentioned. So clearly we're reading different sources. It doesn't seem like this site is actually that far away from Rome. But it's certainly not within Rome right now.
Dr G 56:43 Yeah.
Dr Rad 56:44 Yeah. So it's close. I mean, maybe like Tusculum distance.
Dr G 56:50 But Tusculum isn't Rome, either. So you know,
Dr Rad 56:53 That's what I mean. Yeah. It's not far from Rome.
Dr G 56:56 Yeah, but all of these places are kind of running themselves. So I think this is not so much expansion. Or maybe, if they hold on to it?
Dr Rad 57:09 Well, they do. I mean, at this point in time, they're holding it and we have to judge them on what we've got for this year at this point in time. They've held it. Alright, let's give them to. Okay. I feel guilty because I know something about what happens in the future, which might affect this, but I have to judge them on what we've just said.
Dr G 57:26 We can't talk about the future now. You made it explicitly clear that we could only talk about this year.
Dr Rad 57:32 That's, I mean, like I feel guilty, because I know what's coming, but anyway, judging them based on this year, in this year, they hold it. Yes, exactly. All right. Next category?
Dr G 57:47 Virtus.
Dr Rad 57:51 I mean, Menenius is a bit of a stand up guy, but I don't think that you could call it he does virtus.
Dr G 57:59 Yeah. I'm not sure that we have enough detail to be able to claim virtus for him.
Dr Rad 58:04 No, no, he's a good tribune of the plebs. Huh? Yeah. And Valerius. He's just a douchebag. And so
Dr G 58:12 Sometimes that is virtus, though.
Dr Rad 58:15 I know, I know not in the Roman, not in the Roman sense. And like, he's, he's a douchebag by like, a lot of people's standards. Alright, so I think that's a zero.
Dr G 58:25 Yeah. All right. The final category is the citizen score.
Dr Rad 58:30 Well, I mean, I feel like it's positive that they don't starve to death. And I think that it's positive that they have a pretty good tribune of the plebs on their side, but on the other hand, they have nine who are terrible.
Dr G 58:44 Yeah, the counterbalance isn't great there.
Dr Rad 58:46 Yeah. But on the other hand, it seems like the wars not too long, doesn't seem like many people die. And then they have the guts to stand up to the patrician legal areas, when they get there.
Dr G 58:59 They do get to throw some rotten fruit. So that's fun. That's good. I feel like that's gonna count for something. I don't think that makes up for the trauma of being beaten up to be in the army in the first place, but it certainly helps.
Dr Rad 59:10 Look, I don't know that many people were actually beaten up. I think that a few people were and everyone else was like, “Okay, I don't want that to happen to me.”
Dr G 59:20 Like, ew, yeah. All right. But I'd say on average, then we're probably looking at maybe a three.
Dr Rad 59:26 Okay, all right. Well, that's good Dr. G, because that means that all my fingers are accounted for. We've got 10 Golden Eagles for room for the joint years, 4 11 and 410 BCE.
Dr G 59:43 Now look, that is a whole Golden Eagle up on the previous two years.
Dr Rad 59:48 So it is an improvement
Dr G 59:50 They're definitely making ground.
Dr Rad 59:52 And I'm really looking I'm looking forward very much to talking about the next couple of years because there's definitely some prime patrician for the in drama that is going to be happening. If and you know I love exploring the conflict with you, because it's so crazy.
Dr G 1:00:05 Well, I Look forward to seeing what turns up in my research. Maybe I have some sources and discussing more about the struggle of the orders with you soon,
Dr Rad 1:00:15 indeed.
Dr G 1:00:24 Thank you for listening to this episode of The Partial Historians. A huge thank you to our Patreon supporters for helping make this show spectacular. If you enjoyed the show, there's a few ways that you can show your support. You can write a review wherever you listen in to help spread the word. Reviews really make our day and help new people find our podcasts. Researching and producing a podcast takes time if you're keen to chip in, you can buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi or join our fantastic patrons for early releases and exclusive content. You can find our show notes, as well as links to our merch and where to buy our book, “Rex: The Seven Kings of Rome” at partial historians.com Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
Special Episode – A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women with Dr Emma Southon
02 nov. 2023
01:16:17
In this special episode we sit down with Dr Emma Southon to discuss her brand new book A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women.
This is the Roman antidote to all those fabulous reimagining of Greek myth by delving into the very real and very fascinating lives of some of the women who lived under the Romans.
Special Episode – A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women with Dr Emma Southon
We discuss the choices Emma made about who to include and who to leave out as well as consider some of the women who stood out for us when reading the book.
If you have a history-minded people to consider at certain upcoming celebrations that may or may not resemble the Saturnalia, this book is worthy of your consideration. Not only is Emma erudite, but she has a great understanding of just how quirky the Romans were.
Things to tune in for
The challenges of ancient evidence (a perennial topic on our podcast!)
The amazing life of Turia
‘Manus’ marriage – an ancient form of Roman marriage which saw a wife come under the direct power of her husband (or his paterfamilias)
The enterprises of Julia Felix
*The conquests and political power plays of Zenobia
The very particular approach to Christianity of Melania the Elder
We firmly recommend checking out Dr Southon’s work, which can be found on her website: https://www.emmasouthon.com/
If you’re interested in her latest book, here are links to where to buy online:
Just look at those glorious book covers! Despite the title difference, these are the SAME book. The US release is known as A Rome of One's Own while the UK version is entitled A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women.
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to The Partial Historians. We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Read.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Welcome to a special episode of The Partial Historians, I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad.
Dr G 1:08 And I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:10 And this is a special episode because we are talking to someone extremely exciting. Dr. G. Dare I say? scintillating?
Dr G 1:19 I think you should say scintillating. Yeah, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Emma Southon back to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr Emma Southon 1:28 Thank you so much for having me back. I just feel extra special when I get invited back like I didn't do something monstrous last time.
Dr Rad 1:35 Exactly, exactly. So, Dr Emma Southon, for those of you who haven't caused our previous episodes is one of our favorite guests for three reasons. Number one, she likes RuPaul's Drag Race and therefore will understand my random references to it unlike Dr. G. Number two, she likes women in history. And number three, she shares our outlook on the ancient Romans, which is that they are unintentionally hilarious and weird. Now to be a bit more specific, Dr. Southon is renowned a smarty pants and here's why. Aside from the obvious title before her name, she is the co host of the history comedy podcast ‘History is Sexy', along with our Kiwi cousin, Janina Mathewson. She's also the author of some of our favorite history books, including ‘Agrippina, Empress, Exile, Hustler Whore', autobuy autobiography, a biography of the most extraordinary woman in the Roman world, and ‘A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'. However, we have already had the pleasure of talking to her about these books. And today, we get to talk to her about another exciting volume that has just been released ‘A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women: How Women Transformed the Empire'.
Dr G 2:53 Yay!
Dr Emma Southon 2:56 Impressive.
Dr Rad 2:58 Well, I will say this, you don't like a short title. I don't like a short title.
Dr Emma Southon 3:03 And you think I'd learn but that people struggle to remember short titles, but But yeah, I don't know. They end up being really long. In America, this book is called ‘A Rome of One's Own', which is snappier.
Dr Rad 3:18 Ahhh, nice.
Dr G 3:18 I do like that. I saw that on Amazon. And I was like, Oh, that is sweet. I enjoyed the pun.
Dr Emma Southon 3:25 It's yeah, I have friends who have much better puns than I am. And they come up with these great puns. And I'm like, right, well, that's my title. Thank you.
Dr Rad 3:34 Now you cover a staggering array of women in this book. And I have to say up front, we're not going to talk about the Regal period at all, because quite frankly, we can't talk about it any more. We've talked about it so much. The only thing I will say is, I think in a second edition, you're going to have to amend your chapter on Tanaquil, where you say that there are no popular histories that mentioned Tanaquil.
Dr Emma Southon 4:03 Yes, that's true, because you have now finally written one.
Dr Rad 4:07 Yeah, we both have we both had.
Dr Emma Southon 4:09 Yeah. But it is. I don't know. It was just so like, I went through as many as I could find, like all of them for like books of like a history of the Roman Empire. And like that I have kind of lying around in my house and reflect through the ones I could see. And they just skip right over her. They skip over the regnal period, like a lot like the whole, the kings are just kind of coughed over fairly often. But still, I was like, this is such a good story.
I know. I know.
Why would you not want to like go out of your way to include this. So yeah, so second edition paperback edition will have a specific reference to The Partial Historians.
Dr Rad 4:48 Yeah, thank you very much. So we feel okay now, we can calm down and talk about your book.
Dr G 4:53 Okay, the interview can happen now.
Dr Emma Southon 4:55 When I finally – because your book came out just before my end like a couple of months ago, where mine had already gone off like, and I wasn't allowed to change it anymore. And I was like, no, I could I could have done this with this so much. And I have thoroughly enjoyed it. So everybody should buy it.
Dr G 5:13 Oh, thank you
Dr Rad 5:13 Ahh thank you. Well, we definitely felt that way about your book. And so we'd love to ask you some general questions to start off with about the style of your book. So your last book was about murder in ancient Rome. Why did you decide to, you know, change tack and go for a history of Rome, using the lives of women as your next project?
Dr Emma Southon 5:35 It's partly spite. So my other thing that I do during my days is I work in a book shop, and you will have noticed, it's impossible not to have noticed and moment that there is a been in the past two years ish, like a really big spike in interest in Greek goddesses, like retelling Greek myth, specifically, like retellings of female stories and Greek myth, which is great for, you know, ancient history in general, kind of, but also, you, as you will know, when you're a Roman historian, you think that Romans are the best. Yeah. And it's constant, like, oh, yeah, I mean, I guess the Greeks are fine. But Romans are better because they're funnier. It's so I kind of out of spite, when it'd be like, Yeah, but Roman women exist, too, and that they're better because they're real. And they don't like turn into spiders, or like, they're not goddesses, they're bad. So that makes them better. And so, a 50%, out of spite that I wanted people to also be reading about Romans. And to know that Romans are better than Greeks, and 50%, because I just feel like so much of like, popular Roman history is talking about men and like the, the standard narrative of Roman history of the store of the story of Roman history is so much just war and politics, basically, which is the sphere of men, which women are explicitly excluded from, and I thought it would be fun to kind of disrupt that a little bit and be like, one, there is a history of the Roman Empire that doesn't have any politics in it really, or has a limited amount of politics. And there is a, there is a history, which is more than just politics, it can also be what it is like to live in the Roman Empire at various times as various people. And it's more interesting to tell that story through women than it is through men and to show that women are always kind of around about and I realized quite early on into writing it that as kind of a historian of my age, I am really only the second generation of historians writing about women in the ancient world, like my supervisor, for my PhD, who is still working was like one of the first generation of people to do her PhD on women. And like, people like Amy Richlin and Suzanne Dixon, who are still around and wrote those first books about women in the Roman Empire are like, they're still teaching. They're still they're still at conferences like this. They're you know, they're older. But as we all know, historians never retire. So they're still around, they're still alive. Like they. This isn't like an old discipline women in Rome, or women in the ancient world at all. It's very, very new. And so, yeah, so it's time to bring it to their, the popular imagination out of the academy and start talking about it.
Dr G 8:45 I think you're doing a great service, particularly to readers who have become hooked on ancient Greek myths, because there is so much more to the ancient world than just, you know, having your tongue taken out or turning into a monster or
Dr Emma Southon 9:02 And like it not to be like everybody loves the Greek myths, and they love them for a reason. But a lot of them are victimized women, and there are but there are stories which from a kind of feminist perspective, I have minor issues with like stories of perpetually victimized women and womanhood as being perpetually victimized. So it's nice to tell stories about ancient women that were not like being turned into spiders or having their tongue taken out or being held into the sea or like or have to be literal goddesses in order to be able to do anything.
Dr Rad 9:36 Yeah, and as as we can definitely testify, we realized once we started focusing on the early republic, that he'd have literally been years of episodes sometimes before we mentioned a woman, we suddenly realized when a woman would come up as you say in your book, like a Vestal Virgin or were like God, it's been like five years since about women at all.
Dr Emma Southon 9:58 Yeah, yeah. And it's so easy to fall into that and to be like, oh, all of the important stories are the ones that the Romans thought were important. But the Romans can't be trusted, because they have bad opinions about a lot of stuff.
Dr G 10:12 So true. So true. And I think this leads nicely into thinking about like, how did you come to the decision about which women to focus on because it seems like you've hinted already, in some sense, it's about availability of evidence. But there must be other criteria as well.
Dr Emma Southon 10:28 So in that early period, a lot of it is availability of evidence up until the later of because the archaeology is so limited, and you are kind of trapped with texts, particularly for like the Regal period, and then the early and middle Republic before their epigraphic habit kicked in. It was about who can I find, basically, and finding stuff for the very earliest period when they basically mythical was easier than I thought it would be like those early bits of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. So so you've got Hersilia and you've got Tullia, like, there were more women than I thought. And so I just included all of them, because why not?
Dr Rad 11:15 Yeah, that's what we were surprised by as well. We started writing about the kings were like, actually, we get it like it's a it's a dynastic situation. It's not a dynastic situation, it's a family situation. So women have more of an opportunity to get sort of, you know, get a bit of soft power.
Dr Emma Southon 11:34 Yeah, exactly. As soon as you have a situation where one person is in charge, you have wives, and you have children. And when you've got children, you've got daughters in law, grandchildren, and then you have women who can do things like murder, their husbands marry their brother in law, who's also their cousin, murder their father running over,
Dr Rad 11:54 as you do as you do,
Dr Emma Southon 11:56 as you do, and can, they can do all of this really fun stuff. So that was fun. The Republican period is harder. And that was tough work, like finding women that you can include. Because they only appear at points of crisis. And very often, they only get a couple of lines to illustrate how terrible crisis is. But once you get into the Empire, like once things really start to kick off evidence wise, so late Republic, going into the Empire, and then coming like the later empire, there's so many women that it became a part of like, what story do I want to tell, and what women kind of will tell that story. So always wanted it to be not the women who are already included in books. So for women already had a biography about her, I kind of was like, No, and that kind of easily cut out all the emphasis. And I didn't want it to be a book about politics, and to tell the story that we already know. So I didn't want it to have you know, Livia and Agrippina. All of the kind of big women that we already know about, I wanted it to be women that you've probably not really heard of, or that tell a story that is more about what it is like to live in the empire than to rule the Empire. There are some exceptions, just because I like the stories like Julia Maesa and Julia Mamaea. I include because I just think that Julia Maesa is so cool.
Dr Rad 13:24 Look most people wouldn't have heard of them?
Dr Emma Southon 13:26 I don't think yeah, no, yeah, they're not women that you have heard of very often. And I wanted people from around the Empire. So I wanted to leave Rome at the point when the Empire becomes Imperial, and talk about women from around so that anytime that it was a choice between a woman that was in Rome, or a woman that was outside, I picked somebody who was somewhere else, basically just to because I wanted that empire to feel expansive. And I basically kind of had the time line almost and wanted it to be so we've got someone from every century, we've got someone pits people from various different parts of the empire, we've got different types of evidence. So we've got epigraphic evidence, you have archaeological evidence, we have text, different types of texts. And so if I have people that overlapped, I would cut them out. So I had at one point, there's a woman in Nero's like court, who is the keeper of his wardrobe. And then when Nero is overthrown, she goes to Egypt and blockades Alexandria, in an attempt to basically force Rome to put Nero back on the throne before he kills himself, which is a cool story, but also one, it's just the story of Rome. And two, it's a bit of political story, and it's would be so I chose instead for that period to tell the story of women living or on the frontier in England, and having birthday parties and writing letters to each other, which is a story that people don't know, everybody already knows that Nero was overthrown. So basically, when it came down to a choice of like, who in this period, this kind of like, middle of the first entry period is the lesser known, more interesting, more expansive story to tell? So that was like the criteria that I had.
Dr G 15:27 Fantastic. And I think this, I think you've also hit upon some of the potential challenges that come up with writing a history like this using women, because you, obviously that selection criteria allows you to sort of embody the expansiveness of Rome in a way that wouldn't be possible, as you say, if you follow through that sort of imperial line, and imperial women. Are there additional challenges that come along with those sorts of choices, though?
Dr Emma Southon 15:56 Yes. Many, I mean, the writing about women is always a challenge, because you're so rarely writing about the wear them as they present themselves, like women are so very rarely given this low their text don't survive, basically. And when you do have texts that they wrote, like, like the like birthday party letters from the, from Vindolanda, which are delightful, but is like, four sentence. It's, and you're like that, I mean, that's I'm so delighted to have these four sentences, but you're not a lot to work from. And so, or Julia Balbilla, who's like one of my favorites, who is in the court of Hadrian, and wrote four poems, which survive because she very, very cleverly had engraved on the bottom of an ancient Egyptian statue.
Dr G 16:53 Very clever, very clever.
Dr Emma Southon 16:55 And even better, because she was clearly very smart included her name in every single one of them.
Dr G 17:02 She knew somehow
Dr Emma Southon 17:04 She knew, and I feel like there must have been something where by like, life as a female poet, or like a woman who writes poetry must have already been that annoying thing where people were like, do you know you get that thing? Oh, well, she didn't really write it, like maybe Propertius wrote it and just pretended to be a woman like, yeah, obviously. That's it thing that men do. So she yeah, she included like, but you get so little. And so much of it has to be extrapolation. And, like, trying to add context from external things, which is tough work. And it's why people don't do it as much. But I think makes for more interesting stories in the end, because as it turns out, like when you start digging into archaeology matches, I find it hilarious to make fun of archaeologists out of like, minor jealousy. You know, there's so much in archaeology and ethnography that you can illuminate the world that they lived in that is just not available in the in the text like Tacitus can only give you so much. And then when you start to Look at the archaeology, like the archaeology of forts for example, when you start to Look at it, you're like, oh, wow, like life here was completely different to the way it is presented in the text like it was vibrant and semi luxurious for some people. And like learning that forts were rebuilt every time a different legion turned up to be so that it was specifically fit that legion, like, that's amazing.
Dr G 18:40 I just need to redecorate this place it's not speaking to me.
Dr Emma Southon 18:43 Yeah, basically they'd be like, Right Well, the last Legion that was here like had like, you know, eight units of cavalry, but we've got 12. So we're just going to like build on an extra section for that. We're not going to like feel like a lot like now you'd be like, well, we would just cram them in, like stick them in. But that no, we're gonna knock down the whole thing and rebuild it. And you can see that in the archaeological record and then you can tell how big the legion was that was there is delightful.
All the mosaics must go.
Yeah, exactly. Like I hate this. This does not speak to me. I need a Medusa.
Dr Rad 19:15 Yeah, exactly. A merman? Who are they kidding?
Dr Emma Southon 19:18 Yeah. Also delightful from the Vindolanda, just like if you sit down and read, they're just how much bureaucracy was going on in the Roman Empire. This is also delightful. Like, goddamn they love a list. They are just listing everything.
Dr Rad 19:32 Funnily enough, we were just talking about early quaestors and how the Romans wanted them for paperwork.
Dr G 19:40 Somebody needs to do the paperwork and it can't be me because I'm too big and important.
Dr Emma Southon 19:44 Yeah, exactly. The two things that Romans loved one is beating up other people than the other one is just making lists about it like just paperwork. And it is devastating but we don't have it.
Dr Rad 19:56 Hilarious. Now segwaying away from just this book, but thinking about your work as a whole, you're obviously an academic, but you have recently been choosing to write for more of a popular audience. And in order to do that, effectively, you've adopted quite a distinctive style as a historian, which is obviously really resonating with readers, I know that I absolutely adore your books. I read them faster than anything else. Can you talk a little bit about your journey as a historian and how you got here?
Dr Emma Southon 20:29 Yeah, well, I realized this is this year has been 10 years since I like left academia. Because I left pretty much straight after my PhD, I did a bit of teaching afterwards. But because my department, I did my PhD and got closed down. And it was also the year that I turned 30. And I thought, at the time, academia in the UK looked really terrible. And it's worse now. And I thought, do I want to do to eight to 10 years of short term contracts, and working at lots of universities. And my advisor for my PhD, he was Ray Lawrence, who's now over there with you in Australia. And he once told me that he worked at five universities simultaneously when he graduated his PhD, and like, was teaching and just traveling around the country. I thought, do I want to do that? Or am I 30, and I don't. And, like and it is, you know, is nine month contracts, it's not having any job security for longer than that nine months, it's not having to have three part time jobs on top of it. And honestly, I was not willing to do that as
Dr Rad 21:48 You make it sound so tempting, I don't understand!
Dr Emma Southon 21:50 I know and also, then you have to be writing constantly, they brought in the REF. That was the year that they brought in the REF as well. We're here the Research Excellence Framework, where you have to be writing constantly and trying to get points based, like literally trying to get points for your research, which is wild. And so I was like, do – do I want to be writing for points in a culture that is mean? Or do I just want to be not doing that. So I was actually teaching academic writing, is what I went into, and I was teaching mostly people doing vocational things like nurses and engineers, and allied health care professionals like working with them on their writing, which really made me a better writer, because working on people who don't have any background in writing, or a lot of people coming to writing as late career changes and things like that, who will find writing to be terrifying, and then being like, No, it's not, it's fine. It's okay, we can do this. Made writing more fun for me because it like, broke it down. And then I honestly accidentally became a writer for popular audiences, because I pitched Agrippina the book to a friend of a friend because he had an open pitching session. And he thought it sounded fun. And then I wrote the book that I would want to read. Because by that time, I had been out of academia for like, five years, and I had a job a full time job and a life and do not sit down and read like big chunky history books that are 600 pages long that feel like I have been told like intoned or lectured at, I also wrote a book that I would want to be in bed, or on the train commuting to my job, like, what's the book that I want to read, I want to read the book that tells me the story in the most entertaining way. And it helps that I find the Romans to be hilariously pompous and deluded about themselves. And to the disconnect between how the Romans see themselves and how they actually are is inherently very funny to me. And so yeah, so basically, my thing is, I love history, and I left because academic history sucks, not because I was fed up with like, the process of academia and I, the thing that I love about history is being what my friend calls a time detective, like you have the evidence, and then you're like a little poro, like trying to put that evidence together into make it make sense in some way. And you come up with a little hypothesis, and then somebody else goes, Oh, that's interesting. What if the hypothesis was this and then you kind of have a bit of a chat about it. And so I've just been a time detective in a fun way now.
Dr G 24:55 Look, that sounds great. And I feel like that's a pretty good description of what Dr. Rad and I I do as well. And it's like, we hold up our little magnifying glasses and we gaze very closely at things. We're like, you know, what, wouldn't it be exciting if this was what was based on what we've seen here?
Dr Emma Southon 25:10 Yeah.
Dr Rad 25:11 When people ask me, how did you get started in history? I always say Nancy Drew.
Dr Emma Southon 25:15 Yeah. I mean that. Yeah, it's basically. And I, you know, I don't think that it's a coincidence that I also love mystery novels.
Dr Rad 25:24 Absolutely
Dr G 25:24 Like, are you saying there's a Venn diagram that could be a circle?
Dr Emma Southon 25:30 I think so. Yeah, I think you would find, like, especially people who love like the historiography part of like, the bit where you're like, oh, cool, like the story of Lucretia. There's like five different versions, and they're told at different times. And when you put them all together, you realize that they're actually like, emphasizing different parts of it. And they're telling a story that speaks to themselves. And actually, this is just a fairy story that tells us more about the writer than it does about their actual events. And
Dr Rad 26:00 A creepy creepy fairy story.
Dr Emma Southon 26:04 As all fairy stories are like, if you read Grimm stories
Dr Rad 26:07 That's true. That's true. Yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 26:09 But yeah, I think that people who like that side and people who like Poirot books, there's a significant overlap.
Dr Rad 26:17 Absolutely.
Dr G 26:19 All right, well, let us think about the content of the book for a moment, we want to whet the reader's appetite, because everybody is obviously going to listen to this podcast and then immediately go out and purchase your book. Because of course, we've both read it and we love it. We're giving it five stars. But I'm interested in first of all, like, before we get into like some of the women that we really enjoyed, which of the women that you've looked at, were you less familiar with when you started writing? And if it's not too big enough, do you have a favorite?
Dr Emma Southon 26:54 I am quite a few of them kind of middle ones. So Turia I had only kind of vaguely like I knew of the ‘laudatio Turiae', but never really read it. So she is the late Republican Woman who is the subject of the biggest, private inscription that we have from the Roman Empire, which is very cool. And Julia Felix, who was also my favorite, I think, I came across, it was Sophie Hay, Dr. Sophie. Hey, who works at Pompeii, who told me about her and she also told Elodie Harper, who wrote ‘The Wolf Den' trilogy about her so she's in that trilogy as well. And Sophie Hay is doing God's work telling the world about Julia Felix, is based in Pompeii, like her complex that she runs. So those were probably the ones like anybody who came from archaeology, because my background is text was somebody that I had a really good time delving into and learning about completely, and being like, Oh, wow, you can Look at all these women all over the place, living their lives, being brilliant.
Dr G 28:04 Look at them go.
Dr Emma Southon 28:05 Yeah.
Dr Rad 28:06 Well, I have to agree that I had heard of, obviously, quite a few of the women that you've mentioned before. But like you, Dr. G, and I are very much text based people. We don't often don't an Indiana Jones outfit and go out into the wild. So
Dr G 28:22 Although maybe we should
Dr Rad 28:23 Probably but Turia was definitely one of the ones that piqued my interest the most especially coming from a time period that's actually probably one of the better documented ones in terms of what we've got. But yet I had really not heard very much about Turia. So can you tell us a little bit more about her?
Dr Emma Southon 28:41 Yeah, so she is she's a clearly of like, she is a woman of senatorial rank, definitely of consular rank, her husband is a consul. And she is so we know about her from this huge inscription that was found in five parts. When, during the, like 18th 19th century, Europeans went all over, like, putting together their big corpus of Latin inscriptions, and God bless them for doing but they found the four sections they put together, we don't actually know that her name was Turia because there's two bits that are missing. And both of them are the bits with the names. Which feels
Dr G 29:26 Roman history, jesus!
Dr Emma Southon 29:28 Doesn't it feel like like just emblematic of history? We just, we just lost her name. But this inscription was found and it tells it's written by her husband because she died before him. And it tells the story of her life, starting from when they get engaged, basically, or at least the bit that we have starts from when she gets engaged. It starts with her family being murdered during the war between Caesar and Pompey and her entire family is murdered on that in the villa. Bye Somebody, and he praises her for single handedly in the middle of a war, identifying and prosecuting the murderers.
Dr Rad 30:08 So she is Miss Marple.
Speaker 3 30:10 She is Miss Marple, and she successfully prosecutes them which is, you know, impressive. And then she is subject to a what is quite fascinating like little insight, somebody tries to claim her as part of their gens so that they can take guardianship of her, because she's not yet married. And her father is now dead so that they can take control of the state that she has inherited from her murdered family. And she has to go to court and prove basically that she is not part of this gens that she is part of a different and therefore these people have no claim over her, which is fascinating, like thing that must have happened all the time. But it's not in any text, because obviously that's not interesting. But basically, her husband says like she just made it so much trouble for them. And she just kept fighting it so much that they gave up and went off to find an easier job. And he is not there to protect her during this time. And they're not yet married because he has sided with Pompey and it's off fighting with Pompey. And then when Pompey dies, and the war is over, she both sends him money and sends him resources and sends him enslaved people to help him out lest he ever suffer a moment of discomfort, and also personally talks to Caesar to get him pardoned, basically, so that he can come back to Rome. So she manages to rescue him from his bad decision of picking Pompey. He comes back to Rome and immediately joins the wrong side again, and is on the side of the killers of Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar. And
Dr G 32:01 I don't know if she's picked a winner.
Dr Rad 32:02 It's really her patience that's the amazing thing.
Dr Emma Southon 32:04 Yeah. So he says she immediately throws in his luck with Brutus and Cassius. And then during the wars between Octavian and Cassius and Brutus, he is fighting with them, and he goes off again, he is then put on the prescriptions list. So when the troit Second Triumvirate comes in, and they are putting together the prescriptions list to kill off lots of people who are considered to be enemies, because Octavian and Antony are significantly less lenient than Caesar ever was a he's put on that list, which makes him basically prey it means that there is anybody can kill him, and there is a bounty on his head, you get money if you kill him, which opens up a whole way that you can talk about what the proscriptions were like and what that period was like in Rome, where people were literally just being murdered in the street constantly and lots of terrify stories. This is why we think that she may or may not have been called Turia, because there is a story and Appian who has a litany of these stories about a woman who hides her husband in an attic, which is also what the woman in the inscription does. He says she hit me in an attic, her and her sister hit me in an attic and then personally went to Octavian and then went to Lepidus and begged and begged and begged until they got him off the prescriptions list. So she protects him. She keeps him get manages to get him off of the list, manages to save him, manages to make it so that he can continue living his life. During that period, she also they're living in Milo's ex-house, the demagogic gang leader. He was exiled and so when Milo's was exiled for doing a murder, he, his house was sold and they bought it beer so they were very, very rich and moved into it and then Milo's supporters tried to take it back. So they literally invade her house while her husband is way and so she fights them off with her mother in law, she's extremely great during all of this period, she saves him multiple times as she protects him from his series of bad decisions and she's also obviously very you know, they have up to meet sympathies like in every situation they are against the popularity so and she's and they also talk a lot about mixing their property as a romantic act which is really fascinating because the the story of marriage and women's rights always says that oh elite women stopped doing ‘manus' marriage and stopped mixing property and that is how they got more power. But so they talk a lot about how she they mix their property and she handed it all over to him and she didn't run it herself as like this really romantic act. So they're obviously like quite conservative couple. And then when things settled down, he continues to tell her story. So you also get the story not only of this woman who is like very politically engaged and politically active, but they can't have children, it turns out that they try for years and years. And this is a bit where you're like, oh, wow, you're really telling the world everything about your wife.
Dr Rad 35:22 Airing it for everyone to read.
Dr Emma Southon 35:23 Yeah, yeah, just putting it on a like two meter high things. say she's like, she tries everything to have children. And she's like, but she can't. And so she comes to him and says, obviously, the point of marriage is to have children and I can't give them to you. And so what I'm going to do, my plan is I propose that we will get divorced. And I'll find you a fertile wife. So that you can have as you can have children and continue your family name. And I'll stick around and we'll keep our property mixed. So we'll still be like, kind of married in a way. But you will be able to have children and then I'll be like, the third person in your relationship, and I'll raise them like a sister in law, basically.
Dr G 36:06 Is this woman even real? Goodness!
Dr Rad 36:11 ‘Stand by Your Man' was clearly written about her.
Dr Emma Southon 36:15 They do and they are super sweet because they do really seem to love each other. Like the way he writes about her at the end of like, you know, she, like, you know, I can't I don't know how I'm going to live without her. Like, shoot, my life is never going to know happiness again, that I'm like, so heartbroken. Everything is I should have died first. This isn't fair. Like she was so good. And I am so rubbish.
Dr Rad 36:35 He's right about that, he should have died a number of times!
Dr Emma Southon 36:39 I mean, if it hadn't been for her, he would have died several times. But he, yeah, but he says, basically, he's like, Absolutely not like I would never dishonour you that way. I would never make you like a kind of concubine to me like you're my wife. I married you. I love you. This is no way marriage is more than just having kids, which is, again as a way that you don't see marriage, Roman marriage, especially elite Roman marriage written about that much like it's so rarely described as a meeting of hearts or something that is romantic. And so they, yeah, so they stay married for 50 years. They don't have children. They are aunts and uncles to her. She has a sister who has children and so and then she dies when she's in her 60s and he is bereft and writes this funeral oration and then inscribes it on two meter high monoliths and puts them on the Via Appia. And there they stay were presumably to his mind forever, so that everybody walking along Via Appia will know how much he loved his wife and how good she was and how she had all of these amazing qualities. And it's so delightful because it's such a it's so emotional, in the way that they love each other, and also in the way that they like they talk about, or he talks about her in this such a beautiful way. But she or doesn't come across in the way their love women do in a picker feed. Like when you're reading women's stories when men are writing about them after they've died very often. It's like she was the most chaste woman and all she did was spend her time weaving wool, and she breastfed her children and she that's how perfect she was like, okay, so she just had no personality at all she like she just wove wool for you and was chaste. But she has such a personality and this that it's captivating.
Dr Rad 38:39 It is. So I'm actually exhausted just after I listen to that story. I can't even imagine what it'd be like to live her life. But I kind of wish that she'd you know, being prepared for his clearly inevitable death. That we had her side of things where she's like, Oh, my God, you'll never guess who I married. And what he made me put up with.
Dr Emma Southon 38:59 But the thing is, she really seems to love him.
Dr Rad 39:01 I know. That's the story that he tells though, right?
Dr Emma Southon 39:04 Yeah. But she does do all this stuff for him.
Dr Rad 39:07 She does.
Dr Emma Southon 39:09 And so I feel like, you know, everybody,
Dr Rad 39:12 She must have she must have.
Dr Emma Southon 39:13 There's like a point I feel like it's a bit like, you know, Marge and Homer.
Dr Rad 39:18 It must be because otherwise, it wouldn't have been that difficult to walk away.
Dr Emma Southon 39:22 She's like, is he a bit useless? Yes. Do I adore him with all my being? Yes.
Dr G 39:30 Oh, oh, Look, she's a great character. And it's just so impressive that we have, like the epigraphy is the is the thing that gives us insight into this – into her life at all. And this is where thinking about different types of evidence becomes really important because obviously like when we're thinking about written sources, it's very much that elite male perspective. And the prioritization of subject matter, it really shows. And so this more expansive Look at what Rome could be like and what life was like is becomes really important. And you mentioned Julia Felix before, and she's one of the figures that I really enjoyed reading about. And obviously Pompeii stands out in people's imaginations as well as this sort of landmark site and the eruption sort of put to a whole sort of like, how can I say without making it sound terrible?
Dr Rad 40:27 Time capsule?
Dr G 40:29 It kind of creates a time capsule? Yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 40:34 Yeah, it's a it's a terrible tragedy, but after 2000 years, suddenly becomes a historians blessing. Their way like, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, that happened, but also, at least something good came out of it.
Dr Rad 40:45 Yeah, the silver lining. It's the silver lining.
Dr Emma Southon 40:47 Yeah. Yeah. After two millennia you, you're like, Okay, everybody's dead now. I guess. So we can,
Dr Rad 40:54 we can move on.
Dr Emma Southon 40:55 Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, Pompeii is amazing by Julia Felix's complex is one of the most amazing things. I think the things that people think of when they think of Pompeii, are the theater and then also the like the big houses the villas, which are the story of Rome, that we kind of know like the big impressive houses. And for a while, that's what people thought Julia Felix's complex was when they excavated thought was just a kind of a big, weird villa. But outside of it, there is a inscription which was attached to the wall, which said what it actually was, and it says “Julia Felix, daughter Spurius, offers for rent her leisure complex, which contains shops, baths fitted out for the well to do apartments and gardens for a period of five years, Inquire within.” and all of a sudden, archeologists could look at it and go, Oh, it's a it's a space where people can go to hang out, it's not like a private location, because what it is is to was to two houses that have been knocked together. And she moved a road like you can see where a road was redirected, so that she could knock through walls through to expand it, which is amazing. And so it's got a hot food bar. And in the book, I take you on a we like tour of it so you can see up it's got a hot food bar outside, which appears to up added on because five years ish prior to the eruption, there was an earthquake in Pompeii, like little warning sign, and that knocked out most of the original leisure district and meant that people coming from the amphitheater, when after games had to go down different roads, and one of them was the road that Julie Felix's thing was on and so she popped in a hot food bar in order to take advantage of foot traffic, which is brilliant. So it's got a hot food bar, and it's got baths, which are very fancy, but very like boutique. So they're like a little like you can only fit about eight in the toilets, you can fit eight people which is small for a Roman public toilet. And then it has this at the entrance way has a really unusual, almost unique painting – fresco – of not of mythological characters, not of like garden scenes, or of scenes of religious character. But of an every day scene from Pompeii is forum on market day. And has ordinary people doing ordinary things which is so unusual and it's got like people buying cloth and a person making shoes and horses with inexplicably enormous penises and and like children in school and a person giving a penny to a beggar. And like all of these just like normal activities of like basically the kind of middle classes of Rome. And then inside it has these gardens with little fish ponds and little bridges and a little dining room like a tiny little trick scenario where you can recline and dine. So you have the three couches, and you can do upper class elite dining where you recline on your arm and then people bring you tiny little things of food and it's got a water feature in the room. And it's basically a fancy restaurant, for people to go and have a fancy meal out for a fancy occasion and then have a walk around a private garden where there will not be a million other people like in the forum.
Dr G 44:51 I kind of love this where it's like, I can't afford my own villa, but what I can afford is I can afford to rent this fancy dining room and we'll have the lead experience without having to
Dr Rad 45:01 Like a spa day with a lovely meal at the end.
Dr Emma Southon 45:04 Exactly. You know, and it's like I always imagined it as a kind of thing that you would do for like a special occasion. So like for my birthday, I go to, you know, a Michelin starred restaurant for one meal. And it's like a big splash out thing where I spend lots of money, but I get like this experience or Yeah, going for a spa day where you do not normally have the leisure time to spend an entire day having, like just basking in steam, but for that one day you can. And that's basically what seems that Julia Felix's complex is, it is a space where people can go and have the experience of luxury of time of being served of quiet and privacy, which is something that is so rare in an urban environment, and they can splash out for it, or they can pay for it because it is not something like people like Cicero, and the rich guys are like the Villa of the Silver Wedding or whatever, they can have that all day every day, because privacy and silence and quiet and lush greenery are things that are only available to those who can afford it above you, apparently there was a market for people to be to buy that for one day, or buy that for one evening and to experience it as a luxury, which is and that kind of middle class of Rome of the Roman Empire is so invisible. And it's so nice to know that that happened and that there were people who would, you know, come in for a birthday or for an anniversary or for, you know, a special little treat and recline and be fed fix instead of having porridge on the street like we normally do.
Dr Rad 46:51 Because you want to eat porridge when you're on the move, of course, yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 46:55 You know, some you know, sometimes you're running through the street, you get a big bowl of stew and a bit of wine on a quick go. But sometimes you want to sit down and take your time.
Dr Rad 47:04 She is fascinating, because the very fact that she's obviously involved in business and her name as well. Julia Felix, it obviously hints at someone who truly is a self made person. And obviously, yeah, obviously does not come from the elite herself.
Dr Emma Southon 47:16 Yeah. And like I said, She's the daughter of Spurius. So people have suggested that maybe she's illegitimate, or she doesn't know who her father is. But she has a citizen. And she, you know, doesn't mention her husband. And then she has like in the back rooms. There's her space where she lives through a door. That is a tiny little like villa with an office and where she does her work. And the office walls are covered in paintings of food and money.
My favorite things, yeah.
Which for someone who was apparently making her money serving food, I think it's great.
Dr G 47:59 Just really embracing everything about how far she's come and how she's made it.
Dr Emma Southon 48:02 Yeah exactly. And then she's got to this point, apparently, in 79, where she's like, Okay, I'm ready to let someone else run this, and I'm going to rent it out. And you know, I'm still the owner, but I'll make making my money from rents, and I'm gonna go and maybe she's gonna go and live a life of luxury somewhere. Or maybe she's got a new business that she wants to start. But she's like, at that point. She is she's ready to let somebody else do the day to day.
Dr G 48:29 I think that's really cool. It's like it gives you such an insight into Pompeii, and how Roman life is actually working. And I imagine this is not the only place where this kind of thing is happening at all.
Dr Emma Southon 48:39 Yeah, it's just the only one we can definitely identify like, because it is the only one that has a sign.
Dr G 48:47 Very clear signage. Very handy.
Dr Emma Southon 48:49 Yeah, put more signs on things, people.
Dr G 48:52 Come on, guys. Come on guys. For history.
Dr Emma Southon 48:54 Yeah, ideally, you must really inscribed them in stone. Because yeah, inscribing stuff in stone is the way to make sure that things last.
Dr G 49:03 We'll keep that in mind. I want to turn your mind now to like a really later period and sort of getting towards the the edges of the Roman world in a different way. And the figure of Zenobia, who is a figure that maybe people have heard of, but maybe don't know much of the story about, but she's also a very intriguing figure in her own right.
Dr Emma Southon 49:24 She is and she's quite not controversial, but like the interpretation of her is quite contentious, I think. So Zenobia is a woman who is known as a Syrian kind of invader, I think is probably the way that she is often described. If you know any kind of Syrian history. She is a symbol of Syrian identity to a lot of people and she used to be on Syrian banknotes, and the way that she is often described as as a woman who ran an empire in Syria that is somehow outside of the Roman Empire. And the way that I interpret her is as a woman who did the exact same thing as like every general in the third century did which is declare herself and Augustus, and attempted to take over the Roman Empire. Because she, to me is a Roman woman within the Roman Empire, who uses an army to attempt to rule the Roman Empire, which makes her more interesting. So she is the wife of a guy called Odaenathus, who is a kind of weird liminal figure on the edge of the Empire during the third century. So the period when the Empire is fragmented, and there's about 50 people who claim to be emperor in a 30 year period. And it's kind of militarily and politically chaotic, whereby nobody knows and prayers don't really seem to last more than 20 minutes, almost all of them die of being murdered, except for one guy who's hit by lightning. And it and nobody has the kind of combined military power and personal power to be able to get more than two legions to follow them. And at the time, like basically, a lot of keeping the borders happy. Keeping them secure, is to outsource to people who are big men in their area. And he is one of those guys on the border in Syria with the Persian Empire, the Parthian Empire, and the Parthian Empire at the time is on the rise and is encroaching on Armenia, as it always is. But it's and this is after Rome is going right the way down into Mesopotamia. So Roman power goes all the way down into Iraq and Iran at this stuff at this time. And so they are charged with basically keeping Mesopotamia as a province and Syria. And he is described in a way that is either means that he is a kind of ko emperor, or it's just a kind of honorary title. And you can argue about it for the rest of your life. But there's no real answer to it. But he is running Roman legions, and he is a power down there. And he's given consular power. And he's very important, and they have a son together. And then he is murdered by one of his men, because he allegedly he, he takes away this guy's horse, and this guy is so furious about it, that he murders him.
Dr G 52:41 That's it. That's the last straw, you cannot have my horse.
Dr Emma Southon 52:44 Exactly. And so. But what Zenobia does, which is kind of on Roman, but makes sense is, she goes, Okay, and we're so he had all of these titles and names, and we. And so now my son has all of those titles and names. And so she just kind of gives her son who is like eight, all of the titles that her husband had, and then start ruling as his regent. So she just takes over the role that her husband had running the armies being the face of power in that whole region of Syria and Mesopotamia, she seems to do some military stuff down in Mesopotamia, which we only know because there are some thoughts that are built down there, which have her name on them. So she's doing something. And then at a certain point, she turns around, declares herself Augusta declares her son to be Augustus, and invades Egypt.
Dr G 53:48 Plot twist.
Dr Emma Southon 53:50 And this is a point where everyone's like, Oh, hang on, so she destroys a legion in Arabia, then she invades Egypt goes right the way down to Alexandria, and chases out the governor there and sends him on his way, kills a bunch of people, and then settles in and she starts producing coins, and she starts producing lots and lots of bureaucracy. Because where the bureaucracy does survive is in Egypt, because the papyrus survives really well.
Dr Rad 54:18 And the climate.
Dr Emma Southon 54:19 Yeah, yeah. And so what we have is loads and loads of documents, which suddenly start saying, oh, in the year of the reign, like year two of the rain of Iranian and year one of the rain of my son and she basically declares him co emperor of the Roman Empire, which are ralien, who was now emperor and he's kind of dealing with stuff with the Goths over in the West, he is less keen on this idea, because he's like, hang on, Who the fuck are you? Who the fuck is that?
Dr G 54:54 Also, what are you doing in the breadbasket of Rome? Get out! Get out, now!
Dr Emma Southon 54:57 Please, you are stressing me out in the breadbasket of Rome! Exactly. And so he pivots very hard away and kind of abandons the situation with the Goths and comes charging into Egypt and fights her. As it turns out, she picked the wrong person to declare herself co Emperor with because if it had been one of the rubbish ones like a Claudius Gothicus or something, he probably would have left it. But Aurelian is the least rubbish and is the person as it turns out, who has the political and military power, and the charm and the ability and the kind of profound balance of being interested in paperwork and being nice to his his soldiers to pull the Emperor back together under one person? So he turns around and blasts into Egypt to fight her she withdraws from Egypt and is like, oh, no, it's okay. Maybe I'll just stay.
Dr Rad 55:50 You have it. You have it back.
Dr G 55:52 Byeeeee.
Dr Emma Southon 55:54 But she is still producing coins. And she has, like, we have all these coins from Syria where she's like, it's Zenobia on one side, and Juno on the other. And it has her son on one side and Jupiter on the other end, like they're Roman coins, and they she's calling them Augustus, and she calls herself an Augusta. And she very clearly is wants to be a part like is a Roman person being a part of the Roman Empire. And they have a bunch of battles. And eventually she is defeated, in in Antioch. And she tries to allegedly, possibly maybe tries to flee on a camel and is caught. But which may be it seems like the kind of story that Romans in Rome would tell about like a woman from the east like, Oh, she just got on a camel, you know what they're like,
Dr Rad 56:39 She hopped on a magic carpet, and she was out of there.
Dr Emma Southon 56:42 Exactly like but, but it's a good story. So and she has captured but Aurelian has a bit of Julius Caesar in him. So he lets her live. And he takes her to Rome. And then she lives the rest of her life in Rome, and apparently has more children.
Dr Rad 56:55 Mind blowing, I thought for sure she'd end up dead.
Dr Emma Southon 56:58 Yeah. Yeah. And so she, she is very often presented as someone who tries to invade the Roman Empire. But to me it is very clear that she is someone who wants to rule the Roman Empire and who was like, all these other rubbish guys are doing it. Like she herself puts down another person who tries to declare himself emperor and his children Emperor's in Syria, and everybody else is doing I don't see why I can't get involved.
Dr Rad 57:25 It's hashtag trending guys.
Dr Emma Southon 57:27 Exactly, like jumping on that bandwagon. And like thinks that she has a real chance. And she you know, she does. She's the only person who ever invades Egypt, which is impressive, all by itself. And so I think she's really interesting, both as in the way that we and the way the Romans themselves, but the way that we talk about Romanness, like what about her means that we don't call her Roman, but also the way that we talked about the Roman Empire and like, at particularly at this period, like when it is all kinds of fragmenting around what gets does still be included in the Roman Empire, and what certainly gets written off from what from thing because this is happening at the same time that the Gallic Empire succeeds. And a guy over in Gaul takes Britain bit of Spain and declares it's no longer part of the Roman Empire that he is doing his own thing.
Dr G 58:21 We're independent now. Yeah, it's been long enough, it's time to go it alone.
Dr Emma Southon 58:26 It's like, No, I want my own little empire. And they did. They're doing their own little kind of situation over there. And but it seems that Zenobia was going to basically keep going, like, be fun to see what she had done had had she had a rubbish Emperor against her rather than gigachad Aurelian.
Dr G 58:51 Yeah, certainly, this seems like the possibility for it to politically work out, actually, yeah, she can hold those regions. And the emperor in Rome is also like, well, I can't take them back necessarily, let's make a deal. Then all of a sudden, you'd have something very different going on there in terms of what's happening with her career and how it pans out for her son as well.
Dr Emma Southon 59:13 Exactly. Because this is the time when the situation with the Goths is really like a problem. And for a good few decades, there emperors have been tied up just desperately trying to keep the gods out, even though all the gods want is to be Roman. And had they been like right, they would have resolved that situation immediately. But they they have been tied up fighting Gods on the Danube and so our ralien is smart enough as a military leader that he takes a tactical loss in order to take Egypt under his own personal control again, but had you had a less tactical one who was like, oh, no, this is the more kind of threatening thing I need to stay here. I can leave the guards and had let her stay in Egypt then you might have a very different – there's a novel that somebody could write about that counterfactual.
Dr Rad 1:00:04 I love it. Well, so far, the women that we've talked about are all what we would loosely describe as pagan because of course, for the vast majority of Rome's history, the religion that is followed is made up of many gods, etc, etc. However, right at the end a bit of a plot twist of Christianity becoming a major religion, if not the religion of the Roman Empire. And that leads us to the final woman that we thought we quickly discuss, who is Melania the Elder?
Speaker 3 1:00:36 Yeah, who is on this kind of cusp. She lives in a world where Christianity wasn't legal than it was. And she kind of exemplifies this time when Roman elite women could be Christian out loud, kind of for the first time, but is a woman who does not want to leave behind the benefits of a life as a Roman. And so she is one of the first women who can call herself a Roman Christian, basically. So most of the women before that you have to or most Christians really, before Constantine, you have to choose whether you are a Roman or a Christian. And a lot of you know, the line that that is in all of the trial transcripts and lives that we have for Christian martyrs is that they say no, I am a Christian ‘Christianus sum' or ‘Christianus sum', some rather than ‘Romanus sum'. and you cannot be both like and that is why they are persecuted because they won't sacrifice to the Emperor. Because there seems to be undermining and eventually, they're, like, constantly in caves. And it's like fine, we've managed to do here is make you stronger. And so she is one of the first people who can say I am a Roman Christian, and she can exist in the Roman world as an elite woman who owns huge amounts of land like she is she actually descends from Marc Anthony's family line. And she owns as part of her family, enormous swathes of Europe, and is taking income from that. And she she grows up in Spain, and then she moves with her son to Rome after she is widowed. And this being the ancient world, she's like 23. And she's widowed, she has already lost two children. And she goes to Rome, where she sets him up as the urban prefect and then spent 10 years living in Rome, preparing her son to be the prefect. And what you have to do is do the games like the big games of the year, and you have to save up for like a decade to do that. So they declare who the prefect is going to be 10 years in advance, so that they have time to save up to the
Dr Rad 1:02:58 Like the Olympics.
Dr Emma Southon 1:02:59 Yeah, exactly. So you have time to prepare. And so she she does actually spent 10 years living in Rome, and then her son comes of age, she becomes a prefect, she does the games. And then she immediately leaves Rome, sells all of her like personal possessions, and then takes huge amount of money and goes to Egypt, because the monastic I was gonna say trend for like, monastic life is kicking off in Egypt at this time, this is a fourth century, kind of mid late fourth century. And she goes off to Egypt to go and visit all of the desert mothers and fathers and ingratiate herself in life in Christian Egypt. And she goes around all of these people and talk to them. And like, these are people who have walled themselves up into their tombs so that they can live there and people who are like, it's a, it's a great period of Christian history and history in the Roman Empire, where people were doing deeply odd, like, exercises of stamina and endurance, and of deprivation, like Simon Stylites is, is standing on a, he's just standing on a pole. And people come and see him and the more people that come see him, the higher his pole gets, but that's what he does. He just stands on a pole all day, every day, and people are going off into the desert and not masturbating and crying about it a lot. And there's some great stories about like men, like like thinking about killing themselves, because they're just constantly tormented by visions of women and young boys and they
Dr Rad 1:04:41 What a life. What a life.
Speaker 3 1:04:43 yeah, but they're not allows to touch it. And women walling themselves into tombs, or like, you know, these really intense aesthetic practices. And she goes around and visits them all and then kind of decides that she's not that's not the life for her because what she enjoys is the life of a patroness. And so she goes to Jerusalem and starts a nunnery. And with her friend, she opens a, they open, open a nunnery, a monastery next to each other where women can come and live monastic lives. And she dedicates herself to a life of very performative asceticism whereby she sort of refuses to wash and then borates people who do, like, rich, she has a huge amount of money, and which she continues to get because her son is now running all of her states, the family estates, and he is sending her money. So she is still benefiting from all of the states that she previously had. And she is pouring all of that money into building up Jerusalem as a Christian space and planting Christianity all over Jerusalem and kind of tamping down the Judaism because they, after Helena, they really want Jerusalem to be the home of Christianity and to shove out the Jews. And she is popular enough there and doing a good enough job that they give her a bit of the True Cross.
Dr G 1:06:13 Sweet.
Dr Rad 1:06:14 This sounds very much like a case of her being able to have her cake and eat it too.
Dr Emma Southon 1:06:18 Yeah, it's very much a case of a woman who chooses to present as poor while not ever being actually poor. So she, they give her a bit of the True Cross. And then she goes back to visit her family in Rome. One of whom is a quite famous bishop in Italy, where she does a lot of marching around triumphantly, basically. But in the most part, so her family, like go on a visit. And they, they all turn up in like golden carriages wearing purple and red and whatever. And she turns up riding a donkey dressed in rags, holding a bit of the True Cross.
Dr G 1:07:02 Nice work.
Dr Rad 1:07:04 And just like Jesus before her.
Dr Emma Southon 1:07:05 Exactly and you just feel like rolling your eyes so hard, like, like pretending to be poor and so silly. But anyway, she gives a bit this bit of true cross away. And then she gets into a bunch of fights with St. Jerome, who she hates, and he hates her, which is fair, because he's awful. And she is possibly in Rome, just before the sack of Rome in 410, or she has left. But she inspires her daughter, Melania the Younger, who is potentially the more famous to also become an aesthetic woman, and her and her husband decide that they're going to sell all of their land free all of their enslaved people, give away everything and become genuinely poor. Which Melania the elder and her son are appalled by and they write to the Emperor.
Dr G 1:08:02 You've taken it too far!
Dr Emma Southon 1:08:03 Yeah, exactly. No, no, the thing is, we pretend to be poor, like we're not actually poor.
Dr Rad 1:08:08 We get to turn it on and off. It's like a switch.
Dr Emma Southon 1:08:11 Like if I need to have a nice bed, then I need the nice bed like we don't like and I don't need to use this money to buy influence and power like I don't. It's not what how else, okay, will take me here. Yeah, I need to be purchasing it. Otherwise, because what you have at this time, like, Jerome's Paula starts her own monastery as well in, in, in Jerusalem, and she is very famous for basically giving over her daughters to Jerome, who He then proceeds to starve to death. But she starts her own monastery and and they're they have a very specific hierarchy depending on how much money you bring into the monastery with you. So if you want your your social status is outside of the monastery, you there is a hierarchy within the monetary and so the trappings of the world outside Do not leave you when you go and become a nun, you can absolutely go and become a nun and still be a rich, or still be treated as rich and even if you're pretending that you're not, but Melania the younger is like no, no, no, I'm gonna give it all away. That's what Jesus said. And they genuinely try to get the Emperor to stop her, but they can't. So she sells off everything frees 8000 people, and then goes off to live a genuinely aesthetic. Much to the horror of the rest of her family and then Romans sacked and everything changes. But she she is so fascinating at this point at which Christianity has become legal and so Romans can kind of paste the trappings of a kind of, I suppose, like secular life on to Christianity and can and it's stops being a thing that you actually have to die for. And you genuinely have to suffer. You can kind of choose to suffer in a way that you can opt out of that.
Dr G 1:10:12 Wait a minute, performative Christianity?
Dr Emma Southon 1:10:15 Yeah. But like they still desperately want to suffer, because that has become part of Christianity. But they don't. It's only impressive if you're choosing to suffer. Like it's only impressive if you are a rich person who is choosing to wear scratchy rags. If you're just a poor person who is wearing scratchy rags, you can then that that's not impressive, like, no, that's just having a shit life. But being a very rich person who could be wearing silk and who is surrounded by people who are wearing silk, but you're riding a donkey and wearing scratchy things, that everybody's like, Oh, my God, what a wonderful.
Dr G 1:10:59 The sacrifice, the sacrifice
Speaker 3 1:11:01 Exactly. And all of a sudden, the fate of Christianity changes and becomes something that people can compete over in a way that you couldn't really do before. And you've the first inklings of what a Christian Roman Empire is going to look like start to appear. And it's, it's fascinating.
Dr Rad 1:11:24 I must admit, it's been a while since I looked at this period, so I was glad to be reminded that the Romans was still unintentionally hilarious. Mostly, yeah, mostly when they were trying to be really serious, even when they became Christian doesn't make a difference. Doesn't matter what religion it doesn't Yeah.
Dr Emma Southon 1:11:41 The more serious the Romans try to be, very often the funnier they are. And there's this story, like Melania is always surrounded by men who are writing. And so there's a couple of stories like stories that run about, and there's this great one about her traveling, she's moving a new nun from Jerusalem to Egypt, and then traveling across Egypt and cranker, traveling across the desert. So as a little group, and one guy who's with them, who's a bishop, they get to their resting place, it's the desert, they're in Egypt, it's hot, and he washes his hands and face and Melania loses her mind, and like, berate him as like, I never wash my face, and I have never laid on anything softer than the hard ground. And even though I'm in my 60s, you will never see me do anything so decadent as to wash my hands, even though doctors say that I might actually be less ill if I did. I still like, Oh, my God, wash woman. But yes, she just loves to be grubby. And just so that she can one up people.
Dr Rad 1:12:47 Well, you know, I actually made her a bit of my own patron saint when I went to school camp and could not wash for several days.
Dr Emma Southon 1:12:57 See, this, incidentally, is why I never became an archaeologist, because I could never deal with the grubby hands.
Dr Rad 1:13:04 Yeah, I get that, I get that. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of those amazing stories, people definitely need to go out and grab your book because it is filled with so many more. So can you please tell us where can people buy the book? And where can people find you.
Dr Emma Southon 1:13:21 So you can you can buy the book hopefully in any good bookshop. You so it's called ‘A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women'. And it should be hopefully available anyway. You can go to my website, which is emmasouthon.com. Then there are links to places that you can bite there, you can also find me at ‘History is Sexy', which is historyissexy.com. As long as your adult filters don't filter out the name, because apparently they sometimes do. But you can find it on all good podcast feeds. And we answer questions that people don't want to spend two days researching themselves. So and you can ask us questions there. And yeah, I think that's all the places and you can find me on Instagram at ‘Nuclearteeth', where I put links to things when I remember. And you can also see many, many, many pictures of my cat.
Dr G 1:14:16 Oh, Look, thank you so much for spending this time with us. We really appreciate it. And reading this book has been a real thrill and pleasure. And we can only imagine that people listening to this episode will feel the energy and the vibrancy of the women coming through in this conversation because the whole book is like this. It's full of great stuff. As a final question, Would you have any hints about what's to come in your writing world?
Dr Emma Southon 1:14:45 The next book that I am currently writing is a children's book with Greg Jenner who used to be the historical consultant for Horrible Histories and now does the ‘You're Dead to Me' podcast on the BBC. And we are writing a children's book about Roman Britain, which is an introduction to historiography for kids.
Dr G 1:15:08 Fantastic. That sounds really, really exciting.
Dr Rad 1:15:11 Sounds like another winner. Well, we as we cannot thank you enough for coming back, back, back back back again – which only you will find funny – and we hope very much to be able to chat to you when that next one comes out.
Dr Emma Southon 1:15:25 Thank you. I'm always here to chat to you.
In this episode we tackle the years 413 and 412 BCE. These years come hard on the back of the murder of the patrician Postumius. Rome is facing challenges that seem to be bound up in the spolia in times of war and the broader annalist focus on the idea of the Struggle of the Orders which has been the defining feature of the early republic in Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. To catch up on the unfortunate fate of Postumius, check out Episode 142 – A Wrongheaded Man.
Episode 143 – Special Victims Unit
Onwards and Upwards?
Murder is not something to be overlooked lightly, especially when the victim is a Roman patrician. It might be time for an investigation! And not just any investigation, but a special taskforce is assembled to consider all the evidence and follow the clues wherever they lead.
Livy mentions this group as a quaestio perpetua, but there’s good reason to be suspicious of this classification for the investigators. Strong evidence for the quaestio perpetua doesn’t emerge until the second century BCE over 250 years on from 413 BCE!
Agrarian Reform
Will Rome find a way to reform its practices around conquered land? This topic comes back to the fore as we have the name for a of the tribunes of plebs. Roman conquest of new lands also brings this thorny subject back into the public discourse. How historical could the issue be at this point in the early republic? And will the patricians finally offer the plebeians something on this matter? Time will tell!
Issues with the Volscians
Rome’s perennial tousle with their neighbours, the Volscii, continues in 413 BCE. The Hernicians seek Rome’s aid against the Volscian forces and Rome is happy to oblige. The city of Ferentinum comes to our attention through this situation. We learn about the location of Ferentinum as likely corresponding with modern Ferentino, which is to the southeast of Rome, and likely part of the territory of the Hernicians at this time. What happens next to the city of Ferentinum? Tune in to find out!
Is that Ferentinum way down to the southeast of Rome in the territory of the Hernicii? It surely is! Source: https://www.heritage-history.com/
The Return of the Icilii
Perhaps Rome’s most famous plebeians gens at this point in early republican history is the Icilii. And in 412 BCE, we see another member of the Icilii gens come into the role of tribune of the plebs. Famously, the Icilii are connected with the Lex Icilia de Aventino Publicando which our annalist tradition places as early as 456 BCE. Looking to brush up on this? Check out our Episode 104 – Aventine, Aventine. Another Icilius is also connected with the second decemvirate on account of being engaged to Verginia. To revisit Verginia's tale, see Episode 114 – The Tale of Verginia.
Things to Listen Out For
Ancient sources? What sources?
Leniency for those found guilty
Land redistribution in Bolae?
Does Rome even have ager publicus to redistribute???
Volero returns!?
The introduction of later sources Florus and Zonaras
The Latin League
Is Rome entering an expansionist phase?
A history of the Icilius gens
Pestilence!
The Hernician Federation
Our Players 413 BCEConsuls
Aulus (or Marcus) Cornelius – f. – n. Cossus (Pat.)
Lucius Furius (L. f. Sp. n.?) Medullinus (Pat.)
Interrex
Quintus Fabius Vibulanus (Pat.)
Our Players 412 BCEConsuls
Quintus Fabius – f. – n. Ambustus Vibulanus (Pat.)
Gaius Furius – f. – n. Pacilus (Pat.)
Tribune of the Plebs
Lucius Icilius
Our Sources
Dr Rad reads Livy 4.51.1-4.52.1
Dr G reads Diodorus 13.43.1, 14.54.1; Florus 1.17.1-2; Zonarus 7.20
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Sound Credits
Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of Freesounds.
The Roman remains at Ferentino (ancient Ferentinum) include a first-second century CE archway which now has a road running around and through it. Image credit to Pietro Scerrato.
Automated Transcript
Edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to The Partial Historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:55 Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of The Partial Historians. I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:04 And I am Dr. Rad
Dr G 1:07 Whoohoo, together at last across the waves of the internet.
Dr Rad 1:13 Excellent. Well, Dr G., here we are chatting about the history of Rome from the founding of the city. It's been a bit of a weird moment, I think lately, because we've just been speeding through, you know, in a way that we never had really before. It's crazy. The years are whizzing by
Dr G 1:30 Our sources are crumbling around us its the sort of thing that makes ancient historians concerned. And also avoid writing scholarship on because they're like, I don't know what to say. Everything's, it's just cracks, cracks and no evidence. Ah!
Dr Rad 1:49 Definitely. I mean, one of our big themes of light has definitely been this conflict of the orders between the patricians and the plebeians, that seems to be the narrative that they are flogging to death.
Dr G 2:00 It is a narrative that we're not sure is real, but continues nonetheless in the sources that survive.
Dr Rad 2:08 You gotta love that when you when you're not sure that it's real, and yet it continues on.
Dr G 2:14 It's amazing. It's amazing. So we've had some trials and tribulations with a certain Postumius over the last couple of years,
Dr Rad 2:24 Yes, we have indeed, and this kind of fits into this whole conflict of the orders thing. So the last year we were talking about was 414 BCE, and in this year, a very shocking event happened, actually, because the Romans are big on military stuff. Most people I think, know that. There you go. headlines around the world academic says, “Rome was big on military stuff”. No one's ever said that before. So they're big on their military stuff, which means that they are big on order, discipline. And yet, we had the murder of a patrician elite one Postumius by his own men, seemingly insulted by a comment that he made during a conflict of the orders moment where there was debate about what was happening, you know, with the policies back in Rome. .
Dr G 3:20 Yeah, now, this is interesting, because I do have a source that's going to come up in this episode. So we're going to be looking at 413 BCE. And it suggests that this moment with Postumius is one that like many things in this early period of ruins history is difficult to nail down to a very specific time period.
Dr Rad 3:43 Okay, okay. I'm intrigued, I'm intrigued.
Dr G 3:46 Does he come back from the dead only to be killed again?
Dr Rad 3:50 He had some more sick burns and he hasn't done leveling them at the plebeians yet
Dr G 3:57 Look, he wakes up from his grave has another shout and gets murdered for a second time.
Dr Rad 4:03 How dare you all question me you lowly vagabonds.
Dr G 4:09 Goodness me.
Dr Rad 4:10 But we did leave on this very dramatic moment, because I mean, honestly, I think in any society, the murder of someone who's supposed to be in charge is a big thing. And I think in any society, they say it's particularly the murder of someone who's like a general or something like that. Yeah. Someone who's really invested with authority in that society. It is a really big deal. So I don't think that the Senate are just going to turn around and go, Well, he was a bit of a douchebag. I, I think they're going to want answers!
Dr G 4:42 I didn't like him either!
Dr Rad 4:43 I think they're going to want the truth!
Dr G 4:46 This is hugely problematic, as you say, because he was invested with legitimate power as a general of the Roman army. He is one of these figures that we assume is legally capable wielding what we call imperium, this capacity to lead troops for those troops to then turn around and murder him, suggests a severe breakdown of Roman discipline on the one hand, but also calling into question the whole apparatus of how does legitimate power function. And part of the way it's upheld is through the process of enacting it repeatedly. So power gets reified over and over again, through every Roman general being able to successfully lead an army, whether they win or lose, coming back with that may where possible, and still in charge of them. And for him to not get to that point and for the troops to make the decision that revolting against the general is a is the best course of action, in any scenario suggests that there is some real internal problems in Rome, if this story is to be believed.
Dr Rad 5:58 Definitely. And I mean, even though what he said was despicable. I mean, he's patrician elite now come on. At the same time, it was just a comment. It was just a comment said in passing, for them to, you know, take it so personally, that they're going to go to murder. I mean,
Dr G 6:18 sources might disagree, though, as well. So like, the one sort of source that I had was talking about how he just refused to allow them to have an appropriate cut of the spoils.
Dr Rad 6:28 That's true. That's true, like there was the backstory, but it seems to have been this comment that kind of tipped them over the edge, which to me, suggests that there is something more serious going on here. If that's the trigger. There's something really serious going on.
Dr G 6:43 Yeah. What is it that we don't know?
Dr Rad 6:45 Yeah. And in my account, as well, last episode, we really did leave on a cliffhanger not just in the sense of the murder happening, but also a real fear amongst a senatorial slash patrician class, because in Livy, they're interchangeable that there was going to be a plebeian elected for the first time to supreme command: military tribune with consular power if they didn't do something to try and prevent that from happening. So they definitely concerned that once this is that they're taking it seriously because they're like, if we don't step in right now, we're going to actually have plebeians get ultimate power, which even though technically we agree that that was possible. We also secretly agree that it was never gonna happen.
Dr G 7:31 I'm having to agree on paper. Never want to see it in real life.
Dr Rad 7:34 Yeah, absolutely. So.
Dr G 7:36 Typical patricians.
Dr Rad 7:37 I know. So shall we segue to 413 BCE and see what the Romans are going to make of this mess?
Dr G 7:43 Let's do it.
It's 413 BCE in ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 8:20 And I know we're not having military tribunes with consular power this time because it'd be too much of a risk – a plebeian might get in so Dr G., tell me who are the consuls for this year?
Dr G 8:30 We have first off, we have Aulus or Marcus – we're not sure about his praenomen – Cornelius Cossus.
Dr Rad 8:39 A name we know well.
Dr G 8:42 Yeah, but from a branch of the family that has been in power before certainly, but we're not sure that this guy has necessarily had the top job before.
Dr Rad 8:52 No, no. I mean, he's not the famous Cossus that was very involved in the conflicts that we were talking about in the 430s and the 420s.
Dr G 9:00 But presumably related to him.
Dr Rad 9:02 Presumably.
Dr G 9:04 And we also have Lucius Furius Medullinus.
Dr Rad 9:11 Furii!
Dr G 9:14 Now this is a guy that you want to remember. Okay. He is going to go on to have a very illustrious career.
Dr Rad 9:23 You didn't even need to tell me that Dr. G. Oh, you need to say it's a word Furii and I know it's going to be on fire.
Dr G 9:29 That family they can do no wrong. I also have listed an interrex for this year.
Dr Rad 9:36 Yes.
Dr G 9:37 A certain Quintus Fabius Vibulanus who you may recall or not, because all Roman names start to sound the same, was previously consul in 423 and was also a military tribune with consular power in 416 and no less than the very previous year 414.
Dr Rad 9:58 Well, that all makes sense, doesn't it? So they want some continuity there.
Dr G 10:02 Old mate knows how an election goes.
Dr Rad 10:04 Yeah, well, basically, in my account he comes in because they have an interregnum because there's this standoff about are they going to have military tribunes or are they going to have consuls. Obviously the plebeians are pushing to have military tribunes, the Senate like, “Absolutely no way, no how is that going to happen. Because we know that you're going to elect a plebeian and and that's disgusting. How dare you even thinking it!” And so they hold out. There's like this extended interregnum period apparently, until eventually they get their consular elections and consuls, which means that only patricians can hold supreme office in this year. So that guy that guy becomes interrex because as we know, interrex means that it is period where you don't have the official magistrates being elected, you've got a sharing of power happening. It's a weird hangover from the regal period that we continue to call interrex even though there is no king the king is dead. And this guy was the one that organized the consular elections whilst he was holding the temporary power of interrex.
Dr G 11:11 Yeah, and I'm sure he does an excellent job. I don't have any real lengthy animalistic sauce to rely on this year. I have a little bits and pieces. So for instance, I've got Diodorus Siculus, who lets us know that we've got Marcus Cornelius and Lucius Furius as our consuls, and also gives us the heads up that this is a tricky time for the Athenian war in Sicily. So just you know, to put broader Italy in its Mediterranean context, Diodorus Siculus gives us that little tidbit. He goes into heaps of detail about that war, but I stopped reading him.
Dr Rad 11:56 We don't need to know about the Peloponnesian stuff.
Dr G 11:59 This is not a history of Greece from the founding of the Greek-ness.
Dr Rad 12:03 Absolutely not.
Dr G 12:05 That'll be another podcast.
Dr Rad 12:06 Perish the thought.
Dr G 12:08 Await our spin off series.
Dr Rad 12:11 When we're done talking about the history of Rome, because we're going to be done so soon, obviously.
Dr G 12:15 That's right. We're preparing ahead for our next series. I've also ended up reading a little bit of a writer called Florus.
Dr Rad 12:24 Oh, a much later source than Diodorus, I believe.
Dr G 12:31 Indeed. Let me introduce you, to Publius Annius Florus. He is a man of African extraction, goes to Rome in the late first century CE and is flourishing and writing a lot in the early second century CE, so think Trajan think Hadrian, that kind of time period.
Dr Rad 12:58 Okay, so, so high empire stuff. Yeah.
Dr G 13:01 Yeah. And he seems to have been pretty good friends with Hadrian at certain points in his life. And one of the things that he is famously known for is his epitome of Livy.
Dr Rad 13:13 Which is handy because unfortunately, and I know it seems impossible, dear listeners, but it will happen one day, we do not have all of Livy either. Eventually, Livy also will peter out.
Dr G 13:25 I'm excited for when the tables turn, and maybe I have some sources. And maybe you're like, I don't have anything. I'm like, Ah, ha!
Dr Rad 13:34 It'll take a long time.
Dr G 13:37 You've got years left in Livy. So Florus is famous for this sort of epitome of Livy. So we're not getting necessarily anything new in terms of the history. And so if you have Livy, I'm probably not going to be adding much to what you can say.
Dr Rad 13:55 You never know. I mean, Look, this is the thing like Sure, sure. He's doing the Wikipedia version of Livy
Dr G 14:04 Ouch.
Dr Rad 14:04 But does it mean that he's maybe not adding his own spin to things you never know?
Dr G 14:11 It's possible. Yeah. Likely? I don't know.
Dr Rad 14:14 All right. Well, let me tell you what's happening early on in this consulship here. So as we suspected, the first order of business is the murder of Postumius. Okay, they can't just leave that to go unavenged. Even if, even if it's a remote land, they thought that this was okay, which they do not. As we know, murder is taken very seriously. Again, in most societies, it's a pretty big thing. And so you can't just ignore it, particularly when it's so public and violent. So they start an investigation into the death of Postumius. However, there is I think, genuine concern about how this investigation is going to be handled. Okay. So then the Senate aren't like racing in all guns blazing. They're not like forming together. They're in posse. I mean, I was kind of thinking is this whether young patricians come back in finally speeding out of the horizon in their Ferraris to cause mayhem and havoc, to seek revenge? But no,
Dr G 15:20 I could see them doing it. But I can also understand or appreciate that the Senate might be a bit concerned for their own lives as well, they'll have to tread quite carefully in some respects, because if the anger of the soldiers continues, and does not dissipate, during the natural course of things, that could be a problem for them.
Dr Rad 15:39 Yeah, so this is an interesting case. So we have talked a little bit about investigations into murder, because obviously, it does happen. Obviously, in every society, we have mentioned it, but this is the first time that we've apparently seen like a special commission into somebody's murder. Okay. And there are going to be a few of these that pop up throughout Rome's history where there is like, something that happens, it's so extraordinary, that it requires this special kind of investigation, and we're not really sure where they came from, like, is this actually the first or just the first recorded? No, no, yeah, we're not really sure. But it's basically that the commission is given by a legislative act by the people, okay, to the consul, or the chief magistrate. And they're able to use their full powers of imperium, which means full powers of life and death during the investigation. Now, we obviously were just speaking about imperium. It is obviously where, you know, the true power of a magistrate resides, but obviously, they're not going to get very far if they're constantly making people genuinely afraid that they're going to exercise powers of life and death. So usually, it's life. Usually, they're not walking around murdering people not murdering sorry, they're not well,
Dr G 17:00 I mean, it's not the hallmark of a great detective investigation is it, to kill all of the witnesses or all of the suspects before you've really had a chance to question them?
Dr Rad 17:09 Yes, exactly. Yeah. So it seems to be basically giving them total scope, you know, to do what they need to do in order to investigate what's happened. Apparently, the next time that we'll really see this exact kind of condition, or like the way that this one is kind of set up, it won't be until much much later in the Republic. So in a more in a better documented time, we're talking about apparently, there's going to be a case coming up in 141 BCE. So put that in your diaries, listeners.
Dr G 17:40 That is a long way from where we are now put a cloud of suspicion over this being the first.
Dr Rad 17:47 Well, I mean, I think this is the thing, there are a lot of questions about what this exactly is exactly how it is set up. And there are a couple of ways that it can that's that's just one way, I think that you can set up these sorts of special conditions. And eventually, once you have these particular kinds of quaestors, the quaestiones perpetuae? I can't do Latin, it just comes out as Italian.
Dr G 18:19 This is not the parricidium?
Dr Rad 18:21 No, no.
Dr G 18:22 Ahhh interesting.
Dr Rad 18:23 Once you have these particular types of crisis, they would then set up the commissions on a need-by-need basis, not using imperium as the basis of their actions. So it's basically I think that a law that sort of set them up had given them the power to enact these special conditions. And again, we'll see examples of this cropping up in about 110 BCE and 90 BCE. But it's fairly clear from the details of this event, that that's not what we're dealing with here. Yeah, yeah, we're definitely dealing with the first type because there isn't another example for another couple of 100 years. Obviously, there are huge red flags around this, whether we should actually be believing that this is something that actually happened is tricky. And certainly, what has been suggested by one of the academics I've been reading is that again, this is one of those examples of something from later in the republic that is being sort of retrojected back. And interestingly, might be because there were concerns being raised by the time you get to sort of mid and later Republic that the Senate were potentially kind of abusing these commissions – their ability to set up these commissions and use them for political purposes. So this is actually the same kind of commission that we see set up in 186 BC with a Bacchanalian Scandal when they investigate that and it will also be used in the Gracchan era.
Dr G 19:54 So alright. There is a big cloud of suspicion now.
Dr Rad 19:59 Yeah, It definitely is. There's a big cloud of suspicion. But certainly, again, if even though we might not be able to say, okay, yes, this is exactly what happened to investigate the murder of Postumius. It does tell us something about obviously, again, what is concerning later on in terms of maybe abuses of power or the exercise of power, certainly in the middle to later Republic and the way that these sorts of special conditions might be become to be used, I suppose.
Dr G 20:27 Hmm. Yeah, that's all very interesting.
Dr Rad 20:31 Anyway, but in this particular example, if it did happen, and I'm sure there was an investigation, as I say, they're not going to defer.
Dr G 20:37 There would have had to have been some kind of an investigation, it's just a matter of what it really looked like.
Dr Rad 20:41 Yes. So wisely, the special investigation, oh, my God, oh, my god, I just realized it's an SVU special investigation unit. So in our Special Investigation Unit: Ancient Rome, they don't get too vindictive they only select out, you know, like, sort of the minimum amount of people, like the ringleaders, I would presume, who were most involved in, I guess, leading the charge against Postumius, when he was murdered in a mob scenario. And even the ones that are chosen for punishment, it seems that most of them are allowed to commit suicide, rather than the State being the ones to enact that punishment, which, by Roman standards-
Dr G 21:30 That's actually very generous by Roman standards.
Dr Rad 21:32 It really is, because this is the whole thing. Obviously, suicide can be a very troubling issue. It is a very troubling issue. But by Roman standards, they have a slightly different way of looking at it to the way that we do it is a way that you can restore some honour. And also potentially, I mean, we don't really know what the deal is with property laws, obviously, in this time, but it is potentially a way of also protecting property and that sort of thing, depending on what kind of crimes you're being charged with. So yeah, it is. Yeah, it is very generous for them to allow this to happen, even though it sounds awful, obviously.
Dr G 22:08 Yes, very intriguing. Yeah, I'm not really quite sure what to make of any of this. I don't have any questions so far. Just curiosity, does Livy offer more detail in this?
Dr Rad 22:20 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes. So obviously, you'd think, okay, moderate investigation, not an abuse of power, fairly generous penalties, even though obviously, it's still death, but at the same time, limited in scope and method, I suppose. And yet, Dr. G. It just goes to show you give as you give as you give and still, the plebeians are unhappy with the situation and room still, they did to have questions about their lives still. They gave the patricians problems. How is this possible that did you just goes to show that the patricians are in the right at all times?
Dr G 23:04 Oh, yeah, they've been super generous. You know, they've been insulting the plebeians for centuries at this point.
Dr Rad 23:11 So whilst the consuls have been busy playing Agatha Christie with their Special Victims Unit, there will be things pointed out, you know what, it's interesting that you've dealt with this murder so quickly, because I can't help but notice that it's been Oh, I don't know, a century since we asked you for meaningful change in this place. And yet nothing? Nothing.
Dr G 23:38 Anybody, agrarian reform?
Dr Rad 23:40 Exactly.
Dr G 23:41 Anyone? Anyone?
Dr Rad 23:42 He's amazing that the patricians can act so quickly when it is in their interests. They have questions, oh, they have questions.
Dr G 23:51 That is a very fair criticism.
Dr Rad 23:55 Now Livy, he actually says this might have been the moment to appease the audience, calm the situation, by dividing up the territory that had been conquered at bullae. And just, you know, trying to put the matter to rest before anyone else gets murdered. But-
Dr G 24:15 There's always a but isn't there?
Dr Rad 24:17 The patricians don't roll that way, as we know, they were not clever enough to make this move at this point in time, which means a little bit is still hungry for an agrarian law. Yeah, specifically, they're obviously keen at the moment at this point in our narrative for an agrarian law. That would, and I quote, expel the patricians from their wrongful occupation of the public domain.
Dr G 24:46 Yeah, Look, this is the same claim they have been making for the last 50 odd years. They want the Ager Publicus “the common land” to be redistributed out because it's currently being squatted on by patricians.
Dr Rad 25:03 Yeah. And as we've highlighted a number of times, they seems highly anachronistic and unlikely because we're probably living in a time of warlords where everyone's just kind of squatting on land because that's what warlords do. There probably isn't really public land. It's probably just land that's occupied by clans and their dependents and they hold it like that's probably what's going on here. So this is all very Grachhan-late Republic again, that's trending hashtag trending. So instead the plebeians are left soaking feeling very much like they were being had done by the patricians were unfairly occupying public lands and holding them off at using force. The patricians would not even consider giving any of the most recently captured territory to the plebeians, I mean, ugh
Dr G 25:58 Concede nothing!
Dr Rad 26:00 It's just like, it's always been the rich get richer, and they're left with nothing.
Dr G 26:07 Hmm, yeah. I have some thoughts about that. But I will keep them to myself.
Dr Rad 26:13 Well, it's around this time, it's around this time that we have some military action happening externally. So the Volscians start attacking the borderlands of the Hernicians.
Dr G 26:24 Oh, very interesting. Okay, before we get too far into that, okay, let me give you what Florus gives us because Florus doesn't get into what might be happening on the military front.
Dr Rad 26:35 Okay.
Dr G 26:36 So this might round out the plebeian-patrician agrarian issue. So Florus tells us that this period in Rome's history is considered a second age of the Roman people.
Dr Rad 26:52 Oh, I told you, you he's have his own little flourishes. Flourishing Florus.
Dr G 26:58 Yeah, it's beautiful. This time period is thought to be the one where Rome is at its most vigorous. And, and in the heat of its strength. So something about the virility of the people is really, what Florus is sort of touching on here. And he sees this action against Postumius as being part of a broader set of actions that the plebeians are taking against the patricians. In this roundabout sort of 50-100 year period, everything in this really early republic that we've dealt with kind of gets a mention in this passage. Okay. So he says that the army mutinied in the camp and stone to the general Postumius. Right, when he denied them the spoils which he had promised.
Dr Rad 27:48 Check, check, check.
Dr G 27:50 That also another action that falls under this kind of mode of strengthen virility from the plebeians is under Appius Claudius, when they refuse to defeat the enemy when it was in their power to do so. And I feel like I remember vaguely when that was, but I can't remember exactly when that was.
Dr Rad 28:14 Research, what makes the podcast great.
Dr G 28:18 Believe me, I did try to track it down by going back through our episodes, it eluded me and I was like, my happiest Claudius. I mean, he was he was terrible for a long time.
Dr Rad 28:27 Yeah, well, I mean, there's a year that goes on forever if we're talking about the Appius Claudius whose the second decemvir.
Dr G 28:34 Yeah exactly, which I assume this is where we are. And he talks about when under the leadership of Volero many refuse to serve and the consul's fasces were broken. So that is a reference back to really early events in 472.
Dr Rad 28:51 I was gonna say I do remember that that Volero is a name from Yeah, like 10 years ago, in terms of in terms of our podcasting, not the Roman history.
Dr G 29:02 So Volero Publius, as tribune of the plebs riles up everybody, and then they break some fasces, which is pretty good. Yeah. He then talks about Coriolanus another big figure,
Dr Rad 29:16 But again, going back to what the 480s?
Dr G 29:18 The 490s even.
Dr Rad 29:20 Oh, my god, yeah.
Dr G 29:23 When he orders the troops to to their fields, things like this. And then he mentions a figure that is a little bit foreshadowing for us, because we haven't gotten to this guy yet. But we're going to keep your ears peeled, listeners – not literally because that would be gross – for Camillus.
Dr Rad 29:48 Oh, yes, yes. Yes. He's going to be another big guy.
Dr G 29:52 Yeah, he's coming up really soon. So we're anticipating his eventual presence but obviously there's an attack spent there between what happens in Camilla's career and what is happening with the plebeian struggle. So Florus bundles, all of these kinds of moments together as letting us know that there's the plebeian struggle has been ongoing and continuing and this murder of Postumius is one of these landmark events of civil disobedience, essentially, against the ruling class.
Dr Rad 30:28 Oh, Look, it's a huge deal. I mean, Look, I shouldn't actually, you know, I shouldn't have said what I said earlier about the comment being the thing, obviously, I think it's more his actions that have rolled them up to this state, you know, their broken promises about bougie, whatever they were, and then I think the general harshness of his demeanor. I think that's, that's definitely obviously the thing. But the comment, I think he just embodied his attitude, which is very typical, I think of a lot of patricians of this time, where even though they're doing the hard yards and winning the land, it's him and his mates that are allegedly benefiting from these sorts of conquests. Yeah, yeah. And the people, they've had enough and they're not gonna take it anymore.
Dr G 31:14 I fought for this land to I want a slice.
Dr Rad 31:19 All right, cool. So is that Florus' contribution to Postumius?
Dr G 31:24 That is what Florus has to tell us. I could tell you that I also went to Zonaras.
Dr Rad 31:30 Oh, wow. Okay. Getting late with your sources.
Dr G 31:35 Zonaras is a 12th century CE source.
Dr Rad 31:39 So actually closer to us than it is to Postumius – it's not but almost.
Dr G 31:45 Almost Yeah. So Zonaras is living under the Byzantines empire and writing from the glory and glamour of of the Roman east.
Dr Rad 31:54 Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, listeners, listeners. Do you hear that? That's Dr G. clutching at straws?
Dr G 32:01 Dammit, you know what,
Dr Rad 32:02 I love your research. I love your research. I'm just joking
Dr G 32:06 The thing about Zonaras is that nobody has gone about the epic work that it would take to translate all of the Zonaras from the Greek into the English, because he does an incredible job of condensing all of the histories into a single work. And people are like, I could translate that. But sometimes we've got the real source that he used. And so then they're like, “Nah, forget Zonaras. He can sit there. He does exist. There's books and books of Zonaras in Greek.
Dr Rad 32:38 I was gonna say, Yeah, I was gonna I remember looking at Zonaras at one point being like, holy crap, it's not translated what the hell?.
Dr G 32:45 Some parts of it are definitely, but not the section I was hoping to read.
Dr Rad 32:49 No, not the section I was looking for I that I was like, how very dare you making me do my own translations? Outrageous.
Dr G 32:55 I checked it. It's about three pages worth of ancient Greek. I'm sorry, I didn't translate it. And that's all I have. That is literally all the sources that I consulted or attempted to consult before I got sad.
Dr Rad 33:11 Okay, well, then, let's wrap up the whole conflict of the oddest thing for the moment, put a pin in that. So it's around this time that the Volscians start attacking the borderlands of the Hernicians. People we talk about a lot the consul, one of the consuls, Furius, and therefore the best consul, decided that he was gonna obviously take some Roman legions out to deal with them, because the Romans generally do come to the aid of the donations, you know, they got a bit of a thing going on there. However, when they got there, they could not find the Volscians causing them problem. I love it when these sorts of campaigns happen where they go out with an army and they they're like, “where is everybody?”
Dr G 33:50 They get there, “Well, it took us a while to get here, but it looks like this is done and dusted. And everyone's gone home.”
Dr Rad 33:56 Exactly. So they decided, well, we've got all dressed up and we've got nowhere to go. Let's just capture Ferentinum, because there are a large number of Volscians residing there. So it's as good as anywhere and those Volscians They are our problem right now.
Dr G 34:14 We'll teach them a lesson.
Dr Rad 34:15 Yeah, the Volscians must have been anticipating that this was a possibility, I guess. Because when the Romans capture Ferentinum, and they find that there's not a lot of booty there, because the Volscians had already moved anything of real value out of the town. They did. I guess they thought that if the Romans came into this area, that this wasn't a place that they could hold. And so they were very organized strategy, they got everything out. And so the Romans are like, check please. Is the bus to run in because when I hanging around this, so I would sum this campaign up, as being the Romans came. They saw that Occasionally so wanted about and then they gave the town and its territory to the Hernicians because they were like, not worth it.
Dr G 35:08 There's no booty, we're a bit bored.
Dr Rad 35:11 Yeah now Ferentinum will later apparently become a municipium of note. But this is the first time that we actually haven't mentioned in our vision material. Apparently, the site is modern Ferentino to the east of Rome, a bit further afield than we have talked about before, perhaps. And realistically, although the Romans may have given it to the Hernicians because they were kind of like, it doesn't seem worth the hassle. It's probably also because at this point in time, obviously Rome doesn't want to overstretch themselves too much, you know, and, yeah, they've been having some internal problems, as we've well and truly documented. Now, this, this kind of had me thinking a little bit about this whole scenario here. We obviously in this past 100 years, we have talked a lot about various colonies being set up at this time, this is kind of how Rome expands, right? We see gradual little colonies, you know, being set up all over the place, sometimes they lose them again. But that's kind of their their strategy. Ferentinum itself, it is obviously in this Hernician area in Hernician territory, and therefore, it was actually part of the Hernician Federation, not the Latin League. Now the Latin League is something we haven't mentioned in a while this is a kind of loose confederation exists at this point in time. I think it's basically that people have people who have a shared, I suppose, like linguistic and cultural and religious background, have obviously agreed to extend rights to each other across various territories that you know, that share these things. So, for example, you can move to another place, and it's not going to be a massive hassle. Trade is easier between these places, marriage is easier between these places. This is something that was set up a really long time ago. Again, we keep going back to those 490 strategy. This is when the Latin League was formed. Yes.
Dr G 37:17 Yeah. And Rome is part of that league.
Dr Rad 37:20 Yeah.
Dr G 37:21 And is going to become increasingly separate from it over time.
Dr Rad 37:25 Yeah, exactly. They have they have this alliance with the various members of the Latin League, and it's going to be something that lasts into the next century that we're talking about. And it is probably what helps to safeguard this area of Latium against these very mysterious, shadowy people. We keep talking about the Aequians and the Volscians, who lie outside of this sort of territory. And we know, bugger all about quite frankly.
Dr G 37:49 Well, yeah, they lie outside of the territory. But we also think they're different linguistic groups as well. So that's, that's part of that issue as well. It's not just their location geographically, it's also a sense that they're culturally different as well.
Dr Rad 38:03 Yes, absolutely. Now, it is also worth mentioning that lately, uncharacteristic, because for a while, there was just nothing, it was a bit of a drought, in terms of Romans making progress in terms of expanding their empire, you may have noticed, we've been talking about some things been captured lately, you know, it's been a bit of a feature, even though it's caused massive internal issues sometimes. And therefore, some people have suggested that we're actually entering into like a new policy era for ancient Rome, that they are indeed embarking upon a period of more aggressive expansion at this point in time, and this is not going to be the last time in the next few episodes, I think that we're gonna be talking about some areas being captured by the Romans. So yeah, just something to keep an eye on that potentially. This is an era of evolution. And even though I'd say even though it's not always you know, it's just not always progress. Sometimes it's, you know, two steps forward, one step back.
Dr G 39:05 But they're trying out some different locations, seeing if they can hold them. And sometimes they can, sometimes they can't, and it's obviously also producing a lot of tension between imperial command like so the deployment of imperium, and how it's being utilized, and the people who actually have to enact the violence of taking your place. So it seems like there is maybe a tension that's not just about agrarian reform, but maybe a tension about, well, what does expansion look like? And what does it even mean, and why are we engaging in it?
Dr Rad 39:45 Yeah, and definitely, the we're also going to be heading into an era where I think we're going to see some slight changes to the way that the Romans manage their military forces, the way that they fund it, that kind of thing. So it's in Interesting that we might be entering into a new military phase for him, even though obviously, because of the time period and a source material that we have, we can't be 100% sure of the details. But if we're looking at that broader picture of truth, because that's all we can really aim for, I think at this point in time, certainly whatever's happening, it does seem to be that room is more outward looking again, you know, after being very fixated on internal problems, or whatever was happening in that previous period, maybe we're starting to see an end to that really horrible period where it seems like actually, in a broader sense, things were hard in, you know, in this time period, maybe things are starting to get a bit easier. It's a bit hard to say, but certainly potentially a bit of a new phase that we're entering here. And as I say, this is kind of we're kind of just at the beginning of it really. We're going to see definitely I think more coming out about this, definitely.
Dr G 41:01 Oooo, watch this military space.
Dr Rad 41:02 Indeed. And that brings me to the end of 413 BCE Dr. G
Dr G 41:07 Ooo, oh boy.
Dr Rad 41:40 It's 412 BCE Dr. G! Who are our magistrates in this new year?
Dr G 41:46 Oh, it's a very exciting year 412. We've got consuls. We have Quintus Fabius Ambustus Vibulanus And Gaius Furius Pacilus.
Dr Rad 42:05 Interesting, because these are obviously familiar gens. We've heard these family names before but the men themselves a bit mysterious perhaps.
Dr G 42:15 They are. Neither of these two crop up again in any consular lists. And that makes them feel slightly like they might be trying to make up the numbers for a calendar that might be out of whack.
Dr Rad 42:33 Well, nonetheless, that sounds right to me putting a Fabian and a Furii in place.
Dr G 42:38 So we've got some classic patricians in power. You also know the name of the tribune of the plebs.
Dr Rad 42:45 Yes, we do.
Dr G 42:46 Lucis Icilius.
Dr Rad 42:49 Oh, yeah, that's a blast from the past, not the actual guy. But the name.
Dr G 42:54 Yes, yes. And so in lieu of my ancient source material, which is very thin on the ground for this year. What I do have to offer you is a back catalogue of who the Icilii are as a gens.
Dr Rad 43:11 Aww, aren't you nice, because I actually looked into that too, because I remember it from the whole beginning anything.
Dr G 43:18 Yes, yes. There's some famous stories in this family.
Dr Rad 43:21 Yeah. So. All right, well, I'll set the scene a little bit. So previous year, even though obviously, there's a lot of sulking going on. And even though we do have the success, obviously, with the capture of some of some territory kind of way, even though it's handed to other people. It's relatively peaceful year by ancient Roman standards, Livy reckons. So we've got a new consuls coming in, presumably, still a bit of, you know, nervousness in the air about, you know, players potentially getting elected to power with all this unhappiness going on. And they are right to be concerned because we have a young firebrand Lucius Icilius, tribune of the plebs, and he starts to cause issues immediately daring to bring up the question of old agrarian laws. How dare he! Now, as we've highlighted so many times, it's not a big surprise that we're seeing a man with this name bringing up these issues, because as we know, the Romans do think that but you know, that characteristics run in families. And this is I think, a good time for you did tell us about the Icilii and their lengthy history of plebeian reform.
Dr G 44:37 Yeah, these guys are like our most famous plebeian gens probably from the last century. So it's kind of exciting that we've got this legacy to sort of look at, there's probably a good reason that we have this. And we start with right back in the early days of 492 BCE. Spurius Icilius. He was a tribune of the plebs. And not just any tribune of the plebs. He was one of the envoys following the withdrawal – so the First Succession of the plebeians – to the Mons Sacer “the sacred mount”.
Dr Rad 45:14 That is elite. That is elite Yeah, solid, solid.
Dr G 45:19 Solid plebeian credentials.
Dr Rad 45:23 Going back to the origin of the fight, that's their Stonewall, man.
Dr G 45:27 That's where it all began. Yeah. He's also thought to have introduced a law through about disruption of plebeian assemblies. So making it illegal to disrupt gatherings of plebeians for formal discussion and process.
Dr Rad 45:42 Fair call.
Dr G 45:43 So the patricians were usually just rocking up and causing trouble. And he's like, “No, that is illegal.” And then we have our most famous Icilius.
Dr Rad 45:55 The Verginia?
Dr G 45:57 The very same.
Dr Rad 45:58 I thought it might be..
Dr G 46:00 So he holds the tribune of the plebs position three times, once in 456, 455, and 449. So it's kind of like a rivalry of the plebeians to the whole decemvirate that has sort of risen up and taken control. So he's the one who is credited with carrying what we think – we're not sure about the historicity of this law, necessarily – the law that's known as the Lex (Icilia) de Aventino Publicando.
Dr Rad 46:33 Ah, yes, I remember this.
Dr G 46:34 The law that allocates the Aventine hill to the plebeians.
Dr Rad 46:38 Yes, yes. Aventine, Aventine.
Dr G 46:43 It's the place to be! If you're a plebeian. He's also caught up in the whole situation with the decemvirs because he is engaged to Verginia. And this is the young woman who falls victim to the machinations and predatory behavior of Appius Claudius.
Dr Rad 47:06 Yes, I remember that very well.
Dr G 47:08 And this really riles Icilius up. And he becomes a spokesman for the second succession. So the trouble I think, for us as historians, is that every time we have an Icilius in the narrative history, so far, they've always been in charge of a succession of the plebs.
Dr Rad 47:32 Hmmm, I see where you're going.
Dr G 47:35 And so as soon as you start to read into the start of 412 BCE, which is where we're at, the reader is primed through the sort of annalistic history that sources like Livy and Dionysius have been providing to expect something big to happen coming from an Icilius…
Dr Rad 47:58 Something big is about to happen. Are you ready to hear how he goes with this agrarian reform, Dr. G? Are you ready?
Dr G 48:07 I am.
Dr Rad 48:07 Okay. Here we go. So he raises the issue. He causes lots of problems. And then a pestilence strikes, and nobody cares.
Dr G 48:18 Nooooooo.
Dr Rad 48:22 Yeah, so basically anticlimactic. Well, okay. I'm going to say this. That's pretty much all we have for 412. Okay, that pestilence broke out and everybody lost interest in anything other than staying alive. Ah ah ah ah staying alive, staying alive. So people are obviously way too distracted to be worrying about politics. So Icilius is just dead in the water. But I will say this, you're not going to see the end of this family. This is not the last time it is nevertheless time 412 may be ending in a bit of a sad, sick bundle. But the Icilii will return.
Dr G 49:05 So well. That's good to know.
Dr Rad 49:06 Yeah. So that being said, Dr. G, that brings us to the end of 412.
Dr G 49:11 Oh, well, let me just give you some small contextualizing details before we move on. Nothing to do with Roman history, I might add. So Diodorus Siculus is giving us the names of the consuls, correctly, it would seem and he also-
Dr Rad 49:31 Wait are we doing 411?
Dr G 49:32 No.
Dr Rad 49:33 Oh, okay. Sorry. Okay, sorry. Sorry, I was confused.
Dr G 49:36 No, we're still in 412. Before we wrap up 412, he also mentioned that in this year, the Carthaginians are launching a war also against Sicily. So the previous year we had the Athenians – Sicily is caught in the middle of some things right now – the Carthaginians at this point in time are being led by a general called Hannibal.
Dr Rad 50:04 Not the famous one.
Dr G 50:06 Not THE Hannibal, but a Hannibal. Yeah. Because the Carthaginians often call their people Hannibal.
Dr Rad 50:14 Indeed, again, another popular name.
Dr G 50:17 It's a very popular name for the Carthaginians. So Sicily is in a really sort of difficult situation in this period. So South of Italy, just off the mainland. It's a broiling hotbed of military action. It's happening outside of the Romans domain, they might know about it through trade and various other disruptions. They're not involved in it. But it is an active military situation that is happening to the south. And that's all I got.
Dr Rad 50:50 Okay, nice. Well, that actually is going to play into I think, a future narrative. So knowing a bit about the contextual stuff will be very useful for our future episodes, but I won't say any more. I won't say any more.
Dr G 51:04 I like to think so. Just give me a little bit of a teaser here and then
Dr Rad 51:10 Carthaginians on the prowl. Oh, all right. Well, Dr G., that's 413 and 412 done, which means it's time for the Partial Pick. So Dr G., what is the Partial Pick all about?
Dr G 51:29 The Partial Pick is where we rate Rome according to its own standards. Now this is unfortunate for Rome, because Rome is still a baby right now. And its own standards are pretty high for it. But there is essentially five categories that we're going to measure Rome's progress and success by and we're gonna give them 10 Gold Eagles maximum in each of those categories. So it is possible if Rome is at its flourishing best to receive 50 Golden Eagles.
Dr Rad 51:59 Alright, what's our first category?
Dr G 52:02 Military clout!
Dr Rad 52:03 Well, okay, we have something to work with. Here. We have got the capture of Ferentinum
Dr G 52:09 They did just give it away though.
Dr Rad 52:10 Well, yes. But it was theirs to give.
Dr G 52:14 I see. So, conquest without retention. I mean, it doesn't sound like the Roman way.
Dr Rad 52:20 We;; I mean, nobody says that the Hernicians lost it back. It's still kept. It's just kept by like a friend. Like, can you hold my purse while I go to the bathroom?
Dr G 52:33 Aww so sweet. Yeah, Look, I mean, I'm, I'm not very convinced.
Dr Rad 52:39 Look they didn't get a lot of booty or anything. So look, I think we should give them at least a three.
Dr G 52:44 Yeah, that's fine.
Dr Rad 52:45 Okay, good.
Dr G 52:46 Acceptable.
Dr Rad 52:46 All right. Done.
Dr G 52:49 All right. Our second category is diplomacy.
Dr Rad 52:54 Hmm.
Dr G 52:55 Are they good at negotiating?
Dr Rad 52:56 Well, okay. Again, externally? No, because there's warfare, although I suppose there are the relations between the Hernicians and the Romans. That's
Dr G 53:06 so I suppose. Yeah, they did give the Hernicians so huge gift.
Dr Rad 53:10 Yeah, take a town.
Dr G 53:12 That's nice.
Dr Rad 53:13 Take this ghost town.
Dr G 53:15 It's got nothing in it. It's yours!
Dr Rad 53:16 Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's they basically like snatched it up, turned it upside down, shake it out. Well, the contents and being like, yeah, there's nothing in there throwing the carton away and be like here, take that.
Dr G 53:27 This is almost sounding like the infamous moment where I gave my brother a five cent piece for Christmas.
Dr Rad 53:35 But if we are going by internal diplomacy, I think there is some effort at internal diplomacy in the sense that the investigation into Postumius' death was sensitively handled.
Dr G 53:49 Yeah, very interesting. I'm not sure that I really quite buy that for this period of time, it seems very unlike the patricians.
Dr Rad 53:57 Okay again, once again, in ancient Rome, there are so many red flags, we may as well be in communist China. But still.
Dr G 54:06 Yeah, I suppose if we read it at the face value, and we don't have heaps of options, because we don't have a lot of alternative evidence.
Dr Rad 54:13 I mean, that we may not believe the investigation. We may not believe that Special Victim Unit existed back in this time. Maybe it was more of a Crime Scene Investigation. Who knows? Maybe there's more.
Dr G 54:24 CSI: Ancient Rome
Dr Rad 54:25 Maybe it was more Hawaii 5-0. We will never know, Dr. G. But I think definitely we could potentially say that the death of Postumius was investigated sensitively.
Dr G 54:38 Hmm. All right. Well, in that case, I'm willing to give them a two.
Dr Rad 54:43 Okay. Generous as always. All right, what's our next category?
Dr G 54:49 Our next category is Expansion.
Dr Rad 54:53 Well, yes, not a great one. Again, I probably only give them maybe like a two
Dr G 55:01 Is it expansion? If they take it, and then they give it away to a friend?
Dr Rad 55:05 I think so because the Hernicians are there.
Dr G 55:09 Mm hmm.
Dr Rad 55:11 Come on. What's two points? Two little golden eagles?
Dr G 55:18 Fine. The fourth category is Virtus.
Dr Rad 55:24 Not really. It's not like it's not the most impressive of times, I will say.
Dr G 55:29 We're not seeing great displays of manliness. No.
Dr Rad 55:31 Not at this point in time, no.
Dr G 55:33 And then, is it a good time to be a citizen in Rome?
Dr Rad 55:38 Well, I don't think it's the worst time.
Dr G 55:41 It's not the worst time. Although, did we just have a pestilence because that's not that's not great.
Dr Rad 55:47 That's not great for anybody. Patrician or plebeian, we are all united in our dislike of disease. That's true. So we've got disease happening. We've got the plebeians being unhappy about the lack of progress on the agrarian law front, feeling slighted that the patricians are more interested in acting out
Dr G 56:06 Murder investigations?
Dr Rad 56:07 Yeah. Everybody likes true crime and the patricians are no exception. The patricians are more interested in murder investigations than in seeking meaningful societal change.
Dr G 56:17 There's a surprise.
Dr Rad 56:19 Yeah so look. It's not it's not great. But at the same time, we do have someone from the Icilii in the tribune position.
Dr G 56:28 There is a little bit of potential there, and I suppose if we're taking the investigation, having the opportunity to nobly die, as opposed to being severely physically punished to death…
Dr Rad 56:44 And in this narrative, they would have all been plebeians. It's yeah, that's just how it set up. So
Dr G 56:50 It's not I mean, it's not great, but
Dr Rad 56:53 Is it like a two?
Dr G 56:54 Yeah.
Dr Rad 56:56 Well, Dr G., that means that the Romans have managed to scrape together between the years of 413 and 412, nine golden eagles.
Dr G 57:06 Oh, boy, that's not great.
Dr Rad 57:09 Look, it hasn't been great for a while. Nine out of 50 not fantastic, but I definitely think we've got some very interesting times lying just around the corner.
Dr G 57:29 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. A huge thank you to our Patreon supporters for helping make this show spectacular. If you enjoy our show, there's a few ways to show your support. You can write a review wherever you listen in to help spread the word reviews really make our day and help new people find our podcast. Researching and producing a podcast takes time. If you're keen to chip in, you can buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi. Or why not join our fantastic patreons for early releases and exclusive content. You can find our show notes as well as links to our merch and where to buy our book, “Rex: The Seven Kings of Rome” at partialhistorians.com Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.
In this episode, we tackle the years 415 and 414 BCE and the downfall of Postumius, a very wronghead man.
Episode 142 – A Wrongheaded Man
Did you remember to RSVP for the war?
In 415 BCE, the Romans were gearing up for war with Veii and the Aequians… but neither of their dance partners turned up! It takes two to tango and in this case, neither the people of Veii or the Aequians felt ready to get down and boogie.
A Wrongheaded Man Indeed!
War against the city of Bolae kicked off in 414 BCE. One of the military tribunes with consular power, Postumius, was placed in command against this Aequian tribe. Whilst the Romans enjoyed success in battle, their internal problems overshadowed the victory.
How do you create chaos in Rome? Simply take a tribune of the plebs, add a dash of agrarian reform, then stir in an arrogant patrician. Livy described Postumius as a wrongheaded man, and a questionable comment certainly had serious repercussions. Will sticks and stones, or words, do the most damage?
Join us for another tale of disaster with one of the Postumii at the centre.
Need to catch up on the previous conflict with the Labici? You can find our previous episode here.
Things to Look Out For:
Dr G accidentally skipping over 415 BCE
Various attempts at agrarian reform
What is #trending amongst the elite
A snide aside with very dramatic consequences
Several important lessons from the Romans that could also be applied to parenting
Our Players 415 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
P. Cornelius A. f. P. n. Cossus (Pat)
C. Valerius L. f. Volusi n. Potitus Volusus (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c.p. 407, 404
N. (or M.?) Fabius Q. f. M. n. Vibulanus (Pat) Cos. 421, Mil. Tr. c.p. 407 *
Q. Quinctius L. f. L. n. Cincinnatus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 405
Tribune of the Plebs
L. Decius
Our Players 414 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Cn. Cornelius A. f. M. n. Cossus (Pat) Cos. 409
L. Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus (Pat) Cos. 393, 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 406, 403, 401, 398
Q. Fabius Q. f. M. n. Vibulanus (Pat) Cos. 423, Mil. Tr. c.p. 416
P. Postumius A. f. A. n. Albinus Regillensis (Pat)
Tribune of the Plebs
M. Sextius
Quaestors
P. Sextius (or Sestius)
Our Sources
Dr G reads Virgil, Aeneid, 6.771-776; Diodorus Siculus 13.34.1, 13.381, 13.42.6; Dio Cassius, Roman History, 6.23; and the Fasti Capitolini.
Dr Rad reads Livy ab Urbe Condita 4.49-50.
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Sound Credits
Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC and Orange Free Sounds.
Automated Transcript.
Courtesy of Otter AI.
Dr G 00:12
Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr Rad 00:15
We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 00:30
And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 00:41
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 01:00
Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts. I am Dr. G.
Dr Rad 01:10
And I am your other hosts, Dr. Rad.
Dr G 01:13
Hello, Dr. Rad.
Dr Rad 01:16
It's so nice to have you back from Italy. Well, for me,
Dr G 01:20
it is a pleasure to be back. I'll admit I regretted it for a little while. But today is very sunny and warm and feels kind of Romanesque. So I'm back on board with being in Australia.
Dr Rad 01:33
It is getting very hot in here.
Dr G 01:36
Maybe too hot too soon. Yeah, it's a worrying sign. But nonetheless, this is going to cool down a bit later this week. So I can return to my wintry state. Your natural habitat as it were.
Dr Rad 01:49
Exactly, yes.
Dr G 01:51
So we are tracing the history of Rome from the founding of the city. And if you are interested in supporting our work, we have a Patreon. We also do some merch. And we've also just released our book on The Roman kings. So there's plenty of ways when you miss us between episodes, to feel like you have us close at heart,
Dr Rad 02:14
and D and you can pick up our book online in a digital version from Gumroad or from Amazon. Or you can pick it up in a physical form from Abbey's bookstore in Sydney.
Dr G 02:29
Yeah, we are very lucky to have it stocked in our hometown. So we're thrilled about that. And so in the grand tradition of where we're up to in this narrative history, I think we should start with a bit of a recap of what might have been happening up till now.
Dr Rad 02:48
Yes, well, last episode, we were talking about the years 417 and 416. And they were a bit blurred together, as far as I could see. Couldn't really separate them out. But what I could tell was that there was some classic conflict of the orders happening. Oh, boy,
Dr G 03:06
it's the subject that just keeps on giving.
Dr Rad 03:08
It certainly does. And so last episode, we were dealing with the fact that some of the tribune of the plebs were trying to pass a law about land, which is an ongoing concern, obviously, for the plebeian class. And in order to foil them, the patricians came up with an evil plan.
Dr G 03:32
Classic times, I mean, the minute you ask for agrarian reform, I think you're also at the same time asking for patrician evil plans. That's kind of these two things go naturally together for the elite in Rome.
Dr Rad 03:44
They certainly do. And so we had one of the Appii Claudii people, the Appius Claudius' is of the world coming along with a douchebag plan of turning Tribunes against each other, which of course, worked,
Dr G 04:00
Dammit.
Dr Rad 04:02
So that's kind of what we were dealing with last episode Dr G.
Dr G 04:06
All right. Now, I suspect that you will have lots of things to tell me about the things that are coming up.
Dr Rad 04:14
That's a relative term.
Dr G 04:16
All right. Okay. Well, that's good to know, because I am still sort of swimming about sort of, without a real proper narrative source to hold on to so always cobbling together little bits and pieces from all sorts of source material and hoping that I have a hint of something that might have happened.
Dr Rad 04:35
I know I'm picturing you very much as being like, adrift in an ocean just like paddling about like doggy paddle style, grabbing at pieces of woods that are just like floating there, just like at the end of Titanic.
Dr G 04:48
I always hoped as a as a dog in the ocean that I'll find a big stick. But no, sometimes I have more. Sometimes I have less.
Dr Rad 04:58
I'll take you any which way, Dr G.
Dr G 05:02
Excellent. All right. Well, let's jump in
Dr Rad 05:05
Let's do it 415 BCE
Dr G 05:25
Don't you mean 414 BCE?
Dr Rad 05:29
No I mean 415
Dr G 05:33
Let me scroll up. No wonder I don't know what's going on.
Dr Rad 05:38
I'm quite definite on that.
Dr G 05:41
Fair enough. It's 415 BCE certainly
Dr Rad 05:47
It is Dr. G. And I'm gallantly allowing you to once again tell me about the magistrates.
Dr G 05:53
Thank you. I have so little to say otherwise. So I really appreciate this generosity. Absolutely. This is a year where we have military tribunes with consular power. And there's a whole bunch of them.
Dr Rad 06:07
Yeah, there are, no there is, I mean, there was.
Dr G 06:09
They're all patricians. So let's get the big stuff out of the way. First. We have Publius Cornelius Cossus. We have one Gaius Valerius Volusi Potitus Volusus. I feel like that's a bit repetitive, but sure. He's got a lot of names. This will be the start of an illustrious career. So keep your eye on this guy. We have somebody who we're not really sure about the praenomen. It's either Numerius or Marcus as the praenomen Fabius Vibulanus, okay. And just to sort of cement the confusion around this guy, Broughton thinks that this might have also been the guy that was consul in 421. Now that guy had a praenomen, possibly of Gnaeus. So that leaves us with like three possible praenomens and so we really have no idea which dude this is. It's one of the Fabii Vibulani.
Dr Rad 07:13
He's a fabulous Fabian and that's all we need to know
Dr G 07:15
he's fabulous. And we continue onwards and hope for the best. Exactly. And we also have Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus. Now this sounds like a very familiar dude. But actually, we haven't seen this guy before.
Dr Rad 07:29
No, but he must be from that family.
Dr G 07:32
Ooh, very illustrious, very esteemed. Well, all
Dr Rad 07:35
of these names are actually pretty illustrious, aren't they? We've got the Cornelii, the Valerii the Fabii…
Dr G 07:42
Yeah, these are all families or patrician families that have been swimming around in positions of power before. So we we've definitely seen all of these families. Nobody here is like a fresh novus homo as it were into power.
Dr Rad 07:56
What did you call me???!
Dr G 08:00
Nothing, nothing. You've been here the whole time. I also have the name of a tribune of the plebs. Oh, yes. One Lucius Decius. Is he a 10 out of 10? You and I are making the same jokes now.
Dr Rad 08:18
Too in sync, Too in sync.
Dr G 08:21
That's it. This podcast is over. Right?
Dr Rad 08:24
Is that making the same jokes, it's time to move on.
Dr G 08:27
So I'll have some things to say about Lucia gaseous. I think at some point, maybe the narrative should unfold a little bit before I go into that kind of bit of detail.
Dr Rad 08:38
Okay, fair enough.
Dr G 08:39
I handed over duly to you
Dr Rad 08:41
Why thank you. Let me tell you what Livy's says about this year, I mean, this is going to excite you so be prepared. Rome would have been facing two wars in this year. Now you notice I said would have been
Dr G 08:57
Livy, What are you doing?
Dr Rad 09:00
and that's because they both postponed Oh, I knew
Dr G 09:06
I couldn't possibly make that time somebody somebody send for the army in three months. That's when I'll be next available.
Dr Rad 09:13
Exactly. I've made I've accidentally double booked myself. I can't possibly go to war with Rome right now.
Dr G 09:18
I have a tea party. Don't you understand?
Dr Rad 09:20
I've got to have my hair done. Takes a while.
Dr G 09:23
What do you mean they've been postponed Livy?
Dr Rad 09:26
Well get ready for the enthralling account of how these wars were postponed. I late I'm late for a very important date.
Dr G 09:34
I'm on the edge of my seat. Yes. Okay.
Dr Rad 09:37
So what are the first conflicts was with Veii. Who I actually feel like we haven't mentioned they in a little while. They've been a bit quiet, haven't they? Yeah, I mean, there was a bit of conflict going on there for a while, but here they are back back back again. Anyway, so the first conflict was meant to be with today. Now, allegedly, the leaders of Veii got spooked about going to war, because the Tiber had flooded, ruining some of their farms and farmhouses. And if you're about to get out geographical on me, just wait, because I will come back to that. Wait a minute. All right, if you're thinking that there is a problem now, I'm not geographically minded, so I probably would not have noticed this, but this is where geographers come in and save the day. But I'll come back to that in a second. The other one was with the Aequians. Now, yeah, okay. They were put off after having been defeated when they had allied with a group called the Bolani. Now, the Bolani sound like a delicious sandwich meat.
Dr G 10:52
What are you having? I'm having the Bolani, what about you? Exactly,
Dr Rad 10:56
exactly. Yeah. Now, it seems that the Bolani were a tribe that lived within this wider Aequians group. So that's why the other Aequians were helping them out. And Bolani had been one of the groups that had been attacking the territory of the Labici. And the new settlers at Labici. Hmm,
Dr G 11:20
yeah, I might have something to add to that. Okay. Well,
Dr Rad 11:23
I'll finish my little story about them, and then you can add your thing. Bolani had been hoping that they were able to get away with attacking Labici By getting all the Aequians together to support them in this quest. But they didn't get the backup that they were hoping for ended up losing their town and all their lands after a siege and a battle. And I quote my translator of Livy in a war, which does not even merit description. Wow. Okay. So I'm presuming that this means that this is a war that we haven't heard about, but
Dr G 11:59
I'm willing to talk about this war, but I'm not willing to describe it. It happened. We're moving on.
Dr Rad 12:04
Exactly. Put it behind us. All right.
Dr G 12:06
Look, I appreciate that. And I wish that happened more with military history. I mean, the details are always baffling. Somebody ran down a hill. Somebody else was hiding behind a tree. Yes. Outrageous.
Dr Rad 12:17
The cavalry was you know, secreted behind some bushes.
Dr G 12:21
That's right. No, no, somebody jumped out of a cave, haha!
Dr Rad 12:25
took me by surprise.
Dr G 12:27
Goodness me. All right. So I think Bolani, the the Bolani people that you're talking about are probably the inhabitants of Bola or Bolae.
Dr Rad 12:37
Yes, yes they are. Yeah. Yes, I can confirm that.
Dr G 12:40
Okay, so this is the ancient city in Latium. That is, we think we know the position of it. So I'm getting sort of geographical again southeast of Rome, right. But even further east than the Castelli Romani region, so those mountains, there's not that many of them, they kind of stick out of the ground in an odd spot because they're volcanic in nature. Okay. But once you get around those, and like, you know, the magma stops spinning out and stuff, then you go back into like, you know, plains and valleys, and boiler is supposed to be over in that direction. So it's near the ancient city of Labicum. Okay, so the Labici and the Bolani would know each other probably quite well their neighbours,
Dr Rad 13:26
it makes sense why the people from Bolani you are trying to steal from the Labici then either way, I'm just gonna say for any other people who are watching drag race out there. I can't say this now without thinking of the Australian drag queen, Gabriella Labucci. This must be where she's from.
Dr G 13:44
There's a nice synergy there. And the other little tidbit of detail that I have about Bolae as a place is that it is thought to have been founded by the king of Alba longa. This is a little detail that comes through in Virgil's Aeneid.
Dr Rad 14:00
Nice. Okay. Yeah, this is I think another reason why it comes up. So not only does this situation with the Aequians mean that there is no war with the Aequians in this year. This is where our attribute of the plebs comes in. When Lucius Decius, as you said, he is trying to pass a law in which colonists would be sent to Bolae as well as Labici. But his fellow Tribune stop him from doing this and would not allow a plebiscite without the Senate saying it was okay with this idea. Insert sound effect
Dr G 14:41
Yeah, I mean, you've caught me speechless. So they want agrarian reform in the form of colonisation. So putting people out there giving them some land so they can do their stuff, giving them a new life offworld opportunities and all that kind of thing, but the Senate needs to approve it somehow.
Dr Rad 15:00
I know well, this is where we once again come back to the confusion of the early republic. A plebiscite is a measure that's passed in the plebeian assembly. And it's meant to be binding for all plebeians and eventually also, all Roman citizens. However, this is something we know comes about much later. We don't really know if there was exactly such a thing at this moment. And certainly, we can't be certain obviously, who would be applicable for, you know, would it have been the plebeians? Do the plebeians even exist? I mean, we come back to that question.
Dr G 15:38
Yes, and this is where we have that sort of the issues with our source material, as always, where we have a position known as the tribune of the plebs, but it's not yet well established, what distinguishes them out necessarily, besides being not the elite? And to what extent are there formal processes in place for the tribune of the plebs to sort of bring this group of people together, or representatives thereof to make any kind of decision? We don't know if the tribune of the plebs has that kind of power at this time?
Dr Rad 16:10
Yeah, exactly. So as it turns out, it's a bit of a moot point because Bolae ends up being recaptured the following year, the Aequians set up a colony there to make it stronger, and obviously more resistant to the Romans, I suppose coming along and taking it back. Yay. And so that's pretty much all I have officially for that year.
Dr G 16:33
Okay. May I jump in with some details about Lucius Decius, our tribune of the plebs. You know
Dr Rad 16:39
what? You may, but only after my geographical detail.
Dr G 16:44
Are we going back to Veii. For a quick minute,
Dr Rad 16:46
we're going back to that question about the geography of this whole story. So that's the official account that comes from Livy. Subsequent scholars have pointed out that it seems unlikely that the Tiber would have flooded in the area of they, the flooding usually happens closer to Rome. So if there was flooding, presumably, would have been Roman farms that were being flooded, which makes this story of not wanting to go to war because of a flood. A little confusing,
Dr G 17:23
huh, it's not that it would be impossible, I'm sure. It would have to be quite a significant flood. I guess it just depends. I'm not good enough with water and my knowledge of flooding to be able to speculate further on that one.
Dr Rad 17:37
Well, this is where you might be able to help me out. Because apparently, whilst the geography doesn't entirely make sense, at the same time, if we're just talking about flooding in general, rivers are obviously very important to communities. I mean, to be honest, they're still very important to this day, but we just for a lot of people, because we live more urban lives, we perhaps are less aware of our dependence on water, because it seems to just come effortlessly out of taps. And that's obviously not really the reality of the world that we live in. But nonetheless, I'm not going to get distracted by it, environmentalism tangent. So rivers, obviously very important. People depend on them, obviously, as like a life giving source. And floods are definitely often seen as prodigies. So they have this added religious element. And therefore this might be the kind of thing that might have been recorded in the annals of that year, because it would have been something obviously, that people would have been observing and considered important. And so what Ogilvie who's the commentary that I'm looking at for this has suggested is that maybe this there was a record of a flood in this time, and later historians have come along and somehow twisted it into a motive as to why there wasn't a war in this year.
Dr G 18:58
I mean, that sort of presupposes that they had a narrative about there being a war before they knew about flood, which seems a bit odd as well. I'm like, Guys, I mean, you don't have to have a war every year. It's excellent of having domestic issues. But realistically, if we're thinking geographically as well, ancient vai is now it's, it was about eight kilometres from Rome, right? Shouldn't Rome. Yeah. In modern terms, Veii is part of Rome. Yeah, that is passed on, you're still you're still very close to the city at that point. In terms of the river itself, these things would be very hard to judge now as well, because there's been a lot of work done on the Tiber to prevent it from flooding. Yeah, because it is a river that goes through a city and it constantly flooding is an issue for people. So the Tiber is very much built up on all of its banks in order to prevent that from happening. Yeah, it would be, this is one of those moments where you want to go back in time, like, what did it Look like? topographically? Yeah, these are the things that that you want to be able to sort of come to grips with because it will give you a sense of the nature of the landscape and how it might have people interacted with it, and how nature might have taken its toll on the people around it with things like flooding for Yes,
Dr Rad 20:21
yes, I agree with what you said, because I felt the same thing. I'm like, Well, sure, they could twist it into a motive. But they'd have to have known that there was a possibility of a war because there is no war. So why would they even say that? Why would they just say,
Dr G 20:34
wouldn't it just be easy to talk about a flood instead mean, like there was a terrible flood guys.
Dr Rad 20:39
We all love hearing stories about so floods, just ask the Christians,
Dr G 20:43
it might come from a desire to continue to bolster this idea of Rome being in a constant state of like military alertness and activity, which is all about them gaining the skill set that will enable them to eventually dominate the entire Italian Peninsula,
Dr Rad 20:59
I can't get on board with the idea that there would have been a record of a significant flood because it would have been something in the natural world that might have been seen as some sort of, you know, some sort of sign. Oh, it's just me can be a sign I saw the sign. And that I that's all I have on that I do have a little bit of detail about Decius as well, but I'm gonna let you run with what you've got and see if mine is different.
Dr G 21:29
All right, so Lucius Decius, what a man. But more importantly, what a name. Am I right,
Dr Rad 21:37
that's where I was going. Take it away, Dr G.
Dr G 21:41
So things get tricky with this guy. Because he's involved in this idea of agrarian reform and trying to get things done and it not really working out, which for the reader of sources, like Livi is immediately I think, going to put them in mind of a much later Decius, who was also attribute of the plebs. And this is probably as Decius Subolo, who was doing his business in a roundabout 120 BCE, tribune of the plebs and a huge supporter of the Gracchi who are infamous for their interest in agrarian
Dr Rad 22:23
the people that love land the most, or land reform the most.
Dr G 22:29
Yeah, you say agrarian, I say Gracchi. But there are some other Decius characters that sort of crop up in the Republic of Rome's history. I'm not sure that these are necessarily a launch point for anything to do with our particular Decius. But I'm just going to do a little bit of foreshadowing, because I think it will be fun. So we have a few Decius is coming up. And one of them is Publius Decius Mus from around about 325 BCE. Yeah, so give us another century of the podcast and we will get there. But he is most well known for sacrificing himself in battle. His son, Publius, Decius Mus. So the first son is also infamous, for winning a battle for Rome through self sacrifice,
Dr Rad 23:31
are noticing a trend. And then we also have
Dr G 23:34
the grandchild, Publius Decius Mus, who is also attributed to having won a battle through sacrificing himself.
Dr Rad 23:46
How on earth did this family survive?
Dr G 23:49
I don't think that line did, at least not very well. But these DSCI seem to be outside of sort of like the there doesn't seem to me to be a substantial connection between these guys and why you might mention a name like Decius for the tribune of the plebs. But we've got some interesting figures coming up in our history, but there does seem to be this weird sort of parallel with this Kraken Decius which I think is probably worth keeping in mind.
Dr Rad 24:17
Yeah, Look, I think you're right about that. Because from my research, definitely there is suspicion about someone of this name popping up so early in Rome's history. We have had a few mentions of this name before in Dionysius. But it seems like as you say, this is a name that becomes famous and important later on. And so in typical Roman historical tradition, they have rejected them back into early rooms pass because they want to, you know, play out their their significance and the continuity that's there and all of that kind of stuff, but certainly It seems dubious that there would have been anyone from his family in Rome earlier than the full century BCE. So yeah, it just it just doesn't seem to quite tally up. And apparently this is a family that hail from Southern Italy
Dr G 25:15
ah yes the Decii Mures, possibly thought to be from Campania originally so moving up for Rome for a brand new life and then maybe just sacrificing themselves all the time
Dr Rad 25:28
they just love it so much they love it so much.
Dr G 25:31
Let me fight for you room let me die for you indeed.
Dr Rad 25:35
And that's all I've got for 415 BC Dr. G. So are you ready to tackle 414?
Dr G 25:40
Oh, so ready all right, let's do it
Dr Rad 25:58
so once again 414 BCE, Dr G, who were the magistrates? there are a lot of them.
Dr G 26:05
Finally, I feel like I'm on firmer territory now – 414 was where I wanted to start. We have four military Tribunes with consular power. Big surprise there. All Patrician.
Dr Rad 26:21
Oh yeah.
Dr G 26:22
We have Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus
Dr Rad 26:27
Seeing something here.
Dr G 26:30
Lucius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus.
Dr Rad 26:36
Oh, there's a trend.
Dr G 26:38
There's a trend. Publius Postumius Albinus Regillensis.
Dr Rad 26:43
Does that mean he was as pale as me?
Dr G 26:46
As white as snow. We have those four guys. Yeah. Now, reputedly. Postumius has some business with Bolae that might be coming up. That I suspect you will have the details.
Dr Rad 27:00
Oh, I have all the details.
Dr G 27:02
I'm looking forward to those details. Because all I have is the barest sketch of what might have happened.
Dr Rad 27:07
Yeah. You know, when I Look at these names, once again, we've got some families that are really clinging with their fingernails to power.
Dr G 27:17
Yeah, and actually, this was something that in the lieu of having like a strong narrative source, I do have some things to say about families and power, okay, in this period, so when we come to the end of the narrative aspect, let me know and I will give you some more details on that. Y'all know. We also have a tribune of the plebs. Marcus Sextius.
Dr Rad 27:38
Oh, yeah. Bring it on.
Dr G 27:41
was time for a sixth.
Dr Rad 27:42
Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty Good man. He's a migthy mighty good man.
Dr G 27:49
Sexy Sextius, he is here. And apparently, we also have a quaestor, Publius Sextius.
Dr Rad 27:56
Yeah, I'm not gonna give him the song.
Dr G 27:58
maybe maybe less sexy.
Dr Rad 28:01
It's just you know, it sounds a lot like pubic, which I suppose should make it more sexy, but…
Dr G 28:05
Ouch. So the thing I think to mention here is that how do names work? And actually what we will be having an episode coming on names soon. So watch that space. But we do have both a tribune of the plebs coming from the gens Sextius. And we also have a quaestor coming from the gens Sextius. And yet, it would be more likely than not that the quaestor is a patrician from the patrician gens Sextius, and Marcus would be a plebeian. Sure. Yeah. So I don't really have a resolution for that. I haven't I haven't solved that at all. I'm just mentioning it in passing?
Dr Rad 28:46
Well, again, it sort of highlights what we've been talking about there about this patrician-plebeian divide, how much does it really exist? How much and as you know, imagining that it was so strong as it was. And obviously, it's possible to have branches of the family, where one line is patrician and one line isn't. So
Dr G 29:06
definitely, definitely. And I think this is a moment where having a quest or means it's probably worth touching on what's acquire store at this point in time. So there are two versions of quiet stores to consider. There's the very ancient quaestore parracidii. They are brought together only for special occasions.
Dr Rad 29:27
They the Ms Marples of the ancient Roman world.
Dr G 29:30
Ah, very cute little detectives. They get their magnifying glass out there like Pikachu, Detective Pikachu. They investigate capital offences. And these guys go back at least as far as the 12 tables, so, but they're sort of CO opted when needed. They might lead juries they might be the head of a jury, and it largely seems to be unconnected to what is later famously the quaestor role which is considered the first rung on the cursus honorum.
Dr Rad 30:00
Yes. And they deal with financial matters a lot of the time today.
Dr G 30:05
Well, this is where the other part of the quaestorship comes into it. So essentially the parracidii could do some of that sort of stuff. But it seems like these sorts of roles do get split, right? So the magisterial quaestors the one that we become famously associated with the cursus honorum are sort of suggested in later sources. And this is where Tacitus comes back into play. Yeah, so this is Annals, our only mention of this. So goodness knows where he turned up this piece of information and whether we can believe it is just bonkers. But he suggests that quaestors existed in there sort of like the monetary sense, looking after finances and things like that, as far back as the kings. I'm not sure that any of us believe that necessarily, though, somebody must have been in charge of the cash.
Dr Rad 30:54
Well, yeah, I mean, God knows, I don't think the kings are doing it.
Dr G 30:58
I mean, it would be weird if they were just bathing in their own money
Dr Rad 31:01
like Scrooge McDuck.
Dr G 31:04
I mean, conspicuous consumption is pretty important for elites in the ancient world. So maybe, but you might have wanted somebody for the mundane business of your day to day, and maybe you had a person for that. But we do have this idea, again, from Tacitus, that we have two quaestors elected each year from 447 BC onwards. So that would suggest, even though we don't have any sort of record of them, that this magistracy has been in place for a good sort of 20-30 years already.
Dr Rad 31:34
Well, that's obviously the time period that we talked about with this sort of refounding of the Roman state. After the second decemvirate has its downfall.
Dr G 31:43
They decided they needed somebody in charge of the Treasury that was separate from the people holding power.
Dr Rad 31:48
That's not new. And then of course, we had we had some issues where it was like, Can patricians only hold it? Can plebeians hold that we've had some back and forth about that in our sources? Definitely. So yeah, is some stuff that's coming through about them existing. But if we're looking at when they originally, of course, Levy, Dionysius Tacitus. They're all from that late Republic, early Empire time period.
Dr G 32:14
Yeah, so we've got to be a little bit suspicious of what they might be telling us. So Tasos has this idea of there being two coin stores from 447. And then Livy's, suggests that this was increased to four qui stores in 421. So very recently, and as far as we're at our narrative in 414, because of all the paperwork, there's just so much well, you've got wars on multiple fronts, and part of the role of the quiet store is administering the state treasury. So doing the doing the things in the city, looking after the cash, maybe bathing in the money when nobody's looking. But also importantly, two things connected with the military. And that is looking after the war chest itself. So whatever excellent booty has been taken that might be in coin or valuable, precious materials that is highly karibal. That will be something that quest or looks after. And this might be why you have to have more than one quest, or because if you've got more than one war going on, you've got more than one war chest.
Dr Rad 33:15
And you also want someone watching the people with the money, you can't just have one guy looking after the money,
Dr G 33:21
you telling me they have to come in pairs, like the guys with the armoured trucks, and the vans and stuff coming to get the money out of the
Dr Rad 33:27
ATM machine. 110%.
Dr G 33:31
They both have guns so they can shoot each other if necessary.
Dr Rad 33:35
It's just a recipe for corruption. If you've only got one guy, the Romans knew that. I know that.
Dr G 33:42
The other key thing that they seem to be involved with besides sitting on the war chest and having a good time there is the actual logistics supplies more for itself. Less obviously sitting on the money is one thing, but being able to spend it to get the supply lines happening is also very, very important. So the choir still would have to be working very closely with the military commander on the in the field, to make sure that things were going smoothly on the supply line front. So if what was needed, so it was actually a really important role. And these are the sorts of things that we think why stores might be doing around about this period in time
Dr Rad 34:22
indeed. But who knows, as we've already
Dr G 34:27
I offered plenty of doubt in that explanation field.
Dr Rad 34:31
Always have to always have that caveat. All right. Well, Dr. J. Strap yourself in for a rollicking good time, because I have got some gusts for you about this year. As you highlighted one of our military Tribune's with concealer power for this year is one Postumius. Now this is a name that we have heard many a time before and unfortunately it's rarely in a great light like They're not always like terrible people, particularly by Roman standards, but they're not, you know, soft and cuddly. They're not going to be the spokespersons for fabrics off now, if you know.
Dr G 35:10
I hear
Dr Rad 35:13
so Postumius of this year is put in charge of the delayed campaign against the Aequians. Hmm. According to Livy, Postumius was and I quit my translator, a wrongheaded, man.
Dr G 35:30
That is unfortunate. Yeah.
Dr Rad 35:32
So starts off, okay. He manages to gather an army, you know, get his forces together, go to Bolae, manages to defeat the Aequians. In some trifling engagements. I don't know whether this is the conflict where Livy's Like, it's not where the your description, very confusing.
Dr G 35:51
It's now being described, though. So surely this is different. I
Dr Rad 35:55
feel like Livy's way of describing things just leave me with more questions. And I probably need to I need to probably actually, like sit down and like storyboard this conflict. But whenever Livy does mention it, he makes it sound so unimportant that I don't know why I'd be bothered. But anyway, he does manage because he is successful, in admittedly fairly conflict to get inside the city of Bolae. Now Postumius had initially said that the booty gained from this engagement would go to his soldier.
Dr G 36:29
Okay, I mean, that sounds reasonable. I mean, that's why, but
Dr Rad 36:33
yeah, very nice. Very nice. It is very nice. However, he does that classic thing that to be honest, parents and teachers should never do. And that is he's made this promise. And then once they're inside the city, he changes his mind to follow through Dr. G. Oh, no, You never say something that you're not prepared to follow through it. That is my number one rule for both parenting and teaching.
Dr G 36:58
Yeah, it's got to be realistic. That's got to be the consequence has to be real. Yeah. Regardless of whether it's positive or negative.
Dr Rad 37:05
Clearly, we have to be given this detail, because it would seem that it's fairly definite in the source material that the army became very upset with Postumius. And they need to find a reason as to why
Dr G 37:18
was he revolting?
Dr Rad 37:19
Let me record a couple of versions. So obviously, the reason for them being upset is not set in stone, the fact that they were upset seems failing. Yeah, so Livy's thinks that this is why the army is upset, because Postumius obviously made them a promise. It's obviously a pretty important one, because it's about getting that sweet, sweet cash. But there is another version, where the army became upset with him because when they entered the city, and started obviously like ravaging it, they didn't find that it was as as wealthy as they had imagined. So they feel is a disappointment. Quite frankly, there's there those are two very different stories. One of them I feel soldiers rightly upset. Other version, entitled much.
Dr G 38:08
I mean, what do you expect? I mean, we all know the booty has been shifting around in the region for for decades at this point.
Dr Rad 38:14
Yeah. Anyway, the situation rapidly starts to deteriorate. Either way. It's not looking good. And then the other military tributing send for Postumius because there are some problems back in room. So let's segue now to back in room. This is where our tribute and if the plants comes in. One Marcus Sextius Oh, yeah.
Dr G 38:39
What I'm looking forward to hearing what he's done to receive this sexy epithet.
Dr Rad 38:45
He has deserved absolutely nothing other than having something to do with the number six, I would imagine. I don't know. I don't know. But either way, he's obviously a classic tribune of the plebs, because he's trying to once again pass and agrarian law.
Dr G 39:01
Well, good for him. I mean, that is the job of the tribune of the plebs, at this point that people need land, they need to be able to live their lives.
Dr Rad 39:10
They do they do. So he is once again pushing for this idea that there should be colonists from Rome sent out to the city of Bolae, specifically because he thinks it should be given to the people who actually captured it as and I don't mean literally the soldiers but obviously that group that they supposedly belong to, yeah, seems reasonable. Unfortunately, when Postumius hears about what's going on back in Rome, he made some snide comment, basically, very aggressive and threatening to those who fought under him, which was something along the lines of you'll fight for me and you'll like it and you'll shut the hell up.
Dr G 39:54
Wow, okay. Postumius I think this is the wrong headedness coming through.
Dr Rad 39:58
Exactly. Now. This comment that will be in assembly hear about it and they are very upset. And to make matters worse, the comment is also reported back in the Senate, and they're also angry at him because they're like, Oh, my God, we're already dealing with a troublesome tribute. We really didn't need to add fuel to the fire. Hey, guys, stop it. Now the tribune of the plebs, however, sees this as a chink in the patrician armour because he understands that clearly, Postumius is very easy to bait. He's someone who's got that patrician arrogance, and could easily be trapped into falling into an argument. And not only would he therefore, probably damage his own rep, but probably the people that he represents. So I presume they may in the Senate and the patricians at large he Marcus Sextius made sure to draw Postumius into this debate about the agrarian law, more than any of the other military tributes with consular power for this year. He's the one that he's like laser focused on.
Dr G 41:10
Let's make him break.
Dr Rad 41:12
I mean, he's described as wrongheaded. So maybe he's also really easy to spot. Marcus Sextius really seizes upon the comment. He's like Postumius, How dare you threatening your own soldiers threatening to punish them like they are mere slaves. And he you are holding such a high office, you know, you're entrusted with this amazing position. And yet, you so looked down upon the men that have actually thought and given their lives, given their blood to capture this territory, and yet you don't even see them as worthy. And of course, and this is a great news rhetorically, he's like, why do people like this keep getting elected as military? Why, why are we electing patricians instead of plebeians when they are clearly gigantic douchebags?
Dr G 42:05
Just keep putting them into power. You know, we got to eat the rich.
Dr Rad 42:12
I know. Now, of course, this comment has also got back to the army who I mean, they were angry before for some reason. Now. They're really, really angry. Like,
Dr G 42:23
wait a minute, this guy.
Dr Rad 42:26
Exactly, exactly. This is where our quaestor comes into this situation. Our man on the ground, Publius Sextius. Well, this is the thing. There's a bit of confusion about whether it's Sextius or Sestius. Oh, I know. I know. I know. Just to really throw a spanner into the works.
Dr G 42:45
Let me update my notes.
Dr Rad 42:48
No, I mean, there is genuine confusion. Like we don't really know. I'm gonna say Sestius just to keep him distinct. Yeah. Good plan. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Oh, maybe I'll just call him Publius. I'll call him Publius. So he probably is caught wind of the fact that there's clearly some mutinous feeling happening for the soldiers who were technically under the command of Postumius. And he decides, I know what the answer to this is violence. And that threat of violence has got them really riled up. So I'm going to use actual violence to deal with this situation
Dr G 43:24
Oh dear. Yeah. Oh, poor summer quaestor.
Dr Rad 43:29
So what ends up happening is he uses a lictor. And these are the guys that obviously follow now just straight surround with the fasces and whatnot.
Dr G 43:39
Yeah, request should have about two maximum.
Dr Rad 43:42
Well, he's using one of them to arrest a brawling soldier. Now, this leads to more violence. I mean, it's a lesson here, right? Violence just begets more violence, and a disturbance breaks out. And our quaestor is struck by a stone in the fray. And he runs away before he gets hurt. Even worse. I mean, I presume that by this stage, he's probably terrified, he's going to be like, lynched or something like that. Now, the man who was thrown the stone at our quaestor, or Publius, shouts out that Publius had been treated, as Postumius had intended to treat the soldiers. So it's like a poetic justice. He's like, this is clearly what Postumius wanted to do to us. And now you guys are getting some of your own medicine.
Dr G 44:32
Goodness me.
Dr Rad 44:34
So Postumius is summoned back to this army, because he clearly has to address the situation.
Dr G 44:41
You gotta get your troops out of control, man, they just threw a rock at your questo
Dr Rad 44:46
even hitting the head, it's not good. Now Postumius continues to be a wrongheaded man. Because he makes his situation even worse again. Oh no. My dealing with it with really harsh interrogation and brutal punishment?
Dr G 45:04
Good. Oh, just let me go into any detail of what those might be.
Dr Rad 45:09
Yes, he does actually. His anger gets really out of control. Some men are executed. I mean, there's really no higher punishment than that. Yeah. And I can kind of understand why not in the sense that I think it's justified. But in a Roman mindset, if they are actually like mutinous soldiers, well, you do tend to see pretty extreme punishments to deal with that kind of stuff in ancient Rome.
Dr G 45:33
Yeah. And military discipline historically has sort of followed these kinds of lines. Because if you can't follow the orders of your superiors, then it creates a huge issue for the safety of everybody.
Dr Rad 45:45
Yes, exactly. These executions were apparently carried out using a hurdle. Now, my only knowledge of a hurdle is the thing that you would jump over. I wasn't
Dr G 45:57
gonna say I'm like, are we talking like the 100 metre hurdles? Because like, I suppose anything that's heavy, you could slap at somebody, but I, I suspect that this is not what is being referred to?
Dr Rad 46:07
No, because what Livy's says is that the people who are being executed who I presume I like, the ringleaders, you know, maybe the guy who threw the stone. He would be the obvious target. We're calling him Rocky. Yeah, Rocky I. So rocky one cried out during his execution. And this ends up attracting the attention of a crowd of people, it would seem that a hurdle might be something which allows you to be crushed to death. So they put really heavy weights and stones on top of you until you are crushed.
Dr G 46:40
Geez, that is a terrible way to die. Yeah,
Dr Rad 46:43
I mean, this guy is out of control. He really is wrongheaded.
Dr G 46:47
Postumius. What were you thinking wrong things all the time.
Dr Rad 46:50
I know. So obviously, a crowd is gathering around because there's noise coming from the place of executions, so Postumius and rushes over from his tribunal, because he doesn't want anyone to try and interfere with the executions and to try and stop them and feel sorry for these guys. lictors and Centurions start lashing out at the crowd, and they're trying to push them back so that they can't interfere with the punishments that are going on. And of course, does the crowd take this? Well, you better believe they don't. And essentially, what ends up happening in all of this, in this violence, mele is that Postumius is stoned to death.
Dr G 47:30
Wow. Okay,
Dr Rad 47:32
By his soldiers, not just a random crowd. Yeah, it becomes full circle, essentially. It's like one stone was thrown, but it's led to a whole volley. So obviously, this is a huge deal because one of the leading magistrates of the state has just been killed by his own army, whilst trying to administer justice and discipline.
Dr G 47:57
Wow, okay. Look, these details are really interesting. I have a slightly different version of events, which I'm not going to suggest in any way would be superior to what you've just told me because it comes from Dio Cassius.
Dr Rad 48:13
Oh, okay. So for our listeners, Dio Cassius is writing hundreds of years after Livy and Dionysius, so really, really late really late.
Dr G 48:23
And he also writes the history of Rome from the foundation of the city. But he's he's starting from a much later point in Rome's history in his ability to get hold of material is even more challenging. But he does talk about this. And it comes under a heading, it comes from a fragment. With a heading, democracy consists not in all winning absolutely the same prizes, but in every man obtaining his desserts,
Dr Rad 48:52
ah, that kind of sounds like he's on the side of the crowd.
Dr G 48:56
So he tells us that Postumius has conquered the Aequii, and he's captured Bolae. Yes, but the soldiers had had it turned over to them for pillage, but they weren't awarded a share of the plunder when they requested it. So they did the job that Postumius is leading. Now like we need to pillage this place we need to get the loot. And once the loot has all been collected, Postumius rounds it all up and places it with the quest all the trips are like, what about our booty? We where's our share of the booty because usually it comes in and then it gets redistributed. It's not just like a free for all and you pick up whatever piece that you pick up and it's yours. The idea is it's done as a collective and then it's redistributed out. So if you did really well that day in the pillaging on the battlefield or whatever, the commander would give you maybe a bigger portion of the booty, a nicer piece if you like. Yeah, when that didn't happen when that request was denied. This is when things become really unhinged for This army, okay, and they surround the quaestor. So because they have a particular spot where, and obviously their city got all of the booty, and then they kill the quaestor, just like that. Right? And then when Postumius reprimands them, and it's like, Excuse me, guys, you can't just kill quaestor. I know. No Reason No. Why are you listening? And he starts to try to sort of do an investigation to try and figure out like, you know, who's the ringleaders in this, get around them up, bring them to justice, the army turn on him and kill him as well.
Dr Rad 50:35
Right. So it's a bit more dramatic, and there's a little less justification?
Dr G 50:41
Well, I don't know if there's less justification, I think the idea of being denied a portion of the booty is actually a hugely significant move from Postumius. Because this is not something that we've really come across before where a commander says, under no circumstances, you're getting a share of this booty. Yeah, I
Dr Rad 51:01
know. But I feel like my vision where he said they could have it and then to change his mind. I mean,
Dr G 51:07
that does make him more wrongheaded. That's true.
Dr Rad 51:11
I could get quite murderous if someone said I could have a piece of cake and then said, fair enough, is a dangerous move. It is
Dr G 51:19
a dangerous move. And regardless of how this came about, so we're not really quite sure of the technicalities on this, what we're seeing is that there is a disciplinary sort of breakdown within the armed forces, that is the result of a style of leadership, for sure. Yeah. So Rome is starting to build out an understanding of what is possible to get soldiers to do and to agree to and where the line is for what you cannot ask a soldier to do. Yeah, at the risk of your own life as a commander or one of the officers. All
Dr Rad 51:55
right, what happens in my account next is that naturally back in Rome, people hear about the fact that Postumius was I don't know, stoned to death, and the military tribunes with constant power, obviously want a senatorial inquiry into the death because this is super unusual. However, the tribune says the plebs step in and use their veto power to stop an inquiry from going forward.
Dr G 52:19
Wow. Okay, so Marcus Sextius Getting in there
Dr Rad 52:24
he is. And now, of course, we don't know if this review is really did have at this point in time, but let's run with it. Now, the Senate are really worried because obviously, the men under Postumius command were really riled up to go through with this. And the people back in Rome are really riled up because of this comment. Postumius made I mean, never before has sticks or stones may break your bones, but words can really hurt me been so true, For everybody involved. And they're really concerned, and they are worried that if they go ahead and have elections for military tribunes with consular power, that this might be the year where a plebeian finally gets elected, because the people are just so angry.
Dr G 53:08
I'm so pissed off, I'm going to run for government
Dr Rad 53:11
exactly good and make that I'm going to be the change I want to see in the world. And they want, they might want to play and in that office, because they could then stop any Inquisition from going forward. So that would be the idea. I guess that the tribunes have vetoed it. And their way of making sure that it couldn't come up in the following year was by getting one of their own on the inside, you know, they pushed really hard for Consular elections. They wanted to have consuls, so that it had to be patricians. And then obviously, they want to have their inquiry, right. The tribunes of the plebs naturally see through this, and they're not gonna let it happen. And so once again, we find ourselves in a standoff between the Senate and the tribune of the plebs. And we're in an interregnum, basically, huh? Yeah. Which is this weird thing, this weird hangover from the Regal period?
Dr G 54:07
Well, when Yeah, whenever you can't find a way to get a magistracy up and happening using the appropriate timeframe and the appropriate ritual circumstances then you have to have this interim official. Yeah, then. So they're still called the interacts even though they're largely responsible for the chief magistrates, the consulship.
Dr Rad 54:28
Anyway, eventually the Senate ended up prevailing so spoiled that there's going to be consuls in the next year.
Dr G 54:37
I'll keep that one under my hat.
Dr Rad 54:40
It's pretty crazy, but that is where the story really wraps up. Interesting. I know. So it's again, it is another episode that kind of ties into the conflict of the orders, but it also has a lot more to it than that, I think, because of the way that you know the army is involved and also the reputation of one particular family. If I made after she, I'd like to say a little bit about the Postumii.
Dr G 55:03
Please do.
Dr Rad 55:04
The Postumii have not had a great run. In our history so far, they're always coming across as the harshest of harsh Romans. I mean, they're the Brillo pads of the Roman world,
Dr G 55:19
the elite of the elite,
Dr Rad 55:21
they just getting into trouble a lot recently. So we had the really severe dictator not that long ago, who was a Postumius guy who killed his own son for his conduct during a battle that he was in charge of. So this guy wasn't wrongheaded, per se, but he was held up obviously, as being particularly severe because he would kill his own son as a punishment. Then, of course, we also had a military Tribune with consular power in the mid 420s, who was terrible in his conduct of battle against Veii and ended up being hauled over the coals for that. So you end up in court, they wanted to find him he was that bad. And then, of course, we also had, lest we forget the Vestal virgin Postumia, who's obviously from this family, who was very nearly buried alive not long ago.
Dr G 56:14
It's not her fault. I don't think you can throw her in with all of them. No, no, no. But it might have been a move to get back at their family, for
Dr Rad 56:22
sure, exactly. This is the question that we can pose. Obviously, we can't answer it. But is it possible that in this very tumultuous period, where we're looking at sort of from the second decemvirate, it really almost down to the close of this century, there's a lot of issues, obviously, with Rome, that's why we're seeing all these stories about the conflict of the orders, even though the conflict of the orders might not be a real thing is quite clear that Rome is going through some teething problems. And if we Look at this as being part of what you and I have talked about, as maybe this period is actually more about warlords and strong men and alliances, you know, families very much alike, if you will, it's possible that the Postumii are on the outs, then not doing well in these, you know, in this these feuds, perhaps, between families. And we can, of course, see that there are links between the Postumius and other families. So we've, we've seen some familiar links between them and their Sempronii and the Quinctii and that sort of thing. But it seems like maybe these bonds are being really tested by what is happening at this moment. Yeah,
Dr G 57:31
you got enough bad eggs. So you're gonna have to flick through the whole family away, as it were. So I think this ties in really nicely to this pattern of patrician families that I've been looking into. So I thought,
Dr Rad 57:44
Wait, I have one more to hold on. One more details. And I promise it's all yours. So just another interesting thing to note, and again, not that I'm saying this, this wasn't a real guy, he was really a douchebag. But there is an interesting parallel with a much later story about Postumius Albinus, who was killed by sailors under his command and 89 BCE, during the siege of Pompeii, during the social was Hmm. So that's also just an interesting thing to note. I mean, again, doesn't mean that this guy wasn't starving to death, or it doesn't mean he didn't exist or whatever. But once again, we're seeing those interesting trends, or those interesting connections, maybe foreshadow, who knows, from that later public, which is more obviously better documented, particularly for the people who are writing and our main sources.
Dr G 58:44
Yeah, for sure. A bit in the same way that we see those potential parallels with Decius from the previous year. Yeah, exactly. They've got some closest stories, and they they're interested in building out a sort of a moral pattern related to families, which is very much in this Roman way of thinking that, you know, your family determined something about your character. And certainly, that's true, but it doesn't bode well for the Postumii as a particular gens right now, because they're coming across badly.
Dr Rad 59:14
And with that being said, I will now hand over to you and you can tell me everything you want about the Postumii Oh, Look, it's some basic maths, but what I was interested in, because we're seeing a lot of names crop up a lot. And I was like, well, actually, am is that a feeling for me? Or is this a pattern in the evidence? And I was like, it's time to do some spreadsheet eating. So the question I asked myself, because I didn't want to go back to write to the beginning of the Republic, because I just, I'm not in the mood for that right now. But I was like, Who has dominated the politics in the last 20 years from a family perspective? Who has really come across as like, you know, the top families to to watch out for so in my examination of like, you know, all of the magistrates that we've looked at so far And I just focused on the protrusion. So I left the treatment of the plebs to one side for now. There were 28 distinct gens that came up in that. So there's a lot of family competition going on. There's definitely more families than we've got years that we've studied. So I'm looking at 434 down to 414. Okay, the top family in terms of position holding is the Quinctii again, no surprises there, which Yeah, I don't think that would come as a surprise because that the branch of the Cincinnatus comes out of that gens, for instance. Exactly. And they hold for console ships, five military tributes, and they also have a military Legate chucked in there, but even I am very impressed by your mathematical dedication.
Dr G 1:00:47
Oh, no, I can I made a spreadsheet and then I did some at the end, it was very impressive. That is about the extent of my mathematical skill. So even if you discount the one military legate because that's, you know, not a hugely illustrious position. Big deal. They still have nine, we're still puts them ahead. So for consulships, five military tribunes, they're followed swiftly by the Papirii. Again, yes, who have two consuls, three military tribunes with consular power, two censors, and one interrex. Ooh, fancy pants time for them. And then we get into a three way tie. So things are not straight and smooth at the top. It is highly competitive, even in his very early period, according to the records that we have the three way tie for third position, so they're all getting the bronze medal, the Servilii, the Postumii and the Fabii. Yes, so the fabulous Fabians, they're in there. Each of these gens hold seven positions of elite power across those 20 years. Yeah. Now whether the Postumii can continue up with this trend may very well depend on what kind of characters they produce in the next generation. I know they better watch so there's wrong heads. I know I mean, get their heads screwed on straight, you know, the wrong headedness of it. So, the only other thing I have to mention is things like you know, Diodorus Siculus, getting all of the names kind of wrong for this year. Very cute. He's trying his best, he got all the kind of the gens names, right, and all of the praenomens wrong as far as we can tell. And that is the end of 414 BCE. As far as I'm concerned.
Dr Rad 1:02:34
Well, I'm very impressed by your spreadsheet. And because I avoid Excel like the plague.
Dr G 1:02:40
Fair enough, fair enough. I wouldn't say I go to it to have a good time. But I was like, You know what, I need to put this in a different way. So my mind can sort of wrap around the information differently. And I think it helped. I think
Dr Rad 1:02:51
it helped. Yeah, like, and it does confirm, you know, because of the way that we do this, where we're going year by year, like the Romans themselves would have done. Sometimes you kind of have a very hazy feeling of like, Look, that name sounds familiar, but I can't really remember how many times I've really said it in the past year. Maybe I said it every episode, you certainly know that certain names are coming up more than others. For sure. It's good to have it all at all confirmed. Now the final interesting detail I'm going to add because we just we did just note that obviously we've got this like weird interregnum period thing. When we've got a standoff between the plebeians and the Senate. It's possible that what we're seeing with the interregnum is me not necessarily when there is a standoff between patricians and plebeians. But potentially it's something that comes up when we're switching from military Tribune's to consuls or back the other way.
Dr G 1:03:48
Yeah, potentially. And I could see how this might have more of effects for the consulship than it would for military Tribunes with consular power. Yes, they might be considered lesser, just in general. Sure. If indeed, they existed at all.
Dr Rad 1:04:03
Who knows? I mean, this is the thing did interregnum even happen. I like
Dr G 1:04:08
to think so. I know, well believe that because the Romans do like this kind of thing of like, you know, it's got to be done the right way. So the interrex is basically a ritual and legislative functionary to ensure that things happen in the right way, in the periods where things are not currently happening the way that they're supposed to.
Dr Rad 1:04:27
Indeed, Indeed. All right, Dr. G. Well, I think that that means it's time for the Partial Pick.
Dr G 1:04:38
Well, those 50 Golden Eagles up for grabs, they can you can win up to 10 Eagles in each of the five categories. And we'll see how Rome goes, indeed. All right.
Dr Rad 1:04:48
What's our first category Dr. G, military cloud? Ah, yes. Well, I mean, technically, militarily, they actually do pretty well. I mean, it's not obviously a major thing. Livy's clearly unimpressed.
Dr G 1:05:00
Describe it at all. Well,
Dr Rad 1:05:01
so unimpressed that I'm really confused about what I'm talking about, like, is this the thing that he didn't want to describe? Did that happen earlier? I don't know. But it's obviously not the battle itself. That's impressive. But nonetheless, they win Bolae for a short time anyway.
Dr G 1:05:17
They do. And only the other wars got cancelled. So that's fine.
Dr Rad 1:05:22
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I'd probably give them I don't know, like, maybe a full
Dr G 1:05:27
Yeah, cuz it doesn't work out great afterwards. And it is related to the warfare. So
Dr Rad 1:05:31
it is related to that. But in terms of them actually conquering something they have that done well, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's cool.
Dr G 1:05:39
All right. Our second category is diplomacy. I don't know. I think that's a zero to diplomacy. No.
Dr Rad 1:05:50
Externally where there's war, I don't think there can be much diplomacy. So that's a zero and On the homefront. Certainly everyone's at each other's throats.
Dr G 1:05:58
Yeah, exactly. That's it. That's no way you're right there. Okay. Expansion.
Dr Rad 1:06:03
Well, yes, they do add Bolae to their empire for a short time, at least.
Dr G 1:06:10
They haven't lost it yet. So I suppose we can give them one point for that. It's very close to home.
Dr Rad 1:06:16
It is. But you know what, it's been a long time. Well, no, actually, you know, it hasn't been that long. We had Labici Recently, but it it's been a long time before Labici came along. And now Bolae, which is right next door, I feel like we have to get them at least a three.
Dr G 1:06:31
Oh, negotiate you to
Dr Rad 1:06:35
everyone's gonna call you then you pursued me, because you're being way harsh. Oh, my God, but that's fine, too.
Dr G 1:06:43
You know, I just, you know, when they do something good, I want to give them a reward. And I feel like, you know, it's next door. And you know, like, you didn't really have to try that hard, did you?
Dr Rad 1:06:50
Well, yeah. But like, that's gonna be the case for a really long time. Technically, everything's next door, the more that they keep expanding, everything's gonna be next door.
Dr G 1:06:58
And I will continue to be wrongheaded.
Dr Rad 1:07:02
You know, I think they're gonna conquer like, I don't know, Dacia and you're gonna be like, whatever the border was right there.
Dr G 1:07:08
I mean, you were literally next door when you started,
Dr Rad 1:07:10
right? I mean, like, you would just like, you're right there. Or you were like, you were like camped there. I mean, you had like an encampment, whatever.
Dr G 1:07:18
Guys. All right, Virtus. What was there expressions of manliness going on?
Dr Rad 1:07:26
Well I mean, Postumius was harsh.
Dr G 1:07:31
But that doesn't really work out for him. So
Dr Rad 1:07:35
I don't think we can count it as way to us as much as douchebaggery.
Dr G 1:07:41
Fair enough. Okay. So that's a zero, I believe, as well. It is. And finally the citizens score. Was this a good time to be a Roman citizen?
Dr Rad 1:07:51
Or no, no, no. I mean, they I didn't even get a piece of booty. Oh, my God. Yeah. Not only that, but they're obviously also really upset by feeling undervalued that people higher up in their society. I mean, there is no one higher than a military champion with concealer power, you know, at the time that they hold office. Yeah, they're not feeling good. And it's obviously a pretty terrible time to be a citizen, I think. Especially because if it was going on, as we know, obviously, that means that people are also serving away from their families risking their lives.
Dr G 1:08:27
Indeed, this is a big ask, well, how many how many golden eagles that they get. I never do the math on this.
Dr Rad 1:08:36
appropriately in a year, which we have a tribune named Sextius, we end up with six golden eagle.
Dr G 1:08:43
Wow, six. Okay. Look, that sounds pretty good. Really, given how Rome has been trending lately?
Dr Rad 1:08:50
Well, six out of 50 is not great, but I guess that's what you get for stoning your commander today. Oh, and for the commander to crush people to death, and I really, really heavy stone. Yeah, not
Dr G 1:09:04
great. Not ideal at all. It is. It is not? Well, it has been an absolute pleasure to discuss the years 415 and 414. With you, Dr. Rad,
Dr Rad 1:09:16
I know I'm looking forward to discussing 413 Because I mean, I feel like that's got to be an unlucky age.
Dr G 1:09:24
We will soon find out
Dr Rad 1:09:26
who knows maybe consuls will be being murdered in a street.
Dr G 1:09:30
Stay tuned for our next episode.
Dr Rad 1:09:33
Before Dr. G and I leave you we just like to remind you that we are going to be speaking at the intelligent speech conference this year. So please head on over to the intelligent speech website. And if you use the code, P E I C E, you will be able to get a discount off your ticket and down there the partial historian sent you. It's coming up very soon in November. So you'll probably want to register soon. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcripts in our show notes. And music is by Bettina joy de Guzman, you too can support our show and help us to produce more excellent content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and some occasional bonus content as well. Today we'd like to give a special shout out to Dendrio and Asrar who became Patreon back in September 2022. So if our math is correct, since we are releasing this episode in September 2023 That makes it our one year anniversary. You could also support us by buying us a coffee on Kofi. However, if you aren't feeling particularly patrician these days, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. That goes for our book as well. If you enjoyed Rex, the seven kings of Rome please make sure you leave review on Amazon or Gumroad. Until next time. We are yours in ancient Rome
This may be the best podcast episode you’ve ever heard, and that’s the gospel truth. We’re munching on protein bars and raw chicken as we discuss Disney’s Hercules (1997) with Professor Alastair Blanshard.
Statue of Hercules in Shrewsbury – a copy of the Farnese Hercules. Hercules leans wearily on his club, which is covered by his lionskin. Carrying out all these labours is hard work! Courtesy of Elliot Brown on Flickr.
Professor Blanshard literally wrote the book on Hercules, as well as several chapters on his representation in film. We are so lucky to have him on our show as he is not just a gigantic Hercules fanboy. He is currently the Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland and one of the most hilarious historians you will ever meet.
The Birth of Hercules
Disney’s Hercules came out during one of the most successful animated movie streaks for the studio. However, the film was a little different to the Disney Princess films such as Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. It was also pitched at a slightly older, male audience, and used the story of Hercules to explore the awkward journey from adolescence to manhood.
As people have learnt about muscle development and nutrition has changed, Hercules has often been played by bodybuilders like Steeve Reeves and more recently Dwayne ‘The Rock' Johnson. Image of Steeve Reeves, courtesy of John Irving on Flickr.
Disney does not always provide the most faithful representation of Hercules’ story. How do you turn a myth about a serial murderer, a drunkard and a glutton into an exploration of what it means to be a true hero? Never you fear – Disney has all the answers!
This film blends stories of Hercules, such as his strangling of the snakes as a baby and the Twelve Labours, with so many other elements from contemporary American society. Whilst Hercules was not quite as successful as other Disney movies of this era, there is a lot to love about this representation.
The Greeks were not afraid to rework their own mythology, and it seems like Disney followed in their footsteps.
Hercules having a chat with his father in Zeus' temple at Olympia in Disney's Hercules (1997). Courtesy of Adam Hammond.
Join us for this fascinating conversation about the Disneyfication of a Greek hero. We delve into the characterisation of all your favourite characters: Meg, Phil, Hades, and of course, the man of the hour.
Special Episode – Disney's Hercules (1997)
If you would like to read more from Professor Blanshard, you can find a list of publications on his university profile. You can also find his contributions on The Conversations here.
Sound Credits
Our music is courtesy of Bettina joy de Guzman,
Intelligent Speech Tickets
Join us at the Intelligent Speech Conference this year! The event will be held online on November 4. You can buy tickets here and watch the event live, or access the videos later. If you use the code PEICE at checkout, you get 10% off your tickets and they'll know that we sent you.
Automated Transcript
Our automated transcript is provided by Otter AI.
Dr Rad 0:00 Hey there listeners at the partial Historians tell me, are you doing anything on November for? No? Well, Dr. Jean, I have just the invitation for you come along to the intelligent speech conference for 2023. And hear us and other amazing presenters talk all about the theme of the year, which is contingencies. What happens when history meets the backup plan? How intriguing does that sound? Just head along to intelligence speech online.com to buy your tickets now. And if you're worried about the time difference, never you fear you can of course, join in the event live online, but you can also watch the videos afterwards at your own convenience. So what are you waiting for? Go and grab your tickets now. And if you use the code peace, P E, I C E at the checkout, they'll know the partial history and sent you and you'll get a lovely 10% off. We hope to see you there.
Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 1:21 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 1:25 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Red.
Dr G 1:36 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 1:46 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Welcome to a special episode of the partial historians. I'm one of your hosts Dr Rad
Dr G 2:15 and I am Dr. G. And we're pretty excited about the conversation that we're about to have today. I mean, personally, I'm a big Hercules fan. And that might be a little bit of foreshadowing.
Dr Rad 2:28 Indeed, we are so lucky to be joined by I think it's safe to say the world's largest expert on Hercules, which is Alastair Blanshard. Alastair Blanshard is the Paul Eliadis professor of classics and ancient history, as well as the author of some amazing books that you might like to get your hands on, including classics on screen and Hercules a heroic life.
Dr G 2:52 Thank you so much for joining us, Alastair.
A Blanshard 2:54 Great to be here. And I'm not sure about the largest expert, but certainly the biggest fanboy for Hercules
Dr Rad 3:00 that makes you the expert in our book. So we're gonna be talking about Disney's Hercules in particular today, which is really great for us because we've been revisiting a lot of classic films, and so Hercules naturally fits right in. But before we dive straight into the Disney version of things, it's probably good to give our listeners a bit of background on who Hercules actually is, or dare I say, Herakles.
Speaker 3 3:24 Yes, absolutely. So, Herakles, as he's known amongst the Greeks, and Hercules, as he's called by the Romans was probably the most popular of the ancient heroes. Certainly his worship is found throughout the Mediterranean from signs in the far corners of Spain all the way through to Southern France. Indeed, the modern Principality of Monaco is actually named after in fact, a temple dedicated to Hercules, Hercules monoikos, Hercules, the man who lives alone, and so monoikos becomes Monaco, but to his worship continues, obviously in Greece all the way through the Black Sea to all be our panic a pm no places where modern day Ukraine is. And of course, there are important sanctuary sites in Lebanon, North Africa. So throughout the Mediterranean, Hercules was a figure that was well known and well respected and worship.
Dr Rad 4:17 Absolutely. I seem to recall some Roman emperors letting to dress up like Hercules and run around arenas, and we were just actually talking about little NAS X and his music video for call me by your name and how he might be dressed up as Hercules but like a baby pink Hercules?
A Blanshard 4:35 Well, we'll Look at don't even get me started on that video clip because that is for a classicist, or one of the greatest clips ever. I mean, not only does it include all the coliseums type scenes, him dressed up as characters, but also a quotation in actual Greek from Plato's Symposium as well, from Aristophanes speech about the nature of the soul and how it's looking for its long lost partner. So So for a classicist that that is the film clip to end all film clips,
Dr G 5:03 it is basically catnip for classicists.
A Blanshard 5:08 Who knew that that was the market he was going for? It's done
Dr G 5:11 really well, we now all talk about it. And we have a great time and all of us kind of like, we just want to meet him and sit down and have a good chat about it.
A Blanshard 5:19 Yes, I really want to know who chose that passage from the symposium because it's so perfect in terms of the concept of the song. But also the decision to carve it onto the tree in in Greek is really, really striking.
Dr Rad 5:33 I know we were speaking to Yentl love about X, we've tried a special FSA just on that one particular clip. And we were asking her like, Where does this come from? Like, who is working on this? Is this all from him? Like, who are the people that he's consulting with?
Dr G 5:46 And also, how do we get a job? But to drag it back to Hercules inherently, he's thinking about the sort of how he's positioned in the ancient world? What are some of the sort of key touchstones in the mythology that surrounds this figure so that we can set up a sort of a comparison between what the sort of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Mediterranean world thought about this figure and the stories they told and how that might end up comparing to what Disney presents us with?
A Blanshard 6:15 Yeah, absolutely. And that's a very, very good question. And it's a really interesting question to ask for Heroclix because one of the things about Hara Cleves is because he's worshipped in so many different places, there are so many different stories. And so we imagine really, that the mythology around Hercules was enormous, every place would have had its own little Hercules story, its own variation about how hurricanes came to their town often established, you know, an important institution or, or a right. And so really, in fact, the myths that we have about hurricanes that have come down to us are probably in the tip of a huge iceberg of stories that would have been circulating in in antiquity, I guess, in terms of thinking about the grand narratives to occupy Hercules as life that I think I guess there are, there are probably a couple of kind of key points. And obviously the 12 labours is a is a central point. And these were the 12 labours that Hercules had to perform as expiation for the murder of his wife and children. And that's a topic I think, we'll get into discussing, particularly when we come to the Herrick Lee's film because it's totally glossed over. But Hercules, the wife killer, the child killer, has to wash the blood from his hands. And He does this by performing a number of labours for King Eurystheus. That's you. I guess one of the great central themes or stories that relates to Hercules would live there are a number of other other kinds of stories, there's a story about his eventual death where he is poisoned effectively by a woman who loved him, dear Naira, who accidentally thinking that she's going to make her clothes love her by applying a love potion to his clothes is in fact tricked into applying a kind of burning poison to his close. And so he dies in agony, and his eventual soul is sent to the heavens where it's worshipped as the divine as a divine figure. I guess that's one of the important stories. I guess the other sort of important story is the story about his birth, which again, was a kind of very important one. So again, it's a story that the Disney film isn't particularly keen on, on showing because it's all a story about adultery and deceit, and involves Hercules being the product of Zeus or Jupiter, coming down to earth, falling in love with a woman by the name of Alcmene and then appearing to her while her husband's away in the form of her husband. And he then sleeps with her, and she thinks she's sleeping with them photo on her husband. Now, in modern days, this would be rape, right? This is a classic case of what lawyers would call rate by personation. And this is, you know, you consent achieved by deceit, but the ancient world didn't see this as right. They saw this as just a very convenient ruse on the part on the part of Jupiter. And indeed, they even played it for comic effect. So for example, plotters in the play in vitro, has this as a kind of comic setup with their people going, are you in vitro? No, you're in vitro and they play it for kind of laughs now. Now, you can play it for laughs The Greeks also played it for tragedy. So in fact, we know that there is a fragmentary tragedy, the Alcmene which takes a scenario and which has Amphitryon arriving back at home to discover that his wife has been sleeping with another man. He doesn't believe her claims that she thought she was sleeping with her husband. And in fact, he puts on her pilot and is about to set fire to an incinerator alive when in fact that Zeus appears and sorts everything out. But this extraordinary birth story of Hercules who is the product of this rape by deceit could be played for both comic effects and tragic effects in the in the ancient world. but those are I think those are I think the three stories, the birth, the 12 Labours and the death, I think are probably the three key elements in the Hercules narrative.
Dr Rad 10:08 Yeah, and like most Greek myths, I think it doesn't automatically scream made for children in this modern age, because there is just so much murder and violence and trickery and adultery and all sorts of issues that run all throughout Hercules.
A Blanshard 10:25 Yes, okay. Anyone who started to tell a Greek myth for children suddenly finds themselves having to gloss over over things. And the numbers of nightmares. I've given my poor nieces and nephews, as I've told them stories of the ancient world, it's really, really too many to name.
Dr Rad 10:42 And yes, I suppose, where all the products are being told Greek myths.
Dr G 10:47 Yeah, it's it's really interesting that there is obviously so much violence at the centre of these stories. And I think that's it's definitely not uncommon for the ancient world to sort of have these sort of like lessons that are really sort of bruntly felt upon the body as much as upon the psyche. And yet, somehow, Disney has thought, you know, what would be a great tale to tell on the animated screen, the life of a hero? And who better to choose then Hercules?
A Blanshard 11:18 Yeah, it's absolutely extraordinary, as you say, I mean, Hercules, Hercules is the figure that in fact, the ancient world does a lot of thinking about in terms of violence, right. So he's the figure, in fact, who was so violent, so bloody in terms of his actions, that in fact, the Delphic Oracle refuses to wash his hands of blood. So he turns up having murdered a whole series of people again, and turns up to the Delphic Oracle and says, Look, you know, once again, sorry, kill have killed a lot of people, can you wash the blood of my hands? Can you make me once again, clean and the Delphic Oracle says, No, not this time, I'm just sick of you turning up here, completely covered in Gore, having just murdered a whole lot of people, we're not going to do it this time. And Hercules is outraged. He grabs the tripod, on which the Oracle sits and he says, I'm gonna go establish my own oracle that will allow me to be cleansed whenever I need it, which is obviously a lot. And at this point, Apollo appears, and wrestles the tripod back from Hercules and we have this in a lot of ancient art. There are a lot of ancient artistic depictions of Apollo and heroically is wrestling over the Delphic tripod. Now, what's interesting is that Zeus intervenes, and he sends a thunderbolt which splits the two and, and he says to Apollo, Look, it's your job to purify those who commit crimes. So yes, you're going to have to purify again. And so establishes the principle that in fact, you know, there's no crime for which you shouldn't be able to get purification from it's important Greek principle. And, and it's Hara Cleves, who becomes as it were the, the test case for this, that if you could, if you can cleanse Heroclix of blood, then basically you can cleanse anyone,
Dr G 13:10 goodness me, I felt like when you were talking about that kind of detail, it just put me in mind of like, where Roman Catholicism ends up. And I was like, Oh, that's a fascinating sort of, anyway, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But nevertheless, this idea of Hercules like sitting in this really interesting nexus of putting limits to the test, whether they be physical endurance, whether it be the necessity to be cleansed. I think this leads us really nicely into thinking about the film and potentially how they've decided to characterise Hercules in the Disney version through his physicality.
A Blanshard 13:47 Yeah, Look, it was a really interesting choice for them to do a hurricane so that they canvassed a couple of other options. They were clearly very keen to do something in the ancient world, and two stories were greenlit. So there was a one a project based on Homer's Odyssey, and a project based on Hercules. And in the end, they decided to go for Hercules. Now, they're thinking about this was quite interesting, because they felt that the Odyssey was something too sacred that you couldn't play about with, with the Odyssey in the way that you could do with Hercules and Hercules, you could have more fun with interesting concept, and also, that he was far more adaptable. And that second issue of adaptability. I think they're onto something because as I said, there are a lot of Hercules stories. And so, you know, I think there was a bit more play in the, in the in the Herculesmyth in a way that there isn't art with the Odyssey that said, no one would have recognised what they did to directly story in the ancient world. But, but certainly, I think the notion of the ability of Hara cleaves it visa vie the Odyssey is probably probably right. But but the extraordinary an extraordinary, extraordinary choice.
Dr Rad 14:56 Yeah, well, I suppose you're giving us a bit of context for the film. So Hercules comes at the tail end of this real resurgence for the Disney Studio. So it was released I think in 1997. And Disney, of course has just had a string of mega hits like the Lion King Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin all these sorts of films. So Hercules is coming at sort of the tail end of this particular era. And I believe that they were kind of thinking that Hercules might be more for a preteen, particularly male audience.
A Blanshard 15:29 Yeah, absolutely. Right. So this is, you know, the IOC called Eisner era and Disney right. So, you know, after the disaster of Black Cauldron in 1985, which almost put an end to animation in Disney, the Disney Corporation decides that we need to really rejig things we need to rethink the whole programme in terms of animated films. And so Michael Eisner, and then Roy Disney together really rejig the animation studios. tremendous success, as you say, no kicks off with Little Mermaid beauty in the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King they inherently use and of course, they'll go on to Pocahontas. So an extraordinary resurgence, and new Disney is just hitting it out of the park in terms of these in terms of these films, until it hits Hercules. And as you say, they're trying to do something different, right? So Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin Lion King, primarily, the age group they're looking for is the kind of six plus I mean, that's the rough age it Hercules, they think, Well, Look, we've conquered that demographic, let's do something different. And so it's an 11 Plus audience, so slightly more mature, and also much more boys-y as well. And, and that's really interesting for Disney. Because, I mean, it's really interesting to think the way in which Disney dominates the female demographic, you know, the Disney Princess is, you know, the thing that kind of dominates female childhood in a way for many bad, very bad purposes. And indeed, is something that they're kind of now rethinking, but there hasn't been, as it were a kind of dominant Disney narrative, um, for boyhood, inherently, as was their attempt to do that. And as a result, hurricanes represents a slight tweaking in terms of the genre and in terms of the format of the film so so if you Look at things like as you say, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, you imagine right a ratio of comedy to drama about three to one. Now, in the Hercules film, what we see is a shift more towards dramas and slightly more drama, and also the nature of the comedy changes as well. So it's less of the sort of physical comedy, but there's still quite a lot of physical comedy, but much more kind of knowing, ironic, self reflexive kind of kind of comedy.
Dr Rad 17:45 So this might be a good moment to give a very brief overview of the plotline of this movie, particularly because we've told our listeners so much about you know, the murderer and Hercules his life and that sort of thing. So what have they done with the basic plotline? What have they told us about Hercules in this film,
A Blanshard 18:02 right. Okay. So what they what they've done is they've taken various elements of Greek myth and combined it together. So the overarching narrative is the narrative of the tight end Tamaki, right the the great fight between the Olympian gods and the Titans, and Tyson slash giants. And so what they've done is they've taken this narrative from myth, and they've reworked it in such a way that in order for the gods to succeed in a battle against the Titans, which are imagined in the Disney film was called elemental forces of chaos. In order for the gods to defeat the Titans, they need to have Heroclix on their side. And this really alarms the evil figure in the in the film, who is Hades, who is cast as the villain who wants to overthrow his brothers, Zeus, he really wants to, and he wants to overthrow the gods and he wants to align himself with the Titans. Now, in order to do this, he needs to get rid of Heroclix. And so he does that, first of all, by trying to poison him as a child. And unfortunately, this doesn't succeed. But what he does do is he manages to poison Hercules so enough so that he becomes mortal, a very strong mortal, and so he is then fostered out to some mortal parents and this is Amphitryon and Alcmene, the figures of who are the traditionally the parents of Hercules and then Hercules grows up as this strong, you know, out of place awkward adolescent who doesn't really fit into society, his his strength makes him always kind of unduly clumsy. So So in a sense, he's kind of every awkward adolescent, right and he speaks to the awkwardness of adolescence. He discovers that in fact, he's the son of Zeus and desperately wants to rejoin his real father as a god and so he does all sorts of actions to try and achieve godhood this is ultimately unsuccessful until he realises that it's not the actions that make you a god. It's in fact, what's inside. And that's what makes a true hero. And, and this only happens when he falls for a love interest by the name of mega who, unfortunately for him is a pawn of Hades, and she tricks him into sacrificing his life for her. And he does. He does that. And then eventually, the Titans are emerge. But because of the Soul Sacrifice at Hercules, made, he's allowed to in fact become a great hero. He can then rejoin the battle turns the tide saves the Olympian gods. And then at the very end, when he's just about to be welcomed into Olympus, which is imagined as the whole pearly gates of heaven. As of Olympus is vector kind of gated community. In this film, he decides actually, really, he wants to be on Earth with mega who's had a change of heart who's realised that deep down all along, she loved her athletes. And together, they kind of go off, happily live, it leads to the Disney World happily ever after.
Dr G 21:13 I mean, it's the sort of thing where there's so many small details that have been altered and changed along the way to make this incredibly interesting. And it puts you in mind of not just how Disney is attempting to sort of make Hercules sort of fit within their own sort of genre standards, but also the ways in which they're trying to reshape how you might think about ancient heroism in terms of a modern hero.
A Blanshard 21:42 Yeah, absolutely. And there's a real clash between a model of heroism which is derived from antiquity and the model of heroism, which is imbued with this very strong Judeo Christian ethos and, and you see it in the figure of Heroclix. Because in the ancient world, in order to be a hero, all you need to do is just be famous, right? heroes were just famous people they were, are often morally bankrupt. I mean, Hercules is a good example right now, not only is he a murderer, no, he's a rapist. He's a glutton prone to violent outbursts, who famously murders his music teacher as a child. I mean, he's really just a terrible person. And so, you know, trying to kind of tidy him up, make him more moral. And again, it's the same with Odysseus as well, deceit for really, again, violent, bloodthirsty figures. But but that doesn't matter for the ancient world. As long as you're famous, as long as you're spectacular, as long as you're blessed by the gods. That's what makes you a hero rather than having any moral content. Now, Disney offers you a totally different version of heroism, right? I'm hearing this is what's on the inside, right. And there's a constant discourse throughout the film about what makes a true hero. Now this is distinction of the ancient world wouldn't have recognised right new hero, true hero, there's only I think you're either a hero or you're not a hero, right, the idea of being a true hero is something that they wouldn't have recognised. And indeed, this comes to the fore in one of the great musical sequences in the film, which is the zero to hero sequence,
Dr Rad 23:10 my personal favourite.
A Blanshard 23:12 I just love it. It's the one that gets me humming and tapping. I mean, I know we're all supposed to love the Michael Bolton's go to distance but, but for me, it's zero to hero. And in this sequence, what we have is wonderful montage of Heroclix Hercules doing all the kinds of things that in the ancient world will make you a hero, he beats monsters, but more importantly, though, he gets cash, he gets fame, he's got these fan girls that are totally obsessed by him. It's this one. He's doing endorsements for running shoes. It's this wonderful sequence about kind of fame and importance and monetary wealth. Now, in the ancient world, this is all you needed to be a hero. But the end of this sequence involves Hercules going to Zeus and saying, Well, looking, I've done everything you need me to do, why aren't I a hero, and he's da, it's a hero comes from inside. You didn't know he's done everything he needs to do make him a hero. But it's a great sequence. Because in a sense, the the musical number is supposed to show you what he's what doesn't make a true hero. But actually, what it does is give you a very good example of what would have made a hero in the ancient world.
Dr Rad 24:20 Can you get that great line when I hear Hercules is talking to Zeus as well. Zeus is a statue that's come to life. And he says, you know, Look over the action figure. And I think the ancient world would have been like, yeah, right.
A Blanshard 24:32 Absolutely. That sequence is lovely, because it plays with the very famous chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, which has course come to life and, and that's the thing that what everyone says about the, the content of the film visually, it's extraordinary, right, Gerald Scarfe, one of the really great artists, you know, famous for doing Pink Floyd's The wall as well as a really series of important players. Cartoons For punch and Sunday Times, you know, just it's just a fantastic job with this film, it doesn't Look like any other kind of Disney film and, but it's just so visually clever. I mean, you know, he was obsessed by the line that you get in Greek vases. And so you see, you know, even the drops of water that fall kind of when they dropped a drop, like, in the shape of Greek, Pfizer's the, the landscapes are extraordinary. It's just the most beautiful, exciting visual film. And there are all these lovely little quotations of, of ancient sculpture of ancient VARs forms, time and time, again, a wonderful occasion of ancient architecture. So visually, the film is, is lush and wonderful.
Dr G 25:40 I think there's a real visual richness to Hercules his body as well, the swirling lines that that sort of demarcate, like his chest and his ears and things like this, which is a real visual Echo to ancient Greek sort of artistry as well.
A Blanshard 25:55 Yeah, absolutely. And it's very clear that that scarf has been entrusted by the by Greek vase painting, particularly in his depiction of Heroclix. And indeed, there's a long tradition of artists, particularly Iliff line illustrated, being obsessed by Greek vase painting. So you can go back to something like Aubrey Beardsley, for example, who again, obsessed by Greek line painting. So animators line artists have always found a huge inspiration in Greek vase painting.
Dr Rad 26:25 So do you think as well that the appearance of Hercules in the animated version has been influenced by the representations of Hercules that have come before so famously, Hercules has been embodied by strong man or body builders, so people like Steve Reeves people like Eugene sand out, and more recently, since the Disney film, of course, we've had the rock. So do you think that that sort of physical appearance has characterised the animated version as well?
A Blanshard 26:51 Yeah, absolutely. And it's worthwhile observing that there are two essentially bold body types in this format. There's the young, kind of scrawny adolescent Hercules. And then there's the Hara cleis, that emerges after Danny DeVito, otherwise known as Philip TTS, otherwise known as Phil takes him in hand and transforms him into this buff, gorgeous body. And both those bodies are really interesting. I'm struck by what Disney did with this kind of awkward adolescence, because I think that's probably the critically most successful bit of a film is imagining this hero as this kind of awkward adolescence. And it's striking that actually the most importance, I guess, spin off of the film was in fact the hair Achlys animated series that they did for television, which was a series of episodes of essentially, young Herrick leaves at school and his his friends, he's got a fantastic Cassandra friend who's always having these visions that no one understands. And Icarus figure has kind of been flying too close to the sun that's kind of spaced out. And now that was a that was probably much more successful. I think critically, then the film itself, and it focused very much on that adolescent here at least. And I think that's quite interesting. But as you say, when when he when he's buff, and full bodied, he's absolutely in line of the kind of standard peplum Heracles that we know from figures like Steve Reeves, whose 1960s heritage leaves films really defined, defined our notions of what Reeves has been, or should be. And indeed, I mean, there's a, as you say, there's a long tradition starts with Sandow, pretending to be the wiry Heracles and his famous stage show where he imitated life synthases famous statue of the weary Heracles, that body type of hurricanes is quite interesting, because it makes a hurricane, it's very good at lifting things, breaking things, not so good at running. I mean, if you've ever seen a bodybuilder run, right, you know, their fires get in the way, right? There's just a whole lot of chafing that's happening there. And, and that's interesting, because it was one of the labours of Hercules is in fact, him chasing down the sneaking Hind of Artemis. So one of the one of the very famous labours of Hercules involves him really running very fast. Yeah, it's hard to imagine if these bodybuilders running fast, or indeed, you know, in a sense, Disney's Hercules as well,
Dr Rad 29:13 you've actually highlighted that I think a bit in your work, the fact that the Hercules body that we're perhaps familiar with as modern audiences kind of only became possible once we were able to feed ourselves, you know, so many particular you know, vitamins and nutrients to turn our bodies into something, whatever it is even possible or practical in an ancient world context.
A Blanshard 29:34 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's extraordinary. We live in this amazing moment, right. So there are two key key changes are the first one is the ability to isolate muscle group and train individual muscles. And that becomes possible around the turn of the 19th century with people like Sandow developing equipment for the isolation and training of individual muscle groups. The second thing as you say, is the tremendous change in diet right so you can go to the super market and you can now eat protein in a density impurity that is unparalleled. So we can do things with our bodies that we've never been able to do before. So we can get for Hercules Look, I mean, for me, it's always very interesting because in the ancient world, you know, people don't operate with that low amount of body fat, right, those Herculean bodies that we see, or indeed, even the kind of the slim tot no Greek gods style bodies that we see in gym, they would have fallen over the first famine or long winter, right, you know, unless you've got a decent amount of body fat, you're not going to survive that winter, you're not going to survive feminine. We know that every time we model the ancient economy, we have to figure in, you know, a probably one to two years every 10 years for for famine or for struggling to meet your daily calorific requirements. So, you know, those bodies wouldn't have wouldn't have survived a long winter, which, again, always interests me,
Dr G 30:56 yeah, it puts us in a situation where even for the ancient Greeks, their idolised body is risky, because it's right on the edge of the limits of what might be possible in their context.
A Blanshard 31:06 Yeah, as I say, these are, these are bodies, which are actually, although they're proclaiming health, they're more importantly, proclaiming, well, that is, this is a body that doesn't need to worry about where its foods coming from. This is a body that can run itself right on the edge, because it knows that actually, it's it's a very wealthy body for whom it's always going to have access to resources. And so when we Look at those athletic bodies, we need to see them both as signs of kind of physicality, but also as signs of wealth, class and status.
Dr G 31:38 Yes, definitely. And thinking about the film, not just in it, sort of physicality of Hercules, but also thinking about how figures like the Olympian gods are coming into play. Certainly, there's a sort of an extended elaboration of their physicality as well, but I'm actually potentially more interested in their characterization compared to how we understand them from Greek myth.
A Blanshard 32:05 Yes, I mean, what we see is a very reductive attitude towards the Greek gods. So the Greek gods stand for one thing and one thing only right so Aphrodite is a goddess of love, for example, but we know that in the ancient world, she was also a sea goddess, importantly, depicted always with a dolphin by her side, she is the person that you imply, prey to for safe voyages. Likewise, your Dionysus is represented there is the god of wine, but he's also the godfather of theatre, the god of madness, has important role in the underworld as well through certain Dionysiac mysteries. So these multifaceted God that in the ancient world had all these various different dimensions to them, just effectively get reduced in the Disney Hercules to only standing for one for one thing. So you know, Poseidon is the god of the sea, but he's not the God of horses, not the God of earthquakes, for example, and it goes on again, and again. There are some lovely jokes. I mean, there's a wonderful joke about Narcissus, for example, he's always looking in, in his mirror and, and that's kind of right. I think, that's this is really famous for being obsessed by his beauty, but but in all other respects, their depiction of the gods is very, very reductive. We see this, for example, perhaps most strikingly, in here, who you know, in this case is just becomes a sort of doting simpering mother rather than the extraordinary powerful God is in her own right, who is responsible, in fact for making her excuses life? Hell right. Now, if you go to Greek myths, it's here that's in fact the main cause of all his all his problems. And in fact, it's here who's responsible for perhaps the most tragic event in hairpieces life which of course is sending the goddess of madness Alyssa so that hurricanes goes mad and murders his wife Megara and all his children and this is the extraordinary tragic dark sequel to in fact the Heracles film because the heritage film ends with Hercules and make mega arm in arm together off to be this loving couple now if you know your Greek myth you'll no well Look it's looking fine now but yeah, give it a few years inherit here I should in theory be sending matters to ensure that hurricanes will be murdering poor old make and all the kids they have as well. So so this is kind of really dark kind of this that every time you see big on stage and you think, Oh, God, no, just just run from Him, you know? And there are all these kind of lovely things where Heroclix says, No, I'll never hurt you make and you think, Oh, you are gonna hurt a big time don't it's, it's it really there's kind of dark ironies that run through the film.
Dr Rad 34:47 Yeah, I did think it was very interesting that given that hair, as you say, like from from the moment of his conception basically decides she's going to play Hercules because of course he is. Living Proof of Zeus is on faith. fullness, the fact that he slept with this mortal woman and that kind of stuff. His name obviously even comes from from here as well. So it's interesting that she's not the villain that Hades is. And I think that says obviously a lot about how we understand the god of the underworld. Yeah, it must be something dark and evil something down there, whereas hair is often the light cloudy world of Olympus. But Megara has is definitely a character of fascination, partly because she's obviously come into a lot of criticism because of her appearance. So the fact that I mean all the women but particularly Megara I think have this insane body shape, which may or may not be a Greek vase. But boy, that waist is tiny. And they have turned her into this, like, why is cracking female love interest? Which as you say, it's such a weird choice, because yeah, if you know, your myth, she she's going to get murdered by Hercules.
A Blanshard 35:47 Yes, and certainly, that depiction of Megara is something that that is very common, and aligns with a lot of the depictions that you're seeing in the eyes near Disney, where there's an attempt to have a slightly more sassy, slightly more independent kind of female figure. And, of course, you know, Hercules comes just before Pocahontas, which will be that and then of course, Mulan afterwards, which you know, so so you can sort of see a bit of a trend beginning with Megara going on to going on to Pocahontas and Mulan in Disney thinking. But you know, for all her independent agency, you know, it's still hurricanes who saves the day. And then that is the key centre of the narrative.
Dr G 36:32 We also get this sort of complexity in the plot as well, whereas Meg comes across as being quite independent and having a strong sense of personal agency, only for that to be revealed to us in terms of the plot that she actually she's in the grip of Hades is power.
A Blanshard 36:50 Yeah, although in her defence, you know, she did it because of her bad choice in men, right, she fell for the wrong guy and ended up you know, selling herself to Hades to save him only for him to abandon her and leave her as a slave as a slave to Hades. So, you know, for all her kind of sassy wisecracking nature. You know, ultimately, what really matters if you're a woman is are you able to choose the right guy? That that's what will lead to success or not, not your brains? Not your your ability? With a quick wit? Actually, it's Can you establish a meaningful relationship with a man? That is, that is the success.
Dr G 37:32 Thanks a lot, Disney. Thanks a lot.
Dr Rad 37:35 As you ended up with the guy, he's gonna murder her. Yeah,
A Blanshard 37:39 exactly. Well, at least you'd have to be a princess now. That's the important thing.
Dr G 37:44 What a relief, small steps, small steps.
Dr Rad 37:47 So I'd love to very quickly talk about some of these other characters that we've mentioned in passing. So some of the other sort of major minor characters, the supporting cast are, of course, Hades and Phil, do you have any strong feelings about the portrayal of these people feel obviously not being based on a real God or something per se? Hadees definitely.
A Blanshard 38:08 Yeah. So I think Phil is really interesting, right? So Danny DeVito does a great job with with with the figure of Phil. He's short for Philoctetes. So it's playing on another figure from the Heracles cycle. So Philoctetes was famous in antiquity for having this pussy foot. That meant that he was abandoned by his companions, who sailed on the trip to Troy, left on the island of Lemnos. But importantly, Philoctetes was an associate of Heracles and had the bow of Heracles. And so eventually, they have to come back apologise for abandoning him on the island of Lemnos and he didn't get reincorporated back into society so so that's the story of Philoctetes is known in antiquity as a friend of Heracles the person who inherited his his dying gives the gives his bow to not his personal trainer, but not his personal trainer, and certainly not satyr either. That's the other thing is that he has been turned into a Saturday in this in this film, but yes, yeah. And again, just a great figure you playing on a car cinematic tradition of the boxing trainer, the particularly the Jewish boxing trainer, and there's, there's a way in which Philippines picks up on particular trends in sort of cinematic New York Judaism and so so he's he's this trainer who turns hurricanes in from this kind of weakling into this wonderful buff here. Great role by Danny DeVito. And certainly a good roll by James Woods in Hades Look in played with wonderful, Suave sophistication a fantastically good line in delivery of in this kind of wonderful draw over to that he has done a good figure a complete villain very much in picking up on Judeo Christian ideas of of hell of the devil of the trickster who always always getting you to sign agreements for which you don't see the, the secret clause in. So, again, grounded not so much in weaker in antiquity but very much in Judeo Christian views of the of the devil.
Dr G 40:14 But it does offer us this amazing kind of scene right near the end, where Hercules enters into the underworld and we get our moment of katabasis that is happening where the confrontation between Hades and Hercules happens on Hades territory, which I think I don't know, I just really love that sort of moment. I don't know. It's not really I don't know if I even have a question. Really, it was,
A Blanshard 40:40 as you say, it's a lot as you say, it's a lovely moment. And again, as you rightly point out, picks up on an important epic tradition, namely, the tradition of the descent to the underworld. But catappa says, you know, whether it's Odysseus in The Odyssey, raising the dead, whether it's a near sin in the near this idea of the descent into the underworld, and so again, very, very ancient in terms of an element within ancient narratives. The depiction, of course, is completely Judeo Christian, that the flames, the location, that it picks up on, you know, mediaeval traditions of hellscape. So there's, it's really that kind of Renaissance mediaeval tradition that scarf is, is working through in terms of the visual depictions, but as you say, an important element within ancient narrative traditions.
Dr Rad 41:30 And I'd love to also bring up one of my favourite elements of the movie, which is, of course, the Muses. What are your thoughts on the Muses?
A Blanshard 41:39 How have we taken so long to get to the muses that is the best bit by far and away the stars of this film, such a clever idea to have them as his kind of backup singers, they're kind of sassy. They're funny, it picks up on the idea of the Greek chorus. But what's really wonderful about them is the way in which they kind of undercut so much kind of pomposity that runs through the film, if you if you remember that wonderful opening sequence, which begins with this voiceover,
Dr Rad 42:11 Charlton Heston
A Blanshard 42:16 giving this fantastic, how pompous voiceover, and then the Muses kind of step. So hang on, wait a minute, that's not gonna be this kind of film. And then they launch straight into the jazzy number. And they are, they are clever. They're funny, they, I think, inject a very different kind of tone to this film. They're great. They're absolutely great. I can't get enough of them.
Dr G 42:41 I think they form a great counterpoint, as you say. And there's that gospel tradition that is coming through in the way that the musical numbers operate as well, which I think is a really interesting way of tying the ancient Greek world to sort of more modern and contemporary American cultural elements for the audience.
A Blanshard 43:00 Absolutely. And that opening number of gospel truth really, you know, indicates you know, what trek kind of musical tradition they're they're working from. And again, it kind of is a lovely way of sort of undercutting a lot of the kind of potential whiteness that runs through the runs through the film as well. So it begins with these kind of white statues. And then suddenly, what we see is, in fact, this shot of a vase, or which the the muses are emerging, right, so So we're getting colour in a way that we haven't knew before. We're getting different kinds of musical traditions emerging. This is going to be a very different kind of way of doing of doing Greek myth that is, at least within Disney World, envisaged as much more inclusive and a story that is available to all
Dr Rad 43:47 and of course, there's one more character I have to mention. Pegasus. Pegasus, yes. Who has no place in Hercules? Not at all, not at all.
A Blanshard 43:58 But it's kind of gorgeous. I mean, he's he's part flying horse but also part Labrador as well. He's, he's this kind of fantastic sort of companion for for for Hercules. You're right, I mean, taken from the mythic sequence relating to Bellerophon and and kind of totally out of out of place, but but also also kind of wonderful for for the film.
Dr Rad 44:22 I didn't have it. Now, obviously, I think we've hopefully told our listeners that Disney's Hercules is actually an amazing blend of playing with epic film, Greek myth, American culture. I mean, there's so many aspects that are come together in a Christian ideas soul in this film, but we always have to kind of finish up by thinking about well, what are we talking about when we're talking about the historical accuracy? How important is it for film in general, animated film? I mean, what are your thoughts on trying to achieve historical accuracy in this sort of a film?
A Blanshard 44:56 Well, good luck. But I mean, first of all, you know, tried producing a film about her clothes and not having and doing it without doing the our rating. Right, you know, it's impossible. So, you know, Look, some of the things that worry me about the film are the way in which, you know, Hercules becomes commodified into this very kind of middle class, aspirational, suburban kind of hero. And I think, you know, there's a way in which, you know, Hercules could have been a more inclusive figure that speaks to a much wider demographic than I think, was was potential there. I mean, I think the fact that Olympia is really depicted as this kind of aspirational gated community is, I think, a problem. I think, also the fact that it fiddles around with the birth narrative in such a way that, you know, Hercules is not the product, right, but is in fact, a product of a very happy heteronormative. Couple. So again, I think the potential to to explore, you know, at least issues that were around adultery, or blended families, or even just if the issues of care, foster Hooda are really ignored in that. So I think, you know, there are, I think missed opportunities in the, in the film,
Dr Rad 46:18 I think that's always a nice thing about Greek myth, it's, I think it would have been acceptable to ancients that we play around with it. But as you say, it's the impression that we give our own culture as well, that also has to be considered.
A Blanshard 46:29 Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, there was tremendous, tremendous play in Greek with I mean, the classic example would be something like Euripides as Hercules right, which that as I say, the normal sequence, when we tell the story about the labours of Hercules is Hercules murders his wife and children, and then does the 12 labours to make up for it, your remedies, take turns on his head and has no Heroclix performing the 12 labours, and then murdering his wife and children. Because what he wanted was a tragedy, which had a man at his very highest point, when he thinks he's conquered death, gone down to the underworld, brought back Cerberus, there's nothing that can touch him, and then to be brought low, by, in fact, being caught up in the machinations of here, and the murder of his wife and children. So So even within the ancient world, it was very possible to do tremendously interventionist things with the Hercules storyline, so so that wouldn't worry the ancient world. And I think then, given the amount of play that we have, with Hara cleaves, that then has a kind of interesting ethical obligation of ours. That is, if we're going to play around that we need to think about, you know, what we are, what kinds of stories we tell,
Dr G 47:37 definitely, and I think this is the sort of place where it's probably a good chance to wrap up and because I feel like we could just keep talking about this film and, and the connections to hearing please, for hours, and I know that you need to go and live your life and and I just want to thank you so much for coming and sitting down and chatting to us today.
A Blanshard 47:58 Yeah, absolutely. Great. Fun. Great fun. Always, always good to chat with you.
Dr Rad 48:03 Absolutely. So just a reminder that if you'd like to read up on some of the issues we've touched on today, if you'd like to delve more into the life of Hercules and the myths surrounding him, you definitely want to pick up Alastair's book on Hercules, Hercules or heroic life. And if you'd like to learn more about film in general on screen, including Hercules and please pick up classics on screen which is a fantastic book, which has got chapters on lots of different movies, and Alastair is the co author of that.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial historians. We hope that you enjoy the episode and if you did, please consider becoming a Patreon. It is thanks to our marvellous patrons that we are able to make special episodes like this. We'd also like to once again thank Professor Alastair Blanshard the Paul Eliadis chair of classics in ancient history at the University of Queensland, for coming on the show and chatting to us all about Hercules. If you enjoyed listening to Alastair, he really does have a wide array of publications out there beyond his work on history on film, and he's also a regular contributor to the conversation. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome
We return to the 410s BCE to explore some classic Conflict of the Orders. This one will end with an evil patrician plan (mwahahaha) to divide and conquer their plebeian foes.
Episode 141 – Divide and Conquer
Some Unfinished Business
The Romans had been engaged in battle with the Aequians when we last checked in on them. Due to some slappy fighting between the military tribunes with consular power, a dictator had been called in to get this military campaign back on track.
Quintus Servilius was chosen for their role, and he took his son along for the ride. Fortunately for this father-son duo, the Aequians were getting sloppy. Servilius took full advantage of their overconfidence and whipped the Romans into shape. He even ordered the death of a slightly hesitant standard-bearer! With the stern Servilius Snr in charge, the Romans manage to turn the tables on their enemies.
Roman standards were considered to be sacred by the legions. It is most unusual that the dictator ordered the death of a standard-bearer on the spot! Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The Land from Labici
Thanks to the defeat of the Labicani and the Aequians, the Romans finally have some new territory on their hands. Terrified that the tribunes of the plebs might try to redistribute the land, the Senate quickly established a colony in the new area.
Trouble from the Tribunes
The senators were probably right to be afraid, as two tribunes decided to put forward a new agrarian law. Land taken from the enemies of Rome should be split up and divvied up between the citizens. Cue some more Conflict of the Orders!
The patricians were alarmed by this outrageous proposal. The descendent of uber—patrician royalty, Appius Claudius, was there to steer the patricians down a nefarious path. It was time to take the tribunes of the plebs on; to divide and conquer…
Things To Look Out For:
Random facts about our family history
Us once again casting doubt on early Roman historical accounts
Class traitors… always look out for class traitors!
Classic Conflict of the Orders narratives
Our Players 418 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
Lucius Sergius C. f. C. n. Fidenas (Pat), previously consul in 437, 429; and previously military tribune with consular power in 433, 424
Marcus Papirius L. f. -. n. Mugillanus (Pat)
Gaius Servilius Q. f. C. n. Axilla (Pat), previously consul in 427, military tribune with consular power in the previous year 419
Dictator
Quintus Servilius P. f. Sp. n. Priscus Fidenas (Pat)
Master of the Horse
Gaius Servilius Q. f. C. n. Axilla (Pat) – upgraded from military tribune with consular power!
Censor
Lucius Papirius L. f. -. n. Mugillanus (Pat). Previously consul in 427 and military tribune with consular power 422.
Our Players 417 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
P. Lucretius Hosti f. – n. Tricipitinus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 419
Agrippa Menenius T.f. Agripp. n. Lanatus (Pat) Cos. 439, Mil. Tr. c.p. 419
C. Servilius Q. f. C. n. Axilla (or Structus) (Pat) Cos. 427, Mil. Tr. c.p. 419, 418
Sp. Rutilius Crassus
OR
Sp. Veturius Sp. f. Sp. n. Crassus Cicurinus (Pat)
Our Players 416 BCEMilitary Tribunes with Consular Power
A.Sempronius L. f. A. n. Atratinus (Pat) Cos. 428b, Mil. Tr. c.p. 425, 420.
M. Papirius L. f. – n. Mugillanus (Pat) Cos. 411, Mil. Tr. c.p. 418
Q. Fabius Q. f. M. n. Vibulanus (Pat) Cos. 423, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414
Sp. Nautius Sp. f. Sp. n. Rutilus (Pat) Cos. 411, Mil. Tr. c.p. 419, 404
Tribunes of the Plebs
S. Maecilius
(M.) Metilius
Our Sources
Dr G reads Fasti Capitolini, Fasti Minores (CIL 1(2).1,p 55, no.1); Diodorus Siculus 13.2.1; 13.7.1; 13.9.1
Dr Rad reads Livy ab Urbe Condita 4.45-49
Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
Sound Credits
Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects are courtesy of BBC Beta.
Automated Transcript
Courtesy of Otter AI.
Dr Rad 0:12 Welcome to the partial historians.
Dr G 0:15 We explore all the details of ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 0:20 Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad.
Dr G 0:30 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.
Dr Rad 0:41 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.
Dr G 0:59 Hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. G.
Dr Rad 1:08 And I'm very excited Dr. Racks are trying out a new setup.
Dr G 1:12 This may or may not succeed,
Dr Rad 1:15 it's gonna be the most interesting episode audio logically,
Dr G 1:20 we want to say a huge shout out thank you to our patrons, because it is through their support that we were able to invest in some new equipment, and everybody's gonna hear the results for better or worse.
Dr Rad 1:34 We are audio geniuses, of course, it's going to work out it's going to be amazing. Just your way. Yes. Now strategy, we are tracing the journey of hearing from the founding of the city. And I owe you and all of our listeners a big apology. Oh, did you break the history of Rome from the value of the city somehow I may just have. So last episode, I left you all on a cliffhanger, our dictator of 418 BC about to march out into battle. And I said I was finishing there because I thought we were heading into a new year. Turns out I was wrong. Oh no, I got confused. Because you see 417 and 416 are blended together. But 418 is in fact quite distinct.
Dr G 2:18 I have terrible news for you. You're gonna have to hand back in your PhD.
Dr Rad 2:23 I'll just be rad.
I hate it. I'm sorry. All right. So when we do the recap, therefore this episode, I am going to not only recap what happened last time, but also add some more information. Oh, excellent. All right. Well, let's get into where were we up to in this narrative anyway?
Well, so I believe we were up to 418 BCE last episode, and we ended up with some military Tribune's with consular power who could not get along to save themselves.
Tragedy. Yeah, Look, you know, arguments abound, poor strategic decisions were made. It wasn't great. And there was a man who was the father of one of these gentleman Quintus Servilius.
Sounds like I'm making fun of him whenever I use that V. But
Dr G 3:12 I mean, that's his name.
Dr Rad 3:15 I know, it just sounds funny. Like what does Servilius
Dr G 3:18 Is he asking for ridicule? perhaps, especially if I add on Quintus Servilius, Priscus Fidenas.
Dr Rad 3:26 So this guy had seen that there was going to be travelled because he it's actually only been what like maybe six or seven years, maybe eight Max, since we last had an issue where the commanders were arguing, and it led to military disaster for room. So he sees the writing on the wall, allegedly. And he basically makes sure that he and his son are going to be there and prepared to kind of step in and handle the situation, which he thinks is going to arise which is military disaster for the Romans.
Dr G 4:00 This is a typical elitist plan. Not only is he going to get himself into power, he's going to bring his son along with him, and it's all going to be great. It does seem suspicious that he and his son are the ones that you know, come in to do the whole here we come to save the day thing.
Dr Rad 4:16 I mean, yeah, I have some concerns. But you know, for 18 being what it is chaotic, fine, fine. Yes, exactly. So, essentially, the way that they did this is they made sure that not every available man had been sent out to face the Romans enemies who I should add the Aequians and the people of Labici.
Dr G 4:39 The Labicani, Yes, who re entered the narrative as one of the sort of like surrounding neighbours, who was a little bit upset with Rome for the way that Rome has treated them over and over again. And I think from what you said last time, they've been nursing this garage for almost 100 years now, pretty much as soon as the Republic is started. They've been upset.
Dr Rad 5:02 Oh No.
Yeah, exactly. So in 418 BC last episode, we finished up with the dictator Quintus Servilius and his master of the horse, which is his son, therefore, another Servilius marching out together to face the enemy with fresh troops after things predictably not going so well for the Romans. Yeah, yes, coming in to save the day. Exactly. Now, I did hint that the Aequians were in for some trouble at the end of last episode because they had been doing so well against the Romans because you know, the Romans are just too busy fighting too will fight each other I should say then to fightthat they also started to get sloppy.
the results of this was seen immediately. Dr. G. In the very first battle, you can see that the Aequians and their allies, the people of the Labicani are off their game,
Dr G 6:00 A little bit of a mess, a hot mess waiting to happen in the Castelli Romani region.
Dr Rad 6:05 Yeah, so the dictator Quintus Sebelius, he goes into battle leading hard with the cavalry, and the cavalry caused the entire front line of the Aequians to be disrupted. They're in chaos, Dr. G.
Speaker 2 6:20 Well, a dictator shows up and everybody runs for the hills, basically. Now this guy is super hardcore, because wait till I add this detail. So once they've sent the frontlines of the Aequians and the leper colony into chaos, he orders that the Romans sort of quick march and just advance quickly, I guess the idea being sort of overwhelmed them as fast as possible. And apparently one of the standard bearers kind of like hesitates. Now, I don't know if this means he's like, Wait, left, right? Where are we going? I don't know what hesitation he's giving like, did he cry..?
Dr Rad 6:52 Can we stop for for gelato? Guys, because I really need a break right now. Yeah, I don't know what the hesitation was. But whatever it was Servilius dictator does not take it kindly, and he has him killed on the spot.
Dr G 7:04 I would have thought that would be a bad omen. The standard bearer is a very important person. They're looking after the standard.
Dr Rad 7:11 I know, it seems so weird, but he was like he's getting cut down on the spot.
Dr G 7:16 I feel like the Romans who had viewed that would be shocked and traumatised.
Dr Rad 7:21 Well, apparently they're very excited. Dr. G. That's what they are very excited.
Dr G 7:25 These people will never cease to amaze me with their horrors.
Dr Rad 7:28 They're just like, You know what, we're just gonna give it our all. And so the Aequians and the leper colony quickly overwhelmed, they lose the battle, they flee the battlefield, they run back to their camp. Oh, how the tables have turned.
Dr G 7:41 So you're telling me that in the time of you've got to like get the troops roused up somehow that the best way to do that is to kill one of their own?
Dr Rad 7:48 Well, I don't know if they're excited because of the standard bearer staff. They're just excited because it seems that they're doing well, I think. Yeah, and I think they apparently invigorated by the energy of Quintus Servilius which is Stern.
Dr G 8:03 So invigorating, exactly.
Dr Rad 8:06 Silverfox Yeah, so wiliest, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, so the Romans are able to quite easily also capture the camp of the enemy. And of course, within the camp, there are many spoils she had
Dr G 8:19 Oh, booty,
Dr Rad 8:20 It is bootay time.
Dr G 8:23 I wonder where that leather armour went?
Dr Rad 8:25 Yes. As we've often pointed out, because they are fighting the same people and over again, we really feel like their possessions are just in rotation.
Dr G 8:32 It is tough out there. It takes a long time to make a full suit of armour. Yeah, of course, you want to steal it back.
Dr Rad 8:37 So Servilius, I guess to show his gratitude says that the soldiers may have the booty
Dr G 8:43 very generous.
Dr Rad 8:44 I know, I know. Now the Roman cavalry. Meanwhile, they are hard at work. They are chasing the Aequians with the remaining ones, I suppose as they run away from the camp. They've just been running all day or stuff out there. I mean, they're in a hilly region. It's not like this is an easy run. I know. And they come back and inform our dictator Servilius that the remaining Aequians and the Labicani who've managed to survive the slaughter up until this moment are all hiding in Labici.
Dr G 9:15 Yeah, fair enough. I mean, that's where I would hide as well with Rome's known enemy, who was also involved in the battle, but currently not being chased. Best place to hide
Dr Rad 9:23 so the Romans march off to Labici The next day, have a good rest beforehand. They quickly encircled us letters to get over the walls and completely ravaged this city. Oh, yeah. It's all in a very.
Dr G 9:39 I didn't even have a reaction to that. I'm just like, really? That's it?
Dr Rad 9:43 Because Livy's very precise in his details here. So Servilius marches back to room with his triumphant army and once he gets there, he hands back his powers and he had been dictator live. He tells me for a total of eight
Dr G 9:55 days. Wow, this is an exceptionally false cat. In pain I know, right? I mean, it would take at least until lunch on the first date of March there.
Dr Rad 10:05 Yeah. So it's considering that it's built up as being obviously, you know, a potential disaster for Rome, typically a bit suspiciously. The Romans bounce back very quickly and very easily.
Dr G 10:15 This is their way they love a good bounce back is it's
Dr Rad 10:18 just the way that the history has been written.
Dr G 10:24 I cannot possibly comment at this time.
Dr Rad 10:27 I demand answers. Now, obviously, we actually finally have a bit of expansion on our hand strategy,
Dr G 10:35 do we we do Oh, my goodness. And still in 418? Yeah,
Dr Rad 10:39 yeah. This is Oh, 418. Oh, yeah. So the Senate concerned because we now have the city of Labici in our evil imperialist clause. But there are concerns because you know, who else would like to have Labici?
Dr G 10:56 Is it the Aequians? No. I mean, the people who used to live there are lots
Dr Rad 11:02 of people that would like to have it. But I mean, within Rome. Oh, nice. Like to
Dr G 11:07 have people who would most like to have it in a row? Yeah. The military traders who control the power,
Dr Rad 11:12 kind of, but the people that the Senate are most concerned about are, of course, the tribune of the plebs and the people themselves. Wow, that makes sense. Yeah, they're very concerned that they're going to start buying off all this new land that's coming in from the Labican territory, so they very quickly hold a meeting and determined that they will establish a colony
Dr G 11:34 there. So land distribution is not on the table. Well,
Dr Rad 11:38 I think that's what they foresee. And they're like, No,
Dr G 11:42 that's not on my what
Dr Rad 11:44 No. So 1500 colonists are sent from Rome to this new colony. And they are apparently given five eighthsWe of an acre.
Dr G 11:54 Well, that's pretty good. That's more than people get today.
Dr Rad 11:57 Well apparently, my commentator thinks that the amount that is specified in Livy, would not be enough for a family to survive on and therefore, it's not really correct that he thinks they would have been given a lot more.
Dr G 12:12 Yeah, it is problematic. It might be enough for one person to grow some things but I don't know if it's enough for self sufficiency for a family.
Dr Rad 12:21 Yes, my commentator thinks that this amount that Livy's specifies must be more in reference to where his household gods would reside. Like this is the area in which his household essentially is being established.
Dr G 12:37 Ah, as in the building itself. Yeah,
Dr Rad 12:39 I guess so. Yeah. And this is like his little sacred land sort of thing of his of his skins. interesting theories. And that is actually where for 18 Should Have Ended?
Dr G 12:53 Well, under those circumstances, I'm willing to give Rome one more gold eagle for their expansion.
Dr Rad 13:00 Exactly. I mean, they're still gonna get it, they're just gonna get it a bit later. But that takes us into 417 BCE for me, Dr. G. Would you like to tell us who the magistrates are and I should say, I think we probably should go through 417 and 416 together because in my account, they are treated as really one in the same
Dr G 13:22 foreshadowing.
Dr Rad 13:32 Hey, listeners, do you enjoy awkward family dynamics, relationships between mortals and gods? Then you will love our book Rex: The seven kings of Rome. Rex is newly available in an ebook in the Amazon Kindle store and also on Gumroad however, if you're keen to get your hands on a printed copy, we still have a few left, and they are now being sold through Abby's bookstore in Sydney. And thanks so much to all those who've already bought a copy we really appreciate your support. And now back to the episode
Dr G 14:20 is 417 bc we have military tributes with concealer power. So first cab off the rank Publius Lucretius Hosti Tricipitinus I do not like this name. He has returned and I still don't like it.
Dr Rad 14:42 Ironically, Tricipitinus does not trip off the tongue.
Dr G 14:46 No, no, indeed. Previously military Tribune with consular power in 419. So very recent that we've had this sort of horror of pronounciation upon us He is joined by Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, also previously console in 439. And also previously military Tribune with Triciptinus that old chestnut in 419. So these two it's like being reunited for our whole new adventure.
Dr Rad 15:17 It is interesting that he had a gap of 20 years seemingly between holding magistracies Until Tricipitinus. Is is on the scene a year
Dr G 15:27 raising suspicions about Roman naming conventions. It might be fair enough. And we also have Gaius or potentially Lucius Servilius Axilla, or Structus. This guy we don't know. I mean, he's all over the shop name wise. But the good news is that he's on year three of his hat trick of military tribune with consular power. Not that he got to do much the previous year because he kind of got swept up in the whole being master of the horse instead business. Yeah, so this is the son of our dictator. This is the son of our dictator. So he was the one who was hanging around as the master of the horse in Rome. Last year. Yeah. For 18. Yes. The name confusion continues on Sky is a tricky one. Yeah, there is also Spurius Rutilius Crassus. I know offer this with massive question ma indeed, because it seems more likely that the fourth guy is not a Rutilius Crassus but is a Spurius Veturius Crassus Cicurinus. I mean, I don't know. But the problem with it being a Rutilius Crassus is that this is very much a plebeian name.
Yes. And we're not there yet, as we've established. Many and many
scholars don't agree on many things. But one of the things that they tend to agree on is that this is way too early for them to actually be a plebeian in this role.
Dr Rad 17:03 Unless, of course, it's all crap. And the Roman state isn't established the waiver and said it is and for the ins and patricians? Do they exist at this point in time? It is I'll have
Dr G 17:12 more to say on that topic later. So the trouble with the rebellious thing is that there's no routinely i in the fastI, as we are aware of it, yeah, for another 250 years. Yeah. And
Dr Rad 17:27 with Roman naming conventions, it feels really unlikely that you would just have one random guy from a family pop up, and then no one in the family pop up again.
Dr G 17:38 This is something that you build over time, and family reputation gets sort of baked in. And so you're expecting a slow progression of people to come into positions and then to be followed through by their relatives. And that's not what we see. In this case. We don't get a routine AI for ages. The praenomen Spurius doesn't go with this gens historically, from the examples that we do have, neither does the cognomen Crassus.
Dr Rad 18:00 Yes, exactly.
Dr G 18:01 So it's all just kind of speculation and wildness and probably not a plebeian sad news, because we're Pro Plebeian on this podcast. It's pretty clear. Yeah. And that is not what we're getting in 417 BCE.
Dr Rad 18:15 So should we do 416? Or do you have enough information to separate those years out?
Dr G 18:22 Don't be like that. What I can tell you is in terms of my source material, yeah, is that I have a little excerpt from the Fasti Capitolini Which basically proves that Lucretius Hosti is somebody that we should care about. Likewise, Agrippa Menenius and otherwise everybody else is up for grabs. And that Diodorus Siculus appears to be more on top of the names than Livy
Defeat I don't know people better the place than me seem to think that or Siculus got the information right
Dr Rad 19:04 this time. Fair enough. Fair enough. Look, it's not like Livy hasn't made a mistake with names before All right, well, shall we get it through for 16 then because as I say, this is a very blended together for me.
Dr G 19:17 Okay, so you've got some blending I've got a whole bunch of different names for 416
Dr Rad 19:21 No, no, I do like that. They are separate but I mean, the actions all blended together All right. Yeah.
Dr G 19:27 Okay, well, I feel sorry for the aforementioned players of 417
Dr Rad 19:32 out they're gonna come into it maybe the Chinese are a bit
Dr G 19:34 bit players at best. So our people for 416 We've got military tributes for cultural power again, yeah, Aulus Sempronius Atratinus
A name we know well by now.
Yeah. Previously consul in 428. Not a named consul, but one of the sort of suffect consul and also a military Tribune in 425 and 420. Oh, My other note is that despite his appearance in many years, he doesn't appear to have distinguished himself in any particular way.
Dr Rad 20:06 Well, this is the guy I think, who was accused of holding fake elections and it led to his relative being prosecuted.
Wow. And yet he's back. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's him. His reputation has recovered. Well, yeah, cuz I mean, it's just attributing to accused him of it and nobody pays attention to the interview. Oh, that's right.
Dr G 20:25 I listened to those guys that crazy. Yeah. And Marcus Papirius Mugillanus. Yes. Again, very familiar. Yes, very recently. Was military Tribune in 418. Yep. Quintus Fabius Vibulanus. Again, I've heard that name before console in 423. So you know, we're all coming about in the same sort of air. Yes. Spurius Nautius Rutilus. US military Tribune in 419.
Dr Rad 20:52 Noticing a bit of a bit of a trend Yeah. And
Dr G 20:56 some return of some players. Everybody sort of had a bit of a role before. Is this a sign of trouble afoot for row on the military front where they're like, You know what, we don't just need commanders we need experienced commanders might say something about that. Don't give the narrative away just yet. We also have two named tribune of the plebs. Yeah, as I understand it, Sextus Maecilius. And somebody who might be Marcus Metilius.
Dr Rad 21:27 Alright, so let me explain why, at least in my narrative, this all blends together a lot.
Dr G 21:34 All right. I'm looking forward to the tail. Well, yeah.
Dr Rad 21:36 I guess as as Livy's specifically notes that we do have a lot of repeat players this time around in both for 17. And for 16. And basically room is actually in quite a peaceful period externally. Allegedly, I'm a little bit suspicious because there are so many military Tribune's is constantly power. But also, I mean, it hasn't been very peaceful recently. This is true. Maybe it's just a precautionary measure, but not so peaceful. internally. Dr. G. Once again, agrarian issues come to the fore.
Dr G 22:10 Yeah, well, they didn't give me enough land this. I mean, how am I supposed to live?
Dr Rad 22:15 Yeah, well, not the not those issues. You might expect it will be the colonists, but it's not.
Dr G 22:19 It's not coming from the new colonists of the Labicani? Okay, yeah.
Dr Rad 22:24 So if the tribunes have got sort of causing problems, okay, our friend Maecilius, who apparently is serving for the fourth time as Tribune, and Metilius, who is apparently serving for the third time
Dr G 22:38 Oh, so we have some very experienced plebeians in the rows.
Dr Rad 22:42 Well, again, now, this is not to say that they didn't serve, but we haven't had any record of who's going
Dr G 22:50 to be like that. Obviously, they're preparing for the fourth and third time,
Dr Rad 22:53 we're just gonna have to take Livy's word for it that they have served previously. So these two Tribune's decided that they're going to put forward a law where land taken from the enemies of Rome should be split up and apostle given to each Roman citizen. So effectively, what they're doing is to take away the riches of the very wealthy. And the idea is that most of the really noble Gavin's in Rome would be hit and hit hard if they manage to pass this law. Now, there are a lot of red flags here, in case you're wondering. So the only new territory we've really mentioned of late is of course, Labici. Right. So you might be thinking that they're referring to that land specifically, but it doesn't seem like they are it kind of seems like maybe they mean, land in general. That room has been founded on territory that's been gradually one and pieced together. That's That's why they'd be hitting the families really hard.
Dr G 24:04 Okay, that sort of inch by inch, clawing it back from the list guns or something.
Dr Rad 24:10 Yeah. And it's also kind of insinuating that obviously, the idea is that land that is one in battle becomes part of the public land, and that the patricians are somehow monopolising that, or have monopolised that in the past and pavilions aren't just getting a Look in at all. But as we've talked about before, this isn't a rich versus poor divide. We do have wealthy plebeians. And so this kind of asks us to believe that the only way wealthy plebeians have acquired land is by buying it somehow when it comes up for sale. It just it just raises a lot of questions about how exactly this is working. Do they just mean the new colony? are they referring more broadly to other things? It's a bit up in question. But certainly the tribunes feel that this is fair because they think hardly any land within room or outside of it has not been won by fighting. And yet the patricians hold most of the land. And so obviously, this is the ill feeling that they're tapping into.
Dr G 25:17 Yeah. And that seems appropriate. And it's trying to think about how would an ancient economy navigate things like this? So like, how is wealth characterised? And how do you come into the acquisition of land? And how do you retain it? Because it's not like you necessarily have like a piece of paper? We have, we're thinking about the foundation of the city itself. You've got stones that mark out areas? Yeah, you know, so if a family goes out and sticks some stone somewhere overnight, who knows? Like, does that make it legal? How does it operate in a practical sense? And if are you capable of only possessing the things that you can fight for and then win? Yeah. Because then your gains become super important to your land holdings, because part of the function of again, is to come together as a war band, and to protect property ownership. Yes. So the bigger the gains, the more powerful the more potential. So it might not necessarily be about wealth acquisition, outside in an economical sense, because that might not be the sort of power you need to be able to take land and then retain it.
Dr Rad 26:26 Well, and this is exactly I think, this kind of story. I mean, Look, I should perhaps say that people are very dubious about whether this ever happened because it is just such a classic conflicts between the patricians and plebeians, you know, the squaring off against each other. People are very dubious about whether this actually happened, particularly because we're the character of Metilius. There's been questions raised about whether that name was injected potentially by one Dionysius of Halicarnassus because his patrons were Metiliii…
Dr G 27:00 Well, Well, Well, trash talk.
Dr Rad 27:05 Exactly. But there have been questions raised certainly about the veracity of these events. However, I think if we do Look at this story, it would again suggest that Rome is far more disorganised tribal and warlord ish, which is totally legitimate academic word, then it is being
Dr G 27:26 described in our literary material from hundreds of years later.
Dr Rad 27:29 Exactly, exactly. But Livy and Dionysius are making it seem like there's a really organised state with a very clear career progression and
Dr G 27:39 yeah, and highly D alienated class system already in
Dr Rad 27:42 play. Yeah. Which seems unlikely. If you Look at this sort of story.
Dr G 27:46 Well, there's no reason why you wouldn't have a hierarchical system of some kind happening. So how does it unfold in practical terms, and is what the sources telling us the most likely implausible explanation for what was happening in the past based on other things that we might be able to find out. And this is the part of the trouble that we have generally with this period is that we have so little extant material from other sources to be able to sort of CO opt into something that might be a narrative. We've got archaeological remains, and we've got a little bit of epigraphy. And we've got this and that, and they're, they're there. But they're not necessarily providing that wholesale sort of sweeping narrative that our riders later on are able to produce and then go on to survive. So we're a little bit hampered by what we have access to.
Dr Rad 28:38 Exactly. So if I am going to proceed with this story, let's obviously pretend that we believe everything Livy's saying,
Dr G 28:46 I'm so excited for when I'm gonna let you tell your story. And then I'm gonna maybe I'll do is I'll do some things.
Dr Rad 28:52 All right, so the military tribune's with consular power had been consulting with the Senate. So obviously a bit more of an official public kind of consultation that's going on, but they also are having little private teetotalers with the leading men. So I would read the men with the most doctorates as potentially the most wealth, and certainly substantial political and military experience behind them. And in this narrative, definitely patricians and they're trying to come up with an evil plan to defeat the tribune of the plebs. Now live he doesn't explicitly say at this point, so the story goes, which makes it sound incredibly like hearsay that's this is where one Appius Claudius enters our narrative. Oh, no,
Dr G 29:45 no, no, I'm still I'm still dealing with my trauma for the last FAS Clodius they caught me back No.
Dr Rad 29:53 So Appius Claudius. Now dear listeners room and naming conventions strike again. This is not the The Appius Claudius of infamy, but the grandson of the decimvir, who you may be recalling the one that had organised the potential abduction with the idea of obviously making her sexually subservient to him of Virginia, the plebeian maid.
Dr G 30:19 Yes. what a what a man who could forget
Dr Rad 30:22 now this Appius Claudius is the youngest man in the Senate. Cute. Yeah. No.
Dr G 30:28 How old is he
Dr Rad 30:29 doesn't say, I mean, it could be 30. I mean, even 40. Really?
Dr G 30:35 I was gonna say, the Spry 42. Exactly,
Dr Rad 30:39 exactly. Now, he decides that he's going to put forward an old idea from way back in the day from his family. Oh, yeah. You know, it's gonna be awful. So this comes from not the desam there, but an even even Appius. Claudius. Yes. Now, there are some disputes about exactly how great this grandfather is. Is it his great grandfather or his great, great grandfather? But either way, his name is still Appius Claudius.
Dr G 31:09 It doesn't matter how far back you go. It's Appius Claudius all the way down.
Dr Rad 31:13 We think that this particular Appius Claudius would have been his great grandfather who was consul in 471 That he's throwing back to him. Yeah, the the good old days. Yeah. So Appius Claudius reminds his fellow senators that a good way to destroy the power of the Tribune's of the plebs, is by harnessing the veto power of other Tribune's of the plebs, in other words, turning them against each other divide and conquer my friend, exactly. I do remember talking about this. He says, It's not that hard. Because elite men in Rome just have to choose someone who's not as experienced not as established amongst the tribunes and use their influence to turn them against their colleagues and use them for their own advantage. Because the whole idea, of course, is that there's obviously more than just these two Tribune's who are serving at this point in time. These attributes, however, are getting all the notoriety they're sucking all the air out of the room, Dr. G, by causing issues and trying to win popularity with the people. What about those that are left behind in the background? Dr. G, what about the wallflower Tribune's? What about them?
Dr G 32:27 What about the quiet Romans? Exactly.
Dr Rad 32:30 So instead, one way that they could advance their career path is by getting on the good side of the whole Senate by really helping them out doing a solid, you know, by turning on their tribute and colleagues, and particularly in it for them favour favour. Especially currying favour with the leading senators. Well, well, well yeah. Now the Senate is really like this flat because
Dr G 33:02 that's the kind of plan where they get to do exactly what they like and maybe they have to throw a nice dinner party later and and fight this guy that they don't even care about once.
Dr Rad 33:11 Exactly. And so it is on like Donkey Kong, they Cana then listed. All the senators are also very impressed with Appius. Claudius, especially.
Dr G 33:24 It's kind of hilarious. Be like, why did we think of that? Like, dude, you'd have thought of that?
Dr Rad 33:29 Especially Quintus Servilius Priscus, our dictator from the previous year who's clearly an Uber for attrition, so he says to Appius Claudius, you're living up to the Guardian name your young whippersnapper pipit carry on.
Dr G 33:45 I love it carry on the great tradition of your forebears.
Dr Rad 33:49 Yes. And so all members of the Senate are given a mission possible. We're going to talk to a tribune of the plebs and try and get them to use their veto. So three promising favours personal gratitude, as well as also I think, a bit of a mixture of, you know, threats, they managed to win over six of the tribunes of the plebs today aside, wow.
Dr G 34:14 And we've only got two names.
Dr Rad 34:16 I know. Me as traitors. Yeah. They change to the dustbin.
Dr G 34:23 Gordon reason day, you'd be a class trader.
Dr Rad 34:26 Exactly. So the following day, the Senate set the plan into motion. So let's start by discussing the issues raised by my Caelius Antonius. The leading senators then get up and make speeches about what they have proposed, all very, as we would expect, they then beseech the tribunes to protect the Republic, don't stand against this law, put forward by their colleagues.
Dr G 34:50 She's in danger. Somebody's got to Look after
Dr Rad 34:53 Yes, they will. Like Tribune's can do more than just create problems between the patricians and plebeians. If you can stop your colleagues from harming
Dr G 35:04 the state, yeah, you can solve problems.
Dr Rad 35:07 Yeah. And so all the senators call on the tribunes to come to their aid and as dire out of need. And the tribunes, who had been won over now spoke up and said they were only too happy to use their veto against this proposal. And the Senate version. Thanks. Wow. Yeah,
Dr G 35:26 I'm very disappointed. I know. But we get so close to land reform, and then it just snatched away in an instant. Yeah,
Dr Rad 35:33 Maecilius and Metilius can't really do much anymore. Apart from summit and assembly.Call all these tribunes that agreed with the Senate turncoats and class traitors and lots of other nasty names. They rant and rave and then they grumpily agreed to put an end to their proposal. Wow. And that is when 417. And 416.
Dr G 35:55 It's a bit of a mess, isn't it?
Dr Rad 35:57 It is Look, I mean, number one, it suggests that there isn't necessarily just like this clear classifier that you are patrician, or you're playing. As we've talked about before, it would be highly possible if we accept that these two different classes exist that wealthy affiliates actually have more in common with patricians than they do perhaps, you know, people who are like really low down in terms of their socio economic status. However, it does also suggest to me that potentially, maybe some of the problems are being blamed on the plebeians. Possibly, I mean, I have no basis for this, apart from the fact that I think Louis is very pretty patrician.
Dr G 36:38 Yeah. So like, how does Roman politics work? And like, what are the sort of like class politics, not just class politics, but you know, how does the society function through the decisions that are has to make as a collective like part of the point of having something like Rome, which is functioning like a city state at this point? How does it navigate the requirements that are coming up from its citizen body? And part of that might have to be an acknowledgement that we're dealing with the cream of the crop here? Yeah, almost at all times. We very rarely actually get to see people, or and we certainly don't get the perspectives of people who are living their daily lives in the struggle, and tend to be then co opted and levied into the army, yeah, for some sort of military action, and then returned home or not, depending on what happens. Yeah, otherwise, we're dealing with what seems to be this sort of finicky interest group of people jostling at the very top, who wants something a little bit more than they've already got, and can't quite agree on how they're going to make it work. And the people who have things already, obviously, have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and the people who are on the edge of that are looking in and being like, I'm so close to having that they don't want to take down the system necessarily. They want to be firmly embedded in the system at the very top.
Dr Rad 38:01 Exactly. And that's also I think, feeds into this idea. I feel like we see more corruption on the side of the plebeians, and we do to patricians, it's not that you don't ever see, like class traitors on either side, you do, we've talked about them before the patrician ones tend to get killed.
Dr G 38:17 There's been some great instances of prescriptions that have sort of elevated plebeian causes or taking the side of the tribunes at certain points in time. But the way that our source material is navigating that is to suggest that maybe that was problematic at best.
Dr Rad 38:32 Yeah. And I just feel like that's plebeians come off. In a worse light more often, particularly the tribune of the plebs, they're either causing issues causing problems, or they're betraying each other to get ahead, but it just doesn't come up. Something about it just makes me suspicious and makes me think, Hmm, what are you about young Livy?
Dr G 38:54 I think it's worth being suspicious. I mean, Livy is writing under Augustus, essentially. And this means that his perspective on Rome is a very different world from the world that he's writing about in this period of his history, too. So there is that fact, first and foremost, but so the political context is very different. But also, who is his intended audience? Is it other Romans, and then again, which other Romans, he's writing in Latin, he's writing for somebody. So those sorts of questions start to raise themselves as well. And we're dealing with this period where, from our perspective, now, we've got very little to counteract a narrative presented to us like the one that Livy's offers.
Dr Rad 39:37 Well, it's so bizarre to me, because of course, by his own time, being patrician or being plebeian, it barely matters anymore. Like it does matter for a few things. But it's certainly not a barrier to success. You know, if you're if you're from the plebeian classes, you can indeed be very wealthy and be involved in politics. So it's weird to me sometimes I suppose when we see these sorts of things, but as we talk about that when we see the blending of patrician and pavilions gradually over time, it's still just the elite. It's just the elite that are at the top there, and therefore, who he's writing for is the elite. And even though, you know, fortunes rise and fall for families, and that's one thing over time, but we do often have similar families, I think, who are going to be at the top for substantial periods of time, I think
Dr G 40:23 in if we're thinking about Livy, and what's going on with patricians and plebeians, my flesh rabbits, yes. And we certainly see that some people do change from one to the others might distinctly and there's various ways to do that. And I think that tells us that gives us some indication of the nature of what we might think of today as class. And I'm using this as an analogy. It's not, it's not something that you could base or hinge everything on. But in the way in which a class society and I thinking of the English in particular, because I think they form a great example, Australians like to think they don't have class. And that is problematic in itself. But the English definitely recognised class as a category. And if you're born into an upper middle class family, that's very different from being the lowest here of the aristocracy. And everybody knows it. And it almost doesn't matter how much you achieve in your life. It's very different, very difficult to shift from upper middle class into the aristocracy. You know, there was a huge barrier there. Yeah. So I think this is one of those things where the Romans might be in that kind of situation where it's like, everybody knows precisely where you sit. Yeah. And it's very difficult to move. Very rare cases of it happening. Yeah. And it does have, it probably has an effect on the way you think about yourself as a Roman, what kind of Roman i So I wonder, but I said I was going to break some stuff.
Dr Rad 41:49 I was gonna say I'm waiting for your electrifying details. So to GE,
Dr G 41:52 well, in the absence of my source material, I went to the secondary scholarship.
Dr Rad 41:56 ood
Dr G 41:58 tell me Well, so I was like, you know, let's find out some more about what's happening in this period. If we can get what your school is reckon might be happening. I mean, we're all dealing with very sort of small amounts of information. How do we do anything? Yeah. And I started reading Holloway's article from 2008. Who were the tribuni militum consulare potestate? Who were they? Who were the military tribunes with consular power? Yeah. And his position or their position, I should say, because I don't know the gender of their position seems to be that. What if the fastI and the list that we have for magistrates were really retrogene actually made up? Once people started writing down history?
Dr Rad 42:47 This is very much in keeping with what we've just.
Dr G 42:51 Yeah, so what if it is the case that you know, people in like the first century BC decided to write some mysteries and the like, is going to be great. They're like, where do I start? And like, there are no records. There were literally direct
Dr Rad 43:03 material guys. Yeah, that's really tough.
Dr G 43:05 How do I write this? You know? And what they then do, is they do what we we've talked about this before they go to family archives, yeah. Walk into people's houses, and people have their family trees on display, essentially with the Margot's?
Dr Rad 43:20 Absolutely, I mean, that that would definitely be a source that would exist because the Romans are super into their families,
Dr G 43:25 super into their families. And so the masks of their deceased ancestors are all displayed on the wall and you know, presumably in some sort of order, which gives you a sense of their illustriousness, or their antiquity, etc, etc. Yes, but obviously, that's one element of it. He then also talks about how Cicero warns everybody against believing family archives, were like, you know, people make up some stuff for that, you know?
Dr Rad 43:50 Well, yes. But Cicero was also fairly new. He
Dr G 43:54 was a novice. Homer really is true. Yeah. Didn't have an ancestor to his name. So Cicero is, you know, sort of like, be careful, because people exaggerate their achievements, which I think fair, cool. Yeah. They also might falsely tell people about magistracies that they've held that they've never
Dr Rad 44:10 held, because he's going to be added yet.
Dr G 44:12 Coombe lenient? Yeah. And Spurius genealogies, like where did your family come from? That's like, Oh, come on. I'm a routine alias. Obviously.
Dr Rad 44:23 This again, is giving me such America, you know, 19th century. It's like, Where does your family come from? Really?
Dr G 44:31 Really? Yeah, like you can just make stuff up. It's not very far back in my own family's history where people were making stuff up. I know about that. But I don't know. Don't go checking everybody.
Dr Rad 44:45 And jump to Ge Ge was a GE
Dr G 44:48 Search carefully. As single letter, what can you discover? We also have this idea that perhaps we've got the fastI but Holloway is kind of like maybe we don't have the facts. St may be the first to our creation once people start writing that narrative history, and they need to fill in the blanks. And they're consulting these family archives, and there are too many names. And too many people hold too many positions, right? You know, so then they get into this situation be like, Well, how do I resolve this? I got a lot of names now. And it's like, there's only supposed to be two people per Yeah. And now I've got like, six people, you know, I've got like, you know, 200 names, and I need to like figure out the next 25 years, like, how am I going to do that? So they
Dr Rad 45:29 invented a position?
Dr G 45:33 I don't necessarily what is say that they did. But I think we have to put it out there as a reasonable potential. Because if people are not necessarily counting things out specifically themselves within their family genealogies, they're just kind of like I have an illustrious ancestor, and they will console three times. And that's a story that's handed down in your family. Yeah. So one of the stories that's handed down in my family is that we're related to Samuel Johnson. Oh, no. Which is a great story, but not true.
Dr Rad 46:02 Interesting. Well, I'm related to King Henry the sixth, which is true, because it's not a brag. Terrible.
Dr G 46:11 Wow. How do you get back that far? Look at you. I didn't know I was doing a podcast with royalty.
Dr Rad 46:17 Are you kidding? It was clearly obvious from day one.
Dr G 46:21 I should have picked it. Damn it.
Dr Rad 46:25 I mean, this is the thing. This is just what I've been told, I actually have no idea whether it's true or not. I'm trusting the genealogical research of my relatives, which may very well be flawed.
Dr G 46:35 Interesting. Yeah. So my mother is a genealogist. And maybe that's where I get my historical interest from. But yeah, she's searched far and wide to sort of back up this claim. And yeah, there doesn't seem to be a way to do it. So I think that sort of stuff is fascinating, because that is a sort of an apocryphal story of our family totally. And you're like, I don't know if we can substantiate that. And, you know, that's the distance but of what 400 or something years, and I'm like, This is what happens when people tell stories. And then they're sort of reified through the retelling. And maybe they can become more exaggerated over time. And then all of a sudden, you've got too many people and not enough years, and you're writing an animalistic history, and you have to solve that problem. Somehow,
Dr Rad 47:19 hi, they didn't have consuls, they had something else and they were allowed to have more than two
Dr G 47:24 years, something with consular power. Very good
Dr Rad 47:30 military stuff with the tribes of Rome.
Dr G 47:33 Fascinating. Fascinating. Yes, I like it. Let's do that.
Dr Rad 47:37 That way, we can all have illustrious relatives. You get a consul and you get a consul, you get a consul. So
Dr G 47:44 Indeed, indeed. And so one of the other things that Holloway is pretty suspicious of is the Annales Maximi, which is the Pontifical record. And
Dr Rad 47:55 g is the basis for so much of your beliefs.
Dr G 48:00 Just putting it out there, I'm just raising more doubts and just deal listeners. Yeah, if you're ever in doubt about Roman history, this is the episode for you. So there's apparently 80 books of the finales maximum, right. And Holloway is kind of like, but they what do they even have in them? Like, it's just going to be an oddball collection of stuff that probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Gonna stay close to the chicken. Then there are the linen books. He talks about these before. Yes, because cost of living Yeah, preserved in the temple of Juno monitor. And also cited by Linnaeus Mesa and Eilis tuber, other writers that we only have fragments of indeed,
Dr Rad 48:38 also cited by with me. And yes, I think I think the whole idea is that levy has potentially some information from living in books via his sources that use
Dr G 48:49 them. Oh, there doesn't seem to be a consensus about the quality of the information in the linen books. There's potential for disagreement within those as well, actually. So that's good. And, you know, so this leaves us in a situation where, what is the history of where we're getting rapidly towards the end of the fifth century BCE? We were heading there now. But this is a period where so little is something that we can hold on to as like, fact.
Dr Rad 49:19 Well, particularly because I think we've mentioned this in quite a few episodes, when we get to these really confusing times where people are saying, Ah, that's it didn't really happen, and those people probably didn't really exist and they just made up names and it starts to make you question, what am I even doing? Right when it seems so doubtful, but as we talked about before, there is this real turning point where allegedly room is destroyed, razed to the ground, lots of records destroyed, and that our records will presumably get a bit more reliable once Rome itself and its record keeping is a little bit more protected from external attack and that sort of thing. But I mean, to be honest, even after that, you know, still had a lot of bloody fires in your nose was being destroyed?
Dr G 50:07 Well, exactly. And I think there's always a value in considering how people writing about history within a society are thinking about their own society as well. And even if, at best, what we're learning is what did Livy's and Dionysius and other sort of first century BC or C authors really think about this really early period of their own history? I still think that's a really valuable sort of tool because it provides the mindset for people of the day do then think about, well, if this is what Rome is, how do I operate from here? How do I fit into this? And how can I push and change from within this context? A shared understanding of history is one that allows you to make different decisions. Yes.
Dr Rad 50:49 And who are we to question Livy? Really?
Dr G 50:55 I mean, so I'm Dr. G. And I use that as my basis for being able to Livy's At times,
Dr Rad 51:03 I know very realistically there, even though he is writing many centuries after we are podcasting 1000s of years after, so, I'm hoping that somewhere he had access to better sources.
Dr G 51:16 I mean, I'd like to think so.
Dr Rad 51:19 Or identity. So I think that brings us to the end of our episode or 417 and 416, which was seemingly really more about 416.
Dr G 51:30 Nobody got to Look at in from 470 really know
Dr Rad 51:33 that anyway. It's done for the Partial Pick.
All right, Dr G, tell us how does the Partial Pick?
Dr G 51:46 There are 50 Golden Eagles up for grabs. 10 across five categories? Yeah, the higher the Eagles score, the greater room is.
Dr Rad 51:57 Alright, so what's our first category? Military clout? Okay, well, there is definitely some stuff here. I mean, not so much 417 and 416. But because I left the tail end before it taken out. We do have some victories we do
Dr G 52:10 a victory over what the Aequians and the in the Labicani really? Yes.
Dr Rad 52:15 I mean, it's one of those stories where always when Rome hits problems, we then get a story very soon after, where they just sweep everything before them. Effortless, easy, simple. But nonetheless, it happened to
Dr G 52:30 you telling me there's some kind of narrative flow that you can detect in the history,
Dr Rad 52:34 the ebbs and flows, but nonetheless, we are told that they are victorious. And, and how I mean, they not only manage to beat them, but
Dr G 52:42 a shout out to those letters really rapidly. Yeah,
Dr Rad 52:45 they captured they can they made them run away to a nearby city to take refuge and they captured that city and took all the beauty from that. And then they set up a colleague. Oh, my God. That's a lot of military class.
Dr G 52:56 Oh, give them to what? Just because you think it didn't really haven't? No. Doctors? I mean, they've only taken one place.
Dr Rad 53:08 Do you know how long it's been since they're
Dr G 53:11 willing to up it to three?
Dr Rad 53:12 I think they do deserve a three. I mean, it is a little suspicious that this guy didn't get to travel anything, huh? Indeed. Very. All right. Well
Dr G 53:22 gave me three diplomacy. No. Yeah, it was pretty abject failure. In fact, the patricians are trying to really ruin the potential for diplomacy internally. Yeah. Getting some of the tribune of the plebs on the on their side.
Dr Rad 53:38 Well, I mean, I guess that is diplomatic, and that they're not stabbing them in the streets. But I think I think there's again, as we keep coming back to I think there's a difference between being slightly diplomatic and mostly manipulative, and actual diplomacy.
Dr G 53:53 Yeah, yeah. So I'm giving them zero for that.
Dr Rad 53:55 I agree. Expansion. Yes. Yes. 1000 times? Yes.
Dr G 54:02 We have a whole new colony now. Do you? Oh, my God, the love and Connie are probably pretty unhappy. We'll see how that turns out.
Dr Rad 54:10 If they felt they started this century. I'm happy. It's only getting worse. And yet well, so what are we saying? We've got to call any reasonable amount of people. They're all given a bit of land for.
Dr G 54:23 Not enough to live off. Well, I
Dr Rad 54:25 mean, as we say, this could just be a misunderstanding.
Dr G 54:26 All right, for we're to us.
Dr Rad 54:31 Look, we do have some news for patrician douchebags on the scene, but I'm not sure if it's quiet enough.
Dr G 54:36 Yeah. I don't think they're necessarily engaging you weird to us.
Dr Rad 54:40 Yeah. I mean, is killing your standard bearer. sign of weakness.
Dr G 54:44 I feel like I need more details to be able to clarify, because it might well be, but I don't know. I feel like no citizen score.
Dr Rad 54:52 Hmm. Well, I mean, I guess there is a new colony being set up but the way the tribune is carrying on I feel like it's not been good news for the people. While
Dr G 55:00 it does seem like they're getting the raw end of the prawn, so to speak,
Dr Rad 55:05 yeah, and then the tribunes betray may cause so that can't be so not ideal if you're a citizen. No, no, not positive. So is that a zero?
Dr G 55:15 I think that might be a zero.
Dr Rad 55:18 I mean, on the other hand, though, I'm just going to throw it out there. There is peace in 417 and 416. All the problems are internal, which means no war, no levee. After you farm, see the kids?
Dr G 55:32 Yeah, sure. But you're not getting any land or you're not any
Dr Rad 55:35 more land. I mean, this is what we've often talked about, is the absence of war worth a point or is it?
Dr G 55:46 I think it's a case by case basis. But if we want them to have not an objectively low score, perhaps we could give them one.
Dr Rad 55:53 Well, Look, I don't mind having a low score. I guess I'm just wondering if the absence of war isn't itself something we maybe have to recognise,
Dr G 56:01 I think, well, I mean, not going to war is great. But also they were trying for some things at home, which didn't really get pulled off at all. So I feel like it's risky.
Dr Rad 56:13 Yeah. Okay. So probably easier than yes. We get data love seven out of 50 Golden Eagles for two and a half years of Roman history.
Dr G 56:28 Boy, ancient Rome.
Dr Rad 56:31 Yes. Didn't. Don't why studied you for so long.
Dr G 56:36 They get good later, I think. Yeah, I've heard a rumour. But it just depends.
Dr Rad 56:43 Well, did you thank you once again for joining me to talk about the history of rain from the founding of the city.
Dr G 56:50 It has been an absolute pleasure, and I Look forward to continuing the journey with you soon
Dr Rad 56:56 indeed.
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