Andrew Dalby

I have a reference which might (or might not) help: Keith Hopkins, 'Taxes and trade in the Roman Empire (200 BC-AD 400)' in \Journal of Roman studies\ vol. 70 (1980) pp. 101-125. I mention it because (a) Hopkins tried to do large scale calculations, similar to those in this thread, and ( because I think he also wrote at least one full-length book on this kind of topic. Population, if not land area, certainly interest him. So try searching for Keith Hopkins. I guess the land area calculations in this thread must now be pretty close to the truth. There is just one problem as I see it: some frontier areas were very 'grey' indeed. I think that's the case with Dacia (you can see very different borders on different maps). The same with North Africa: in places there was a fairly well-defined border, in places not. You might also put Cornwall, and maybe some other northern and western parts of Britain, in the same category: in such places, what did Roman rule consist of, exactly?

Not so easy is it? I was born in northern England, but possibly Viking in far-off origin (my name Dalby is Scandinavian) -- but my aunt insisted we were French (d'Albi) which might even make my ancestors Albigensians or Cathars. Which should I go with?

Yes, quite right, there is something in this. Whether 'truth' is in it is more doubtful. There was a document known as Alexander's Last Plans, which did include plans for conquests in Europe. Who made the document, that's the question. I can't find any details right now: can anyone help me? But Richard Stoneman, in his introduction to his translation of 'The Greek Alexander Romance' (1991: p. 4) confirms that after Alexander's death 'Among his papers were controversial documents including his Last Plans -- for conquest of the West'.

The Muse in question is Clio. Since there were actually no 'history students' in the ancient world, I think that (as Ursus already suggests) it comes down to a fight between her and Athena. Incidentally, Athena was also the goddess of Athens, a place where lots of young Romans went to study.

There's never any sorrel around when you need it. In our garden, the slugs seem to get most of it. Perhaps they need it even more than I do. As for wine skins, two types are recorded, so far as I can think. A. The personal goat skin. This is what Odysseus was carrying when he landed in the Cyclops's cave, and lucky he was, because there was enough in it to intoxicate the Cyclops. The rest is history (or mythology). B. The mass distribution ox skin. The skin of a whole ox, tied off at the feet, I'm not sure whether you fill it and empty it from the neck end or the other end: does anyone know? The Latin word for an ox skin is culleus, which is therefore also a Latin measure of liquid volume: 1 culleus = 20 amphorae = 960 sextarii (525 litres, 115 UK gallons, 139 US gallons). I worked all this out for my translation of Cato On Farming. Cato, who was no fool when it came to portion control, gives careful instructions for how to measure out a precise culleus of wine when a farmer is selling wine in bulk. And the answer is not 'just fill up my ox skin', because your ox might well have been fatter than the Roman standard. The ox skin was transported (naturally) on an ox cart. Imagine those oxen thinking to themselves, as they pull the great sagging thing along a Roman road, 'When will it be my turn for a skinful?'

That's one of the more likely claims. Venus was very active, you know.

I like Psellus, and maybe for some of the same reasons I like Suetonius. He gives a personal view, and a close insight into what at least one person felt, living through a period of history, and close to the centre of power. OK, he's self-important, which Suetonius isn't. But he was there, and I'm glad he said what he thought about these people! You have to take his book as a diary rather than a chronicle. Because that's the kind of book it is, we know things about those thirteen rulers that we don't know about many other Byzantine emperors. For example, we have the picture of Zoe (was it Zoe?) getting her servants to work boiling up spices and making aromatics and stinking out the palace. I would call it Psellus, Chronog. As a former librarian, I don't like abbreviations, because they make it difficult for students to find things in catalogues; but I know most classicists love them.

Maybe a medical historian will contradict me, but I thought the general opinion was that syphilis was completely unknown in Europe, Asia and Africa until Columbus's voyages, after which it rapidly spread (for some reason ...), initially via Spanish soldiers who were fighting in Italy. There are lots of interesting facts and near-facts about Caesar, but not this one. I think you should give this teacher a photocopy of the relevant pages from Suetonius, as an encouragement to stick closer to the evidence.

Agreed! But when it comes to vowels, Romanian has a middle vowel, quite unusual in European languages but familiar in Russian. It is spelt

There is a certain language family, almost as numerous as the Indo-European family and traceable a bit further back in time, called Afroasiatic (an older alternative name, still often used, is Hamito-Semitic). It looks as though proto-Afroasiatic was spoken, ten thousand or more likely fifteen thousand years ago, somewhere around the Horn of Africa (northeast Africa, Kenya/Somalia/Ethiopia). These languages spread gradually westwards, and, in the path of this slow movement, offshoots or subgroups of Afroasiatic can be traced: Nilotic and Omotic languages in southern Ethiopia and Sudan, Chadic languages in Chad and northern Nigeria (Hausa, a major language of Nigeria, is one of these) ... Then, still many thousands of years ago, some speakers must have moved north across what is now the Sahara, and the next traceable offshoot is the group of languages now called Berber, which, as Rameses said above, is spoken across north Africa from the western oases of Egypt all the way to Morocco and Mauritania. And, by the way, the modern Berber languages are the same in origin as the Libyan and Numidian language(s) of the Roman period. To finish the story, the next significant move was westwards again, and therefore the next offshoot of this language family is ancient Egyptian (the parent of Coptic, spoken in Egypt until modern times). The last major offshoot is the Semitic languages, including Assyrian (Akkadian), Arabic, Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic. And, to round off the circle, an offshoot of Semitic was taken south again by a much later migration, which is why Amharic, Tigrinya and other languages of central and northern Ethiopia are Semitic languages too. I do languages -- I leave DNA and archaeology to others. But clearly some very long term migrations followed the route that I've sketched out here. It has been said by some that the proto-Berber-pre-Egyptian-prepre-Semitic group, gradually migrating north across the Sahara maybe about 7000 BC, were the first people to domesticate cattle. Others dispute it.

It's about the fighting on the borders between Christians and Muslims, between the Byzantines on one side and the Arabs or Turks on the other -- and not just fighting, but marriages and alliances across the border too. Set in eastern Anatolia, at a vague date maybe 8th to 10th centuries AD. Digenis is 'twice born' (a strange nickname) meaning that he had parentage on both sides -- he came from one of these Christian-Muslim marriages. There's a translation by John Mavrogordato, which is a bit dull to read (I think), and another by David Ricks (1990) which I haven't seen. The title can be spelt in different ways, but I expect these names would come up on Amazon.

Very sad, and very true. I wish that we were not repeating that particular segment of history -- Crusades, wars of religion -- but I'm afraid we are. Had you read, Rameses, how Polybius explains his reasons for writing his history (of the rise of Rome and the Carthaginian wars)? Mankind possesses no better guide to conduct than the knowledge of the past. (Polybius, Histories, book 1, chapter 1)

Here's a relevant quote from Suetonius: Sometimes plays were shown in all the various City districts, and on several stages, the actors speaking the appropriate local language. Suetonius, Augustus 43. Translation by Robert Graves. Actually (I've just checked) Graves is over-translating, as he sometimes does. Suetonius doesn't say 'local languages', he says 'all the languages' (omnium linguarum). Now it's not totally clear which languages these would be. No doubt certain Roman districts were full of Greeks or Syrians or north Africans, etc., very much as in a modern international city, and you would put on plays for them. But it seems likely that one of the languages would be Oscan, especially because Oscan was a major language of the theatre in the Republican period. My understanding, from what I've read, is that quite a few local languages -- the ones already named in this thread -- were used for inscriptions up to the early years of the Empire. After that, very few, except the major languages of the East (Greek, Coptic, Aramaic, Nabataean Arabic). Latin was clearly spreading, as the 'lingua franca' of the Empire, very rapidly in the Imperial period. When a language 'died out' is a very difficult question. That means when the last children cease to be brought up to speak it, and, two generations later, when the last old people who currently speak it die. We have no records of exactly those details for the Roman period. It's difficult enough to be sure of such things in the modern world.

Scerio, where was the inscription found? Does Warmington say?

An even more interesting question, to which Pertinax has directed my attention, is: what to drink with them? (I refer now to oysters, not prostitutes, though I believe champagne has been found acceptable in both cases). The curious thing is, I can't think of a single ancient text that says such-and-such a wine must go with such-and-such a food. Surely they must have thought about this question? Somebody else help me, please. Working backwards, heavy, sweet, Greek wines were drunk with dessert. These would have been a bit like some Mediterranean sweet wines of today (though in ancient times they were not fortified with alcohol, they were sweetened with grape syrup and carefully stabilised) -- I will name Malaga, Maury, Banyuls, sweet muscat and malmsey wines, those are the kind of thing. Dark red wines were perhaps not very familiar at all, since no ancient source describes the maceration process that gives wine its red colour. So, with your first course (including the oysters), and also with the main course, you drink whites or very light-coloured reds. There aren't so many of those light reds around now, you have to hunt in Italy or Greece for them Setting that aside, for my next Roman meal I'm serving oysters (raw, that's the way that Caesar served them) with a crisp, not-too-Chardonnay white. The wine has to defer to the oysters, and Chardonnay is seldom deferential enough. I can imagine an Orvieto Classico. Or I shan't mind a Gros Plant du Pays Nantais. But I might have had a glass of Ch

By the Greeks themselves, rather (if I understand correctly). In the same sense in which practically all other nations are 'inventions' too. And all the inventions rest on a basis that is partly truth and partly fiction. You might gather that I'm not much of a nationalist.

The Romans were particularly keen on farming creatures that no one else had thought of. It is generally said that they were the first to farm not only oysters but also several other shellfish, and several fish -- some in artificial ponds, some in fenced-off areas of sea. The same ways it's done now, in fact. Along the coast of Latium and Campania a Roman on holiday could go fishing in some of these fish farms and be guaranteed a catch. Unfair on the fish, I reckon. Also, of course, they farmed dormice and various other small edible animals. Varro, in his book /On Farming/, gives careful instructions. But I believe the Carthaginians might have been the first to farm snails. Whether oyster-farming or prostitution was bigger business in ancient Rome? Now that's an interesting question ...

Caesar = hairy. I knew that I could count on you. Thanks. Now, how about the rest of my twaddle? Does it hold water? I think agnomina were extremely rare in Caesar's time. Perhaps he would have needed to rest on his laurels a bit longer (avoiding the Senate House on the Ides of March) to get an agnomen. But, by Germanicus's time, Augustus and his family were changing the 'honours system'. Would others agree with this as an answer?

Rather ironic considering his advancing baldness... I too was under the impression that statues were often painted. Yes, they were. What I said was that they were 'skin-colour-free'. I really meant that, so far as I know, when you painted statues you used conventional colours and didn't aim to reproduce an individual's complexion or pigmentation. If someone knows otherwise, please say!

Yes, agreed! The question became more interesting, somehow, when woodcuts, etchings and (finally) photography made it possible for a wide public to get a new kind of image of people in public life. In quite modern times, in fact. In Roman times, coins and occasional statues were what most people saw. Beautiful portraits, and completely skin-colour-free. How refreshing.

I've seen that site before and it's a mess. Severus was, according to at least one ancient source--Historia Augusta--of Phoenician and Italian descent--father and mother respectively. His family was of the equestrian class and traced itself to Leptis Magna an old Phoenician trading colony. If a BBC text really says Severus was black because born in North Africa, clearly the writer of that text is racist. If we're talking about Severus's skin colour, I don't suppose we'll ever know it. If we're talking about his ethnic origin, we can get a certain way using his family's linguistic history, about which something is known. The fact that these points are recorded at all suggests that his family background is unusual for an emperor: the sources are late and not very reliable., but they are mutually consistent. Here are the four quotes I know of on the subject. In his early childhood, before he had learnt his Latin and Greek letters (he was eventually a considerable scholar in both) the only game he enjoyed with his friends was to play at judges. Historia Augusta, Severus 1.4. His sister, a woman from Leptis who could scarcely speak any Latin, arrived in Rome. Very embarrassed, the emperor gave her son the broad stripe and herself a great many gifts and told her to go back home and take her son with her. The young man died soon afterwards. Historia Augusta, Severus 15.7. His voice was melodious, but retained something of an African accent even into old age. Historia Augusta, Severus 19.9. He was competent at Latin letters, an educated speaker of Greek, but readier with Punic eloquence, naturally enough, since he was born in Lepcis in the province of Africa. Epitome de Caesaribus 20.8. Now, other sources confirm that this 'Punic eloquence' really meant something: Africans (from the Roman province of Africa that is) were characterised as being especially good at public speaking and legal debate. I discussed this and gave other examples in /Empire of Pleasures/. Right then, what can we get from this? 1. He had a more expensive education than his sister did. 2. His parents did not speak Latin at home, otherwise his sister would have been able to speak it. 3. He played with kids who spoke Punic; yes, that is natural for Lepcis, a Carthaginian colony in origin. 4. The whole province had three current languages, Libyan (i.e. Berber, an Afroasiatic language), Punic (offshoot of Phoenician, an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic subgroup), Latin. 5. This would relate to ethnic origins, which would be a mixture of North African (Hamitic in old-fashioned terms, the majority), Near Eastern (Semitic if you like, a minority), Italian (a smaller minority). Lepcis would certainly have had a mixture of North African and Near Eastern. Since a similar set of ethnic origins still applies to medieval and modern north Africa, if you take a trip to Tunisia or Libya and look around you, you will probably see lots of people whose skins are about the same colour as Septimius Severus's.

He couldn't help it. He didn't know any better. Andronikos I of Constantinople set the example, impaling the Turkish troops who had taken part in the revolt at Nikaia and Prousa in 1183. What could poor Vlad Dracul do but follow this example? I therefore apologise on behalf of Andronikos, just in case he was my ancestor.

This seems likely enough since the modern Wends (also called Sorbians) are Slavic. (They are a minority in eastern Germany.) The name looks similar to Veneti. The name of the Aestii, also placed on the eastern Baltic shore by Roman authors, makes them look like Estonians (Eesti). So far as I remember, no classical geographical name in this region is reminiscent of Lithuanians or Latvians.