Andrew Dalby

I remember reading somewhere that the Huns have been established as being a turkic people. You might even have read this in my own /Dictionary of Languages/. I reprinted there the oldest known text in Hunnish (spoken by a Chinese Buddhist monk to a Hun monarch in AD 329) which has been(as you rightly say) identified as being in an archaic Turkic language. The oracular advice of this monk was: S

I agree totally about Caesar: surely the first portrayal of a living Roman on a coin was a big leap towards personality cult. For regions further east, I'm trying to remember when this was first done. Certainly Philip of Macedon had his protrait on coins, and Alexander after him. There were maybe one of two others on the western edge of the Persian Empire. Who set the example?

I just checked (naturally I have it at home ...!) Hammurabi's code always seems to set values either in silver (by weight) or in grain. So, yes, acting on this code is not 'barter' in the strict sense. Values are set against a standard. The difference between this and (let's say) Diocletian's Price Edict is that, in between times, money (coin) had been invented! So Diocletian always sets values in denarii etc. Commenting on what a later poster said, the inventors were not the Phoenicians. They traded widely, and they did eventually use coins, but they were certainly not the inventors of coinage. The invention seems clearly to have been made (as Herodotos quite rightly says) by the Lydians of western Asia Minor, and immediately taken up by the Greeks of the Asia Minor coast, their neighbours. From there, it spread across the Greek world.

That's hard to believe. How do you know how much of the Roman economy depended on barter? Yes, I'm doubtful about barter. I once attended a lecture by Mrs Quiggin (author of /Primitive Money/ and the first woman trained in anthropology at Cambridge) (she was 90 when she gave this lecture) and she said that anthropologists had never yet found a society in which barter (as we normally understand it) was a normal practice. I don't know whether that's still true. I suppose (trying to remember what she might have said) she was saying that you may find a view is held of whether people play their part in give-and-take or not; you may find a slate is kept, mental or in writing; you may find that some fixed medium, e.g. money, is actually exchanged or is imagined as being exchanged. You don't normally find that people swap a sack of onions for a plough. Silent barter, however, definitely does exist (between people who don't share a language), as Mrs Quiggin went on to emphasize. It is described in the /Periplus Maris Erythraei/ and in many later travellers' reports. I feel, with 'coins as political statements', something is being missed (I don't mean by Caldrail in particular!). The fact that a coin has something political on it -- a Queen's head, let's say, or a map of the EU, or the name and current titles of a Roman emperor -- /is/ a political statement. But the coin will also be used, maybe every day, maybe for many years, by people who don't give a damn about the political statement. One aspect may be significant to a political historian, but the other aspect may be much more important in general history.

There are some questions about ancient Italy to which we'll never really know the answer, and yours may be among them. I work on language history (sometimes), and I know that you can sometimes get a better idea of how things may have felt in ancient times, by comparing with how they feel now. People move from Italy to the United States -- a great example this -- and they move around within the United States. Consider how easy or difficult this is, what problems arise, and you may get some idea of how it was at other periods of history to migrate from one tribal area to another, to learn the new language or dialect, and to get accepted in the new tribe. You don't assume that it was always the same, but, starting from that point, you then hunt out factors as between modern and ancient times that might have made it somehow different.

I wonder if Atrectus was a soldier who brewed on premises or a local civilian who brewed for the Romans using materials they provided? I see that it was mentioned he owed money to the local butcher for iron & pig fat... Now, to really bring the thread back to the starting point, look at this interesting snippet I've come across: "The Celtic word for beer was curmi, which seems to be linked to a word that occurs in Latin, cremor, meaning a thick broth (which is just what a barley mash is), itself linked to cremo, to burn or boil (as in cremate), and an old Slavonic word krma, meaning nourishment or food. Around the first century of the Christian era a pronunciation change took place in Britain and among the mainland Gauls in which m became v, so that the word for ale changed from curmi to something closer to *corvi or *corev*. In medieval Welsh the word was spelt cwrwf (single f is pronounced v in Welsh), today altered to cwrw, while in Cornish it became coref or cor

Please don't say you'll stop posting when you get there... The nicest thing anyone's said to me today

Agreed. In later times it was given to close relatives of the Emperor, maybe a bit like 'Duke of Cornwall/Kent/Gloucester' in modern Britain. The last I can think of right now is Renier of Montferrat (Monferrato) who married Manuel I's daughter Maria in 1180. She was Kaisarissa, he was Kaisar.

When Xenophon's Ten Thousand, finding their way back from Mesopotamia to Greece via the Black sea coast c. 400 BC, approached small Greek cities on that coast, they were sometimes not allowed to enter those cities, even singly. Armed or not, they were considered too much of a threat to security. Some newsagents' shops in Britain have signs at the door saying 'only one child at once'. Children, also, can be a threat to security. When I flew to Thailand, long before current security problems, armed with a nice large penknife Mrs Dalby had bought for me (to peel fruit -- I'm not much of a fighter), they wanted to confiscate it. 'Ask the pilot for it when you arrive.' Considering this, I decided I'd ask for a receipt (not that I don't trust pilots, but ...). Writing the receipt was evidently too much trouble, and I had asked very politely, so they quietly gave me my penknife back. I'm agreeing with a previous poster here -- it depends on your demeanour, and on local laws, and on the gatekeeper's decision.

I'm not aware that any Indians or Turks became Roman slaves. The first known Turk to visit the Empire was in early Byzantine times. Must check that -- I think I have the name somewhere.

Ought it to be principales? Anyway, Suetonius's dad was a tribunus angusticlavius, and I'm aiming for that.

Thanks, I've joined it. Mind you, I have no idea what a cool mod is, or any kind of mod. I expect I'll learn

This does even enter the fact that the British Isles were constantly harrassed and raided by the Vikings...I'm sure there's some of that showing up in the blood work! Dalby is surely a Viking name, though we Dalbys ceased to rape and pillage a few years ago now. I claim this Viking blood (under high pressure, according to my doctor) Oh I should have articulated myself better! I'm not advocating putting each discipline in a vaccum, I'm saying that in areas without written, historical guidance, we need to drop the assumptions, study each issue without initial regard to the other and then see where the conclusions overlap. In that regard Virgil61, I think we're on the same page. I agree too. Totally. I didn't like the Cavalli-Sforza book on languages, though I much admire his work on population genetics, because I felt he hadn't sufficiently considered the ways that languages spread, change and die before writing his survey: hence the survey was really not that good. I had the impression (as also with Colin Renfrew's book Archaeology and Language) that the writer was using his own speciality to rewrite language history without having understood fully what the linguists had done. In both cases, they could have done better. And I must, finally, admit that that sort of thing is going to happen, and in fact it's necessary and to be welcomed, in almost any subject area. It will get rewritten sometimes, and outsiders will have a large part in doing it. Otherwise, the subject will die.

I don't know if this will be helpful, Pantagathus ... In my view, whether prehistorians want to identify Celtic with La Tene/Hallstatt is up to them (and they are no doubt right up to a point). Celtic is the name of a language group, within Indo-European. Since that's what Celtic is, it's correct to use the name for any identifiable or reconstructable language that lies, linguistically, somewhere between proto-Indo-European and the modern Celtic languages. La T

Mistra, near Sparta. This is definitely one for the 'Postilla', since it's a ruined Byzantine city. You can stand in the cathedral on the very stone, carved with the two-headed eagle, on which the 13th century emperors stood when they were crowned. It's much more peaceful than the Acropolis of Athens. Not that I'm knocking the Acropolis. After your necessary visit there, relax in the evening at the Vrettos distillery in Kydathenaion street in the Plaka, taste from the cask and buy in their home-labelled bottles. This shop looks as though it hasn't changed in a century. The labels appear to have been printed by an amateur lithographer about 60 years ago.

I read Genes, Peoples and Languages years ago. Isn't much Cavalli-Sforza's work in this area targeted to only those populations that share both genetic markers and close linguistic relationships, excluding those populations that have changed languages ... Fine, so long as he reminds himself and his readers that this is so. My impression of this book (thanks for reminding me of the title) was that he fails to do that. Recorded linguistic history suggests that you can't ever safely make that assumption.

It could be the case, but the placement of the stele was so readily accessible to the public that it seems odd it was meant to be read by priests alone. I'll go for the Favonius Cornelius theory, more or less. In modern times, laws are written for lawyers, and public notices are written for law-enforcers. In our neighbouring town, you park on the left side of the street during days 1-15 of the month, on the right during days 16-31. If I didn't see or can't understand the parking sign, or don't know what the date is, I don't get exempted from the penalty. It's up there, A. for me to read it if I can, but, B. principally so that the gendarme can point to it when giving me my fine notice. The act of placing the notice is legally accepted as sufficient. After that it's up to the citizen to find out the rules, and if the citizen can't read or can't interpret the law, he or she is just going to have to ask a friend, a lawyer (or in the ancient case maybe a priest) what the law is.

This is a mixture of names of language groups, names of 'tribes' (see separate thread for the problems with defining this term) and various people's ideas about 'races'. The concept of race has become rather unpopular among historians after the Second World War, for obvious reasons ... Just as the racially-minded German leaders of the 1930s didn't all look alike (picture Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering) so modern Americans or Italians don't all look alike, and why one earth should ancient Cretans or Etruscans all look alike? As long as we can trace human history back, people have migrated, intermarried, and learned new languages. If you mean gene-based relationships, a lot of work is being done on that now. Look up the name Cavalli-Sforza on Google and you'll find masses about it. But Cavalli-Sforza himself, an acknowledged expert on population genetics in history, wrote a very bad book about languages because he forgot the point I make at the end of the previous paragraph ... Don't assume that gene-based relationships equal linguistic, cultural or political relationships.

Now here's the enigma--the Lapis Niger inscription apparently predates any of the public inscriptions to be found at Athens, indicating that a large number of ordinary Romans (the kind who drove draught animals) were literate at least as early as the Athenians. Yet over the next few centuries, the literature of Athens skyrocketed, whereas the literature of the Romans lay relatively dormant. Why didn't literature flourish in Rome as it did in Athens? It's a good question, Cato. In trying to formulate an answer I would follow up on one of Furius Venator's points: maybe the literature did not come down to us, specifically because it was oral literature -- poetry, prose saga, whatever -- and nobody at first saw any need to write it down. Notice that Greek literature started to be written down at the time when Greeks were expanding far away from their home country. I suspect writing became necessary to them as a means of transmitting culture because they were so widely scattered. Could that help explain the Roman case too? I'm not sure. I was so surprised by some details in your quote that I tried to check the original text, and it seems a bit shorter than your translation, according to http://www.lanuovaitalia.it/~hynie/miliari.../lapisniger.htm The Latin text is QUOI HON

My suggestion (I say this as a non-expert in the field) is that the Eucharist / Communion counts as a mystery, from the point of view of ancient religious observers, because the bread and wine are said to be the body and blood of Christ. After all, they don't appear to be: you must have faith / be initiated into the religion before you'll accept it. This is one thing the Cathars wouldn't accept, incidentally. They said the bread and wine were just bread and wine. On the other hand, according to the Cathars, the 'daily bread' prayed for in the Lord's Prayer was not bread at all, but the True Gospel. But the Cathars, I fear, are off topic.

There was a Byzantine Senate. At least down to 1204. At that date it was instumental in the elevation of Alexios Mourtzouflos as Emperor, according to Niketas Choniates.

Not with meat but back to butter again... "When butter has become very rancid, it is melted several times by a moderate heat, with or without the addition of water, and, as soon as it has been malaxated, after the cooling, in order to extract any water it may have retained, it is put into brown freestone pots, sheltered from the contact of the air. Frequently when it is melted, a piece of toasted bread is put into it, which acts in the same mannor as charcoal; that is to say it attenuates rancidity" - Pantropeon by Alexis Soyer However, I have been in a couple of underdeveloped countries where I was glad they heavily spiced the meat; if you get my drift... That's a good one, O Pantagathe! And I must admit, now you make me think of it, that I've seen recipes for bringing wine back 'from the grave' as it were, in ancient and medieval sources.

I've heard that said -- it even used to be said that spices were used for that purpose -- but I've never yet seen evidence, from any culture, of cooking methods or recipes aimed to use up meat that was 'off'. I can't think of a single recipe I've seen that takes on that challenge. Can you, Phil? On the other hand, there's lots of evidence from various periods about salting and drying foods to preserve them, and recipes for how to use the resulting salt meat/dried fish etc.

I couldn't agree more, trusting either historian is dubious - Suetonius especially has much in common with the Sunday Sport (UK paper famous for scurrilous rumours) - as a brief read of his description of Tacitus' time on Capri makes only too obvious. We've done the reliability of Suetonius business before and I won't repeat myself. But he cites both personal and documentary sources. His grandfather knew people at Tiberius's court; his father served as a military tribune with Otho: specific anecdotes are credited to each of them. Suetonius is often reporting rumours, and if you read him carefully he is not asserting that these things are true. I agree, it's up to us to be critical on our own account: very likely, no surviving person could really have known the facts about Tiberius on Capri or about the poisoning of Britannicus etc., and we have to keep on saying that to ourselves when reading. I don't fully trust *any* historian, but I'm really glad to know the rumours that were spreading around the streets of Rome under the first twelve Caesars. They, too, are part of history.