Andrew Dalby

There are records of three other long distance explorations of the African coast in ancient times. 1. The one by a Phoenician party under the Persians, recorded by Herodotos. The report is that they got all the way round Africa in three years, stopping twice for a sufficient period to plant and harvest grain. 2. The 'Navigation of Hanno' the Carthaginian, mentioned by Polybius, the report of which survives as a separate Greek text. Hanno, according to his own claim, got well down the west coast, possibly to the region of Sierra Leone. I wonder if this is what you are referring to, Fl. Val. C.? Because I never heard of Polybius himself going on such a wild voyage, he wasn't that kind of fellow. I could quite believe that Pliny copied the information from Polybius in a confusing way ... 3. The speculative trading voyage of Eudoxus, who set off from Cadiz with a cargo including dancing girls (for which Cadiz was famous) and apparently aimed to make a profit and avoid paying taxes by taking them direct to India. According to the /Periplus/, incidentally, there was a good market for European girls in India. Eudoxus's voyage is mentioned by Strabo: it isn't clear, I think, whether they all reached India, and made Eudoxus's fortune, or not.

Anyone claiming this appears not to know that 'vomitorium' in Latin means 'exit' ... It's true that people sometimes vomit on the way out of taverns, but surely it happens more in modern Britain than in ancient Rome?

We don`t consider Balkan region. See above: Well, I mentioned it because historically Croatia might be considered 'Western' -- in terms of religion, for example.

That's it. And you couldn't possibly know, anyway, whether you were marking the 'third watch' at the same time as someone in Rome thousands of miles away. Or have any reason to try.

Is it the same as Passum? (which i believe is reduced new wine/must) As you say, passum was used extensively as a sweetener. (or caroenum?) On a different note, did I read correctly that the Romans used large wood-log piping in Britain? I think Passum is another term and defritum also, Garum was probably reduced in a similar way . Yes well done on the pipes-I think sophisticated townies got lead and out in the country it was as much wood as you could eat. and caroenum also! Hold on, let's bring some logic into this! If you wan't to make a sweetener, you won't start with sour wine, which contains practically no sugar. You'll start with grape juice (must), which is very rich in sugar, which is exactly why it's so good for making wine. Defrutum or defritum is must, boiled down to concentrate the sugar and to stabilise it slightly (beyond a certain concentration of sugar, the yeast won't get to work). You used to be able to buy it at Boot's in the winemaking department: they called it concentrated grape juice. Sapa would be the same, but boiled down further, probably syrupy rather than watery, and very very sweet. Passum is totally different, it's raisin wine, (definitely alcoholic but also sweet), expensive then as it is now because by letting the grapes lose some of their moisture you are reducing the volume of your product and making its manufacture more difficult. But it's lovely! (A French term for passum is vin de paille because the grapes can be semi-dried on straw matting; the Italian is passito). The term 'new wine' is sometimes encountered. In the Acts of the Apostles for example, the apostles were said by unsympathetic observers to have been at the new wine. This is the vinous equivalent of scrumpy -- it's must which is yeasty, already partly fermented, a bit fizzy, still quite sweet and therefore all too easy to drink. Must is such a fine environment for yeast that it begins to ferment almost at once, even faster than apple juice.

I can't tell you of the southern most Roman settlement or town, but I would say the reason for the lack of further expansion was the Atlas Mountains, and the Romans felt that going any further south was not in thier best interests. Perhaps there wasn't anything good in trade coming from the lands over the mountains and so there was no indication that there was really anything worthwhile there. Another classic book is Cary and Warmington /The ancient explorers/. So far as I remember there was at least one Roman expedition across the Sahara (to the middle Niger I suppose), and definitely one up the Nile well into Sudan. The Ptolemies maintained a settlement far south on the Red Sea coast called Ptolemais Theron 'of the wild beasts' because, surprise, they imported wild beasts from there. It depends what you mean by 'Romans' but if you mean 'people of the Empire' they certainly travelled the Indian Ocean for trade -- hence that fascinating book the 'Periplus of the Erythraean Sea' (find the translation by Lionel Casson, publ. Princeton) which is a merchant's manual of the Indian Ocean coasts and ports. In Greek (nice easy Greek). Very few went beyond the southern point of India, however. At least one party in the mid 2nd century AD arrived somewhere around Canton, travelled north to the Chinese capital, and claimed to be an embassy from the Roman emperor.

Apologies for silence -- I've been writing a book instead -- I praise the recipe that began this thread and I agree that isicia would most often consist of pork, but there's lamb too, and Apicius has recipes for seafood isicia so the word itself must imply that you can use minced meat of any species. As some will know, isicia is the origin (via the phrase 'salsa isicia') of modern words for sausage in many languages, from English to Greek. In fact the compound 'salsikia' is first recorded (so far as I know) in early Byzantine Greek, say 7th century? One of those mad saints, I'll remember his name the moment I log out, used to parade around Antioch with a 'seira salsikion' around his neck. There: anyone who wants to know the Byzantine Greek for a 'string of sausages', now knows it! But, look here Pertinax, 'considerable sacrificial significance' equates to 'avidly eaten, at least on special occasions'! Didn't you use to look forward to Sunday roasts?

Yes, they got those little worms all right. In Justinian's time, 6th century AD. And it must have made a big difference to their balance of payments. It's not only taxes, though such items were indeed heavily taxed, but also the high cost of transport of silk (like any other luxury product) through the Gobi desert, across the 'roof of the world' and passing through territories that were often unstable and dangerous.

My nomination for 'bad but enjoyable' is Suetonius. As a former librarian, I have a soft spot for an author who was in (almost) the same profession. He was imperial archivist ... and can't you tell as you read him? He really used those archives, in a way that scarcely any other anicent author bothered to do! And then, in a completely different way, Lucan, with his ridiculous but fun epic on the Civil War.

"frumenti" is quoted (wheat surely) but spelt given as the substance. I am not a Latin Scholar , ill dig deeper. I think Mr. Dalby might be baiting you Pertinax... One of the primary latin words for spelt would elicit a bit of a chuckle from some of the more callow members of this forum... That just shows that wit and irony do not commend themselves to the typed word! The trap was so large I didnt see it! As if I would!! No, I asked because the words that really identify spelt (e.g. /scandala/) crop up very rarely in Latin texts. But some translators give /far/ as 'spelt' (it is really emmer) and some, relying on one of Pliny's misunderstandings, translate /braces/ as 'spelt' when it really means 'malt' or 'malted barley'. This in turn can lead to the statement that cervesa was made from spelt, when it's much more likely it was made from malted barley (and whether you call it Celtic or not is up to you!) So I was wondering whether spelt really deserves to be in there on this occasion or not.

What word do they use for 'spelt', Pertinax?

Any statistics available on this? Yes, but I don't have them handy. I think my old teacher David Buss has them in his book, "The Murderer Next Door." Wilson and Daly probably have them also in their book on homicide. Thanks, I'll look at those!

In addition, Manuel brought land in the western Balkans (Bosnia, Dalmatia) under his control, and made a serious attempt to be recognised as the ONLY Roman emperor (i.e. cutting out the German/north Italian 'Holy Roman Emperor'). I don't think the Pope ever conceded Manuel's demand here. Immediately afterwards, with the chaos under Alexios II and Andronikos, Byzantium lost interest in the West (and that's putting it mildly).

Quite right, young Dionysos. Note how shocked someone is right now, in the Carthage thread, about the sacrificing of puppies ...

Those sick f$%^s, whooo, whyyyy?!?! This reminds me of an old college professor I had; it's what happens when society convinces itself of the authority of a group of highly educated pristhood/professors who long divorced from the actions that catapulted thier order into exsistance, one day find thier actions unobstructed.... one day, thier thinking about theology, and they try to rationalize it, but since their so seperated from society and reality they soon lose tract of thier purpose and then suddenly find themselves sacrificing cute little puppies or making Aphrodite the goddess of the sewers. I don't think there's a word for 'cute' in ancient Greek ... maybe that would help to explain? (Actually it's a difficult word to translate into British English: I suppose 'sweet' would be our nearest.) When the unrespectable woman (Mary Magdalene or not depending on your Gospel) was talking to Jesus about the pets under the table being allowed to get the crumbs, did she mean 'dogs' or 'puppies'?

I thought people here might be interested in this exchange (from the Temple of Jupiter list) -- and in re-imagining the aromas of Roman life, from cookery to cosmetics. And incidentally I don't know if I have the right answer to Doug's question or whether there was some other shrub he's thinking about ... Here it comes --- In templejupiter@yahoogroups.com, "Doug Stych" <unitedcats@e...> wrote: > > I seem to recall that the Romans destroyed some bush that grew in one > valley in Palestine. It produced some sort of oil. Does this ring a > bell with anyone? More importantly, does anyone remember the name of > the bush or the oil? > > Thanks > Doug I've been puzzling over this and I wonder whether you're remembering the uprooting of some of the Balsam of Mecca trees (scientific name Commiphora Opobalsamum). This tree incidentally is native to southern Arabia, was naturalised in Palestine some time BC (according to legend it was brought there by the Queen of Sheba of course). After Titus's subduing of Palestine some of these trees were paraded in his triumph through the streets of Rome. An indication of how important Balsam of Mecca was in Roman cosmetics and medicine. However they were not rendered extinct. Balsam was afterwards grown in Roman Palestine as a cash crop. It did die out there later and I have been told that there has been recent work on reintroducing it. I'll cross-post this to the Apicius list in case someone there has information on this. Andrew

Any statistics available on this? If, like me, you enjoy reading epics, you may remember the first big scene in Byron's /Don Juan/. Juan eventually flees leaving his clothes behind: if caught he risks death from Julia's husband's sword, but Julia doesn't seem to be in such mortal danger. But that's only one example.

It might be a bit bold to describe Gildas as a source for Arthurian material, since, as you say, he doesn't name him. Gildas does name a lot of rulers he didn't like one bit, so I don't buy the idea that he didn't name Arthur because he was "apparently not popular with the early Christian church in Britain": I suspect it's a circular argument. The phrase that Gildas uses is auriga currus receptaculi ursus, which in his very British Latin means charioteer of the chariot of the bear's den; and the name of the person so described is given in the next line of the text, it's Cuneglasus, not Arthur.

I'll send for the dancing girls. You get the beer in Now there's an NCO with a real concern for the men's morale. Great

Now that's a very dubious point! I believe (though I can't now confirm it, and I apologise to his shade if I'm wrong) that Michael Grant once wrote (in a letter to the TLS) that she had 'not a drop of Oriental blood', and many others, like you, have described her as Greek. Setting aside the concept which now sounds rather dubious of 'Oriental blood' and focusing on her parentage: as far as I could work it out, here it is. For Ptolemaic reasons (her parents were brother-sister) she had only one grandmother. Nobody knows who this grandmother was, but since she wasn't recorded as a royal wife, it seems a bit unlikely that she was Macedonian -- much more likely that she was a slave or concubine from Egypt or points south. Her grandfather was indeed in the royal line of descent. Macedonian wasn't the same as Greek, though no doubt fairly close. So if you believe that all the ancestors, male and female, of Cleopatra's grandfather, back to Ptolemy I, were Macedonian, then she was exactly half Macedonian. Otherwise, less than half Macedonian, and probably more than half African (using African to include Egyptian). Does this seem right to others, or have I gone wrong somewhere?

How do you know that?

I suspect that was said in Latin before it was said in English. The standard Latin version is Requiescat in pace Which means literally 'may he/she rest in peace' OK?

As with most of the ancient source material in the ancient world... it comes from either a Greek or Roman perspective. Even the details regarding Trajan's campaigns in Dacia are largely lost as Cassius Dio's account is fragmentary. Unfortunately, unlike Tacitus' surviving account of other northern tribes in 'Germania', there is no such account of the Dacians. Although 'Germania' hardly provides the sort of insight you'd be looking for anyway. There is another source that you can *almost* read: /Trajan's Column/. I found the following Frank Lepper, Sheppard Frere, \Trajan's Column\. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1988. a very interesting (though very long) study, with a full reproduction of the Column. But for all I know the Column may be available in full somewhere on the Web?

I think shamans were simply ancient drug-dealers (including healing drugs), and the rest was for show. Paracelsus, I think, said he learned everything he knew about medicine from the witches, and it seems likely to me that once the various functions of the shamans became independent professional specialties, the uselessness of the shaman's religious mumbo-jumbo became increasingly more apparent. You may be right. But it's worth remembering that Roman poets considered that 'vates' or seer was a possible alternative name for their profession -- and it's worth reading Horace, Odes book 2 no. 20 and considering how close Horace is there to concepts that belong to 'shamanism'. Or is it all for show? I'm not so sure!

Pertinax, you're very kind to Empire of Pleasures. I enjoyed writing it more than any of the others, I think, so I'm glad you likewise enjoyed reading it! I'm lucky, I suspect, that you did so while reasonably full of seasonal cheer ... Apples? I've finished bottling my cider for this year, and am now just beginning to reap the reward. Cider no. 2 is already reasonably drinkable. Even Madame Dalby seems to appreciate it!