caldrail

Popularity as a ruler was a very important thing, although not all emperors worried about it as much as others. Augustus worried about his popularity almost to the point of paranoia, whereas caligula seems indifferent and at times contemptuous. Thing is, if you're not popular, then a plot by rival senators to oust you is far more likely to succeed. Take poor old Didius Julianus. He bought the throne from the praetorians and was absolutely loathed by the public despite every effort he made to become popular. The senate in fact ordered an officer to kill him to ensure the arrival of Septimius Severus would not result in a purge. Didius had no public support hence no-one worried whether he died or not. Elagabulus similarly met a sticky end because the bloke was a complete embarrasement and in any case, what use was he? His mum held all the strings. Without public support, he never stood a chance. Now a better example might be Titus. When he came to power he was viewed as a disreputable character, and most romans expected another nero. To his credit, Titus reinvented his image and made great strides to be known as a good ruler. His inaugral games at the colosseum swung it for him. After that triumph of public entertainment, he was remembered as the great ruler he had wanted to be.

As I said, such breastplates were worn as decorative 'status' objects. It is interesting about gladiatorial depictions on tv and film that consistently show this sort of armour protection. As far as I'm aware, the only gladiators that had any torso protection were secutors and that only covered the top half. It was a metal guard too.

No, we know that smaller units than legions built marching forts. I think you might be confusing those with the more impressive legionary forts which were built for long term occupation. Small stone forts often housed cohorts too, not the legion as a whole. Even watch towers were occupied for periods longer than a day.

in time of war...NO!, they must return at base camp before night fall, even if on a mission. in time of peace... they travel by village to village within a day march, the settlement will be their safety haven or protection against surprise attack. yes! a legiones cohortia is the modern day equivalent of military battalion, so it is almost a self contained unit that everything it needs is almost their for the war and mission. Hung by your own petard! There is a difference between the permanent or semi-permanent legionary fort, and a marching fort built by a unit en-route. The cohort is linked by organisation to its parent legion, and although it may conduct missions or postings as a seperate unit, it does not become entirely autonomous. As for marching, cohorts did not rely on travelling from settlement to settlement. They couldn't. The roman army often operated in regions where suitable settlements were not available. Thats the rationale for the marching camp. At the end of the days march, the cohort must encamp and make some effort to protect themselves with a ditch and palisade. This was standard roman practice. It gave the men some measure of security, and its notable that one military punishment required that guilty soldiers sleep outside the camp. It also had a psychological advantage in that it planted a roman flag inside hostile territory, saying to all observers that the romans are here and they're staying. Even if the camp was for one night, the statement was made. Every week, a unit was expected to conduct a route march and that involved an overnight camp made in this way. The legion as a whole wouldn't have done this because they needed to perform a whole range of local duties, so individual cohorts would therefore conduct these marches and encampments as a matter of course. It does bring up the question of how legions or their cohorts did this in desert regions where wood was not freely available, and settlements almost non-existent. There are plenty of stone roman castles left in isolated parts of north africa, so was the situation similar to hadrians wall, where units are posted along a chain of fortifications?

Given that the republic was becoming unable to contain individual initiative, then after the civil wars it was almost certain that someone would rise to become dictator/emperor/monarch - whatever title you want to call it. Autocratic rule was unpopular with senior romans. It meant they couldn't share in power for one thing. So unless the individual rising to the fore was powerful enough and popular enough, then the civil wars would have continued, or some very bloody intrigue at the very least. For that reason, I agree that the republic was doomed by its own failure, and sooner or later autocratic rule was going to replace the roman oligarchy. As later history shows, a lesser man simply led to another power struggle and continued instability.

Personally I see Sejanus as a symptom of something more general in Tiberius's nature. He was only too keen to put aside the day to day stuff and clearly hadn't realised Sejanus had ambitions of his own. By that stage, Tiberius's disaffection with public life had reached the point where he was only too glad to have a trusted advisor take on the strain. Notice that Tiberius did not resume public life after Sejanus was revealed as a usurper, with all the lessons learned therefrom, but continued to live in semi-retirement.

I understand your point. The parallel is there although the situation in Rome was slightly different in that ancient 'terrorists' wouldn't have the training or sophistication that we see today. As for 'terrorist' incidents, its impossible to say. We're talking about handfuls of aggrieved individuals who act without modern organisation. Given that Rome may have suffered up to a hundred fires a day, of which two or three might be considered serious who's to say how many were started by pyromaniacs? Of the knifeings that went on after dark, were they all thieves or were some political murders? If so, the number of these incidents are small. people of this nature don't act with wild abandon. They usually plot and plan, seeking mutual support until their increasing confidence and brashness results in activity, after which they would tend to lie low in order to escape suspicion. What they wouldn't do in the lack of modern anonymous communications is boast about it publicly. However, there are claims that evidence of propaganda leaflets dating from this era exist. I haven't seen any.

I haven't found much aside from the reports of Tacitus and an archaeologist named Andrea Carandinas, who's been digging in Rome for 20 years. Only four districts were left untouched, and three were completely flattened. The inference is that many of the public buildings were indeed burned, but it would help if I knew which area they were in. The center of Rome, around the palatine, was ruined so if the buildings you metion were there, they too suffered from the fire.

Practice fencing might have been commonplace. A fathers duty may well have extended to teaching his son how to wield a weapon. I remember seeing a saxon sword at Swindon Museum and being struck by the small size of the handle. Then it ocurred to me that this weapon belonged to a youth, possibly following his father on raids to earn experience and manhood. The fact that it was left on the field north of Barbury Castle suggests he never learned quickly enough. I don't believe there was any formal training for fighting amongst these people. They weren't that organised. Then again, they were warrior societies and everyone around a child used these weapons as a matter of course. They grew up with them and observed at close hand how they were used. As youths there may well have been much aggressive contest amongst each other, jostling for position like young men do. So, instead of training, they accumulated experience and received occaisional tips or instruction from their seniors.

Nice pic, but I should stress that this particular helmet was worn by someone important. Common soldiery wore helmets with less decoration or fancy face guards at this time.

Rural slave labour was known to be cruel and backbreaking. I doubt the rich farmers worked as hard as the slaves did.

In AD64 the city of Rome suffered a fire that destroyed or damaged ten out of fourteen districts, more than three and half square miles of devastation. The fire began in a shop beside the Circus Maximus and quickly spread along the length of that stadium. Driven by the dry wind of the hot summer it then travelled down the Triumphal Way and began burning homes of the aristocracy on the Palatine hill. From there it destroyed the forum, the temple of vesta, and spread into the wood and brick slums of the subura, home to hundreds of thousands of poor people. The fire was intense. Experiments at the Building Research Establishment at Watford on replica roman rooms suggest that with typical furniture and construction a room could be destroyed utterly within thirty minutes reaching temperatures of six hundred degrees. In fact, archaeological evidence has turned up shattered bronze statue bases that suffered temperatures up to a thousand degrees. The radiant heat was literally causing houses to spontaneously combust. Even the traventine stone was melting. The fire lasted six days, then mysteriously re-ignited at the estate of Tigellenius, Nero's close advisor, and burned for another three days before it finally went out. Given Nero's enthusiasm for recreating Rome it was suspected that he was behind it, thus giving rise to the legend that he 'fiddled while Rome burned'. In fact he hadn't. Nero was at Antium partying with friends thrity five miles away when the fire started. Some aristocrats suspected he had burned their houses on purpose, since politics was decided in their atriums as much as the senate floor. However, its also true that Nero's own palace, the Domus Transitoria, was also hit by the fire. Although the city had seven thousand firemen, none had tackled the fire and its reported that 'menacing gangs' prevented attempts to do so. People were observed torching buildings whilst openly claiming they were obeying orders to do so. On the one hand, the claims that Nero had started the fire as a land clearance scheme seem to have crecedence, but it also seems unlikely he would burn his own palace and that home of his close advisor. Unfortunately, despite Nero's relief efforts and his building safety legislation brought in afterward, his new Domus Aurea was such a statement of power that claims against him were difficult to avoid. Conventional wisdom holds that Nero became aware of the increasing criticism and blamed the unpopular christian sect as being responsible. They were perfect as scapegoats. Rumours of vampirism, necrophagy, and denial of the imperial cult put them beyond the pale. The persecution of christians that followed was the first, and was so cruel that many romans began to have sympathy for them. Its because of these burnings and crucifixions that Nero is popularly known as an anti-christ. The fire took place on the evening of July 19th, the same date as a major fire more than four hundred years earlier. There was also an egyptian prophecy known at the time throughout the eastern mediterranean that a great city would fall when the dog star Sirius rose. In AD64, Sirius rose on July 19th. Christians, many of whom were disaffected jews, had no legal recourse to vent their complaints so were prone to apocalyptic prophecy as a way to express their anger. Although christianity is now seen as a passive peaceful faith, back then it was not. The violent fundamentalism we now expect of islam was present in christianity then, and within a few years of the Fire, a revolt in Judaea took place led primarily by religious zealots. The christian activist theory relies on these points. July 19th would have been seen as the perfect date to bring retribution to decadent Rome. Indeed, these sentiments are expressed in the Book of Revelations ascribed to St John thirty years after, although its unlikely he actually wrote them himself. If the Seven Headed Whore of Babylon was in fact the Seven Hills of Rome as the theory requires, then the description makes quite clear that hatred of Rome and its domination of the world was keenly felt by contemporary christians, who were exorting others to wreak revenge on the city in exactly the same way that modern moslems do against america today. If the Activist Theory is correct then why has this not been translated into modern acceptance? The most obvious reason is sanitisation of christian history. As Rome turned away from pagan beliefs the bishops of Rome would not want their compliant flocks to see a religion tainted by the anti-roman zealotry of their predecessors. Of course this is difficult to prove. There is a hint of conspiracy theory about this. The dates may be mere coincidence, and the Book of Revelations is possibly only the result of a nightmarish vision of someone high on mushrooms. Nonetheless, the parallels to our modern world are there and the Activist Theory, if proven, would mean that Nero did not pick on the christians as scapegoats, but exacted revenge executions on the cult that attempted to destroy his empire at its heart.

So what is this circumstantial evidence? I'll look it up. Report to follow. For myself I have doubts because Rome suffered fires regularly and there was another great fire during Titus's reign wasn't there? Regarding house insurance I opened a thread on this forum on that subject earlier. DOH! I meant Crassus....

Neither. It was more honourable to win. Except for Cato! Actually Caesar's late triumph over romans was badly viewed by many. So, at least for his time it was not a glorious thing to gain victory in civil wars. A civil war is bound to arouse strong feelings. Partly this was inspired by caesars success and talent, both of which were considerable. Julius caesar remained popular with the plebs so it was people amongst the senatorial class who quite literally wanted to stick daggers in his back.

Yet there has been a british sword of this period unearthed which display advanced construction techniques, the metal blade having been folded in a herring bone pattern for strength as much as appearance rather than simply hammered out.

No emperor handed out donatives because he thought the men deserved it. These payments were to buy their loyalty, not reward it. Caligula reportedly said "Let them hate me as long as they fear me", which isn't the statement of someone who worries unduly about popularity. Caligula was not an accomplished politician in any way. He was too self centred for that. having been given power over the empire, he regarded himself as a god and expected everyone else to recognise that. Not insanity I should point out, just the result of an over-inflated ego. Caligula seems to suffer from the behavioural problems that we might associate with child-stars today. He grew up in the public eye, probably forever being told how to behave yet being feted by the public. Once freed by his accession his immature (and utterly malignant) mischief rises to the surface unrestrained by lesser mortals. Caligula was actually popular amongst the roman public. He was cheered on by the plebs. It was the senate or those who dealt with him personally who became disenchanted with his ways. I draw your attention to the embassy of Philo that visited Caligula with complaints on behalf of the jews. Clearly Philo expected he might be executed for his trouble, yet Caligula gives them the run-around to deflate their arguement and then dismisses them as misguided. Truth is he never took them seriously to begin with.

I can't help thinking that one of the underlying reasons for the roman decline is provincial administration. Why did one emperor happily control an empire in the principate but found it impossible two centuries later? One answer among many is that provincial governemnt was becoming lazy, negligent, and in many cases passed decisions up the pyramid. Or was provincial government too risky?

According to roman historians ten of the fourteen districts were devastated. Thats five sevenths. Rome was a tinderbox of wooden framed buildings closely packed together so a firestorm of that size isn't so unexpected. The problem is, there are reports that people actually fed the fire. Suetonius mentions that people were seen carrying firebrands and claiming their masters had ordered them to do it. One theory suggests that christian activists did indeed torch rome in an ancient terrrorist outrage. The case is unproven but intriguing, and there is some circumstantial evidence that seems to point in that direction. More likely is the desire for landlords to cash in on buildings that were falling down anyway. A lot of those apartment blocks were jerry-built and vermin infested, so claiming insurance payment or selling off the land for a quick profit might have been a motive. On the other hand, its known that Pompey became rich by buying land after buildings had burned down at cut prices - so was an entrepeneur at work here?

So the lixae were undesirable camp followers, opportunists and thieves who also supplied soldiers with items for renumeration. I can see why they were sometimes banned.

I'm a little frustrated because I can't find the original reference that I remember reading. For that reason I apologise to Augusta until such time as I can prove my case. As regards the legions, I don't think caligula cared one jot about them. There were mere soldiers for crying out loud. However, we do see his disrespect of individuals in the case of watchwords, which was a source of mickey-taking for him. In fact, this behaviour probably cost him his life because Cassius Chaerea did not take kindly to being called effeminate given his proud war record. I think caligula wasn't concerned with political gain over his name, rather that people should jolly well recognise his superiority.

Munera are the gladiatorial games which evolved from funeral rites in the two hundred years before the empire. Ludii are the training schools for contestants, and although I don't know which was the first, I believe Julius Caesar set one up? In the original human sacrifices, it was considered a good thing to honour the dead with the spilling of blood. Thats a typical funeral rite for meditteranean cultures. Now because no-one wanted to be a murderer, the answer was to get two social undesirables to fight each other to death. Later, some people wanted wanted their deceased relative to get a more impressive send-off, so perhaps two pairs. Three? Then people began celebrating their deaths much later, usually when they were running for public office and in order to impress, staged bigger and more varied rites. Sooner or later the funeral rite wasn't necessary, and these events were staged purely to impress. Before the empire displays were often ad hoc, set up in forums or other public spaces. Indeed they did make amphitheatres of wood. Famously one shoddy effort collapsed during Tiberius's reign at Fidenae with thousands of casualties, the promoter finding himself exiled for cutting costs. There is a story about a convertible arena made of wood. Usually one half was used as an ordinary theatre then when an arena was required, the other half was wheeled around. There's some dispute as to whether this building ever existed. There were alternatives but remember the roman public enjoyed these games. They were exciting in much the same way as a top-level boxing match, or perhaps more so, given the mortal drama of it. The increasing number of days devoted to games was simply to keep people happy. An unknown citizen once called out to caligula 'How about a days games, Caesar?', to which Caligula duly obliged. Also bear in mind the second purpose of games was to impress evryone with the promoters status and generosity. Titus for instance was remembered as a great ruler because his inaugral games at the colosseum were a success. Regarding the sexual aspect of gladiatorial combat, this is part of human psychology. Females do tend to respond to a strong warrior type, both as protector and provider, so a display of violence and the glory attached was almost certain to give the participants sex appeal. It did. Wealthy women were sometimes prone to having affairs with gladiators despite their lowly status in society, and even the wife of the emperor Marcus Aurelius was rumoured to do so. In rome a typical woman of means might have lots of free time and no career aspirations. The excitement of dating a bold warrior illicitly was substantial. It might be noted also that at such displays the women were seated right up at the back, furthest away. There's an element of frustration here I think because society is almost keeping them at arms length from these men, hence the curiosity value of getting close. I would like to add a footnote about women gladiators as sex-objects. Now whilst some men may have considered scantily clad females hacking each other to death as something titillating or amusing, I sense a disquiet about women fighters too. These women were rarer than male fighters (obviously) and in all likeliehood their lanista was more protective. A pregnant gladiatrix cannot be hired out for profit. Men are more predatory sexually and easier targets exist. It probably occurred on very rare occaisions but I doubt most men found it appealing to bed a woman scarred in combat who was quite capable of seperating them from their testicles without blinking. It would certainly make me think twice!

Thats not the impression I got. The name reminded him of his troubled childhood and what I tried to explain earlier was that caligula clearly had something of a chip on his shoulder regarding status. If caligula had any regard for the legions I would accept your point, but he treated them with the same arrogant mischief as everyone else. Did he not order them up and down a beach collecting sea-shells instead of actually invading britain? Try Lives of the Caesars by suteonius, I think he refers to the naming problem. I'll have to wade through tacitus again to find anything!

No. But the mans friends may have helped if they could. Also the burial clubs acted as charitable institutions so although compensation is unobtainable, perhaps a charity payment might be forthcoming. It was not a sure thing. An honourable death requires that witnesses saw him die in act of courage. Otherwise its an unfortunate turn of events. Soldiers in war become very callous regarding death and injury. Neither. It was more honourable to win.

Dumb luck? I think not. Octavian was an ambitious and ruthless young man, clearly inspired by his adoptive relative Julius Caesar and clever enough to learn from caesars mistakes. Hiding his power? Well octavian did not adopt the title of an autocrat. What he did was proclaim that he was the first citizen, the most important of many, which eased the minds of the senate who may have feared another dictator or even worse a monarch. Remember that political power at the end of the republic was vastly increased by the exercise of military clout. By being able to call upon armed forces, aided by Marcus Agrippa, he has a powerful bargaining chip and a means to eliminate his rivals. Military success is always a plus point in roman minds and his part in the civil war did him no harm. Of course, as augustus he relied on his popularity to maintain his status and conducted a careful balancing act between rule by decree and as an apparent servant of the people. At various stages he tests the water to ensure his popularity is still there, and at others appears a little nervous that his power might be declining.

I disagree. My experience in the music industry taught me that a cold audience isn't conducive to original material. Give them something they understand and like and they'll applaud - after all, didn't emperors do just that with games and chariot races? Broad topics can work just fine if you don't dwell on them. For your average listener someone going on about 3rd century coinage (for instance) isn't going to change their perception except for the worst. Play to the crowd I say. And whilst I'm thumping my tub, I agree, there isn't any need to pass on stereotypes. Why not focus the lecture on why these sterotypes are wrong? If the audience is of a learned variety then by all means be specific and explain a subject they may not be aware of.