ASCLEPIADES

Salve, guys and Ladies! Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the famous Roman Physician from the early Julio-Claudian dynasty, was well aware of the toxicity potential of lead and even recorded an antidote. From "De Medicina" (Book V, Ch. 27, sec. 12): "There are, nevertheless, certain remedies proper for particular poisons, especially for the milder ones... If it be white-lead, mallow or walnut juice rubbed up in wine is best." Needless to say, it would have been totally useless. Nevertheless, Celsus recommended the medical use of Lead in many parts of "De Medicina" , albeit only for external application (unacceptable risky anyway). Cheers & good luck!

Salve, guys & Ladies! Contrary to common misconceptions (some of them intentional), there is plenty of evidence that Tiberius Claudius Nero was quite a fine commander, maybe the best Roman general after Agrippa's death. Today ( III Nones Sextilis) is the MMXVIth anniversary of the big crush of the Dalmatian rebel army commanded by Bato and Pinnes at the battle of River Balthinus (probably today's Bosna river in Bosnia-Herzegovina) at DCCXLV AUC (9 BC) by Tiberius' army of five legions (presumably IV, V, VII, VIII and XI) plus predominantly Thracian auxilia. during the consulship of Nero Claudius Drusus (Tiberius' brother) and T. Quinctius Crispinus Sulpicianus. This cardinal victory for the Empire is frequently neglected, mainly because of the anti-tiberian perspective of many historians, specially Cassius Dio, who ignores it completely and made a very negative commentary about Tiberius' strategy in his long account of this war (Book LV, Chapters 29 to 34). You get a totally different view from an eye witness, V. Paterculus )Book II): "113 Listen now, Marcus Vinicius, to the proof that Caesar was no less great in war as a general than you now see him in peace as an emperor... 114 ... Throughout the whole period of the German and Pannonian war there was not one of us, or of those either above or below our rank, who fell ill without having his health and welfare looked after by Caesar with as much solicitude indeed as though this were the chief occupation of his mind, preoccupied though he was by his heavy responsibilities. There was a horsed vehicle ready for those who needed it, his own litter was at the disposal of all, and I, among others, have enjoyed its use. Now his physicians, now his kitchen, and now his bathing equipment, brought for this one purpose for himself alone, ministered to the comfort of all who were sick... The winter brought the reward of our efforts in the termination of the war, though it was not until the following summer that all Pannonia sought peace, the remnants of the war as a whole being confined to Dalmatia. In my complete work I hope to describe in detail how those fierce warriors, many thousand in number, who had but a short time before threatened Italy with slavery, now brought the arms they had used in rebellion and laid them down, at a river called the Bathinus, prostrating themselves one and all before the knees of the commander; and how of their two supreme commanders, Bato and Pinnes, the one was made a prisoner and the other gave himself up." What do you think about it?

Salve, K & U! This is the "Codex Mendocino" (folio 13), which depicts Ahuizotl (center, left) and his conquests. The 8th tlatoani of Tenochtitlan conquered as far as today Guatemalan highlands; by Mesoamerican standards (barefoot and without wheels nor beasts of burden), he was like the Aztec equivalent of Alexander the Great. Cheers & good luck!

Salve, guys! Here comes Suetonius' "Vita Otho": "7 Next, as the day was drawing to its close, he entered the senate and after giving a brief account of himself, alleging that he had been carried off in the streets and forced to undertake the rule,... When in the midst of the other adulations of those who congratulated and flattered him, he was hailed by the common herd as Nero, he made no sign of dissent; on the contrary, according to some writers, he even made use of that surname in his commissions and his first letters to some of the governors of the provinces. Certain it is that he suffered Nero's busts and statues to be set up again, and reinstated his procurators and freedmen in their former posts, while the first grant that he signed as emperor was one of fifty million sesterces for finishing the Golden House... 10 ... Then going to a retired place he wrote two notes, one of consolation to his sister, and one to Nero's widow Messalina, whom he had intended to marry, commending to her his corpse and his memory. Then he burned all his letters, to prevent them from bringing danger or harm to anyone at the hands of the victor..." Was Nero so popular that the one who deposed Nero's deposer pretended to be his legitimate succesor? What do you think about it? Cheers & good luck!

Salve, guys! And last but not least, here is the aforementioned passage of Pausanias' Description of Greece, (Book IX, Ch. XXXIII, Sec. VI): "Sulla's treatment of the Athenians was savage and foreign to the Roman character, but quite consistent with his treatment of Thebes and Orchomenus. But in Alalcomenae he added yet another to his crimes by stealing the image of Athena itself. After these mad outrages against the Greek cities and the gods of the Greeks he was attacked by the most foul of diseases. He broke out into lice, and what was formerly accounted his good fortune came to such an end. The sanctuary at Alalcomenae, deprived of the goddess, was hereafter neglected." and the latinized original Grrek version: Sulla de esti men kai ta es Ath

Salve, guys! And from a XVII century note on Sir Thomas Browne's Of the Oracle of Apollo: [After his death of a gruesome disease, caused either by his wickedness (Pausanias) or his high living (Plutarch); according to Plutarch's Sylla, "It is said that the Roman ladies contributed such vast heaps of spices, that besides what was carried on two hundred and ten litters, there was sufficient to form a large figure of Sylla himself, and another representing a lictor, out of the costly frankincense and cinnamon. The day being cloudy in the morning, they deferred carrying forth the corpse till about three in the afternoon, expecting it would rain. But a strong wind blowing full upon the funeral pile, and setting it all in a bright flame, the body was consumed so exactly in good time, that the pyre had begun to smoulder, and the fire was upon the point of expiring, when a violent rain came down, which continued till night. So that his good fortune was firm even to the last, and did as it were officiate at his funeral. His monument stands in the Campus Martius, with an epitaph of his own writing; the substance of it being, that he had not been outdone by any of his friends in doing good turns, nor by any of his foes in doing bad."] Even today, there is evidence of sexual ("venereal") transmission of phthiriasis (lice disease). Salve, guys

Salve, QS & C! Sorry, I don't have the whole article,only the abstract that you read. BUT... it appears to be a linguistic matter. Here is another translation (from Greek) of the XXXVIth chapter of Plutarch's "Vita Sulla", this time by John Dryden: "Notwithstanding this marriage, he kept company with actresses, musicians, and dancers, drinking with them on couches night and day. His chief favorites were Roscius the comedian, Sorex the arch mime, and Metrobius the player, for whom, though past his prime, he still professed a passionate fondness. By these courses he encouraged a disease which had begun from some unimportant cause; and for a long time he failed to observe that his bowels were ulcerated, till at length the corrupted flesh broke out into lice. Many, were employed day and night in destroying them, but the work so multiplied under their hands, that not only his clothes, baths, basins, but his very meat was polluted with that flux and contagion, they came swarming out in such numbers. He went frequently by day into the bath to scour and cleanse his body, but all in vain; the evil generated too rapidly and too abundantly for any ablutions to overcome it. There died of this disease, amongst those of the most ancient times, Acastus, the son of Pelias; of later date, Alcman the poet, Pherecydes the theologian, Callisthenes the Olynthian, in the time of his imprisonment, as also Mucius the lawyer; and if we may mention ignoble, but notorious names, Eunus the fugitive, who stirred up the slaves of Sicily to rebel against their masters, after he was brought captive to Rome, died of this creeping sickness." Once more, emphasis is mine. BTW, previous chapter was translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1914) and it comes from Lacus Curtius site. Cheers and good luck.

Salve, guys & Ladies! And BTW, the battle was at IV Nones Sextilis, DXXXVIII AUC, during the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Paullus (the most famous loss of this battle) and Gaius Terentius Varro, and also during the 134th Olympiad, and soon followed by this: Post # 36, Spartan JKM Good luck!

Salve, guys & Ladies! Paulus Aegineta, the famous VII century Byzantine Greek physician, left us the first well attested account there is of one of the great outbreaks of lead colic which occurred sporadically throughout history in his De re medica, Book III, Ch. 43; He wrote of a colic 'having taken its rise in the country of Italy, but raging also in many other regions of the Roman empire, like a pestilential contagion, which in many cases terminates in epilepsy, but in others in paralysis of the extremities, while the sensibility of them is preserved, and sometimes both these affections attacking together. And of those who fell into epilepsy the greater number died; but of the paralytics the most recovered, as their complaint proved a critical metastasis of the cause of the disorder.'" Please note all of this happened in the "un-declined" (?) Eastern Empire well within the Middle Ages. Cheers & good luck!

Salve, JPV! WOW... you never cease to delight us!

Salve, guys & Ladies! Today is the MMCCXXIInd anniversary (four 2s... any cabalistic feelings?) of the day when most Roman soldiers died. CANNAE (nuff' said!) HERE'S THE LINK I don't remember where I read the Romans had some kind of feast at this day to never forget the courage of their Fathers in this their darkest hour. Does anybody have some references or commentaries about it? Thanks in advance. Cheers & good luck!

Salve, guys! Here's a translation of that chapter of C. Nepos' Atticus: "XIX. Since fortune has chosen that we should outlive him, we will now proceed with the sequel, and will show our readers by example, as far as we can, that (as we have intimated above) "it is in general a man's manners that bring him his fortune."290 For Atticus, though content in the equestrian rank in which he was born, became united by marriage with the emperor Julius's son, whose friendship he had previously obtained by nothing else but his elegant mode of living, by which he had charmed also other eminent men in the state, of equal birth, but of lower fortune; for such prosperity attended Caesar, that fortune gave him everything that she had previously bestowed upon any one, and secured for him what no citizen of Rome had ever been able to attain. Atticus had a granddaughter, the daughter of Agrippa, to whom he had married his daughter in her maidenhood; and Caesar betrothed her, when she was scarcely a year old, to Tiberius Claudius Nero, son of Drusilla, and step-son to himself; an alliance which established their friendship, and rendered their intercourse more frequent." Emphasis is mine. Regretfully, I don't find this passage clarifying at all. Methinks there is simply not enough information to determine who was PQ Varus' mother in law; however, most authors seems to favor Agrippa's 2nd wife. Cheers & good luck!

Salve, guys & Ladies! Here is the curious and highly atypical XXXVIth chapter of Plutarch's "Vita Sulla" "However, even though he had such a wife at home, he consorted with actresses, harpists, and theatrical people, drinking with them on couches all day long. For these were the men who had most influence with him now: Roscius the comedian, Sorex the archmime, and Metrobius the impersonator of women, for whom, though past his prime, he continued up to the last to be passionately fond, and made no denial of it. By this mode of life he aggravated a disease which was insignificant in its beginnings, and for a long time he knew not that his bowels were ulcerated. This disease corrupted his whole flesh also, and converted it into worms, so that although many were employed day and night in removing them, what they took away was as nothing compared with the increase upon him, but all his clothing, baths, hand-basins, and food, were infected with that flux of corruption, so violent was its discharge. Therefore he immersed himself many times a‑day in water to cleanse and scour his person. But it was of no use; for the change gained upon him rapidly, and the swarm of vermin defied all purification. We are told that in very ancient times, Acastus the son of Pelias was thus eaten of worms and died, and in later times, Alcman the lyric poet, Pherecydes the theologian, Callisthenes of Olynthus, who was kept closely imprisoned, as also Mucius the jurist; and if mention is to be made of men who no excellence to commend them, but were notorious for other reasons, it is said that the runaway slave who headed the servile war in Sicily, Eunus by name, was taken to Rome after his capture, and died there of this disease." And here is the abstract of a Soviet article of 1937: "(

Salve, Lady N! This comes from the Quik Shave Razor commercial site. I don't know their sources. "500 B.C. - In GREECE, it is popular for men to crop hair very short and shave the face. ALEXANDER THE GREAT is pretty much the guy responsible for this trend because he is obsessed with shaving. He even shaves during wartime, and will not allow himself to be seen going into battle with a five o

Salve, Lady TA! Methinks they are Livilla and Livia, in that order. But it's only an educated guess. Cheers and good lucK. Salve, Asclepiades. Nope! Livia is one of them though. Salve, TA! Of course, you're right! This is the VI epidode of the series, "Some Justice", anf Livia is talking with Plancina, Piso's wife, so she can get her husband to commit suicide in order to avoid the consequences of Germanicus' death for both women. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, Lady TA! Methinks they are Livilla and Livia, in that order. But it's only an educated guess. Cheers and good lucK.

Salve, guys! And, from the Dartford Town Archive, here comes a brief abstract about Roman tanning in Britannia: "The Romans used leather for all sorts of purposes including the manufacture of clothes, shoes, and horse harness. The remains of a tannery pit were discovered by archaeologists at Lullingstone Roman Villa, providing first-hand evidence of an interesting industrial activity. Further evidence for the local tanning industry was found on the site of Northfleet Villa. There were six main stages involved in the tanning of skins. Firstly, the skins had to be thoroughly washed and soaked in water for the removal of blood and the cleaning of the outer surface. After washing, the skins were immersed in a potent mixture of lime and water to loosen the hair which could then be scraped away. The process of fleshing then took place; fat from the underside of the skin was scraped away with a knife. A second washing process was undertaken to remove any traces of lime. The actual tanning process involved the laying of the skins in a vat or pit containing vegetable liquor of varying strength, for varying periods. Finally, the skins were removed from the tanning pit, coated in oil and hung in a current of air to dry slowly. The Lullingstone tannage pit was dug into natural chalk and lined with clay so that it retained liquid. A leather sheet was spread over the bottom of the pit and over thirty old leather sandals added to promote the tanning process. Once prepared, the pit was filled with a strong solution of water and acid juices from fruit that had probably been pulped for the purpose. Archaeologists found large quantities of seeds, pips and fruit-stones in the remains of the pit. Fruit identified included sloe, bird-cherry and cherry-plum. The tannery was equipped with its own drainage system, pipes and gullies. The presence of pottery in the tannage pit helped to date it to the last decade of the second century or the very early third century A.D. It would seem that the villa at Lullingstone became temporarily abandoned c. A.D. 200, so the short-lived tanning industry may have existed after the resident family had moved out of the villa." Cheers and good luck!

Salve, guys! Another outstanding recent example of LTRDT: "ROMAN EMPIRE'S FALL IS LINKED WITH GOUT AND LEAD POISONING By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Published: March 17, 1983 The bacchanalian appetites of ancient Rome caused a widespread incidence of gout among the aristocracy, including most of the emperors, and therein lies a strong clue, according to a Canadian researcher, that lead poisoning contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Much of the food and wine the Romans consumed to such excess was contaminated with amounts of lead far exceeding today's safety standards. Accumulations of lead in the body can cause one form of gout, a painful and sometimes crippling inflammation of the joints, as well as the mental retardation and erratic behavior normally associated with lead poisoning. Reviewing the personalities and habits of Roman emperors from 30 B.C. to 220 A.D., Dr. Jerome O. Nriagu, a Canadian scientist, found that two-thirds of them, including Claudius, Caligula and Nero, ''had a predilection to'' lead-tainted diets and suffered from gout and other symptoms of chronic lead poisoning. He reported his conclusions in the issue of The New England Journal of Medicine published today. ''The coexistence of widespread plumbism and gout during the Roman Empire seems to have been an important feature of the aristocratic life style that has not been previously recognized,'' Dr. Nriagu wrote. ''This provides strong support for the hypothesis that lead poisoning contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.'' The hypothesis has been proposed before, but Dr. Nriagu marshaled more evidence of the gout-lead poisoning link in explaining Rome's supposedly terminal affliction. Dr. Nriagu, who is on the staff of the National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ontario, is writing a book on the subject. Not only did the Romans drink legendary amounts of wine, he noted, but they flavored their wines with a syrup made from simmered grape juice that was brewed in lead pots. The syrup was also used as a sweetener in many recipes favored by Roman gourmands. ''One teaspoon of such syrup would have been more than enough to cause chronic lead poisoning,'' Dr. Nriagu said." Then, Dr. Nriagu (a toxicologist) seems to suggest that "lead gout" (via restricted locomotion of 2/3 of the Roman Emperors, I dare to infer) was the mechanism behind "Roman decline" (of what kind?), beginning at least since the 3rd Emperor (I Century AD) What do you think about it?

Salve, guys! AND HERE'S A PIC:

AND HERE'S THE PIC:

Salve, guys & Ladies! Archaeologists excavating an ancient tannery believed to be the largest ever found in Rome What do you think about it? Cheers and good luck!

Salve, guys & Ladies! BTW, the Kalendas of Sextilis ( of DCCCLXXIX AUC -123 AD-) was also the birthday of the Emperor Publius Helvius Pertinax at Alba Pompeia (modern Alba) in Liguria (Italy) acconrding to the Historia Augusta (or was it Cassius Dio?). Anyway, happy 1884th birthday, Pertinax! Cheers and good luck!

Salve, guys! Here comes a pic from the Area archeologica di Piazza Argentina. I believe the Curia Pompeia has been identified at the area of the circular temple (Fortunae Huisce Diei).

Salve, guys! Here comes Suetonius' "Vita Otho": "7 Next, as the day was drawing to its close, he entered the senate and after giving a brief account of himself, alleging that he had been carried off in the streets and forced to undertake the rule,... When in the midst of the other adulations of those who congratulated and flattered him, he was hailed by the common herd as Nero, he made no sign of dissent; on the contrary, according to some writers, he even made use of that surname in his commissions and his first letters to some of the governors of the provinces. Certain it is that he suffered Nero's busts and statues to be set up again, and reinstated his procurators and freedmen in their former posts, while the first grant that he signed as emperor was one of fifty million sesterces for finishing the Golden House... 10 ... Then going to a retired place he wrote two notes, one of consolation to his sister, and one to Nero's widow Messalina, whom he had intended to marry, commending to her his corpse and his memory. Then he burned all his letters, to prevent them from bringing danger or harm to anyone at the hands of the victor..." Was Nero so popular that the one who depose Nero's deposer pretended to be his legitimate succesor?