Our View Of Rome

[Skarr]

The houses of prominent Romans served as a kind of landmark and most people who lived nearby would give out their house directions by first pointing to say, Cicero's house and saying that you needed to pass his house and then go five doors down on the left to reach their house. Of course, most prominent Romans would send a slave (say a day earlier to a dinner invitation) and then just follow him or her to their destination. The ladies would travel by litter or even walk (if it was a nice day, as the streets tended to get really muddy), while the men generally preferred to walk. A little mud on their shoes ? No problem, there was a slave waiting to wash their feet upon arrival.

 

Another interesting fact is that most people rarely entered via the front door, as the vestibule was always jam packed with clients and other riff-raff. Friends and guests invariably used a more private entrance to the domus that was probably guarded by slaves to fend off any undesirables seeking to gain admittance.

[phil25]

Skarr - that's very interesting, and sounds likely. What is your source?

 

Phil

[caldrail]

Rome was also very crowded with maybe an oriental air rather then a geometric modern one. Streets were winded, dirty, crowded and narrow. Sometimes dangerous as people were throwing "things" from the upper levels. There was no urban zoning and people from very different classes will be neighbours. Quite different from how provincial cities with wide streets in a grid plan looked.

 

The street level has commercial premises, traders and artisans whose trade counter is open to the street. The middle floors have tenants crowded into small rooms with little furnishings and no running water or cooking facilities. Very little heating either given the fire risk of these wooden framed flats. The highest attic level is worst. Freezing in winter and blisteringly hot in summer. Throughout the block rats and pests are evident. The entire building was built quickly and it shows. Cracks have appeared everywhere and plaster is crumbling off the walls. The family next door got evicted for debt last week and the landlord is putting up rents to cover the cost of his litigation. Didn't get much sleep last night. The people below us had a right arguement over something. Then some idiot upstairs threw his mess over a wagon in the street. The slanging match went on and on. Never mind the wagon got stuck at the corner for an hour or two. Oh well. Off to the granary in the morning and pick up my dole I suppose...

[Julian]

It was here that the Christians were persecuted.

 

I believe this idea is unsupported by any known facts. In many ways, this view shows the relevance of the opening post.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

Coming to the princeps / public contact, in Republican times, dictators like Sulla walked alone in the streets of Rome, unaccompanied by even clients (Sulla preferred to walk alone). However, people feared the old Sulla, almost a superstitious fear and gave him a wide berth when he roamed about the city on foot. Caesar also liked to walk rather than be carried in a litter and so did many of the other powerful men.

 

The senators' red shoes and broad purple stripe on the borders of their togas were enough authority to sway most Romans, who would automatically defer to this and yield way for their betters, without any need to announce their presence or shove people out of the way in Rome's narrow and crowded streets.

 

 

at which point in time were lictors used? i was under the impression that the important men in romes history were accompanied by these guys? i believe they were bodyguards and were armed with some kind of axe??

am i on the right lines or way off?

could somebody shed some light on this for me

thanks

 

maximus

[Primus Pilus]

at which point in time were lictors used? i was under the impression that the important men in romes history were accompanied by these guys? i believe they were bodyguards and were armed with some kind of axe??

am i on the right lines or way off?

could somebody shed some light on this for me

thanks

 

maximus

 

Lictors were used throughout. The tradition continued well into the principate period despite the noted alterations in government.

 

Sometimes when we read that a particular person preferred to walk alone it could be a suggestion that they did indeed walk without the customary clients and hangers-on, but not necessarily that they were completely by themselve . Since Lictors were assigned as a symbol of imperium and a magistrate's authority they may have been ignored in the context of a man walking with other people (meaning he was alone... save for the symbol of authority, or perhaps not. We can't really be sure).

 

In theory a Lictor was never supposed to leave their assigned magistrate unattended except for when he entered a free city and when he visited a higher magistrate. (ie Praetor visiting a Consul) However there is evidence of "bodyguards" being dismissed by magistrates (ie Caesar and the Ides of March) but whether this was simply his private guards or included Lictors as well is not clear. According to custom the 24 Lictors should've accompanied Dictator Caesar even into Pompey's Theatre (which had temporarily served as the forum and was interestingly outside the pomerium) but that is one of the few details left out of the various accounts of Caesar's death.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

at which point in time were lictors used? i was under the impression that the important men in romes history were accompanied by these guys? i believe they were bodyguards and were armed with some kind of axe??

am i on the right lines or way off?

could somebody shed some light on this for me

thanks

 

maximus

 

Lictors were used throughout. The tradition continued well into the principate period despite the noted alterations in government.

 

Sometimes when we read that a particular person preferred to walk alone it could be a suggestion that they did indeed walk without the customary clients and hangers-on, but not necessarily that they were completely by themselve . Since Lictors were assigned as a symbol of imperium and a magistrate's authority they may have been ignored in the context of a man walking with other people (meaning he was alone... save for the symbol of authority, or perhaps not. We can't really be sure).

 

In theory a Lictor was never supposed to leave their assigned magistrate unattended except for when he entered a free city and when he visited a higher magistrate. (ie Praetor visiting a Consul) However there is evidence of "bodyguards" being dismissed by magistrates (ie Caesar and the Ides of March) but whether this was simply his private guards or included Lictors as well is not clear. According to custom the 24 Lictors should've accompanied Dictator Caesar even into Pompey's Theatre (which had temporarily served as the forum and was interestingly outside the pomerium) but that is one of the few details left out of the various accounts of Caesar's death.

 

thanks for that primus, but what about the weapon, im sure i've read somewhere that they carried some sort of ceremonial axe, is this true??

[Primus Pilus]

thanks for that primus, but what about the weapon, im sure i've read somewhere that they carried some sort of ceremonial axe, is this true??

 

Yes the fasces or bundled rods was the symbol of the magistrate's (thereby the city of Rome's) power to inflict punishment on lawbreakers. The axe represented the authority of the magistrate to decide life and death.

 

Inside the pomerium (the orginal border of the city) the axes were removed to indicate that the authority of life and death rested only with the people's assemblies. In the case of Caesar though, a dictator's Lictors were allowed to keep the axe even inside the pomerium to illustrate the dictator's ultimate authority. Of course, also in Caesar's case (as I eluded to earlier) the Theatre of Pompey was actually outside the Pomerium anyway. I truly wonder what became of Caesar's lictors.

[Skarr]

The custom of lictors accompanying those Romans with imperium actually dates back to the Etruscans, as their kings had lictors to symbolize not only the power of life and death (the axe) but also the power to punish or chastize (the bundled rods).

 

The conspirators knew that they could not attack Caesar in the streets, on his way to the senate house, which was at that time, as PP points out, outside the Servian walls, in the Campus Martius, where Pompey had built a grand theater. I don't think the lictors actually accompanied Caesar into the floor of the senate but probably waited for their master outside. So, the only way to actually have a chance is to kill Caesar on the floor of the senate itself, with the assassins being the senators themselves, who would smuggle in knives for the occasion.

 

I don't think Caesar or any of his advisors ever thought that senators, the first citizens of Rome, would stoop to such degrading levels to personally carry out an assassination. I think it was unthinkable, given Rome's long and distinguished history up to that point. Caesar may have regarded himself as inviolable, particularly within the hallowed walls of the senate.

 

In fact, the cowardly senators, fearing Antony's brute strength, which may impede their plan, drew him away from the floor, so that they would not have to face him, as he would surely have killed several of them with his bare hands, as he was a skilled fighter and not an easy man to contend with. The rest of the senators were pussies and might have cowered in fright.

[Primus Pilus]

I do believe the law stated that a lictor could actually accompany a magistrate into the forum and actually attend the Senate. I may be mistaken on that, but regardless I'm sure such a show of imperium to fellow Senators would've been considered ridiculously taboo.

 

In fact, the cowardly senators, fearing Antony's brute strength, which may impede their plan, drew him away from the floor, so that they would not have to face him, as he would surely have killed several of them with his bare hands, as he was a skilled fighter and not an easy man to contend with. The rest of the senators were pussies and might have cowered in fright.

 

Indeed, Antonius certainly would've thrown a wrench into the works. Though his later behavior in casting off his consular toga and hiding for fear of his own life (which was a perfectly legitimate concern despite the lack of foresight by the conspirators), doesn't exactly paint him as the sort of man that would've made that much difference in the actual attempt on Caesar's life. Was it Suetonius who suggested he dressed up as a woman? Regardless, all the other sources indicate that he simply tried to blend in by casting off the trappings of rank. Despite this, perhaps it truly was that his simple presence would've struck terror into the hearts of the non soldier senators (as Skarr suggests so eloquently, lol).

[phil25]

...Pompey's Theatre (which had temporarily served as the forum and was interestingly outside the pomerium)...

 

I don't think the theatre of Pompeius ever served as the or any sort of forum. The forum Romanum remained in use, as far as i am aware, throughout the restructuring of the Tabularium end by Caesar. The Curia Hostilia was destroyed in Clodius' funeral, and rebulit as the Curia Julia on a different site with a different orientation.

 

If an alterative Forum had been required, Caesar's new one already existed close at hand.

 

That said, the Senate often met elsewhere at times, and for some purposes. Pompeius' theartre included - at the opposite end of the huge peristyle to the theatre/temple itself - a purpose built curia. It was there that Caesar was killed. Part of the rear wall of that part of the complex can still be seen.

 

I am not sure, but off-hand the Senate may have met in the Curia Pompeii as the Ides of March was the festival of Anna Perenna (as I recall) when citizens traditionally left the City to picnic.

 

Phil

[Primus Pilus]

...Pompey's Theatre (which had temporarily served as the forum and was interestingly outside the pomerium)...

 

I don't think the theatre of Pompeius ever served as the or any sort of forum. The forum Romanum remained in use, as far as i am aware, throughout the restructuring of the Tabularium end by Caesar. The Curia Hostilia was destroyed in Clodius' funeral, and rebulit as the Curia Julia on a different site with a different orientation.

 

If an alterative Forum had been required, Caesar's new one already existed close at hand.

 

That said, the Senate often met elsewhere at times, and for some purposes. Pompeius' theartre included - at the opposite end of the huge peristyle to the theatre/temple itself - a purpose built curia. It was there that Caesar was killed. Part of the rear wall of that part of the complex can still be seen.

 

I am not sure, but off-hand the Senate may have met in the Curia Pompeii as the Ides of March was the festival of Anna Perenna (as I recall) when citizens traditionally left the City to picnic.

 

Indeed, forgive my misuse of 'Forum' in the verbiage. I meant that the theatre served as one alternative Curia (Senate House) and not as an actual forum.

[phil25]

I thought it was probably a slip (I know your usual accuracy PP), but I thought I'd put it right for the record.

 

By the way - and my real reason for responding - does anyone know anything about the festival of Anna Perenna and what it would have meant for the City on that day?

 

Does it mean Antonius' escape would have been through unusually deserted streets? Could it have been a reason why the Liberators did not get their message across (no audience) and even a cause why the particular day was chosen for the deed?

 

Phil

[Primus Pilus]

Does it mean Antonius' escape would have been through unusually deserted streets? Could it have been a reason why the Liberators did not get their message across (no audience) and even a cause why the particular day was chosen for the deed?

 

Phil

 

It certainly makes some sense. Clearly the conspirators were limited by time constraints... Caesar's impending campaign to Parthia, so I think perhaps the festival may have been a convenient coincidence. It might however, along with providing empty streets for escape for Antonius and others, explain how there was a relatively mild initial reaction from the public.

 

An interesting concept that I've never really put any thought into. I also admit to knowing virtually nothing of the actual festival.

[Skarr]

Skarr - that's very interesting, and sounds likely. What is your source?

 

Phil

 

Not one particular source.. I've read too many books on Rome and things connected with Rome for the past 25 years now and cannot pinpoint a particular source that all of this comes from... I have a fairly good picture in my mind now of how Rome looked and how the citizens lived... It certainly helps if you are a writer.