Josiah Osgood, in his Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire, an excellent complement to Syme's The Roman
Revolution, writes about coin hoards during the time of the proscription.
These hoards have been discovered in Italy and he points out the obvious: The increased frequency of finds from the times of upheaval indicates that buried coins were not recovered because their owners most likely perished.
He cites M. Crawford (1969) "Roman Republican coin hoards."
Continue reading "coin hoards from the times of the civil wars and the triumvirs' proscriptions" »
I said earlier that Hermann Broch's The
Death of Virgil is a difficult and ambitious book. In the appendices to my German edition, the author discusses his work at length at various stages and revisions. He worked on it for seven years, from 1938 to 1945.
There is a brief description of the novel (or poem as the author insists it is) at Wikipedia (as usual, handle with care). English readers will have the comfort to know that the translation by Jean Starr Untermeyer, a friend of Broch's, was closely supervised by the author. He himself also addressed the difficulty of translating this work in the above appendices.
Continue reading "more on hermann broch's 'death of vergil' " »
Again, I'm spending time in doctors' and hospital waiting rooms, drinking vile stuff – well actually no so vile, nowadays they mask the barium with a fruit smoothie taste – and waiting for the stuff to work through my body before a CT-scan. In circumstances like these, ambitious nonfiction is not the thing to read. (My apologies to Mary B.)
However, keeping in with the "Roman Revolution" theme, I grabbed an old favorite, David Wishart's I, Virgil – unfortunately it seems to be seriously out of print right now. For those readers who know Wishart only from the Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus mystery novels, with their wine-swilling hero and his anachronistic modern gumshoe language, this 1995 novel would come as a real surprise.
Continue reading "reading about the augustan era: novels of virgil" »
The Roman
Revolution by Ronald Syme: May 7 chat covers quite a range of period. (Luckily, we have plenty of time):
- XIII: THE SECOND MARCH ON ROME
Consolidations: Antonius wins over the generals; Octavian manipulates the Senate into his first consulate.
- XIV: THE PROSCRIPTIONS
"The Republic had been abolished. Whatever the outcome of the armed struggle, it could never be restored…" Exhaustive discussion of the proscriptions in Rome and Italy. A new Senate and and a new generation of "marshals." The new composition of the Caesarian and "Catonian" parties.
- XV: PHILIPPI AND PERUSIA
The outcome of Philippi was "final and irreversible, the last struggle over the Free State. Henceforth nothing but a contest of despots over the corpse of liberty … No battle of all the Civil Wars was so murderous to the aristocracy. Among the fallen were recorded the noblest names of Rome."
Although the events leading up to and at Perusia were badly managed, Octavian's state of affairs remain precarious.
Continue reading "syme's 'roman revolution': what's covered in chapters 13 through 22 " »
According to Christian Knapp, who was the guest conductor this weekend at the Stamford Symphony Orchestra, and discussing Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony #4 (The Italian), the early Romantic composers such as Schubert and Mendelsohn had much in common with Jane Austen: they had the same restrained emotions. I'm not so sure, on either side, having watched the recent Austen craze on PBS, and listening to the second movement of the above symphony.
All this is by way of a lead-in to today's enjoyable concert. Christian Knapp did not disappoint, though I may have heard better interpretations of the Mendelssohn in my long life.
Continue reading "what do early romantic composers and jane austen have in common?" »
It is only lately that I have come across Posidonius of Apamea (ca. 135 - 51 BCE), Stoic philosopher and acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age. What an interesting personality! And what a shame that we have his work only in fragments. He lived during the final era of the Roman republic and was supposedly a friend of the exiled Rutilius Rufus, though I haven't found anything concrete yet on that issue. Cicero claims to have studied with him during his stay in Rhodes. Posidonius was the Rhodian ambassador to Rome in 87 - 86 BCE.
Wikipedia (as usual handle with care) has an extensive page on him. Jona Lendering has a brief note. The OCD, very informative, devotes several columns to Posidonius. (It also also contains the revealing tidbit that Cicero wanted Posidonius to write up his consulate, which the latter diplomatically declined.)
Continue reading "posidonius (poseidonius) of apamea " »
Steven Saylor's last Roma Sub Rosa mystery, The Judgment of Caesar, ended ambiguously: Did Gordianus and Bethesda die or not? Well, here is the answer, in the stores by May:
The Triumph of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Product Description (Amazon.com page)
The Roman civil war has come to its conclusion, Pompey is dead, Egypt is firmly under the control of Cleopatra (with the help of Rome's legions), and for the first time
in many years Julius Caesar has returned to Rome itself. Appointed by the Senate as Dictator, the city abounds with rumors asserting that Caesar wishes to be made King, the first such that Rome has had in centuries. And that not all of his opposition has been crushed.
Continue reading "the triumph of caesar: new gordianus mystery in the stores in may" »
Ronald Syme in The Roman
Revolution (1939) writes that "Neglect of the conventions of Roman political terminology and of the reality of Roman political life has sometimes induced historians to fancy that the Principate of Caesar Augustus was genuinely Republican in spirit and in in practice – a modern and academic failing. Tacitus and Gibbon knew better." Here are Tacitus and Gibbon in their own words:
Tacitus (Annals 1.2):
[1.2] When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompeius was crushed in Sicily, and when, with Lepidus pushed aside and Antonius slain, even the Julian faction had only Caesar left to lead it, then, dropping the title of triumvir, and giving out that he was a Consul, and was satisfied with a tribune's authority for the protection of the people, Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws. He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandised by revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the dangerous past. Nor did the provinces dislike that condition of affairs, for they distrusted the government of the Senate and the people, because of the rivalries between the leading men and the rapacity of the officials, while the protection of the laws was unavailing, as they were continually deranged by violence, intrigue, and finally by corruption.
Continue reading "tacitus & gibbon on augustus' fake republicanism" »
This blog is an adjunct to The Roman History Reading Group which meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month except August in our chat room (with download instructions for both Mac and Windows users), from 9:30 to 11:00 p.m. US EST. (This means that in Asia and Australia/Pacific, it's daytime.) Here is a world time clock as a general assistance for non-USAns.
On April 16 and May 7 & 21 we will discuss The Roman
Revolution by Ronald Syme. (April 2 was canceled)
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