Roman History Books and More

the flamen dialis

In The Legatus Mystery by Rosemary Rowe, the chief priest of Jupiter in the Roman colonia of Glevum, an elderly eccentric, aspires to the post of flamen dialis, chief priest of Jupiter of Rome, the most distinguished of the priesthoods after the pontifex maximus.  In fact, he practices already at being so by observing all the rituals and restrictions of that position and requires his young wife to do the same as flaminica dialis.

Here is Cicero outlining these rules:

A great many ceremonies are imposed upon the Flamen Dialis [the priest of Jupiter], and also many restraints, about which we read in the books On The Public Priesthoods and also in Book I of Fabius Pictor's work.  Among them I recall the following:  1) It is forbidden the Flamen Dialis to ride a horse;  2) It is likewise forbidden him to view the classes arrayed outside the pomerium [the sacred boundary of Rome], i.e., armed and in battle order---hence only rarely is the Flamen Dialis made a Consul, since the conduct of wars is entrusted to the Consuls;  3) It is likewise forbidden for him ever to take an oath by Jupiter;  4) It is likewise forbidden for him to wear a ring, unless it is cut through and empty;  5) It is also forbidden to carry out fire from the flaminia, i.e., the Flamen Dialis’ house, except for a sacral purpose;  6) if a prisoner in chains enters the house he must be released and the chains must be carried up through the opening in the roof above the atrium or living room onto the roof tiles and dropped down from there into the street;

a very short review

Peter Salway's Roman Britain: A Very Short Introduction is certainly short: 67 pages plus a bibliography (2 pages), chronology (3 pages) and index (4 pages).

The book is basically chronological in focus, taking us from Julius Caesar's expeditions down to the end of Roman rule. Along the way Britain is placed firmly in the context of what was happening elsewhere in the Empire, and the differences and similarities with the situation in Gaul in particular are nicely brought out.

The inside front flap informs us that this book was previously issued as a chapter in The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain.

a visit to fishbourne

Bingley, who kindly helps me with this blog, recently went home and along the way visited Fishbourne (Wikipedia, handle with care).   He brought back his impressions and a few photos.

Enjoy his Visit to Fishbourne!
_________

Fishbourne Roman Palace
(Tempus History & Archaeology)
by Barry Cunliffe

A Body in the Bathhouse
A Falco mystery by Lindsey Davis which takes place at the Palace of Fishbourne, with King Togidubnus in residence.

more on floor mosaics

For those who have an interest in mosaics:  this is a craft that has well survived, as this commercial site with their gallery shows.

And here is a Mosaics of Roman Britain Gallery from the BBC, although not the best in color.

More of my own photos from Augusta Rurica (Kaiseraugst, Switzerland) and Trier (Click on images to enlarge):

      

mosaic makers and their craft

Longinus Flavius Libertus, the freedman sleuth of Rosemary Rowe’s  The Legatus Mystery (from the Libertus Mysteries Series), is a pavement maker, a designer and maker of mosaics.

Roman mosaics were usually made of small square tesserae of 10mm x 10mm (3/8" x 3/8") size.

Below are a number of links/images of extant Roman mosaics, most of them quite elaborate.  It seems doubtful that our Libertus did much more than geometric patterns –which could be very intricate though – but may have had other design templates.  Occasionally, the mosaicist would sign his work, for example, The artist at work. 

In my travels in 1999 through Germany, I went to Bad Kreuznach near Mainz, where two mosaic floors were discovered in the remains of a Roman villa, in 1893 and 1966, and are now preserved in a museum barn.  They are presumed to be from the 2nd century AD, the period in which the Libertus mysteries are set.  So they are quite appropriate for our upcoming chat on February 7.

The better known is the Gladiator Mosaic, the other the Oceanus Mosaic, a favored theme.  (Click on the images below. Oh dear, old software, I have to re-edit those!)

a little bit about glevum

Our current read is set in the Roman city of Glevum, or more formally Colonia Nervia Glevensium. Wikipedia has an article on Glevum (usual caveats apply).

roman-britain.org has its usual thorough coverage, including a picture of a mosaic found in the city - not, alas, by Libertus as it has been dated to the fourth century. The Gloucester city website has some pages on the Roman period, including this page from a virtual tour of the city museum. The city museum's own website has pictures of sculpture found in the city and roundabout.

As the city's full name indicates, it was the Emperor Nerva who gave the town the status of a colonia. As part of its celebrations of its nineteen hundredth anniversary the town erected an equestrian statue of Nerva.

titus maccius plautus at about.com

(coming briefly out of hibernation) 

About.com's N.S. Gill has an excellent write-up about Plautus, whose comedies are the subject of our book chat next Wednesday.
         

titter ye not

I didn't actually find A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum that funny. It had its amusing moments, but it wasn't really laugh out loud material. It did bring back fond memories of Up Pompeii!, though.

For those who haven't seen it, Up Pompeii! (usual wikipedia caveats apply) was a BBC sitcom starring Frankie Howerd (who was Pseudolus in the London version of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum) as Lurcio, slave to the Pompeii household of Ludicrus Sextus, Amonia, Nausius, and Erotica. Lurcio's attempts to bring the audience a bit of classical culture were always foiled by the fact that he never managed to finish the prologue to whatever story he wanted to tell because the complex machinations of various members of the household kept getting in the way.

To my 13-year-old self it was hilarious, and as I near 50, the clips on the BBC's page devoted to the programme (scroll down for the clips) are still pretty funny. What made it funny was, of course, Frankie Howerd's asides to the audience, which weren't so much asides as the whole point, and the situations forever teetering on the brink of disaster until he managed to get them back under control. Another favourite character, seen making a typical entrance at the end of the first clip, was Senna the Soothsayer. They should have made many more episodes, rather than the dire film version. Woe, woe and thrice woe, indeed.

DVDs of the series, together with other Frankie Howerd performances, are available from amazon.co.uk, but not it would seem from the American amazon.

blogging hiatus

I'm in the process of switching to a new computer and find the migration process a major headache.  Thus I won't be blogging for a few days.  An impending snow storm may keep me housebound though, so resumption might be sooner rather than later.

Things on Plautus will be next.

march book chat preview: the legatus mystery

On March 7 we will read some light fare for a change:

Rosemary Rowe’s The Legatus Mystery (Libertus Mysteries Series), set in 2nd-century AD Roman Britain.

Libertus has found his long-lost wife, but the happy reunion is roughly interrupted by the temple murder of a Roman  ambassador and its bizarre aftermath.

Enjoy!

upcoming book chat: plautus’ comedies

On February 21, we will discuss the comedies by Titus Macchius Plautus.

A sampling of print editions:

Five Comedies: Miles Gloriosus, Menaechmi, Bacchides, Hecyra and Adelphoe
Four Comedies: The Braggart Soldier, The Brothers Menaechmus, The Haunted House, The Pot of Gold (Oxford World's Classics)
The Pot of Gold and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
There is also the upcoming book Classical Comedy.

A good background read is
The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire
(Cambridge Companions to Literature)

Online, we have Gutenberg:

Amphitryon, The Comedy of Asses, The Pot of Gold, The Two Bacchises, The Captives (Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi)

the eruption of mt. vesuvius, 79 AD

In truly epic poem style, Anthony Burgess narrates the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD in his conclusion of The Kingdom of the Wicked.  He also places Domitian at the scene, which he successfully flees: “He had to live to become emperor; there were many hearts to be transfixed before he died.”

Eruption of 79 (Wikipedia, handle with care)
Official Pompeii Archaeology site  Lots of stuff!

The best known historic description of the horrifying event comes from Pliny the Younger in two letters to Tacitus:  6.16 and 6.20.   Pliny the Elder was praefect of the Roman fleet at Misenum at the time, and his adopted nephew Pliny the Younger and his mother lived with him or visited him at the time.  Pliny the Elder perished and Pliny the Younger and his mother barely escaped.

the great fire of rome

The Great Fire of Rome, AD 64, may have been the beginning of the end for the emperor Nero.  Whether it was deliberately set by Nero's minions or started accidentally, is still hotly debated.  (Of course, this was not the only big fire in Ancient Rome and received notoriety only because of  the personality of Nero and the ancient historians, see texts below.)   It was the subject of Secrets of the Dead: The Great Fire of Rome  at PBS.

Wikipedia (handle with care) has a nice coverage.

Anthony Burgess, in our current read The Kingdom of the Wicked has a lot to draw on.  His marvelous description (page 387 ff)  borders on the epic.

The main sources are

julius who?

The February issue of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography magazine has a feature Six Degrees of Julius Caesar (scroll down to the bottom half of the page), linking two people called Julius Caesar, one we've all heard of and one most of us probably haven't heard of before (well, I certainly hadn't anyway). The links in the chain will all be open for free reading during February.