Roman History Books and More

browsing through 'caesar, life of a colossus'

Preparing for the first of our two book chats on Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldworthy, I've been re-reading the biography and have some observations on the first half of the book:

Part One: The Rise to Consulship 100-59 B.C.: Members of our group can most likely speed-read through the chapters dealing with the history of the Republic and the very early years of young Caesar.

Part Two: Proconsul 58-50 B.C., which we will partially discuss:  I find three topics especially well covered in these chapters:

• The War Commentaries.  A critical assessment.
• Caesar's Army.  No surprise with Goldworthy's past coverage of the Roman Army.
• The Whole of Gaul is Divided.  An excellent introduction of the history of the area that was outside the Roman provinces in 59 B.C.E. and a good set-up piece for the book's coverage of the Bellum Gallicum.

Online ancient texts can be found here.

next two book chats: caesar, life of a colossus

On November 4 & 18 we are going to discuss Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldworthy.

I reviewed the book in 2006.

My suggestion for the first of the two chats is to try and get as far as Book II, Chapter 12:  "Politics and War: The Conference of Luca," which divides the book roughly into half (through page 268).

Since we have had Caesar quite frequently in our book chats, I'm not sure how much I'm going to blog on this – especially as I have a rather full plate of work next month.  We'll see.

pliny the younger on jstor

I mentioned earlier that I would pursue Pliny the Younger on JSTOR. 

There are hundreds of articles of course, ranging from analyzing Pliny the man to interpreting his letters, to discussion of individual letters, and so on: You name it, they have it.

Quite often, Pliny is described as a gentleman, as praise as well as "is there all that is to him?" Here are two:

Fred Dunham calls him a "Gentleman and Citizen," lauding him via John Milton

… who defines education as follows: "I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." Such was Milton's concept of the English gentleman and citizen, and so it has remained to this day.

Later, he writes:

Pliny's letters [leave] us with vivid impressions. We enjoy him because he has a revealing message expressed in a style that shows the highest respect for the intelligence of a reader. His letters were apparently the product of slow, careful study ad numerous emendations; they were not the result of rapid practice in improvised journalistic writing. To be sure, his composition at times verges upon artificial formality; but we think no more of this fault than we do of George Washington's letters, which were written in a day when epistolary art was more formal than it is today. Pliny was not a journalist, although he possessed many of the best qualities of a good reporter. Were he living today, his writings might appear in the New York Times or in the Atlantic Monthly, but not in the Saturday Evening Post or the usual daily papers - and perhaps this is in his favor. 

The Younger Pliny. Gentleman and Citizen
Author(s): Fred S. Dunham
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 7 (Apr., 1945), pp. 417-426
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292044

A. Carleton Andrews doesn't think it's such a good thing:

This at least is true, that a person whom we call a gentleman is a social conformist, whether or not he manifests inherent courtesy in addition to observance of the accepted forms of courtesy, and Pliny must be so considered if we accept him as a gentleman.

Pliny the Younger, Conformist
Author(s): A. Carleton Andrews
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Dec., 1938), pp. 143-154
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290716

And then there is a discussion of his sense of humor or the lack thereof:

And so one may approach the problem of humor either with the greatest diffidence, because he knows not what humor is, or with the greatest assurance, because no one knows any better than he what it is.

This problem emerges in connection with the younger Pliny, who, while certainly not a second Aristophanes or a premature Mark Twain, has enlivened his Letters at intervals with what appear to be gleams of attractive humor. Yet W. M. L. Hutchinson in his Introduction to the Loeb translation has written that Pliny's character, "in spite of priggishness, vanity, and want of humour, has not only respectable but amiable traits.'' Perhaps the mistake is mine, and all that had seemed humor is nothing else than amiability raised to the nth degree.

But the more one thinks about Pliny, the more apparent it becomes that he must have had a sense of humor.

Pliny's "Want of Humor"
Author(s): Graves H. Thompson
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1942), pp. 201-209
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3291609

Ronald Syme, to no ones surprise, it interested in persons:

People in Pliny
Author(s): Ronald Syme
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 58, Parts 1 and 2 (1968), pp. 135-151
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/299703

Correspondents of Pliny
Author(s): Ronald Syme
Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 34, No. 3 (3rd Qtr., 1985), pp. 324-359
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435931

introductions to the letters of pliny the younger from print editions

This is mainly for those participants in the October 21 chat on the Letters of Pliny the Younger who do not have a print copy.

I went to Google Books and found previews of two major print editions.  One  offers  the complete introduction, the other the larger part, meaning some pages are blank, nonetheless giving as excellent an overview and discussion of the letters. (The latter is the copy I have.)  Considering that we have only one chat, and also in general, these chapters can be quite helpful to the understanding of Pliny the person and Pliny the letter writer.

• Oxford World Classics Edition (Patrick Gerard Walsh)
  Complete Introduction and Note on the Text & Translation.
  Click on arrows to get to the Introduction.
  
• The Penguin Classics Edition (Betty Radice)
  Incomplete introduction. It also shows appendices, such as a reconstructed plan of Pliny's house at Laurentum. ("Content: Inscriptions," scroll down)

Statue of Pliny the Younger on the façade of
the Cathedral of S. Maria Maggiore in Como
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

second of three chats on 'caesar's women'

The second of our three chats on Caesar's Women, on Wednesday, covers two more chapters:  Parts IV and V.

A quite entertaining rendition of the Catilinarian conspiracy … Servilia's letter to Caesar and and its consequences … the trial of Rabirius (see McCullough's note on this) … the Senate tries to disbar Caesar … Caesar and the Vestals … enter Publius Vatinius … the Bona Dea scandal … Pompey returns  … and much more … enjoy!

Join us here.

2010 reading list for book chats

As we like to plan ahead, here, as usual, is next year's reading list for our book chats:

Roman History Reading Group
Reading List for 2010

January 6	The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff
January 20, February 3 & 17	Tacitus, Histories (Penguin Classics; Revised edition, August 25, 2009) Histories Online
March 3 & 17	Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day by Philips Matyzcak  (Irene's review) Working IX to V: Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World by Vicki Leon
April 7	Lavinia by Ursula K. Leguin
April 7 & 21	Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (Penguin Classics; annotated edition edition, 2006) Online: The Meditations with background: Marcus Aurelius by Anthony Birley / related blogs, etc., to follow
May 5 & 12	Augustus, A Novel by John Williams, which interested parties could combine with Massie’s Augustus as a contrast.
June 17	The Roman Way by Edith Hamilton
June 2, 16	Martial (selections to come)
July 7	SPQR III: The Sacrilege by John Maddox Roberts
July 14	The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard This may be carried over into August for those interested.
August Recess
September 1	Kleopatra by Karen Essex (Irene's review) / (N.S. Gill's review)
September 15, October 6 & 20	Sections of The Aeneid (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Virgil Dryden Translation
November 3, 17	The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss
December 1	Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis
December 15	Get Out or Die (Aurelia) by Jane Finnis

first of three chats on 'caesar's women'

The first of our three chats on Caesar's Women, on Wednesday, covers the first three chapters (Parts I through III):

Caesar returns from Spain and gets introduced to Servilia, who as so often is up to no good, while Brutus hankers after little Julia … Pompey receives and executes the command against the pirates … Clodius plays havoc with Lucullus' army and gets a little punishment but finds Fulvia … Metellus Pius dies and Caesar has a chance … politics Roman (and Caesar) style abound … and much much more … enjoy!

Join us here.

next book chats: 'caesar's women' in three installments

I have been asked how we are planning to discuss Caesar's Women by Colleen McCullough, our upcoming read, over the three chats.  Given the usual size of the tome, I suggest we follow our McCullough "convention" and divide the novel into to three parts:

• September 2:  Through Part III
• September 16:  Through Part V
• October 7:  Through the end

Enjoy your read!

review: 'rome and jerusalem' by martin goodman (erich gruen)

Catching up on my reading, I came across this review by Erich Gruen, titled Two Eternal Cities on a Collision Course? of Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman, paperback edition of November 2008, originally published in 2007.

The confrontation of Rome and Jerusalem cannot but quicken heartbeats, trigger associations, stir memories, and spark curiosity.  No other cities parade the combination of great antiquity, tenacious traditions, turbulent history, complex cultures, and compelling narratives. Rome may possess the conventional crown of the “eternal city.” But Jerusalem has at least as strong a claim on it. In 66 ce conflict exploded between them, the so-called “Great Jewish Revolt” (a label, of course, affixed from the Roman perspective) that took on unexpectedly monumental proportions at the time and produced reverberations that continue to re-echo.

Martin Goodman’s recent book, Rome and Jerusalem, demands attention.* Rightly so. Few scholars have the auctoritas to switch confidently and effortlessly between the cultures. Few have written as cogently and convincingly on each of them separately and on both in combination.   A sweeping survey of the subject by such a scholar, intended to reach an audience beyond the specialist researcher and the academic expert, marks an event of real significance. It would have received a wide welcome on any reckoning.       read full review

This seems to be a worthwhile and interesting read!

'the augustan aristocracy' by ronald syme

I'm in awe of and intrigued by Sir Ronald Syme's The Augustan Aristocracy – and have to chuckle over things such as  "… the opuscule of Velleius Paterculus which swells before the end into a panegyric of Tiberius Caesar."  Of course, as always with Syme, the book is quite dense. I wish I had more time.

The book is nearly unaffordable right know, at least on the U.S. market, although I must have hit a window when I purchased it a year or so ago: interested parties might want to check ever so often, especially at AbeBooks.com.

Google Books does have an extensive preview which gives an excellent indication of the scope of the work.

I searched the Internet Archive without success, but did find The Roman Revolution.

the cambridge companion to horace

Our recent book chat on Horace' Satires really spurred my interest in Horace.  I finally got hold of The Cambridge Companion to Horace (Cambridge Companions to Literature), of which Google Books has a limited preview.

The essays are excellent and do invite deeper study of the poet.  Here is a Bryn Mawr Review:

Reviewed by Niall Rudd, University of Liverpool
Word count: 2475 words

This is a wide-ranging and successful collection, aimed at the scholarly non-specialist. The contents are as follows: Introduction (Harrison), Horace: Life and Chronology (Nisbet), Horatian self-representations (Harrison), Horace and archaic Greek poetry (Hutchinson), Horace and Hellenistic poetry (Thomas), Horace and Roman literary history (Tarrant), Horace and Augustus (Lowrie), The Epodes: Horace's Archilochus? (Watson), The Satires (Muecke), The Epistles (Ferri), The Ars Poetica (Laird), Carmina: Odes and Carmen Saeculare (Barchiesi), Philosophy and ethics (Moles), Gods and religion (Griffin), Friendship, patronage and Horatian sociopoetics (White), Wine and symposium (Davis), Erotics and gender (Oliensis), Town and country (Harrison), Poetics and literary criticism (Rutherford), Style and poetic texture (Harrison), Ancient receptions of Horace (Tarrant), The reception of Horace in the Middle Ages (Friis-Jensen), in the Renaissance (McGann), in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Money), and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Harrison).

This arrangement provides full coverage with a certain amount of overlap. I offer comment on two general themes and then make some passing observations, in all of which there will be some friendly dissent; but a large measure of agreement may be taken for granted.

read on … and don't miss this response … and the response to the response

Niall Rudd himself is the translator of:

Horace, I, Odes and Epodes (Loeb Classical Library)
The Satires of Horace and Persius (Penguin Classics)

sejanus 'the tuscan'

That's what C.P. Baker calls him in his Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, in the chapter "The Advent of the Tuscan," p. 221 ff.  Online

[…] He was a Tuscan, sprung of that strange, dark and ancient Etrurian race which seemed to derive many of its typical characteristics from an older culture than that of classical Greece and Rome. The Etrurian possessed a start in the virtues and vices of civilization that the Roman, trained in a later school, never quite recaptured: his very mind and temperament, like those of the Jew, were attuned by a remote historical experience to the life of populous cities and crowded human society.

Maecenas had been a Tuscan—that very wise man of the world who never fought nor worked, but, because he lived in a torrent of talk, ruled the men who did so. . . . After all, the art of arriving at an understanding with other men is the whole art of civilization.

Seianus possessed this gift. He had a genius for adapting himself to other men. We may call it genius, for he successfully adapted himself to the mind of one of the subtlest, most discerning, and most difficult men who ever lived Tiberius.

lucius aelius sejanus, praetorian guard prefect (20 b.c. – october 18, 31 c.e.)

Important historical type with the name of Sejanus removed in damnatio memoriae.

I have been browsing through two Tiberius biographies, Tiberius by Robin Seager and Tiberius the Politician by Barbara Levick, to see how realistically Sejanus has been portrayed in the novel Tiberius: The Memoirs of the Emperor by Allan Massie, our current read.

Indeed, it seems the connection with Tiberius is almost as early as imagined in the novel.  Both biographers indicate that they accept Tacitus' depiction of Sejanus.  Both however cast doubt on the assumption that Sejanus had Drusus poisoned, picking apart the story of the letter which Apicata, the divorced wife of Sejanus, sent to Tiberius after the former's death.  But, as Seager writes, the issue is really academic:  Drusus had to die and die soon.  Thus, if he hadn't died of natural causes, he would have been eliminated sooner rather than later. 

on reading barbara levick's 'tiberius the politician'

I've started reading Barbara Levick's Tiberius the Politician (1976, revised edition 1999).

First thing I came across was the supplemental bibliography of 1999, and what does she list? Massie's Tiberius novel!

I do like the prosopographical excursion into the fates and political/military appointments and positions of adherents of Tiberius on the one side and Julia/Scribonia on the other (Chapter IV: "Rehabilitation: The Final Struggle for the Succession, page 51 ff"), but I'm baffled when the author gets to the Silani:

… Servilia, mother by D. Iunius Brutus of M. Iunius Brutus the Liberator married for a second time D. Silanus, consul, in 62 BC, and became the mother of daughters.  One, Iunia Tertulla, was the wife of Cassius the Liberator (as well as being Cato's granddaughter) and survived until AD 22, causing comment by her will:  she omitted to mention the Princeps.

Niece surely, not granddaughter?

Levick adds a "warning against reckless prosopographical speculation," listing several cross-overs from within the groups.  Overall it seems to show that Tiberius quickly consolidated his support after his return from Rhodes, and even evidences some of it during his exile.  It's also interesting to see how many descendants of the old families were still around, contrary to what often is maintained about their disappearance during the various civil wars of the second half of the first century BC.  Prosopography can be fascinating:  Let's hear it for Ronald Syme!

another fictional take on sejanus

David Wishart, in his Marcus Valerius Corvinus mystery series, takes a close look at the villain: Sejanus.  It's a well researched novel and an excellent read.

Unfortunately, the book is seriously out of print.

update on tiberius biographies: g.p. baker online

An update to modern biographies of tiberius:

Robert found the G.P. Baker one on the Internet Archive

Tiberius Caesar

Enjoy!

another horace biography

Earlier on, I bemoaned the fact that there are so few Horace biographies around.  Well, N.S. Gill found one:

The next Roman history book chat will discuss Horace. On Irene Hahn's blog, she mentions there is a shortage of biographical information on Horace. The Internet Archive provides a wealth of out-of-copyright material, including an old-fashioned biography of Horace: Horace by Wm. Tuckwell (1829-1919). London: G. Bell & sons. 1905. There are others to search for, but this first one I looked at seems to have the info.

read on

Author: Tuckwell, William, 1829-1919
Subject: Horace
Publisher: London : G. Bell & sons

It's  a concise (87 pages) introduction to Horace, nicely illustrated too.  And with a chapter on wine …

The Internet Archive (subscription is free)

modern biographies of tiberius

As we are reading Allan Massie's novel, Tiberius: The Memoirs of the Emperor, it might be worthwhile to look at modern biographies of Tiberius.

These I have in my library:

G.P. Baker: Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome (1929)
Robin Seager: Tiberius (1972, revised edition 2005)
Barbara Levick: Tiberius the Politician (1976, revised edition 1999)

     

More on these later, I'm reading the Baker right now … comments are invited.

And Google Books has this oddity:

The history of that inimitable monarch Tiberius by John Rendle (1813)
WHO, IN THE XIV YEAR OF HIS REIGN,
REQUESTED THE SENATE TO PERMIT THE WORSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST
AND WHO, IN THE XVI AND THREE FOLLOWING YEARS,
Or,
BEFORE THE CONVERSION OF CORNELIUS BY PETER,
SUPPRESSED ALL OPPOSITION TO IT.
The Rev. JOHN RENDLE, M. A.

ancient historians on tiberius (a.d. 14-37)

DIR Tiberius says:

The main ancient literary sources for the reign of Tiberius are: Tac. Ann. 1-6; Dio 57-59; Suetonius, Tiberius and Gaius; Josephus BJ 2.204-17 and AJ 18.181-87, 205-25; Velleius Paterculus, esp. 2.94-131. References to Tiberius are also found in Pliny the Elder, Philo, Seneca and others.

Tacitus Annals, Books 1-6
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tac/index.htm
or Wikisource:

• Book 1: 14-15 C.E.
• Book 2: 16-19 C.E.
• Book 3: 20-22 C.E.
• Book 4: 23-28 C.E.
• Book 5: 29-31 C.E.
• Book 6: 32-37 C.E.

upcoming book chat july 15 (and final for the season) 'tiberius' by allan massie

Tiberius: The Memoirs of the Emperor
By Allan Massie

Blogging forthwith … just started re-reading the book.