Roman History Books and More

blogging scullard – or not …

I find it hard blogging H.H. Scullard's History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC, our current read.

For one, Scullard is so inclusive and thus hard to enlarge upon.  On the other hand, where he finds conflicting opinion he points it out in an endnote, and most of the time I would have to go to JSTOR to get more information, and most of the members of the book chat do not have access to that organization and it articles.

So my recommendation is to really keep and eye on the endnotes.  I keep a little bookmark in place to make it easier to find them.

I know that there are time constraints for our readers.  I would say that as a must, in PART I, read Chapters V and VI on the conflicts between the social orders, the constitution, the organization of Italy, and the attitude of Rome towards its regional adversaries.  Without it, the amazing rise of Rome may not be fully understood.  Then moving on to PART II, Rome and Carthage, there will be a more straightforward and faster to read narrative.

autumn crocuses and more

For someone like me, who is botanically challenged, I said “Crocuses?,” when we strolled through the Rock Garden in the New York Botanical Garden on Sunday.

And indeed, there is is the Autumn Crocus, Colchicum autumnale, also known as “meadow saffron” or “naked ladies” (tsk, tsk).

    

Then there were the “animals” in the Children's Garden.  We were a bit late in the season for the Rose Garden, but some blooms were still fresh, and oh, what fragrances!'

View all my photos or go to the Photo Albums on the right-hand column.

smith's dictionary of greek and roman antiquities now available as google book

Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities is now available at Google Books:

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities By Sir William Smith

There are also

• A School Dictionary of Greek & Roman Antiquities By William Smith
• A Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising Its Antiquities, Biography, Geography By Sir William Smith, John Mee Fuller

ancient art follows me around . . . and villas in boscoreale, italy

Yesterday, I met a friend for lunch at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York City.  And as ancient art seems to follow me around, I was not surprised to see a couple of Roman pieces in the Rotunda and Library respectively of Mr. Morgan's Library and Study:

• A Pair of Double Cups with Repoussé Decorations of Cranes, first century AD, silver with traces of original gilding. They were fairly small but delicately worked.
• A statue, "Running Eros, Holding Torch," Bronze, from the second or first century BC, which was found in one of the villas in Boscoreale, destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption, or so it said.  If you google boscoreale villas, or boscoreale archaeology, you'll find a lot of interesting things, including these pages from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Roman Painting: Frescoes From Campania.

foundation legends via plutarch: online texts

As we read  H.H. Scullard's discussion of the foundation legends in his  History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC, Plutarch (Wikipedia, handle with care) may be helpful.

Here are online text versions of Plutarch's Lives:

• Ancient/Classical History at About.com  Dryden
• Lacus Curtius (main Plutarch page)  Loeb Classical Library edition, Bernadotte Perrin
• MIT Internet Classics Archive  Dryden
• University of Adelaide Library  Dryden (facsimile)
• Project Gutenberg  various

Mestrios Plutarchos on this blog

(Image from Parallel Lives, Amyot translation, 1565)

t.p. wiseman on the foundation legends of rome

H.H. Scullard in History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC  has an excellent summary on the foundation legends of Rome.

Searching for more, I was rather disappointed about the quality of general information, but I found two books by T. P. Wiseman:

One can be previewed in Google Books: Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press 1995), and purchased at Amazon.com.

There are two Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews: 97.05.18 reviewed by Nicholas Purcell and 97.06.03 reviewed by John Van Sickle.

The other is The Myths of Rome, a more recent publication by the University of Exeter Press. This 2004  hardcover edition is rather expensive, however, it seems that a paperback will be published in November 2007.

archaeology of the forum and palatine

Furman University Classics Department has an excellent course page of maps, archaeological photos, and reconstructions of  Forum and  Palatine (though not always in chronological order):

Archaeology of the Forum and Palatine

Some are of interest for our current read, A History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC.  For example, for our first chat:

• Pre-urban settlements in the Forum Valley
• Inhumation and hut-urn burials
• Hut foundations and a reconstruction of hut
• Reconstruction of a hut
• Palatine in the early stages of development

To find more, you have to scroll down the page.

book review – the fight for rome: a gladiators of the empire novel

“ Time stopped. Quintus was suddenly in some hellish painting from the hand of a demented artist.  The image was too brutal to be real. Had he really contributed to this catastrophe?  Could he have possibly fought this battle even more savagely than the battle-hardened barbarians in his ranks?  Could he possibly have taken so many lives?  He had thought he knew the power of Taurus, but he had never considered him capable of killing on such a massive scale.”€

The Fight for Rome, the second novel in the Gladiators of the Empire series by James Duffy takes the story of Quintus Honorius Romanus, the gladiator going by the name of Taurus, to a new level and involves both protagonist and antagonist in the politics of civil war.

new book – caesar’s calendar: ancient times and the beginnings of history

There is a fascinating new book out: Caesar's Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History (Sather Classical Lectures) by Denis Feeney (University of California Press 2007, 386 pages, list price $29.95).

I haven't had the chance yet to read much of it, although what I have read I do like.  The book has just received a very favorable review at Bryn Mawr Classical Review which I'd like to share:

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.09.17

The reviewer, Christopher Smith, University of St Andrews, calls it  “a tremendously important as well as a  terrifically well-written book.”

book review – the day of the barbarians: the battle that led to the fall of the roman empire

The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire by Alessandro Barbero deals with th battle of Adrianople in 378 CE.

In his Prologue, the author writes:

The subject of this book is a battle that changed the course of world history It was not a famous fight like Waterloo or Stalingrad; in fact, most people have never heard of it. And yet some believe that it signified nothing less than the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the Middle Ages, because this battle set in motion the chain of events that would lead, nearly a century later, to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. That event is linked to a wellknown date that forms part of our common fund of knowledge: AD 476, the year when Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor of the West, was deposed. But in fact the removal of Romulus was only the final, inevitable step in a process that had begun long before.

what to look for in scullard’s “history of rome”

First of all, I hope that the edition of History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC  that the book chat participants have in their hands is the fourth edition, 1978, which is greatly revised over the original 1934 version, taking new research and archaeological findings into account.

Here are some items to consider:

• Scullard makes a cogent statement when in the Preface to the first edition he writes:  “I'm very conscious that history means ‘enquiry’, not certainty.”  A point which should be taken into account by both writers and readers of all history.


• There is a nice CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE  which is introduced as “[designed] to emphasize som of the outstanding events in early Roman history.  The Varronian dating (pp.428ff.) has been followed. Prior to 390 BC many of the dates are merely traditional and some of the facts (e.g. foundation of colonies) are not above suspicion.”


• And last but not least, I recommend reading Chapter XIX of Part IV first before delving into the book. It's titled SOURCES AND AUTHORITIES.

upcoming book chat: h.h. scullard, a history of rome 753 to 146 bc

On Wednesday, September 19 we will start discussing A History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC  by H.H. Scullard.

There will be three chats:

• September 19:  Part 1, Rome and Italy (this is the longest chapter)
• October 3:  Part 2 ,Rome and Carthage (shorter, but lots to talk about)
• October 17: Parts 3 & 4: Rome and the Mediterranean / Roman Life and Culture (by this time, everyone should be caught up)

Background information will follow and we will do some blogging as usual.

Enjoy your read!

lead

On page 48 of my edition of "Pompeii", Robert Harris writes: An image of his father flashed into his mind. Killed before he was fifty by the lead he had worked with all his life, leaving Attilius, a teenager, as head of the family.

Lead poisoning is often given as a reason, if not the reason, for the fall of the Roman Empire -- it is number 121 on the (alphabetical order) list Irene referred us to earlier.

Encyclopedia Romana has an article on Lead Poisoning and Rome, which comes out against this hypothesis. Ancient/Classical History points to a wide-ranging golden thread from the atrium on lead in Classical times and its effects.

One source of lead was as a by-product of silver mining rather than from mining lead specifically. This map shows the location of silver and lead mines in Britain, including the location of Falco's silver pigs! Unfortunately not all the links on the map work, so you will also have to use the search engine to get further information. The BBC has a story on a Roman lead-smelting site found in Wales.