by
Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
Still a Republic at time of Herod ‘the Great’
“[The Romans] conquered kings near and far, and everyone who heard of
their reputation was afraid of them. They helped some men to become kings, while they deposed others; they had become a world power. In spite of all this, no Roman ever tried to advance his own position by wearing a crown
or putting on royal robes. They created a senate, and each day 320 senators came together to deliberate about the affairs of the people and their
well-being. Each year they entrusted to one man the responsibility
of governing them and controlling their whole territory”.
I Maccabees 8:12-16
Introduction
If I am correct in my merging of the Maccabean era of Judas “the Hammer” with the Nativity era of Jesus Christ, in articles such as:
Judas the Galilean vitally links Maccabean era to Daniel 2’s “rock cut out of a mountain”
(3) Judas the Galilean vitally links Maccabean era to Daniel 2's "rock cut out of a mountain"
then the conventional view that the reign of Herod ‘the Great’ sat largely within the early Roman Empire period would need to be scrapped. For clearly, during the Maccabean period, the Roman Republic was flourishing, yet new.
I Maccabees 8:1-32 provides us with a wonderful description of Rome at the time of Judas Maccabeus:
Judas [Maccabeus] had heard about the Romans and their reputation as a military power. He knew that they welcomed all those who joined them as allies and that those who came to them could be sure of the friendship of Rome.
People had told him about the wars the Romans had fought and their heroic acts among the Gauls, whom they had conquered and forced to pay taxes. He had been told what they had done in Spain when they captured the silver mines and the gold mines there. By careful planning and persistence, they had conquered the whole country, even though it was far from Rome. They had overcome the kings from distant lands who had fought against them; they had defeated them so badly that the survivors had to pay annual taxes. They had fought and conquered Philip and Perseus, kings of Macedonia, and all who had joined them against Rome.
They had even defeated Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, who had attacked them with 120 elephants, cavalry, chariots, and a powerful army. They took him alive and forced him and his successors to pay heavy taxes, to give hostages, and to surrender India, Media, Lydia, and some of their best lands. They took these and gave them to King Eumenes.
When the Greeks made plans to attack and destroy them, the Romans learned of the plans and sent a general to fight against them. The Romans killed many of the Greeks, took their wives and children captive, plundered their possessions, occupied their land, tore down their fortresses, and made them slaves, as they are today. They also destroyed or made slaves of other kingdoms, the islands, and everyone who had ever fought against them. But they maintained their friendship with their allies and those who relied on them for protection. They conquered kings near and far, and everyone who heard of their reputation was afraid of them. They helped some men to become kings, while they deposed others; they had become a world power. In spite of all this, no Roman ever tried to advance his own position by wearing a crown or putting on royal robes. They created a senate, and each day 320 senators came together to deliberate about the affairs of the people and their well-being. Each year they entrusted to one man the responsibility of governing them and controlling their whole territory. Everyone obeyed this one man, and there was no envy or jealousy among them.
Judas chose Eupolemus, the son of John and grandson of Accos, and Jason son of Eleazar and sent them to Rome to make a treaty of friendship and alliance with the Romans. He did this to eliminate Syrian oppression, since the Jews clearly saw that they were being reduced to slavery. After a long and difficult journey, Eupolemus and Jason reached Rome and entered the Senate. They addressed the assembly in these terms:
Judas Maccabeus, his brothers, and the Jewish people have sent us here to make a mutual defense treaty with you, so that we may be officially recorded as your friends and allies. The Romans accepted the proposal, and what follows is a copy of the letter which was engraved on bronze tablets and sent to Jerusalem to remain there as a record of the treaty:
May things go well forever for the Romans and for the Jewish nation on land and sea! May they never have enemies, and may they never go to war! But if war is declared first against Rome or any of her allies anywhere, the Jewish nation will come to her aid with wholehearted support, as the situation may require. And to those at war with her, the Jews shall not give or supply food, arms, money, or ships, as was agreed in Rome. The Jews must carry out their obligations without receiving anything in return.
In the same way, if war is declared first against the Jewish nation, the Romans will come to their aid with hearty support, as the situation may require. And to their enemies there shall not be given or supplied food, arms, money, or ships, as was agreed in Rome. The Romans must carry out their obligations without deception. These are the terms of the treaty that the Romans have made with the Jewish people. But if, in the future, both parties shall agree to add or remove anything, they shall act on their decision, and whatever they add or remove shall be valid. Furthermore, concerning the wrongs which King Demetrius is doing against the Jews, we have written him as follows,
Why have you treated our friends and allies, the Jews, so harshly?
If they complain to us about you one more time, we will support their cause and go to war against you on land and sea.
There does not appear to be any evidence, though, in future struggles of the Maccabees that the Romans honoured that promise, “… if war is declared first against the Jewish nation, the Romans will come to their aid with hearty support, as the situation may require”.
Part Two:
From Gaius Marius to Pompey the Great
“Much like King Philip II of Macedon in previous Greek history,
Marius removed as many non-essential personnel and animals from his army as possible and thus made it faster and easier to move on campaign”.
Within my new arrangement of Hellenistic history, with the era of the emperor Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ ‘collapsing’ into the time of Herod ‘the Great’ (Part One), there is no longer any chronological opportunity for certain conventionally famous Roman Republicans, say, from Gaius Marius to Julius Caesar.
Though we read in Part One, from I Maccabees 8, that the Roman Republic - and not the Empire - was certainly functioning at this time.
Greek identifications for
famous ‘Republicans’
Some of the following identifications are tentative, with possibly better alternatives to be discovered later.
Gaius Marius
He is conventionally dated to c. 100 BC.
Gaius Marius has become known as “a bloodthirsty tyrant” (see below).
Marc Hyden, who has written a book about Marius, asks the question:
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/gaius-marius-was-savior-ancient-rome-was-he-hero-or-villain-008858
Was Marius a Hero or Villain?
So, was Marius a hero or a villain? The truth is that he was both. Early in Marius’ career, he proved to be a conscientious politician even though he later violated Rome’s laws on term limits. However, this provision was sometimes violated in times of great danger. Marius was also a talented general. He concluded the long-running Jugurthine War, which no other commander seemed capable of doing. He vanquished the menacing Cimbri, who had previously routed numerous Roman armies. However, Marius’ legacy is muddled due to the last chapter of his life.
Because of a petty dispute with his erstwhile subordinate, Roman legions marched on their homeland as conquering armies for the first time in history, which threw the Republic into chaos. Once Marius returned to power, the man who once safeguarded the Republic evolved into a bloodthirsty tyrant. This unfortunately ensured that his reputation would forever be tainted. In fact, as is evident by my book Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Saviour, 2,000 years later, it is still being debated how Marius should remembered. ….
In looking for a Greek (Macedonian) alternative for Marius, I would consider Philip II of Macedon, with whom Marius is compared at:
https://steelfighting.com/2011/07/07/roman-consul-gaius-marius-and-the-marian-reforms/
Marius was able to also reduce the size of his army by drastically limiting beasts of burden to carry soldiers’ gear and ordered that soldiers carry most of their
equipment on their person. This reduction in army size as opposed to the added weight on the individual soldier still made for an army that was able to move on march faster than before. …. They were able to march approximately 20 miles a day on favorable road conditions while carrying roughly 80-90 pounds. …. Much like King Philip II of Macedon in previous Greek history, Marius removed as many non-essential personnel and animals from his army as possible and thus made it faster and easier to move on campaign.
Philip II, conventionally dated to 359-336 BC, likewise “was an accomplished [ruler] and military commander in his own right”
(https://www.ancient.eu/Philip_II_of_Macedon/), as well as being ruthless and cunning: “He used bribery, warfare, and threats to secure his kingdom”.
The famous general Gaius Marius was supposedly the uncle of Julius Caesar (by marriage to Caesar’s Aunt Julia).
A note on the Julians
Conventionally, this is a purely Roman patrician family:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(gens))
The gens Julia or Iulia was one of the most ancient patrician families at Ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the consulship was Gaius Julius Iulus in 489 BC. The gens is perhaps best known, however, for Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator, and grand uncle of the emperor Augustus, through whom the name was passed to the so-called Julio-Claudian dynasty of the 1st century AD. The nomen Julius became very common in imperial times, as the descendants of persons enrolled as citizens under the early emperors began to make their mark in history.
In our new terms, though, we ought to expect Greek origins for the Julians.
My suggestion for a Greek Iulius would be Iolaus, Alexander the Great’s cup-bearer: https://thesecondachilles.com/tag/iolaus/
He [Alexander] was killed by his own people Taken literally this statement is wrong.
The Macedonians either in part or as a whole did not rise up against Alexander. If we take the writer to mean the people who are alleged to have assassinated him – Antipater, Cassander and Iolaus – then it is simply debatable. They could have murdered the king, they had a motive to do so (Antipater’s fear that Alexander intended to kill him), but it is surely significant that the first person to make the allegation was Alexander’s mother, Olympias, who was at that time locked in battle with Cassander, the last of the aforementioned three to survive. ….
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix
“No better friend, no worse enemy”.
He is conventionally dated to c. 100 BC.
Sulla’s Hellenistic persona may be, once again, that most influential Seleucid king, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’. At least alike in his death: “In 78 BCE he died in his bed. There are some reports from ancient writers that it was a gruesome death, his flesh dissolving into worms”.
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey)
He is conventionally dated to the mid-C1st BC.
The wealthy Pompey, who in the mid-60’s BC is considered to have formed what has come to be known as the ‘First Triumvirate’ with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gaius Julius Caesar, is definitely a composite figure with certain Hellenistic characteristics. See my series:
Pompey the Great: ‘Roman Alexander’?
https://www.academia.edu/44562086/Pompey_the_Great_Roman_Alexander
and:
https://www.academia.edu/44562106/Pompey_the_Great_Roman_Alexander_Part_Two_Republic_spilling_into_Empire
But I also suspect that the legend of Pompey’s assaulting the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, and his killing of many Jews, may be based on tales associated with a Ptolemy. According to the apocryphal 3 Maccabees:
https://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/3maccabees.html
“It describes how Ptolemy IV attempted to enter the holy of holies in the temple in Jerusalem and how he was miraculously repelled (1:1-2:24)”.
“The marble bust of Pompey is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen). Its somewhat incongruous appearance, the round face and small lidded eyes beneath the leonine mane of hair, is because Pompey, the most powerful Roman of his day, sought a comparison with Alexander the Great …”.
Pompey ‘Imitating’ Hellenistic?
Previously I have quoted Nic Fields (Warlords of Republican Rome: Caesar Against Pompey, 2010), who wrote:
His flatterers, so it was said, likened Pompey to Alexander the Great, and whether because of this or not, the Macedonian king would appear to have been constantly in his mind. His respect for the fairer sex is comparable with Alexander’s, and Plutarch mentions that when the concubines of Mithridates were brought to him he merely restored them to their parents and families.
….
Similarly he treated the corpse of Mithridates in a kingly way, as Alexander treated the corpse of Dareios, and ‘provided for the expenses of the funeral and directed that the remains should receive royal interment’.
….
Also, like Alexander, he founded many cities and repaired many damaged towns, searched for the ocean that was thought to surround the world, and rewarded his soldiers munificently. Finally, Appian adds that in his third triumph he was said to have worn ‘a cloak of Alexander the Great’. ….
It is interesting to learn that the original name of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’, who, just as Pompey is said to have, would desecrate the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, was likewise “Mithridates”:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes
Fields again (p. 98):
In a sense Pompey personified Roman imperialism, where absolute destruction was followed by the construction of stable empire and the rule of law. It also, not coincidentally, raised him to a pinnacle of glory and wealth. The client–rulers who swelled the train of Rome also swelled his own. He received extraordinary honours from the communities of the east, as ‘saviour and benefactor of the People and of all Asia, guardian of land and sea’. …. There was an obvious precedent for all this. As the elder Pliny later wrote, Pompey’s victories ‘equalled in brilliance the exploits of Alexander the Great’. Without a doubt, so Pliny continues, the proudest boast of our ‘Roman Alexander’ would be that ‘he found Asia on the rim of Rome’s possessions, and left it in the centre’. ….
Pompey is even supposed to have gone so far as to have tried to emulate Alexander’s distinctive appearance:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/pompey.
The marble bust of Pompey is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen). Its somewhat incongruous appearance, the round face and small lidded eyes beneath the leonine mane of hair, is because Pompey, the most powerful Roman of his day, sought a comparison with Alexander the Great, whose distinctive portraits were characterized by a thoughtful facial expression and, more iconographically, locks of hair brushed back high from the forehead, a stylistic form known as anastole, from the Greek “to put back.” ….
Did Pompey absorb – like I have argued may have been the case with Julius Caesar – not only Alexander-like characteristics, but also general Hellenistic ones?
Or, more to the point - in the context of this series - was the semi-legendary “Pompey” a composite based upon Hellenistic personages?
And might that mean that the famous event of Pompey’s desecration (by his presence therein) of the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, supposedly in 63 BC:
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12264-pompey-the-great
The capture of the Temple mount was accompanied by great slaughter. The priests who were officiating despite the battle were massacred by the Roman soldiers, and many committed suicide; while 12,000 people besides were killed. Pompey himself entered the Temple, but he was so awed by its sanctity that he left the treasure and the costly vessels untouched (“Ant.” xiv. 4, § 4; “B. J.” i. 7, § 6; Cicero, “Pro Flacco,” § 67). The leaders of the war party were executed, and the city and country were laid under tribute. A deadly blow was struck at the Jews when Pompey separated from Judea the coast cities from Raphia to Dora, as well as all the Hellenic cities in the east-Jordan country, and the so-called Decapolis, besides Scythopolis and Samaria, all of which were incorporated in the new province of Syria [,]
may be in fact a muddled version of that real historical incident when Antiochus (Mithridates) ‘Epiphanes’ most infamously desecrated the Temple by erecting an image of Zeus in his own likeness on the altar?
Part Three:
Crassus, Cicero and Julius Caesar
In common Croesus and Crassus: Disgustingly rich; powerful;
fought against the east, Persians, Parthians; captured; killed.
It can either be said today, “as rich as Croesus”, or, “as rich as Crassus”.
Marcus Licinius Crassus
He is conventionally dated to c. 115-53 BC.
We have already had some fun with the ‘filthy rich’ Crassus, supposedly one member of the ‘First Triumvirate’.
See e.g. my article:
Croesus and Crassus
https://www.academia.edu/35003607/Croesus_and_Crassus
I’m Marcus Licinius Crassus,
No rich man could ever surpass us.
Wanted people to say I was brave,
But I lost my first fight and hid in a cave.
Living there could be a pauper’s nightmare,
But if you’re rich like me then you don’t care.
I called my slave to the cave to ask it,
To cook a feast and lower in a basket.
Horrible Histories
A decade after his fellow triumvir, Pompey ‘the Great’, was supposed to have desecrated the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem (63 BC), Crassus is said to have done the very same (53 BC). As I noted in the above article:
“More reminiscent of that persecutor [Antiochus] were the events involving Crassus in 53. Crassus not only entered the temple, as Pompey had, but he also robbed it as Antiochus had. In addition, Plutarch (Crass. 17. 5-6) describes the plundering of a temple at Hierapolis in Syria by Crassus, the same temple that is said to have been plundered by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Granius Licinianus, Ann. 28). Finally, Crassus's defeat at the hands of the Parthians, and his death during that eastern campaign, were also reminiscent of Antiochus. As argued above, this was probably the impetus to the revolt following his death, but it probably also had a more lasting effect.
I shall clarify this point: in asserting similarities between the actions of Pompey and Crassus with Antiochus Epiphanes, I neither maintain an identity of the causes and the motivations of the revolts of the first century BCE against the Romans with those of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus, as argues by William Farmer and by Martin Hengel … nor do I agree with them that those motivations were primarily religious”. ….
In this article, though, I am (contrary to the above quote) ‘asserting similarities between the actions of Pompey and Crassus with Antiochus Epiphanes’ and I am ‘maintaining an identity of the causes and the motivations … with those of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus, as argued by William Farmer and by Martin Hengel …’.
Thus, finding some definite similarities between Crassus and Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, I can continue to pursue my ‘Hellenisation’ of supposed C1st BC Roman Republicans.
Crassus is, however, like Pompey again, a composite character (and non-historical). For, apart from his likenesses to the Seleucid king, Antiochus, he has other features in common with the semi-legendary composite king, Croesus - who has, in turn, likenesses to the Aztec, Montezuma, another entirely fictitious character and famous under that name in various Indian (including Apache) legends.
See e.g. my articles:
Croesus and Montezuma
https://www.academia.edu/34970392/Croesus_and_Montezuma
and:
Croesus and Montezuma. Part Two: Montezuma and early Genesis
https://www.academia.edu/35424792/Croesus_and_Montezuma._Part_Two_Montezuma_and
Marcus Tullius Cicero
He is conventionally dated to c. 106-43 BC.
If he were to be lined up with a Greek alter ego, I would suggest – have suggested:
Ptolemy IX “Chickpea” and Cicero “Chickpea”
https://www.academia.edu/32758739/Ptolemy_IX_Chickpea_and_Cicero_Chickpea_
“… I suggest that Cicero explicitly employs unhistorical
(or at least not certifiably true) exempla, with a view to
the internal consistency of the dialogues' fictional world”.
Dan Hanchey
I wrote there:
Some obvious similarities between the text-book Ptolemy Soter (so-called IX) and Cicero are their supposed beginnings before 100 BC, and their sharing of a name, or nickname, meaning “Chickpea”.
In the book, Language Typology and Historical Contingency: In honor of Johanna Nichols (eds. B. Bickel et al.), we read as follows about this name (p. 303):
The possible prehistory of *ḱiḱer- is more interesting. The attested forms are Latin (Glare 1996) cicer ‘chickpea’ (Cicer arietinum), cicera ‘chickling vetch’ (Lathyrus sativus), Armenian siseṙn ‘chickpea’, Macedonian (Hesychius) kíkerroi (Lathyrus ochrus), and Serbo-Croatian sȁstrica (Lathyrus cicera or Lathyrus sativus). …. There is also the possibility of Greek kriós, ‘chickpea’, which Pokorny (1994: 598) tentatively suggests might be from *kikriós with dissimilation, and Hittite kikris, a food item used in a mash, and measured in handfuls. ….
Likewise, Ptolemy was, Cicero was, contemporaneous with a Cleopatra, who had no great love for the “Chickpea”, or vice versa.
In the case of Ptolemy, we read:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ptolemy-IX-Soter-II
“Although [Cleopatra, so-called III] preferred his younger brother, Ptolemy Alexander, popular sentiment forced the dowager queen to dismiss him and to associate Ptolemy Soter on the throne with herself”.
In parallel fashion, Cleopatra [so-called VII] ruled as co-regent with Ptolemy [so-called XII]: “Before his death, Ptolemy XII chose his daughter Cleopatra VII as his coregent. In his will, he declared that she and her brother Ptolemy XIII should rule the kingdom together”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_XII_Auletes
Interestingly, Cicero, according to what we read at this site, is supposed to have commented unfavourably on this latter situation:
Throughout his long-lasting reign the principal aim of Ptolemy [XII] was to secure his hold on the Egyptian throne so as to eventually pass it to his heirs.
To achieve this goal he was prepared to sacrifice much: the loss of rich Ptolemaic lands, most of his wealth and even, according to Cicero, the very dignity on which the mystique of kingship rested when he appeared before the Roman people as a mere supplicant. As for Cicero and Cleopatra: “Without doubt Cicero was hoping for bad news about Cleopatra. He did not like Greeks and he did not like women, and most of all he hated the Greek woman Cleopatra ...”. (Michael Foss, The Search for Cleopatra, 1999). ….
Gaius Julius Caesar
He is conventionally dated to c. 100-44 BC.
I previously in this article had suggested an Hellenistic origin for the clan name, Julius.
To make matters really complicated, there is supposed to have been, incredibly, an ‘Antiochus Epiphanes’ at the time of the emperor Hadrian – and I have already identified the Antiochus Epiphanes with the emperor Hadrian:
Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ and Emperor Hadrian. Part One: “… a mirror
Image”
https://www.academia.edu/32734925/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_One_a_mirror_image_
and:
https://www.academia.edu/35538588/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_Two_Hadrian_a_second_Antiochus_
and, guess what? - this Antiochus Epiphanes had the name of Julius Caesar.
He was, supposedly, Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes (Philopappus).
Julius Caesar, the great man, acclaimed by some to have been the perfect man, never existed. He was, like Pompey, a composite of Alexander the Great and emperor Antiochus Epiphanes. Macedonian Greek, not Roman.
And certain outstanding and miraculous aspects of Caesar’s legend were based on a truly great JC: JESUS CHRIST.
Jesus Christ was the Model for some legends surrounding Julius Caesar
https://www.academia.edu/14752305/Jesus_Christ_was_the_Model_for_some_legends_surrounding_Julius_Caesar
https://www.academia.edu/14805253/Jesus_Christ_was_the_Model_for_some_legends_surrounding_Julius_Caesar._Part_Two_Hellenistic_Influence
https://www.academia.edu/14886145/Jesus_Christ_was_the_Model_for_some_legends_surrounding_Julius_Caesar._Part_Three_Divine_Augustus
Part Four:
Precautions from Mary Beard
A new interpretation of “Hadrian’s Wall”
“Without Clayton’s work, Hadrian’s Wall today would look more like Offa’s Dyke”.
Mary Beard
Neither the Roman Republicans nor some of the early Roman Emperors have fared very well in this present article, in which famous Roman Republicans, and at least the emperor Hadrian, are shown to have their origins and proper identities in Hellenistic rulers.
Hadrian himself has been merged with the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’.
Archaeologists, as we have found, have the greatest difficulty in distinguishing the building works of Herod from those of Hadrian.
Now, in the following intriguing article, Mary Beard has reached some unexpected conclusions about the famous, so-called: Hadrian’s Wall:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/was-hadrians-wall-built-in-the-nineteenth-century/
Was Hadrian’s Wall built in the nineteenth century?
I am at a conference this weekend. It’s called From Plunder to Preservation and it’s organised by our Victorian Studies Group. In fact right now I should be at the conference dinner, but I begged off. It was bound, I thought, to be a Bacchanalian affair — and, as I am not drinking, I feared that I would either get irritated at everyone else’s jollity or else too tempted to have a glass myself. So I came home to write a review, which I’ve half finished now.
The idea of the conference is to explore the relationship between heritage and empire. There hasn’t been a duff paper so far and there are too many highlights to go through them all. I particularly enjoyed Maya Jasanoff, who raised the issue of how far (or not) we ought to see the human plunder of empire, in the form of slaves, as analogous to the plunder in the form of art works. (In the course of this she talked interestingly about slave trade tourism in Ghana, and the different treatment of the monuments of the slave trade between Ghana and Sierra Leone).
On the classical/Greek side, the husband talked about the Anglican cathedral in Khartoum, designed by Robert Weir Schultz, an Arts and Crafts architect who had started his career drawing and recording Byzantine monuments in Greece (the Khartoum church is based on the church of St Demetrius in Thessaloniki).
This paper fitted extraordinarily well with Simon Goldhill‘s on the work of another Arts and Crafts-man, C. R. Ashbee in Jerusalem. Meanwhile Ed Richardson had spoken of the classical presentation of the Crimean War (with warships called things like "Agamemnon").
I looked instead at Roman Britain. The aim of my talk was to knock a nail into the coffin of the fashionable view that Roman British archaeology in the nineteenth century was a handmaiden of empire, that it was practised by classically trained public schoolboys, imbued with the spirit of empire. Archaeology was, in other words, imperialism pursued by other means. For Hadrian’s Wall, read the North West frontier and vice versa.
My line is that this is a politically correct, but unthinking, approach to the study of Roman Britain in the nineteenth century. In short, it’s wrong.
What exactly is the matter with it?
In part, the supposed imperialist character of Romano-British archaeology is based on selective quotation. Of course, you can find a whole range of examples where nineteenth-century archaeologists use comparisons with the British empire, and laid end-to-end these look pretty impressive. But if you read the original material itself, there’s really not that much of it and it’s not the driving force behind the archaeological interpretation. If anything, they are much more aggressively interested in the role of Christianity in the province.
More important though is the role of classical texts.
There’s a common view that these classically trained archaeologists had somehow inherited an imperialist view of their subject from the classical texts they had read. That would, of course, be possible if those texts really were straightforwardly imperialist in outlook. But in fact Roman writers expressed deep ambivalence about the effects of the empire, and correlated Roman moral decline with the expansion of its imperial territory. More to the point, Tacitus’ Agricola — the key literary text for understanding Roman Britain — is also the text in which that ambivalence is expressed most clearly (this is the "make a desert and call it peace" text). Anyone brought up on the Agricola would be encouraged to take a wry, not an enthusiastic, position on imperialist endeavours.
Another factor is the striking mismatch territorially between the British and Roman empire.
Until the final dismemberment of the Ottoman empire, there was hardly any overlap between the two (Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar). This meant that British archaeology was quite unlike its French equivalent, in the French colonies of North Africa — where Roman archaeology really did go hand in hand with imperial expansion. There was no such thing in the nineteenth century as Roman archaeology in the British empire.
Except, of course, in Britain itself. Indeed the paradox at the heart of Roman Britain for its nineteenth-century practitioners was just that: the province which had been the most distant in the ancient empire, was the metropolis of the modern. Was Britain centre or periphery?
In the course of this I looked at Hadrian’s Wall and its Victorian history.
Two men were clearly crucial in its rediscovery (patriotic northerners, and hardly part of the British imperial project). First there was John Collingwood Bruce, who conducted ‘pilgrimages’ to the Wall and wrote the standard guide books. Second was John Clayton John Clayton, who preserved miles of the central section of the Wall from ‘native" depredation (in fact he bought up a lot of it to keep it safe).
The more I read, though, the more I came to realise that Clayton’s interventions were considerably more significant than simply preservation. Over miles and miles, Clayton had his labourers rebuild the Wall and in the process he created for us those all the most impressive sections that tourists now love — several courses of dry stone masonry, topped with turf, scaling windy ridges. Without Clayton’s work, Hadrian’s Wall today would look more like Offa’s Dyke.
Another ‘ancient’ monument built by the Victorians then. There’s hardly any that weren’t, it sometimes seems. ….
Mary Beard on emperor Hadrian’s biography
“The only fully surviving ancient biography is a short (20 pages or so) life -
one of a series of colourful but flagrantly unreliable biographies of
Roman emperors and princes written by person or persons unknown,
sometime in the fourth or fifth centuries AD”.
Mary Beard
Some of what Mary Beard has written about our lack of reliable information about the emperor Hadrian does little to make me want to remove him from “Horrible Histories”.
For example, she writes in “Hadrian — some myths busted”:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/hadrian-some-myths-busted/
I am delighted that the Hadrian exhibition at the British Museum looks set to be the huge success which it deserves. One of the downsides is that we classicists are going to have to get used to the rest of country enthusing about Hadrian in a way that will make us cringe.
Last night’s Newsnight Review was a good example of just this. Newsnight Review is usually an excellent programme, and last night they had three intelligent critics on board (David Aaronovitch of this parish, Marina Hyde and Simon Sebag Montefiore). The trouble was none of them [seemed] … to know much more about Hadrian or the Roman empire than they had picked up in their preview visit to the show.
The result was that they gave all kinds of misleading impressions to the innocent viewer. For a start you could easily have come away with the idea that we were uniquely well-informed about Hadrian thanks to his autobiography. As the presenter said, “No extant copy of his autobiography survives. But later copies were made so we know a lot about his life”.
Well sorry guys, all we know is what may, or more likely may not, come from his autobiography in the scrappy, short and flagrantly unreliable biography in the series known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. So when Marina Hyde said “he was obsessed with cohesion the whole way through”, the truth is that we don’t have the foggiest clue what he was obsessed with.
…. Oh well, we’ll have to get used to this kind of stuff – and learn not to stifle the enthusiasm but channel it towards a more sustained (and informed!) interest in the ancient world. ….
Damien Mackey’s comment: To know much more about, to fill out, the somewhat poorly-known Hadrian, one might like to read my accounts of who may have been his ancient alter egos. See, for example, my series:
Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ and Emperor Hadrian. Part Two: “Hadrian … a second Antiochus”
https://www.academia.edu/35538588/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_Two_Hadrian_a_second_Antiochus_
Mary Beard has yet more to say about the obscurity of Hadrian in, “A very modern emperor”:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/19/history
….
The new exhibition at the British Museum, Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, features evocative objects from both sides of this Jewish war. There are simple everyday items recovered from a Jewish hideout: some house keys, a leather sandal, a straw basket almost perfectly preserved in the dry heat, a wooden plate and a mirror - evidence of the presence of women, according to the exhibition catalogue (as if men did not use mirrors). But with or without the women, these are all bitter reminders of the daily life that somehow managed to continue, even in hiding and in the middle of what was effectively genocide. From the other side, there is a magnificent bronze statue of the emperor himself, which once stood in a legionary camp near the River Jordan. The distinctive head of Hadrian (bearded, with soft curling hair and a giveaway kink in his ear lobe) sits on top of an elaborately decorated breast-plate, on which six nude warriors do battle. It is a striking combination, even if - here as elsewhere - the catalogue raises doubts about whether the head and body of this statue originally belonged together.
Far away from Judaea, on the other side of the Roman world, Hadrian's military operations in Britain were less bloody. Apart from the low-level guerrilla warfare endemic in most Roman provinces, he had his troops occupied in building the famous wall running across the north of the province. This was a project inaugurated when Hadrian himself visited in 122, one of the few Roman emperors ever to set foot in the empire's unappealing northern outpost. It is now far from certain what this wall was for. The obvious explanation is that it was built to prevent hordes of nasty woad-painted natives from invading the nice civilised Roman province, with its baths, libraries and togas.
But - leaving aside the rosy vision of life in Britannia that this implies (baths, libraries and togas for whom exactly?) - this overlooks one crucial fact. The impressive masonry structure, which provides the iconic photo-shot of the wall, makes up only part of its length. For one-third of its 70 miles the "wall" was just a turf bank, which would hardly have kept out a party of determined children, never mind a gang of barbarian terrorists.
There are all kinds of alternative suggestion. Was it, for example, not much more than a fortified roadway across the province? Or was it more of a boast than a border - an aggressive, but essentially symbolic, Roman blot on the native landscape? ….
….
If all this seems rather familiar, that is partly because there really are significant overlaps between the Hadrianic empire and our own experience of military conflict and geopolitics. We are still fighting in many of the same areas of the world and encountering many of the same problems. We are still claiming victory long before we have won the war - or indeed, in the Iraqi case, instead of winning the war. ….
….
That feeling of familiarity has been boosted by Marguerite Yourcenar's fictional, pseudo-autobiography of the emperor, Memoirs of Hadrian. Published in 1951, and once hugely popular (it now seems to me rambling and frankly unreadable), it took the modern reader inside Hadrian's psyche - presenting the emperor as a troubled and intimate friend, in much the same way as Robert Graves made the emperor Claudius a rather jolly great-uncle. But Yourcenar's fictional construction is not the only reason for Hadrian's apparent modernity. There are all kinds of ways in which Hadrian's life and interests seem to match up to our own expectations of monarchs and world leaders, and to modern interests and passions. He was the sponsor of Mitterand-style grands projet, a great traveller to the outposts of his dominion (including that trip to Britain), as well as an enthusiastic collector of art. And to cap it all, he had an intriguing, and ultimately tragic, sex life.
….
Traveller, patron, grief-stricken lover, art collector, clear-thinking military strategist. How do we explain why Hadrian seems so approachably modern? Why does he seem so much easier to understand than Nero or Augustus? As so often with characters from the ancient world, the answer lies more in the kind of evidence we have for his life than in the kind of person he really was. The modern Hadrian is the product of two things: on the one hand, a series of vivid and evocative images and material remains (from portrait heads and stunning building schemes to our own dilapidated wall); on the other, the glaring lack of any detailed, still less reliable, account from the ancient world of what happened in his reign, or of what kind of man he was, or what motivated him.
….
The only fully surviving ancient biography is a short (20 pages or so) life - one of a series of colourful but flagrantly unreliable biographies of Roman emperors and princes written by person or persons unknown, sometime in the fourth or fifth centuries AD.
This includes one or two nice anecdotes, which may or may not reflect an authentic tradition about Hadrian. ….
Sadly, very little of the life is up to this quality. Most of it is a garbled confection, weaving together without much regard for chronology allegations of conspiracies, accounts of palace intrigue, and vendettas on Hadrian's part - plus an assortment of curious facts and personal titbits (his beard, it is claimed, was worn to cover up his bad skin). To fill the gaps, to make a coherent story out of the extraordinary material remains of his reign, to explain what drove the man, modern writers have been forced back on to their prejudices and familiarising assumptions about Roman imperial power and personalities. So, for example, where - thanks to the surviving ancient literary accounts - it has been impossible to see Nero as anything other than a rapacious megalomaniac, Hadrian has morphed conveniently into cultured art collector and amateur architect. Where Nero's relationships with men have to be seen as part of the corruption of his reign, Hadrian has been turned into a troubled gay. Hadrian seems familiar to us - for we have made him so.
The British Museum exhibition presents Hadrian as an appropriate successor to the first emperor of China and his terracotta army, both key figures in the foundation and development of early imperial societies. Maybe so. But an even better reason to visit this stunning show is to see how the myth of a Roman emperor has been created - and continues to be created - out of our own imagination and the dazzling but sometimes puzzling array of statues, silver plates and lost keys of slaughtered Jewish freedom-fighters.
Part Five:
“Roman history is a literary fiction built on mythical structures”
“The history of Britain will have to be rewritten.
The AD43 Roman invasion never happened - and was simply a piece of sophisticated political spin by a weak Emperor Claudius”.
Steve Bloomfield
According to some new findings:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/revealed-our-friends-the-romans-did-not-invade-britain-after-all-496609.html
Astonishing new archaeological finds reveal they were already our countrymen 50 years before Claudius spun his way into the history books. Steve Bloomfield reports:
Revealed: our friends the Romans did not invade Britain after all
….
The history of Britain will have to be rewritten. The AD43 Roman invasion never happened - and was simply a piece of sophisticated political spin by a weak Emperor Claudius.
A series of astonishing archaeological findings of Roman military equipment, to be revealed this week, will prove that the Romans had already arrived decades earlier - and that they had been welcomed with open arms by ancient Britons.
The discovery of swords, helmets and armour in Chichester, Sussex, dates back to a period between the late first century BC and the early first century AD- almost 50 years before the supposed invasion. Archaeologists who have studied the finds believe it will turn conventional Roman history taught in schools on its head. "It is like discovering that the Second World War started in 1938," said Dr David Rudkin, a Roman expert leading the work.
….
The discoveries in Sussex will be revealed on Saturday during a Time Team special on Channel 4 analysing the Roman invasion. Tony Robinson, presenter of Time Team, said: "One of the frustrating things with history is that things become set in stone. We all believe it to be true. It is great to challenge some of the most commonly accepted pieces of our history."
Dr Francis Pryor, president of the Council for British Archaeology, said it would prove controversial. "It turns the conventional view taught in all the textbooks on its head," he said. "It is going to cause lively debate among Roman specialists."
The AD43 Roman invasion is one of the best-known events in British history.
More than 40,000 Roman soldiers are believed to have landed in Richborough, Kent, before carving their way through the English countryside.
The evidence unearthed in Sussex overturns this theory. Archaeologists now believe that the Romans arrived up to 50 years earlier in Chichester. They were welcomed as liberators, overthrowing a series of tyrannical tribal kings who had been terrorising clans across southern England.
Sussex and Hampshire became part of the Roman Empire 50 years before the invasion that historians have always believed was the birth of Roman Britain.
The findings and their implications will be published by Dr Rudkin later this year. The discoveries have centred on Fishbourne Roman Palace in Sussex. Artefacts found there in a V-shaped ditch include part of a copper alloy sword scabbard fitting that archaeologists have dated to the period between the late first century BC and early first century AD.
Dr Miles Russell, a senior archaeologist at Bournemouth University who has studied the evidence, said: "All this talk of the Romans arriving in AD43 is just wrong. We get so fixated on the idea of a single invasion. It is far more piecemeal. In Sussex and Hampshire they were in togas and speaking Latin five decades before everyone else."
According to Dr Russell, it was in Emperor Claudius's interest to "spin" the invasion of AD43 as a great triumph against strong opposition. Claudius had become emperor two years earlier but his position following the death of Caligula was tenuous. A bold military adventure to expand the empire would tighten Claudius's grip in Rome and prove his credentials as a strong leader.
"Every period of history has its own spin doctors, and Claudius spun the invasion to look strong," Dr Russell said. "But Britain was Roman before Claudius got here."
Julius Caesar first tried to conquer Britain during the Iron Age in 55BC, but storms on the journey from Boulogne, in France, to Dover caused Caesar's two legions to turn back. A force of five legions tried again in May 54BC and landed in Dover before marching towards London, defeating Cassivellaunus the King of Catuvellauni in Hertfordshire.
News of an impending rebellion in Gaul caused Caesar to retreat, but not before he had made his mark.
Britain at this stage in history was not one unified country, rather some 25 tribes often at war with each other. Not all tribes joined the coalition to fight Caesar.
For example, the Trinovantes appealed to Caesar to protect them from Cassivellaunus who had run a series of raids into their territory.
Dr Francis Pryor said that the findings in Sussex prove that relationships between tribes in southern England and the Romans continued after Caesar's attempted invasion. "The suggestion that they arrived in Chichester makes plenty of sense. We were a pretty fierce force but the Romans had a relatively easy run. This would have been a liberation of a friendly tribe - not an invasion."
Oxford historian Dr Martin Henig, a Roman art specialist, said that the whole of southern England could have been a Roman protectorate for nearly 50 years prior to the AD43 invasion. "There is a possibility that there were actually Roman soldiers based in Britain during the whole period from the end of the first century BC," he said.
Time Team will unveil their findings in a live two-hour special on Saturday evening on Channel 4. It will form part of the biggest ever archaeological examination of Roman Britain running over eight days and involving hundreds of archaeologists at sites across Britain. The series will investigate every aspect of the Romans' rule of Britain, from the supposed invasion to their departure 400 years later.
“The mystery surrounding Julius Caesar is of course of great consequence,
since on him rests the historiography of Imperial Rome.
If Julius Caesar is a fiction, then so is much of Imperial Rome”.
The Unz Review
Taken from: https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/
…. In the mainstream of classical studies, ancient texts are assumed to be authentic if they are not proven forged. Cicero’s De Consolatione is now universally considered the work of Carolus Sigonius (1520-1584), an Italian humanist born in Modena, only because we have a letter by Sigonius himself admitting the forgery. But short of such a confession, or of some blatant anachronism, historians and classical scholars will simply ignore the possibility of fraud. They would never, for example, suspect Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch (1304-1374), of faking his discovery of Cicero’s letters, even though he went on publishing his own letters in perfect Ciceronian style. Jerry Brotton is not being ironic when he writes in The Renaissance Bazaar:
“Cicero was crucial to Petrarch and the subsequent development of humanism because he offered a new way of thinking about how the cultured individual united the philosophical and contemplative side of life with its more active and public dimension. […] This was the blueprint for Petrarch’s humanism.”[6]Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo, Oxford UP, 2010, pp. 66-67.
The medieval manuscripts found by Petrarch are long lost, so what evidence do we have of their authenticity, besides Petrarch’s reputation? Imagine if historians seriously questioned the authenticity of some of our most cherished classical treasures. How many of them would pass the test?
If Hochart is right and Tacitus is removed from the list of reliable sources, the whole historical edifice of the Roman Empire suffers from a major structural failure, but what if other pillars of ancient historiography crumble under similar scrutiny? What about Titus Livy, author a century earlier than Tacitus of a monumental history of Rome in 142 verbose volumes, starting with the foundation of Rome in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus. It is admitted, since Louis de Beaufort’s critical analysis (1738), that the first five centuries of Livy’s history are a web of fiction.[7]Louis de Beaufort, Dissertation sur l’incertitude des cinq premiers siècles de l’histoire romaine (1738), on www.mediterranee-antique.fr/Fichiers_PdF/ABC/Beaufort/Dissertation.pdf. But can we trust the rest of it? It was also Petrarch, Brotton informs us, who “began piecing together texts like Livy’s History of Rome, collating different manuscript fragments, correcting corruptions in the language, and imitating its style in writing a more linguistically fluent and rhetorically persuasive form of Latin.”[8]Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar, op. cit., pp. 66-67. None of the manuscripts used by Petrarch are available anymore.
What about the Augustan History (Historia Augusta), a Roman chronicle that Edward Gibbon trusted entirely for writing his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? It has since been exposed as the work of an impostor who has masked his fraud by inventing sources from scratch. However, for some vague reason, it is assumed that the forger lived in the fifth century, which is supposed to make his forgery worthwhile anyway. In reality, some of its stories sound like cryptic satire of Renaissance mores, others like Christian calumny of pre-Christian religion. How likely is it, for example, that the hero Antinous, worshipped throughout the Mediterranean Basin as an avatar of Osiris, was the gay lover (eromenos) of Hadrian, as told in Augustan History? Such questions of plausibility are simply ignored by professional historians.[9]It is never raised, for example, by Royston Lambert in his Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous, Phoenix Giant, 1984. But they jump to the face of any lay reader unimpressed by scholarly consensus. For instance, just reading the summary of Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Cesars on the Wikipedia page should suffice to raise very strong suspicions, not only of fraud, but of mockery, for we are obviously dealing here with biographies of great imagination, but of no historical value whatsoever.
Works of fiction also come under suspicion. We owe the complete version of The Satyricon, supposedly written under Nero, to a manuscript discovered by Poggio Bracciolini in Cologne.[10]Petronius, The Satyricon, trans. P. D. Walsh , Oxford UP, 1997, “Introduction,” p. xxxv. Apuleius’ novel The Golden Ass was also found by Poggio in the same manuscript as the fragments of Tacitus’ Annales and Histories. It was unknown before the thirteenth century, and its central piece, the tale of Cupid and Psyche, seems derived from the more archaic version found in the twelfth-century Roman de Partonopeu de Blois.[11]Gédéon Huet, “Le Roman d’Apulée était-il connu au Moyen Âge ?”, Le Moyen Âge, 22 (1909), pp. 23-28.
The question can be raised of why Romans would bother writing and copying such works on papyrus volumen, but the more important question is: Why would medieval monks copy and preserve them on expensive parchments? This question applies to all pagan authors, for none of them reached the Renaissance in manuscripts allegedly older than the ninth century.
“Did the monks, out of pure scientific interest, have a duty to preserve for posterity, for the greater glory of paganism, the masterpieces of antiquity?” asks Hochart.
And not only masterpieces, but bundles of letters! In the early years of the sixteenth century, the Veronian Fra Giovanni Giocondo discovered a volume of 121 letters exchanged between Pliny the Younger (friend of Tacitus) and Emperor Trajan around the year 112. This “book”, writes Latinist scholar Jacques Heurgon, “had disappeared during the whole Middle Ages, and one could believe it definitively lost, when it suddenly emerged, in the very first years of the sixteenth century, in a single manuscript which, having been copied, partially, then completely, was lost again.”[12]https://www.persee.fr/doc/bsnaf_0081-1181_1958_num_1...1_5488 Such unsuspecting presentation is illustrative of the blind confidence of classical scholars in their Latin sources, unknown in the Middle Ages and magically appearing from nowhere in the Renaissance.
The strangest thing, Hochart remarks, is that Christian monks are supposed to have copied thousands of pagan volumes on expensive parchment, only to treat them as worthless rubbish:
“To explain how many works of Latin authors had remained unknown to scholars of previous centuries and were uncovered by Renaissance scholars, it was said that monks had generally relegated to the attics or cellars of their convents most of the pagan writings that had been in their libraries. It was therefore among the discarded objects, sometimes among the rubbish, when they were allowed to search there, that the finders of manuscripts found, they claimed, the masterpieces of antiquity.”
In medieval convents, manuscript copying was a commercial craft, and focused exclusively on religious books such as psalters, gospels, missals, catechisms, and saints’ legends. They were mostly copied on papyrus. Parchment and vellum were reserved for luxury books, and since it was a very expensive material, it was common practice to scrape old scrolls in order to reuse them. Pagan works were the first to disappear. In fact, their destruction, rather than their preservation, was considered a holy deed, as hagiographers abundantly illustrate in their saints’ lives.
How real is Julius Caesar?
Independently of Hochart, and on the basis of philological considerations, Robert Baldauf, professor at the university of Basle, argued that many of the most famous ancient Latin and Greek works are of late medieval origin (Historie und Kritik, 1902). “Our Romans and Greeks have been Italian humanists,” he says. They have given us a whole fantasy world of Antiquity that “has rooted itself in our perception to such an extent that no positivist criticisms can make humanity doubt its veracity.”
Baldauf points out, for example, German and Italian influences in Horace’s Latin. On similar grounds, he concludes that Julius Cesar’s books, so appreciated for their exquisite Latin, are late medieval forgeries. Recent historians of Gaul, now informed by archeology, are actually puzzled by Cesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico—our only source on the elusive Vercingetorix.
Everything in there that doesn’t come from book XXIII of Poseidonios’ Histories appears either wrong or unreliable in terms of geography, demography, anthropology, and religion.[13]Jean-Louis Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites, and Santuaries, Routledge, 1987; David Henige, “He came, he saw, we counted: the historiography and demography of Caesar’s gallic numbers,” Annales de démographie historique, 1998-1, pp. 215-242, on www.persee.fr
A great mystery hangs over the supposed author himself. We are taught that “Caesar” was a cognomen (nickname) of unknown meaning and origin, and that it was adopted immediately after Julius Caesar’s death as imperial title; we are asked to believe, in other words, that the emperors all called themselves Caesar in memory of that general and dictator who was not even emperor, and that the term gained such prestige that it went on to be adopted by Russian “Czars” and German “Kaisers”.
But that etymology has long been challenged by those (including Voltaire) who claim that Caesar comes from an Indo-European root word meaning “king”, which also gave the Persian Khosro. These two origins cannot both be true, and the second seems well grounded.
Cesar’s gentilice (surname) Iulius does not ease our perplexity. We are told by Virgil that it goes back to Cesar’s supposed ancestor Iulus or Iule. But Virgil also tells us (drawing from Cato the Elder, c. 168 BC) that it is the short name of Jupiter (Jul Pater). And it happens to be an Indo-European root word designating the sunlight or the day sky, identical to the Scandinavian name for the solar god, Yule (Helios for the Greeks, Haul for the Gauls, Hel for the Germans, from which derives the French Noël, Novo Hel). Is “Julius Caesar” the “Sun King”?
LinkBookmarkConsider, in addition, that: 1. Roman emperors were traditionally declared adoptive sons of the sun-god Jupiter or of the “Undefeated Sun” (Sol Invictus). 2. The first emperor, Octavian Augustus, was allegedly the adoptive son of Julius Caesar, whom he divinized under the name Iulius Caesar Divus (celebrated on January 1), while renaming in his honor the first month of summer, July. If Augustus is both the adoptive son of the divine Sun and the adoptive son of the divine Julius, and if in addition Julius or Julus is the divine name of the Sun, it means that the divine Julius is none other than the divine Sun (and the so-called “Julian” calendar simply meant the “solar” calendar). Julius Caesar has been brought down from heaven to earth, transposed from mythology to history. That is a common process in Roman history, according to Georges Dumézil, who explains the notorious poverty of Roman mythology by the fact that it “was radically destroyed at the level of theology [but] flourished in the form of history,” which is to say that Roman history is a literary fiction built on mythical structures.[14]Georges Dumézil, Heur et malheur du guerrier. Aspects mythiques de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens (1969), Flammarion, 1985, p. 66 and 16.
The mystery surrounding Julius Caesar is of course of great consequence, since on him rests the historiography of Imperial Rome.
If Julius Caesar is a fiction, then so is much of Imperial Rome. Note that, on the coins attributed to his era, the first emperor is simply named Augustus Caesar, which is not a name, but a title that could be applied to any emperor. ….
Were the Romans of eastern origin?
A helpful background to the following controversial piece on the ‘first Romans’ might be my series:
Famous Roman Republicans beginning to loom as spectral
beginning with Part One:
https://www.academia.edu/46895163/Famous_Roman_Republicans_beginning_to_loom_as_spectral_Part_One_Still_a_Republic_at_time_of_Herod_the_Great
The following has been taken from:
https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/
Who were the first “Romans”
One obvious objection to the idea that the relationship between Rome and Constantinople has been inverted is that the Byzantines called themselves Romans (Romaioi), and believed they were living in Romania.
Persians, Arabs and Turks called them Roumis. Even the Greeks of the Hellenic Peninsula called themselves Romaioi in Late Antiquity, despite their detestation of the Latins. This is taken as proof that the Byzantines considered themselves the heirs of the Roman Empire of the West, founded in Rome, Italy. But it is not. Strangely enough, mythography and etymology both suggest that, just like the name “Caesar”, the name “Rome” travelled from East to West, rather than the other way.
Romos, latinized in Romus or Remus, is a Greek word meaning “strong”. The Italian Romans were Etruscans from Lydia in Asia Minor. They were well aware of their eastern origin, the memory of which was preserved in their legends.
According to the tradition elaborated by Virgil in his epic Aeneid, Rome was founded by Aeneas from Troy, in the immediate vicinity of the Bosphorus. According to another version, Rome was founded by Romos, the son of Odysseus and Circe.[18] The historian Strabo, supposedly living in the first century BC (but quoted only from the fifth century AD), reports that “another older tradition makes Rome an Arcadian colony,” and insists that “Rome itself was of Hellenic origin” (Geographia V, 3). Denys of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities, declares “Rome is a Greek city.” His thesis is summed up by the syllogism: “The Romans descend from the Trojans. But the Trojans are of Greek origin. So the Romans are of Greek origin.”
The famous legend of Romulus and Remus, told by Titus Livy (I, 3), is generally considered of later origin. It could very well be an invention of the late Middle Age. Anatoly Fomenko, of whom we will have more to say later on, believes that its central theme, the simultaneous foundation of two cities, one by Romulus on the Palatine Hill, and the other by Remus on the Aventine, is a mythical reflection of the struggle for ascendency between the two Romes. As we shall see, the murder of Remus by Romulus is a fitting allegory of the events unfolding from the fourth crusade.[19] Interestingly, that legend evokes the history of the brothers Valens and Valentinian, who are said to have reigned respectively over Constantinople and Rome from 364 to 378 (their story is known from one single author, Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek writing in Latin). It happens that valens is a Latin equivalent for the Greek romos.
We have started this article by suggesting that much of the history of the Western Roman Empire is of Renaissance invention. But as we progress in our investigation, another complementary hypothesis will emerge: much of the history of the Western Roman Empire is borrowed from the history of the Eastern Roman Empire, either by deliberate plagiarism, or by confusion resulting from the fact that the Byzantines called themselves Romans and their city Rome. The process can be inferred from some obvious duplicates. Here is one example, taken from Latin historian Jordanes, whose Origin and Deeds of the Goths is notoriously full of anachronisms: in 441, Attila crossed the Danube, invaded the Balkans, and threatened Constantinople, but could not take the city and retreated with an immense booty. Ten years later, the same Attila crossed the Alps, invaded Italy, and threatened Rome, but couldn’t take the city and retreated with an immense booty. ….
The Latin Language
The following has been taken from:
https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/
The mysterious origin of Latin
Another objection against questioning the existence of the Western Roman Empire is the spread of Latin throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond. It is admitted that Latin, originally the language spoken in the Latium, is the origin of French, Italian, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese, called “Western Romance Languages”.
However, the amateur historian and linguist M. J. Harper has made the following remark:
“The linguistic evidence mirrors the geography with great precision: Portuguese resembles Spanish more than any other language; French resembles Occitan more than any other; Occitan resembles Catalan, Catalan resembles Spanish and so forth. So which was the Ur-language? Can’t tell; it could be any of them. Or it could be a language that has long since disappeared. But the original language cannot have been Latin. All the Romance languages, even Portuguese and Italian, resemble one another more than any of them resemble Latin, and do so by a wide margin.”[20]
For that reason, linguists postulate that “Romance languages” do not derive directly from Latin, but from Vulgar Latin, the popular and colloquial sociolect of Latin spoken by soldiers, settlers, and merchants of the Roman Empire. What was Vulgar Latin, or proto-Romance, like? No one knows.
As a matter of fact, the language that most resembles Latin is Romanian, which, although divided in several dialects, constitutes by itself the only member of the Eastern branch of Romance languages. It is the only Romance language that has maintained archaic traits of Latin, such as the case system (endings of words depending on their role in the sentence) and the neutral gender.[21]
But how did Romanians come to speak Vulgar Latin? There is another mystery there. Part of the linguistic area of Romanian was conquered by Emperor Trajan in 106 AD, and formed the Roman province of Dacia for a mere 165 years. One or two legions were stationed in the South-West of Dacia, and, although not Italians, they are supposed to have communicated in Vulgar Latin and imposed their language to the whole country, even north of the Danube, where there was no Roman presence. What language did people speak in Dacia before the Romans conquered the south part of it? No one has a clue. The “Dacian language” “is an extinct language, … poorly documented. … only one Dacian inscription is believed to have survived.” Only 160 Romanian words are hypothetically of Dacian origin. Dacian is believed to be closely related to Thracian, itself “an extinct and poorly attested language.”
Let me repeat: The inhabitants of Dacia north of the Danube adopted Latin from the non-Italian legions that stationed on the lower part of their territory from 106 to 271 AD, and completely forgot their original language, to the point that no trace of it is left.
They were so Romanized that their country came to be called Romania, and that Romanian is now closer to Latin than are other European Romance languages. Yet the Romans hardly ever occupied Dacia (on the map above, Dacia is not even counted as part of the Roman Empire). The next part is also extraordinary:
Dacians, who had so easily given up their original language for Vulgar Latin, then became so attached to Vulgar Latin that the German invaders, who caused the Romans to retreat in 271, failed to impose their language. So did the Huns and, more surprisingly, the Slavs, who dominated the area since the seventh century and left many traces in the toponymy. Less than ten percent of Romanian words are of Slavic origin (but the Romanians adopted Slavonic for their liturgy).
One more thing: although Latin was a written language in the Empire, Romanians are believed to have never had a written language until the Middle Ages.
The first document written in Romanian goes back to the sixteenth century, and it is written in Cyrillic alphabet.
Obviously, there is room for the following alternative theory: Latin is a language originating from Dacia; ancient Dacian did not vanish mysteriously but is the common ancestor of both Latin and modern Romanian. Dacian, if you will, is Vulgar Latin, which preceded Classical Latin. A likely explanation for the fact that Dacia is also called Romania is that it—rather than Italy—was the original home of the Romans who founded Constantinople.[22] That would be consistent with the notion that the Roman language (Latin) remained the administrative language of the Eastern Empire until the sixth century AD, when it was abandoned for Greek, the language spoken by the majority of its subjects. That, in turn, is consistent with the character of Latin itself. Harper makes the following remark:
“Latin is not a natural language. When written, Latin takes up approximately half the space of written Italian or written French (or written English, German or any natural European language). Since Latin appears to have come into existence in the first half of the first millennium BC, which was the time when alphabets were first spreading through the Mediterranean basin, it seems a reasonable working hypothesis to assume that Latin was originally a shorthand compiled by Italian speakers for the purposes of written (confidential? commercial?) communication. This would explain:
a) the very close concordance between Italian and Latin vocabulary;
b) the conciseness of Latin in, for instance, dispensing with separate prepositions, compound verb forms and other ‘natural’ language impedimenta;
c) the unusually formal rules governing Latin grammar and syntax;
d) the lack of irregular, non-standard usages;
e) the unusual adoption among Western European languages of a specifically vocative case (‘Dear Marcus, re. you letter of…’).[23]
The hypothesis that Latin was a “non-demotic” language, a koine of the empire, a cultural artifact developed for the purpose of writing, was first proposed by Russian researchers Igor Davidenko and Jaroslav Kesler in The Book of Civilizations (2001). …
Cornelius Tacitus
The following is extremely interesting in light of this present series and the doubts it casts upon the reliability of conventional ancient Roman history:
https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/
This is the first of a series of three articles challenging the conventional historical framework of the Mediterranean world from the Roman Empire to the Crusades. It is a collective contribution to an old debate that has gained new momentum in recent decades in the fringe of the academic world, mostly in Germany, Russia, and France. Some working hypotheses will be made along the way, and the final article will suggest a global solution in the form of a paradigm shift based on hard archeological evidence.
Tacitus and Bracciolini
One of our most detailed historical sources on imperial Rome is Cornelius Tacitus (56-120 CE), whose major works, the Annals and the Histories, span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in 14 AD, to the death of Domitian in 96.
Here is how the French scholar Polydor Hochart introduced in 1890 the result of his investigation on “the authenticity of the Annals and the Histories of Tacitus,” building up on the work of John Wilson Ross published twelve years earlier, Tacitus and Bracciolini: The Annals forged in the XVth century (1878):
“At the beginning of the fifteenth century scholars had at their disposal no part of the works of Tacitus; they were supposed to be lost. It was around 1429 that Poggio Bracciolini and Niccoli of Florence brought to light a manuscript that contained the last six books of the Annals and the first five books of the Histories. It is this archetypal manuscript that served to make the copies that were in circulation until the use of printing. Now, when one wants to know where and how it came into their possession, one is surprised to find that they have given unacceptable explanations on this subject, that they either did not want or could not say the truth. About eighty years later, Pope Leo X was given a volume containing the first five books of the Annals. Its origin is also surrounded by darkness. / Why these mysteries? What confidence do those who exhibited these documents deserve? What guarantees do we have of their authenticity? / In considering these questions we shall first see that Poggio and Niccoli were not distinguished by honesty and loyalty, and that the search for ancient manuscripts was for them an industry, a means of acquiring money. / We will also notice that Poggio was one of the most learned men of his time, that he was also a clever calligrapher, and that he even had in his pay scribes trained by him to write on parchment in a remarkable way in Lombard and Carolin characters. Volumes coming out of his hands could thus imitate perfectly the ancient manuscripts, as he says himself. / We will also be able to see with what elements the Annals and the Histories were composed.
Finally, in seeking who may have been the author of this literary fraud, we shall be led to think that, in all probability, the pseudo-Tacitus is none other than Poggio Bracciolini himself.”[1]
Hochart’s demonstration proceeds in two stages. First, he traces the origin of the manuscript discovered by Poggio and Niccoli, using Poggio’s correspondence as evidence of deception. Then Hochart deals with the emergence of the second manuscript, two years after Pope Leo X (a Medici) had promised great reward in gold to anyone who could provide him with unknown manuscripts of the ancient Greeks or Romans. Leo rewarded his unknown provider with 500 golden crowns, a fortune at that time, and immediately ordered the printing of the precious manuscript. Hochart concludes that the manuscript must have been supplied indirectly to Leo X by Jean-François Bracciolini, the son and sole inheritor of Poggio’s private library and papers, who happened to be secretary of Leo X at that time, and who used an anonymous intermediary in order to elude suspicion.
Both manuscripts are now preserved in Florence, so their age can be scientifically established, can’t it?
That is questionable, but the truth, anyway, is that their age is simply assumed. For other works of Tacitus, such as Germania and De Agricola, we don’t even have any medieval manuscripts. David Schaps tells us that Germania was ignored throughout the Middle Ages but survived in a single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey in 1425, was brought to Italy and examined by Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, as well as by Bracciolini, then vanished from sight.[2]
Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) is credited for “rediscovering and recovering a great number of classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries” (Wikipedia). Hochart believes that Tacitus’ books are not his only forgeries. Under suspicion come other works by Cicero, Lucretius, Vitruvius, and Quintilian, to name just a few. For instance, Lucretius’ only known work, De rerum natura “virtually disappeared during the Middle Ages, but was rediscovered in 1417 in a monastery in Germany by Poggio Bracciolini” (Wikipedia). So was Quintilian’s only extant work, a twelve-volume textbook on rhetoric entitled Institutio Oratoria, whose discovery Poggio recounts in a letter:
“There amid a tremendous quantity of books which it would take too long to describe, we found Quintilian still safe and sound, though filthy with mould and dust. For these books were not in the library, as befitted their worth, but in a sort of foul and gloomy dungeon at the bottom of one of the towers, where not even men convicted of a capital offence would have been stuck away.”
Provided Hochart is right, was Poggio the exception that confirms the rule of honesty among the humanists to whom humankind is indebted for “rediscovering” the great classics? Hardly, as we shall see. Even the great Erasmus (1465-1536) succumbed to the temptation of forging a treatise under the name of saint Cyprian (De duplici martyrio ad Fortunatum), which he pretended to have found by chance in an ancient library. Erasmus used this stratagem to voice his criticism of the Catholic confusion between virtue and suffering. In this case, heterodoxy gave the forger away. But how many forgeries went undetected for lack of originality? Giles Constable writes in “Forgery and Plagiarism in the Middle Ages”: “The secret of successful forgers and plagiarists is to attune the deceit so closely to the desires and standards of their age that it is not detected, or even suspected, at the time of creation.” In other words: “Forgeries and plagiarisms … follow rather than create fashion and can without paradox be considered among the most authentic products of their time.”[3]
We are here focusing on literary forgeries, but there were other kinds. Michelangelo himself launched his own career by faking antique statues, including one known as the Sleeping Cupid (now lost), while under the employment of the Medici family in Florence. He used acidic earth to make the statue look antique.
It was sold through a dealer to Cardinal Riario of San Giorgio, who eventually found out the hoax and demanded his money back, but didn’t press any charges against the artist. Apart from this recognized forgery, Lynn Catterson has made a strong case that the sculptural group of “Laocoon and his Sons,” dated from around 40 BC and supposedly discovered in 1506 in a vineyard in Rome and immediately acquired by Pope Julius II, is another of Michelangelo’s forgery (read here)[4].
When one comes to think about it seriously, one can find several reasons to doubt that such masterworks were possible any time before the Renaissance, one of them having to do with the progress in human anatomy. Many other antique works raise similar questions. For instance, a comparison between Marcus Aurelius’ bronze equestrian statue (formely thought to be Constantine’s), with, say, Louis XIV’s, makes you wonder: how come nothing remotely approaching this level of achievement can be found between the fifth and the fifteenth century?[5] Can we even be sure that Marcus Aurelius is a historical figure? “The major sources depicting the life and rule of Marcus are patchy and frequently unreliable” (Wikipedia), the most important one being the highly dubious Historia Augusta (more later). ….
