Welcome again! Finally, the hiatus has ended and we’re again to common weekly posts. As we’ve performed a number of instances earlier than, this week I’m breaking the hiatus by taking an opportunity to reply a number of shorter questions posed by my patrons over at Patreon who’re the Patres et Matres Conscripti of the ACOUP Senate. It’s been some time – too lengthy, to be frank – since we’ve performed considered one of these, so let me reiterate that as with earlier responses, the solutions right here is probably not as exhaustive or cautious as they might be as a full function submit however mirror roughly what you’d get asking the identical query in my workplace hours or after class.
Simply as a fast advisory earlier than we dive in, considered one of these solutions goes to contain discussing apotropaic (magic protecting) objects, that are ceaselessly *ahem* formed like human anatomy, so in case you learn with little ones, you might need to give the ultimate question-and-answer a learn over earlier than sharing it with them.
And naturally in case you like what you might be studying right here, please share it; in case you actually prefer it, you possibly can help me on Patreon; as talked about patrons who be part of the Patres et Matres Conscripti get to suggest questions that I reply right here. In order for you updates at any time when a brand new submit seems, you possibly can click on beneath for e mail updates or observe me on twitter (@BretDevereaux) for updates as to new posts in addition to my occasional historic historical past, international coverage or navy historical past musings, assuming there may be nonetheless a Twitter by the point this submit goes reside. I’m additionally on Bluesky (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) and (much less ceaselessly) Mastodon (@bretdevereaux@historians.social).
Onward to the questions!
Douglas Perrins asks, “What was the mechanic that introduced weapons innovation again from the frontier to Rome? Was it advert hoc or systematized?”
That is truly fairly an fascinating query, though sadly the that is case the place we’re principally counting on what we will suppose relatively than what we will know.
First, the background: Almost each main weapon or weapons-system the Roman navy makes use of by the Center Republic was adopted from one enemy or one other. Ovid’s quip that fas est et ab hoste doceri (“It’s proper to study, even from an enemy,” Metam. 4.428) was clearly borne out in Roman tools decisions. The Roman sword of selection appears to have been a neighborhood Italic variant of the early La Tène sword, earlier than it was overtaken by the adopted Spanish variant of the identical, the gladius Hispaniensis, the place it then served alongside the Roman adopted model of the late La Tène sword, the spatha. The Roman javelin, the pilum, was most likely from Cisalpine Gaul, the Roman Montefortino-type helmet was additionally Gallic, as was Roman mail, the lorica hamata. Roman artillery (catapults) have been Greek, as probably have been Roman warships, though Polybius insists the Romans additionally copied the Carthaginians they usually might properly have performed. Within the imperial interval, we see a brand new helmet kind, which we name ‘Gallic’ as a result of it was, together with the famed lorica segmentata (segmented plate armor), most likely picked up within the East from a Seleucid or Parthian supply (their ultra-heavy cataphract cavalry had used that kind of armor for a while). So virtually no a part of the Roman tools set was indigenous to Rome and even Italy.
So how did they go about buying these things? In almost all circumstances, the sources don’t inform us; typically they’re conscious of the borrowing (the gladius, as an illustration) however don’t element the way it was borrowed. The exception are the ships: Polybius twice notes (1.20.15 and 1.59.8) that the Romans copied Carthaginian ships they captured through the First Punic Battle – and sarcastically for one of many uncommon instances we’re instructed how they did it, I believe most historic historians doubt the story. For one, it’s a bit too neat and just-so, however extra broadly it was virtually actually pointless: the Romans had socii specialised in ships (these have been the socii navales, naval-allies) who appear to have principally been Greek and would have been accustomed to up-to-date warship designs. Notably, the names within the Roman navy for a ship’s specialist crew have been Greek, not Latin, suggesting that the Roman naval custom was Greek and that the Romans probably relied on Greek naval specialists, drawn from Greek socii in S. Italy to fill these key specialist roles.
So what can we suppose? Properly, for many circumstances, we will most likely dismiss the concept there was any formalized, state-run system for this. For a lot of the Roman Republic, troopers equipped their very own tools and certain had some discretion (inside limits) on what they bought. We proceed to search out, as an illustration, some La Tène-style swords in second-century BC Roman websites (Grad close to Šmihel, the camps at Numantia close to Renieblas) suggesting that not all Roman troopers converted to the gladius Hispaniensis. There might have been some rules on this – we all know, as an illustration, that totally physique armor was required above a sure census requirement (Polyb. 6.23.14) – however inside these limits, troopers appeared to have a good bit of selection.
Whereas common tradition likes the picture of uniform Roman troopers, they have been by no means uniform in that manner. Even into the imperial interval, in case you noticed a Roman legion marching down the highway, you’d probably see troopers sporting mail (lorica hamata), segmented armor (so-called lorica segementata) and scale armor (lorica squamata) all in the identical unit. It’s additionally doable you would possibly see an officer sporting a Greek-style muscle cuirass and I wouldn’t be shocked if, a minimum of early on, one would possibly see Greek-style textile armor, although the proof for its use by the Romans on the common is nearly non-existent.
So we typically suppose that the adoption of non-public tools was most likely advert hoc: Roman troopers would possibly begin by looting enemy tools they thought carried out properly or crammed a distinct segment. What’s clear is that then we’ve Roman artisans – within the Republic, nonetheless very a lot personal issues, not state fabricators – copying what they’re seeing. We are able to inform as a result of whereas they match the shape, they don’t at all times make them the identical manner (as an illustration, Roman Montefortino helmets aren’t manufactured the identical manner, structurally, as their Gallic forebears). Sooner or later – in some circumstances, this clearly occurred inside a number of many years (mail, specifically, takes off fast) – the adopted tools turns into ‘customary’ as increasingly more troopers use it and stress to adapt kicks in. That will in flip have been codified by adjustments to rules implied by Polybius’ declare that, by maybe 216, mail was required for the First Class of Roman heavy infantry.
The tempo of navy change actually slows through the early and excessive imperial intervals, but it surely doesn’t cease. As Ian Haynes notes in Blood of the Provinces (2013) the auxilia – items recruited of non-citizen residents of the empire – appear to have have performed a task, presumably casual, within the dissemination of weapons and ways. Cohorts of auxilia have been typically recruited from specific ethnic teams throughout the empire, a minimum of initially, and anticipated to struggle in native type with native tools, however we quickly see each the auxilia adopting a whole lot of Roman-style package and in addition weapons utilized by the auxilia drifting into extra frequent utilization within the Roman military, both within the legions or in different auxilia cohorts. Consequently, whereas these cohorts are likely to maintain a particular fight function – a cohort of archers or cavalry or horse archers or gentle infantry remained as such – their ethnic and tools distinctiveness declines over time as ways and tools normalize. That most likely wasn’t the supposed function of the auxilia, but it surely was a long-term impact.
Matthew Planchard asks, “What’s your system for annotation, note-taking and synthesis of the entire content material you learn and see?
Ah! That is far scarier than our upcoming spooky Halloween query!
So the very fact is, I’m horrible at taking and holding notes and at all times have been. A serious top-down overhaul of my note-taking methodology has been on my to-do checklist for some time and I hope to implement that in my subsequent large undertaking. I haven’t been capable of do it but for the present ebook undertaking exactly as a result of this undertaking is constructed atop my dissertation analysis.
For the dissertation, I saved the majority of my notes in OneNote (a part of the MS Workplace suite). The largest chunk of this was holding observe of the entire artifacts I used to be amassing knowledge on, for the reason that core of the undertaking was contemplating a complete bunch of arms and armor – I ended up with one thing like 400 items for the dissertation (and the determine has gone up considerably for the ebook undertaking). To maintain observe of that, I created a typical ‘template’ note-card with a header that gave every bit a singular numbered ID, together with an simply searchable identifier (so “110 – Roman – Gladius Hispaniensis” as an illustration, is likely one of the Grad close to Šmihel swords) after which the cardboard for every bit consists of the entire measurements I had for it, scanned photographs of it, date, findspot, bibliography, and any notes. I initially spaced the numbers out so every preliminary digit was a class (0xx was pre-Roman Italic, 1xx was Roman and so forth) however a number of classes (Spain and Gaul) burst their edges, requiring me to interchange this technique for the ultimate catalog of artifacts within the dissertation.
Alongside that, I had a OneNote folder in the identical pocket book for every chapter and if I hit one thing I believed was helpful, I may create a card or add it to an present card, organized topically. I didn’t hew as tightly to that system as I should have performed and so additionally ended up with fairly a number of miscellaneous phrase paperwork with scattered notes as properly. However every chapter received its personal drafts folder, so these notes have been a minimum of sorted that manner (together with every chapter’s ‘bitx field,’ my time period for paragraphs I’ve written however both pulled out of the draft or not but positioned in them; I by no means delete something – it simply will get pulled over into what’s principally a ‘holding bin’ doc, one for every chapter).
When it comes to synthesis, this helps for what a historian is usually anticipated to do, significantly in footnotes, which is to doc earlier works, particularly the place their positions battle: so-and-so (1999) says X however such-and-such (1987) says Y, to which what’s-his-face (2012) agreed, constructing on the work of that-old-fellow (1935). Ideally, my notes put these positions subsequent to one another, so I can see the contrasts. That mentioned, once I write, I virtually at all times need to have the issues I’m citing – books, articles and first sources – in entrance of me (as you may think, this implies when writing, my workplace is a large number – stacks of books, typically with index playing cards holding pages, throughout). That’s an possibility for an historic historian in a manner that it wouldn’t be for a modernist who, in any case, can not take away paperwork from an archive and might most likely solely scan or photocopy a lot.
That’s, to be frank, not the very best system and if I used to be a extra fashionable historian coping with archival data, it might be woefully inadequate. However as an historic historian with a comparatively smaller assortment of sources which I can extra simply verify again on, I can get away with the disorganization. Nonetheless, I’m making an attempt, as I spin up ebook undertaking to, to put the groundwork for being far more systematic.
Tom Roeder asks, “What are the biggest gaps within the literary proof in antiquity? The place do you would like you had extra data?“
This can be a query that we may go a number of methods with, relying on how we’re fascinated about gaps and the way broad a web we’re casting for ‘literary proof.’
Taking the type of broadest doable brush to this query whereas confining myself to the Mediterranean, my first reply could be Iron-Age Phoenician Literature, particularly Carthaginian literature. We’ve got slightly little bit of Bronze Age mythology however from the Iron Age, we’ve very little – principally simply scraps. This was a literate society and we all know from the Greeks and the Romans that they have been writing historical past, mythology, poetry, agricultural treatises, philosophy and all types of different stuff, functionally none of which survives besides in tiny fragments or references. That leaves us virtually completely reliant on the Phoenicians Greek and Roman enemies to know their tradition, which is a tragic state of affairs certainly.
If we need to get into particularly Greek and Roman literature, I believe we have to begin with lacking genres. Greek Comedy, as an illustration, was damaged into intervals: Previous, Center and New. We’ve got some Previous Comedy (Aristophanes, specifically), however solely snippets of New Comedy (Menander) survive, though a papyrus with large chunk of considered one of his performs, Dyskolos, offers us some window into New Comedy – that mentioned, most of what we all know comes from Roman variations of Greek New Comedy by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence. Greek Center Comedy, nonetheless, wasn’t so tailored and survives solely in scattered fragments, leaving us not figuring out quite a bit about it as a transitional literary kind between the opposite two.
We are able to additionally discuss in eras, as a result of there are additionally clear chronological preferences and gaps. We’ve talked about this earlier than, however preserving works was costly and never each period’s authors have been considered as fairly so indispensable. The clear ‘winners’ of this means of preservation have been the Classical interval in Greece and the Late Republic in Rome, partly as a result of they’ve a dense focus of authors thought of ‘the very best’ and thus used as school-texts for educating (which ensured numerous copies). The ‘losers’ right here have been the Greek Hellenistic interval and the excessive and late Roman imperial intervals: each intervals the place we all know there’s a lot of writing occurring, however which don’t excite the identical type of consideration and in consequence, preservation is quite a bit thinner. One among my hopes with the prospect of ‘unrolling’ the carbonized papyri of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum (that is the ‘Vesuvius Challenge‘) is that due to the date of the library (destroyed in 79 AD) it may need a whole lot of Hellenistic literature, though given the aim of the library, it’s prone to be a lot of Epicurean philosophy. Wouldn’t have been my selection, however hardly dangerous to have extra texts!
Lastly, we will take into consideration particular works that may be significantly transformative to have. Each classicist has their very own misplaced works they’d like to have. I believe my first selection must be Claudius’ (sure, the emperor; he was a historian too!) histories of Carthage and the Etruscans, two societies about which we’re poorly knowledgeable. Likewise, Aristotle reportedly wrote down descriptions of the federal government of 158 governments, of which just one – for Athens – survives. Nearly any of those could be wonderful to search out – the Athenaion Politeia was a revelation on its discovery in 1891 – however the crown jewel would virtually actually be the Structure of Carthage that was in that assortment of 158. Smaller-ball stuff, however a whole copy of Livy or Polybius – we’re lacking most of each – may fairly radically reshape the research of the Roman Republic and the broader Hellenistic world.
To shut out, I do need to observe since we’re citing preservation, one deliberate collection for the weblog most likely a while subsequent yr goes to be How Did They Make It: Books, overlaying the manufacturing of the codex (most likely with an addendum on papyrus scrolls), which is able to give us some area to additionally speak about preservation.
Lastly, in an appropriately Halloween temper, Laura Fox asks, “With October closing in, What did the Romans take into consideration “spooky” stuff – ghosts, monsters, witchcraft, and so on.? In the event that they noticed things like threats, what did they do to mitigate the hazard?“
That is truly a very neat query, as a result of on the one hand, Greek and Roman literature function a reasonably strong set of ‘spooky’ tales, typically the place it’s clear that the story is all in enjoyable and nobody is anticipated to take its supernatural parts significantly critically, however whereas for us moderns there may be typically a pointy divide between spooky tales and spiritual perception, for the Greeks and Romans that is one thing extra of a continuum from frivolous tales all the best way to well-evidenced non secular observe.
On the extra frivolous finish, you will have, as an illustration, among the tales in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (typically recognized in English as The Golden Ass) which options a lot of tales regarding witches – typically from the angle of unreliable narrators, although the principle character and narrator, Lucius, ultimately dabbles in witchcraft and turns himself right into a donkey, with the remainder of the story relating his efforts to get reworked again right into a human. The reader isn’t actually anticipated to take these tales significantly critically: they’re principally for humor worth. Likewise, in Petronius’ satirical Satyricon (62-3), the characters Niceros and Trimalchio commerce spooky tales, first a werewolf story from Niceros a few soldier who visited a graveyard with him and reworked right into a wolf, then a narrative from Trimalchio about witches who may curse with a contact and stole youngsters, changing them with bundles of straw, although we actually don’t take any of those characters critically within the novel.
Shifting to one thing barely extra critical, the Romans additionally instructed ghost tales. Pliny the Youthful tells such a story in a letter to Lucius Licinius Sura (Plin. Ep. 7.27), full with a ghost haunting a home in Athens, full with a ghostly apparition showing with rattling chains, although within the story the haunting is discovered by the thinker Athenodorus to be brought on by the improper burial of a physique, wrapped in chains, beneath the home. The tales Pliny tells are principally innocent, however in contrast to Apuleius, he appears to credit score their truthfulness.
In fact these tales mix into mythology correct. As recalled in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (and elsewhere), a set of myths associated to transformations Zeus/Jupiter punished some evil-doers with being reworked into wolves, significantly the legendary determine Lycaon. Each Odysseus (within the Odyssey) and Aeneas (within the Aeneid) go to the underworld and Aeneas can be visited at one level by the ghostly apparition of his useless spouse Creusa. As mirrored in Pliny’s story, it was thought that one consequence of improper burial was the potential that the indignant useless would possibly hang-out the dwelling (one thing that additionally happens in Mesopotamian faith, by the by).
However after all Roman religion is one in which the whole universe is alive with divine and semi-divine powers, that are managed and channeled by ritual, so naturally all of this blends into small-scale non secular observe. The Romans believed in a number of supernatural perils: not solely may hostile spirits doubtlessly do hurt, so too may human people who, deliberately or inadvertently, drew on religious powers. For each the Greeks and the Romans, curses have been actual issues one particular person may name down on one other and spoken or written curses may thus have actual energy that wanted to be counter-acted or warded off. Not solely was a spoken curse an issue, however the evil eye – a glare with evil intent – may additionally undertaking dangerous religious power; within the Roman pondering this was intently linked with invidia, often translated as “envy.” However the etymology right here is telling: invidia comes from invidere, which in flip is in+videre (‘to see, understand, discern) – it’s a intense wanting into or certainly, wanting towards. And so invidere can imply “to envy, to loath” but in addition “to forged the evil eye upon,” a hateful look supposed to hurt. Somebody seemed upon with highly effective envy was themselves vulnerable to a type of curse.
How did one defend towards such evil energies? We name any type of ritual or superstition supposed to keep off evil spirits or energies or simply dangerous luck an apotropaic observe from the Greek ἀποτρέπω, ‘to show [something] away.’ The standard method to make sense of Roman superstition in that is that the Romans regarded the evil eye as basically female and feminizing in its nature (it’s not laborious to notice that the folds of the attention would possibly considerably relatively resemble the folds of some female anatomy), so the response was to counteract this power with one thing masculine, typically phallic. Certainly, one nonetheless sees in some fashionable Mediterranean cultures, together with in Italy, the signal of the horns (corna) used to ward away dangerous luck: the image evoking the horns of a bull, a logo of masculine power.
Roman practices could possibly be extra specific than this. Priapus, a Greek and Roman fertility god marked by his huge phallus, seems typically as an apotropaic machine, with work or statues of the god (ceaselessly in gardens, with which he’s additionally related) thought to keep off the evil eye. Younger boys appear to have been thought significantly weak to the evil eye, presumably as a result of they hadn’t but totally developed their very own masculine presence, and younger Roman boys in consequence wore an amulet referred to as a bulla, a small container which typically contained a carved phallus (a phallus-shaped appeal is known as a fascinus), a type of protecting magical phallic booster, because it have been. An fascinating pattern I recall from a convention paper I listened to – however alas, can not at present discover the reference – is that whereas Roman boys left behind their bullae once they turned adults, we typically discover these amulets in Roman legionary contexts on the frontier, the place they appear to be worn not by boys however maybe by the troopers themselves. The pondering seeming to be that Roman troopers stationed out on the Rhine or Danube, in a wierd nation with unusual gods, would possibly properly require a bit extra additional religious safety.
Likewise, a common in a triumph was clearly the goal of a whole lot of invidia – the triumphing common, in any case, was reaching and being lauded for the best doable achievement in Roman society. Partially to keep off that envy, his troopers sang baudy, typically insulting songs (humor was thought to decrease invidia), however Pliny the Elder additionally notes (HN 28.4.7) {that a} fascinus was hung beneath the overall’s chariot as an apotropaic machine. There’s additionally a suggestion {that a} triumphing common may need worn a bulla through the triumph, however the proof on that’s skinny.
Now you might properly ask what precisely ladies and ladies have been presupposed to do and my sense is that a part of the reply is that the Romans didn’t actually know. Magic, witchcraft and the evil eye are typically female-gendered of their legends and pondering. Roman ladies are typically proven sporting a crescent-shaped amulet, the lunula (‘little moon’) rather than the bulla, however we even have references to ladies in Roman literature (Plautus’ Rudens 1171) having bullae and my understanding is that some bullae have been recovered in burial contexts have been the deceased was feminine. So in some circumstances, a Roman girl would possibly, like a Roman man, attempt to keep off evil with a phallic apotropaic machine. Then again, although they’re fairly uncommon, my understanding is we additionally typically discover amulets formed like feminine genitalia, which can properly have had an identical type of logic to their operate, boosting a girl’s female power to withstand the evil eye.
For evil spirits, the opposite strategy was to try to ward them off with one thing scary. By far probably the most pervasive type of this in antiquity was the gorgoneia, a stylized depiction of a gorgon’s head (that’s, a creature like Medusa). That strategy – one thing scary to frighten away evil spirits – seems in numerous cultures the world over, so it isn’t shocking to see it in Greek and Roman observe. Notably, each the Greeks and the Romans tended to treat what we’d name ‘liminal areas’ (the limen is the brink of a door) – locations midway between two states of being – as significantly weak to evil spirits: doorways, crossroads, graveyards. We are likely to see apotropaic units in these contexts extra typically: as an illustration the Greeks typically put up hermai (or herms) at crossroads: a plinth with a sculpted head (of Hermes, the god that protects vacationers) often with a distinguished phallus on the decrease a part of the sculpture; these gorgon-faces typically defend entryways for related causes.
In any case, Joyful Halloween! My hope over the following few weeks is to cowl a number of of the longer ACOUP Senate requests, beginning with the ‘afterlife’ of the Roman Republic’s establishments, alongside some Tolkien content material, some associated to season 2 of Rings of Energy and a few not.
