sullafelix

Hi I am probably really slow on the uptake here but I only recently discovered this fabulous site. Have a look if you need any archaeology info FastiOnline SF

TBH if you are considering Oxford I would look at their main rival Cambridge too. I have always found the department there much more dynamic and up to date. I have given a couple of papers there and the conferences etc have always been fantastic.

Hullo I am working on urban poverty in the C2nd BC and was wondering if anyone knows a site..book etc giving the development of the geographic area of Rome from that time? I can't seem to find anything concise but I can't believe there isn't someting out there that I am missing. All help appreciated SF

fantastic discussion guys... really good to see. At the risk of starting the whole thing going again though I have a couple of points that I would love your opinions on. I am just completing a study on the Gracchi to give you some context. A couple of my conclusions might surprise you. The first is that the lex Sempronia of 133 was actually part of democratising continuum (for want of a better phrase) which had its begginings right back in the conflict of the orders. This continuum can be traced in the actions of Licinius Stolo and his heirs. It can be seen in the work of Flaminius and in many comments on the role and power of the Tribune of the the Plebs. Secondly although reform of the Comitia Centuriata did help with this democratising process marginally. However, more important were the social changes occuring in Roman society in the first quarter of the Second Century. These changes came about as a result of several factors including: the increasing political power of the plebs, the weakening of the traditional client-patron system and its replacement by more commercially led patronage, the rise of the equites and the increasing political power of commercial interests, the growth of the slave economy both rurally and in urban areas, the concomitant rise in rural and urban unemployment and the increasing importance of army supply contracts in times of economic hardship. A long list - I know. The idea of a Rome where the plebs were completely conservative in their choices of leader is seemingly at odds with this picture of a rapidly evolving society. However, the posession of an illustrious heritage did not neccessarily preculde radical politics. The popularity of both Gracchi and of Flaminius attest to this fact. Throughout the Third and Second Centuries Tribunes regularly championed some quite radical social policy measures. Increasingly these measures were passed without Senate approval. The only fly in this ointment was the regular obstruction of the passage of reform by "rogue" tribunes in the pocket of the Senate. they were, however, the exception to the rule. The Concilium Plebis became more and more important as a legislative body whilst, at the same time, the Senate began to be bypassed more and more in the legislative process. This was entirely constitutional, however. The point made about the relative wealth of landowners is an interesting one, and related is the point about the numbers of landless poor. The comments I should like make on the number of assidui are that: # - property was not measured in land alone. Roman society was increasingly urbanised and there were an increasing number of urban tradesmen who owned premises or assets that could allowed them to be censed as assidui. #- that said there were a lot of people who must have fallen under the limit, and that number was increasing as a direct result of the increase in the competition for land. #- we cannot unfortunately know what proportion of the Roman population were even censed let alone met the property qualifications for military service. # - there has been much tosh talked about a lack of real land hunger by writers in the last 30 years. This has mainly come about due to misunderstandings in terminology, chiefly the term latifundium. This term has been used with regard to the Gracchan period. However, that type of farming was not mentioned until Pliny. The best source we have for the type of Farming developing in the Second Century is Cato's De Agricultura. At 3.4 his instruction to build within your means and at 14 his list of materials for a villa was never going to build a palace! The confusion has led to us looking for a type of villa that did not exist in the Second Century. however, more recent archaeological work has uncovered a number of sites, especially in the hinterland of Rome that bear a close resemblence to the type of villa favoured by Cato. they also date from the Third and Second Century. #- The survival of the peasant farmer in the Second century had been thought to have been much healthier than either Plutarch or Appian would have us believe. However it now appears that new interpretations of vital ceramic chronologies point to real gap in occupation at many sites, interestingly which would back up the literary tradition. #- The ager Campanus probably wasn't farmed by peasants. Its leases were auctioned off in Rome to the highest bidders. This meant it went to those prepared to pay for security of tenure on the most valuable land outside of Rome. # - The rush for valuable land, was not just symptomatic of vast profits to be had from farming. These were as hard to come by then as they are now. One of the problems was that during the periodic economic downturns of the economy there was a lack of decent return on investmentand few investment opportunities. Land was attractive for its relative stability, the potential profit to be made from it, the potential of land to fulfil miltary supply contracts and also for its ability to provide the neccessary goods for maintaining a high status household in Rome.

Just a pointer for any undergraduate looking at the Gracchi. They almost always provide the starting point for a course entitled something along the lines of The Last Century of the Republic or The Fall of The Republic etc etc. This is actually quite misleading. The Gracchi were the heirs of over 150 years of tribunician tradition. Land reform was well within the traditional sphere of influence of the Tribune. They were not even the first tribunes to be involved in violence as a means to acheiving their ends. Sometimes the best perspective from whic to view the Gracchi is one that takes in a brief history of the Tribunate from either the lex Licinia of 367 or land issues from the settlements of Flaminius. SF

I love that Caldrail and may need to pinch it, do you know where it came from by any achance? One I love, that also demonstrates the point is a dark joke that used to be said during the Mid-Republic "Sardes venales alius alio nequior" - Sardinians for sale - each more worthless than the next! This referred to when Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus conquered Sardinia in 177BC and is said to have captured 80,000 to be sold into slavery. As to the number of slaves, we count a slave society as one that has at least 20% of the population made up of slaves. There are no numbers as you say but certainly by the end of the Republic the quantity of slaves, especially in agriculture and industry was enormous. A Roman citizen did not do manual labour if possible as it was demaning and seen as slave's work. Even the meanest of Roman citizens would have owned at least one domestic slave if they possibly could - how do you think they had time to conquer the world & learn Latin for heavens sake. Varro referred to them as speaking tools Cheers SF

That would be really great thanks. I didn't think they could be original. Many thanks SF

OK Heeeeelllllp I am at my wits end with this: It is a nice piece of relatively early Latin; it comes from the tabulae censoriae and is suposedly the formula used by the censors to summon the people to the census itself. This tiny little query I have is driving me mad because it is so important. It means either every citizen had to turn up or they didn't all have to turn up (much rides on this in my life you understand - and yes I am aware of my pressing need to get out more, nevertheless...) Here we go: Ubi noctu in templum censor auspicaverit atque de caelo nuntium erit, praeconi sic imperato ut viros vocet: "Quod bonum fortunatum felix salutareque siet populo Romano Quiritibus reique publicae populi Romani Quiritium mihique collegaeque meo, fidei magistratuique nostro: omnes Quirites pedites armatos, privatosque, curatores omnium tribuum, si quis pro se sive pro altero rationem dari volet, voca inlicium huc ad me." Now the bit I am having some difficulty with is this omnes Quirites pedites armatos, privatosque, curatores omnium tribuum I have seen it variously translated as "all citizen soldiers, men able to bear arms (armatos) and private citizens as spokesmen of all the tribes" and also as "all citizen soldiers, mean able to bear arms, private citizens and spokesmen of all the tribes. The issue is one of commas and apposition. The original Latin is quoted by various authors with some commas, no commas or commas all over the place. Does this make any difference? In one version I have seen it quoted with no comma between armatos and privatosque, in another with no commas except between tribuum and si quis. Where the heck do these commas come from? Are they as I supsect put there by well meaning transcribers to aid our understanding (in which case I wish they woould either stop or talk to each other!) Please please help me Thanks SF

Hi all Does anyone know where I can find information on the workings of the census in Republican Rome? I know about the classes and the timescale etc. what I am trying to find is any information on exactly how the process itself worked in practice, ie did everyone turn up - how was citizenship proved etc? Any ideas on source material. I have the early Livy stuff but not much else. All help gratefully received Cheers SF

Hi all Me again with the requests for help as per. I am trying to find out if the journal Athenaeum is availble online, I suspect it isn't. I could have sworn it was on our uni's list of online journals, then I realised that I was thinking of Arethusa (doh!). The upshot is I am now miles from Uni and I need to access some Tibiletti articles on the Gracchi. Does anyone know where I can get hold of them, I can't find a website for Atenaeum. I know it is L'Universita di Pavia, but I can't find anything else online or get through to the journal's homepage. I have tried abebooks for offprints but I am not getting anywhere - can anyone save me a 10 hour round trip to my library? Cheers SF x PS Studi di storia agraria romana? does anyone have a copy so that they could let me know what is in it b4 I go and buy it?

Oh heavens I appear to have become an old stick in the mud 1.Cato 2. Julius Caesar 3. Scipio Africanus (rocks!) 4. Seneca .... 7. Sulla (hmm) SF

Indeed he did, he was a scholarly man. It was all that was left to him as he had no public role before his unexpected elevation to the purple. As to what books do I miss the most. I miss the work of Varro - considered to be the most learned man of his generation - he wrote literally hundreds of works all of which have been lost apart from his agricultural treatise and a little of his work on the origins and languages of the Romans and Italians, such a shame

Roman slaves' names were totally misleading. Across all their history, Romans were always jingoistic and hellenophile, both to an almost unbelievable degree. Consequently, Latin names were too good for most slaves, but Greek names were the best; most of the time, any Greek slave (or product) was better than the non-Greeks equivalent. Thanks for the loveliness and to answer your question Pausanius and Strabo are both particularly interesting as is any decent book on Delos. For an idea of the way in which piracy was seen by the Romans and Greeks as impacting on their lives, then the speeches regarding Pompey's command are useful. Also on a more social history level the plays of Plautus and later Terence use piracy as plot device extensively showing that the practice of the abduction of free citizens by pirates was familiar enough to be used in comedy.

Salve all Just a point or two about piracy in the ancient word to add to this thread. I like this thread, it is passionate and relevant. However, I think we are in danger of simplifying a complex relationship. Roman trade drove piracy, piracy was also a deeply embedded cultural activity that was centuries old. I had not before considered Cilicia a failed state and I suspect that such a view might be in danger of overlooking the history of piracy but on the other hand in a purely factual way it has to be said to be true relative to the cultures around it. I do not know enough about it to be authoritative. Apologies for the length of this post Also I hate to be a boor but the below constitutes my own work and a part of my thesis and so is my own intellectual property (which sounds so arrogant but many of you will know why I write this): Piracy was endemic in parts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea during the Hellenistic period. The activities of pirates had almost certainly been helped by the Roman destruction of Rhodian sea power in the second century. However, it was not until the anti-piracy laws of 102 onward and eventually the actions of Pompey that pirates were stopped from large scale predation on sea trade in, especially, the Eastern Mediterranean. Piracy was renowned as a source of slavery, partly perhaps because of the romantic plot twists it provided in the comedies of Menander and later Plautus and Terence. The idea of a reunion after many years was just a dramatic device, but the capture by pirates provided a familiar means by which it could be made to work. Undoubtedly many slaves arrived in the markets of Mediterranean courtesy of pirates. There are references to large scale raids targeting settlements. Pausanias gives us an account of a raid on Mothone some time after 232: [6] Now the Illyrians, having tasted empire and being always desirous of more, built ships, and plundering others whom they fell in with, put in to the coast of Mothone and anchored as in a friendly port. Sending a messenger to the city they asked for wine to be brought to their ships. A few men came with it and they bought the wine at the price which the inhabitants asked, and themselves sold a part of their cargo. [7] When on the following day a larger number arrived from the town, they allowed them also to make their profit. Finally women and men came down to the ships to sell wine and trade with the barbarians. Thereupon by a bold stroke the Illyrians carried off a number of men and still more of the women. Carrying them on board ship, they set sail for the Ionian sea, having desolated the city of the Mothonaeans. An inscription at Amorgos is dated from the mid-third century and commemorates the bravery of two individuals in persuading a pirate commander to release a number of captives from the town.5 Another at Delos thanks Samos, a Delian, for his efforts in freeing a number of Theangelan women in the late third century, and a similar inscription records the gratitude of Athens to Eumanidas for rescuing the victims of Aetolian pirates in 217-6.6 Delos was, by virtue of its free port status, the centre of the slave trade in the Mediterranean after 167. However, very little physical trace of this specific commodity has been found at Delos, perhaps not unsurprisingly. In this instance we rely on the account of Strabo: Tryphon was the cause of originating among the Cilicians a piratical confederacy. They were induced also to do this by the imbecility of the kings who succeeded each other on the thrones of Syria and Cilicia. In consequence of his introduction of political changes, others imitated his example, and the dissensions among brothers exposed the country to the attacks of invaders. The exportation of slaves was the chief cause of inducing them to commit criminal acts, for this traffic was attended with very great profit, and the slaves were easily taken. Delos was at no great distance, a large and rich mart, capable of receiving and transporting, when sold, the same day, ten thousand slaves; so that hence arose a proverbial saying, `Merchant, come into port, discharge your freight--everything is sold.' The Romans, having acquired wealth after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, employed great numbers of domestic slaves, and were the cause of this traffic. The pirates, observing the facility with which slaves could be procured, issued forth in numbers from all quarters, committing robbery and dealing in slaves. 14.5.1-3 We know also that may of the slaves that were traded came originally from ports on the Black Sea which Strabo himself would have been familiar with having grown up on the southern shore. Here piracy was a practice that helped to supplement the meagre living that the area afforded. As such it was not a practice which flourished from time to time at moments of instability; rather it was a practice that was deeply embedded in the society of the area around towns like Colchis. The pirates predated not only other communities on the shoes of the Black Sea but also their own people. It is also interesting to note that Strabo is in no doubt as to where these slaves were ending up. He says that demand from the Roman market was what was driving the trade. As the slaves who passed through markets like Delos have left few traces it is often hard to find slaves of a specific nationality. Many slaves will not have kept there own names. Although the nationality of a slave was supposed to be stipulated at the time of sale, it is not unlikely that traders lied in order to raise the value of their goods. This would have been the case when revealing the true nationality of a slave might in fact damage their market value. This may go some way to explaining why some peoples seem underrepresented in our records of slaves in the Mediterranean

This thread is great! Fantastic work everyone. Could I just add a little bit of interesting info regarding the use of the term domus. It absolutely predates the term villa as far as I can tell. That term probably came from an old italic term for village or settlement. In the earliest of the literature we have available, like Lucilius, Domus is used often to signify, not just a house, but the wider sense of home(as already said), both as the place where the familia hangs out and also in a more spiritual sense, like we might use ancestral seat. So if you think about the amount of cultural and spirtual value the Romans put on the term villa which was relatively new. The domus must have had enormous significance to the Romans. SF

Hmm I know that Seneca mentions Scipio Africanus bath in this epistle, actually the whole thing is worth a read but here you go one extract: How some persons nowadays condemn Scipio as a boor because he did not let daylight into his perspiring-room through wide windows, or because he did not roast in the strong sunlight and dawdle about until he could stew in the hot water!

Hi Interesting subject and a good response from Nephele. Actually the same wording appears in the much earlier Gaius (jurist & contemporary of Hadrian's) as well. I suspect that the law would go right back to the time of the XII tables but there can be no proof as it is not contained in the fragments that have come down to us. The other injunctions contained within the clause regarding incest do seem to have survived but all of the XII tables are so fragmentary that no conclusion could be drawn from that. Cheers SF

He started young and did well. He was a great general, some of hs campaigns were not ones that have covered his name in glory and his politics were reprehensible, BUT although he set himself up to be the saviour of the Republic, riding in on his white charger when needed, he did actually fufill the role as required. One thing no-one has mentioned is Pompey's skill as a leader of men - the mark of a great general and something that set him apart from poor Lucullus who lost the support of his own army dispite his own tactical brilliance. So.... Great? absolutely Flawed? Oh my yes!

Cheers Melvadius More help than you think I expect. I will have a look at Brunt (needs must!) and the Clark reference may well be useful too. Thanks again SF

This is a really specialist one, but I shall put my query up here anyway and hope..... Can anyone give me a source reference for the earliest mention of commercium (by name) or can anyone enlighten me as to where we get our idea of what commercium in ancient Italy was? I have trawled my way right back to Mommsen & Maine and even beyond and none of them give source references for their insistence that commercium was a formal system of rights pertaining to contract law between Romans and peregrini. I know this seems like a wierd assertion but I am becoming less and less convinced by this interpretation of an early start date for commercium....help anyone? sf

Graduate classes in the US typically involve very little lecture and a great deal of discussion. If students read material reliably, all classes could focus on the evaluation and discussion of materials. I'd add that there's usually quite a bit of what I call 'practicum'...not only discussion but paper-writing, all utilizing the information found in the readings and the personal interests of the students. But I must say that in Europe it can be different; in Spain, for example, there's quite a bit of lecture, even in graduate courses. I've heard similar stories elsewhere. It can be quite disillusioning for students if there is no discussion I agree, but as someone teaching undergrads in the UK I would have to say that discussion has to come from the students too. Sometimes I am banging my head against a wall trying to get people to speak in seminars. Here we generally have lectures and seminars in the first year and only seminars in the second and third years. My own graduate study has been all research but it is possible to start grad study in a taught programme. As to what languages for PhD I would say don't kill yourself trying to do everything at once. If you want a career in academia afterwards then you will also need to have done other things while a PhD student. You need to organise a conference, give a paper at one too and preferably get an article published in a decent scholarly journal. You will also almost ceratinly need to work to support yourself during this time. If you do any teaching the preparation will take you ages when you first start out. I have been at it nearly three years (and yes I am nearly done) and I have got Latin and Italian so far. I intend to do the Greek intensively after I finish and I will almost certainly learn German over the next three years too. But none of that matters if you don't finish your thesis. It is the thesis above evrything that matters, learn the languages as you go along - NOT before you start out or you will never start. Hope that helps SF

Hi Sorry for the delay. Right, you work in exactly the right area to understand this! The fertility transition is something that is said to happen in a society when it reaches the point where parents no longer have children in large numbers due to high infant mortality and their own need to to be supported in later life. This means that the age distribution of a population will reflect the growing average age. Life expectancy increases and fertility drops. It is a function of the increase in the standard of living as societies mature. The issue as I see it is that the Life tables used by demographers (for ancient and modern societies) rely, by definition on data from peroids when data was reliable. We do not have reliable data for anything other than post-transition societies, therefore we are not comparing like for like when we use these tables to map population trends in the ancient world. Becaus all ancient socities were pre-transition societies. There are mays of working out population in a small geographic area and extrapolating. Using archaeology you can look at the population size of a given settlement and if you have more than one excavated settlement you can look a this as a norm or average. Its clumsy but is is based in reality. Let me know if there is anything else I can numb your mind with! Cheers SF

Hi There might some info for you in Varro, Columella and Cato that would be of use. Villas in town are one thing, but most of those in the countryside had dual use with one section being for farming. Andrew Wallace Hadrill and Ray Laurence have done loads of work on this aspect of villas in Pompeii itself too. Cato gives a list of bulding materials and Varro is a little more detailed as is Columella. Pliny's natural history may have something too, but its a lot of stuff to look through. SF

There are some hysterically moments in Roman history. Some are universally considered side-splitting, some are more a matter of taste, or maybe you have just seen them in a way that others have not as yet considered. I think its time we had a bit of a laugh. Post your favourite silly moments and share the laughter round a bit go on...Here's mine, stick John Cleese's face on the eunuch - works marvellously! It is early in the Fifth Century.......... "At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Rome had perished. And he cried out and said, 'And yet it has just eaten from my hands!' For he had a very large cock, Rome by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Rome which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: 'But I, my good fellow, thought that my fowl Rome had perished.' " Procopius, The Vandalic War (III.2.25-26) There is something so marvellous about this story, you can almost see the eunuch's moment of blank incomprehension before realising that his emperor had reached levels of previously untapped idiocy. Someone find me the one about the sacred chickens please! SF