Anthony's Metaphor

[Plautus]

Ave Citizens,

 

I am enjoying your website. Thank you for your industry and skill at setting this up. May Fortuna Virilis reward all your endeavors. I too am enjoying the HBO Rome series. I particularly like the fact that the writers are not making it easy for the average viewer with regard to Roman conversation. Spicing the dialogue with references to the god Dis, or a casual mention of Leonidas at Thermopylae. It's all quite good.

 

One phrase though has got me stumped. So I'd like to ask the scholars out there in the Mare Cyberneticus for help. In last weeks episode when Mark Anthony urges Caesar to reject truce with Pompey, he said:" It's too late, the Ram has Touched the Wall." Can anyone tell me the origin of that phrase?

[Germanicus]

The ram being battering ram, the implication of the saying would be that the seige is as good as over once the rams head touches the wall.

 

I've never heard that saying before though, but I like it.

[Plautus]

Doh! Of course. Here I am overthinking it, wracking my brain for hints from mythology or literature. Obviously, the battering ram makes sense.

Thank you citizen. now unlike Pliny the Elder who it is said worked way too long into the night to the light of tapers, I shall retire.

 

One other question. I notice in the show an extensive use of candles. I thought that was more Medieval and that Romans used oil lamps. Are beeswax or wax candles accurate?

[Primus Pilus]

They did use candles, but they were expensive in comparison to oil lamps. Candles might be more frequently seen in the households of the societal elite, but oil lamps would still be far more common.