Which of lost works do you miss most?

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

SIBYLINE SCROLLS.

 

There is quite a lot of reference to these in RUBICON by Tom Holland. The part that sticks in my mind was something to do with burying a Gaul and a Greek alive, under the forum (?) to prevent some catastrophe.

IIRC that happened when Hannibal's army appeared outside Rome's walls, or possibly after Cannae. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please

[spittle]

What do we actually know about the Sibyline Scrolls?

 

I'm assuming they were destroyed in an early Christian book burning event (a practice that Christians seem to have enjoyed for over a millenium).

 

What books have the most information about these scrolls?

[ontheroad]

I get annoyed whenever there is a lacuna in an ancient text. However, the lost sections of Tacitus make me weep!. Especially the disgrace of Sejanus. I can imagine the increasing tensions as the letter of Tiberius is read in the Senate. The dark glances, the hipocracy, the confusion among the senators as to what was happening. Dio Cassius is a poor substitute for the artistry of Tacitus.

Edited June 9, 2008 by ontheroad

[M. Porcius Cato]

As much as I'd like to read the early annalists like Fabius Pictor or to be able to fill in the lacunae of Tacitus, I most mourn the loss of Latin literature, like the plays of Accius. His play Brutus, about the expulsion of the kings, was wildly successful. As the author of lines like "Oderint dum metuant", Accius probably had much more to share than what has survived.

[ASCLEPIADES]

That leads me to this poll: which of all those ancient works would you like to have preserved most?

Salve, T.

 

Based on their potential historical value, I would like mostly original contemporary narratives made by Roman enemies; Greeks, Persians, Jewish, but specially Phoenician: any original text of the Carthaginian constitution, the Annals of that city, Hannibal's Lacinian Incription, his Greek book on CM Vulso, Sosilus' books (specifically the one antagonized by Polybius), any text by Silenus, and so on.

[sullafelix]

By the way, I had heard that Claudius had a good reputation as a historian. Is this correct or just too much I CLAVDIVS?

 

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

Edited July 16, 2008 by sullafelix

[GaiaCaesari524]

I would absolutely LOVE to get my hands on Caesar's lost works--his jokes, his personal writings--everything!!! what happened to them? i know that octavius suppressed them but did they get destroyed?

[sylla]

Caesar's lost works--his jokes, his personal writings ... i know that octavius suppressed them ...

Can you quote your source? Edited December 17, 2009 by sylla

[Maty]

SIBYLINE SCROLLS.

 

There is quite a lot of reference to these in RUBICON by Tom Holland. The part that sticks in my mind was something to do with burying a Gaul and a Greek alive, under the forum (?) to prevent some catastrophe.

IIRC that happened when Hannibal's army appeared outside Rome's walls, or possibly after Cannae. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please

 

 

Actually I think this was 114 BC - the Romans being somewhat exercised at the time by the hordes of Cimbri and Teutones who had appeared in the north. Thenabouts they also sacrificed a vestal virgin or three on a charge of infidelity. The burial was in the forum boariarum BTW

[sylla]

SIBYLINE SCROLLS.

 

There is quite a lot of reference to these in RUBICON by Tom Holland. The part that sticks in my mind was something to do with burying a Gaul and a Greek alive, under the forum (?) to prevent some catastrophe.

IIRC that happened when Hannibal's army appeared outside Rome's walls, or possibly after Cannae. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please

 

 

Actually I think this was 114 BC - the Romans being somewhat exercised at the time by the hordes of Cimbri and Teutones who had appeared in the north. Thenabouts they also sacrificed a vestal virgin or three on a charge of infidelity. The burial was in the forum boariarum BTW

The Gauls & Greeks were buried alive in 226 BC, when Rome was facing a huge Gaulish coalition; this is Plutarch, Marcellus, 3, 1-4:

 

"After the first Punic war had come to an end in its twenty-second year, Rome was called upon to renew her struggles with the Gauls...

the Romans were greatly alarmed by the proximity of their country to the enemy, with whom they could wage war so near their own boundaries and homes, as well as by the ancient renown of the Gauls, whom the Romans seems to have feared more than any other people...

Their alarm was also shown by ... the extraordinary sacrifices which they made to the gods.

For though they have no barbarous or unnatural practices..., at the time when this war burst upon them they were constrained to obey certain oracular commands from the Sibylline books, and to bury alive two Greeks, a man and a woman, and likewise two Gauls, in the place called the "forum boarium", or cattle-market;

and in memory of these victims, they still to this day, in the month of November, perform mysterious and secret ceremonies".

 

Vestal virgins were executed more than once (just check out this nice thread), usually across really hard times for Rome, but almost always on the standard charge of unchastity (fornication); burying them alive was a common punishment. Some vestals were indeed buried alive at Rome in 215 BC (the year after Cannae), according to St. Jerome.

 

The Vestal virgins Aemilia, Licinia, and Marcia were condemned for unchastity in 114 BC (e.g. Livy, Periochae 63, 4); the military disaster of that year was courtesy of the Thracian Scordisci, who defeated a consul and some legates.

Edited December 18, 2009 by sylla

[Centurion-Macro]

Fabius Pictor. His work was completely destroyed, and we are left with only a few quotes and mentions of his work. He was the first Roman to write about Rome and it would have been great to see him describing the first families of Rome etc etc.