Here are five of the best of a very mixed bunch.
1. Augustus
Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century (cropped)
Image Credit: Vatican Museums, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Gaius Octavius (63 BC – 14 AD) founded the Roman Empire in 27 BC. He was the great-nephew of Julius Caesar.
Augustus’ enormous personal power, won though bloody struggle, meant he had no rivals. The 200-year Pax Romana began.
Augustus conquered Egypt and Dalmatia and its northern neighbours. The Empire grew south and east in Africa; north and east into Germania and south-west in Spain. Buffer states and diplomacy kept the frontiers safe.
An overhauled tax system paid for his new standing army and Praetorian Guard. Couriers carried official news quickly along his roads. Rome was transformed with new buildings, a police force, fire brigade and proper local administrators. He was generous to the people, paying vast sums to citizens and veterans, for whom he bought land to retire on.
His last words in private were: “Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit.” His final public utterance, “Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble,” was just as true.
2. Trajan 98 – 117 AD
Marcus Ulpius Trajanus (53 –117 AD) is one of consecutive Five Good Emperors, three of whom are listed here. He was the most successful military man in Roman history, expanding the Empire to its greatest extent.
Trajan added gold-rich Dacia (parts of Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, and Ukraine) to the empire, subdued and conquered the Parthian Empire (in modern Iran), and marched through Armenia and Mesopotamia to extend Rome’s reach to the Persian Gulf.
At home he built well, employing the talented Apollodorus of Damascus as his architect. A column recorded his victory in Dacia, while a forum and market in his name improved the capital. Elsewhere spectacular bridges, roads and canals improved military communications.
He devalued the silver denarius to finance the spending of his enormous war booty on public works, providing food and subsidised education for the poor as well as great games.
3. Hadrian 117 – 138 AD
Head of Emperor Hadrian (cropped)
Image Credit: Djehouty, CC BY-SA 4.0
Publius Aelius Hadrianus (76 AD –138 AD) is now best known for the magnificent wall that marked the northern frontier of the Empire in Britain. He was well travelled and educated, promoting Greek philosophy.
Uniquely among Emperors Hadrian travelled to almost every part of his Empire, initiating great fortifications both in Britannia and on the Danube and Rhine frontiers.
His reign was largely peaceful, he withdrew from some of Trajan’s conquests, strengthening the Empire from within by commissioning great infrastructure projects and inspecting and drilling the army on his travels. When he did fight he could be brutal, wars in Judea killed 580,000 Jews.
A great lover of Greek culture, Hadrian built up Athens as a cultural capital and patronised the arts and architecture; he wrote poetry himself. Among many spectacular building projects, Hadrian oversaw the rebuilding of the Pantheon with its magnificent dome.
The historian Edward Gibbon wrote that Hadrian’s reign was the “happiest era of human history”.
4. Marcus Aurelius 161 – 180 AD
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (121 –180 AD) was the Philosopher Emperor and the last of the Five Good Emperors.
Marcus’ reign was marked by tolerance for free speech, even when it was critical of the Emperor himself. He was even able to rule alongside Lucius Verus for the first eight years of his reign. The less academic Lucius taking a lead in military matters.
Despite constant military and political troubles, Marcus’ competent administration reacted well to crises like the flooding of the Tiber in 162. He reformed the currency intelligently in response to changing economic circumstances and picked his advisors well. He was praised for his mastery of the law and his fairness.
The depraved behaviour of Roman emperors could fill several websites, but Marcus was moderate and forgiving in his personal life and as Emperor.
Marble bust of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse, France
Image Credit: Musée Saint-Raymond, CC BY-SA 4.0
Militarily he conquered the resurgent Parthian Empire and won wars against Germanic tribes that were threatening the Empire’s eastern frontiers.
The historian of his reign, Cassius Dio, wrote that his death marked a descent “from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust.”
Marcus is still today considered an important writer on Stoic philosophy, which values duty to and respect for others and self-control. His 12 volume Meditations, probably written while campaigning and for his own use, was a bestseller in 2002.
5. Aurelian 270 – 275 AD
Lucius Domitius Aurelianus Augustus (214 – 175 AD) ruled for just a short time, but he restored the Empire’s lost provinces, helping to end the Crisis of the Third Century.
Aurelian was a commoner, earning his power by rising through the military. The Empire needed a good soldier, and Aurelian’s message of “concord with the soldiers” made his purposes clear.
First he threw barbarians from Italy and then Roman territory. He defeated the Goths in the Balkans and wisely decided to step back from defending Dacia.
Boosted by these victories he overthrew the Palmyrene Empire, which had grown from captured Roman provinces in North Africa and the Middle East, important sources of grain for Rome. Next were the Gauls in the west, completing a complete reunification of the Empire and earning Aurelian the title, “Restorer of the World.”
He didn’t just fight, bringing stability to religious and economic life, rebuilding public buildings, and tackling corruption.
Had he not been murdered by a conspiracy started by a secretary fearful of punishment for a minor lie, he might have left an even better legacy. As it was, Aurelian’s reign secured the future of Rome for another 200 years. The danger he faced is shown in the massive Aurelian Walls he built around Rome and which still stand in part today.
]]>At the start of the wars, Carthage was a rich and modern city state as well as a major maritime power. Due to the loss of historical records in the destruction of the Third Punic War, knowledge of the city and its culture remains spotty.
Here are 10 facts about the Punic Wars.
1. Three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage were fought between 264 BC and 146 BC
2. Carthage was a Phoenician city
The Phoenicians, originally from Lebanon, were known as successful sea traders and naval warriors. They also spread the first alphabet. Their trade routes along the North African and European coasts of the Mediterranean made them a rival of Rome.
3. Carthage is about 10km from Tunis, the capital of modern-day Tunisia
The well-preserved remains that are now a UNESCO World Heritage site include the Roman city that was established on the ruins of the original.
4. The flash point for the wars was the island of Sicily
A dispute between the cities of Syracuse and Messina in 264 BC saw the two powers taking sides and a small local conflict turn into a battle for dominance of the Mediterranean.
5. Hannibal’s father, Hamilcar Barca, commanded the city’s forces in the First Punic War
6. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps took place in the Second Punic War in 218 BC
According to contemporary accounts, he took 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry and 38 elephants into the mountains and descended into Italy with about 20,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and a handful of elephants.
7. At the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, Hannibal inflicted on Rome the worst defeat in its military history
Between 50,000 and 70,000 Roman soldiers were killed or captured by a much smaller force. It is considered one of the great military triumphs (and disasters) in history, the perfect ‘battle of annihilation’.
8. Hannibal so concerned the Romans that they demanded his personal surrender long after they had defeated Carthage’s armies
He went into exile to save Carthage from harm, but was still being hounded when he poisoned himself around 182 BC.
9. The Third Punic War (149 – 146 BC) saw Rome achieve total victory over its enemy
Photo by ‘Jun (Flickr).
The final Siege of Carthage lasted around two years and the Romans completely destroyed the city, selling an estimated 50,000 people into slavery.
10. Carthage had become an obsession to some Romans, most famously Cato the Elder (234 BC – 149 BC)
The statesman would proclaim: ‘Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, (‘By the way I think that Carthage must be destroyed,’) at the end of every speech he made, no matter what he was talking about.
]]>How did the Romans, building two millennia ago with nothing but human muscle and animal power, leave such a lasting legacy?
The Romans built on what they knew from the Ancient Greeks. The two styles are together called Classical Architecture and their principles are still used by modern architects.
From the 18th century, Neoclassical architects deliberately copied ancient buildings with regular, plain, symmetrical designs with lots of columns and arches, often using white plaster or stucco as a finish. Modern buildings built in this style are described as New Classical.
1. The arch and the vault
The Romans did not invent but did master both the arch and vault, bringing a new dimension to their buildings that the Greeks did not have.
Arches can carry much more weight than straight beams, allowing longer distances to be spanned without supporting columns. The Romans realised that arches didn’t have to be full semi-circles, allowing them to build their long bridges. Stacks of arches allowed them to build higher spans, best seen in some of their spectacular aqueducts.
Vaults take the arches strengths and apply them in three dimensions. Vaulted roofs were a spectacular innovation. The widest vaulted Roman roof was the 100 foot-wide roof over the throne room in Diocletian’s palace.
2. Domes
Interior of the Pantheon, Rome, c. 1734. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Image Credit: Samuel H. Kress Collection
Domes use similar principles of circular geometry to cover large areas with no internal support.
The oldest surviving dome in Rome was in the Emperor Nero’s Golden House, built around 64 AD. It was 13 metres in diameter.
Domes became an important and prestigious feature of public buildings, particularly baths. By the 2nd century, The Pantheon was completed under Emperor Hadrian, it is still the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world.
3. Concrete
As well as mastering and refining Ancient Greek geometrical learning, the Romans had their own wonder material. Concrete freed the Romans from building only with carved stone or wood.
Roman concrete was behind the Roman Architectural Revolution of the late Republic (around 1st century BC), the first time in history that buildings were built with regard to more than the simple practicalities of enclosing space and supporting a roof over it. Buildings could become beautiful in structure as well as decoration.
The Roman material is very similar to the Portland cement that we use today. A dry aggregate (perhaps rubble) was mixed with a mortar that would take in water and harden. The Romans perfected a range of concretes for different purposes, even building under water.
4. Domestic architecture
Hadrian’s Villa. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Image Credit: Damian Byrne / Shutterstock.com
Most of Rome’s citizens lived in simple structures, even blocks of flats. The rich though enjoyed villas, which were country estates in which to escape the heat and crowds of a Roman summer.
Cicero (106 – 43 BC), the great politician and philosopher, owned seven. The Emperor Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli consisted of more than 30 buildings with gardens, baths, a theatre, temples and libraries. Hadrian even had a complete small home on an indoor island with drawbridges that could be pulled up. Tunnels allowed servants to move around without disturbing their masters.
Most villas had an atrium – an enclosed open space – and three separate areas for owners and slave accommodation and storage. Many had baths, plumbing and drains and hypocaust under-floor central heating. Mosaics decorated floors and murals walls.
5. Public buildings
Great public structures were built to provide entertainment, to instil civic pride, to worship in and to show the power and generosity of the rich and powerful. Rome was full of them, but wherever the Empire spread, so did magnificent public buildings.
Julius Caesar was a particularly flamboyant public builder, and he attempted to make Rome surpass Alexandria as the Mediterranean’s greatest city, adding major public works such as the Forum Julium and the Saepta Julia.
6. The Colosseum
The Colosseum at dusk. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com
Still one of the iconic sights of Rome today, the Colosseum was a massive stadium that could house between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators. It was ordered built by Emperor Vespasian around 70 – 72 AD, on the site of Nero’s personal palace.
Like many Roman buildings, it was built with the spoils of war and to celebrate victory, this time in the Great Jewish Revolt. It is in four levels, and was completed in 80 AD after Vespasian’s death.
It was the model for similar celebratory amphitheatre throughout the Empire.
7. Aqueducts
Romans were able to live in large cities because they knew how to transport water for drinking, public baths and sewerage systems.
The first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, was built in 312 BC in Rome. It was 16.4 km long and supplied 75,537 cubic metres of water a day, flowing down a total 10-metre drop.
The tallest aqueduct still standing is the Pont du Gard bridge in France. Part of a 50km water delivery system, the bridge itself is 48.8 m high with a 1 in 3,000 downward gradient, an extraordinary achievement with ancient technology. It is estimated the system carried 200,000 m3 a day to the city of Nimes.
8. Triumphal arches
Arch of Constantine in Rome, Italy. 2008. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Romans celebrated their military triumphs and other achievements by building gigantic arches over their roads.
The Roman’s mastery of the arch may have given this simple shape a special significance to them. Early examples were being built by 196 BC when Lucius Steritinus put up two to celebrate Spanish victories.
After Augustus limited such displays to emperors only, the men at the top were in an ongoing competition to build the most magnificent. They spread throughout the Empire, with 36 in Rome alone by the fourth century.
The largest surviving arch is the Arch of Constantine, 21 m high in total with one arch of 11.5 m.
]]>The evidence
The most tangible evidence of the Roman diet is food and human waste excavated by archaeologists. The cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii (destroyed in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius) have left sewers and rubbish heaps packed with digested dietary evidence.
Rome’s rich literary and visual culture can also provide clues. Petronius’ over-the-top Satyricon (late 1st century) is probably the inspiration for our imagined decadent banquet. Poets like Horace (65 – 8 BC) and Juvenal (1st – 2nd century) leave clues.
A 10 volume cookbook, Apicius’ De re coquinaria (4th – 5th centuries AD) survives and Pliny the Elder’s great Natural History (c77 AD) is a fine source on edible plants.
The daily Roman cuisine
For the ordinary Roman, their diet started with, ientaculum – breakfast, this was served at day break. A small lunch, prandium, was eaten at around 11am. The cena was the main meal of the day. They may have eaten a late supper called vesperna.
Richer citizens in time, freed from the rhythms of manual labour, ate a bigger cena from late afternoon, abandoning the final supper.
The cena could be a grand social affair lasting several hours. It would be eaten in the triclinium, the dining room, at low tables with couches on three sides. The fourth side was always left open to allow servants to serve the dishes.
Diners were seated to reflect their status. The triclinium would be richly decorated, it was a place to show off wealth and status. Some homes had a second smaller dining room for less important meals and family meals were taken in a plainer oikos.
Still life with eggs, birds and bronze dishes, from the House of Julia Felix, Pompeii
Image Credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Roman diet
The Mediterranean diet is recognised today as one of the healthiest in the world. Much of the Roman diet, at least the privileged Roman diet, would be familiar to a modern Italian.
They ate meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, cheese, grains (also as bread) and legumes.
Meat included animals like dormice (an expensive delicacy), hare, snails and boar. Smaller birds like thrushes were eaten as well as chickens and pheasants. Beef was not popular with the Romans and any farmed meat was a luxury, game was much more common. Meat was usually boiled or fried – ovens were rare.
A type of clam called telline that is still popular in Italy today was a common part of a rich seafood mix that included oysters (often farmed), octopus and most sea fish.
The Romans grew beans, olives, peas, salads, onions, and brassicas (cabbage was considered particularly healthy, good for digestion and curing hangovers) for the table. Dried peas were a mainstay of poorer diets. As the empire expanded new fruits and vegetables were added to the menu. The Romans had no aubergines, peppers, courgettes, green beans, or tomatoes, staples of modern Italian cooking.
A boy holding a platter of fruits and what may be a bucket of crabs, in a kitchen with fish and squid, on the June panel from a mosaic depicting the months (3rd century)
Image Credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0
Fruit was also grown or harvested from wild trees and often preserved for out-of-season eating. Apples, pears, grapes, quince and pomegranate were common. Cherries, oranges, dates, lemons and oranges were exotic imports. Honey was the only sweetener.
Eggs seem to have been available to all classes, but larger goose eggs were a luxury.
Bread was made from spelt, corn (sometimes a state dole for citizens) or emmer. The lack of ovens meant it had to be made professionally, which may explain why the poor took their grains in porridges.
The Romans were cheese-making pioneers, producing both hard and soft cheeses. Soldiers’ rations included cheese and it was important enough for Emperor Diocletian (284 – 305 AD) to pass laws fixing its price. Pliny the Elder wrote on its medicinal properties.
Most of these were the foods of the wealthy. The poor and slaves are generally thought to have relied on a staple porridge. Bones analysed in 2013 revealed poor Romans ate large amounts of millet, now largely an animal feed. Barley or emmer (farro) was also used.
This porridge, or puls, would be livened up with what fruit, vegetables or meats that could be afforded.
Dining out was generally for the lower classes, and recent research in Pompeii has shown they did eat meat from restaurants, including giraffe.
Fish sauce
All classes had access to at least some of Rome’s key ingredients, garum, liquamen and allec, the fermented fish sauces.
The sauces were made from fish guts and small fish, which were salted and left in the sun. The resulting gunk was filtered. Garum was the best quality paste, what passed through the filters was liquamen. The sludge left at the bottom of the sieve was a third variety, allec, destined for the plates of slaves and the really poor.
Herbs would be added to local or even family recipes.
These highly nutritious sauces were used widely and garum production was a big business – Pompeii was a garum town. Soldiers drank it in solution. The poor poured it into their porridge. The rich used it in almost every recipe – it might be compared to Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce or far-eastern fish sauces today – from the savoury to the sweet.
]]>Julius Caesar, the last republican ruler, and Gaius Octavius or Augustus, the first emperor, threw a long shadow over the office. The adoption of either of their names might signal a man’s rise to ultimate power.
With the imperial throne a passport to enormous power and wealth and little to stop the strongest from seizing it or the weakest being propelled into it, it’s no wonder that some Roman emperors are famous for being bad, brutal and even evil.
1. Caligula: 37 – 41 AD
Marble portrait bust of Roman Emperor Caligula
Image Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Selected as emperor by his great uncle Tiberius, Caligula may have ordered his benefactor’s suffocation.
His accession was popular, but after seven months an illness seemed to turn “Little Boots” into a monster. He is called a bad emperor main because of reports that he killed at whim and financed himself with legalised looting.
He built a two-mile pontoon bridge just so he could ride his horse across the Bay of Baiae in defiance of a prophesy. The horse, Incitatus, lived in a marble stable, and Caligula may have made him a consul.
From AD 40 he started to present himself as a god, while his palace was described as a brothel, among the alleged whores his own sisters.
The last straw, after famine and bankruptcy, was a planned move to Egypt to live as a sun god. This triggered his murder in January 41 AD.
2. Nero: 54 – 68 AD
As with all emperors, the horror stories may be the work of his enemies, but Nero has many to his name.
He killed his mother so that he could remarry, by divorcing and then executing his first wife. His second wife he kicked to death. His third marriage was to a freed slave, whom he had castrated, calling him by his second wife’s name.
Personal power was won with indiscriminate execution of enemies and critics, massive tax cuts and huge public entertainments.
When he ordered his secretary to kill him, mistakenly believing the senate’s assassins were on their way, the loudest mourning came from the theatre and the arena.
3. Commodus: 180 – 192 AD
The nicest thing said of Commodus was that he was not evil, but so stupid that he allowed wicked friends to take control of his reign.
He wasn’t short of ego though. He portrayed himself as Hercules, the mythical Greek hero, in countless statues.
His love of the games was such that he fought in them himself, becoming a ridiculous spectacle as he slaughtered ostriches, elephants and giraffes, and defeated human opponents who dared not beat him. He charged the state a massive fee for each appearance.
In 192 AD he renamed Rome Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana. The months of the year, the legions, the fleet, the senate, the imperial palace, and the citizens of Rome themselves were all named after him.
When he was assassinated the following year, by his wrestling partner, the names were all changed back.
Bust of Emperor Commodus
Image Credit: J. Paul Getty Museum, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
4. Caracalla: 198 – 217 AD
Ascending to power alongside his brother, Caracalla decided he couldn’t share and had his sibling rival killed, his followers slaughtered and his memory officially erased from history by the Senate.
In power, the man Gibbon (the great historian of the Roman Empire) called “the common enemy of mankind”, spent little time in Rome, choosing instead to ape his hero, Alexander the Great, with conquests in Africa and the Middle East.
He reintroduced Alexander’s by-now obsolete military tactics and persecuted philosophical followers of Aristotle, who legend had it had killed his hero.
A theatrical satire of his excesses staged in Alexandria got under his skin. He took his army to the city and slaughtered the leading citizens before letting his troops off the leash for days of looting that left 20,000 dead.
He was assassinated by a soldier whose brother’s death he had ordered.
5. Maximinus Thrax: 235 to 238 AD
Maximinus exhausted his empire with war. Finally, his troops turned on him. His rule is seen as the start of the great “Military Anarchy” of the third century.
After defeating German tribes at terrible cost, Maximinus went on to fight the Dacians and the Sarmatians simultaneously.
He cared only for the army, whose favour he won by doubling their pay at terrible cost to Rome’s economy.
Because his predecessor had favoured Christians, Maximinus had all church leaders killed.
When the senate backed a revolt against him, he sought to bring his constant war home to Rome. His enemies stood up to him and the siege was the final straw for his troops who killed him, his son, and advisers and took their heads into the city on poles.
]]>Here are five classics of Roman Literature.
The anthology of Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (84 – 54 BC) was an aristocrat who moved in powerful circles, dining with Julius Caesar even after he’d mocked the great leader in verse.
His abiding love for a woman he called Lesbia (probably Clodia Metelli, a powerful woman herself) inspired much of his poetry, which survived in a single manuscript of 116 verses.
Catullus was important as he discarded epic themes and wrote deeply personal poetry. He wrote to his friends and his lovers, attacked his enemies (and his lovers’ lovers) in often obscene language.
His poems on death, including that of his brother, are deeply moving.
Let us live and love, nor give a damn what sour old men say. The sun that sets may rise again, but when our light has sunk into the earth it is gone forever.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Ovid (43 BC – 18 AD) was an aristocrat, holding minor public offices before devoting most of his time to writing poetry. In 8 AD, the Emperor Augustus sidestepped all established legal authority to personally banish Ovid, apparently over a poem.
The Metamorphoses is a massive collection of nearly 12,000 verses in 15 books telling 250 myths that claim to tell the history of world from creation to Julius Caesar’s death.
Using Greek sources, Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses in the same meter as the Iliad and Odyssey, taking transformation – literal and metaphorical – and the power of love as his theme. Many of the ancient myths children learn today have been transmitted via Ovid. The poems are packed with proverbial wisdom and life lessons.
Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dante all referred to the Metamorphoses and it was one of the first books William Caxton produced on his pioneering 15th century printing press.
I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.
Horace’s Odes
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 – 8 BC), is still admired for his technical skill and wisdom. His father was a freed slave, and Horace was educated for the bureaucracy, but served as a soldier, before buying a civil service role.
His satires are personal and approachable, and were the works that brought him to literary fame, praising a simple life of moderation in a much gentler tone than other Roman writers.
Horace reads his poems in front of Maecenas, by Fyodor Bronnikov
Image Credit: Fyodor Bronnikov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Horace’s odes were written in imitation of Greek writers like Sappho. Published in two collections in 23 BC and 13 BC, the odes tackle friendship, love, alcohol, Roman politics and poetry itself.
We owe to Horace the phrases, ‘carpe diem’ or ‘seize the day’ and the ‘golden mean’ for his beloved moderation. Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, of Ancient Mariner fame, praised the odes in verse and Wilfred Owen’s great World War One poem, Dulce et Decorum est, is a response to Horace’s oft-quoted belief that it is ‘sweet and fitting’ to die for one’s country.
We are but dust and shadow.
Virgil’s Aeneid
Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC – 19 BC) wrote the great epic poem of Rome in the shape of the Aeneid, the story of Aeneas, a Trojan refugee who according to myth arrived in Italy to found the city.
His biography is full of uncertainties. He was probably born near Mantua in northern Italy and may have been of Umbrian, Etruscan or Celtic heritage. He worked as a lawyer before turning full time to poetry. Shyness and ill health seem to have been with him throughout his life.
The Aeneid is considered his greatest work and its 12 books took 11 years to complete, possibly at the commission of Emperor Augustus. Homer’s great epics of the Trojan War are an obvious influence.
Virgil describes the journeys of Aeneas, who finally arrives in Italy, defeating a local warlord called Turnus to found the city that would become Rome. Virgil died before it could be completed, but Augustus ordered it to be published unedited, after the poet read parts of it to him.
Virgil was enormously popular in Ancient Rome. Ovid referred to the Aenied in the Metamorphoses. The works were school set texts, and were treated as almost holy texts by later readers.
If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.
Seneca’s Thyestes
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) moved in the murky waters of Roman politics, fatally. He was ordered to kill himself by Nero, the emperor who he served as tutor and adviser, who believed he had plotted against him.
His father (they are often called Seneca the Older and Seneca the Younger) was a writer and statesman, whose work is also still well regarded.
Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, ‘The suicide of Seneca’ (1871), Museo del Prado
Image Credit: Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Surprisingly little is known of Seneca’s early life. He was born in Spain, his father’s homeland, and may have spent some time in Egypt, before a stormy career in the highest levels of the Roman court, culminating in his appointment as the 12-year-old Nero’s tutor in 49 AD.
He had been retired from Nero’s service for some time when the unstable emperor accused him of involvement in an assassination plot. Seneca bled slowly and painfully to death in a suicide Nero ordered.
Seneca’s tragic plays are the only such works to survive from Roman times and were hugely influential, particularly on Shakespeare.
Thyestes is considered his masterpiece, and like most of his plays it is bloody and melodramatic – Thyestes eats his own children. It’s a story of warring twins in the household of Tantalus, a household beset by sin of every colourful variety.
]]>Tis the upright mind that holds true sovereignty.
The history of Rome is long and complex: a village grew into the Eternal City that’s still a wonder today; a monarchy became a republic and then an empire; Italy was conquered before Europe, parts of Africa and the Near and Middle East were incorporated into an empire that had around a quarter of the world’s population under its governance.
This 1,000-year-and-more history is complex and fascinating, here are just 100 facts that help illuminate it.
[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”e9waCmgS” upload-date=”2022-05-04T15:26:35.000Z” name=”Top Roman Historian Rates Famous Movie Scenes” description=”” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]
1. The Romulus and Remus story is a myth
The name Romulus was probably invented to fit the name of the city he was said to have founded on the Palatine Hill before killing his twin.
2. By the fourth century BC, the story was accepted by Romans who were proud of their warrior founder
The story was included in the first history of the city, by the Greek writer Diocles of Peparethus, and the twins and their wolf step-mother were depicted on Rome’s first coins.
A Roman relief from the Cathedral of Maria Saal showing Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf
Image Credit: Johann Jaritz, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT
3. The new city’s first conflict was with the Sabine people
Packed with immigrating young men, the Romans needed female inhabitants and kidnapped Sabine women, sparking a war that ended with a truce and the two sides joining forces.
4. From the start Rome had an organised military
Regiments of 3,000 infantry and 300 cavalry were called legions and their foundation was ascribed to Romulus himself.
5. Almost the only source on this period of Roman history is Titus Livius or Livy (59 BC – 17 AD)
Some 200 years after the conquest of Italy had been completed, he wrote 142 books on Rome’s early history, but only 54 survive as complete volumes.
6. Tradition has it that Rome had seven kings before it became a republic
The last, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed in 509 BC in a revolt lead by Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Roman Republic. Elected consuls would now rule.
7. After victory in the Latin War, Rome granted citizens’ rights, short of voting, to its conquered foes
This model for integrating vanquished peoples was followed for most of Roman history.
8. Victory in the Pyrrhic War in 275 BC made Rome dominant in Italy
Their defeated Greek opponents had been believed to be the best in the ancient world. By 264 BC all of Italy was under Roman control.
9. In the Pyrrhic War Rome allied with Carthage
The North African city state was soon to be its foe in over a century’s struggle for Mediterranean dominance.
10. Rome was already a deeply hierarchical society
Plebeians, small landowners and tradesmen, had few rights, while the aristocratic Patricians ruled the city, until the Conflict of the Orders between 494 BC and 287 BCE saw the Plebs win concessions by using withdrawal of labour and sometimes evacuation of the city.
11. 3 Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage were fought between 264 BC and 146 BC
12. Carthage was a Phoenician city
The Phoenicians, originally from Lebanon, were known as successful sea traders and naval warriors. They also spread the first alphabet. Their trade routes along the North African and European coasts of the Mediterranean made them a rival of Rome.
13. Carthage is about 10km from Tunis, capital of Tunisia
The well-preserved remains that are now a UNESCO World Heritage site include the Roman city that was established on the ruins of the original.
14. The flash point for the wars was the island of Sicily
A dispute between the cities of Syracuse and Messina in 264 BC saw the two powers taking sides and a small local conflict turn into a battle for dominance of the Mediterranean.
15. Hannibal’s father, Hamilcar Barca, commanded the city’s forces in the First Punic War
16. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps took place in the Second Punic War in 218 BC
According to contemporary accounts, he took 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry and 38 elephants into the mountains and descended into Italy with about 20,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and a handful of elephants.
17. At the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, Hannibal inflicted on Rome the worst defeat in its military history
Between 50,000 and 70,000 Roman soldiers were killed or captured by a much smaller force. It is considered one of the great military triumphs (and disasters) in history, the perfect ‘battle of annihilation’.
18. Hannibal so concerned the Romans that they demanded his personal surrender long after they had defeated Carthage’s armies
He went into exile to save Carthage from harm, but was still being hounded when he poisoned himself around 182 BC.
19. The Third Punic War (149 – 146 BC) saw Rome achieve total victory over its enemy
The final Siege of Carthage lasted around two years and the Romans completely destroyed the city, selling an estimated 50,000 people into slavery.
20. Carthage had become an obsession to some Romans, most famously Cato the Elder (234 BC – 149 BC)
The statesman would proclaim: ‘Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, (‘By the way I think that Carthage must be destroyed,’) at the end of every speech he made, no matter what he was talking about.
21. The Battle of Silva Arsia in 509 BC marks the violent birth of the Republic
Deposed king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus took up with Rome’s Etruscan enemies to try to retake his throne. Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Republic, was killed.
22. The Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC was the first of the Pyrrhic victories of King Pyrrhus of Epirus over Rome
Pyrrhus led an alliance of Greeks alarmed by Rome’s expansion into southern Italy. In military historical terms the battle is important as the first meeting of the Roman Legion and the Macedonian Phalanx. Pyrrhus won, but he lost so many of his best men that he was unable to fight on for long, giving us the term for a fruitless victory.
A marble bust of Pyrrhus from the Villa of the Papyri at the Roman site of Herculaneum, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy
Image Credit: © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons
23. The Battle of Agrigentum in 261 BC was the first major engagement between Rome and Carthage
It was the start of the Punic Wars that would last well into the 2nd century BC. Rome won the day after a long siege, kicking the Carthaginians off Sicily. It was the first Roman victory off the Italian mainland.
24. The Battle of Cannae in 216 BC was a huge disaster for the Roman army
Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general, surprised everyone by completing an almost impossible land journey to Italy. His brilliant tactics destroyed a Roman army of nearly 90,000 men. Hannibal could not capitalise on his victory with an assault on Rome though, and the massive military reforms the disaster precipitated only made Rome stronger.
25. The Battle of Carthage in around 149 BC saw Rome finally defeat their Carthaginian rivals
A two year siege ended with the destruction of the city and slavery or death for most of its inhabitants. The Roman general Scipio is considered one of the great military geniuses of the ancient world. He is said to have cried at the destruction his forces had brought to North Africa.
26. The Battle of Alesia in 52 BC was one of Julius Caesar’s greatest victories
It confirmed Roman domination over the Celtic Gauls and expanded Rome’s (still republican) territories over France, Belgium, Switzerland and northern Italy. Caesar constructed two rings of fortifications around the fort at Alesia before almost wiping out the Gaulish force inside.
27. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD probably stopped Rome’s expansion at the River Rhine
A Germanic tribal alliance, led by a Roman-educated Roman citizen, Arminius, utterly destroyed three legions. Such was the shock of the defeat that the Romans retired the numbers of two of the destroyed legions and drew the Empire’s north-eastern frontier at the Rhine. The battle was an important event in German nationalism until World War II.
28. The Battle of Abritus in 251 AD saw two Roman Emperors killed
Influxes of people into the Empire from the east were making Rome unstable. A Gothic-led coalition of tribes crossed the Roman frontier, pillaging through what is now Bulgaria. Roman forces sent to recover what they had taken and kick them out for good were routed.
Emperor Decius and his son Herennius Etruscus were killed and a humiliating peace settlement was enforced by the Goths, who would be back.
29. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD is important for its role in the advance of Christianity
Two emperors, Constantine and Maxentius, were battling for power. Chronicles recount Constantine receiving a vision from the Christian god, offering victory if his men decorated their shields with Christian symbols. Whether true or not, the battle confirmed Constantine as sole ruler of the Western Roman Empire and a year later Christianity was legally recognised and tolerated by Rome.
30. The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (or of Chalons or of Maurica) in 451 AD stopped Attila the Hun
Atilla wanted to step into the space left by the decaying Roman state. An alliance of Romans and Visigoths decisively defeated the already-fleeing Huns, who were later wiped out by a Germanic alliance. Some historians believe the battle was of epochal significance, protecting Western, Christian civilisation for centuries to come.
31. Much of the Romans’ architectural mastery is due to their use of concrete
Mixing a dry aggregate with a mortar that would take up water and then harden gave the Romans a range of building materials of great flexibility and strength. Roman concrete is very similar to modern Portland cement.
32. The dome of the Pantheon in Rome is still the world’s largest unsupported concrete dome
33. The Colosseum was Rome’s great games arena
Starting at around 70 AD, it took around 10 years to build over the demolished palaces of Nero, and could hold anything up to 80,000 spectators.
34. The Circus Maximus, largely dedicated to chariot racing, was even larger
It held crowds of up to 250,000, according to some accounts (though 150,000 is probably more likely). Beginning around 50 BC, Julius Caesar and Augustus, the first Emperor, helped develop it from a simple racing track to the largest stadium in the world.
35. Romans didn’t invent either the arch or the vault, but they perfected both
This allowed them to build large roofed structures without forests of pillars, and great bridges and aqueducts.
36. Aqueducts carried water, allowing large cities to grow
Rome itself was served by 11 aqueducts by the end of the third century, with nearly 800 km of artificial water courses in total. Cities freed people from subsistence agriculture, allowing them to indulge in art, politics, engineering and specialised crafts and industries. Constructing these systems that used gravity to move water over long distances down tiny inclines was an astounding feat.
37. Roman sewers are less celebrated but just as vital to urban life
The Cloaca Maxima was built from earlier open drains and canals, surviving through the entire Republic and Empire. Parts of it are still used as a drain today. The cleaner, healthier life of Roman cities was an attraction to people in the Empire to buy into the lifestyle of their conquerors.
38. The transport of people, goods and above all soldiers relied on Rome’s amazing network of roads
The first major paved road was the Appian Way, started in the mid-fourth century BC, linking Rome to Brindisi. They even built tunnels for their roads, the longest was 1 km long at Portus Julius, an important naval base.
39. Great structures were an important means of stating Roman power
Emperors cemented their reputations with grand public works. The largest surviving triumphal arch is the Arch of Constantine, completed in 315 AD to celebrate the Battle of Milvian Bridge. It is 21 metres high. Marble Arch in London was based on it.
40. Roman bridges still stand and are in use today
The Alcántara Bridge over the Tagus River in Spain is one of the most beautiful. It was completed in 106 AD under Emperor Trajan. ‘I have built a bridge which will last forever,’ reads an original inscription on the bridge.
41. Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC and named Gaius Julius Caesar
His name may have come from an ancestor being born by caesarean section.
42. When his father died suddenly in 85 BC the 16-year-old Caesar was forced to go into hiding
His family was caught up in another of one of Rome’s bloody power struggles and in order to stay away from the new top man, Sulla, and his possible revenge, Caesar joined the army.
43. Caesar was kidnapped by pirates around 78 BC while crossing the Aegean Sea
He told his captors the ransom they had demanded was not high enough and promised to crucify them when he was free, which they thought a joke. On his release he raised a fleet, captured them and did have them crucified, mercifully ordering their throats cut first.
44. Personal debt from lavish spending troubled Caesar throughout his political career
While governor of part of Spain he changed the laws on debt to protect himself. He often tried to remain in high political office in order to enjoy immunity from private prosecution.
45. Caesar ignited civil war by crossing the Rubicon River into northern Italy in 50 BC
He had been ordered to disband the armies that had successfully conquered Gaul by a Senate that wanted to support his great rival Pompey. Caesar finally won the war in 45 BC.
46. Caesar never married Cleopatra
Although their relationship lasted at least 14 years and may have produced a son – tellingly called Caesarion – Roman law only recognised marriages between two Roman citizens. He remained married to Calpurnia through this period, Romans would not have considered his relationship adulterous.
47. Caesar adopted a version of the Egyptian calendar, with its solar rather than lunar regulation, in 46 BC
The Julian Calendar was used in Europe and European colonies until the Gregorian Calendar reformed it in 1582.
48. At the Triumph to celebrate his victories, two armies of 2,000 people each fought to the death in the Circus Maximus
When rioting broke out in protest at the state’s extravagance and waste, Caesar had two rioters sacrificed.
49. Caesar was married three times, to Cornelia Cinnila, Pompeia and Calpurnia
He had one legitimate daughter, Julia, with his first wife and a probable illegitimate son with Cleopatra. He adopted the boy who was to become Emperor Augustus and believed Brutus, who helped kill him, was an illegitimate son.
50. Caesar was killed on 15th March (the Ides of March) by a group of as many as 60 men.
He was stabbed 23 times.
51. There were in fact two Roman Triumvirates
The first was an informal arrangement between Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey). The Second Triumvirate was legally recognised and consisted of Octavian (later Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony.
52. The First Triumvirate started in 60 BC
Caesar reconciled the feuding Crassus and Pompey. It ended with Crassus’ death in 53 BC.
53. Crassus was legendarily wealthy
He acquired at least some of his wealth by buying burning buildings at knock-down prices. Once bought, he would employ the 500 slaves he had bought especially for their architectural skills to save the buildings.
54. Pompey was a successful soldier and enormously popular
The third triumph to celebrate his victories was the then largest in Roman history – two days of feasting and games – and was said to signal Rome’s domination of the known world.
A Roman bust of Pompey the Great made during the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD), a copy of an original bust from 70 to 60 BC
Image Credit: Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
55. The agreement was at first a secret
It was revealed when Pompey and Crassus stood alongside Caesar as he spoke in favour of agrarian land reform that the senate had blocked.
56. In 56 BC the three met to renew their by then fragile alliance
At the Lucca Conference they divided much of the Empire into personal territories.
57. Crassus died after the disastrous Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC
He had gone to war against the Parthian Empire with no official backing, seeking military glory to match his wealth, and his force was crushed by a much smaller enemy. Crassus was killed during truce negotiations.
58. Pompey and Caesar were soon vying for power
The Great Roman Civil War between them and their supporters broke out in 49 BC and continued for four years.
59. Pompey could have won the war at the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 48 BC
He refused to believe that he had beaten Caesar’s legions and insisted that their retreat was to lure him into a trap. He held off and Caesar was victorious in their next engagement.
60. Pompey was murdered in Egypt by Egyptian court officials
When his head and seal were presented to Caesar, the last standing member of the triumvirate is said to have wept. He had the conspirators executed.
61. In the 2nd century AD, the Roman Empire had an estimated population of around 65 million people
Probably around a quarter of the world’s population at the time.
62. The period from 96 AD to 180 AD has been labelled the time of the ‘Five Good Emperors’
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius each chose his successor while in office. There was stability of succession but no hereditary dynasties were established.
63. During Trajan’s reign (98 – 117 AD) the Empire reached its greatest geographical extent
It was possible to travel from Britain to the Persian Gulf without leaving Roman territory.
64. Trajan’s Column was built to celebrate final victory in the Dacian Wars of 101 AD to 106 AD
It is one of the most important visual sources on Roman military life. About 2,500 individual figures are shown on its 20 round stone blocks, each of which weighs 32 tons.
65. In 122 AD Hadrian was able to order the building of a wall in Britain ‘to separate Romans from barbarians’
The wall was about 73 miles long and up to 10 feet high. Built of stone with regular forts and customs posts, it is an extraordinary achievement and parts of it still survive.
66. At its height the Roman Empire covered 40 modern nations and 5 million square km
Map of the Roman Empire, with provinces, in 150 AD
Image Credit: George R. Crooks, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
67. The Empire built great cities
The three largest, Rome, Alexandria (in Egypt) and Antioch (in modern Syria), were each twice as large as the largest European cities at the start of the 17th century.
68. Under Hadrian the Roman army has been estimated to have been 375,000 men in strength
69. In order to fight the Dacians, Trajan built what was for 1,000 years the longest arched bridge in the world
The bridge across the Danube was 1,135m long and 15m wide.
70. The Pax Romana (Roman Peace) dates from 27 BC to 180 AD
There was almost total peace within the Empire, law and order was maintained and the Roman economy boomed.
71. 69 AD has been named ‘the year of the four emperors’
After the death of Nero, emperors Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian all ruled between June 68 AD and December 69 AD. Galba was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard; Otho committed suicide as Vitellius seized power, only to be killed himself.
72. Nero himself was an appalling emperor
He may have killed his stepbrother to assume the throne. He certainly had his mother executed in one of many power struggles. He was the first emperor to commit suicide.
73. Commodus (ruled 161 – 192 AD) was famously stupid
He presented himself as Hercules in statues, fighting in rigged gladiatorial games and renaming Rome after himself. Many historians date the start of the fall of the Empire to Commodus’ reign. He was assassinated in 192 AD.
74. The period from 134 BC to 44 BC is called the Crises of the Roman Republic by historians
During this period Rome was often at war with its Italian neighbours. Internally there was strife too, as aristocrats tried to hang on to their exclusive rights and privileges against pressure from the rest of society.
75. There were multiple civil wars during the period of the crises
Caesar’s Civil War from 49 BC to 45 BC saw Roman armies fighting each other in Italy, Spain, Greece and Egypt.
76. 193 AD was the Year of the Five Emperors
Five claimants battled it out for power after the death of Commodus. Septimius Severus finally outlasted the others.
77. ‘The Year of the Six Emperors’ was in 238 AD
Six men were recognised as emperor in the messy ending of the terrible rule of Maximinus Thrax. Two of the emperors, Gordian I and II, a father and son ruling jointly, lasted just 20 days.
78. Diocletian (ruled 284 – 305 AD) tried to hold the Empire together with a four-man Tetrarchy
He thought the Empire was too big for one man to rule. It lasted while he lived, but collapsed into more bloody feuding and fighting upon his death.
79. Caligula (ruled 37 –41 AD) is generally accepted as Rome’s worst emperor
Most of the colourful horror stories about him are probably black propaganda, but he did cause a famine and drain the Roman treasury, building vast monuments to his own greatness, nonetheless. He was the first Roman emperor to be assassinated, killed to stop him relocating to Egypt to live as a sun god.
80. The Sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410 AD greatly upset emperor Honorius for a moment or two
He reportedly mistook the news for a report of the death of his pet cockerel, Roma. He was said to have been relieved that it was just the old imperial capital that had fallen.
81. Roman games, called ludi, were probably instituted as an annual event in 366 BC
It was a single-day festival in honour of the god Jupiter. Soon there were as many as eight ludi each year, some religious, some to commemorate military victories.
82. The Romans probably took gladiatorial games from the Etruscans or Campanians
Like the two rival Italian powers, the Romans first used these combats as private funeral celebrations.
83. Trajan celebrated his final victory over the Dacians with games
10,000 gladiators and 11,000 animals were used over 123 days.
84. Chariot racing remained the most popular sport in Rome
Drivers, who usually started out as slaves, could earn adulation and huge sums. Gaius Appuleius Diocles, survivor of 4,257 races and winner of 1,462, is supposed to have earned the equivalent of $15 billion in his 24-year career.
85. There were four factiones racing, each in their own colour
The red, white, green and blue teams inspired great loyalty, building clubhouses for their fans. In 532 AD in Constantinople rioting that destroyed half the city was sparked by chariot fans’ disputes.
86. Spartacus (111 – 71 BC) was an escaped gladiator who led a slave revolt in 73 BC
His powerful forces threatened Rome during the Third Servile War. He was a Thracian, but little is known about him beyond his military skill. There is no evidence his forces had a social, anti-slavery agenda. The defeated slaves were crucified.
87. Emperor Commodus was famous for his almost-mad devotion to fighting in games himself
Caligula, Hadrian, Titus, Caracalla, Geta, Didius Julianus and Lucius Verus are all reported to have fought in games of some sort.
88. Gladiator fans formed factions too, favouring one type of fighter over others
Laws divided the gladiators into groups such as Secutors, with their large shields, or heavily-armed fighters with smaller shields called Thraex after their Thracian origin.
89. It’s not clear how often gladiatorial fights were to the death
The fact that fights were advertised as ‘sine missione’, or without mercy, suggests that often losers were allowed to live. Augustus banned fighting to the death to help tackle a shortage of gladiators.
90. It has been estimated that 500,000 people and more than 1 million animals died in the Coliseum, Rome’s great gladiatorial arena
The Colosseum at dusk
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com
91. The date of the Fall of the Roman Empire is hard to pinpoint
When Emperor Romulus was deposed in 476 AD and replaced by Odoacer, the first King of Italy, many historians believe the Empire was over.
92. The ‘Fall of the Roman Empire’ usually refers to just the Western Empire
The Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and called the Byzantine Empire, survived in one form or another until 1453.
93. The Empire was put under pressure during the Migration Period
From 376 AD large numbers of Germanic tribes were pushed into the Empire by the westward movement of the Huns.
94. In 378 AD Goths defeated and killed Emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople
Large parts of the east of the Empire were left open to attack. After this defeat ‘barbarians’ were an accepted part of the Empire, sometimes military allies and sometimes foes.
95. Alaric, the Visigothic leader who led the 410 AD Sack of Rome, wanted above all to be a Roman
He felt that promises of integration into the Empire, with land, money and office, had been broken and sacked the city in revenge for this perceived treachery.
96. The Sack of Rome, now the capital of the Christian religion, had enormous symbolic power
It inspired St Augustine, an African Roman, to write City of God, an important theological argument that Christians should focus on the heavenly rewards of their faith rather than earthly matters.
97. The Crossing of the Rhine in 405/6 AD brought around 100,000 barbarians into the Empire
Barbarian factions, tribes and war leaders were now a factor in the power struggles at the top of Roman politics and one of the once-strong boundaries of the Empire had proved to be permeable.
98. In 439 AD the Vandals captured Carthage
The loss of tax revenues and food supplies from North Africa was a terrible blow to the Western Empire.
99. After the death of Libius Severus in 465 AD, the Western Empire had no emperor for two years
The much more secure Eastern court installed Anthemius and sent him west with huge military backing.
100. Julius Nepos still claimed to be Western Roman Emperor until 480 AD
He controlled Dalmatia and was named Emperor by Leo I of the Eastern Empire. He was murdered in a factional dispute.
No serious claim to the throne of the Western Empire was to be made again until the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned ‘Imperator Romanorum’ by Pope Leo III in Rome in 800 AD, the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, a supposedly unified Catholic territory.
The idea that Rome was an extremely promiscuous and licentious society is, in reality, if nothing else a massive over-simplification of a complex picture. It’s a simplification that has served erotic artists – often unable to portray their own times as genuinely sexual – well in every medium from oils to digital video.
There may be an element of religious propaganda to this image of Rome too. The Catholic Church took hold in the last centuries of the Empire. It was in the Church’s interests to portray the pre-Christian, pagan Roman world as one of out-of-control desires, orgies and endemic rape that they had brought under control.
The moral code of Rome
The Romans did have an abiding set of moral guidelines called the mos maiorum (“the way of the elders”), a largely accepted and unwritten code of good conduct. These customs did consider sexual excess outside the bounds of ideal behaviour defined by virtus, an ideal state of masculinity that included self-control. Women too were expected to be chaste (pudicitia).
The written laws also included sexual offences, including rape, which could carry a death sentence. Prostitutes (and sometimes entertainers and actors) were not given this legal protection and the rape of a slave would only be considered a crime of property damage against the slave’s owner.
Erotic priapic fresco from Pompeii. Image Credit: CC
Marriage itself was, in reality, a lopsided affair. Women who married weren’t expected to attain any pleasure or enjoyment form it – they simply wedded in order to abide by the moral code and procreate. Moreover, the subservient wife was expected to turn a blind eye to her husband’s sexual infidelity. Males were allowed to sleep around as much as they liked so long as their mistress was unmarried, or, if they were with a boy, he was over a certain age.
Brothels, prostitutes and dancing girls were all considered to be ‘fair game’, as were older males – on the condition that he was to be submissive. Being passive was considered women’s work: men who submitted were considered deficient in vir and in virtus – they were denounced and reviled as effeminate.
An example of this moral code was seen with Julius Caesar’s long and public affair with Cleopatra. Due to the fact that Cleopatra was not with a Roman citizen, Caesar’s actions were not considered adulterous.
A matter of licence
The Romans were, in many ways, more sexually liberated than we are. There was a strong sexual element in much of Roman religion. The Vestal Virgins were celibate in order to keep them independent of male control, but other religious ceremonies celebrated prostitution.
Moreover, divorce and other such legal proceedings were as easy for women to undertake as men. In this sense, women were, in many cases, more sexually liberated than they are in many nations to this day.
Homosexuality was also considered unremarkable, certainly among men – in fact, there were no Latin words to differentiate between same-sex and different-sex desire.
Children were protected from sexual activity, but only if they were freeborn Roman citizens.
Prostitution was legal and endemic. Slaves were considered as much their master’s property in sexual terms as they were economically.
Evidence of sexual practises
“Pan copulating with goat” – one of the best known objects in the Naples Museum collection. Image Credit: CC
We can quite accurately measure the Romans’ laissez-faire attitude toward sex because we know so much about their sex lives. A similar survey of, say, British writing in the 19th century wouldn’t provide nearly so clear a picture.
The Romans wrote about sex in their literature, comedy, letters, speeches and poetry. There seems to have been no low-culture taboo attached to writing – or otherwise depicting – sex frankly. The finest writers and artists were happy to indulge.
Roman art is filled with images that would today be regarded as pornographic. In Pompeii, erotic mosaics, statues and frescoes (used to illustrate this piece) are found not only in known brothels and bath houses which may have been places of business for prostitutes, but also in private residences, where they are given pride of place.
There are erotically-charged objects almost everywhere in the suffocated city. This was something that the Romans could cope with, but not modern Europeans – many such discoveries were kept largely under lock and key in a Naples museum until 2005.
Fresco from the House of the Centurion, Pompeii, 1st century BCE. Image Credit: Public Domain
A twisted picture
At the start of this brief survey, a possible posthumous sexual smear against the whole of Roman society was mentioned.
If such a smear was attempted, the Romans supplied their critics with plenty of damaging material, most of it very dubious.
The idea that no Roman day was complete without an orgy or two is largely formed from after-the-fact condemnations of bad Emperors like Nero (the first Emperor to commit suicide to escape his fate) and Caligula (the first Emperor to be assassinated).
This harping on their lax sexual morality might indicate that rather than regarding such matters as of very little importance, they were absolutely vital to the Ancient Romans.
]]>Although there were some amphitheatres built during the Republican period, notably in Pompeii, they became much more popular during the Empire. Roman cities throughout the Empire built larger and more elaborate amphitheatres to compete with one another in terms of grandeur.
They were also an important tool in the growth of the Imperial cult, the aspect of Roman religion that deified and worshipped the Emperors.
Around 230 Roman amphitheatres, in varying states of repair, have been discovered throughout the former territories of the Empire. Here is a list of 10 of the most spectacular.
1. Tipasa Amphitheatre, Algeria
Tipasa Amphitheatre. Credit: Keith Miller / Commons
Built in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century AD, this amphitheatre is located in the ancient city of Tipasa in what was the Roman Province of Mauretania Caesariensis, now in Algeria. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
2. Caerleon Amphitheatre, Wales
Caerleon Amphitheatre. Credit: Johne Lamper / Commons
Caerleon Amphitheatre is the best-preserved Roman amphitheatre in Britain and still a magnificent sight to see. First excavated in 1909, the structure dates from around 90 AD and was built to entertain soldiers stationed at the fortress of Isca.
3. Pula Arena, Croatia
Pula Arena. Credit: Boris Licina / Commons
The only remaining Roman amphitheatre to feature 4 side towers, Pula Arena took from 27 BC to 68 AD to construct. One of the 6 largest existing Roman amphitheatres, it is remarkably well preserved and features on Croatia’s 10 kuna banknote.
4. Arles Amphitheatre, France
Arles Amphitheatre. Credit: Stefan Bauer / Commons
This Amphitheatre in Southern France was built in 90 AD to hold 20,000 spectators. Unlike most amphitheatres, it hosted both gladiator matches and chariot races. Similar to the Arena of Nîmes, it is still used for bullfights during the Feria d’Arles.
5. Arena of Nîmes, France
Nimes Arena. Credit: Wolfgang Staudt / Commons
A grand example of Roman architecture, this arena was built in 70 AD and is used to continue the Roman tradition of cruel sports. Since being remodelled in 1863, it has been used to hold two annual bullfights during the Feria d’Arles. In 1989, a movable cover and heating system were installed in the amphitheatre.
6. Trier Amphitheatre, Germany
Trier Amphitheatre. Credit: Berthold Werner / Commons
Completed some time in the 2nd century AD, this 20,000-seater housed exotic beasts, such as African lions and Asian tigers. Due to its amazing acoustics, Trier Amphitheatre is still used for open-air concerts.
7. Amphitheatre of Leptis Magna, Libya
Leptis Magna. Credit: Papageizichta / Commons
Leptis Magna was a prominent Roman city in North Africa. Its amphitheatre, completed in AD 56, could hold around 16,000 people. In the morning it would host fights between animals, followed by executions at noon and gladiator fights in the afternoon hours.
8. Amphitheatre of Pompeii
Credit: Thomas Möllmann / Commons
Built around 80 BC, this structure is oldest surviving Roman amphitheatre and was buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Its construction was highly regarded at the time of its use, particularly the design of its bathrooms.
9. Verona Arena
Verona Arena. Credit: paweesit / Commons
Still used for large-scale opera performances, Verona’s amphitheatre was constructed in 30 AD and could hold an audience of 30,000.
10. The Colosseum, Rome
Credit: Diliff / Commons
The true king of all ancient amphitheatres, Rome’s Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, was began under the reign of Vespasian in 72 AD and completed under Titus 8 years later. Still an impressive and imposing sight, it once held an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators.
]]>Here are ten facts and examples of what was the Glory of Rome.
1. In the 2nd century AD, the Roman Empire had an estimated population of around 65 million people
Probably around a quarter of the world’s population at the time.
2. The period from 96 AD to 180 AD has been labelled the time of the ‘Five Good Emperors’
Emperor Nerva.
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius each chose his successor while in office. There was stability of succession but no hereditary dynasties were established.
3. During Trajan’s reign (98 – 117 AD) the Empire reached its greatest geographical extent
Map by Tataryn77 via Wikimedia Commons.
It was possible to travel from Britain to the Persian Gulf without leaving Roman territory.
4. Trajan’s Column was built to celebrate final victory in the Dacian Wars of 101 AD to 106 AD
It is one of the most important visual sources on Roman military life. About 2,500 individual figures are shown on its 20 round stone blocks, each of which weighs 32 tons.
5. In 122 AD Hadrian was able to order the building of a wall in Britain ‘to separate Romans from barbarians’
The wall was about 73 miles long and up to 10 feet high. Built of stone with regular forts and customs posts, it is an extraordinary achievement and parts of it still survive.
6. At its height the Roman Empire covered 40 modern nations and 5 million square km
7. The Empire built great cities
The three largest, Rome, Alexandria (in Egypt) and Antioch (in modern Syria), were each twice as large as the largest European cities at the start of the 17th century.
8. Under Hadrian the Roman army has been estimated to have been 375,000 men in strength
9. In order to fight the Dacians, Trajan built what was for 1,000 years the longest arched bridge in the world
A 20th century reconstruction of Trajan’s Bridge across the Danube.
The bridge across the Danube was 1,135m long and 15m wide.
10. The Pax Romana (Roman Peace) dates from 27 BC to 180 AD
There was almost total peace within the Empire, law and order was maintained and the Roman economy boomed.
]]>