Archive for the ‘Ancient Rome’ Category
By: The Scribe on November, 2007
Born in 331 AD, Flavius Claudius Julianus was thrust into some rather complicated family dealings at a very early age. After the death of Constantine the Great in 337 AD, Julian’s rather zealous cousin Constantius II – an Arian Christian – led a massacre against Julian’s entire family, in order to establish himself as the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
For some reason, he allowed a few males related to Constantine the Great to live, namely Julian and his brother Gallus, and two of the murderer’s own brothers.
Constantius II proclaimed himself and his brothers to be joint emperors, and he gave them each a portion of Roman territory to watch over. He then established a strict regimen of Arian Christian education for the young Julian and Gallus.
According to traditional accounts, Julian was tutored by the famous Arian Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, Eusebius – along with his maternal grandmother and a Gothic eunuch named Mardonius. However, it was in 342 that both Julian and Gallus were exiled to Cappadocia, where Julian remained until the exile was lifted at the age of 18.
In 340 AD, Constantine II died after attacking his brother Constans to try and take over his territory – and a decade later, Constans fell during a war against a potential usurper named Magnentius. This left only the man who’d murdered Julian’s family as the sole emperor. Naturally, he was somewhat desperate for support, and so he gave Julian’s brother Gallus a position as Caesar of the East in 351 AD. The problem was, Gallus hadn’t exactly had the best role models for leadership… and his briefly imposed reign of terror over the East resulted in his execution only four years later.
In an effort to avoid a potential quest for vengeance, Julian was imprisoned for a short time while the pain of his brother’s death wore off. Unfortunately for Constantius II, there were far too many threats to the Roman Empire which he simply couldn’t take care of on his own – and so he turned to his late surviving male relative, Julian. He released Julian from prison, made him Caesar of the West, and quickly had him married off to his cousin – and sister of Constantius – Helena.
Now, it was Julian’s turn to defend the Empire… and to take his own revenge on Constantius II who had not only murdered his entire family, but also forced him into exile and the acceptance of Christianity.
…to be continued…
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Tomorrow: Part 2 of course!
By: The Scribe on November, 2007
For a few years between 1915 and 1921, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was thrilled to have acquired three statues created by the Etruscan civilization in Italy, which flourished between the 8th and 2nd centuries BC. Unfortunately, what the Museum didn’t know at the time was… they were forking over thousands of dollars for fakes.
The perpetrators of the scheme were two young men by the names of Riccardo Riccardi and Alfredo Fioravanti, who were rather skilled in the visual arts. As it turns out, Riccardo’s father and brothers were pottery “specialists” – read:
forgers – but Riccardo was the most skilled out of his family. Along with his friend Alfredo, he decided that he’d like to make himself a little extra cash.
The first Etruscan warrior statue was modeled as a large, one-piece figure, but since the kiln wasn’t large enough to fit the whole thing, it was broken up into 24 pieces for firing and then rebuilt. The right arm of the warrior is missing, because the forgers couldn’t agree on how it should be positioned – and in order to avoid more arguments and potentially getting it wrong, thereby resulting in the Museum’s discovery of forgery – they simply broke off the arm and threw it away before presenting the piece to the Met.
After the successful sale of the ‘ancient’ figure to the museum, the pair began to work on another piece: a giant warrior’s head. Using a description by the ancient writer Pliny, who had once described a 25-foot tall statue of the god Jupiter from an ancient Roman temple, the head was created to stand four and a half feet high. Naturally, this was broken into pieces as well – 178 this time – then fired, and shipped away to the museum.
The pair was thrilled at their success! They’d expected things to go over well, but the Museum didn’t suspect a thing. Experts had been brought in to study the ‘ancient’ pieces and reports had been published on their meaning and place in the Etruscan culture… so the two men decided to embark on their most ambitious project thus far: the Colossal Terracotta Warrior. As they worked, the warrior took on a height of eight feet tall… but unfortunately, Riccardo was killed when he fell from his horse before the project was complete.
To replace him, Alfredo called upon two of Riccardo’s cousins, who weren’t nearly as skilled as he was. As they worked, the team became aware of a severe problem – the statue was going to be too large for the room they were creating it in! By the time they’d reached the waist, they realized that the well-known classical proportions of Etruscan sculpture was going to have to be ignored, since there was simply no space in the room to create a proper upper body – they’d have to open a hole in the ceiling to do that! The end result was a statue with perfectly proportioned legs… and a stocky, squat torso.
The Metropolitan Museum purchased the statue for an amount that is rumored to be the equivalent of around five million dollars today, and although the odd proportions were found troublesome by some scholars, the piece was still put on display. Still, rumors began to circulate as the art community tried to reconcile this piece with traditional Etruscan statues. Talk about the statues’ origins continued quietly for several decades, but the Museum refused to admit that anything had been amiss – after all, for the curator who’d acquired them, these pieces had been the distinguishing moment of her career.
In 1959, an Italian scholar visited the Museum and was offered a tour through to see the Etruscan statues – but oddly enough, he mentioned that he didn’t need to see them since he already knew the man who had created them! Finally, the Museum admitted that something might be wrong. In 1960, a number of tests were conducted on the statues’ glazes – and it was revealed that the pieces contained chemicals that had not been used before the 17th century.
In 1961, Alfredo Fioravanti confessed to creating all three statues, signed a written version of the confession, and presented one of the statues’ missing thumbs to prove it. The scandal of the Etruscan terracotta warriors was valuable in at least one respect: it revealed how much damage can be done when Museums become too eager to acquire pretty objects rather than truly inquire into their historical value.
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Tomorrow: Ancient Bulgaria’s Pliska
By: The Scribe on October, 2007
The Ancient Standard has decided to offer up something a little different this Halloween – we’ve decided that in honor of this infamous “holiday”, we’ll let one of the ancient writers give you a bit of history in his own words… namely, an ancient Roman ghost story which he recounted sometime around 100 AD. Ghost stories are anything but a modern phenomenon – as proven by the tale below, written by Roman writer Pliny the Younger, they’ve been around for at least two thousand years. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the harmonies of an ancient ghost story brought back to life once more…
An Ancient Roman Ghost Story (in translation from the original Latin) – as originally recorded by Pliny the Younger
There was in Athens a house, large and spacious, which had a bad reputation as though it was filled with pestilence. In the dead of night, a noise was frequently heard resembling the clashing of iron which, if you listened carefully, sounded like the rattling of chains. The noise would seem to be a distance away, but it would start coming closer… and closer… and closer. Immediately after this, a specter would appear in the form of an old man, emaciated and squalid, with bristling hair and a long beard, and rattling the chains on his hands and feet as he moved.
The unfortunate inhabitants of the house went sleepless at night due to unimaginable and dismal terrors. Without sleep, as it had happened to others, their health was ruined and they were struck with some kind of madness – as the horrors in their minds increased, they were led on a path toward death. Eventually even during the daytime, when the ghost did not appear, the memory of their nightmares was so strong that it still passed before their eyes, every waking moment. Their terror was constant, even when the source of fear was gone.
Because of this, the house was eventually deserted and damned as uninhabitable, abandoned entirely to the ghost. In hope that some tenant might eventually be found who was ignorant of the house’s malevolence, a bill was still posted for its sale. As it happened, a philosopher by the name of Athenodorus came to Athens at that time. Reading the bill for the house, he easily discovered the price – and being an intelligent man, he was suspicious at its extremely low cost. Someone did tell him the whole story, and yet he wasn’t dissuaded, but was instead eager to make the purchase. Thus, he did.
When evening drew near, Athenodorus asked for couch to be readied for him at the front of the house. He asked for his writing materials and a lamp, and then asked his retainers to retire for the night. In order to ensure that his mind stayed focused and away from distractions of stories about imaginary noises and apparitions, he poured all his energy into his writing.
For awhile, the night was silent. Then the rattling of fetters began. Athenodorus would not lift his eyes or set down his pen. Instead, he concentrated on his writing and thereby closed his ears. But the noise wouldn’t stop, and it only increased and drew closer until it seemed to be at the door and then standing in his very chamber! Finally, Athenodorus looked away from his work… and saw the ghost standing just as it had been described. It stood there, waiting, beckoning him with one finger.
Athenodorus held up his palm as though the visitor should wait a moment, and once again bent over his work. The ghost, impatient, shook his chains over the philosopher’s head, beckoning again. This time, Athenodorus picked up his lamp and followed the ghost as it moved slowly, as though it was held back by its chains. Upon reaching the courtyard, the ghost suddenly vanished.
Now on his own, Athenodorus carefully marked the spot where the ghost vanished with a handful of leaves and grass. The following day, he asked the magistrate to have that spot dug up, and in that spot was found – intertwined with chains – the skeleton of a man. The body had lain in the ground a long time and had left the bones bare and corroded by the fetters. The bones were then collected and given a proper burial at public expense – and since the ghost’s tortured soul had been finally laid to rest, the house in Athens was haunted no more.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on October, 2007
A study done at Newcastle University in the UK revealed something about the Romans that was previously unheard of: it appears that the Romans had no qualms about Africans holding various positions within Roman society, regardless of whether that position was the Emperor of Rome or a domestic slave. Judging by the evidence… it appears that Romans were colorblind when it came to people with differently colored skin.
The University holds a rather substantial collection of what has been termed ‘Romano-African’ artifacts, and these objects point quite blatantly at the presence of Africans on Rome’s military frontier, especially along Hadrian’s Wall. One of the objects was a blue, mould-blown glass vessel that was shaped like the head of an African man – and while there are have only been three of these found thus far, the fact that it was made from a mould suggests that these kinds of vessel may have been popular items.
According to historical documents, out of all the people who helped to build Hadrian’s Wall, there were actually very few “Romans” involved – there were plenty of Spanish, Gallic, and Germans working on the project, while a number of auxiliary units that were stationed on garrison duty actually came from North Africa.
Aside from the privileges of thorough military training, well-known Africans in the Roman Empire included a man named Victor, who was a freed slave from Morocco, and even the Emperor Septimius Severus, who came to Rome from Lepcis Magna in Libya! Evidently, color and country of origin were moot points when it came to social participation in the Roman Empire.
Skin color aside, what the Romans were well known for was their deep-seated prejudices against a whole host of other kinds of people, such as those they called ‘barbarians’ – ie. anyone outside of the Roman Empire’s control – and… they weren’t particularly fond of men who wore earrings. But prejudices based on color? The Romans were far beyond that.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
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