Archive for the ‘Ancient Rome’ Category
By: The Scribe on January, 2010
Roman cooking was well known for its excesses. While meals were often quite simple and basic in the early days of the Republic they eventually evolved into very elaborate affairs. The main meal of the day was the cena, which would usually begin at 4pm and often lasted late into the night. When guests were present, the meal could go on for hours. Diners were often entertained by acrobats and other professionals while they ate and meals were often made up of a number of different courses.
There were three main additives that were used in Roman cooking. These included carenum, defrutum and sapa. These ingredients were all made in much the same way. Grape juice or must was boiled down in pots so that water would evaporate. This left a liquid that could be used to sweeten or preserve various types of food and drink. Sapa was created when the liquid had reached one third of its regular volume. When half of the volume had been reduced, the liquid was known as defrutum. When only one third of the liquid remained, it was known as carenum.
The problem with these ingredients is that they were made in lead lined pots. This meant that lead acetate crystals would work their way into the liquid and were therefore consumed along with the food or drink. The lead was actually what caused the mixture to become sweet. When defrutum is made properly it can reach lead levels that are as high as 29,000 ppb. Drinking liquid that has this much lead in it can easily cause acute or chronic lead poisoning.
There were many rules that surrounded the making of defrutum. Pliny the Elder, a well-known Roman historian and author, felt that defrutum needed to be made during the New Moon. He also warned that defrutum should never be made in copper or bronze kettles. He felt that this would cause the defrutum to take on an unpleasant metallic taste.
Cato the Censor, a Roman statesman, felt that the quality of the grape juice would affect the taste of the defrutum. He felt that it was important to use must that was as sweet as possible and that boiling it in a lead pot was most important.
Defrutum was not just added to wine in order to make it sweeter. Romans would add it to meat dishes to make them sweeter. Some ducks and suckling pigs were fed defrutum in order to make their meat sweeter before being cooked. The most popular condiment in Rome, oenogarum, was made up of a mixture of defrutum and garum. Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was a staple of every day cooking in Rome. Defrutum and sapa were both used to preserve fruit such as quince and melon. Roman soldiers were often given food that had been preserved in defrutum as part of their standard rations. Roman women would often use defrutum or sapa as a cosmetic as well.
Because of the high levels of lead that are found in defrutum, it is now believed that this substance, along with the dishes used to eat and drink from, may have actually contributed to illness and the overall decline of the Roman Empire.
By: The Scribe on January, 2008
The government in ancient Rome was similar to governments found in many Western countries today – convoluted and with too many levels! But, the Romans liked it that way, as it allowed them to keep track of all the goings-on in the Empire. One of the offices of government was something called a ‘censorship’.
Censors in ancient Rome were responsible for an odd mixture of tasks. Their primary purpose was to take a census of citizens within the Roman Empire every five years: they would write down each citizen’s name, their age, and what amount of property they owned. This was done so that the information could be taken to the quaestors, who would estimate each person’s taxation levels, the Empire’s budget, and the amount of soldiers commanded by Rome.
Although the number of censors and their terms changed throughout the centuries, the tradition of the post held that two censors would serve together for 18 months – one was from the patrician class, while the other was a plebeian.
Once they gained their census information, censors had the charge of determining who among the population was allowed to be counted among certain class levels – for example, who was worthy of senatorial rank as opposed to equestrian, and so forth. This was called the ‘regimen morum’ (public morality), and was an extremely important duty. Other duties of the ‘regimen morum’ were also the verification and stamping with the Imperial Seal any weights or measures, and managing the books of financial institutions.
Apart from their census task, the censors were often responsible for funding and managing public projects. Conquered land was leased out and recorded by censors, while a more important task – or at least in the eyes of the Romans – was for them to choose a farmer who would feed the Capitol’s holy geese for a 5-year term.
Consuls were elected officials by an assembly of Roman citizens called the ‘Comitia centuriata’. They were required to wear a toga bordered with purple, in order to denote their important class, though unlike other elected officials they were not given bodyguards.
As the Roman Empire grew in size, the job of the consulship became rather overwhelming – there were simply too many people for only 2 men to account for, and so the office was eventually abolished. It was replaced with generic officials who would be sent out to count the people on the Emperor’s orders, and they would be counted according to province. For example, the Gospel of Luke discusses how in 8 AD, Caesar Augustus issued a census of the entire Roman Empire.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard!
By: The Scribe on December, 2007
It was somewhere around 1,650 years ago that someone living in the Roman Empire became more than a little ticked off with how things were going – and so they committed a small act that could probably be called ‘treason.’ Or blasphemy, for that matter… not to mention that they were criminally defacing state coinage.
The ruler of the Roman Empire at this time was the Emperor Valens, and Roman Britain was experiencing a period of extreme turmoil and unrest – and it didn’t help that an exiled Roman aristocrat named Valentinus was trouncing around the British countryside and stirring up trouble in the form of negative attitudes toward the Roman leadership.
And while curse charms are nothing unusual – Greek and Roman curse objects and tablets are fairly common finds, usually consisting of a curse scrawled on a piece of lead and then thrown into hot springs, or with a hole punched into the lead to hang it up somewhere – a curse object against an Emperor is more than unusual… it’s absolutely unheard of.
Absolutely no curse objects or tablets against an Emperor have been found from Roman times until now, as such an act would have been extremely dangerous. The item which changes all that, is a piece of scrap metal that was found in a Lincolnshire field: whoever cursed the Emperor hammered a coin with an image of the Emperor’s face into a piece of lead, and then folded the lead overtop his face. The piece of lead would have then been taken into a temple and hung up, where the curse could be enacted through the power of the gods.
Since Roman Emperors were often treated as god-like figures – in fact, many were deified after their death – anyone who was discovered cursing an Emperor would have likely suffered extreme torture and death, and their families would have faced possible exile or imprisonment.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on December, 2007
Archaeologists working near the town of Xanten – an area of land which was a part of the Rhine riverbed for nearly 1,500 years – were thrilled to find an iron legionnaire’s helmet that had once been worn by a Roman soldier… and they were even more ecstatic to realize that the helmet held trace elements of glue on its exterior!
When researchers were handling the helmet for restoration purposes, they removed a tiny sample of metal with an extremely fine saw – not an unusual practice, since restorers need samples of ancient items in order to make sure the restorative chemical won’t damage the artifact – and were shocked to see that the tool’s heat was causing little silver laurel leaves that decorated the helmet to peel off, leaving threads of glue behind.
It seems that since the helmet was on the riverbed for such a long time, the glue was spared exposure to potentially destructive atmospheric elements, thus allowing it to maintain its adhesive power for over two thousand years.
Examination of other Roman artifacts since this discovery revealed that there are plenty of additional items – such as ancient battle masks – that have trace remains of silver decoration like the helmet’s laurel leaves, and it is likely that they were held on with glue in the same way. Unfortunately, a close look at many of the items has shown that they are too far in their deterioration to yield evidence of glue. However, it seems that the Romans preferred to glue on their decoration to battle armor, rather than go through the hassle of soldering on each and every small piece.
A chemical analysis of the ancient Roman glue has determined that it was made of beef tallow, pitch, and bitumen – but as of yet, researchers haven’t been able to exactly reproduce the adhesive, and are beginning to think that something like sand, soot or sawdust might have been added in order to complete the recipe.
Researchers are hopeful that they’ll be able to fully recreate the Roman glue soon – after all, if the Roman stuff can still stick after 2,000 years, it’ll easily surpass any of its modern competitors!
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard!
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Defrutum was not just added to wine in order to make it sweeter. Romans would add it to meat dishes to make them sweeter. Some ducks and suckling pigs were fed defrutum in order to make their meat sweeter before being cooked. The most popular condiment in Rome, oenogarum, was made up of a mixture of defrutum and garum. Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was a staple of every day cooking in Rome. Defrutum and sapa were both used to preserve fruit such as quince and melon. Roman soldiers were often given food that had been preserved in defrutum as part of their standard rations. Roman women would often use defrutum or sapa as a cosmetic as well. 