Bread and Circuses

Prefaces of Ammianus Marcellinus

Via Rogueclassicism, an article on the Prefaces of Ammianus Marcellinus by Charles Fornara, from the Cabinet of the Muses:  Rosenmeyer Festschrift.

It is a remarkable fact that for all that Ammianus’ mind was replete with the rules of ancient historiographical theory, the concomitant practice and even the ipsissima verba of the best Latin authors, his approach to the writing of history is sometimes radically new and uninformed by the age-old conventions.

Roman swearing

I have been obsessing rather about the Latin word graeculus. It is often translated, especially in older dictionaries as "Greekling" (Lewis & Short) though I prefer "bloody foreigner".

Its use in the later Roman empire is fascinating precisely because it has nothing to do with body parts, or actions for that matter - it is contemptuous and racist. Ennodius in his Life of Epiphanius (54) refers to the emperor Anthemius as graeculus. The emperor was a Greek-speaker from the East and this casual racism in an educated Western writer points out how far far apart Rome and Byzantium had travelled.

What is also interesting is for how long this had been a term of abuse. There are a couple of references in Cicero and perhaps predictably one in Juvenal, but in the mid-fourth century the Hellenistic emperor Julian had been called Graeculum et fallacem et specie sapientiae stolidum by his troops. That is best translated as "the bloody foreigner, a liar, a fool and a wannabe philosopher" - at least approaching the language of squaddies on the brink of mutiny. Certainly it is better than Greekling.

Off the top of my head, the only term in English that is similar both in tone and in length of use is "Hun" which was first used by Rudyard Kipling in 1902 and still makes appearances in tabloid headlines.

Elgin's firman

Slightly outside the usual remit. Translations of the firman granted to Lord Elgin to remove the marbles from the Acropolis are few and generally dire. Dorothy King, whose book The Elgin Marbles looks an absolute must-read and has been heavily reviewed in the UK, has posted a full translation on her blog.

Broken windows

Many of Theoderic the Great's political reforms, particularly domestic ones, chime with contemporary politics. He was tough on crime, he went out of his way to support small business, the Italy that he built was remarkably multi-faith - at least to begin with.

The language his regime used too is that of modern politics, or rather that of speech-writers and spin doctors. Writings are full of images of renewal, restoration and youthfulness. Cassiodorus was one of the first Latin authors to use the adjective modernus, modern/forward-looking, in a political context

A signficant aspect of his reforms was his restoration of an Italy that had been trashed numerous times by various marauding armies; to give people back the quality of life and pride in community. Reading his letters on the subject, I am struck how much the philosophy behind it resembles what has been dubbed by sociologists the broken windows theory. Articulated in an Atlantic Monthly article in 1982 by James Wilson and George Kelling, the theory goes (very simplistically put) that if problems – broken windows, knackered aqueducts – are fixed and maintained when the problems are small, it enhances the quality of life, crime goes down and people tend to stay put. In modern times the ideas behind this were used to great success in cleaning up New York in the 1990s.

Theoderic for mayor?

Apostolic Fathers

Useful resource. ABZU has just put up the Loeb Apostolic Fathers up. Two pdfs (here and here).

Rail-roading Constantinople

The discovery of the port of Constantinople is causing a headache for Istanbul's town planners. It straddles what might still become the biggest railway station in Turkey. From yesterday's Guardian.

It strikes me as a pretty odd story, especially the quote at the end of the piece from Ismail Karamut, the director of the city's museum of archaeology:

"We knew from the ancient documents and records that there was some kind of port around there. But we didn't know exactly where. We didn't know that it could be Constantinople's first harbour."

If it is indeed Theodosius' harbour (mentioned elsewhere in the piece), then pretty much every reconstruction of the ancient city (for example) could have pointed out where it was. Possibly disingenuous?

Roman inflation

One of the (many) frustrations in looking at the classical world is that it is so difficult to get any idea of prices and purchasing power that make sense in the modern world. There is certainly no such item as an average shopping basket.

Take this set of accounts from Brian Campbell's The Roman Army, 31 BC – AD 337, (London, 1994). It is of an auxiliary soldier stationed in Egypt from the second half of the first century:

Gaius Valerius Germanus from Tyre received the first salary instalment of the third year of the emperor, 247½ drachmas out of which
Deduction for hay                10 drachmas
For food                              80 drachmas
Boots, socks                        12 drachmas
Saturnalia of the camp         20 drachmas
For clothes                          100 drachmas
    Expenditure                     222 drachmas
Balance deposited into his account    25½ drachmas
Already had                              21 drachmas
Makes a complete total of         46½ drachmas

It is not easy to put the 250 sesterces salary payment (drachma were on parity with the Roman sesterces – the 2½ drachma deduction presumably a currency exchange charge) into a context that is understandable today. The 46½ sesterces that Germanus had in his account was the equivalent of 465 asses, the bronze coins in common usage. To give some indication of purchasing power, a litre of good wine cost four asses, a week’s worth of grain around twelve asses.

We do, however, have a fascinating set of comparative figures for the price of grain from the end of the fourth, beginning of the fifth century.

In Ravenna at the end of 492 AD, a gold piece bought you just under three pints of grain.

In the middle of Theoderic's reign, say a decade later, there is one reference to a price of 960 pints per gold piece, though the more usual (Ep 27) rate was 400 pints per gold piece.

Even though the figures are extreme - the first figure is from a city at the end of long siege, in a country that had suffered several years of warfare - grain is a particularly handy indicator of stability in this period. To grow it, farmers need to be sure at the start of the year that their fields are not going to become an battlefield come harvest time.

Little wonder then that Theoderic's reign was deemed a golden age. 

Visualising Byzantium

Via the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, an interesting review by Antony Eastmond of Sarah Bassett's The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople.

Anything that helps visualise the city is valuable. Recent work has been carried out by the Istanbul Rescue Archaeology Project; there has been some research on the Great Palace most of it focused on the mosaics; and these papers from "The Fabric of the City" 1998 Dumbarton Oaks Symposium are a great help, but there is no comparison with what is known about ancient Athens or Rome.

As anyone who has visited the city knows, Istanbul has not benefited from decades of careful, systematic excavations. Even Byzantine street alignments are unknown and the only way to ascertain a possible street system is to check such surviving structures as churches, cisterns, the aqueduct and city walls.

Roman law

A new website called the Patristics in English Project might be worth keeping an eye on. One focus appears to be late Roman law - an area of the classics I confess that I find virtually impenetrable.

It still has a way to go before it catches up with Ernest Metzger's Roman Law Resources which seems to be the benchmark.

I am curious though that there appears to be no English version of the Theodosian Code online although you can find excerpts if you look around. As ever, it is available in Latin at the Latin Library. 

Decline and fall, part two

Very funny piece by Giles Coren in today's Times, riffing on the discovery of the late Roman coins found in Bromley, south London, earlier in the week.

And so we learn that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire came about not because of corruption or deflation or incipient softness or military weakness or orgies or buggery, but because they were just too thick to go on living. Either that, or they didn’t throw enough money in the river.