Bread and Circuses

Lucullanum, part three

Lucullanum remained an important centre for several hundred years, long after the deaths of Romulus Augustulus and that of Eugippius. Pope Gregory the Great mentions it on a number of occasions as a place of some importance.

Its reputation continued to grow so much that by the eighth century it had become a place of pilgrimage. A Saxon pilgrim, the Wessex-born Saint Willibald visited it in 729 on the way back from the Holy Land.

It was not until the start of the tenth century, with the Saracen threat to Campania that the monastery began what was a terminal decline.

Nowadays it is called the Castel dell’Ovo and most of the massive fortress which stands on the islet of Borgo Marinaro dates to the seventeenth century. Little trace remains of the castle to which Romulus will have been exiled. There some minor traces of the ancient villa in the chapel and some Roman columns, obviously reused, stand in the refectory, but these are more accidental than useful. The Normans and then the Angevins, who occupied the site in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively, rebuilt extensively, and then, like much of Italy, the castle was bombed and destroyed at the end of the fifteenth century. Thereafter, in swift succession it was occupied by the French and the Spanish, who rebuilt it as it looks today.

Lucullanum, part two

I hadn't realised how long ago I had posted part one.

At the end of the fifth century, Lucullanum was something of a military and administrative centre, still partly owned by the state, and there are hints that it had some kind of a political role. Lucullanum had in some sense become a retirement home for successful and important bureaucrats. A diplomat in Africa was honoured with land there, as was one of Theoderic’s generals after a successful campaign in Gaul. This was not the place where people were sent to keep them out of the way.

By the 490s, when Romulus Augustulus would have been in his late twenties or early thirties, Lucullanum was home to a significant monastery associated with the cult of St Severinus.

Eugippius, abbot of the monastery in Lucullanum writing in 511, mentions the cult that grew up around the mausoleum. “A monastery, built at the same place to the memory of the blessed man, still endures,” he says.

Under Eugippius’ rule, Romulus’ place of exile appears to have flourished. The monastery appears to have had a decent library and was one of the literary centres of Italy at the time.

Part three tomorrow.

Orestes' power

When Romulus Augustulus took the throne, power for obvious reasons remained with his father Orestes. More bluntly than most, one chronicler noted that Orestes “undertook all the supervision of governmental affairs”.

This is a pretty loose translation. The actual phrase in Auct. Prosp, Haun. ordo prior. sa 476 is:

Ipse vero omnem curam externorum praesidiorum gerit.

The literal Latin translation should be “external defences” but this has always struck me as too narrow a meaning for the pretty all-encompassing power that Orestes actually had.

Penny MacGeorge, Late Roman Warlords, (OUP: Oxford, 2002), p280 n45 ingeniously proposes that “external” refers to anything outside the imperial palace. That makes much more sense.

Latin comedy

From the two dons walking across a quad and seeing a pound coin ("quid est hoc?" 'hoc est quid") to the man who orders a bottle of German white wine in a restaurant that never arrives - apply for the full joke - Latin comedy tends to be niche. Refreshing therefore to read about Alex Horne. From today's Times:

A Latin professor goes into a bar. “What’ll it be?” asks the bartender. “A Martinus,” says the professor. “Don’t you mean Martini?” “If I wanted more than one, I’d ask for more than one.”

Jordanes' Getica

A charming comment from the sixth century bishop on why he wrote history:

I only wanted to paddle my little boat by the quiet shore and pluck a few little fishes from the pools of ancient writings.

Seven centuries

Gutenberg has just put up Charlotte Mary Yonge's, Young Folk's History of Rome originally published in 1880. On Romulus Augustulus:

After this, Ricimer really ruled Italy, but he seemed to have a sort of
awe of the title of Caesar Augustus, the Emperor, for he forbore to use
it himself, and gave it to one poor weak wretch after another until his
death in 472. His nephew went on in the same course; but at last a
soldier named Orestes, of Roman birth, gained the chief power, and set
up as Emperor his own little son, whose Christian name was Romulus
Augustus, making him wear the purple and the crown, and calling him by
all the titles; but the Romans made his name into Augustulus, or Little
Augustus. At the end of a year, a Teutonic chief named Odoacer crossed
the Alps at the head of a great mixture of different German tribes, and
Orestes could make no stand against him, but was taken and put to death.
His little boy was spared, and was placed at Sorrento; but Odoacer sent
the crown and robes of the West to Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, saying
that one Emperor was enough. So fell the Roman power in 476, exactly
twelve centuries after the date of the founding of Rome. It was thought
that this was meant by the twelve vultures seen by Romulus, and that the
seven which Remus saw denoted the seven centuries that the Republic
stood. It was curious, too, that it should be with the two names of
Romulus and Augustus that Rome and her empire fell.

Odoacer called himself king, and, indeed, the Western Empire had been
nearly all seized by different kings--the Vandal kings in Africa, the
Gothic kings in Spain and Southern Gaul, the Burgundian kings and Frank
kings in Northern Gaul, the Saxon kings in Britain. The Ostro or Eastern
Goths, who had since the time of Valens dwelt on the banks of the
Danube, had been subdued by Attila, but recovered their freedom after
his death. One of their young chiefs, named Theodoric, was sent as a
hostage to Constantinople, and there learned much. He became king of the
Eastern Goths in 470, and showed himself such a dangerous neighbor to
the Eastern Empire that, to be rid of him the Emperor Zeno advised him
to go and attack Odoacer in Italy. The Ostrogoths marched seven hundred
miles, and came over the Alps into the plains of Northern Italy, where
Odoacer fought with them bravely, but was beaten. They besieged him even
in Ravenna, till after three years he was obliged to surrender and was
put to death.

Rules for classical historical fiction

A friend passed this over. The very funny ten rules for classical historical fiction:

VI. Barbarians must always be portrayed as politically-correct Noble Savages, especially if Celtic. They must embrace sexual equality and be in total harmony with Nature and the Mystic Elements. They must always lose the battles but win the moral high ground (whatever that is), especially against The Greatest War Machine The World Has Ever Known. That's probably the lesson (see Rule V).

Romulus Augustulus' age

It is difficult to come up with a plausible date of birth for Romulus. None of the ancient historians give one and the few sentences we have allow little to work with.

In the Roman world, a boy became a man at the age of 14.

As Romulus is described as still a boy in 477, somewhere around 463 would make sense. Of course any date up to 470 would work, though 6/7 has to be the cut off date.

There is of course no way of checking this, but Romulus was in all likelihood the first son - certainly the first surviving one. His mother is likely to have been in her late teens at the time. If she did die in around 510 (there is circumstantial evidence), then she is likely to have been in her sixties. A fair enough age for an aristocrat of this era.

This is all back-of-an-envelope maths, but sounds about right.

Romulus Augustulus the boy

The chronicle of Victor Tonnennensis has a thought provoking if confused entry on Romulus (sa 473):

Post certos dies Herculanus Orestis filius arripiens imperium cum patre suo occiditur et eius regnum Nepos assumit.

Apart from the obvious chronological mistake - Julius Nepos came before Romulus, not the other way around - it does beg the question of who this Herculanus is?

There would seem to be three fairly obvious solutions:

1) That it is a straight mistake; a scribal error. Not beyond the realms of possibility.

2) That Herculanus is Romulus Augustulus' younger brother. The heir and a spare, the latter forgotten by history.

3) That it was Romulus' name before he became emperor.

It was certainly not uncommon to take a different name with the purple and if his predecessor's name harked back to Julius Caesar, then it would make political sense - rather than be just historical coincidence - to make people think of Rome's founder when he ascended the throne.

Visigoths in Kent

Interesting discovery, reported in Wessex Archaeology News of a fifth or sixth century Visigothic brooch.

X-ray photography showed that the brooch was made of iron with silver inlay, very similar to two Visigothic brooches found in Frénouville, Normandy.

In the last 30 years or so a number of objects of Visigothic design have come to light in this country, mainly in south-east England.

The Springhead brooch is another piece of evidence suggesting connections between the cosmopolitan people of Kent and the small number of Visigothic groups known to have lived in northern France at the time.