Bread and Circuses

Classical news round up 31/7/09

Classical news round up for Friday 31 July:

• Bloomberg has a review of Philip Parker's The Empire Stops Here by George Walden
• The Times carries a story on the lost Roman city of Altinum near Venice. It was abandoned in AD452 ahead of Attila's invasion. Also at ScienceNOW
• Theoretical Structural Archaeology has a fascinating piece on Hadrian's timber wall
• BMCR has a review of Christopher Beeley's Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We See Light by Claudio Moreschini at the Università degli Studi di Pisa

Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald

A review at BMCR of Reinhard Wolters' Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald: Arminius, Varus und das roemische Germanien by David Cuff at the University of Toronto:

Chapter 4 (Karrieren im Dienste Roms) at last brings the reader to Varus and Arminius. This chapter is essentially biographical, surveying first the history of the gens Quinctilia and Varus's political career (75-88). Varus was closely connected to the imperial family; his third marriage to Claudia Pulchra, granddaughter of Octavia, sister of Augustus, clearly identifies him as one of Augustus's most trusted officials. Varus's command in Germany came after two previous governorships (Africa Proconsularis and Syria), and one gets an appropriate sense of the confidence that Augustus must have had in Varus when, in A. D. 7, he was given the command of Germania for three years. On page 89 we come next to Arminius. Wolters provides a succinct and useful survey of his known biographical details: his connections with his tribe's royal stock (stirps regia), his possession of Roman citizenship and experience in the Roman army. Wolters identifies and summarizes three modern interpretations of Arminius's life offered by Bickel, Hohl and Timpe. He rejects Hohl's argument that 'Arminius' is a corruption for 'Armenius' ("Armenian"--this would surely have been rendered "Armenicus") but accepts, rightly, that once Arminius was enfranchised he would have borne the Roman names C. Iulius, with his peregrine name Romanized as a cognomen.

Peter Walcot RIP

A obituary in today's Guardian of the classicist Peter Walcot:

Peter Walcot, who has died aged 77, made a major contribution to the study of classics in Britain, both through his own publications and his untiring efforts to popularise the subject. In a series of influential books and papers, he explored the relationship between the earliest-known Greek writers and the literature of contemporary eastern cultures and, in later years, applied comparative anthropology and gender studies to his work on ancient Greek society.

Peter was born in London and educated at Wilson's grammar school, Camberwell, before reading classics at University College London. He obtained an MA at Yale before returning to UCL to study for his PhD. After national service as an officer in the RAF, he became an assistant lecturer in classics at University College, Cardiff (now Cardiff University), in 1957. He was to spend the remainder of his career there, and was professor of classics from 1974 until retiring in 1996.

Another classical round up

Blogging is going to be intermittent over the next few weeks:

• Finally a story about the new Acropolis Museum which doesn't involve yelling at the British Museum. The Greek orthodox church is getting snotty over a film which depicts early Christians ruining the monument. Reuters has the story. 
• A couple of new stories about this season's dig at Kalefeld, the third century battlefield found on the "wrong" side of the Rhine last year. Good piece at Hna.de with a NIB at NDR.
• A review of Yann de Bohec's L'armée romaine dans la tourmente at Novopress Québec.  
• A fair amount of chatter about the Roman hospital at Hradisko, Morava, aka Burgstall. Radio Praha and Ceske Noviny. I remember a mass grave found on the same site a decade or so ago. Can't find the reference.
• A light piece in the Herald on saving Hadrian's Wall. 
• A weighty article on Varus and Florus in Zeit Online while NZZ Online looks at barbarians and forests.
• National Geographic has caught up on the mass burial on Ridgeway Hill in Dorset. 
• Good tourist piece in the Telegraph on Sutton Hoo.

Classical news round up

Classical stories that have caught my eye:

• MSNBC has a good piece on stone altar to Jupiter of Doliche found at Vindolanda
• Catholic News Service has a profile of Fabrizio Bisconti, the newly named archaeological superintendent of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, which oversees the upkeep and preservation of Italy's 140 Christian catacombs (via The Way of the Fathers)
• Balkan Travellers has more on the Nymphaeum found near Nicopolis ad Istrum
• artdaily.org covers the coins of the third century rebel emperor Carausius that were found in 2007 have been bought by the British Museum. Worth a look as it carries large images of the coins.
• The Stoa Consortium reports that GBRS is going free and online
• Rogueclassicism has a note on classical aps for the iPhone
• We knew that Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was a boor and a cad. He is also being accused of failure to declare the presence of 30 ancient tombs on his land. Story in the BBC.

Lionel Casson RIP

The New York Times reports the death of Lionel Casson, the noted classical historian who specialised in ancient seafaring:

Lionel Casson, who melded his mastery of classical literature with the findings of underwater archaeology in scholarly but accessible books about the history of ancient seafaring, from the primitive dory to the vast armadas of the Roman Empire, died July 18 in Manhattan. He was 94.

New inscription at Vindolanda UPDATED

Following up my previous post on the new inscription at Vindolanda and that at Rogueclassicism, I have tracked down the previous mention of Sulpicius Pudens, prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls and dedicator of the altar of Jupiter Doliche.

The reference is RIB 1688:

I O M COH IIII GALL CVI PRAEST II...GIVS PVDENS PRAEFECT ARAM POSVIT V S M L

The first write up is E. Birley “A Roman altar from Staward Pele,” Archaeologia Aeliana Volume 28 (1950) p132-6 and 139-40.

Details of the Leamington hoard

I have been slow to post about the Leamington hoard. There was some noise about it last week. My delay was primarily because the coverage was slightly confusing and with too-few details. Here is the Birmingham Post:

For a simple Anglo Saxon trader, it would have been the fruits of years of hard work, but it would seem he never got the chance to spend it.

Perhaps hidden from invading Romans, or just inquisitive neighbours, a pot containing more than 1,000 coins has lain buried untouched for 2,000 years in a Warwickshire field.

That is, until a metal detector used by 47-year-old keen amateur historian Keith Bennett located the historic pot, containing a total of 1,141 silver Dinarii, while out scanning the field in south Warwickshire.

The exact value of the find, which dates back as far as 206BC, is not yet known but a hearing at Warwickshire Coroner’s Court was told that Mr Bennett could be in line for a “considerable amount of money”.

At the treasure trove hearing held at Leamington Spa Town Hall yesterday, coroner for Coventry and Warwickshire Sean McGovern confirmed the rare collection was a treasure trove after hearing it was a “very significant find”.

The Daily Mail also covered the story. Aside from spelling denarii properly, a new confusion now emerged. The Mail had the hoard found four feet underground while the Post had it a foot down. The mistake was nicely pointed out by Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues. 

Only one thing for it. To get hold of the British Museum, who passed over the curatorial report.

Findspot, County : Warwickshire
Date of discovery: July 2008
Circumstances of discovery: Mr X uncovered a Roman white ware pot containing a large proportion of the coins whilst metal detecting, the remaining coins were found subsequently in the vicinity. Although, members of the Warmington Historical Society have been investigating parts of this site, which contains Roman features, Mr X was not detecting in the same area as the Society were excavating.

Description: A group of 1121 Roman silver denarii.

Discussion: We have examined the coins and found there to be 773 Republican and 348 early Imperial denarii; the earliest identifiable coin is a ROSTRUM TRIDENS (206-195 BC) and the latest is a PONTIF MAX TR P X COS IIII of Nero (63/4AD). The majority of the coins present will have a high silver content of between 80 and 98%.
 
Early Roman hoards of this nature are not uncommon and one or two other, much smaller examples have been discovered within Warwickshire (eg. the Great Packington Hoard, Treasure Annual Reports for 1998-99 and 2002)

Conclusion: Consequently, in terms of age, the number of coins and precious metal content this find constitutes a hoard and qualifies as Treasure under the stipulations of the Treasure Act 1996.

Hurrah for the British Museum.

New inscription at Vindolanda

Fantastic news from Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall. A large and well-preserved stone altar has been found near the north gate of the fort dedicated by a prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls to Jupiter of Doliche. The inscription reads:

I.O.M.
Dolocheno
Sulpicius Pu
dens praef
coh IIII Gall
V. S. L. M.

Translated: "To Jupiter Best and Greatest of Doliche, Sulpicius Pudens, prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls, fulfilled his vow gladly and deservedly".

Anthony Birley, chairman of the Vindolanda Trust, gives background to the find:

The Vindolanda altar has a fine relief on one side, showing the god standing on the bull, the other side having the traditional jug and patera. An unusual feature of the new altar is that it was found inside the fort, in what may be a small shrine built close to the fort wall. Most altars and shrines were placed outside.

The god called by the Romans Juppiter Dolichenus (the usual spelling, but Dolochenus, as at Vindolanda, or Dolychenus, are also found), "Juppiter of Doliche", was originally an ancient weather god, known to the Semitic peoples of the Middle East as Hadad and to the Hittites as Teshab. The original cult centre was on a hilltop close to the small town of Doliche (the modern Dülük in southern Turkey) in mountainous territory west of the River Euphrates, that was ruled by many different great powers over the centuries, such as the Hittites, Assyrians, Persians and finally the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty. Later, in 162 BC, the land became independent as the kingdom of Commagene.

Recent excavations have discovered remains at the sanctuary near Doliche, going back to the early first millennium BC. Commagene was finally annexed by the Romans in AD 72, and the god of Doliche seems not to have attracted Roman worshippers until the early second century AD. But from then on the cult took off and spread all over the empire, in frontier provinces being favoured by the officers and men of the Roman army (although in total civilian worshippers predominated). The god was regarded as all-powerful and identified with the the traditional chief Roman god, Juppiter Optimus Maximus, "Juppiter Best and Greatest", abbreviated IOM. He is generally portrayed standing on a bull, and holding an axe in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. Sometimes his consort is also portrayed, identified with the Roman goddess Juno and given the added name Dolichena or Regina, "Queen", and standing on a heifer. The worshippers of Dolichenus in Britain all seem to have lived in the second or third centuries AD. In the 250s AD the original cult centre at Doliche was captured by the Persians and this is thought to have resulted in disillusionment-the god was not all powerful after all-and the cult soon died out almost everywhere. All the same, the shrine at Chesters on the Wall-where a fine statue of Juno Regina on a heifer still survives in the Museum-is now known from a recently discovered inscription still to have existed in AD 286. Maybe the news of the disaster to Doliche had not reached the far west.

Unlike other eastern mystery religions, such as that of Isis and Serapis, the Syrian Goddess (worshipped at Carvoran) or Mithras, there are absolutely no literary references to Dolichenus, so all that we know about the religion is based on some 300 surviving inscriptions and sculptures from different parts of the Roman Empire-about twenty are known in Britain. Quite a few dedications state that the worshipper had set them up "by the command of the god". It is not certain how this "command" was transmitted: sometimes it was through a dream, but Dolichenus had priests in his service, who seem to have spread the cult and passed on the god's commands to their converts.

The story has been picked up by the News & Star and the Hexham Courant.

Episcopal elections in late antiquity

The BMCR carries a review of Peter Norton, Episcopal Elections 250-600: Hierarchy and Popular Will in Late Antiquity reviewed by Richard Lim at Smith College. It looks like a useful counterpoint to orthodox views on ecclesiastical power:

Against such an image of a society that was moving inexorably towards greater autocracy in respect of both imperial power and ecclesiastical authority, Norton offers his fruitful book as a riposte as well as a cause for hope. Episcopal Elections closely examines the specific circumstances by which bishops came into office as well as the types of interventions and obstructions that continued to threaten or undermine the ability of local communities to elect their own religious leaders. While the scope of the study appears at first sight to be quite narrowly circumscribed, this project has direct relevance for our broader understanding of the evolving relationship between local Christian communities, ecclesiastical hierarchies, and the late Roman imperial state. Through an appraisal of the forms of agency that determined the (s)election of late antique bishops and their efficacy, Norton presents a well-crafted argument against a set of widely-shared assumptions regarding the extent to which the rise of imperial Christianity in the later fourth century onwards repressed the effective autonomy of local Christian communities.