Roman Times Quarterly ~ Third Quarter 2761 a.U.c. (2008 CE)
A Summary of This Issue from the News Reader in the Forum:
- Greek Dress and Adornment: From classical times the chief garment was the Chilton, a type of tunic made from one or two pieces of material, hanging back and front, pinned on one or both shoulders, and girded.
- On Finding Out The Enemies Plan: Scipio Africanus, seizing the opportunity of sending an embassy to Syphax, commanded specially chosen tribunes and centurions to go with Laelius, disguised as slaves and entrusted with the task of spying out the strength of the king.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4, Item 33: "Words in common use long ago are obsolete now. So too, the names once famed are in a sense obsolete...
- The History Of Ancient Rome (A Course of Independent Study): Rome’s span was vast. In the regional, restless, and shifting history of continental Europe, the Roman Empire stands as a towering monument to scale and stability.
- Rome, The Middle and Later Republic: During the third and second centuries B.C. Rome’s internal history was marked by the consolidation of the rule of the Patricio-plebian aristocracy.
- History Of Education / Ancient and Later Roman: The quality of Latin education before the 6th century B.C. can only be conjectured. Rome and the Roman civilization were then dominated by a rural aristocracy of landed proprietors directly engaged in exploiting their lands, even after the establishment of the republic.
Greek Dress and Adornment
by Marcus Audens
From classical times the chief garment was the Chilton, a type of tunic made from one or two pieces of material, hanging back and front, pinned on one or both shoulders, and girded. For men the Chilton was usually knee-length and seamed up one or both sides. An ankle-length version was worn by women, and for more formal wear, by men. The simplest style of Chilton was sleeveless, but later a sleeved version was made possible by using a much wider piece of material pinned at intervals at shoulder level, creating an elbow –length wide sleeve. A variation on the Chilton style for both sexes was achieved by wearing a double girdle , one at waist level, and one around the hips, the material being bloused out in between.
The perplos was a women’s garment. Made of one or two pieces of fabric, it hung from the shoulder pins to above or below the waist girdle. Alternatively, women used a longer piece of the Chilton material and folded it over in front to hang in a similar manner. The subject of color in Greek dress was a difficult one. Neither sculpture nor vases (which are in black, red, and white) provided information on this subject. For a long time it was believed that the dress was largely white., and the reintroduction of the ―Greek‖ style in Regentcy England and Directoire France presumed this from the marble structure. It is known now , however, that buildings and ornaments were painted in bright colors, and now from a closer examination of the artfacts, it has been proven that in the sunshine of Greece dress was also colored. Literary sources, also report almost all types of color being employed. In general, tunics were in lighter colors, cloaks darker. Decoration was most often by the classical ornamentation seen in architecture: the fret (key) pattern, flowers such as honeysuckle (anthemion), circles (paterae), and stripes.
- Reference: Encyclopeadia Britannica, Vol. 17, Pages 483-85
On Finding Out The Enemies Plan
by Marcus Audens
Scipio Africanus, seizing the opportunity of sending an embassy to Syphax, commanded specially chosen tribunes and centurions to go with Laelius, disguised as slaves and entrusted with the task of spying out the strength of the king. These men, in order to examine more freely the situation of the camp, purposely let loose a horse and chased it around the greatest part of the fortifications, pretending that it was running away. After they had reported the results of their observations, the destruction of the camp by fire brought the war to a close.
- Rreference: Frontinus, Stratagems, Page 19
On Marcus Aurelius
by Marcus Audens
Meditations, Book 4, Item 33
"Words in common use long ago are obsolete now. So too, the names once famed are in a sense obsolete—Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus, a little later Scipio, and Cato, then Augustus too, then Hadrianand Antonius. All things fade and quickly turn to myth: quickly too utter oblivion drowns them. And I am talking of those who shone with some wonderful brilliance: the rest, once they have breathed their last, are immediately ―beyond sight, beyond knowledge. But what in any case is everlasting memory? Utter emptiness.
"So where should a man direct his endeavor? Here only — a right mind, action for the common good, speech incapable of lies, a disposition to welcome all that happens as necessary, intelligible, flowing from an equally intelligible spring of origin."
Meditations, Book four, Item 40
"Think always of the universe as one living creature, comprising one substance and one soul.:how all is absorbed into this one consciousness; how a single impulse governs all its actions; how all things collaborate in all that happens; the very web and mesh of it all."
The History Of Ancient Rome (A Course of Independent Study)
by Marcus Audens
Professor Garrett G. Fagan
The Pennsylvania University
Ph.D. McMasters University
Rome’s span was vast. In the regional, restless, and shifting history of continental Europe, the Roman Empire stands as a towering monument to scale and stability. At its height, the Roman Empire unified in politics and law, stretched from the sands of Syria to the moors of Scotland, and it stood for almost 700 years.
Rome’s influence was indelible. The cultural debt that we owe to Rome is incalculable. The living legacy of Rome remains a fascinating presence all around us, in our art, architecture, engineering, language, literature, law, and religion. In the below course you will see how a small village of shepherds and farmers rose to power over the civilized world of its day, and left an indelible mark on history.
Rome’s story is riveting. You will learn about famous events and personalities—Horatius at the bridge, Hannibal crossing the Alps during Rome’s life-or-death war with Carthage, the assassination of Caesar; the doomed lovers Anthony and Cleopatra; the mad and venal emperors Nero and Caligula; and more.
Trace the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire—From pre-Roman Italy through the long centuries of Republican and then Imperial rule. Professor Garrett G. Fagan interweaves narrative and analysis. Chronologically, the focus is the years 200 B.C. to A,D, 200, when Roman power was at it’s height.
The narrative of the Rise and Fall of Rome is itself compelling, and Professor Fagan’s richly detailed and often humorous discussions of Roman Life are uniquely memorable. You study women and the family, slaves, Roman cities, religious customs, the ubiquitous, and beloved institution of public bathing, the deep cultural impact of Hellenism, and such famous Roman amusements as chariot racing and gladiatorial games.
The course ends with one of the great questions in history—why did the Roman Empire fall? We see how, in the eyes of most modern scholars, the Empire did not fall at all but just changed into something different—the less urbanized, more rural, early medieval world.
About your Professor
Professor Garrett G. Fagan received his Ph.D. at McMaster University. He is the author of:
- Bathing In Public in the Roman World.
Lecture Titles:
1. Introduction
2. The Sources
3. Pre-Roman Italy and the Etruscans
4. The Foundation of Rome
5. The Kings of Rome
6. Regal Society
7. The Beginnings of the Republic
8. The Struggle of the Orders
9. Roman Expansion In Italy
10. The Roman Confederation In Italy
11. The International Scene On the Eve of Roman Expansion
12. Carthage and the First Punic War
13. The Second Punic (or Hannibalic) War
14. Rome In the Eastern Mediterranean
15. Explaining the Rise of the Roman Empire
16. The Captured Conqueror - Rome and Hellenism
17. Governing the Roman Republic, Part 1—The Senate and Magistrates
18. Governing the Roman Republic, Part 2—Popular Assemblies and the Provincial Administration
19. The Pressures of Empire
20. The Gracchi Brothers
21. Marius and Sulla
22. The Royal Rule of Sulla
23. Sulla’s Reforms Undone
24. Pompey and Crassus
25. The First Triumvirate
26. Pompey and Caesar
27. The Domination of Caesar
28. Social and Cultural Life in the Late Republic
29. Antony and Octavian
30. The Second Triumvirate
31. Octavian Emerges Supreme
32. The New Order of Augustus
33. The Imperial Succession
34. The Julio-Claudian Dynasty
35. The Emperor In the Roman World
36. The Third-Century Crisis
37. The Shape of Roman Society
38. Roman Slavery
39. The Family
40. Women In Roman Society
41. An Empire of Cities
42. Public Entertainment, Part 1-The Roman Baths and Chariot Racing
43. Public Entertainment, Part 2-Gladitorial Games
44. Roman Paganism
45. The Rise of Christianity
46. The Restoration of Order
47. Constantine and the Late Empire
48. Thoughts of the Fall of the Roman Empire
- Reference: The Great Courses: www.thegreatcourses.com (1-800-TEACH-12)
A Short Bibliography if Julius Caesar’s the Gallic War"
Studies:
- F.E. Adcock, Caesar As A Man of Letters, Cambridge, 1956
- J.F.C. Fuller, Julius Caesar; Man, Soldier, and Tyrant, London, 1965
- Matthias Gelzer, Caesar: Politician and Statesman, (English translation of the 1906 German Edition), Oxford, 1968
- Michael Grant, Julius Caesar, McGraw-Hill, 1969
- Michael Rambaud, L’Art de la de’formation historique dans les Commentaires de Ce’sar, Paris, 1966
- Otto Seel, Caesar-Studien', Stuttgart, 1967
- Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, Oxford, 1939
- T. Rice Holmes, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, London, 1899
Rome, The Middle and Later Republic
by Marcus Audens
During the third and second centuries B.C. Rome’s internal history was marked by the consolidation of the rule of the Patricio-plebian aristocracy. The extension of Rome’s external relations and the complexity of her internal problems raised questions impossible of settlement in the unwieldy and uninformed comitia which came more and more to surrender the initiative in government to the Senate, composed as it was of ex-magistrates, urban, military, and provincial, who had the necessary background and experience. They in their turn, had come to regard government and office as a prerogative of they and their children. This distinction was furthered by the increased opportunities for wealth opened to the ruling group through conquest and provincial government. Since custom confirmed by lex Claudia of 218 forced senators to invest chiefly in land, they built up large estates, partly by renting public land which through long tenure they came to regard as their own and partly by acquiring the holdings of poorer farmers. The poorer farmers, in turn, subjected to the devastations of the Hannabalic Wars, and to the demands of long term military service abroad, found it difficult to exist, and tended either to emigrate, remain in the army, or congregate as an idle mob in Rome. The political, economic and social problems thus raised finally caused the ruin of the senatorial republic by the Gracchan troubles.
Rome’s position in Italy became increasingly strong during these centuries. In consequence the senatorial class began to act with increasing arbitrariness towards Rome’s Italian allies and to impose on them the burdens of conquest while reserving the rewards for themselves or using them as sops to the Roman citizens. The citizens, who found that citizenship paid in privilege, in some share in the public land, in free entertainment at Rome, in a government-controlled food supply, and probably in the indirect benefits of bribery and corruption, became unwilling to extend the franchise. The discontent of the Italians found ultimate expression in the Social War, which won for them Roman citizenship. In the Mediterranean, Rome without really so desiring, was forced to extend her sway, imperium, more and more widely. The Senate, like such landed aristocracies as Sparta, or the English Tories, was not imperialistic. Nor, on the whole, was the populous. But the fear of attack from strong powers led Rome to attack such as might threaten her, and experiments in allowing her rivals a feeble and divided independence (diuide et impera, divide and rule) proved unsatisfactory, Either her creations quarreled among themselves and forced her to intervene, or they became the willing or unwilling prey of stronger powers. Hence Rome was forced into annexation. But conquest led ultimately to the corruption of both the Senate and the people, to the creation of a financial group, the equites, interested in imperialism, and to opportunities for self –aggrandizement on the part of generals and governors. In consequence, the discontented peoples of Asia supported Mithradates, the equestrian class became a possible rival to the Senate, and the way was opened for the domination of the state by military commanders.
- Reference: An Encyclopedia of World History, Chapter II, Early Empires of Africa and Asia, subchapter E, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, MA, 1960
History Of Education / Ancient and Later Roman
by Marcus Audens
Early Roman Education — The quality of Latin education before the 6th century B.C. can only be conjectured. Rome and the Roman civilization were then dominated by a rural aristocracy of landed proprietors directly engaged in exploiting their lands, even after the establishment of the republic. Their spirit was far removed from Greece and Homeric chivalry; ancient Roman education was instead an education suitable for a rural traditional people—instilling in youth an unquestioned respect for the customs of the ancestors: the mas maiorum.
Education had a practical aspect involving instruction in such farm management concerns as how to oversee the work of slaves and how to advise tenant farmers or one’s steward. It had a legal aspect, in contrast to Athenian law which relied more on common law than on codified law. Roman justice was much more formalistic and technical and demanded much more study on the part of the citizen. Education also had a moral aspect, aiming at inculcating rural virtues, a respect of good management of one’s patrimony, and a sense of austerity and frugality. Roman education, however, did not remain narrowly utilitarian; it broadened in urban Rome, where where there developed the same idea of communal devotion to the public weal that had existed in Greece—with the difference that in Rome such devotion would never be called into question. The interests of the state constituted the supreme law. The ideal set before youth was not that of the chivalrous hero in the Homeric manner but that of the great men of history who in difficult situations, had by their courage and their wisdom had saved their fatherland when it was in danger. A nation of small farmers, Rome was also a nation of soldiers. Physical education was oriented not toward self-realization or competitive sport but toward military preparedness:
- training in arms
- toughening of the body
- swimming across cold and rapid streams, and
- horsemanship, involving such performances as mounted acrobatics and cavalry parades under arms.
Differing from the Greeks, the Romans considered the family the natural milieu in which the child should grow up and be educated. The role of the mother as educator extended beyond the early years and often had lifelong influence. If, in contrast to the girl, the boy at seven years of age was allowed to move away from her exclusive direction, he came under the control of his father: the Roman father closely supervised the development and studies of his son, giving him instruction in an atmosphere of severity and moral exigency, through precept but even more through example. The young Roman noble accompanied his father as a kind of young page in all his appearances even within the Senate.
Familial education ended at 16, when the adolescent male was allowed to wear adult dress, the pure white woolen toga virilis. He devoted one year to an apprenticeship in public life, no longer at his father’s side, but placed in the care of some old friend of the family, a man of politics laden with years and honors. Then came military service, first as a simple soldier (it was well for the future leader to learn to obey), encountering his first opportunity to distinguish himself by courage in battle, but soon thereafter as a staff officer under some distinguished commander. Civil and military, the young Roman was thus completed in the entourage of some high personage whom he regarded with respect and veneration, without ceasing however to gravitate toward the family orbit. The young Roman was brought up not only to respect the national tradition embodied in the example of the illustrious men of the past but also, very specifically, to respect the particular traditions of his own family, which too had had its great men and which jealously transmitted a stereotype, a specific attitude toward life. If ancient Greek education can be defined as the imitation of the Homeric hero, that of the ancient Roman took the form of imitation of one’s ancestors.
To be continued...
- Reference: Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 18, Page 10-13