Ahira's Hangar

I saw a very interesting museum exhibit yesterday in Chicago, that had all sorts of artifacts from Pompeii and the surrounding areas.

It made me realize how very little I know of Roman culture and history.

At the university I attended, everyone was required to take a semester in ancient Greek lierature and/or culture, and I treaured that class. But the only Roman work we covered in the following Great Books semester (everything after the Greeks) was the Aeneid, which seemed like a somewhat pale copy of Homer to me.

I got a lot of french and Russian literature in treanslation while at the university, and even a bit of Italian and Spanish lit. And, of course, numerous works from the British Isles.

But very little Roman literature or culture or history.

In the years since I have read Robert Grave's I Claudius, which I thought was a remarkable book. I recently read a mystery set in the Roman Republic by Stephen Saylor, called Murder on the Appian Way, which I also enjoyed. I have read (and seen some) of Shakespeare's Roman plays. And, of course, I have seen Russell Crowe in Gladiator. I have also read a couple of books dealing with the originations of Christianity, that deal with Rome in a tangenital sort of way...

So, I thought I would start a discussion of books, movies, plays, and the like which either originated in ancient Rome or are set in ancient Rome. Does anyone have any recommendations of the works of actual Romans, or works by living authors that examine Roman history or culture in a particulary worthy way?

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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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HBO over the fall and early winter aired their mini-series Rome. Which was very good covering specifically period ten years before the assissination of Gaius Julius Caesar in 44BC. (OTOH, one could take the series as explaining the Roman political crisis leading to the events of 44BC as a 'lover's tiff' between Caesar and Servillus (mother of Brutus)). taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

I'm currently reading a book Rubicon by Tom Howard. The book covers the history of the last years of the Roman Republic - from Sulla through the death of Antony. (90-31 bc) Sulla is still alive, so I haven't gotten that far yet, but has a very well written summary of the early republic and how and why it came to dominate the Mediterranian - its ruthlessness in dealing with Carthage and Corinth, the avarice of the publicans in the provinces, the vast scale of the industrial production of the silver mines in Spain. Unmatched until the Industrial Revolution (core samples from the Greenland icecap show high levels of pollution from the mines) <i></i>

I heard "Rome" is re-airing starting this month, but Zap2It doesn't find it. Anyone know what channel and date? (Hoping I'm not too late.)

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I could not find an airing schedule, but...
www.hbo.com/rome/about/

HBO does get its stuff out on dvd fairly quickly, though the series dvd's tend to be very pricey. With a second season in the works, perhaps they will release the first season sometime in the next few months? ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Quote:
Necropolis in Rome Hailed as Milestone Find
Site May Yield Treasure Trove of Objects Dating Back to 1000 B.C.
By MARTA FALCONI, AP

ROME (Jan. 20) - Archaeologists said Friday they have spied what appears to be the roof of another tomb in a 3,000-year-old necropolis, the latest discovery about a little-known, hut-dwelling people who preceded the legendary founders of Rome by some three centuries.

Archaeologist Alessandro Delfino said the roof is just yards away from a tomb he discovered and dug up on Thursday that appears to date to about 1,000 B.C. The location was under Caesar's Forum, which is part of the sprawling complex of Imperial Forums in the heart of modern Rome.

Thursday's find set off a storm of excitement among archaeologists in Rome, as they anticipate a possible treasure trove of artifacts and architecture that could greatly enlarge knowledge about that period, which roughly straddles the transition from Bronze to Iron ages.

Finding another tomb could "indicate the existence of a series of tombs that were built well before the city's foundation," Delfino said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He said the necropolis was destined for high-ranking personalities - like warriors and ancient priests - heading the tribes and clans that lived in small villages scattered on hills near the area which later spawned one of the world's greatest civilizations.

"The discovery is a milestone for the knowledge of Rome's history," he said. "It allows us to have information on these people's lifestyles, and even on what they ate."

Delfino said a funerary urn that contains human ashes was found in the tomb, as well as bone fragments that appeared to be from a sheep.

"We've found people's possessions, like small miniatures of lances, vases and shields that reproduce the aspects of the dead person's domestic life," he said.

The tomb excavated Thursday is exceptionally big and well-preserved, with its 1.2-meter-wide (almost 4-foot-wide), hut-like roof. Its form resembles a well.

"The effort (to build the tomb) was directly proportional to the importance of the person buried there," said Roberto Meneghini, who is directing the excavations. "While the city (of ancient Rome) did not exist, there were still small groups of families who lived in huts," he said.

In an 2000-2001 excavation, two other tombs were found in the area, Delfino said. In the early 1900s, other tombs "not quite as old as the more recent finds" were discovered, he said.

Legend has it that Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of the god of war, Mars, who were suckled as infants by a she-wolf in the woods.

Last year, archaeologists who have been digging for about two decades in the Roman Forum area, said they found evidence of what appeared to be a royal palace roughly dating to the period of the legendary founding.


01/20/06 12:50 EST



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I started reading a book I picked up in Chicago this morning, The Letters of the Younger Pliny (translated by Betty Radice). Some of the letters are somewhat personal in nature, and some of them are quite striking.

While the upper class Romans lived in relative luxery, I am still struck by how much suffering there was. One of Pliny's friends, a man he greatly admired, died after he slipped on a highly polished floor and broke his leg. He was elderly and the bone was not set correctly, and it sounds like he died in agony as a result from complications from the broken leg. Another man he was friends with committed suicide by starving himself to death in response from long term pain (we're talking years here) caused by an unspecified foot condition (I suspect from the description that it might have been gout, which is said to be extremely painful). ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 1/23/06 10:05 am
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Pliny continues to be very interesting.

The luxury of the lives led by leading and wealthy Romans is such a contrast to the lives of the poor and the slaves that Pliny merely hints it...he mentions that one man was visciously attacked in his bath by his slaves and later died. He says that this man was cruel to his slaves, though he does not specify the cruelty. He also mentions that the man's father had been a slave, and that is perhaps why he was so harsh...

Yet even with that luxury, as exhibited by their lives in their countryside villas, there was so much suffering even for the rich and powerful. So far two of Pliny's friends have committe suicide through starvation (!!) in the face of painful and incurable medical conditions. He has just lamented the death of a young and beautiful maiden, only fourteen and soon to be married, the daughter of a friend, due to disease. Another friend just lost his son, returning from his first posting overseas.

Also striking is the cruelty of two of the emperors, Nero and most particularly Domitian. He mentions so matter of factly how Domitian had raped his own niece, and her subsequent death from an abortion, when she tried to end the resulting incestuous pregnancy. Pliny blames the death of the young woman on her uncle. He also tells of how that Emperor had banished and put to death people that Pliny was sure were innocent of their accused crimes. He asks - if Domitian could be so cruel to his own family, as in the case of his niece - how could be expected to be any less cruel to any other people?

The story of Domitian and his niece is all the more horrifying and chilling because it is told in such a matter of fact way...sort of like it was just another day in that particular Emperor's reign... ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 1/23/06 11:08 am
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Quote:
Updated:2006-02-23 15:40:43
Believe It or Not, Gladiators Followed Strict Rules
Reuters
LONDON (Feb. 23) - Gladiators may have fought and died to entertain others in the brutality of the Roman arena but they appear to have abided by a strict code of conduct which avoided savage violence, forensic scientists say.


Tests on the remains of 67 gladiators found in tombs at Ephesus in Turkey, center of power for ancient Rome's eastern empire, show they stuck to well defined rules of combat and avoided gory free-for-alls.


Injuries to the front of each skull suggested that each opponent used just one type of weapon per bout of face-to-face contact, two Austrian researchers report in a paper to be published in Forensic Science International.


Savage violence and mutilation, typical of battlefields 2,000 years ago, were out of order.


And the losers appear to have died quickly.


Despite the fact that most gladiators wore helmets, 10 of the remains showed the fighters had died of squarish hammer-like blows to the side of the head, possibly the work of a backstage executioner who finished off wounded losers after the fight.


The report confirms the picture given of battles in the arena by Roman artwork, which suggests gladiators were well matched and followed rules enforced by two referees.


Kathleen Coleman of Harvard University, who was historical consultant for Ridley Scott's film "Gladiator," agreed with the findings of the report.


"The fact that none of the gladiators' skulls was subjected to a repeated battering does seem to confirm that discipline was exercised in gladiatorial combat and its aftermath," she was quoted by New Scientist magazine as saying.


The scientists, Karl Grosschmidt of the Medical University of Vienna and Fabian Kanz of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, used special X-ray scans and microscopic analysis to investigate the gladiators' deaths.


The bones were uncovered in 1993 and are thought to date from the second century AD.


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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I finally remembered to check at netflix tonight. Thus far there is no release date for either season one or season two of the HBO series about Rome. <i></i>

The death of the infamous emperor Nero in AD 68 marked the beginning of a terrible year to be an average Roman. The realm was to be marked again and again by uprisings and civil wars as one man after another fought or murdered his way to power.

That year was marked by the coming of four new emperors - Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and finally Vespasian, who was the founder of the second imperial dynasty, the Flavians (the first was that of the Juilio-Claudians, which began with Caesar & Augustus and ended with Nero).

In that year the man would be known as the Roman historian Tacitus was a fourteen year old boy. He managed to survive the upheavels, and later wrote the story of that year in his The Histories. So far it is a brutal story, with Galba, an unarmed elderly man being brutally murdered at the orders of his once principal supporter, Otho... ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Suetonius was one of the top aids to the Emperor Hadrian. A lifelong reader, and friend and coworker of Pliny the Younger, who described him as a quiet man devoted to writing, he was a lover of literature and words. He had access to the Imperial archives...and his The Twelve Caesars is a result of that.

Not wanting to directly compete with the histories written by Tacitus, Suetonius instead decided to write little biographies of the first twelve emperors of Rome.

He shows them - good points and bad - warts and all.

And some of these men were very corrupt, and had a lot of warts. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Not sure if you remember, and it's probably available on Netflix. Many years ago, on Masterpiece Theater the BBC dramatization of Robert Graves I, Claudius was shown. Again an interesting look into the lifes of the upper class Romans. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html
Buff_fans_Chicago http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/buffy_fans_chicago/
live journal http://taras-wizard.livejournal.com<i></i>

Actually, I do have that on my netflix rental list. It'll probably take months-years for me to work my way down to it, but it is there.

The Suetonius is coming slowly. It was an intense week at work, and I have a cold on top of it. All of those very similar names in the Roman great houses are driving me nuts trying to keep people straight. Not easy to do with a stuffed up head when you are tired.

However, it is an interesting read. The author does his best to give a balanced account of each man's good and bad points. And their human foibles, such as Julius Caesar's comb over.

So far I have only managed to get through Julius and Augustus Caesar. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I have now managed to get through Claudius.

Good God, Tiberius was one sick pervert. I nearly put the book down after reading about what he did with little slave boys and with unweaned babies.

Well, Caligula and Claudius weren't particularly joyful to read about, either. While neither one was a child molestor, they both liked violence...really liked violence. And it tells you what a freak Tiberius was when he makes Caligula, who was having affairs with all three of his sisters, look normal because he was at least having sex with consenting adults.

I'm sort of dreading the next chapter, about the infamous Nero. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 5/16/06 8:50 am
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