The Jewish War Josephus: Book Review

In which Tim discusses this detailed record of one of Rome’s most hard fought campaigns in the first century AD. 21st Century relevance alert!

The destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in AD70 was the climax of a bitter siege by the Romans under Titus as they sought to end the Jewish rebellion. It is a seminal episode in history that started the process of scattering the Jews away from their own homeland. This had a mournful effect throughout the following two millennia. Those echoes still reverberate today.

The author, Josephus, was a Jewish priest who turned rebel general in the uprising against the Romans in the AD60’s before switching sides, eventually working with the Romans against the Zealots holed up in Jerusalem.

The Jewish War is a detailed book which traces the origins of the first century Jewish rebellion against their Roman masters. The first part deals with the history of the Jews from the second century BC. Lots of Antipaters and Herods (there seem to be about only three names in Judea!) back stabbing each other. On top of the palace intrigues, overlay Roman general Pompey who conquers Judea as a side hustle in his battle to defeat Mithridates in the 60’s BC. The Romans impose their own dynasty onto the Jews and now we have Herod the Great and his family added to the mix. Over the next hundred years or so, there’s more backstabbing, incompetent and venal Roman governors, lots of Jewish in-fighting - both political and religious - until we hit the mid 60’s AD and the whole thing kicks off.

Rome had a major rebellion on its hands.

Nero appointed Vespasian to command the Roman forces to put down the insurrection. His force consisted of four regular legions supplemented by local levies from the allied kingdoms around Judea. Vespasian was supported by his son Titus. When Nero was overthrown in 68AD, Vespasian left the conflict to pursue his own imperial ambitions (he became emperor in 69AD) and it was Titus that conducted the final stages of the war including the climatic siege of Jerusalem.

Like Caesar in his Gallic Commentaries and Civil War books, Josephus is a participant in the events but - in the main - prefers to write about himself in the third person. It’s a literary device that tends to obscure bias but, that aside, the narrative is gripping as the Romans slowly, slowly, bring the province to heel. There’s sieges and battles, ambushes and massacres on both sides. It’s brutal. There’s zealotry (yes, the religious fanatics are indeed called Zealots!) there’s stupidity, venality amidst the chaos as well as great feats of organised warfare from the Roman legions as they close in on the Temple.

The Temple is burnt - according to Josephus - by accident, by the stubbornness of the zealots, against the wishes of Titus and the Romans moving in for the kill as the siege gradually comes to an end. The people of Jerusalem are main victims; hemmed in between the Zealots who won’t let them leave and the Romans who have to take the city. Innocents always suffer when the dogs of war are let loose.

For anyone interested in Roman history, I would recommend this book. You will be immersed into a small corner of the empire, how the army operated as well as constantly being reminded that the cities and provinces where the action takes place so long ago are still very much part of an evolving history.

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What do I conclude?

The over-riding feeling I got from reading this book, is the unchanging aspect of human nature. The Jews and Romans of 2000 years ago are no different from ourselves. These days we blithely tend to follow the maxim that the past is a foreign country and that they do things differently there. However, I’m tempted to disagree; the actors may change but the play remains the same. The people who inhabited the Roman world are all too recognisable.

So my takeaway from this detailed book - which gives really useful information about the two hundred years around the birth of Christ (and yes, Jesus seems to be a common Jewish name too!) - is that for all our progress materially since the first century AD, we are just one small step away from brutality always.

It’s a sobering thought.

Inflation - Roman Style

On his deathbed in York, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211) gathered his two sons and co-heirs around him to give them some advice about running the vast empire when he was gone:

 "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn all others"

A bit harsh but Severus had been a successful Roman soldier/emperor – leading the imperial armies to defeat multiple foes both internally and externally whilst expanding the Empire in Africa, Persia and Scotland (1). He’d enlarged the army during his reign and given them a substantial pay rise. But where did the money come from to pay for this?

Answer: He debased the currency by reducing the silver content in the Roman coinage – the denarii – from 78.5% to 54%. This enabled him to cheaply expand the money supply to meet his priorities (pay the troops). In the years that followed his death, the Roman Empire was, predictably, racked with inflation.

Let’s pause here and ask a question…

Is there anything instructive to be learnt now - in 2022 - from the example set by Septimius back in 211? Something that perhaps addresses the issue of governments thoughtlessly expanding the money supply to meet some perceived emergency need?

My contention is, whether you wear a toga or a smartly tailored suit, the lessons of economics apply equally and always. The same rules apply. There is nothing new under the sun. And yet in our arrogance and ignorance, we forget. “Things are different now,” we bleat pathetically as the waves - commanded to cease - roll remorselessly past our gilded thrones. (2)

To meet increased expenditure all governments - ancient or modern - have the same list of choices to finance that expenditure. The options are as follows:

• Don’t do it

• Cut expenditure elsewhere

• Raise taxes

• Borrow the money

• Debase the currency

The order I put these five options is - of course - often inverted by politicians. The first three are hard and have real time accountability. The latter two postpone the pain and push it into the future. Guess which options politicians increasingly favour? (3)

Back to the Third Century

Septimius unwittingly set in motion a series of disasters for the next seventy years as short-lived Roman emperors grappled with both inflation but also with invasions, plague, and endless civil wars. Whereas English historian Edward Gibbon might say the mid second century AD was the best time in history to be alive, the third century most certainly was not (4).

The 3rd century story is a depressingly familiar one.

Following Septimius’ death, his two sons didn’t live harmoniously together, quarrelled, and Caracalla killed Geta going on to become one of Rome’s worst emperors. His decision to expand citizenship to all peoples of the empire – sometimes painted as a noble and liberal move – was brought on by his excessive spending. More citizens equalled a larger tax base. (5)

And so, with wearying predictability, emperor followed emperor, crisis follow crisis, rebellions drew troops from frontier defences which, in turn, allowed multiple barbarians invasions through the gaps this created. At one point the empire even split into three. And all whilst inflation wrecked the economy.

The third century’s equivalent of a central bank was the Imperial Mint where the empire’s coins were created. Whereas modern day governments Quantitive Ease billions into existence at the touch of a button, their ancient predecessors debased the currency by adding increased amounts of base metals to the coinage. The consequence of this was the same as QE; lots of inflation caused by a prior expansion of the money supply. Same as now.

So how did the Romans deal with this issue? Badly, to be honest.

Extract from The Edict on Maximum Prices

 Enter Diocletian (though hat tip to Aurelian)

Militarily, the Emperor Aurelian (270-75) put the empire back together with a series of lightening victories from East to West before he was tragically murdered (5). He started the process of dealing with inflation by producing higher value and higher worth coins not affected by debasement. However, it was his eventual successor Diocletian (284-305) who really tried to get to grips with inflation.

His most famous economic policy was the Edict on Maximum Prices of 301 where he laid down the maximum prices for over 1000 goods and services. However, like the Labour government’s Prices and Incomes policies of the 1970’s or the Tory government’s disastrous energy price cap from 2017 onwards, artificially holding down prices never works. As a wiser UK Prime Minster once said “you can’t buck the markets.”

Despite a harsh penalty for transgression (death), the price controls collapsed quickly into a heap of shut shops, food scarcity and rioting. How can businesses or agriculture survive if the input costs are higher than the costs of sale? There was also a strong element of misdirected blame in the Edicts’ preamble that labelled high prices immoral and unpatriotic and that people who sold at high prices were enemies of the Empire.

Obviously, Diocletian confused the causes of inflation with its results. The causes - debasement and a flooding of currency - were not addressed but the consequences - increased prices - were instead blamed. In the modern parlance, Diocletian claimed businesses were ‘gouging’ their customers. Yes, governments distancing themselves from the consequences of their own actions was alive and well back in ancient Rome.

But there was a second policy of Diocletian that is also relevant here; inherited jobs leading to forced labour immobility. The economic activity of the empire had reduced markedly over the dismal third century. If land was depopulated and unworked, not only did the food supplies decline but so did the tax yield. Tie people to the land and make them work in their father’s professions, then yields - both agriculturally and financially - would, in theory, go up. What was the loss of liberty for the individual if the greater good of the empire was served?

Practically speaking, the citizens of the Empire weren’t allowed to move and were compelled to follow in the footsteps of their parents for jobs. Thus if your father worked on the land, so you did too. If he was in the army, you also had to join. Ditto shopkeepers, tanners, blacksmiths, bankers etc. Arguably, this marked the beginnings of serfdom in Europe and the Middle Ages. (6) Michael Rostovtzeff, writing in 1926, put the tolerance of this loss of liberty down to a general weariness with the proceeding years of lawlessness and destruction, years where armies (internal & external) had taken crops forcefully and commerce had dried up as the Empire’s internal networks became dangerous to traverse.

“Force and violence were both the motto and the practice. Law and order were dreams. Besides, by a long evolution... the population of the Roman Empire had lost the habit of self-help and initiative, and had become accustomed to be ruled, and to be directed. It was no wonder then that in such conditions as these the residents of the Roman Empire had no force of resistance left and submitted blindly, though reluctantly, to the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine...”

— Michael Rostovtzeff The Problem of the Origin of Serfdom in the Roman Empire (1926)

So the liberty to move around and pursue one’s own course in life was severely curtailed. Life became smaller and meaner for the general population as Diocletian and his successors grappled with inflation & taxation using regressive and authoritarian means. Interestingly enough, as the population at large became less free, the fourth century emperors (though not Julian) became more remote, their courts more formal and the Emperor more unapproachable. This marked the moment when the empire switched from a Principate form of rule to what became known as The Dominate. The Emperor was no longer first among equals, he became a godlike figure. Naturally, the bureaucracy increased exponentially, as did the army. The wider elite solidified their position. Inflation didn’t affect them too much as they often managed to evade paying taxes. (7) Payment in kind - food for the army, services - was always an option in those inflated times.

So, what are the parallels - or warnings - from then to now, from the economic woes of the later Roman Empire to 2020’s style inflation?

The first point is an obvious one; don’t debase the currency. It doesn’t end well. Secondly, efforts to manipulate prices have a bad habit of failing and lead to supply issues. Thirdly, be aware of those who threaten to trade your liberty in order to meet some perceived emergency. Travel restrictions, a creeping control over freedoms and appeals to the collective over the individual are all potential signposts on the road to authoritarianism.

The Roman Crisis of the Third Century is traditionally dated 235-285. The Empire in the West lasted until 476. In the East 1453. But the Empire - of both East and West - was radically different following the crisis. It was still the Roman Empire but the compact between citizen and state had changed completely. Inflation hasten this change.

 References

1) After his death, all of these gains were later lost.

2) This of course references King Canute - proving to his courtiers in the 11th century that nature will not bend to the will of kings. "Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and the sea obey eternal laws." One might also add the eternal laws of economics. 

3) There is a sixth option which is plunder. To be fair, this was a more acceptable option back in Roman times. An equivalent today might be a special ‘one off’ tax on corporations (oil companies / pension funds / banks). Basically a fiscal raid.

4) Decline and Fall - Part One. I’m currently reading this epic tome.

4) More citizens also meant - in theory - more people to join the army, engage in civic activities sand share the responsibilities of the Empire. But taxes too. However, one of the perversities of universal citizenship was a decline in army recruitment. Previously citizenship was the reward for twenty years service in the auxiliaries. That inducement was now gone.

5) Aurelian’s achievements were legendary; all the more so due to the brief time period he achieved them. The Goths were repelled, Zenobia and the Palmyrian Empire were defeated and the East reabsorbed back into the Empire and the breakaway Gallic Empire was similarly demolished and reabsorbed. He also took the time to commission - yes you guessed it - the Aurelian walls in Rome.

6) These policies were reinforced and built on by Diocletian’s eventual successor Constantine.

7) Diocletian also reorganised the administration of the empire into more numerous but smaller districts. He split the control of taxes and administration from army command for the local governors. One consequence of this was that large local landowners were able to more easily evade taxes by bullying or ignoring these less important adminstrators.

The Third Century BC in Five Roman Battles

In which Tim continues his Roman history via five battles per century. Read about previously explored centuries and their battles here.

Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Cannae, Fabius Maximus, war elephants, the crashing together of galleys in the Med, drowned chickens; the third century was a pivotal century in the development of Rome.

At the start of the century (299BC - to be clear!) Rome was a small, but growing, Italian power. By the end of the century it was a major Mediterranean player with an overseas empire and poised to get much larger. The common theory is that Rome never sought to be an empire, it just fought one defensive war after another, each success leading to a new enemy further and further from the actual city of Rome. Maybe that theory is true, maybe not (later date: Caesar & Pompey rather argue against it) but the 3rd century BC does demonstrate how each entanglement could lead to the next.

We all know about Hannibal and his crossing of the Alps with elephants. It’s one of those basic touch points from history - a bit mythical, a bit hazy, but we all sort of know the story. The 2nd Punic War was an epic conflict, a life and death struggle that could have caused the collapse of Rome. From this period (218 to 202) we’ll take two epic battles - Cannae 216 and Zama 202.

But the wars of Hannibal are but part of the tale of the third century BC. The Battle of Telemon 225 was a significant battle that ended one question only to open another. Plagued by the troublesome Celts on their northern border, Telemon (and it’s follow up victories), removed the immediate menace of the Celts. But it also made the Celts resentful and ripe for an alliance with a certain Carthaginian general as he passed through their territory seven years later. From the killing grounds of Telemon begat the massacres of Cannae and Lake Trasimene.

Skipping over the 1st Punic War, we go back a bit further and meet another historically well remembered figure - King Pyrrus of Epirus. From this earlier part of the century, we’ll take a look at The Battle of Asculum 279 where all those pyrrhic victories started to catch up with Pyrrhus.

And starting off the century, we have Rome clearing the way to Italian dominance with The Battle of Sentinum 295 which was the decisive battle in the Third Samnite War.

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A quick word on the Roman armies of this period. This was pre-Marian reforms and so the army was made up from levies of eligible citizens who put down their ploughs for the campaign season and went off to fight for the Roman state. Each year two consuls were elected and each consul had a consular army of roughly 20,000 men made up of two Roman legions and two allied legions. The legions themselves were made up of three classes of soldiers, divided by age and experience - the hastati, principes and, the veteran triarii. Light troops the verites and the cavalry made up the rest of the army.

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The Battle of Sentinum 295

Simon de Vos - Death of Decius Mus. The Roman counsel pushes too far and is killed at The Battle of Sentinum

The Samnites were Italian rivals - a large confederation of tribes in middle Italy. As Rome grew, they tended to butt against their neighbours more and more. Three wars were fought agaionst the Samnites and Sentinum was the pivotal battle of the third and final war. Interestingly enough, although conquered, resentment continued between the two tribes which came to a head in the Social Wars two hundred years later and - following the battle of The Colline Gate - Sulla massacred 8000 Samnite prisoners as the Senate - next door but hearing the cries of the dead and dying - voted through his dictatorial powers.

Rome always prided itself that it only fought defensive wars but often acted as a provocateur - goading other states to declare war. Alarmingly, in the 290’s, they managed to provoke the Samnites into joining with three other tribes - the Etruscans, Umbrians and Senone Gauls - to take on the growing arrogance of their upstart neighbour. Consuls and proconsuls were dispatched to face this threat and two, Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius, squared up to a large army of Samnites and Gauls at Sentinum in 295.

The battle is remembered best for the sacrifice of one of the consuls - Publius Decius - seeking to rally his troops as their lines were broken by the Gauls following a failed cavalry charge. His sacrifice worked - or at least the reinforcements Quintus Fabius sent stiffened the resolve of the wavering troops - and the battle turned in Rome’s favour. Quintus outflanked the Samnites with his cavalry and they were routed leaving just the Senone who were now surrounded and destroyed.

The Samnite coalition broke up following this loss, leaving just the Samnites themselves to face the victorious Romans who prosecuted the war for a further five years before Samnite capitulation. The dominance of Italy pushed further down the peninsular.

The Battle of Asculum 279

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

And so King Pyrrhus of Epirus gave us the phrase ‘Pyrrhic Victory’ after his ‘victory’ against the Romans and allies at The Battle of Asculum 279BC. Pyrrhus is an interesting character from ancient history. He was king of Epirus, the border Greek state next to Macedonia and opposite the Italian peninsular. In the south of Italy at this time, there were many Greek cities. As we have seen, Roman power was extending down the peninsular and it was only a matter of time before the Romans and Greeks clashed.

This happened in 282BC. The cause is disputed. A Roman fleet was attacked by one such Greek city, Tarentum. Maybe. Or provoked into attacking. But it had the same effect; war between Rome and her allies and the Greek cities and their allies. One such ally came from Epirus back on the Greek mainland. The king of Epirus, Pyrrhus, crossed the narrow sea with an army organised around the phalanx, supported by war elephants and the dreams of creating an Italian empire.

Pyrrhus was a talented general - he beat the coalition of Roman led Italians at The Battle of Heraclea (280BC). He followed this up by marching on Rome itself but failed to take the city and so returned south for the winter. The two sides met again at Asculum the next year with around 40,000 troops each. Crucially, Pyrrhus’ elephants were to play a major part in the subsequent Greek victory (though the Greek coalition had now been joined by many Italians including the ever present Samnites).

The armies lined up and locked into an infantry melee whilst on the wings the elephants and cavalry fought it out. The Roman infantry was having the better of the day in the middle and all sides watched as some Daunians - Roman allies - sneaked up from behind and sacked the Greek camp. However, at this moment the elephants broke free of their blockers on either flank and started to roll up the Roman infantry from left and right.

The Roman army retreated from the field losing nearly twice as many troops as the Greeks. The Romans though could make up these losses whereas Pyrrhus and the Greeks could not. Therefore, Asculum became the archetypal Pyrrhic victory. Rome’s advance down the Italian peninsular continued.

Pyrrhus himself went off adventuring and losing in Sicily against the Carthaginians, losing to the Romans back in Italy and was finally went back to Greece itself where he was killed in some street fighting in the Peloponnese by a tile thrown on his head by a woman from her roof.

First Punic War and the Chickens

Claudius Pulcher orders the chickens over the side.

We shall skip the First Punic War (264-241) where Rome took on the might of the African Carthaginian Empire. Not that there weren’t battles a plenty with lots of noteworthy anecdotes but are limited to just five battles. The two powers fought for twenty years with battles centred around Sicily and - new for the Romans - the sea. Large sea battles were fought in the Med and Rome quickly got good at this form of warfare.

One anecdote about Publius Claudius Pulcher and the chickens needs to be told. Romans were a suspicious lot and always looking for signs of blessings from the divinities. One ritual involved examining the behaviour of the sacred chickens before a battle. Depending on how they ate the seeds laid out for them, the Romans could predict good fortune or not. Before the important naval battle of Drepana, Pulcher’s chickens refused to eat - a very bad omen. So he threw them overboard and into the sea: ‘Since they do not want to eat, let them drink!’ he apparently said - wit being important even back in ancient Rome. Obviously he then went onto catastrophically loose the oncoming battle with most of the Roman fleet annihilated. Lesson: Don’t mess with the chickens!

Telemon 225 BC

Rome was sacked in 390 BC by an army of Gauls. Subsequent generations of Romans never forgot this humiliation and so harboured a long held resentment and fear of the Celtic tribes to the north. As Rome expanded over the next one hundred and fifty years with various tribal wars and alliances, the Gauls began to fear they would be next on the hit list, especially after Rome started sending settlers into nearby lands. Deciding that attack was the best form of defence, a large confederation of Gauls from both Cisalpine Italy and France got together and started heading towards Rome in search of plunder.

But this was not the Rome of 390. Having emerged stronger and more disciplined followed the first Punic War, Rome and her allies (who also feared the Gallic invasion) fielded three large armies. One army took the fight to the Gauls’ homelands whilst the other two - under consuls for the year Gaius Regulus and Lucius Papus created, in effect, a pincer movement with the marauding Gauls trapped in between. The site of the battle was Telemon (modern Telemone) about 70 miles from Rome.

The Romans and allies outnumbered the Gauls (something like 100,000 to 70,000) and were better organised and disciplined. Some of the Gauls - like the Gaesatae - fought naked which - with arrows and spears and sling shot flying around - didn’t help much in the ensuing battle. As is often the case in ancient battles, there were in fact, two engagements, an infantry crush and a separate cavalry battle nearby. At Telemon, the Romans won the cavalry battle and so returned to the infantry battle to tip the scales for their side.

The Gauls stood and fought but 40,000 - surrounded - were massacred and 10,000 captured. The consul Regulus died in the battle but his colleague Papus didn’t and led his victorious troops into the Gaulish territories to extract revenge, plunder and lands. Further victories followed in the next couple of years and more Roman settlers were given lands previously occupied by the Gauls.

So, when Hannibal was looking for allies soon after to support his invasion of Italy, guess which bunch of dispossessed and angry tribes he found favour with?

Cannae 216, Zama 202 & The Second Punic War

“Such was the result of the battle between Hannibal and the Romans at Cannae, which was begun after the second hour of the day and ended within two hours of night-fall, and which is still famous among the Romans as a disaster, for in these few hours 50,000 of their soldiers were slain and a great many taken prisoners.” Appian - The Foreign Wars

Games of Thrones recreated Cannae as The Battle of The Bastards. Hannibal out thought and out fought two consular armies and eight legions and massacred them in this battle down in the south of the Italian peninsular. The way to Rome lay open but Hannibal inexplicably missed his opportunity being more concerned with ransoming captives than following up on his stunning victory (though it is true, Carthage perversely ignored Hannibal’s requests for more troops and money to win the war).

Hannibal had invaded Italy two years earlier by crossing the Alps with a Carthaginian army made up of many nations, many tribes. Early victories in 218 and 217 made the Romans wary of tackling Hannibal so, at Cannae, they gathered a huge army led by the two consuls to put an end to him once and for all. What happened next was that Hannibal used the sheer weight of Roman numbers against them by enveloping their army with his own troops providing no way out of the slaughter for the penned in legionaries. The Roman army was systematically annihilated with perhaps 50,000 deaths and around 20,000 taken prisoner.

Rome lost its Italian allies in the South and the majority of its fighting forces. The City mourned for 30 days, human sacrifices were reinstated to appease the gods but, ultimately, more armies were raised and Hannibal was pinned down in the bottom of Italy for the next ten years. He’d won the battle but lost the war. In fact, a young Roman survivor from Cannae, Scipio Africanus, would come back to avenge the losses on this day.

Young Scipio - bearer of a famous name - was also personally invested in the fight against the Carthaginians. Some might say that Punic War 2 became a grudge match between the Scipios and the Barcas. As the Romans fought Hannibal in Italy, a second front was being busily engaged in Spain. Early in the conflict Scipio’s father and uncle were both killed in the Iberian conflict. This was personal for Scipio and he begged the Senate to allow him to take command of the depleted and demoralised Roman forces in Spain. His confidence (arrogance even) impressed them and - with no other candidates - gave the young man charge of the army.

Scipio turned the war around, eventually driving the Carthaginians out of Spain. He now took the fight to the Africans and invaded their homeland. Hannibal, still in Italy, was recalled and the stage was set for the final showdown of the Second Punic War.

Battle of Zama 202 BC

It is rumoured that Hannibal and Scipio met in person in the land between their two huge armies before the Battle Zama. (Interestedly enough, they also met many years later at a banquet). If they did then it was an historic meeting; the two famous generals whose personal qualities and leadership summarised the Second Punic War.

At Zama, Hannibal had the larger army, Scipio had the larger cavalry forces. Hannibal used elephants which proved ineffective and even counter productive. Whilst the infantry slogged it out over many hours, pretty evenly matched, the cavalry fought at the wings with the Romans (and their Numidian allies) proving the stronger. So it was that the Roman cavalry returned at a crucial point and attacked the Carthaginians from the rear. The Carthaginian army was destroyed though Hannibal escaped. The Second Punic War was over.

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So the Third Century ended with the Romans triumphant in the Western Mediterranean. Her existential enemy for much of the century - Carthage - had been humiliated and forced to pay huge tributes as well as other harsh treaty terms. The next century would see the final defeat and destruction of Carthage.

However, more than the defeat of Carthage, the Romans had established themselves as the preeminent power on the Italian peninsular taking out the Samnites and Celts and many others. From now on, whilst there were the occasional challenges, there was only one real power in Italy.

But more than this. The third century had shown that Rome was resilient. The disaster of Cannae - so very nearly a knockout blow - had been dealt with, more armies raised and the war won. With the west secured, Rome would now increasingly look East to that other great power, Macedonia and the Greek city states. Her star was in the ascendent. At home though, things started to fall apart for the republic. That though, is in the next episode.

If you enjoyed reading about the battle of the 3rd century BC, why not try some other centuries in my Five Battles series?

Domina - TV Series Review

Uncharacteristically for me, I binged watched the first six episodes of Sky Atlantic’s Domina over the course of the last couple of nights.

The main character is Livia, wife of first Roman Emperor Augustus. For students of I, Claudius - the book or series - Livia is well known as the evil manipulating matriarch of the Julio-Claudian imperial family, forever bumping off relatives that stand in her way. Of course, Robert Graves got his dirt from Suetonius in his scurrilous Lives of the 12 Caesars (Published around 100AD).

So she’s a well known literary & TV figure already.

We haven’t had decent Roman historical drama since HBO’s Rome Series 1 and 2, years ago. The BBC did a crap series on the Roman conquest of Britain a while back but that mainly seemed to be the writer and director wanking themselves in a frenzy of self-conscious weirdness. Didn’t watch it.

Domina is a more traditional series - historical characters, rendered historically with a good grasp of the available sources. I’m currently up to about 23BC the year Augustus was very ill and the whole experiment into an imperial system could have ended.

What’s good about the series is that it shows the uncertainty and the potential for missteps as the Roman world transitioned away from the republican form of government. Too many histories tend to gloss over the transitional period of, say, 39-23BC. In retrospect, you might get the impression that Augustus’ 41 year reign was all sweetness with nary a challenge or hiccup along the way. In reality, it was very different to this.

I read Appian’s Civil Wars last year. The transition from Republic through the dictatorship of Caesar, the 2nd Triumphant, Octavian v Anthony, Actium and then the settlements of 27 and 23 BC were not smooth. Augustus could have fallen at anytime; history puts it stamp on the past but the counter factuals could have been just as easy.

So I like this series in that it shows the struggles Augustus faced in this early Imperial era. Nothing was writ in stone. He was a man. Not the god he became. And Livia was right by his side, counselling urging and plotting. She is in many ways a very ahistorical figure, modern perhaps, in that, even at the time, it was acknowledged that she impacted on the great counsels of state. Unusually for this period, Augustus took his wife’s advice.

Like any series that covers a long period of time (the first 6 episodes cover 44-23BC), the casting director faces a choice of what to do about the characters ageing. With Domina, the decision was made to have two separate casts - young actors playing Livia and Augustus, Agrippa etc and then wheeling in the older variants. This is will known and a typical device. It was initially slightly jarring however that not only did Livia change faces between episodes 2 and 3 but she also changed nationality - Kasia Smutniak may be a polygot but the character Livia goes from a posh English accent when young to a weird nondescript European mash up.

I soon got over it.

The series has the bonking and orgies you’d expect as per the HBO Rome formula. The dialogue was replete with fucks and cunts. I suppose people do talk like that but, in places, it was a little overdone and for effect rather than to convey realism (especially in the first couple of episodes). The acting in the main was good, both Livias were convincing - being both attractive (she was meant to be a reputed beauty in her day) and believably strong characters. Young Augustus was perhaps a trifle too crude and boorish. Of course Augustus was arrogant and known for his cunning and playing the long game but the enfant terrible seemed a little trite. The older version of him seems to have got it right.

Best line? Livia to two wedding guests: “I’m younger, prettier and richer than you two. You’re lucky to be invited.”

And now? Well, I face a race to get my Galla Placidia screenplay off the ground. It amazes me that this remarkable woman - 400 years after Livia - who actually held power as regent - has been totally ignored by dramatists. Especially for those looking for strong female characters. Well, tap tap tap.

For further Roman reading, click here. I also reviewed the Netflix series Barbarians about the Teutoburg massacre.

SPQR by Mary Beard - Review

SPQR ( Senatus PopulusQue Romanus meaning, for the Senate and People of Rome, the indelible banner stamped below the eagle standards of the Roman legions) is a chunky book that traces Rome from its beginnings as a bandit village in the 750’s BC through to the grant of universal citizenship across the empire by Caracalla in 212 AD. A period of nearly a thousand years. Or, as Mary Beard writes, Rome’s first millennium. As we all know, the Western Roman Empire continued for another 250 years whereas the Eastern Roman Empire - popularly now known as the Byzantium Empire - lasted for a further 1200 years until its eventual fall in 1453.

The problem with any book spanning a thousand years of history is that - no matter how large - it can only give a surface presentation of the narrative as it moves along. There’s no in depth analysis of each event. If you want that, then specialist books are what you need and that’s what I usually prefer. I get frustrated that the author is, necessarily, constrained and so has to arbitrarily choose what to include and what to leave out. That applies here (Marius and the Cimbrian War hardly get a mention for instance). However, I was gifted this book and so once I started, I needed to finish!

The first part of SPQR, covering the foundation and growth of the Republic through to its subsequent transformation under Augustus in the latter part of the 1st century BC, is episodic but essentially follows a linear narrative. The following 200 odd years, detailing the period of the ‘Principate’ emperors, feels much more rushed and thematic. The problem with this latter half of the book is the tendency to indulge in what I call ‘magpie’ historicism - selecting random examples from a wide variety of ages to justify an argument. Part of this is due to the periodic lack of sources handed down to us across the ages. Was Rome’s most thrilling period - the fall of the Republic - so famous because it marked a major turning point or because the surviving source material is so rich?

The central question of any book covering a thousand years is why Rome went from being a tribe of brigands in central Italy to a world power. The usual suspects are present in this book - the Romans’ love of adaption - in army tactics, in building, even in gods. Mary Beard advances that Rome was unique in its ability to absorb its defeated enemies, from Veii, to the Sabines, the Samnites etc, in a loose embrace so all might prosper. The Romans weren’t fussy about local gods or systems of government, they co-opted them. What however was sine qua non was the supply of manpower for wars.

As to the question whether the Romans better in battle or just able to muster more men, Mary Beard believes that - with technology the same, the largest army was predisposed to win. It’s an argument and a plausible if obvious one. There is some truth to this. For example, the Second Punic War where Hannibal, clearly the better general, could win the battles but never the war. Rome kept recruiting armies, harassing the Carthaginians and recapturing towns, in order to continue fighting even when all seemed lost. That was, until they found their own master tactician in Scipio Africanus. Another example may be the most famous if only due to the popular adage that it spawned following the Battle of Asculum. Fighting King Pyrrhus in the 270’s BC, the Romans kept losing battles but extracted unsustainable casualties on Pyrrhus, thus giving rise to the popular phrase “Pyrrhic victory”.

I think my major objection to this type of book is that it clearly comes from an academic. Nothing wrong with that, of course. However, there is hair-splitting and ‘on the one hand, but on the other’ isms that can annoy after a while. Much of the book seems to be negative; finding a popular story or commonly held piece of knowledge and then finding issues with it. It’s a tendency I like least in academics, the pursuit of the obscure in preference to the universal. At best this can advance knowledge and provide balance to a flabby prevailing narrative, at worst, it can be obscurantist and distorting. You can lose the big picture by being needlessly pedantic. In broad based books - like this - the approach can lose the narrative thrust in a welter of qualifications.

Maybe it wasn’t the book for me but then I never expected it to be. I’ve long moved beyond large overviews of the Roman world - however scholarly - and into more niche areas like Julian or Aurelian. So, if someone wants to gift me a Roman history then Josephus’ The Jewish War might be a good place to start.

A couple of factoids-

The word rostrum, for a speaker’s platform, comes from the Latin word for a ship’s ram (rostra). After the naval battle of Antium in 338bc, the victorious commander of the Roman fleet, Gaius Maenius, took the rams from six captured enemy ships and placed them on the platform in the Forum. Hence rostrum.

“They make a wasteland and call it peace,” said Calgacus, ancient British leader, as quoted by Roman historian Tacitus. An interesting quote (wasteland can be interrupted as ‘desert’ or ‘desolation’) which shows as much about Roman freedom of thought to write this down as it does a critique of Roman pacification efforts. Rome usually was magnanimous in victory, the exceptions (like Caesar’s massacre of the Tencteri and Usipetes) providing the exceptions to the rule. They wanted money, taxes, slaves, markets and manpower for the army.

ROME: The First Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim maps the Roman Empire in the first century AD through five battles)

“Varus, give me back my legions!”

So the ageing Emperor Augustus is said to have shouted, driven mad by the loss of three legions at The Battle of The Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. Quinctilus Varus was the Roman commander who led those legions into the dark German forests, never to return. This is the first battle of the first century. Rome’s devastating response following the campaigns of the aptly named Germanicus shall be my next focus as exemplified by The Battle of Idistaviso in AD 16.

The invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 merits a mention. As does the defeat of Boudicca at the Battle of Watling Street in AD 61 where Rome firmly put down her revolt. The Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83 finally consolidated Britain (minus Caledonia) into the Empire.

The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is an obvious landmark battle. The Jewish revolt was a major uprising and occurred during one of the few periods of outside instability the Roman Empire faced in the first century. Its impact is probably still felt today.

Whilst Titus was dealing with the Jewish revolt, his father Vespasian had marched on Rome to throw his laurel wreath into the ring to become Emperor. The ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ in AD 69 was the first Roman civil war in 100 years. Previously Emperors had just been assassinated, poisoned or committed suicide. This violent transfer of power though was limited to the unfortunate Emperor and his immediate supporters and didn’t lead to a full-scale civil war as had been the norm in the late Republic. Although, Rome soon came back to normalcy - and indeed the Emperors improved - this respite would be only temporary and civil wars would come back in a big way towards the end of the second century.

A note on the army itself: The Roman army of the 1st Century AD looked exactly like the Roman Army in popular imagination. They wore curved helmets protecting the back of their necks, segmented armour, carried long curved rectangular shields, held short thrusting swords and threw devastating volleys of weighted spears. A legion consisted around 5120 men divided into 10 cohorts (the 1st being double sized). There were 28 legions in Augustus’ time, later increased to 30. Auxiliaries assisted the legions (archers, calvary, skirmishers etc) and their number was around the same. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of the size of the Roman Army of this period is 300,000 men under arms.

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The first century began with Augustus in the 28th year of his principate. Unlike much of the previous century, The Roman world was pretty much at peace with itself. The civil wars were over. Augustus stealthily added nations that were protectorates - like Egypt - to the Empire avoiding outright conquering. However, his sons-in-law - Drusus and Tiberius - added Raetia (modern Switzerland). But this Caesar - unlike his famous uncle - was content to be imperator in name if not in deed.

However, one recurring trouble spot in the Empire was the Germanic tribes beyond Gaul. Could Augustus add Germania to the Empire and, if not, where was the defensive line of the empire to be drawn? It was going to be the river Elbe but - following the loss of the legions in the forests - Rome pulled back to the Rhine where it stayed for the next four hundred years.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the shock that caused this retrenchment. Three legions (plus assorted auxiliaries and camp followers) operating beyond the Rhine, were betrayed by a supposed friendly German ally, Arminius, and massacred. Arminius led Varus into the dense forest and then sprang his trap. The army was wiped out and their totemic eagles taken.

At this point in time, Rome had just 28 legions. The loss of three meant a sizeable chunk of the available forces had just disappeared. No wonder Augustus was upset. Revenge came slowly and - as was the wont at these times - through a member of the Imperial family.

Germanicus was nephew to the new Emperor Tiberius and was sent to the Rhine to sort out the mess left after Arminius’ triumph. Fighting many battles and chasing many tribes into many forests, Germanicus skirmished and harassed the Germans time after time over three years until he finally tempted them into an open pitched battle. This was at the Weser River and became the Battle of Idistaviso AD 16. The result was a massacre of the German tribes. Arminius survived only to be beaten again that same year at The Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. (He was later killed by members of his own tribe. He is still celebrated as one of the founders of the German nation. His massive 19th has century statue stands above the Teutoburg Forest to this day.)

Rome had won the conflict but Tiberius, ever cautious, withdrew Germanicus to Rome and the Empire’s frontier was settled back at the Rhine.

Julius Caesar had come across the Channel to Britain a couple of times but he never made a serious invasion attempt - he was too busy conquering Gaul. These incursions provoked a few fights, garnered some tributes and alliances, but Caesar didn’t stick around to conquer Britain. One hundred years later though, in AD 43, the unwarlike Emperor Claudius - another nephew of Tiberius - launched the invasion of Britain.

The conquest was a slow process taking over 40 years. The south of the country was relatively passive, having interacted with the Romans for years. However, the North and West and Wales proved much more difficult. Whilst the Romans were distracted subduing the Welsh tribes in AD 60, the Iceni under Boudicca rebelled back in the conquered south. The rebellion was short, violent with the rebels burning and massacring the Roman towns of St Albans, Colchester and a little town called Londinium.

The governor, Seutonius Paulinus, gathered up a force centred around one and a half legions and met Boudicca and her army somewhere along what became known later as Watling Street. He chose his battlefield well, funnelling the Britons into a narrow front. As had happened many times previously in Roman history, well-trained legions overcame a larger but undisciplined horde. The rebels were massacred - hemmed in by their own carriages - and Boudicca committed suicide not long after.

Twenty of so years later, the Romans had turned their attention to the north of Britain. Up in Scotland, the Caledonian tribes were causing problems. However, the usual rules applied; tracking a tribe into an open pitched battle was difficult and whilst traipsing around the wet and cold of Scotland, the Roman army was prey to ambushes and lightning strikes. Governor Agricola finally lured the Caledonians into battle somewhere in the mountains of Scotland (the precise site is unknown). The Battle of Mons Graupius AD 83 was unique in that the Romans won it using only their highly trained Germans auxiliaries with assistance from the cavalry.

Tacitus, who wrote the account of the battle, famously put words into mouth of the Caledonian leader, Calgacus, “They make a desolation and call it peace.” All Britain was conquered. For now.

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

Back a few years, and we have the brutal Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 part of the First Jewish-Roman war. Pompey had added Judea to the empire back in the Republican days. He’d even successfully laid siege to Jerusalem. This time though, the struggle was more bitter as a hardcore sect of rebels within the city - the Zealots - refused to surrender. As Vespasian had left for Rome, his son Titus (later emperor too) led the four legion assault on the city. Starvation, disease and the terrors of war were meted out to the inhabitants of the city, bolstered as they were by hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping the wider war. The end was a massacre:-

“They poured into the street sword in hand, slaughtering indiscriminately all they came across and burning houses with those who had fled there still inside… Since the troops had run out of victims to kill or property to loot, Caesar ordered the army to raze to the ground the whole city and the temple…” Josephus, The Jewish War (Book 6:404 / Book 7:1)

Jerusalem and its population was destroyed. This was quite a consequential siege in history.

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Read more ROME: Five Battles here.

ROME: The First Century BC in Five Battles

Everybody know the first century BC; it is, without doubt, the most well-known period from ancient Rome. Films, TV series and books all tend to focus in on this era*. And usually the timeframe of interest is just the thirty year period between 60-30BC.

The last stages of the fall of the Roman Republic - and its transformation to imperial rule - are well known; Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Octavian / Augustus, Brutus, Agrippa, Cassius… Some pretty big names - well known even now. Rightly so. There’s much to discuss. However, the century is more detailed, nuanced and action packed than just those central years. Lots more happened in the century before Jesus than Caesar crossing The Rubicon. Telling the story in just five battles is going to be difficult!

I’m dividing 100BC - 1BC into three eras. Most of the battles will, of course, come from that climatic middle thirty-year period. Can’t help that.

1) Marius and Sulla, The Social and Mithridatic Wars 100-60BC.

A confrontation between more than just two men, Marius and Sulla, this internecine struggle for the soul and power of the Republic led ultimately to the first Roman invasion of, well, er, Rome. The Battle of the Colline Gate 82BC comes from this period as Sulla marched on the capital and fought a huge battle outside the walls of the city.

Also from this period, Rome fights, defeats and then grants citizenship to its Italian allies in The Social War.

Rome defeats a slave revolt at home (you may have heard of this. Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas take on the might of the British Empire. Sorry Roman Empire) and Lucullus and Pompey fight King Mithridates over a twenty five year period and add huge swaths of the Levant to the Empire.

2) The Fall of the Republic 60-31BC. Caesar invades and conquers Gaul, returns and fights Pompey and the Senate, wins, establishes himself as dictator, is assassinated, the assassins are caught and killed by Octavian and Antony, who divide up the empire, fall out and square off. Octavian defeats Antony, becomes Emperor and changes his name to Augustus. Bye bye Republic. From this busy period we have The Battle of Carrhae 53BC - Crassus’ disastrous folly taking on the Parthans, Caesar’s triumph over the Gauls at Alesia in 52BC, Caesar defeating Pompey at Pharsalus 48 BC and the climatic battle of Actium 31BC which finishes off the civil wars.

3) The Augustian settlement - 31BC to the end of century. Augustus as primus unter pares. There were wars, there were battles. Large amounts of territory were formally added to the Empire (Egypt & Switzerland for example), but the modus operanti of empire reverted to the old Roman model - bit by bit, as circumstances dictated. Beginning of the German wars. I have selected no battles from this era. The gates of Janus - opened when Rome was at war, and they usually were, were closed three times during this period.

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Civic life in the Republic had been getting progressively worse, and more violent, over the last third of the 2nd century BC. The causes of this degradation were many; paradoxically Rome’s victories abroad - culminating in the twin victories over Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC - sowed the mauvaises herbes back at home. These, and other triumphs over the past half century, brought home too much money and too many slaves. The new funds tended to go to aristocrats who bought up the farmsteads of their countrymen, creating large estates, using slave labour to work them. Rome’s small scale agrarian economy was already disrupted by the demands placed on its citizen army who had to put down their ploughs and serve in the military, sometimes faraway and often for years at a time. So foreign success had tilted the equilibrium in Roman society between the haves and the have nots.

Marius was a nouvo homme who had held the consulship an unprecedented six times whilst fighting off the menace of The Cimbri and the Teutones at the end of the second century BC. He reformed the army, making it a paid profession and not a citizen duty. This had important ramifications for the future of the republic and, perhaps, into the Imperial era. Admittedly, the reforms stabilised and professionalised the army - making it an even more fearsome force. But they also severed a link between the army and the state. From now on, armies fought more for their general and less for Rome, with devastating results to the stability of the state. Throw in class warfare, demagogues, constant wars and the republic’s days were numbered.

Sulla - one of Marius’ ex lieutenants, came to symbolise the reactionary optimates through opposition to land reform and resentment at the increasingly bold populist interventions from the people’s tribunes. This party disdained where Rome was going, the wealth, the lack of morals, the appeal to the masses. The clash has familiar strains with one side wanting to return to the purity and stability of earlier Republican days and the other looking to reform a faltering system.

The wars between these two visions of the republic took place against the backdrop of the First Mithridatic War. Sulla - the consul at the time - was appointed to lead Rome’s army in the near east and, whilst he was away, the forces of Marius took over Rome. This happened twice. The second time provoked a full scale civil war culminating outside the walls of Rome itself at The Battle of The Colline Gate 82 BC.

Though Marius was dead by this point, his son had picked up his causes and factions. Returning from the east, Sulla rushed to Rome where the Marian party - with Etruscan and Samnite allies were holed up. The battle lasted from mid afternoon onwards and into the night. It was a bloody and confused affair taking place in front, and within, Rome. It is said that 50,000 men died that night as gradually Sulla’s forces forced their way into Rome.

The ramifications - proscriptions, the massacre of 8000 Samnite prisoners, dictatorship - were fearful. Sulla was a contradiction as a man. He took dictatorial powers only to resign them - Cincinnatus style - months later before standing himself for election. During that time he reformed the constitution, giving more power to the Senate, less to the Tribunes of the people but also making it harder for people like him to seize control. It didn’t last.

“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” Sulla.

Externally, Rome fought a long running war with Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (in modern day Turkey). The wars - there were three - lasted from 88 BC to 63 BC and took place against a backdrop of increasing violence back in Rome which worked to Mithradates advantage. The conflict started with the massacre of all Romans in the East by Mithradates and ended with his suicide - alone and defeated - as Pompey created a huge Eastern Empire (modern Turkey, Syria and the Levant). This new general-led conquest model spread. When Pompey formed the First Triumvirate with Crassus and Caesar in 59 BC, the other two were eager to replicate his successes. They had - shall we say - variable results.

Crassus first. There are three or four really large and consequential Roman defeats across the thousand or so years of the Empire. Along with Hannibal’s Cannae slaughter and, say, the wipe out of three legions at the Teutoburg Forest or Valens’ defeat at the hands of the Goths at Adrianople 378 AD, Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae 53BC was one of the largest Roman defeats ever. A poor general let his troops down.

Over on the Eastern border of the Empire, the Parthian Empire abutted the expanding Romans. Crassus was eager to take advantage of a proxy dispute with the Parthians over succession within the buffer state of Armenia. He set off to Mesopotamian with seven legions and associated auxiliaries. Many marched out. Hardly any came back. The few survivors of the battle were nearly all captured never to return.**

The legions died hard under a hail of arrows at Carrhae.

It was arrogance and stupidity that caused the Roman army under Crassus to die in such numbers. Foolishly taking a short cut across the desert, where they were vulnerable and with little cavalry support, the legions were attacked by wave after wave of horse archers and heavily armoured cataphracts. They were literally picked off. Crassus himself was killed whilst trying to parlay with the Persians. It was a total disaster and one brought about needlessly by a poor general seeking personal glory. This was not the Roman way.

However, someone else who could also be accused of putting personal aggrandisement ahead of the state’s interests, was one Gaius Julius Caesar. However, unlike Crassus, Caesar was a ruthlessly good general, able to both inspire his troops and be inspirational in battle. After his consulship in 59BC, Caesar’s reward was the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul. Most governors were happy to grow fat on the taxes of their province but not Caesar! From this springboard he spent the next eight years conquering the whole of Gaul - a massive area consisting of modern day France, Belgium and parts of Germany. He even ventured to Britain a couple of times.

The Gauls had long been a mythical foe to the Romans; they sacked Rome in 390 BC and as recent as 100BC threatened to overwhelm the Italian peninsular before being turned back by Marius. So Caesar’s victories and conquests were astounding to the Roman people. He won victory after victory throughout Gaul, rushing here and there to urge on his spread out forces suffering only the occasional reverse. The Gauls didn’t unite until it was almost too late. Finally they rallied behind Vercingetorix who massed forces and destroyed crops to starve Caesar’s troops.

Caesar pinned down Vercingetorix and 80,000 of his troops in the hilltop fortress of Alesia 52BC. He had around eleven legions under his command plus various allies. Probably around 65,000 men. He built a wall all around the hilltop fortress but, when the relief force of 250,000 Gauls turned up, he then built a second wall facing the other way. He was now besieged himself and fighting on both fronts.***

But the Romans held against frequent double sided attacks. Caesar was everywhere rallying his troops and making sure the defences held. They did. The besieging army was driven off with huge casualties and the starving Gauls in the hilltop fortress had no option but to surrender to Caesar (see main picture). Vercingetorix was sent to Rome and held in prison for five years before taking part in one of Caesar’s triumphal parades. He was then ritually throttled to death.

Gaul was conquered. Alesia was Caesar’s greatest victory.

“Then after a short interval they renewed their charge, threw their javelins and, as ordered by Caesar, quickly drew their swords. Nor indeed did the Pompeians fail to meet the occasion; they stood up to the hail of missiles and bore the onset of the legions; they kept their ranks, threw their javelins, and then resorted to their swords.”

— Caesar - The Civil War describing The Battle of Pharsalus

His term as proconsul in Gaul up, Caesar famously crossed the Rubican River into Italy, muttered something in Greek about dice, and headed off to Rome with his army. His speed and audacity caught his rivals in the Senate and Pompey by surprise. They didn’t have an army to hand and so bolted from the city and crossed the Adriatic in order to gather troops from the East. Civil war had again begun.

Caesar firstly destroyed the Senate’s forces in Spain and then, the following year followed Pompey over the Adriatic. There was an inconclusive battle at Dyrrhachium before the decisive showdown at Pharsalus in Greece. Caesar was outnumbered, his troops were starving and he’d been tactically boxed in. The smart move for the Senate forces would have been to starve him out. But they weren’t smart.

Caesar’s troops were battle hardened veterans from the long Gallic Wars whereas many of Pompey’s were raw recruits. As described by Caesar in the quote above, although outnumbered, his troops charged Pompey’s lines taking the initiative against the larger force. Pompey’s overwhelming calvary charged Caesar’s cavalry as expected but were in turn cut down by a fourth line of infantry Caesar had concealed. From there, Caesar’s forces routed Pompey’s legions and chased them and their general back to their camp. As the camp was in danger, Pompey threw off his general’s cloak and escaped through the rear gate. He crossed to Egypt where he was traitorously beheaded by Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s brother.

Following his victory at Pharsalus, Caesar spent the next couple of years tracking down the remains of the Senate party before returning to Rome as dictator for life. Which is when he was assassinated in 44BC. The next couple of years were a wearying round of civil wars and proscriptions as Antony and Octavian tracked down and defeated the assassins - Brutus and Cassius. With Lepidus, they formed the second triumvirate in 43 BC and carved up the Roman world between the three of them.

The following ten years were relatively peaceful militarily but gradually the two head triumvirs - Octavian and Antony - perhaps inevitably - fell out. They prepared huge armies for war in a winner-takes-all campaign in Greece.

Technically, Actium wasn’t the last battle of the Roman Republic. That honour goes to the Battle of Alexandria the year after in 30 BC where Octavian chased down Antony and Cleopatra. But this decisive victory off the coast of Greece made the ending inevitable and anti-climatic.

Antony was the better general. He’d proved this many times under Gabinius in the East and then Caesar in Gaul and, following the latter’s death, in the wars against the assassins. One shouldn’t get too hung up on his latter day portrayal as a lovestruck drunk who fell for Cleopatra and let her rule him. But certainly the quality of his generalship declined in the years 40-30BC. He received the East in the carve up between himself, Lepidus and Octavian following the Battle of Philippi and, as overlord, attempted without success to avenge the loss of Carrhae against the Persians.

Actium was a sea battle but it was a sea battle only because Octavian’s general, Agrippa, was using his fleet to blockade Antony’s land forces on Western coast of Greece. The Battle of Actium was Antony’s attempt to break this blockade. The forces were evenly matched - Agrippa had more ships, Antony had heavier ships. The battle went back and forth until, inexplicably, the squadron under Cleopatra made a break for it and headed off back to Egypt. Antony, transferring to a lighter and faster ship, followed, leaving his remaining forces to fend for themselves.

Agrippa’s fleet then destroyed Antony’s fleet and Antony’s army of nineteen legions (yes, 19!), left stranded without provisions in Greece, surrendered. Octavian, dealing with some troop mutinies and pirates, only followed up on this success the following year. Landing in Egypt, he easily defeated Antony’s remnants of an army. We know what happened next; Antony committed suicide, and Cleopatra, sensing Octavian wanted her as prize exhibit in a subsequent triumph through Rome, did likewise. The civil wars were over.

Octavian, became Augustus (majestic) and gradually consolidated his powers over the Roman people with the willing help of the Senate - purged, cowed and sick of war. The previous century of civil wars, proscriptions, and turmoil had taken the heart out of the Republic. Although Augustus was careful to keep up the facade of the Republic’s institutions (consuls, senate, pontiffs etc) there was no doubt who was really in charge. Augustus faced no serious challenges to this ascendency or rule.

So the first century BC was a transitional period for Rome as it moved away from hundreds of years of Republican rule to five hundred more years (or fifteen hundred including the Byzantine Empire) of quasi monarchy. Despite the internal turmoil and wars, externally, Rome consolidated her power, grew her Empire and was, by the end, much more powerful than she was at the beginning.

“I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble,” said Augustus on his deathbed. Architecturally, he may have been right, certainly many fine public buildings were built during his era. It could also - as has been pointed out - be taken metaphorically; he took chaos and brought order at the expense of liberty.

Read other Rome: In Five Battles here.

NOTES

* Or 180 AD and the hand over from Marcus Aurelius to his son Commodus - The Fall of the Roman Empire & more recently Gladiator.

** Cassius (of Caesar assassin fame) led the few forces not killed or captured back to Roman Syria. There are rumours that some of the survivors left in Mesopotamia were forced marched by the Persians to their Eastern border to man the defences against incursions. There are even stories of Roman prisoners making their way to China.

*** You should always be wary about numbers listed in ancient sources. Caesar, writing in his campaign book - The Civil Wars - probably overestimates. It was a common practice.

The First Century BC in Five Battles

The first century BC is without doubt the most well-known period from ancient Rome. Films, TV series and books all tend to focus in on this era*. And usually the timeframe of interest is just the thirty year period between 60-30BC.

The last stages of the fall of the Roman Republic - and its transformation to imperial rule - are well known; Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Octavian / Augustus, Brutus, Agrippa, Cassius… Some pretty big names - well known even now. Rightly so. There’s much to discuss. However, the century is more detailed, nuanced and action packed than just those central years. Lots more happened in the century before Jesus than Caesar crossing The Rubicon. Telling the story in just five battles is going to be difficult!

I’m dividing 100BC - 1BC into three eras. Most of the battles will, of course, come from that climatic middle thirty-year period. Can’t help that.

1) Marius and Sulla, The Social and Mithridatic Wars 100-60BC.

A confrontation between more than just two men, Marius and Sulla, this internecine struggle for the soul and power of the Republic led ultimately to the first Roman invasion of, well, er, Rome. The Battle of the Colline Gate 82BC comes from this period as Sulla marched on the capital and fought a huge battle outside the walls of the city.

Also from this period, Rome fights, defeats and then grants citizenship to its Italian allies in The Social War.

Rome defeats a slave revolt at home (you may have heard of this. Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas take on the might of the British Empire. Sorry Roman Empire) and Lucullus and Pompey fight King Mithridates over a twenty five year period and add huge swaths of the Levant to the Empire.

2) The Fall of the Republic 60-31BC. Caesar invades and conquers Gaul, returns and fights Pompey and the Senate, wins, establishes himself as dictator, is assassinated, the assassins are caught and killed by Octavian and Antony, who divide up the empire, fall out and square off. Octavian defeats Antony, becomes Emperor and changes his name to Augustus. Bye bye Republic. From this busy period we have The Battle of Carrhae 53BC - Crassus’ disastrous folly taking on the Parthans, Caesar’s triumph over the Gauls at Alesia in 52BC, Caesar defeating Pompey at Pharsalus 48 BC and the climatic battle of Actium 31BC which finishes off the civil wars.

3) The Augustian settlement - 31BC to the end of century. Augustus as primus unter pares. There were wars, there were battles. Large amounts of territory were formally added to the Empire (Egypt & Switzerland for example), but the modus operanti of empire reverted to the old Roman model - bit by bit, as circumstances dictated. Beginning of the German wars. I have selected no battles from this era. The gates of Janus - opened when Rome was at war, and they usually were, were closed three times during this period.

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Civic life in the Republic had been getting progressively worse, and more violent, over the last third of the 2nd century BC. The causes of this degradation were many; paradoxically Rome’s victories abroad - culminating in the twin victories over Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC - sowed the mauvaises herbes back at home. These, and other triumphs over the past half century, brought home too much money and too many slaves. The new funds tended to go to aristocrats who bought up the farmsteads of their countrymen, creating large estates, using slave labour to work them. Rome’s small scale agrarian economy was already disrupted by the demands placed on its citizen army who had to put down their ploughs and serve in the military, sometimes faraway and often for years at a time. So foreign success had tilted the equilibrium in Roman society between the haves and the have nots.

Marius was a nouvo homme who had held the consulship an unprecedented six times whilst fighting off the menace of The Cimbri and the Teutones at the end of the second century BC. He reformed the army, making it a paid profession and not a citizen duty. This had important ramifications for the future of the republic and, perhaps, into the Imperial era. Admittedly, the reforms stabilised and professionalised the army - making it an even more fearsome force. But they also severed a link between the army and the state. From now on, armies fought more for their general and less for Rome, with devastating results to the stability of the state. Throw in class warfare, demagogues, constant wars and the republic’s days were numbered.

Sulla - one of Marius’ ex lieutenants, came to symbolise the reactionary optimates through opposition to land reform and resentment at the increasingly bold populist interventions from the people’s tribunes. This party disdained where Rome was going, the wealth, the lack of morals, the appeal to the masses. The clash has familiar strains with one side wanting to return to the purity and stability of earlier Republican days and the other looking to reform a faltering system.

The wars between these two visions of the republic took place against the backdrop of the First Mithridatic War. Sulla - the consul at the time - was appointed to lead Rome’s army in the near east and, whilst he was away, the forces of Marius took over Rome. This happened twice. The second time provoked a full scale civil war culminating outside the walls of Rome itself at The Battle of The Colline Gate 82 BC.

Though Marius was dead by this point, his son had picked up his causes and factions. Returning from the east, Sulla rushed to Rome where the Marian party - with Etruscan and Samnite allies were holed up. The battle lasted from mid afternoon onwards and into the night. It was a bloody and confused affair taking place in front, and within, Rome. It is said that 50,000 men died that night as gradually Sulla’s forces forced their way into Rome.

The ramifications - proscriptions, the massacre of 8000 Samnite prisoners, dictatorship - were fearful. Sulla was a contradiction as a man. He took dictatorial powers only to resign them - Cincinnatus style - months later before standing himself for election. During that time he reformed the constitution, giving more power to the Senate, less to the Tribunes of the people but also making it harder for people like him to seize control. It didn’t last.

“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” Sulla.

Externally, Rome fought a long running war with Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (in modern day Turkey). The wars - there were three - lasted from 88 BC to 63 BC and took place against a backdrop of increasing violence back in Rome which worked to Mithradates advantage. The conflict started with the massacre of all Romans in the East by Mithradates and ended with his suicide - alone and defeated - as Pompey created a huge Eastern Empire (modern Turkey, Syria and the Levant). This new general-led conquest model spread. When Pompey formed the First Triumvirate with Crassus and Caesar in 59 BC, the other two were eager to replicate his successes. They had - shall we say - variable results.

Crassus first. There are three or four really large and consequential Roman defeats across the thousand or so years of the Empire. Along with Hannibal’s Cannae slaughter and, say, the wipe out of three legions at the Teutoburg Forest or Valens’ defeat at the hands of the Goths at Adrianople 378 AD, Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae 53BC was one of the largest Roman defeats ever. A poor general let his troops down.

Over on the Eastern border of the Empire, the Parthian Empire abutted the expanding Romans. Crassus was eager to take advantage of a proxy dispute with the Parthians over succession within the buffer state of Armenia. He set off to Mesopotamian with seven legions and associated auxiliaries. Many marched out. Hardly any came back. The few survivors of the battle were nearly all captured never to return.**

The legions died hard under a hail of arrows at Carrhae.

It was arrogance and stupidity that caused the Roman army under Crassus to die in such numbers. Foolishly taking a short cut across the desert, where they were vulnerable and with little cavalry support, the legions were attacked by wave after wave of horse archers and heavily armoured cataphracts. They were literally picked off. Crassus himself was killed whilst trying to parlay with the Persians. It was a total disaster and one brought about needlessly by a poor general seeking personal glory. This was not the Roman way.

However, someone else who could also be accused of putting personal aggrandisement ahead of the state’s interests, was one Gaius Julius Caesar. However, unlike Crassus, Caesar was a ruthlessly good general, able to both inspire his troops and be inspirational in battle. After his consulship in 59BC, Caesar’s reward was the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul. Most governors were happy to grow fat on the taxes of their province but not Caesar! From this springboard he spent the next eight years conquering the whole of Gaul - a massive area consisting of modern day France, Belgium and parts of Germany. He even ventured to Britain a couple of times.

The Gauls had long been a mythical foe to the Romans; they sacked Rome in 390 BC and as recent as 100BC threatened to overwhelm the Italian peninsular before being turned back by Marius. So Caesar’s victories and conquests were astounding to the Roman people. He won victory after victory throughout Gaul, rushing here and there to urge on his spread out forces suffering only the occasional reverse. The Gauls didn’t unite until it was almost too late. Finally they rallied behind Vercingetorix who massed forces and destroyed crops to starve Caesar’s troops.

Caesar pinned down Vercingetorix and 80,000 of his troops in the hilltop fortress of Alesia 52BC. He had around eleven legions under his command plus various allies. Probably around 65,000 men. He built a wall all around the hilltop fortress but, when the relief force of 250,000 Gauls turned up, he then built a second wall facing the other way. He was now besieged himself and fighting on both fronts.***

But the Romans held against frequent double sided attacks. Caesar was everywhere rallying his troops and making sure the defences held. They did. The besieging army was driven off with huge casualties and the starving Gauls in the hilltop fortress had no option but to surrender to Caesar (see main picture). Vercingetorix was sent to Rome and held in prison for five years before taking part in one of Caesar’s triumphal parades. He was then ritually throttled to death.

Gaul was conquered. Alesia was Caesar’s greatest victory.

“Then after a short interval they renewed their charge, threw their javelins and, as ordered by Caesar, quickly drew their swords. Nor indeed did the Pompeians fail to meet the occasion; they stood up to the hail of missiles and bore the onset of the legions; they kept their ranks, threw their javelins, and then resorted to their swords.”

— Caesar - The Civil War describing The Battle of Pharsalus

His term as proconsul in Gaul up, Caesar famously crossed the Rubican River into Italy, muttered something in Greek about dice, and headed off to Rome with his army. His speed and audacity caught his rivals in the Senate and Pompey by surprise. They didn’t have an army to hand and so bolted from the city and crossed the Adriatic in order to gather troops from the East. Civil war had again begun.

Caesar firstly destroyed the Senate’s forces in Spain and then, the following year followed Pompey over the Adriatic. There was an inconclusive battle at Dyrrhachium before the decisive showdown at Pharsalus in Greece. Caesar was outnumbered, his troops were starving and he’d been tactically boxed in. The smart move for the Senate forces would have been to starve him out. But they weren’t smart.

Caesar’s troops were battle hardened veterans from the long Gallic Wars whereas many of Pompey’s were raw recruits. As described by Caesar in the quote above, although outnumbered, his troops charged Pompey’s lines taking the initiative against the larger force. Pompey’s overwhelming calvary charged Caesar’s cavalry as expected but were in turn cut down by a fourth line of infantry Caesar had concealed. From there, Caesar’s forces routed Pompey’s legions and chased them and their general back to their camp. As the camp was in danger, Pompey threw off his general’s cloak and escaped through the rear gate. He crossed to Egypt where he was traitorously beheaded by Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s brother.

Following his victory at Pharsalus, Caesar spent the next couple of years tracking down the remains of the Senate party before returning to Rome as dictator for life. Which is when he was assassinated in 44BC. The next couple of years were a wearying round of civil wars and proscriptions as Antony and Octavian tracked down and defeated the assassins - Brutus and Cassius. With Lepidus, they formed the second triumvirate in 43 BC and carved up the Roman world between the three of them.

The following ten years were relatively peaceful militarily but gradually the two head triumvirs - Octavian and Antony - perhaps inevitably - fell out. They prepared huge armies for war in a winner-takes-all campaign in Greece.

Technically, Actium wasn’t the last battle of the Roman Republic. That honour goes to the Battle of Alexandria the year after in 30 BC where Octavian chased down Antony and Cleopatra. But this decisive victory off the coast of Greece made the ending inevitable and anti-climatic.

Antony was the better general. He’d proved this many times under Gabinius in the East and then Caesar in Gaul and, following the latter’s death, in the wars against the assassins. One shouldn’t get too hung up on his latter day portrayal as a lovestruck drunk who fell for Cleopatra and let her rule him. But certainly the quality of his generalship declined in the years 40-30BC. He received the East in the carve up between himself, Lepidus and Octavian following the Battle of Philippi and, as overlord, attempted without success to avenge the loss of Carrhae against the Persians.

Actium was a sea battle but it was a sea battle only because Octavian’s general, Agrippa, was using his fleet to blockade Antony’s land forces on Western coast of Greece. The Battle of Actium was Antony’s attempt to break this blockade. The forces were evenly matched - Agrippa had more ships, Antony had heavier ships. The battle went back and forth until, inexplicably, the squadron under Cleopatra made a break for it and headed off back to Egypt. Antony, transferring to a lighter and faster ship, followed, leaving his remaining forces to fend for themselves.

Agrippa’s fleet then destroyed Antony’s fleet and Antony’s army of nineteen legions (yes, 19!), left stranded without provisions in Greece, surrendered. Octavian, dealing with some troop mutinies and pirates, only followed up on this success the following year. Landing in Egypt, he easily defeated Antony’s remnants of an army. We know what happened next; Antony committed suicide, and Cleopatra, sensing Octavian wanted her as prize exhibit in a subsequent triumph through Rome, did likewise. The civil wars were over.

Octavian, became Augustus (majestic) and gradually consolidated his powers over the Roman people with the willing help of the Senate - purged, cowed and sick of war. The previous century of civil wars, proscriptions, and turmoil had taken the heart out of the Republic. Although Augustus was careful to keep up the facade of the Republic’s institutions (consuls, senate, pontiffs etc) there was no doubt who was really in charge. Augustus faced no serious challenges to this ascendency or rule.

So the first century BC was a transitional period for Rome as it moved away from hundreds of years of Republican rule to five hundred more years (or fifteen hundred including the Byzantine Empire) of quasi monarchy. Despite the internal turmoil and wars, externally, Rome consolidated her power, grew her Empire and was, by the end, much more powerful than she was at the beginning.

“I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble,” said Augustus on his deathbed. Architecturally, he may have been right, certainly many fine public buildings were built during his era. It could also - as has been pointed out - be taken metaphorically; he took chaos and brought order at the expense of liberty.

NOTES

* Or 180 AD and the hand over from Marcus Aurelius to his son Commodus - The Fall of the Roman Empire & more recently Gladiator.

** Cassius (of Caesar assassin fame) led the few forces not killed or captured back to Roman Syria. There are rumours that some of the survivors left in Mesopotamia were forced marched by the Persians to their Eastern border to man the defences against incursions. There are even stories of Roman prisoners making their way to China.

*** You should always be wary about numbers listed in ancient sources. Caesar, writing in his campaign book - The Civil Wars - probably overestimates. It was a common practice.

The crash of 33AD

In these days of no history, where everything is apparently unprecedented and has never happened before throughout humanity’s countless years on this planet, where we have reached peak morality as a species and can pronounce on the past with a lofty distain, it’s worth plucking out some embers from the smouldering fires of our collective history. Who knows? Might be instructive!

Over-leveraged financial houses, external shocks, a run on banks, shortage of credit; the financial crisis of 33AD - which shook the Roman world - had them all. Throw in a first century version of quantitive easing and the picture is complete.

The Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) is popularly remembered as a miserly old pervert whose one redeeming feature was that, whilst far worse than his predecessor Augustus, he was inestimably better than his successor, Caligula.

Tiberius, wearying of the stresses of Rome’s day-to-day administration, went off to live in Capri leaving his Praetorian enforcer Sejanus in charge back in the capital. Ambitious and unscrupulous, Sejanus arrogated so much power during his master’s absence that Tiberius had him and his allies executed. Once executed, these rich persons’ estates reverted to the Imperial Treasury. This had the concomitant affect of withdrawing large sums of money from the economy. Money was already circulating at a low level in the economy as, fiscally, Tiberius tended towards hoarding and not spending. For example, he cut back on Augustus’ lavish public building policy and avoided, if possible, costly military campaigns. He withdrew from Germania even after the revenge-spanking of Arminius at the battles of Idistaviso and Angrivarian Wall.1

But these savings came at a price. The Roman economy was pretty much a cash economy “thus, when the state ran a budget surplus (as it did under Tiberius) it caused a direct contraction of the money supply.” 2

But now we come to the proximate causes of the credit crunch…

An Egyptian banking house - Seuthe and Son- invested in some ships carrying cargoes of spices which - unfortunately for them - sank during a hurricane in the Red Sea. Think Lehman Brothers. The interconnectedness of the Roman finance world was proven back on Rome’s Via Sacra** - which was equivalent to the the ancient world’s Wall Street (with added temples and hookers). Financial houses in the capital now went bust as a result of lending to Seuthe and Son. One by one they closed up, calling in loans which caused more and more pressure on liquidity.

Timing is all in a financial crash. Two other factors - perhaps small in themselves - ratcheted up the pressure.

Firstly, this was just the moment when a longstanding edict of Tiberius’ came into force: all senators had to invest a third of their wealth in Italian land. They needed money to purchase property and so created a rush on the stricken financial houses (3) and debtors who either couldn’t or wouldn’t pay up the required capital. Secondly, a rebellion amongst the Belgae in Northern Gaul, out on the fringes of the empire, had meant those investing in that high risk but high reward area had lost their money. In the modern world, think of Argentina reneging on her debts and dragging down those eager-for-profit institutions who had lent them the money.

Demand for liquidity far exceeded supply. Rumours of instability exacerbated the fast growing crisis. Banks wouldn’t trust each other. Money was hoarded. The empire’s financial and trade worlds froze. A classic (and classical) credit crunch! Oh shit!

The relevant quaester (essentially finance minister) passed the problem onto the Senate who, long used to being ineffective, passed the problem onto Tiberius over in Capri. Taking time out from his paranoia and perversions however, Tiberius acted quickly. His response was emphatic; the liquidity crisis was to be met by a massive injection of imperial funds into the Roman financial world. Yes, quantitive easing in a toga! One hundred million sestertii from the imperial treasury was released into the banking system at zero percent rate of interest. Additionally, collateral for these loans was accepted at twice market rates which stabilised the property market and brought confidence back to the credit market.

Tiberius’ swift response - creating both liquidity and shoring up confidence in the finance markets - meant that the crisis worked itself through quickly. He was dead within four years and bequeathed his successor Caligula, a full Treasury. Caligula, did not have a problem spending money but that is another story!

The parallels with financial crashes that we may be familiar with are striking but the underlying factors - unpredictable events, state fiscal and monetary policy, financial contagion, and confidence in the system - are also well known to us. The crash of 33 AD however, is not.

I suppose that it is at this point that you would expect me to deliver a worthy homily about history repeating itself or that it rhymes or that it’s all been done before. I could but I won’t. That would be too easy and - in its way - overly trite.

What is more interesting is not the repetitive nature of history but that each age tends to believe it is unique. Each individual is of course unique and unless you believe in reincarnation, a belief in uniqueness is a forgivable fault. But still a fault when history is weighed in the aggregate. As I’ve tried to demonstrate with the crash of 33 AD, give or take a few togas and a lack of internet, the crisis wasn’t too different from our recent credit crunch of 2007/2009.

It’s not the forgetfulness that gets you, it’s the unknowing arrogance. From wars to diseases, from monetary crisis to the venality of politicians, ‘now’ is - perhaps inevitably - judged to be the only time in history these things have ever happened and so we blunder around marvelling at the wheel we’ve just reinvented. Sadly the past is not only a different country, but an increasingly forgotten place. I would argue - and do - that a little humility goes a long way and brings that rarest of all qualities - perspective.

Perspective adds depth and moderates over-reaction. From our own personal experience, we all know this to be true.

When we were young - and knew nothing and had experienced less - we carried the twin curses of ignorance and certainty. We didn’t know anything but - by God! - were we sure of our opinion. But we gradually matured as individuals, adding experience to assessment, judgement to decision. It’s part of life’s journey.

I wish we matured as a society in a similar way but, each generation is ever reborn as a teenager. Certain. Ignorant. Fated to be more wrong than right.

Next week I’ll carry this thought process into a ham-fisted look at Justinian’s reconquering of the Italian peninsula and how it was stymied by the plague. Masks are most definitely optional!

NOTES

1) Following the massacre of three legions in the Tueoburg Forest in 9 AD, the battles of Idistaviso and Angrivarian Wall by Tiberius’ nephew Germanicus, did much to restore Roman pride. Tiberius still pulled the troops back to the near side of the Rhine.

2) How Excess Government Killed Ancient Rome - Bruce Bartlett. The Cato Institute 1994

3) Ancient Rome did have a primitive banking system - though ‘banks’ and ‘banking’ is not a term they’d have recognised (though for convenience I may use these terms - the latin is argentarii). Depositors placed their money with reputable firms who, in turn, lent it out to those needing capital, principally to finance goods being shipped around the empire. The interest was set by the state (12% being the norm). These financial firms were clustered around the Forum along the Via Sacra which has been described as Rome’s Wall Street. It was also the site of many temples - temples being in ancient times often linked to banking (people deposited money there for safekeeping). To facilitate trade across the empire, banking centres were present in many other major cities across the Empire which foreshadows a modern sense of interconnectedness.

The First Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim maps the Roman Empire in the first century AD through five battles)

“Varus, give me back my legions!”

So the ageing Emperor Augustus is said to have shouted, driven mad by the loss of three legions at The Battle of The Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. Quinctilus Varus was the Roman commander who led those legions into the dark German forests, never to return. This is the first battle of the first century. Rome’s devastating response following the campaigns of the aptly named Germanicus shall be my next focus as exemplified by The Battle of Idistaviso in AD 16.

The invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 merits a mention. As does the defeat of Boudicca at the Battle of Watling Street in AD 61 where Rome firmly put down her revolt. The Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83 finally consolidated Britain (minus Caledonia) into the Empire.

The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is an obvious landmark battle. The Jewish revolt was a major uprising and occurred during one of the few periods of outside instability the Roman Empire faced in the first century. Its impact is probably still felt today.

Whilst Titus was dealing with the Jewish revolt, his father Vespasian had marched on Rome to throw his laurel wreath into the ring to become Emperor. The ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ in AD 69 was the first Roman civil war in 100 years. Previously Emperors had just been assassinated, poisoned or committed suicide. This violent transfer of power though was limited to the unfortunate Emperor and his immediate supporters and didn’t lead to a full-scale civil war as had been the norm in the late Republic. Although, Rome soon came back to normalcy - and indeed the Emperors improved - this respite would be only temporary and civil wars would come back in a big way towards the end of the second century.

A note on the army itself: The Roman army of the 1st Century AD looked exactly like the Roman Army in popular imagination. They wore curved helmets protecting the back of their necks, segmented armour, carried long curved rectangular shields, held short thrusting swords and threw devastating volleys of weighted spears. A legion consisted around 5120 men divided into 10 cohorts (the 1st being double sized). There were 28 legions in Augustus’ time, later increased to 30. Auxiliaries assisted the legions (archers, calvary, skirmishers etc) and their number was around the same. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of the size of the Roman Army of this period is 300,000 men under arms.

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The first century began with Augustus in the 28th year of his principate. Unlike much of the previous century, The Roman world was pretty much at peace with itself. The civil wars were over. Augustus stealthily added nations that were protectorates - like Egypt - to the Empire avoiding outright conquering. However, his sons-in-law - Drusus and Tiberius - added Raetia (modern Switzerland). But this Caesar - unlike his famous uncle - was content to be imperator in name if not in deed.

However, one recurring trouble spot in the Empire was the Germanic tribes beyond Gaul. Could Augustus add Germania to the Empire and, if not, where was the defensive line of the empire to be drawn? It was going to be the river Elbe but - following the loss of the legions in the forests - Rome pulled back to the Rhine where it stayed for the next four hundred years.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the shock that caused this retrenchment. Three legions (plus assorted auxiliaries and camp followers) operating beyond the Rhine, were betrayed by a supposed friendly German ally, Arminius, and massacred. Arminius led Varus into the dense forest and then sprang his trap. The army was wiped out and their totemic eagles taken.

At this point in time, Rome had just 28 legions. The loss of three meant a sizeable chunk of the available forces had just disappeared. No wonder Augustus was upset. Revenge came slowly and - as was the wont at these times - through a member of the Imperial family.

Germanicus was nephew to the new Emperor Tiberius and was sent to the Rhine to sort out the mess left after Arminius’ triumph. Fighting many battles and chasing many tribes into many forests, Germanicus skirmished and harassed the Germans time after time over three years until he finally tempted them into an open pitched battle. This was at the Weser River and became the Battle of Idistaviso AD 16. The result was a massacre of the German tribes. Arminius survived only to be beaten again that same year at The Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. (He was later killed by members of his own tribe. He is still celebrated as one of the founders of the German nation. His massive 19th has century statue stands above the Teutoburg Forest to this day.)

Rome had won the conflict but Tiberius, ever cautious, withdrew Germanicus to Rome and the Empire’s frontier was settled back at the Rhine.

Julius Caesar had come across the Channel to Britain a couple of times but he never made a serious invasion attempt - he was too busy conquering Gaul. These incursions provoked a few fights, garnered some tributes and alliances, but Caesar didn’t stick around to conquer Britain. One hundred years later though, in AD 43, the unwarlike Emperor Claudius - another nephew of Tiberius - launched the invasion of Britain.

The conquest was a slow process taking over 40 years. The south of the country was relatively passive, having interacted with the Romans for years. However, the North and West and Wales proved much more difficult. Whilst the Romans were distracted subduing the Welsh tribes in AD 60, the Iceni under Boudicca rebelled back in the conquered south. The rebellion was short, violent with the rebels burning and massacring the Roman towns of St Albans, Colchester and a little town called Londinium.

The governor, Seutonius Paulinus, gathered up a force centred around one and a half legions and met Boudicca and her army somewhere along what became known later as Watling Street. He chose his battlefield well, funnelling the Britons into a narrow front. As had happened many times previously in Roman history, well-trained legions overcame a larger but undisciplined horde. The rebels were massacred - hemmed in by their own carriages - and Boudicca committed suicide not long after.

Twenty of so years later, the Romans had turned their attention to the north of Britain. Up in Scotland, the Caledonian tribes were causing problems. However, the usual rules applied; tracking a tribe into an open pitched battle was difficult and whilst traipsing around the wet and cold of Scotland, the Roman army was prey to ambushes and lightning strikes. Governor Agricola finally lured the Caledonians into battle somewhere in the mountains of Scotland (the precise site is unknown). The Battle of Mons Graupius AD 83 was unique in that the Romans won it using only their highly trained Germans auxiliaries with assistance from the cavalry.

Tacitus, who wrote the account of the battle, famously put words into mouth of the Caledonian leader, Calgacus, “They make a desolation and call it peace.” All Britain was conquered. For now.

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

Back a few years, and we have the brutal Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 part of the First Jewish-Roman war. Pompey had added Judea to the empire back in the Republican days. He’d even successfully laid siege to Jerusalem. This time though, the struggle was more bitter as a hardcore sect of rebels within the city - the Zealots - refused to surrender. As Vespasian had left for Rome, his son Titus (later emperor too) led the four legion assault on the city. Starvation, disease and the terrors of war were meted out to the inhabitants of the city, bolstered as they were by hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping the wider war. The end was a massacre:-

“They poured into the street sword in hand, slaughtering indiscriminately all they came across and burning houses with those who had fled there still inside… Since the troops had run out of victims to kill or property to loot, Caesar ordered the army to raze to the ground the whole city and the temple…” Josephus, The Jewish War (Book 6:404 / Book 7:1)

Jerusalem and its population was destroyed. This was quite a consequential siege in history.

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SPQR by Mary Beard (Book Review)

SPQR ( Senatus PopulusQue Romanus meaning, for the Senate and People of Rome, the indelible banner stamped below the eagle standards of the Roman legions) is a chunky book that traces Rome from its beginnings as a bandit village in the 750’s BC through to the grant of universal citizenship across the empire by Caracalla in 212 AD. A period of nearly a thousand years. Or, as Mary Beard writes, Rome’s first millennium. As we all know, the Western Roman Empire continued for another 250 years whereas the Eastern Roman Empire - popularly now known as the Byzantium Empire - lasted for a further 1200 years until its eventual fall in 1453.

The problem with any book spanning a thousand years of history is that - no matter how large - it can only give a surface presentation of the narrative as it moves along. There’s no in depth analysis of each event. If you want that, then specialist books are what you need and that’s what I usually prefer. I get frustrated that the author is, necessarily, constrained and so has to arbitrarily choose what to include and what to leave out. That applies here (Marius and the Cimbrian War hardly get a mention for instance). However, I was gifted this book and so once I started, I needed to finish!

The first part of SPQR, covering the foundation and growth of the Republic through to its subsequent transformation under Augustus in the latter part of the 1st century BC, is episodic but essentially follows a linear narrative. The following 200 odd years, detailing the period of the ‘Principate’ emperors, feels much more rushed and thematic. The problem with this latter half of the book is the tendency to indulge in what I call ‘magpie’ historicism - selecting random examples from a wide variety of ages to justify an argument. Part of this is due to the periodic lack of sources handed down to us across the ages. Was Rome’s most thrilling period - the fall of the Republic - so famous because it marked a major turning point or because the surviving source material is so rich?

The central question of any book covering a thousand years is why Rome went from being a tribe of brigands in central Italy to a world power. The usual suspects are present in this book - the Romans’ love of adaption - in army tactics, in building, even in gods. Mary Beard advances that Rome was unique in its ability to absorb its defeated enemies, from Veii, to the Sabines, the Samnites etc, in a loose embrace so all might prosper. The Romans weren’t fussy about local gods or systems of government, they co-opted them. What however was sine qua non was the supply of manpower for wars.

As to the question whether the Romans better in battle or just able to muster more men, Mary Beard believes that - with technology the same, the largest army was predisposed to win. It’s an argument and a plausible if obvious one. There is some truth to this. For example, the Second Punic War where Hannibal, clearly the better general, could win the battles but never the war. Rome kept recruiting armies, harassing the Carthaginians and recapturing towns, in order to continue fighting even when all seemed lost. That was, until they found their own master tactician in Scipio Africanus. Another example may be the most famous if only due to the popular adage that it spawned following the Battle of Asculum. Fighting King Pyrrhus in the 270’s BC, the Romans kept losing battles but extracted unsustainable casualties on Pyrrhus, thus giving rise to the popular phrase “Pyrrhic victory”.

I think my major objection to this type of book is that it clearly comes from an academic. Nothing wrong with that, of course. However, there is hair-splitting and ‘on the one hand, but on the other’ isms that can annoy after a while. Much of the book seems to be negative; finding a popular story or commonly held piece of knowledge and then finding issues with it. It’s a tendency I like least in academics, the pursuit of the obscure in preference to the universal. At best this can advance knowledge and provide balance to a flabby prevailing narrative, at worst, it can be obscurantist and distorting. You can lose the big picture by being needlessly pedantic. In broad based books - like this - the approach can lose the narrative thrust in a welter of qualifications.

Maybe it wasn’t the book for me but then I never expected it to be. I’ve long moved beyond large overviews of the Roman world - however scholarly - and into more niche areas like Julian or Aurelian. So, if someone wants to gift me a Roman history then Josephus’ The Jewish War might be a good place to start.

A couple of factoids-

The word rostrum, for a speaker’s platform, comes from the Latin word for a ship’s ram (rostra). After the naval battle of Antium in 338bc, the victorious commander of the Roman fleet, Gaius Maenius, took the rams from six captured enemy ships and placed them on the platform in the Forum. Hence rostrum.

“They make a wasteland and call it peace,” said Calgacus, ancient British leader, as quoted by Roman historian Tacitus. An interesting quote (wasteland can be interrupted as ‘desert’ or ‘desolation’) which shows as much about Roman freedom of thought to write this down as it does a critique of Roman pacification efforts. Rome usually was magnanimous in victory, the exceptions (like Caesar’s massacre of the Tencteri and Usipetes) providing the exceptions to the rule. They wanted money, taxes, slaves, markets and manpower for the army.

Julian: The Great or The Apostate?

Repost from November 2016 with updates. Where Tim discusses fourth century Roman history. Note, at this time, the Empire was well used to having more than one Emperor.

The Emperor Constantius II was a right bastard. For example, the massacre of the princes - where he killed off his male relatives in Constantinople during a family gathering following the death of his father Constantine The Great in 337 - was just the sort of ‘real’ history that gives Game of Thrones legitimacy.

One nephew that survived the cull was Julian. A bookish and pious prince, he was spared because he was so young and, well, a bit of a nerd. But ten years later - following the overthrow of Western emperor Constans – cousin Constantius needed a partner to share in the burden of the imperial purple. Turning first to Gallus, Julian's older brother – who he later killed - Constantius eventually elevated Julian into the family business as Caesar of the West in 355.

Here, in Gaul, the boy became a man. After kicking some serious German butt at The Battle of Strasbourg and other conflicts, Julian became popular with his legions. Cousin Constantius became jealous and there followed lots of 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' correspondence between the two emperors until Julian marched East at the head of an army in 361. And then – miraculously - Cousin Constantius died suddenly leaving young Julian the sole master of the Roman world. What to do?

Well, what Julian did - in his brief two year reign – was turn the clock back on Christianity and attempt to re-establish the old gods. You know, get rid of all this Christian rubbish legitimised by Constantine. He also thought Persia was up for a bit of Roman steel and so marched off deep into the Sasanian Empire, never to return. Killed by a random spear, Julian left his troops miles from safety on the Euphrates and in the feeble hands of his short-lived successor Jovian.

So why do I tell the story of Julian the Apostate? 

Well, unlike his uncle Constantine (the Great), he only had 2 years to make his mark. Constantine had 31 – with the 13 years in sole charge of the Empire. Constantine changed the course of history. Julian however flamed out quickly and his successors Valentinian, Valens and Theodosius reaffirmed the Christian hegemony (give or take the odd Arian, or semi Arian, heresy). Julian was an anomaly and Western history writes that Constantine looms large whereas Julian does not.

Can one person change the course of history? Or – as in this case – a solitary spear? What if Julian had lived and reigned twenty years? Would he have quashed Christianity and reduced it into a cult, one of many, like Isis, Mithra or Sol Invictus, that bubbled around in the later Roman Empire? It’s possible that Christianity could have gone underground only to re-emerge stronger, much as it did during the persecution of Diocletian sixty years earlier. It’s impossible to say. It’s a little like powerful newspapers; do they lead opinion or merely reflect it?

What’s of interest though for those who seek parallels in history, who look for patterns to help with understanding the present day, is the theory that there are turning points – yes kings and emperors – but social, religious, military too, that alter the course of history. The trick is to spot whether events have produced a Constantine the Great or a Julian The Apostate.

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Trier - Roman Imperial Capital

Augusta Treverorum (Trier) was one of the principal cities of the later Roman Empire. During and following the period of the Tetrarchy (284 AD onwards) - when the Empire was often divided between various Augustii and their Caesars - the need for an imperial capital close to the German border was of strategic importance. Constantius I, Constantine the Great, Constantius II, Julian, Valentinian I all lived in in Trier at some point. The city has some of the best preserved Roman architecture outside Rome. I was there recently.

My hotel overlooked the Porta Nigra, one of the original 2nd Century Roman gates into the fortified city of Trier. It's a massive stone structure that guarded one of the entrances to the ancient capital. Unlike many other Roman buildings, it was saved from medieval scavengers harvesting its stone by the expedient of being converted into a church in the 11th Century. This protected it for 800 years until Napoleon ordered that it be stripped of its religious overtones and revert back to being a gate in 1804. So we still have a standing stone structure that is 1800 years old looking almost as it did when the Romans used it.

Inside the Porta Nigra

“There are many forms of defence. Sometimes it is best to allow your opponent to take the initiative, wait for an opportunity, and then lay them out with a devastating counter-punch.  

The later Roman Empire was a prime example of this. Struggling to manage the repeated waves of barbarian invasions, Rome adopted a strength-in-depth defensive strategy. The marauding hordes could pass through the lightly protected borders of the empire but, once inside, they would be trapped between frontier units and fortified cities. There they would remain until crushed by the overwhelming might of the emperor’s hastily summoned mobile field army.”  (@Tim Robson - The Betrayal of Aurelian)

A 4th century legionary - notice the mail coat, round shield, longer sword and thrusting spear. Much different from the ‘classic’ image of a Roman legionary with segmented armour, short sword and large curved shield*.

The Roman army of the 4th century was very different to the classic images of lorica segmentata wearing legionaries depicted on Trajan's column in Rome (or the movie Gladiator). It was much larger in number due to conscription, divided into frontier troops and imperial mobile armies, contained more cavalry, and the legions themselves, made up of conscripted barbarians, were reduced in size and used different equipment - longer swords and round shields for example. The Empire had switched from offence to defence. However, the army could still be a fearsome beast when commanded by a Constantine, Aurelian or Julian. But Rome was not what it once was and so other factors - other than crushing force - came into play to prevent the overrunning of the frontiers.

The cities and buildings and civic amenities (churches, ampitheatres, heating, sewers, bath houses, bridges, aqueducts) - 4th Century soft power - also played a part in subduing those who wished to enter. Trier has fine examples of all of these. Rome was not only superior in arms but look at the levels of civilisation and richness of our cities! Who but the Romans could build and live like this? Shock and awe.

Constantine's Basilica, Trier

The sheer scale of the ancient city of Augusta Treverorum astounds - Trier was an imperial city built to garrison soldiers and protect the citizenry but also house Emperors and instil awe and compliance from the local mud-hut dwelling, forest-hiding barbarians. One could only imagine their shock and astonishment as they were summoned to meet with - say - Valentinian I - and shepherded through the Porta Nigra, past bustling streets of commerce and finally into the great Emperor's presence in the Aula Palatina (now Constantine's Basilica). This palace, built around 310, is impressive even now. What must the Barbarians have thought as they shuffled uneasily, gazing up at the God-like Emperor in front of them, clad in the finest robes sat impassive on a raised dias in the apse at the far end of this mighty building? This was an Empire indeed to be revered and feared, was it not?

On your knees, barbarian, you are in the presence of the God-Emperor himself!

Wherever the Romans went you found amphitheatres and bath houses. Trier has both. Although suffering the ravages of time more than the gatehouse, they are still today impressive structures, made more interesting by the fact that both have complete underground corridors showing the inner workings of both.

Underground tunnels - for heating, for maintenance, in the Imperial Baths Trier

The Imperial baths are a MASSIVE complex (never finished). Underpinned by tunnels which provided the water - hot and cold - to the citizens as they washed, socialised and exercised. The sheer engineering feat - in the heating, the building, staggers the mind even now. It’s a large site and well worth the ridiculously low entrance fee the City of Trier charges you. My 14 year old got into everything for free. Danke!

“For those about to die, we salute you.”

But no Roman city is worthy of its name without its own colosseum. Trier’s is impressive, still bowl shaped with ruins on all sides and several underground chambers cages (for wild animals, gladiators, actors). I went on a gloriously warm day, the Mosel wine vine-yards shimmering in the distance - as they did in Roman times - but no-one can ignore the fact that although the Romans were civilised in many ways, in others, well not so much! Walking around the lower halls, underneath the arena, you get some sense of what it was like to be amongst the condemned waiting for your time as a lion’s snack or sword thrusting practice for a gladiator.

Note the vines in the background!

There’s more, much more (2nd century bridge across the Moselle anyone?), churches, squares, German architecture, food and drink (Bitburger being the local beer) but, for those of you who love seeing Roman ruins, Trier is a great place to go. Maybe try the local Mosel wine from the open air standing wine bar in the main square! Hot dogs, cakes and pretzels of course. Yum!

As JFK said: Ich bin ein Augusta Trevororumer. And that is possibly the worst pun, joke or piece of writing on this website ever. I apologise meine volk or Leute (Google translate ain’t specific here).

“Bitte ein Bit!” says Tim Robson. Reading his beer mat.

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• Image of 4th century legionary courtesy of : http://www.u3ahadrianswall.co.uk/wordpress/the-roman-army-in-britain/

Harold Wilson and the Decline of the West

“The main essentials of a successful Prime Minister are sleep and a sense of history.”

— Harold Wilson

I read history at university. I read history now.

What is the difference between the guided and autodidactic versions of myself? I guess specialism would be an obvious difference. Now, I tend to concentrate on Ancient Rome (both Republic and Imperial) whereas in the past I was more piecemeal in my choices.

As I write this, and think about my courses at university, I'm confused about what I actually studied - which periods of history were on my formal curriculum. In a way this haziness is a product of Sussex's convoluted degree structure which forced me to read Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Freud alongside my actual chosen subject. Actual history though, what do I remember? I know I studied American presidential history and wrote about Eisenhower and the Civil Rights Acts in the 1950's.

Looking through my personal reading record (yes I've kept note of every book I've read since 1982) I see that my reading whilst at university didn't support my actual degree. If I did specialise it was on recent UK and USA politics, the Wilson government of 1964-70 and maybe American post-war politics, Kennedy and Nixon being notable.

The Wilson government (Wilson, Callaghan, Healey, Jenkins, Crossman, Castle, Brown, Benn) seemed populated with giants. Giants who had served their country who meant well but were, ultimately, ineffectual. Though they did pass all the great liberalising measures - legalising divorce, homosexuality, abortion, Equal Pay - the country still seemed worse off in 1970 than it did in 1964.

So, why have I moved my locus from recent political history to the ancient world?

Tim of university days is different from Tim now. Then, I had worked in Parliament, I delivered political leaflets, supported campaigns, joined parties, engaged in politics. Now, whilst I keep up with the news, my expectations of personal involvement (apart from cryptic articles on this blog), is zero. My engagement in the political process is reduced to voting and cynicism.  

I suppose we all become disillusioned at some point.

And Rome? It's remote but foundational to that much derided concept - western civilisation. I seek answers from the beginnings, not the ephemeral. Optimates v populists, Senate v people, dictators v Senate, a common law and trading bloc across Europe, paganism v Christianity, the over-running of the Empire, stoicism; these are ideas that one can study dryly but whose resonance reverberates even now. Who can read about the Goths being allowed to cross the Danube in 376 and fail to see any parallels with today? Does one learn from history, does it repeat itself, does it rhyme or is it different each time? I don't know but I do know we've been here before.

But..

Who cares, ultimately? Wish I'd have read Law instead.

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The Roman Theatre at Lillebonne

I was in France last week. In Normandy to be precise. I'll probably write later about the CItie de la Mer in Cherbourg or Omaha Beach or Etretat but today I want to quickly mention Lillebonne.

Lillebonne is a small town near the mouth of the Seine, about 30km from Le Havre. It has a pretty well preserved Roman theatre (one might also say amphitheatre). After Caesar subjugated the Gauls in the 50's BC, Juliobona - as Lillebonne then was - grew in importance in Roman northern Gaul. 

As well as the usual forum and bath house, Juliobona sported a theatre that held an audience of around 5000. This was built by the Romans in the first century BC.

It was used for the next three centuries until the various waves of barbarian invaders gradually caused its ruin in the fifth century AD. The population by then were more concerned with fortifying the town against the marauding Goths, Huns and Franks than watching classic Greek plays or contempory satires (and yes, probably some cruelty).

So the town and the amusements declined and were left for ruins for 1500 years. And yet, here it is still!  Rediscovered in the 19th century, partially standing, the theatre rises anew reminding us yet of the power of western civilisation. But also cautions us about it's decline. When I went last week it was beautiful day, hot, humid, a late spring day full of flowers and dappled sky. The grounds are immaculately kept, you can wander around at will and gaze at the Roman' architectural skill so many years later.

And - the cost is zero. If you are in the area pop in and take a look around. There's even a Norman castle hidden behind the oaks of the town's park. This - not the subterrainean theatre - was sketched by Turner on one of his forays into Europe:-

Turner's painting of the Norman Castle LIllebonne 1832 shows the hollow beneath where the Roman Theatre would later be excravated. 

The castle still stands - a snag toothed ruin hidden from view but the star of the show now is its older cousin - the Roman Theatre.

“Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.”

— Vigil

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Whispers and Echoes

As we all know, Theodosius I was the last unified emperor of both the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire. Clearing up the mess left by Valans at Adrianople, he battled Goths, usurpers and heretics to Nicene orthodoxy in a time of tumult for the Empire. 

It was also an interesting time in the history of the early church. During Theodosius' reign, Bishop Ambrose of Milan formulated the doctrine that whilst the Emperor ruled matters temporal, the Church was in charge of matters spiritual. This was an important development in the history of Western thought. One of the Emperors' many titles was Pontiff Maximus - the highest religious office in the Roman World. By the act of giving away this authority, the later emperors allowed the church to control both religious life on earth and - more importantly - the path to salvation in the afterlife. This segregation of church and state persisted until at least the Renaissance and, arguably, through to the Bishop of Rome even now.

Ambrose was a combative sort who liked to defend the church's rights. He excommunicated Theodosius following a massacre of civilians in Thessalonica in 390. More interesting to the modern world, perhaps, was his meddling in imperial matters. A christian mob burnt down a synagogue in Callinicum, Mesopotamia and Theodosius ordered the local bishop to rebuild the temple. Ambrose argued that Theodosius should retract this as he was ordering the local bishop to act against either truth or death. 

Theodosius backed down and the synagogue in Callinicum was not rebuilt.

Today Callincum goes by its Syrian name of Raqqa. 

History is somewhat wider than living memories.

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Dating Advice from Theodosius II

Close your eyes. Picture this…

Tim arrives for a date. (Girls; linger on this image for a while. Take your time. Go on - indulge yourselves. You’re worth it!)

So, I’m showered and smelling of - I dunno - David Beckham deodorant and Obsession. Wearing jeans and jacket. Smart shoes. You lucky girl whoever you are! We do the get-a-drink thing and sit down. We talk about our day, how we got here, some random observations about the bar we're in (for it will be a bar). And then. And then.

Well apparently, there's websites out there that supply approved first date questions. If you run dry of conversation, you're supposed to throw one of these into your date to get things going. For example: -

·       Who is the biggest influence on your life?

·       What was your favourite movie / song of all time?

·       Who is your best friend and why?

·       What were you like growing up?

·       What's your goal in life right now?*

·       What's your bucket list of places to go to?

·       Blah - fucking - blah

It's rehearsed spontaneity, the wisdom of a parrot, the 'I'm mad me' humour of the unfunny. In other words, nothing - nothing would turn me off more than some lady asking me to discuss the greatest influence on my life. **

Of course, I accept that someone who reeled off some bollox question has probably put some thought into our date which in itself is charming. Or an indication that she goes on a lot of dates and is on auto-pilot. Or boring.

The point stands for blokes though too. Boring bastards with no wit but tall enough to get some girl to agree to a date. If you then rely on pre-scripted bon mots, well I’d have to put you to the sword like Stilicho in Ravenna. No mercy ladies.

This somewhat reminds me of the ‘Chechnya’ scene in Brigitte Jones where Brigitte – in order to impress upon Hugh Grant her seriousness – intones ‘But what about Chechnya’ and he responds ‘I couldn’t give a fuck’ and asks her to talk about her lesbian experiences (or just make shit up).

And the purpose of this curmudgeonly ramble? Advice to a perspective girlfriend? Advice to nervous dates that they just be themselves and let the god of wine be your guide? Perhaps, snidey bitching from life’s sidelines? Yeah, that’ll be it.

So, let me leave you with some real advice:-

No-one regrets what they did. They regret what they didn’t.

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NOTES

*Seriously – what’s my goal right now? On a date? Er, let’s think… Ooh, it’s on the tip of my tongue (like you will be in half an hour).

Was that crude? I apologise. But weakly.

** The greatest influence on my life? I would, of course, answer ‘drink’. I mean, like, doh! Exit pursued by a bear.

*** The Monday night find a husband / running club is humongous tonight. Lots of ladies. They completely outnumber the nerds trying to (get laid) get fit. If I wasn’t double their age, I’d seriously consider donning the lycra myself.

And Theodosius II? Well, he was ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire in the early 5th Century. When asked about what qualities he wanted in his future wife, he replied, "Well as long as she's good to look at." And so, that's what he got, a good-looking wife. A simple story but effectively rendered, I feel. 

Loose Ends

The Ancient Roman general Sulla twice turned his armies on Rome. Caesar just the once. Later. But who remembers Sulla? Crossing the Rubicon trumps The Battle of the Colline Gate in our collective memory. Which just goes to show that posterity goes to the those that write things down (Caesar) against those that don't (Sulla).

Yeah, a new year hasn't blunted the edge of my pretentiousness. If anything the Xmas break has sharpened it. When not overeating or drinking, I used the time to read up on the decline of the Roman Republic whilst simultaneously ploughing through the decline of the Empire four hundred years later.

I think it's called having depth. Polymathic. Or being single. Whatever.*

Which is I guess a somewhat irrelevant introduction to the real purpose of this blog - tying up loose ends. And what loose ends are these, Tim? Well, the loose ends that I left on this blog at the end of 2016. And no, by loose ends, I don't mean the lady in Quench Bar in Burgess Hill a couple of weeks ago who I never called. **

What I mean is - yawn - Christmas songs. 

Briskly - 

- Best crooner type - Frank Sinatra - The Christmas Waltz

- Best cheesy Xmas song - Last Christmas (RIP George)

- Best carol - Can't choose. I like all five. Like a contemporary school sports day - you're all winners. ***

And lo! we become 2017. Saturnalia is over, the Xmas tree packed away, novelty Santa egg cup awaiting the chill festivities yet to come. 

Let me leave you with an intimate view of Mick and Keef being surprisingly good in 2016.

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Notes (why?)

* Polymathic. Whacked it in. No spell check appeared so I guess the word exists!

** Literally cannot turn it off.

*** "Ever feel you've been cheated?"

The Great or The Apostate?

Where Tim discusses fourth century Roman history. Note, at this time, the Empire was well used to having more than one Emperor.

The Emperor Constantius II was a right bastard. The massacre of the princes - where he killed off his male relatives in Constantinople during a family gathering following the death of his father Constantine The Great in 337 - was just the sort of ‘real’ history that gives Game of Thrones legitimacy.

One nephew that survived the cull was Julian. A bookish and pious prince, he was spared because he was so young and, well, a bit of a nerd. But ten years later - following the overthrow of Western emperor Constans – cousin Constantius needed a partner to share in the burden of the imperial purple. Turning first to Gallus, Julian's older brother – who he later killed - Constantius eventually elevated Julian into the family business as Caesar of the West in 355.

Here the boy became a man. After kicking some serious German butt, Julian became popular with his legions. Cousin Constantius got jealous and there followed lots of 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' correspondence between the two emperors until Julian marched East at the head of an army in 361. And then – miraculously - Cousin Constantius died leaving young Julian the sole master of the Roman world. What to do?

Well, what Julian did - in his brief two year reign – was turn the clock back on Christianity and attempt to re-establish the old gods. You know, get rid of all this Christian rubbish legitimised by Constantine. He also thought Persia was up for a bit of Roman steel and so marched off deep into the Sasanian Empire, never to return. Killed by a random spear, Julian left his troops miles from safety on the Euphrates and in the feeble hands of his short-lived successor Jovian.

So why do I tell the story of Julian the Apostate? 

Well, unlike his uncle Constantine (the Great), he only had 2 years to make his mark. Constantine had 31 – with 13 in sole charge of the Empire. Constantine changed the course of history. Julian flamed out quickly and his successors Valentinian, Valens and Theodosius reaffirmed the Christian hegemony (give or take the odd Arian, or semi Arian, heresy). Julian was an anomaly and Western history writes that Constantine looms large whereas Julian does not.

Can one person change the course of history? Or – as in this case – a solitary spear? What if Julian had lived and reigned twenty years? Would he have quashed Christianity and reduced it into a cult, one of many, like Isis, Mithra or Sol Invictus, that bubbled around in the later Roman Empire? It’s possible that Christianity could have gone underground only to re-emerge stronger, much as it did during the persecution of Diocletian sixty years earlier. It’s impossible to say. It’s a little like powerful newspapers; do they lead opinion or merely reflect it?

What’s of interest though for those who seek parallels in history, who look for patterns to help with understanding the present day, is the theory that there are turning points – yes kings and emperors – but social, religious, military too, that alter the course of history. The trick is to spot whether events have produced a Constantine the Great or a Julian The Apostate.

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Frigidus and the Lost Battles of Britpop

There are many battles in history whose importance recedes with time.

One thinks of, randomly, The Battle of Colline Gate, the Battles of Frigidus, Poitiers, Marston Moor, Assaye, Goose Green, whatever whatever, blah blah. History is a bitch. 'Now' is all that counts. Apparently everything that happens now has never happened before. 

But what about a real battle from history: Oasis v Blur 1995?

Yes - I realise that was a dreadful segue, a shocking attempt to shoehorn some history into an article about two mid 90's Britpop English bands. Sorry.

I liked Blur from the start. Leisure's one of my favourite albums ever. I think I was one of the very few people who bought their post Leisure single Popscene in 1992. I loved Modern Life is Rubbish. Saw them at the Reading Festival 93, a festival in Brighton and then on the Sugary Tea tour late 1993 at Sussex University where Damon crowd surfed on my head (and I took the set list off the mixing desk). I was so happy when Boys and Girls made number 5 in 1994. I celebrated with them on their late 94 tour at the Event in Brighton.

But from 1994 onwards there was also this five piece combo from Manchester who played loud and wrote songs that didn't pretend to be clever - they just went for the balls. And they had a singer who had it all - the swagger of Ian Brown, the attitude of Lennon, the voice of a rock god.

The first song I ever heard from Oasis was on some free-with-the-magazine Q compilation CD. Slide Away. Wow! I mean, at last my retro tastes - Beatles, Stones, Led Zep, Who, Sex Pistols had a modern application! Oasis did loads more but I always return to this moody song from Year Zero of the Gallagher consulship.

See the video below of Oasis in 1994.

In 1995, in the great battle of the singles - Country House v Roll With It, my head said Blur but my heart was always Oasis.

Me being me, I actually bought both.

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