Caracalla and the Art of Tyranny

Yes, that really was the name of a Roman emperor... 
And yes, my sense of humor is that childish! 

Hey everyone! So I know it has been a very long time since my last post...my sincerest apologies. Or perhaps not. Because today I want to talk about one of my favorite Roman emperors, Caracalla. More importantly I will tell you why he has always been one of my favorite emperors.  Please note that he is not my absolute favorite, but he is definitely in the top five along with Augustus (easily number 1), Domitian, Trajan and, of course, Pupienus. Now, he is not in my top five because he was well-liked and successful like Augustus and Trajan and although his name is fun to say, (Car-a-cAll-a), it certainly isn't as entertaining as the name of someone else in my top five. He probably has most in common with Domitian, at least from what our sources tell us of him, but while Domitian has only recently cracked my rankings (mostly due to the caricature of him presented in the Cambridge Latin books), Caracalla has long been near the top of my list and two recent encounters with him in the British Museum and at the Archeological Museum in Naples got me thinking about him again.
Why then, you ask? What is so special about this Caracalla guy? Well, first, let's have a little bit of history, shall we? We should start by saying that Caracalla is not really his name. In fact, he was born [Lucius?] Septimius Bassianus, probably on April 4th of 186 AD, during the reign of another notorious emperor Commodus (the bad guy from Gladiator...).  In fact, it is in the chaos that followed the assassination of Commodus (not in the center of the Colosseum by Russell Crowe, but, still, a great movie!), that Caracalla's father, Septimius Severus fought his way to the throne. We are told that Caracalla was born in Gaul in one of my favorite cities, Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France) and that his nickname derives from the local hooded tunic or cloak that he was so fond of wearing and single-handedly popularized, called a "caracalla." Interestingly, however, there are not any known surviving images of the emperor actually wearing one of these. Also worth noting, this is actually the second instance of a Roman emperor getting a clothing-related nickname, as Caligula's real name was Gaius Caesar, but to avoid confusion, we usually call him by his cute-sounding moniker which means "Little Boots," a name which he acquired from his youthful habit of dressing like a soldier, boots and all.

Cartoon of the impedimenta or equipment of a Roman
soldier.  Notice his sandals, which should be called "caligae"
are actually here (somewhat improperly) called "caligulae."
Wow, I am a nerd. Anyway, that's where his Gaius Caesar's
name comes from. Image shamelessly borrowed from a great
little site about Roman soldiers to be found here.

We can imagine that Carcalla's childhood was much like that of any future Roman emperor. You know, a healthy diet of battles, gladiator fights, chariot races, treason trials... just the things to make sure that your son has the right kind of well-balanced psyche to prepare him for being the sole ruler of the ancient world's superpower. However, interestingly, that is not entirely the picture we get of Caracalla's upbringing, at least not from the Historia Augusta, a somewhat fanciful collection of biographies written long after Caracalla's death. So although it is certainly not a very trustworthy source, it is perhaps fun to hear what it has to say about his childhood:

"He himself in his boyhood was winsome and clever, respectful to his parents and courteous to his parents' friends, beloved by the people, popular with the senate, and well able to further his own interests in winning affection. Never did he seem backward in letters or slow in deeds of kindness, never miserly in largess or tardy in forgiving — at least while under his parents. For example, if ever he saw condemned criminals pitted against wild beasts, he wept or turned away his eyes, and this was more than pleasing to the people." (Historia Augusta, Life of Caracalla, 1).

It is interesting to note that, whether he was turning away or not, it does seem that the games in the arena were, of course, a perfectly normal part of his childhood. The picture from Cassius Dio, who lived through the reign of Caracalla and knew him and his father personally, seems to line up more with the man whom Gibbon famously dubbed "the common enemy of mankind":

"The sons of Severus, Antoninus [Caracalla] and Geta, feeling that they had got rid of a pedagogue, as it were, in Plautianus, now went to all lengths in their conduct. They outraged women and abused boys, they embezzled money, and made gladiators and charioteers their boon companions, emulating each other in the similarity of their deeds, but full of strife in their rivalries; for if the one attached himself to a certain faction, the other would be sure to choose the opposite side." (Cassius Dio, LXXVII.7.1-2) This last part sounds familiar as I still root for the Chicago Bears because of fraternal rivalry involving Super Bowl XX...

The so-called Severan Tondo, from Egypt ca. 200 AD,
now in Berlin, Germany.  Notice how poor Geta's face
has been obliterated from the body in the bottom left!

Anyway, later when Caracalla's father Septimius Severus died in 211 AD, he left the empire to his two sons jointly, famously instructing them to "get along with one another, spoil the soldiers, ignore everyone else." (Cassius Dio, LXXVII.15.2) Caracalla, the older brother, apparently agreed with Meatloaf that two outta three ain't bad, so while he did repeatedly increase the pay of the army at the expense of just about everyone else, he also quickly had Geta killed. But simply killing him was not enough. After the murder, Caracalla then subsequently subjected his brother to the damnatio memoriae, or the damnation of his memory, meaning all of his portraits and inscriptions had to be completely erased, leading to great family photos such as this at right.

Anyway, ol' Caracalla is not one of my favorites because of his dissolute lifestyle, his stylish hoodie, or even because he killed his brother.  Rather, Caracalla is one of my favorites because he seems to have truly understood what it meant to be a tyrant, and this especially comes through in his portraiture.  As we can see above, he looks nice enough as a child, but when he gets to be sole emperor, well, his face always looks like this:

From my trip to the Met in NY, February, 2013.

Or this...

From my trip to the British Museum in late June, 2013.

Or this...

From the Archeological Museum in Naples, late July 2013.
I know, I know... he has more hair and a sweeter beard...

Napoleon looking imperial.

Which, at least according to this passage from Dio, may have very well been just exactly what he looked like:  "...the fact being that the emperor was wont to assume a somewhat savage expression." But this is precisely why I am so fascinated by him. Ok, so let's say you are a tyrant and you love doing all the cruel things that Caracalla supposedly loved and you even love wearing a scowl on your face everyday. But this is where most tyrants go astray. When they go to get their official portraits done, the either make themselves look merely imperious, such as Henry VIII or Napoleon, or even friendly, such as Silvio Berlusconi.

Former Italian prime minister
and professional Napoleon impersonator
Silvio Berlusconi.

And ok, I see where they are coming from, and yes, they were probably more clever than Caracalla because, ultimately he didn't last all that long, only six years before he was ultimately killed by one of the very soldiers he so spoiled but, I mean, come on, you really have to be committed to the whole tyrant thing if EVERY TIME you go to get your statue done, you say to the sculptor, "No no! Make me look meaner! Heavier brow furrow! More nose wrinkles! More piercing stare!" That's dedication.

Bath, Memor and Epistemology

Magister at the "King's Bath," the best
preserved of the pools of the Roman complex

Sorry for the delay between posts! I am still trying to get caught up on my adventures in Britain while also making the most of my time here in Rome! After Stonehenge, Mirko and I made our way to Bath.  We arrived somewhat late after a slight mishap with the rental car (I took off the passenger’s side, i.e. left, door handle... nevermind...) leaving just enough time for dinner and a brief evening stroll.

The next morning we got up early and headed for the museum of the Roman Baths. This was very exciting for me because it was a place of which I had long been aware and because it figures very prominently in Unit III of the Cambridge Latin series, so I knew there would be plenty of good stuff for sharing with my students.  One of the objects I was most looking forward to seeing was the altar of Lucius Marcius Memor, the haruspex. 

A bronze model liver, presumably for 

the training of a haruspex. 

From Piacenza, Italy.

Disclaimer:  As far as I know there is 

no actual connection between haruspicy 

and the magic eight ball.

As my Latin students know well, a haruspex had the incredibly enviable job of reading the omens and predicting the future from the extracted livers of sacrificial animals.  Based on the shape, color and texture of the liver, a haruspex could supposedly tell you all sorts of things, but mostly the focus was on whether or not whatever you were planning-a battle, a discussion in the senate, a new construction-was a good idea or not. I’m not positive, but I believe the profession was only finally eliminated with the invention of the magic 8 ball--a much less bloody method that likely provides roughly the same level of accuracy.

Stone altar from Bath dedicated to the goddess Sulis
by the Roman haruspex Lucius Marcius Memor.

Anyway, I was particularly excited about this altar not only because it represents an important testimony of the spread of very specific Roman religious practices to Britain, but also because the character of Lucius Marcius Memor, who dedicated it, figures significantly in the storyline of the Cambridge Latin books.  As a practice, the Cambridge books attempt to take real people, places and things from the ancient Roman world and weave them into a believable, if entirely fabricated, continuous story in order to breathe a little more life into the learning of Latin.  

However, this can lead to confusion among the students as to where the line between fact and fiction lies. This, of course, is where the teacher intervenes.  In fact, this discussion was one of my favorite ongoing dialogues with the students this year and perhaps the most lively of these conversations centered on this person of Memor.  

The students' first introduction to Memor
in Stage 22 of Book III of the Cambridge
Latin Series.  He's the fat guy in bed shaking
off a hangover and late for work.

The reality is, this one intriguing inscription represents the entire sum of all we know about the person that was Lucius Marcius Memor. However, in the books, Memor is depicted as the drunken, obese and lazy haruspex/overseer of the baths who has to be dragged out of bed to go to work and who is all too easily talked into plotting the death of our friend Cogidubnus.  When told about this very large discrepancy between what we actually know about Memor (almost nothing) and how he is depicted in the Cambridge series, one of my students (we’ll call him Connoribus) very charmingly took up the defense of Memor’s, well, memory.  “What if the real Memor was fit, sober and hard working? That’s really not fair that the books portray him this way!”  I laugh every time I think about it because, ultimately, in the case of Lucius Marcius Memor, what does it matter?  He and all of his relatives are dead and we are never likely to know any more about him than we know now. So if Cambridge Latin wants to demonize him for the sake of making learning the Latin language a bit more lively and entertaining, what’s the harm?  

However, whether he knew it or not, Connoribus was striking at the heart of an important issue in schooling that needs to be constantly at the center of teaching and learning--epistemology.  How do we know what we know?  In an age where the first thing that comes up on a google search usually passes for “the answer,” we as teachers need to be constantly mindful that we know where the materials we teach ultimately come from (“ad fontes!” cried Luther and company) and that when we are using a tool, be it a creative story invented to make reading Latin more fun or a piece of technology, that we are constantly aware of the line between the lesson and the tool or the knowledge we want the students to acquire and the package that we give it to them in. That is a big part of why these trips are so valuable to me. Now I can tell Connoribus that I’ve actually seen the altar and, after looking closely at the inscription and the way it was carved, well, maybe he was a fat, lazy, drunk! :)

Next stop, Stonehenge!

After leaving behind Coggydubs (if that was really his name...) and his alleged palace, Mirko and I then rushed toward our next stop, Stonehenge. Although it really has very little to do with the Romans, seeing that it was on the way to our next major Roman site, Bath (Aquae Sulis), we made a slight detour. I mean, really, who can go through Wessex (land of the West Saxons) and not stop by this amazing stone age monument shrouded in mystery? I think Clark W. Griswold put it best...

But, I digress. Anyway, due to unforeseen weather and traffic delays, we arrived with only just barely enough time to visit --just under twenty minutes. Which meant that most of my burning questions would have to wait until after I had seen it. Of course, foremost among my questions was: “What did the Romans think about this mysterious place? What did they have to say about it?”

Map of Roman Britain with Aquae Sulis
and Stonehenge indicated in yellow.

Sadly, nothing. Or at least, as far as we know. That is, no mentions of the place survive in the Roman historical record. Not one. Which should be surprising considering that the Romans were in Britain for nearly 400 years and they had heavily colonized the southern part of the island. They must have been aware of it. Although it is not directly on any Roman road, it does lie just eight miles from the Roman fort at Salisbury (Sorviodunum), (which, by the way Cambridge Latin fans, would have likely been on route for Cogidubnus, Quintus and Salvius from Fishbourne to Aquae Sulis).

Stonehenge about two miles away in the background...

Furthermore, excavators have recently uncovered a relatively large Roman cemetery at Boscombe down, just five miles away from the stone circle. And finally, sitting atop a sizable hill crest, Stonehenge is visible from some distance away, as this recycled, stock “driving on the left photo” shows. Therefore, the Romans certainly knew about it.

However, this is when it is important for us to remember that less than 1% of everything written down by the Romans is extant. So they very likely did, at some point, write about Stonehenge, it merely does not survive. Also, we do have some archeological evidence that seems to show that, indeed, the Romans did visit Stonehenge. These recent excavations have turned up a handful of Roman coins and at least one piece of Roman pottery. So, at the very least, they visited it as we do.

Image of a giant placing the lintels at Stonehenge from a 

manuscript of the Roman de Brut, by Wace, who in turn 

had borrowed his tale from Geoffrey of Monmouth.  

Image shamelessly stolen from the Wikipedia article.

However, it would be about 700 years after the Romans left Britain before Stonehenge appeared in the surviving written historical record. The first known textual reference is in Henry of Huntingdon, one of the first great historians of Norman England, who briefly refers to the spot in his medieval Latin chronicle. Sadly, I have not been able to find the Latin quotation because not one of the articles cites the chapter and verse of Henry's chronicle (tsk, tsk), and despite about an hour of painstakingly manually perusing a pdf of the Latin text, I was unable to locate it. So for now, you all will have to settle for an English translation. I know, I’m sad too. :(

“Stanenges, where stones of wonderful size have been erected after the manner of doorways, so that doorway appears to have been raised upon doorway; and no one can conceive how such great stones have been so raised aloft, or why they were built there.” (From the English Heritage website).

The next writer to have taken on Stonehenge was the incredibly inventive Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Latin history entitled Historia Regum Britanniae. It is to Geoffrey and his fantastical imagination that we owe the King Arthur stories. In fact, Geoffrey would have us believe that Stonehenge was built by Merlin and that Arthur’s grandfather and father were both buried there, among many other creative lies!

Drawing of stonehenge as a Roman temple
of Caelus from a 17th century manuscript.

Legends of its construction by giants, Merlin, Arthur, and even the devil continued to be told up into early modern times, but then, the site slowly became the subject of increasingly frequent inquiries by antiquarians.  These men were basically proto-historian/archeologists in the 16th through 19th centuries who, in a manner not much different than Geoffrey of Monmouth, often relied on their own ideas and imagination as much as fact or evidence. From their “research,” came one popular early theory that suggested that Stonehenge was actually a Roman built temple to the the sky!

While modern research has demonstrated the absurdity of the Merlin story and theories involving the Romans, much mystery still surrounds the site as to when it was built, by whom and, probably most importantly, why. It certainly seems to have something to with astronomy and astrological observations, but beyond that, we simply don't know. As usual, I’m sure that I’m leaving you with just as many questions as answers, but that’s what’s fun about this, right?!? So feel free to do your own research and leave your thoughts below, just whatever you do, don't cite Giorgio Tsoukalos as a source! And before we leave it behind, enjoy some silly photos of me and Mirko during our rainy visit to Stonehenge!

Photo for my debut solo album of 90's grunge covers...

Mirko approves.

First Stop: Coggydubs' Palace at Fishbourne

A map of Roman Britain.  Noviomagus, or modern 

Chichester, is on the southern coast,  southwest of 

Londinium. Fishbourne was just west of Noviomagus.

So after an interminable Odyssey to get the car and some musings on why people drive where, Mirko and I arrived at our first stop, Fishbourne Roman Palace, near modern Chichester in the southern most part of England.  To the Romans, Chichester was called "Noviomagus" and it was the site of both some of the earliest Roman buildings in England during the invasion under Claudius in 43 AD and, later, possibly home to one of the supporting characters of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC), Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus (Coggydubs to me and my students).  As such, the palace served as the setting for Stages 15, 16 and 21 in the CLC books.

Hypocausts or heating system of one of the rooms of the
Roman palace at Fishbourne.

Due to the misadventures of getting the car, we only had about 30 minutes to explore the whole site.  It really wasn't nearly enough time, but we did get a good overview of the site and we could begin to understand its incredible size and complexity.  We also got to see some fantastic hypocausts (or Roman heating systems), some mosaics and we had just enough time to grab a book and some trinkets in the bookshop.

"Dolphin mosaic" from the Palace.
Features Cupid riding a dolphin

However, the most interesting aspect of the visit for me was that I suddenly found myself asking some of the very same questions that my students often ask me about the people, places and things which appear in the Cambridge Latin books.  How much of the stories are real?  How do we know?  What qualifies as evidence or proof?

Well, now that I'm settled in Rome, I finally have had some time to start reading the book I had hurriedly purchased in Fishbourne.  It turns out that this palace only may have belonged to Cogidubnus.  In fact, there is no hard evidence to say that it did, only some pieces of circumstantial evidence which one of the leading experts on the site has strung together to form a hypothesis.  More shocking than this is that many argue that the king's name might not have even been Cogidubnus, but rather Togidubnus! Finally, another archeologist has recently attacked the theory that Cogidubnus was the owner and has instead suggested that, due to architectural and aesthetic similarities with the Emperor Domitian's Domus Augustana in Rome, it was more likely built as late as the 90s AD, undoubtedly after the death of Cogidubnus.

So does that make everything that Cambridge Latin has told us about Coggydubs and his sweet palace a lie???  Well, not exactly.  First of all, as I have talked about with my students many times, the stories in the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) are just that, stories contrived to help us learn to read Latin but based in the real culture in order to help us gain more cultural awareness as we transition toward classical texts towards the end of the series.  So as always, the books have taken some real people and real places and have woven them into a plausible, if not fully authentic, tale.  So keeping that in mind, let's take a look at what we do actually know about these people and places before we move on...

First of all, as I mentioned there is an ongoing debate about who really built and owned the palace.  In fact, the wikipedia article on the Fishbourne Roman Palace is actually very good, full of cited sources and presenting well both sides of the argument, so it's definitely worth checking out.  But don't stop there!  The website Roman Britain has an interesting entry on the palace and something called Wikimapia will help you explore the area from satellite views.

Original stone inscription found in Chichester in 1723.

Now about his name.  Was it Cogidubnus?  Or Cogidumnus?  Or Togidumnus?  Or Togidubnus?  We simply don't know!  The best evidence for his name is the inscription that was found in nearby Chichester (Noviomagus) in 1723, seen in the picture here and reproduced in the drawing below.  It came from a temple the king had built to Neptune and Minerva and so is evidence that he certainly seemed to want to fit in with the newly arrived Romans.

Recreation of the inscription with postulated missing letters.

In it, as you can see, the left side of the inscription is missing, as well as a few other pieces in the middle and on the right.  While most of those other letters are easy enough to guess at, the very letter we need--the first letter of the king's name--is missing!!  Argh!!  So why do some people say Cogidubnus and others Togidubnus?  Well, our only other historical source for this guy, believe it or not, is a passing reference in the Roman historian Tacitus' book about his father-in-law, your friend and mine, Gnaeus Iulius Agricola.  In it, Tacitus refers to a king who had been very loyal to the Romans in general and Vespasian and the Flavian emperors named "Cogidumnus" in all but one of the manuscripts where he is called "Togidumnus."

Folio from the 9th Century manuscript
of Tacitus' Agricola.

So which is it?  Well, without dragging this out too much further, remember that basically all the ancient Roman books that we have come down to us through medieval manuscripts which were copied and recopied by hand throughout the centuries.  Therefore, it is not uncommon for slight variations in spelling and even grammar to occur in one or more manuscripts.  However, just because most of the manuscripts have his name start with C and only one has it start with T, doesn't necessarily mean that Cogidumnus must be the correct spelling.  It's possible that all the "C" manuscripts derive from one common ancestor where the mistake was first made.  Without knowing the history of the transmission of manuscripts of Tacitus, we cannot really even make a guess at this.  That sounds like a great summer project for someone, but sadly I have so much else to read and write!!

So how about you?  What do you think?  Cogidubnus or Togidumnus?  And did he live at Fishbourne?  Or did the palace belong to someone else?  Do some research of your own and feel free to comment below!!

Note:  I have just learned how to include hyperlinks, so there are plenty of clickable words above that will take you to some cool sites for more information on some of these topics!

Litterae e Britannia...

Salvete omnes!

So this is my first attempt at blogging and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I hope that it will improve as I go!  My main goal is to keep my students up to date on all of my Roman-themed adventures this summer, but if I can also obtain the secondary goal of making my friends and colleagues jealous, I shall consider it a resounding success!

So after arriving in London early on Wednesday 26th and catching up with my friends Tiziana (who lives in London and has been hosting us) and Mirko (who just so happens to be the lead singer of Italy's number 1 Muse cover band, Bemuse) we rested up before hitting the road for some adventures in Roman Britain the next day.

Thursday began as a comedy of errors as Mirko and I seemed to bungle every step of our journey.  Even just getting to the right place to pick up our rental car was a Herculean task.  Then we had to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road, which is much more challenging than it looks.

Mirko driving on the right with Stonehenge in the distance...

This, of course, got me thinking... how did this happen?  Why does most of the world drive on one side and the British (and many of their former colonies) drive on the other?  As with most questions like this, there does not seem to be a clear, definitive answer and, as usual, searching the internet turns up more half truths and speculation-stated-as-fact than hard answers.  However, I did find some nice nuanced reporting on the blog of a certain Brian Lucas who has at least systematically and intelligently considered many different situations and vehicles.  Check out his findings here:  http://brianlucas.ca/roadside/.

Of course, we are concerned about the Romans.  What did they do?  Lucas feels fairly certain that the Romans drove on the left and he cites three pieces of evidence.  First, a report that an excavation of a Roman road at an ancient mine near Swindon in England revealed that the tracks on the right hand side of the road heading to the mine were deeper than those on the left.  This is taken as evidence that the tracks on the right must have been made by heavier carts leaving the mine, and therefore, "the Romans must have driven on the left--at least at this particular site."  However, in an admittedly quick Google search, I have not been able to uncover any viable links to this research.

Next, he says that someone named Robert Pease has seen a coin which shows Roman horsemen crossing each other right shoulder to right shoulder--again, signifying left side of the road driving.  However, again, I was unable to uncover any such image.  But, when looking at the images of Roman coins that did come up, I began to have my own thoughts about the matter.  All the Roman coins of horsemen which I could find always seemed to show the lead horse in the background.

Roman Republican era coin, ca. late 3rd, early 2nd Century BCE.

This, of course, could simply be for reasons of design--presumably the rider and the horses head are more interesting to look at than his hindquarters--but, if it does represent how they would ride, then driving on the left would make more sense, since you most likely would want the lead horse to stay to the outside leaving space for the others to fall in behind him.  If these horsemen were driving on the right, then the lead horseman could be stuck in the middle of the road with nowhere to go when encountering oncoming traffic.  Also, there is the idea that being on the left is more practical for mounting and dismounting, which, as my horseback riding instructor also told me and as was written about by the ancient Greek author Xenophon (in The Art of Horsemanship), is basically universally from the left.  If you mount and dismount from the left, you probably want to mount and dismount from off of the road, rather than in the middle of it...

However, just when if feels like we are getting somewhere, I was sitting at the Circus Maximus when I had a thought... haven't I seen images of chariot races?? Which way are they going?  Now, of course, you don't have two way traffic in chariot races, but the direction of the races might give us some clue.  In fact, a quick review of some images from all over the Roman world revealed what I had already suspected--Roman chariot races ran counter-clockwise.

While this does not prove anything, it may be evidence supporting an idea that, like us, the Romans would run their races counterclockwise to match the wide left turns of their everyday driving.  (Auto races in left-side driving Britain, in fact, typically run clockwise!).

Well, unfortunately, it looks like we're not able to solve this particular question at this time, but it's certainly fun to think about.  What do you think?  Leave a comment below and weigh in on this intriguing conundrum!