Ancient Rome Refocused

By Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Created between 1622-1625, Marble

I like to talk to you about a statue that I saw when I was in Rome. But first…

The Myth: The God Apollo sees Eros, the Greek god of love playing with his arrows and laughs at the young man pretending to be a warrior.  Those of you that want to substitute the Roman Cupid in for this part, are free do so.  Cupid/Eros claims to be the most powerful, and takes his arrow and hits Apollo with a golden arrow, sending him reeling into the state of love (and doomed to fall in love with the first woman he sees).  The unfortunate victim is Daphne, a nymph and daughter to the River God Peneus.   Daphne has been pierced with an iron arrow that makes her invulnerable to the entreaties of love.   Apollo soon drives her crazy with his constant attentions.    Being a god, he can be everywhere, and as you know having an unwanted suitor that won’t leave you alone can drive you CRAZY.  Not wanting his attentions she tries to flee.  Soon Apollo is chasing her, and she cries out to her Father to save her (even though he would love to have some grandchildren).  Peneus then turns his daughter into a laurel tree.  See how her legs are turning into bark.  Notice how leaves are appearing in her hair, and how her arms are becoming the branches of a tree.  Soon she is transformed, and at peace from his constant attentions.  Of course, Apollo is still in love, and claims the tree “sacred.”
End.

This statue is very pretty, from a distance.  Let’s take a closer look at the faces. 

What is this statue really about?    

Look at the terror on Daphne’s face.

This statue is titled Apollo and Daphne, but it is the wrong title.  It is not about Apollo at all.  It could be called Lust or something more sinister The Stalker.    Apollo is blank, unconcerned with her terror.  Daphne was transformed into bark, a symbolic magical act to indicate the ‘hardness’ to his entreaties.  His ardor turned her into bark, beyond anything of the flesh.   Is this really a story of the power of love?  Are we really talking about love at all?   This is fixation, unrelenting and insane.

The work by Bernini is beautiful.  If you are lucky enough to view it in person it will take your breath away.  Bernini is a master.  But what we are viewing is a crime (Terror in marble), like the constant news reports of the stalker that could not take accept the word…”no”.

We can say, “poor Apollo” but what of Daphne?

You were recruited by something as simple as a survey that was on a blog site.  You answered 12 questions, and six weeks later you were contacted by a man representing a group of scientists who have found a way to send a person back in time to ancient Rome around 51 B.C..

 For the last year you have been the center of attention.  This whirlwind has been class after class on ancient history, social habits of the time, and classical thought.  There was even a class on how to fight with sword and shield, given by a Olympic Gold Medal winner in the sport of fencing. 

 She tells you that if you don’t practice, you will “die.”

The day came for you to depart.  To your surprise the time machine is at the bottom of the gymnasium, almost three levels underneath the pool.  It took three doors to get past security, and you find yourself in a room filled with various electronic devices, computers screens rolling with  continuous computations, and cameras all pointing to a single spot upon the floor.   You glance at one sole professor who stands at a black board scribbling white dusty mathematical symbols, and think to yourself that he is an anachronism.

But you realize that so are you… 

You approach the dark recess in the floor.  They have told you it is a miniature black hole punctured in the fabric of reality.  Wind shoots up through it , intermixed what smells like the dust of ages gone past.  You can smell the sea of  Actium, the deserts surrounding Alexandria during the time of Cleopatra,  and you can hear faint sounds of panicked voices  as they flee the armies of Augustus.

You look back at your audience that gives you a thumbs up like you are an astronaut taking the final walk to the space capsule.

You take a deep breath…and jump into the unknown.  Yes, the unknown.  History has been a guess so far, the writings trusted to the accounts of others.  You will be the first to see it first hand.   

The fall takes the breath out of you.  You molecules are deconstructed and constructed in an instant upon a flat ground on a starry night.  You can see very little, so you go to sleep.

The next morning you wake up and four men look down at you.  They hold chains.  Behind them are 20 men, their necks bound in slave collars.  You stand up and they immediately pull you into line, binding your wrists.  Why not?  You are alone.  You have no protection, and there is no one to speak for you.  In just 8 hours you have become a slave.  

For some reason you remember a Latin quote that a professor was fond of saying as he tried to teach you some useful phrases.   

“Cogita ante Salis.”  

[Think before you leap.]

The next podcast is titled: Time Travel is Easy, History is Hard. 

Episode Two of the Ancient Rome Refocused Series will explore the difficulties of living in 51 B.C.

Look to see it on itunes and Hipcast in the coming weeks.

THE TIME TRAVELER SURVEY↔

(Directions: Please answer the following questions.  These will test your ability and temperment for living in the time period of 51 B.C.   Some are multiple choice and some questions will ask you to type in your answers.   Immediate feedback is not provided, but the time travel committee will share the data collected in a future post.  Good luck…the past awaits.) 

THE SURVEY IS CLOSED.   The Museum of the Antiquities Project is reviewing the results.  A post will be made declaring the results and some suggestions on what the answers mean.  Keep an eye on this blog for the results.

Rob Cain, Curator

This musical piece Pines of the Appian Way was recommended to me by a friend of mine named Dan Merriman.  I am not a musician, but Dan knew my interest in Ancient Rome and thought this might interest me.  Dan in his spare time is a member of a local orchestra and plays one ‘mean’ trombone, and on the subject of music (and assorted other subjects) is very knowledgable.  He was kind enough to recommend the piece to me, after hearing me rambling on about my blog site. 

Music has the power to transport the listener, and though I am still working on that time machine…I have relied on such soundtracks as the music of Ben Hur and Cleopatra to fill in my imagination, and put my head in the right place to think about the past.  The piece, Pines of the Appian Way was written by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi.   He is known for his orchestral Roman trilogy: Fontane di Roma, Pini di Roma, and Feste Romane. 

Tell me upon listening to this that you can not visualize a Roman legion marching along the Appian Way.   Tell me you can’t taste the  morning air, and see the intense green of the pine trees as the sun rises in the distance.  There is a slow pace at the beginning, sort of like a legion tramping along in the early morning surrounded by dense forest.  As it reaches the end of its journey the sound of trumpets herald a moment of coming home. 

I have experience this just a couple of times in my life, marching through a forest with a platoon and finally seeing the front gate of the fort where I knew it was time to rest. 

I have found a concert by Herbert Von Karajan on YOU TUBE.  

If there is a piece of music that transports you to another time and place, please share it with us here on the blog.  

What music sends you to the early beginnings of empire, or to some ancient civilization? 

Pines of the Appian Way was something totally new for me.  Thanks Dan!

Either watch it here, or go to the link provided and see more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqasTguizM

This blog entry is a partial transcript of Episode One.  (Available on itunes, Hipcast and Podcast Alley).

I promise you I will not recite dates or who said what to whom.  On this podcast there will no term or thesis papers read out for your approval.  THIS IS NOT A COLLEGE COURSE.  Hopefully you are reading this because , like me, you have a fascination with Ancient Rome.

What I plan to do is explore Ancient Rome while keeping a firm footing in the ‘now.’  That means we will be making plenty of comparisons between then and now.  For example we will look at movies, art, drama, and government and how each has been inspired by the Romans.

On this podcast we can just as easily talk about the HBO series Rome, interview an author, discuss an archelogical dig, or even go “live” to a gladiatorial reenactment.  I will also welcome suggestions from you for future podcasts.

HISTORY FOR THE BRAVE!  It isn’t all in well swept libraries or between the covers of a book.  Sometimes you have to go out and get dirty to find the truth.  (Note*…the photo to the left I had to share with you.  If there is anything that illustrates digging up pieces of the past, this is it.  Imagine finding this in your backyard staring back up at you?)

What we know about the Romans comes from dirty artifacts, dust covered antiquities, histories painstakenly copied by Muslims to be picked up later by curious Christians (yes, many great western works were saved by Muslim scholars).  History comes from poetry, plays, letters, and accounts of wine shipments on yellowed parchment. It also comes from TV news reports of amphoraes (containers) of wine laid out upon the ocean floor, burial crypts, and even letters found underneath a staircase from a Roman Soldiers that missed his home in Alexandria (this story was on NPR).  All of these things have been found one time or another unearthed or lifted out from the bottom of the ocean.  Even discarded poems by a famous Greek poet was found in an ancient garbage pile.

(Note* Simonides, 550-460 B.C.,  poems found in a trash pile near the Egyptian City of Oxyrrnyncus.)

The past comes to us through pieces — often broken pieces and we have to put it together like a jigsaw puzzle in hopes of learning something about the past.  

At my Mother’s house is a carved relief of Henry of Fifth and his knights before the battle of Agincourt.

(Note*  The battle of Agincourt was an English victory over a larger French Army in the Hundred Years’ War.  It took place on Saint Crispin’s Day on Friday, 25 October 1415.)

They march from left to right, in a column, their tunics and flags brightly painted in gold, reds and greens.  The knights are upon their horses attended by their squires.  I found it in a shop in Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare’s hometown).  I stared at it in the shop, totally entranced by its beauty, literally stood there for ten minutes before the owner walked up behind me to whisper: “It’s beautiful, isn’t it.”   And it was, three pieces of ceramic, taken from a mold of a relief found in a medieval church.

Back in the states I asked my Father for help in hanging it on the wall.  Traveling with the Army I had few places to call my own, so I asked to hang it in my parents’ house over the fireplace.  It was placed in a gold frame with a light on top, like something you might find in a museum.  This made it even heavier and trying to hang it up was even more impossible.  After dad had placed a nail into the wall, to hang a hook, we had trouble finding the exact spot where it needed to catch on the wall.  Not only was it terrible top heavy but we couldn’t find the hook.  If you ever hung a picture on a wall you know what I am talking about.  Eventually, he thought he had found the spot and he slowly relaxed his grip thinking it was secure, but rather than staying on the wall it slipped from his hands and crashed down on the fireplace counter with a loud bang.

My Dad’s face dropped.

“Rob,” he said.  “I think it cracked.”  From his voice I knew it was worse than that.

It had shattered.   Without the frame it would have been in pieces.  At first I was horrified, but somehow it looked wonderful.  The cracks had aged it, making it look like I had dug it up on an archaelogical dig, or stolen it from a cathedral in Europe. 

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “It looks great.”

The Agincourt scene still hangs on that wall, above the fireplace and occasionally on Christmas my sister Candace decorates it with ivy and Christmas lights. 

My point in telling you this story is that  HISTORY COMES IN PIECES.   We have to take those pieces and view them in historical context.  This is where we try to understand the past by looking at the facts and  circumstances that surround the situation or event.

I believe more often than not, we frame history in the context of the modern day.

We can’t help it.  We are biased by the times we live in.  It’s who we are, and how we see the past.

Now, why did we title this podcast: “What did the Romans ever do for us?”

One answer comes from the irreverent English comedy group, Monty Python in their movie:

The Life of Brian.

(Note*  In the movie some Judian revolutionaries are sitting around complaining about the Romans.  The head of the group asks the question: “What did the Romans ever do for us?”  He then receives many answers from the group.  The last line is as follows:

Reg: “But aside from the sanitation, education, medicine, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what did the Romans ever do for us?

There is silence for a moment until a voice pipes up:  “Peace?”)

The skit from The Life of Brian looked at the occupation of the holy land during the time of Christ.  To get the humor one must not only listen to the punch lines, but pay attention to the individuals performing the skit.

I don’t mean their names, such as Michael Palin, Terry Jones, John Cleese, and Eric Idle, but the fact that they are BRITISH.

If this skit was performed by a Japanese comedy troupe it would still be — with the proper translation — a funny skit, but not half as funny as the fact that the skit is being performed by the sons and grandsons of the people who ruled what was known as the British Empire.

The skit is not about the Romans at all, but is about themselves as a people.

My Mother figured it out.  She was born in Maidenhead, England and came to the United States in the late 1920s.   This was a no brainer for her.  One Saturday Afternoon I went to see the movie and dropped by later to tell her about it.

The following are her exact words.

“You could say that about the British in all the countries they were in during the Empire.”

 She picked up on it because when she was a little girl, the British Empire still existed.   The Monty Python Troupe used the Romans to hold a mirror up to themselves. 

For a civilization like the Romans to have flowered so greatly, only to end by the press of barbarians — (at least one of the arguments) — inspired the English historian Gibbon to write: THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

And for a city like Pompeii to end in an instant due to volcanic ash inspired Charles Dickens to write in a letter:

“Stand at the bottom of the Great market place of Pompeii, and look up at the silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis…away to Mount Vesuvius — and lose count of time…in the strange and melancholy sensation of seeing the destroyed and the destroyer making this quiet picture in the sun…then feel the solitude and deadly lonesomeness of this place, then thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, in its fury, had swept the city from the earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea.”

Charles Dickens, 1845

 Pompeii is still a popular tourist spot.  Where else can you see a moment in time captured like a mosquito caught in amber? 

Other things are unchanged — for instance the voices that call out from small snatches of graffitti — still on the walls. 

Most of the voices are profane, either boasting of sex, begging for votes, or as something as human as an accusation.   

“Landlord, may your lies malign bring destruction on your head!  You yourself drink unmixed wine, water sell you guests instead.”

Does this speak of fraud in Ancient Pompeii?  Do humans ever change?

And then there is the prophetic voice — a voice that speaks the loudest and starngely not only predicts the end of Pompeii, but the end of everything.  The following graffitti was found in a city that died under ash and flame in 79 A.D. 

“Nothing in the world can last forever.”

 He knew.  Of course its something that people know now.  It’s prophetic simply because its as true back then as it is today.  Like King Belhazzar, in the book of Daniel, who saw the writing on the wall — it’s a writing of doom…and the truth of all life is that NOTHING LASTS FOREVER.   After all,  the Romans, the Pompeians, the ancients weren’t all that different from us.  We know they dreamed and hoped much in the same way we do now.  History separates us, their pagan belefs isolate them from us, but they were like us — human.  They loved, felt pain and joy, had shortcomings and also displayed the traits of…heroes.   I see those ancient heroes walking around us in 2010.  I’ve seen Hector, Achillies, Jason, Scipio, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Every Soldier, Sailor, Marine, and Airmen needs to have the same grit and determination as any Hoplite or Roman Legionnaire.

The English people seem to understand their connection with the ancient Romans.  The English can trace their people going back through Cromwell, Elizabeth the First, Willliam the Conquerer to the first step of a Roman Soldier upon the English shore.  I have no doubt that when that Roman Soldier looked up at the white cliffs of Dover there were blue faced Celts shaking their war shields at him.   The Romans dominated the English for only four hundred years — a mere pittance of time — out of their entire history, but somehow the English think themselves the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and the defenders of classical studies and thought. 

The United States is quite similar.  Though never occupied by the Romans, we fought for our freedom from the British and took the same firm belief that we are the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and the same defenders of classical studies and thought.  As a result we have modeled our entire government on Roman ideals, and built a capitol whose architecture reflects the pillars and buildings of Rome itself.

What exactly were we trying to tell the rest of the world?

–End of partial transcript from Episode 1 titled: “What did the Romans ever do for us?.  

(Note* Does this course of discussion interest you?  Please leave a comment.  Go to itunes, Hipcast or Podcast Alley to pick up a copy of this podcast for download.  Listen to it here on the blog site as well.)

 

When I saw the ads, I have to admit I was a bit put off.  It looked to me like a rip-off of the movie THE 300.   I was expecting a lot of historical revisionism. I downloaded the show on my ipod for the first episode and I was pleasantly surprized. 

It is good, and it feels real.  

I am a big fan of the Kirk Douglas Movie Spartacus, and watching the Starz production startled me a bit.  The gladiators seem happy to be enslaved to this Ludus (training camp).  In fact — like an Army platoon — they have no problem shouting that the “Capua Ludus” is the best.    

In the Kirk Douglas production there is no enthusiasm.  The gladiators do what they have to do.  They have no choice.  They fight, they eat, they die.  But the movie never leaves the premise that they are enslaved, and they are doomed.   There is alway an oppressive atmosphere draped over the  movie.

In the  movie Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) asks the name of a fellow slave.  The slave answers something along the lines of, “You don’t want to know my name.  Someday you may have to kill me.”

In this modern production by Starz, the gladitors have a certain pride in their organization.  Is this possible?   This puts forth a problem for me, because we know by the historical accounts they gladiators rebelled.  The gladiators portrayed  talk about being “gods”…”titans”…they are indoctrinated so that the “lowest base will find purpose.”   Somehow I can’t get away form from the notion we are looking at a military organization.  That the guy who wrote this decided that this is a modern platoon of soldiers.  That redemption will be found in ”joining the brotherhood” and becoming one of “them.”  For me as a member of a military organizaton I found this familiar.

Except in Roman Society the gladiator was the lowest of the low. 

I am wondering how they are going to get to the key plot point when the gladiators revolt.  This group seems a little too happy with their condition.  We know from history that the Spartacus Revolt is coming.   Where is the discontent?

As for the costuming — the show is brilliant.  As for the attitude of the characters (the historical context) of how human beings reacted at that time seems to be true to life.   I warn you that the show has strong language and strong subject matter…wait the times were that way…so it should be no surprise to hear a foul word or see someone naked.

I don’t know what direction this series is going to go, and I’m always a little nervous when it comes from actual historical characters.  I hope they keep this an accurate portrayal and not a show sub-titled the ’Ludus’ years and he never breaks free.   Anyway, the historians that wrote about Spartacus published their accounts hundreds of years after the event.  Do we know what really happened?  His body was never found — he died in battle — which makes me wonder if anyone really knew what he was like.   What’s more do we really know what his motives were?  I honestly thing the writers have some wiggle room in their interpretation.  

Is it gratuitiously violent? 

Yes. 

Is there sex and gore? 

Yes. 

Is it good history?

Maybe not…but something tells me if they keep to the broad strokes of history and only interpret the smaller aspects of the man that has been lost in time, this show is going to be great.