Mike Anderson's Ancient History Blog

Dissecting Rome’s First Triumvirate – Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Mon, 06 May 2013 02:11:00 +0000

The rule for election of Consuls of Rome required that a man be 43 years of age unless he was of the patrician class and then he would get two years credit and be eligible at 41. Election during the first year of eligibility was on Caesar’s mind as he waited for the end of 60 B.C. and the voting. During his term as provincial governor of Spain, Caesar had acquired enough capital to pay off many of his debts. Moreover, his experience leading men in battle had energized him for more efforts in the arena of war. But first it had to be Rome and the Consulship.

Caesar’s competitors in the election were Bibulus and Lucceius. Bibulus had served with Caesar as Aedile, but disliked him immensely. Nonetheless he offered bribes to Caesar for his support. Caesar refused and short on cash himself, borrowed money from Lucceius. He did not approach Crassus, as he was accustomed to because he didn’t want to offend Pompey who was still at odds with the wealthiest man in Rome. When the votes were tallied, Caesar was elected along with Bibulus who had benefitted from a campaign of bribery undertaken by Cato.

The force bringing the triumvirs together was now set in motion. Caesar was snubbed by the Senate when it assigned the “forests and cattle runs” of southeastern Italy as the province to be administered by the new Consuls.

Pompey was snubbed when the land bill he proposed to accommodate his veterans was defeated. The Senate looked down on Pompey as beneath their class – a plebian by heritage and only now elevated because of his father. They distrusted him fearing he would try to use his army to overthrow the government.

Finally, Crassus was snubbed when he supported the re-write of a tax collection contract favored by the knights. He got Cicero over to his position, but Cato killed the bill.

The Senate of this period was made up of three factions, each amounting to one third of the voting power: conservatives who supported the Republic as it had always been, moderates including Cicero and Cato who allowed some adaptation of the political system, and the liberals who supported Pompey and Caesar. The conservatives were so strict in their point of view, they tried to block all efforts of the triumvirs, unable to perceive the harm they would eventually bring to themselves.

Pompey and Crassus decided to bury the hatchet and go in with Caesar. The latter was still the least influential of the triumvirs but he had two important assets: he was by far the best negotiator and he had previously been a supporter of Marius, the man of the people, whereas the other two were seen as allies of dictator Sulla.

The allies decided to add a fourth man to the group – make a quatumvirate, no less. The man they chose was Cicero, because of his oratorical skills. The invitation to join was delivered to him by Balbus, a confidant of Caesar. Cicero was certainly angry at the conservatives who were in the process of wrecking the Republic, but he could not abide the triumvirs either. He felt Pompey and Crassus were not supportive enough of his handling of the conspiracy of Cataline, while his antipathy toward Caesar was visceral. In the end, he refused to join the others and would suffer later because of it.

Michael Grant, in his biography of Caesar described what followed:

“During the next ten years the triumvirate remained the controlling factor in Roman politics. This is not, as it is sometimes called, a defeat for democracy. The dispute was not between senatorial government and democracy, which never existed in Rome and never would, but between a haughty, reactionary, corrupt oligarchy and an equally ruthless tyranny conducted by three individuals.”

Let me provide more detail for year one – 59 B.C.

When the newly elected Caesar introduced the land bill to the Senate, they filibustered until he withdrew the measure and took it to the assembly. It was vetoed by three tribunes but Pompey and Crassus spoke in favor, making it plain they were allied with Caesar. When Bibulus, the other Consul, tried to block the bill, Caesar had Pompey’s troops burst into the assembly and intimidate the opposition into surrender.

Frustrated, Bibulus and his allies tried the alternative tactic of using auspices to block all assembly meetings. Whenever an Assembly meeting was scheduled, he would take auspices and declare that the date was unsuitable. Caesar ignored this blocking attempt and used the Assembly to pass legislation beneficial to the Triumvirs.

In April, Pompey, who was 43, married Caesar’s daughter Julia, 17. It has been suggested that Pompey needed the link to be able to count on Caesar’s political skills. Caesar also married for political advantage -- Calpurnia, daughter of Lucius Piso, who Caesar sought as a puppet Consul for the next year. These matrimonial maneuverings prompted Cato to remark that the Roman political system had become a marriage bureau.

Now Caesar decided it was time to improve his financial position and sought to use Egypt as the golden nugget. The king of Egypt had died and left a dubious will declaring his country would be bequeathed to Rome. Caesar then bribed the Senate and the Assembly with borrowed money to recognize Ptolemy XII as the rightful king so that he could gain a fortune through his relationship with the new monarch.

Even more important were Caesar’s efforts to secure a province for himself after his term of Consulship ended. Working through a trusted Tribune, Vatinius, he moved a bill through the assembly to allocate to himself Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for a period of five years instead of the normal two. The Senate was not even consulted. Bibulus declared the law invalid because the omens were not favorable, but, once again, he was ignored. During a subsequent shouting match in the Senate, Caesar declared that he had gotten what he wanted despite the moanings of the Senate and that from now on he would “mount on top of the heads of the Senators”.

Caesar was allocated three legions for his new dominion and as he prepared for the new assignment, fortune smiled down on him and changed history. Narbonese Gaul (also referred to as Transalpine Gaul) had previously been assigned with Cisalpine Gaul to a single Consul. This time the provinces were split with Metellus Celer receiving the former and Caesar receiving the latter. Before taken his post, however, Celer died, and Caesar used his father-in-law Piso and his son-in-law Pompey to argue that Narbonese Gaul should be added to his domain. The Senate gave in, possibly thinking that the more Caesar had on his plate away from Rome, the less he would meddle in its affairs.

But Caesar’s power remained a threat to the Senate. In July, an informer named Vettius accused Caesar or a plot to kill Pompey, but before the matter could be prosecuted, Vettius died mysteriously. An assassination attempt by a slave followed, but Caesar would survive to let history take its course.

He would spend eight years in Gaul conquering the tribes and write the Commentaries along the way. Julia, wife of Pompey and daughter or Caesar, would die in childbirth (54 B.C.) breaking the marital bond between husband and father. Crassus would be ambushed and killed in Pythia in 53 B.C. leaving no offset to any conflict Caesar and Pompey. Caesar would use Gaul to fortify his resume as a military leader while Pompey languished in Rome, a general out of place as a politician. By the time Caesar crossed the Rubicon in January 49 B.C, he knew he was the man who would change the Republic forever.

Dissecting Rome’s First Triumvirate – Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000

The first triumvirate of the Roman Republic was a classic study in power and politics. Three men, each with their own unique personality, battled for control of Rome. It took a titan of titans to defeat the other two, and that man removed the final brick from the Republic and established the foundation for an empire.

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 100 B.C. A member of the famed Julian clan, he was the son of another Gaius Julius Caesar whose sister Julia married Gaius Marius, the famous general who rebuilt the Roman army around the turn of the first century B.C. Caesar matured during the civil war between Marius and Sulla (88-82 B.C), although his allegiance to the former caused his life to be threatened. When Marius was in control of Rome Caesar was named a priest and married the daughter of Marius’ ally Cinna. But then Sulla took control of the city and Caesar lost his wife’s dowry, his title, and was forced into hiding. Ironically, the loss of his priestly office allowed Caesar to join the army and serve in the east. Hearing of Sulla’s death in 78 B.C, he returned to Rome to work as an attorney in order to hone his skills in rhetoric and oratory. Then, by 70 B.C, Caesar was ready to begin his political career.

After serving as a military tribune, Caesar was elected Questor in 69 B.C, Aedile in 66, and then Pontifex Maximus and Praetor Urbanus in 63 B.C. Once his term was complete, Caesar was appointed governor of Spain, but before he could take the position, he had to satisfy his creditors. Caesar appealed to Marcus Crassus for help and the richest man in Rome paid some of Caesar’s debts and guaranteed others. Caesar stood for Consul in 59 B.C. and was elected in one of the most corrupt campaigns on record.

Marcus Licinius Crassus was born in 115 B.C, son of P. Licinius Crassus, who was Consul in 97 B.C and Censor in 89. During the civil war, Crassus’ father and brother committed suicide rather than being captured by the troops of Marius. Later, after Marius’ death, his ally Cinna began proscriptions on all those who had supported Sulla, forcing the younger Crassus into exile. Then, after Cinna’s death in 84 B.C, Crassus joined Sulla in Africa and eventually became one of the leaders of the attack force that retook Rome in 82 B.C. Crassus spent the next few years amassing the greatest fortune in Roman history through land speculation, proscriptions against the followers of Marius, and slave trade. Now wealthy, he began his political career through the curule path. Political advancement was interrupted by the slave war with Spartacus, which Crassus helped put down in 71 B.C, but he was elected consul in 70 B.C, serving with Pompey and then Censor in 65 B.C. In 60, he was returned to consul, again serving with Pompey.

Gnaeus Pompey Magnus was born in 106 B.C. His father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo served as Praetor in 92 B.C. and Consul in 89 B.C. He died during Marius’ siege on Rome in 87 B.C. The son served in the army under his father and found soldering to his liking. Prior to Sulla’s assault on Rome, Pompey raised three legions to support him and forever earned the trust of the new dictator. After victories over the remaining Marians in Sicily and Africa, Sulla dubbed his young general “Magnus” supposedly in derision because Pompey had no political experience worthy of a title. After putting down a revolt following the death of Sulla, Pompey demanded that the Senate name him proconsul of Hispania. Fearing his rising military power, the Senate said no, but Pompey got his way when he threatened the Senate by refusing to disband his legions. He remained in Hispania until 71 B.C. when the Senate requested that he help Crassus with the war against Spartacus.

Pompey was elected consul with Crassus in 70 B.C. without having first served in the Senate, a very unusual accomplishment. At 35 years of age, he was already Rome’s greatest general and, as head of the army, a power to be reckoned with. Following his consulship, Pompey continued his military exploits, fighting in the east against Mithridates, and then on to Syria and Palestine. He returned to Rome for his third triumph in 61 B.C. and again joined Crassus as consul in 60.

So we had three men, three personalities, who had accumulated great power on their own, each harboring a defect preventing further glory. Caesar, the youngest, had little military experience and substantial debts which limited his influence. Crassus lacked leadership skills and was forced to use coin in its place. Pompey had no political resume and lacked a skill for politics. They all experienced Sulla’s attempts to reform the Republic, but Pandora’s box had been opened and Sulla could not put the Republic back to the way it used to be. The new world would be fashioned by the triumvirate and that which would follow it.

The Early Kings of Rome

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:01:00 +0000

Those who are familiar with the history of Rome know that the Republic was preceded by a monarchy – seven kings, the last three Etruscan. These kings had no hereditary authority and were elected by the assembly to act as military and religious leaders of the Roman people. The purpose of this post is to try and separate fact from fiction in the story of those early monarchs.

The early-mid Iron Age period circa 700 B.C saw radical changes in the structure of political systems around the Mediterranean. In Greece, for example, the collapse of the Mycenaean dynasty ushered in the Dark Age period which lasted until about 700 B.C. New monarchies sprung up but the kings were weak and had no hereditary authority so their weakness ultimately allowed the Polis to take hold. Monarchies on the Italian peninsula were subject to the same pressures as we see in the behavior of the Etruscans during the time they controlled Rome.

Where do we get our information about this period in Roman history? Livy, writing six centuries later is our most detailed source, but his story is a retelling of folklore and myth that was given to him. Let’s take a few moments and review what has been written about those early kings.

Romulus was the first of the named kings -- invented to create an origin for the Roman culture. After 38 years as king, he ascended into heaven during a thunderstorm creating the the link to the gods necessary for the myth to be complete.

The second king, named Numa Pompilius, was said to be of Sabine origin. He built the king’s palace in the Forum (Regia) and organized the religion of Rome including the Temple of Vesta and its servants, the Vestal Virgins. Numa also expanded the Roman calendar to twelve months. He reigned for forty three years and then passed from this life.

Next was Tullus Hostilus, a strong military leader whose most notable achievement was the defeat of the Albans which led to their annexation to Rome. Tullus also built the first Senate house and called it the Curia Hostilia. He died in 642 B.C. after a reign of thirty one years.

The fourth king was Ancus Marcius. He is credited with building the first bridge across the Tiber and with extending Roman influence to Ostia. He lost a popular election in 616 B.C. to L. Tarquinius Priscus.

Tarquinius was an Etruscan and owed his election to the influence of his Etruscan friends who had followed him to Rome. He reigned until 579 B.C. when he was murdered by the sons of Ancus Marcius who were unhappy with their exclusion from the affairs of state. In the melee that followed, his son, Servius Tullus, became king when his wife (Tarquinius’ daughter) convinced a crowd that Tarquinius was alive but injured and Rome needed Severus to temporarily serve in his place. Severus continued with the ruse until he had consolidated his power and was elected king.

Severus was the most noteworthy and remarkable of the Roman kings. He reorganized the assembly by creating the Comitia Centuriata as an assembly of economic classes which mapped to each class’s role in the army. For example, the Equites, or cavalry, were the most wealthy of the groups because they had to be wealthy enough to buy their own horses. Severus is credited with the creation of the Roman Timocracy – property ownership requirement for the privilege of voting in the assembly. He also advanced the cause of the middle class as a brake against the power of the patricians. After forty-three years on the throne, he was murdered by the grandson of Tarquinius, also named Tarquinius. After new monarch evolved into a tyrant, the Romans began calling him “Superbus”, a derogatory reference to his arrogance. After a reign of twenty-five years, the tyrant was exiled and the reign of Roman kings came to an end.

Historians have been skeptical of much of the history we have outlined here. It appears that the date of Rome’s origin and the number of kings were selected before dates were fitted to them. It seems unlikely that all these kings could have reigned for twenty four years or longer. In addition, the accomplishments of the kings appear to be equally alloted between them to appear as if each helped in the formation of the Republic. Still, the history of the Etruscan kings appears solid for two reasons: we know that the Etruscans were expanding south during this time so it makes sense that they would gain power in Rome. More importantly, the Romans would not have acknowledged their subservience to the Etruscans unless it was actually true.

Livy admitted his history lacked authenticity:

“My task, moreover, is an immensely laborious one. I shall have to go back more than seven hundred years, and trace my story from its small beginnings until these recent times…Events before Rome was born or thought of have come to us in old tales with more of the charm of poetry than of a sound historical record, and such traditions I propose neither to affirm or refute. There is no reason, I feel, to object when antiquity draws no hard line between the human and the supernatural: it adds dignity to the past, and, if any nation deserves the privilege of claiming a divine ancestry, that nation is our own…”

And then, interestingly, Livy turns philosopher:

“I invite the reader’s attention to the much more serious consideration of the kind of lives our ancestors lived, of who were the men, and what the means in both politics and war by which Rome’s power was first acquired and subsequently expanded; I would then have him trace the process of our moral decline, to watch first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them.”

These words from two thousand years past anticipate the postmodern world we live in today.

Who were the Etruscans?

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:23:00 +0000

The story of the Etruscans is an interesting one -- interesting and obscure.

Their history is remarkable when measured by their accomplishments as merchants, craftsmen, traders, and influencers of Rome, but we only know pieces of their story. The emperor Claudius tried to help us by chronicling their history in twenty volumes, but his work did not survive. Meanwhile, the Etruscan language has defied our understanding and, other than some decoding of artifacts, we can’t read it. Still, three of the Roman kings were Etruscans who helped launch the Republic.

Ultimately, the Etruscan culture would die and fulfill an ironic prophesy.

The area of Italy we know today as Tuscany was originally settled by the Villanovans, an iron age culture that had migrated from Northern Europe. The Tuscan branch is referred to as the Northern Villanovans but there was also a southern faction extending beyond Rome into Campania. The term Villanovan comes from their discovery in an ancient cemetery near Villanova Italy, eight miles from Bologna. The Villanovans were not a uniform culture or society, but more of a group of tribes with common interests. They were expert metal smiths and potters who cremated their dead and buried them in cone-shaped graves. The earliest Villanovan evidence dates from the beginning of the Iron Age and continues to 500 B.C. Through artifacts, we can document their social evolution showing the tribes transitioning into a socio-economic hierarchy.

Around 750 B.C. another race arrived and displaced the Villanovans. According to Herodotus, the newcomers, eventually labeled Etruscans, came from Asia Minor. He writes in book 1 chapter 94:

“The customs of the Lydians (Asia Minor east of Ionia) are like those of the Greeks... They were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency; and they were the first to sell by retail. …In the reign of Atys son of Manes there was great scarcity of food in all Lydia. For a while the Lydians bore this with what patience they could; presently, when the famine did not abate, they looked for remedies, and different plans were devised by different men… But the famine did not cease to trouble them, and instead afflicted them even more. At last their king divided the people into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed. Then the one group, having drawn the lot, left the country and came down to Smyrna and built ships, in which they loaded all their goods that could be transported aboard ship, and sailed away to seek a livelihood and a country; until at last, after sojourning with one people after another, they came to the Ombrici (Umbria Italy) where they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king's son who had led them there.”

What we see in the archaeology is the appearance of Etruscan settlements where Villanovan settlements once stood. Why? Perhaps they co-existed and eventually merged into one culture. The Romans called these people Tusci or Etrusci, creating the link to the region later called Tuscany.

The map shown above shows the territory of Etruria with its major cities.

The Etruscans were farmers first – taming the wild land of Tuscany to grow emmer (a type of wheat) which was husked and unsuitable for bread making until they were able to create new cultivars. Olive oil was unknown in Etruria as late as 581 B.C, but must have been imported from Greece. Home grown wine grapes, like olive trees came later. The Etruscans were skilled at irrigation, and the excavated tunnels suggest an organized approach and central authority behind the engineering.

Although Italy is not blessed with significant metal resources, what is there was concentrated in Etruria and, as metalworkers, the Etruscans excelled. They mined and worked precious metals, tin to make bronze, and iron. The photograph below shows an example of Etruscan craftsmanship.

Jewelry and metalwork became items of trade for the Etruscans and they developed a substantial merchant fleet. Allies of the Carthaginians, they traded throughout the Mediterranean including Southern France and Spain.

Tarchna (Tarquinnii) was perhaps the richest and most famous of the Etruscan cities. At its peak from 650-500 B.C, Tarchna was the center of bronze production in Etruria. Everywhere in the archaeology of the city we see a culture with evolving sophistication. The dead were cremated and buried in painted amphoras, temples were built, and life was represented in art – banquets, dancing, athletics, chariot racing, and hunting. We also see an early political system made up of clans, anticipating the Republic.

Ancient Rome was also Villanovan, but there was no Etruscan Villanovan marriage there. One suspects the independent nature of the native Latins was responsible for blocking Etruscan assimilation. Ultimately the Etruscans would occupy Rome, but it was not by a gradual mixing of cultures. Prior to their arrival, the Latins were mostly a pastoral people. The Etruscans influenced them to become more commercial (and maybe the Greeks in Campania had an influence also). The end result was the light went on for the Latins and their culture began to advance. In Rome, the Etruscan influence was everywhere – from the new temples that were constructed to the evolving political system.

Historically, Etruria was made up of an alliance of free independent city-states. Although they had common interests, the cities openly competed with each other and went to war when necessary. The ruler was an all-powerful king who acted as both a political and religious leader. Unfortunately, we know little of the Etruscan political system outside the period when they gained influence over Rome and the history was recorded. The last three kings of Rome were Etruscan (616-510 B.C.), so we can see Etruscan influence over the formation of the Roman government, which was different from the historical Etruscan model. During that period, across the Mediterranean and into Asia, aristocratic factions had begun to peck away at the authority of the kings.

The first Etruscan king of Rome, L. Tarquinius Priscus, created one hundred new Senators to win popular support, so even at this early point of Roman history the king was not powerful enough to function as an autocrat. Priscus also build the first wall around Rome and added sewers to drain the Forum. His successor, Servius Tullius, divided Rome into tribes and instituted the census for the first time. He created the Centuriate assembly which classified the army by wealth and gave the wealthy the most powerful voting blocks. In 509 B.C, the last Roman king, L. Tarquinius Superbus, was expelled and Rome became a Republic.

The ascendancy of the Republic hastened the decline of the Etruscans. The nearest Etruscan city, Veii, fell to the Romans in 396 B.C. At the same time, the Northern Etruscan cities were attacked and ravaged by a Gallic invasion. By 273 B.C. Etruria was firmly under Roman control as part of an Italian confederation. As time went on. the Etruscans provided troops to the Republican army and, during the Second Punic War, they were able to avoid Hannibal all together. Later, they took sides in the civil wars supporting Caesar and suffered devastation as a result. The Etruscan culture ultimately faded into history.

In the beginning of the article I mentioned an ironic prophesy, which was the prediction of the end of their civilization. The Etruscans were ultra-religious and I think it was Cicero who said they were the most religious people in the world. They believed their race (or any race) is given a fixed span of time by the gods – in their case 10 saecula of 70 years. The Etruscan civilization was established in about 750 B.C and after the 700 years had passed, they were no more.

Alexander the Great – What if he had lived?

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:24:00 +0000

One of the most fascinating stories from antiquity is the life of Alexander the Great, the man who conquered the world by age thirty. Alexander has to be considered one of greatest military commanders of all time and one of the most important personalities of the ancient world.

Unfortunately, the story of his life ends abruptly. He became ill in early June of 323 B.C. and died on either the tenth or eleventh of that month at age thirty-two. The cause of Alexander’s death has been debated throughout the centuries, even up to the present day. Was he poisoned, or was it an infection that killed him? The truth eludes us but the fact that Alexander was ill for ten days suggests that disease rather than poison was the culprit.

What would Alexander have accomplished if he had not died so young? We can only guess, but it makes an interesting topic for discussion nonetheless.

To try and imagine Alexander’s world after 323 B.C, I’m going to employ Arnold Toynbee, a well-known scholar of antiquity, to help us. Toynbee, known mostly for his Study of History, wrote many fine books about the ancient world including a favorite of mine called Some Problems in Greek History.

There is a chapter in the latter entitled “If Alexander the Great had lived on”, where Toynbee speculates about Alexander’s efforts and successes during the period after 323 B.C. It’s a long chapter, spanning some forty-five pages, and I will not attempt to re-tell his whole story, but I found the section on Alexander’s relationship with Rome particularly interesting.

At the time of Alexander’s death in 323 B.C, Rome was in the middle of the Second War with the Samnites, which would end in 304 B.C. Rome, in those early days, did not have control of central and southern Italy, much less the whole peninsula. There were strong neighbors allied against her and her future depended on guile and perseverance.

So we begin Toynbee’s narrative…

In the winter of 318/317 B.C. Samnium was threatening the whole Italian peninsula and since their failure at Caudine Forks in 320 B.C, the Romans sought a different strategy to use against their principle adversary. They reasoned that a move across the Apennines to the Adriatic and then south would allow them to seek allies along the way and outflank the Samnites. Rome succeeded in making allies of Frentani, Teanum Apulum, and Canusium by 318 and was gaining strength when Ptolemy, representing Alexander, landed in Tarentum. The Tarentine government was anxious to avenge the death of the king of Epirus and looked to Alexander as the agent of that purpose. Ptolemy toured the states of Peucetia and Apulia and offered their leaders an alliance with Alexander against Samnium as a preview to Alexander’s arrival the next season when he would crush the Samnites. Ptolemy also visited Teanum Apulum and Canusium urging them to think twice about an alliance with Rome, a minor power, when they could be allied with Macedon. Both cities abandoned their treaties with Rome in favor of the Greeks.

With his diplomatic mission completed in southeastern Italy, Ptolemy moved on to Rome with two advantages over the Romans: he was representing the conqueror of the world and Rome was still weak from her loss at the Caudine Forks. Ptolemy planned to offer an alliance that would offer Rome protection, but would the Romans see it as disguised servitude? Ptolemy offered a treaty similar to that of Porus, Alexander’s Indian ally -- an equal partnership – and the terms allowed Rome to retain all of its current territories. Alexander would not challenge the new Roman alliance with Frentani or another recent alliance with Neapolis, although he frowned on the latter as Roman hegemony against a Greek city. Once Samnium was overthrown, Rome could claim some of the resulting spoils including the Caudine Canton. Rome could also seek alliances with central Italian cantons, but in no case was she allowed to compel them to accept alliances with her. Alexander would also give Rome access to the Po valley with her rich agricultural potential.

Ptolemy now moved on to the more delicate part of the negotiations, namely what Rome must agree to in return for the benefits Alexander would provide them. Alexander wished to set limits to Rome’s territorial expansion. The Italian land east of the Apennines, including the major portion of Samnium, and all of Magna Graecia would be off limits. These territories would be organized into a territory of Tarentum. To mark the bounds of the new territory, Alexander would be planting Greek colonies at Maluentium, Luceria, and near Mount Vultur.

As to the Etruscan territories, Alexander would make treaties with them identical to those that had been negotiated with Rome.

And regarding Umbria and the northern territories of Italy, Alexander sought agreement with Rome on four points: first that the parties should agree as to the independence of the northern territories, second either party could sign treaties with any of the states in the north, third that any alliance made by either would count as one with both parties, and fourth the northern territories would not be asked to go to war with Samnium. That way they could protect the north from the Gauls should they choose to come down.

Ptolemy told the Romans they must except his proposal as is with no negotiation. If they refused or allied themselves with the Samnites, they would not be able to stop Alexander from continuing with his plans. Rome accepted Alexander’s offer without hesitation.

The next year Alexander landed at Tarentum, assembled his army and crushed the Samnites. He now controlled one half of the Italian Peninsula and could use it as a stepping stone to conquer Sicily and then Carthage.

This story did not happen, of course, but it could have. Toynbee teases us with a historical phantasy. One can imagine that Rome would eventually rise to the power she became once Alexander was out of the picture, after all the Italians were native to the peninsula and the Greeks were outsiders. The cultural bond between Italians would have eventually won the day.

Hadrian's Wall - Guest Post

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 02:58:00 +0000

This article is a guest post by my friend Geoff Carter, an archaeologist who lives in England. Geoff does research in ancient wood structures and has written about the original wooden fortifications at Hadrian's Wall. I have a link to Geoff's blog on this page under My Blog List - Theoretical Structural Archaeology. Tap on the link below to see a BBC documentary where Geoff is featured.

Hadrian's Timber Wall

Hadrian and the North South Divide

Britain is naturally divided by geography; the south is generally warmer, more fertile, and closer to the continent than the North. Southern England had tin, and could control much of the trade in copper from the Irish Sea, so it was an important component in Prehistoric Northern Europe. The North itself is divided -- Scotland split between a highlands and lowlands.

The realpolitik in ancient times was how to stop those in the north from taking materials from their more prosperous southern neighbours. These North-South dynamics were a recurrent theme of English history and both the North–South divide and Scottish independence are live political issues even today.

In the ancient world, politics was often conducted through warfare, and power was expressed through military engineering. Engineers changed geography and the shape of the landscape; heaped things up and dug things away, build roads, water courses, bridges, towns, and forts. While what remains is stone, but most of the past was formed from earth, straw, and the key engineering component of the ancient world, wood.

Political Engineering

It was in wooden ships, built by Celtic shipwrights in Gaul that the Romans, led by Julius Caesar, first arrived in Southern England in 55-54 BC. We know this because in Caesar’s account of his wars in Gaul we get an unprecedented insight into both military engineering and the mechanics of the imperial machine.

I will use the word Celt here even though Caesar made clear he was dealing with the local aristocracy. In this context warfare was interaction between two ruling classes vying for ultimate control of land, its resources, and the people who worked it. ‘Romanization’ was a top down process.

Certainly, there was warfare, but this was driven by diplomacy and a political narrative. The Celtic peoples had long interacted with the Mediterranean world, and in many ways the Roman army was shaped by early unsuccessful encounters with them. For all concerned, warfare was a career and a business opportunity, so everybody knew the rules and what to expect.

While Caesar did not stay, he established the political relationships that got Rome a foothold using the actuality or threat of a Roman intervention to destabilize existing regional politics. Once an area came within range of Rome’s political and military interests, it’s leaders had two choices; cut a deal or fight. All of this on top of the traditional political and military pressures from other rivals beyond Roman control. Invariably, this put the ruling elite between a rock a hard place. For perfectly honorable reasons they might resist and then end up with a worse deal, although not as bad if you make a deal and then broke it. Punitive sanctions went as far as genocide, or you might have gotten away with enslavement.

Once you were a client of the Rome, her army will ensure your security, in return for your assurance that it receive the necessary supplies, principally wheat, but also other material assistance and access to resources. This sort of ‘taxation’ did not need micromanagement -- a treaty was made with the local political authority, so the Romans knew who to blame if obligations were not met. Beyond this, engineering made the Roman army self-sufficient in managing its security.

Rome in the North

When the Romans returned in 43 AD they had controlled the Atlantic Seaboard for ninety years, so Claudius was more properly prepared for a long campaign; not just an army, but a navy also, since control of the sea was key to taking and holding an Island.

When Agricola made the first significant push into the north in the early 80s he had a naval presence on both coasts and even thought about an expedition to Ireland. Then, after the near disaster of the Boudicca revolt, the south was secured, and Rome was on the offensive, initially in the west and then in the North. In a typically aggressive series of campaigns Agricola punched his way north culminating in a battle of Mons Graupius, where his auxiliary troops reportedly killed about a third of a thirty thousand man highlander force.The year was 84 A.D. and it was a high water mark when the highlanders retreated back into their glens in the mountains or the Islands in the West, and reverted to an over the horizon threat. Rather than pursuing them, the Romans chose to construct rough perimeter of timber forts and watch towers blocking off enemy territory. An opportunity and the strategic initiative had been lost due to external decisions and changes in military priorities of the Empire.

At some point towards the end of the first century, the Romans withdrew the majority of their forces from Scotland to the territory of the Brigantes, who controlled Northern England. Their main base was set up at York and occupied by the twentieth legion. The Brigantes had long been loyal to Rome and provided a key buffer state for the Lands to the south. We also presume that some political relations continued with former allies in Scotland, although everything between the campaigns of Agricola and the building of the wall 40 years later is very sketchy.

At this point Hadrian arrives, possibly in response to a revolt in the north involving the Brigantes, who may have been triggered by the death of Trajan. Hadrian brought fresh troops, and re-established a ‘frontier’ in the North of Brigantes territory. After 80 years, the Romans understood that most of what they valued was in the South, so the north was no more than a security zone.

What I have written so far is traditional scholarship, but I wish to change the story that emerges after looking at the ancient engineering.

Hadrian’s North-South Divide

The Wall was a live frontier; so clearly nobody within striking range of the Roman Army was going to be openly hostile, but beyond them were still the people who were isolated. Whatever the political and military circumstances that established the peace, splitting the country in two with a physical barrier probably came as a surprise to those beyond it.

The Roman Army was unlikely to face infantry in mass formation in open battle, and so the main threat probably came from concentrations fast moving mounted troops. A physical barrier forced them to dismount and fight on the Roman terms, against gateways that allowed the Romans to counter attack and outflank their opponents.

Hadrian’s wall is a military engineering solution to the North-South Divide. The line of forts and observation points had proved ineffective, but the Wall changes the geography.

How were the Romans able to spread themselves out across an eighty mile construction project without protection?

In the first season the bulk of the troops were engaged in creating a timber and earth wall with a ditch in front it which protected the work parties behind it. Each of the forts being built was staged with a temporary camp to house the garrison and builders while work was on-going. Similarly, those guarding and building the Wall required accommodations. As part of the process, a construction trench was dug behind the wall for a road -- the spoil neatly piled to allow two wide verges on either side of the planned metalled carriageway. The skilled workers were concentrated in specialist groups working on the Wall starting in the East, while others started work on milecastles and forts. Those digging the trench and laying the foundation were not as skilled as the crews working on the stone wall so their work was completed well ahead of time.

All appears to have gone well at first, but at some point, work appears to have virtually stopped. It is likely that warfare disrupted the construction process. Once the work was restarted again, the quality and quantity of the building was scaled back, the plan to build the road was abandoned, and extra forts were added.

So the wall was built in a war zone, as an army installation and a fortified frontier to contain the threat that had not been eliminated forty years earlier. Whatever the technical and in particular logistic achievements, the Wall did not work, and Hadrian’s successor moved the frontier North to Forth Isthmus, where forces could be concentrated on a shorter frontier.

Little remains of the wall to study, after centuries of robbing, and its systematic demolition by engineers in 1740’s in what turned out to be the final action on the frontier. On 16 April 1746, the Battle of Culloden, probably not that far from Mons Graupius, finally brought the highlands under central control.

There has been very little investigation of the scant traces of that remain of the extensive temporary works or of the builders and forces that guarded them. In the archaeology of these timber and earth structures lies the real key to understanding how the Wall was constructed.

Hadrian’s Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 01:51:00 +0000

In the past I’ve discussed many of Rome’s great engineering feats -- Aqua Marcia, Caesar’s bridge over the Rhine, and the siege works at Masada, to name a few. The Romans were the greatest engineers of antiquity because structure and organization were fundamental to their view of the world.

For this post, we turn to Hadrian’s Wall, that enigmatic barrier built across Northern Britain in the early 120s A.D. There are many holes in the story of the wall including the purpose of its construction -- but its existence can't be disputed as you can see from the photographs below.

The wall was constructed at the direction of emperor Hadrian, according to restored sandstone tablets in found in Jarrow England, to “keep intact the empire” which had been imposed on him by “divine instruction”.

Hadrian traveled to Great Britain in 122 A.D. and may have visited the wall during the initial period of construction. The wall took seven years to build and it was completed in 128 A.D. Spanning a 73 mile distance from east of Newcastle through Carlisle and on to the coastline of the Stolway Firth, the wall is stone from the River Irthing east and earthen from the river west. The difference in construction materials reflects the availability of stone in the east and the lack of same in the other direction.

The map above shows the geographic position of the wall and my yellow line approximates the point where the stone wall ended and the earthen wall began.

Wall Detail:

The wall in the east was a stone structure constructed using concrete as the strengthening material. It was about eight feet wide and extended to a height of twelve to sixteen feet. The walkway along the top was four to five feet wide. West of the Irthing, where the wall was earthen, the structures were wood or stone.

A defensive ditch was located twenty-two feet north of the wall. V-shaped with the bottom squared out into a channel, its dimensions were thirty-five feet wide and ten feet deep. The ditch was omitted where the wall ran along precipitous rocks.

There were seventeen forts along the wall averaging about five miles between them. Seven were built astride the wall and six were attached to its southern side. The forts were of two sizes: two and a half acres, the size required to accommodate 500 men and 5 acres, the size required to accommodate 1000 men.

At regular intervals, approximating a mile, the Romans constructed milecastles with dimensions of about 70 x 60 feet and attached them to the wall. They were of a size to accommodate 100 men and had gates to the north and south.

Turrets were located between each milecastle at 1/3 and 2/3 of the distance between them. Each turret was about thirteen feet square internally and contained a staircase used to climb to the rampart on the top of the wall. There were no stairways on the wall except at forts, milecastles, and turrets.

A road ran behind the wall, passed through the east and west gates of the forts and also branched off to a road leading to the milecastles and a path to the turrets.

At varying points behind the wall sat a defined earthwork barrier called the Vallum. A ditch was dug thirty feet deep and seven feet wide at the flattened bottom. The contents of the ditch were used to create a mound on either side of it about six feet high and twenty feet across. The ditch and mounds were separated by berms of about twenty-four feet in width. The entire barrier of mound, berm, ditch, berm, and mound was about one hundred and twenty feet across.

Lastly, behind the Vallum sat a Roman road called the Standgate.

The wall was first mentioned by Dio writing in 230 A.D. He said “The tribes of the island crossed the wall which divides them and the Roman stations and were doing much damage…” Later he says, “the Maeatae live close to the Wall which bisects the island, and the Caledonians beyond them”.

Towards the end of the same century, Aelius Spartianus, one of the writers of the Historia Augusta, said of Hadrian: “he visited Britain and put many things straight there: he also was the first to build a Wall, eighty miles long, to divide the barbarians from the Romans”.

The purpose of the wall has been endlessly debated, which seems surprising. One would think it obvious that the goal was to keep the northern tribes from attacking territory controlled by the Empire, but there are those that have argued that the tribes didn’t pose enough of a threat to justify the enormous expense of building the structure. The true answer may be as simple as Hadrian employing his "defense before expansion" strategy or perhaps he simply decided to draw a line where the Empire in Britain would end.

Still, it is clear that the wall was built as a defensive structure. Examine the following graphic, provided to me by Geoff Carter, which demonstrates how the wall was designed to facilitate a counterattack against invaders.

Roman Strategy -- Defending the Frontier 20 B.C. to 300 A.D.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 03:32:00 +0000

During the period that begins in the late Republic and extends to the time of Diocletian, Rome utilized three different strategies for defending its frontier. One can refer to them as the Republican, Antonine, and Diocletian strategies, the names an indicator of the time period when they were first utilized. Each reflected the strength of Rome at the time of its adoption – in the beginning a strong Rome expanding itself and intimidating its neighbors, in the middle a powerful Empire seeking to control a vast territory, and in the end a weak Rome trying vainly to resist united enemies.

In the Republicanstrategy, which ran to the time of Claudius, armed forces were distributed in pockets around the perimeter of Roman territory. Troops were garrisoned in multi-legion armies which were not intended for territorial defense of the frontier. No Roman troops were deployed in client states but there was constant diplomacy going on between Rome and the clients it sought to influence. The primary aim of the diplomacy was to remind the client of the infinite Roman power and the uselessness of trying to oppose her. This effort of deterrence was part of a “carrot and stick” philosophy where the carrot consisted of subsidies provided to influential persons.

The legions were mobile and freely deployable to any location requiring military intervention, so that major rebellions, like Illyricum in 9 A.D, could call for sending half the army without risking the security of the frontier. Absent rebellions, the deployed legions could also be used to advance the frontier where it was open, as in the case of Great Britain. In the Republican model, the reach of Roman power and the costs of operating the army were not proportional because the psychological threat of the Roman Army greatly exceeded that of the physical army.

The second, or AntonineSystem, was in use from about 69 A.D. to the middle of the third century. Here the Empire saw its army deployed everywhere to protect and secure the borders and the interior. The effective power and actual power were now in strict proportion because the psychological threat was backed up by large forces that could enforce it. Weak clients were ignored because they provided no value. Strong clients could not be tolerated because their strength posed a threat to the Empire.

Politics was now critical because growing prosperity and the Romanization of the frontier were fostering enculturation. Meanwhile, the threat of facing enemies was low because of their separation from each other. Elaborate border defenses, such as Hadrian’s Wall took the place of large troop deployments and allowed the army to operate with fewer units.

In spite of these positive aspects, there was a growing dissatisfaction among people outside the territories because their adoption of Roman ways was not accompanied by the rights associated with citizenship. As a result, the enculturation created a kinship among the disadvantaged. German tribes now took center stage as their drive to unification became stronger than the influence of Rome. The perimeter defense was not adequate to resist these large unified groups.

The Diocletiansystem arose in the middle of the third century when the political and military problems Rome was facing posed a significant threat to her stability. The new structure utilized a shallow “defense in depth” strategy to replace the massed force model. As in the Antonine system, there was no surplus of military power for offensive use or deterrent, but unlike its predecessor, the Diocletian system had no “surge” capability.

The concept of defense was one of containment. Because forces had to be put together ad hocaccording to circumstances, penetrations were commonplace and the threat of Roman power was everywhere absent. Any diplomacy undertaken with external powers was local and dependent on the availability of forces. The outputs and inputs to the military system had finally come into balance and security was equal to the size of the force put to the task of maintaining it.

At this point the empire enjoyed only a small economy of scale advantage over the alternative of independent regional states but that advantage was counteracted by the inefficiency of administration far from home. The reality of a unified all powerful Empire was now a memory outside of the will of those in power who endeavored to keep the Empire intact.

Composition and Organization of the Spartan Army

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:23:00 +0000

The most important accomplishment of the Lycurgan reforms was the creation of the Spartan Army, an instrument of power that held off political revolution in Sparta for 400 years. At the same time, the reforms created some behaviors which had a negative impact on the army and diminished its power to protect the Spartan people.

Before discussing the army, it is necessary for us to explain how the words Spartan and Lacedaemonian come into play here. Spartans were the people inhabiting the five villages of Sparta – Mesoa, Kynosaura, Pitane, Limnae, and Amyklai, while Lacedaemonian defines the physical area of Spartan control including Sparta, Messenia, and the Perioikoi Villages of the Central Peloponnese. Because the Spartan Army used hoplites from the Lacedaemonian territories, the word Lacedaemonian more accurately describes its composition.

As we have discussed before, Homoioi were Spartiates who had graduated from the Agoge training and were able to make a regular contribution to the Mess. They constituted the most highly trained and skilled members of the Spartan Army, but were never large enough in numbers to constitute a potent military force, so Sparta came to rely on its neighbors for reinforcements.

At Platea in 479 B.C, for example, the Lacedaemonian Army was fifty percent Spartiates and fifty percent Perioikoi. By 425 B.C, the ratio was sixty percent Perioikoi.

The Spartan tactic of using territorial reinforcements was a necessity but at the same time a trap which limited the size of the army. Because the Perioikoi were more numerous, they offered a large auxiliary force, but their numbers in battle had to be limited by ratio to the number of Spartiates, otherwise the balance of the army’s power would be held by outsiders. This requirement led to the unfortunate consequence of a decrease in the size of the army as the number of available Spartiates declined.

Spartans had forty years of eligibility for service, from age twenty to sixty. To prepare for war, they chose a call up age limit based on the number of hoplites needed -- sometimes age forty-five, sometimes fifty, and in extreme cases, more.

As early as Platea, the Sparta’s ability to field adequate numbers of Homoioi was stretched relative to the Perioikoi. The Spartans selected a call up to age forty-five for that battle, while the Perioikoi had enough hoplites available to afford the luxury of selecting only elite troops. Since the Perioikoi did not attend the Agoge, they did not possess equivalent skill in battle, but were also not subject to the same cultural pressures as the Homoioi. They had their own professions and lived a “normal” life like other Greeks. During the centuries when the Spartan Army was the strongest in Greece, the Perioikoi contingent was never utilized to its capacity.

The Spartan Phalanx was built by aggregating small units into larger ones --the smallest unit being the Enomotia with a maximum of 40 men. Each Enomotia consisted of two Syssitia, the basic unit of the mess. The twenty men who dined every day together were considered a “band of brothers” who ate together, trained together, and went to war together. Each Enomotia was represented by all age classes required to be present in a specific deployment. For example, when the call up was to age forty-five, each Enomotia consisted of five hoplites between the age of 20 and 25, five between the age of 25 and 30, five between the ages of 30 and 35, five between the ages of 35 and 40, and five between the ages of 40 and 45, making a total of 25. In a call up to age 60, there would be 40 men for each Enomotia.

Four Enomotia made up a Pentecostys, two Pentecostys per Lochos, and four Lochos per Mora, making a total of approximately 1200 men. These ratios varied widely over time and there are questions about their accuracy. We know that the Spartan Army originally had five Lochi, one for each of the five villages of Sparta, but that would only total about 1500 men. Later there were twenty-four Lochi, or 7200 men at an age 60 deployment – a rare occurance.

Each of the units had its own commander: Enomotia were commanded by a Enomotiarch, Pentecostys by a Penetecosteres, Lochos by a Lochagoi, and Mora by a Polemarch.

The Perioikoi had the same unit structure but they had no Syssitia, no Agoge, and they were not a permanent army. Still, they probably utilized an age distribution among their units and the same unit structure the Spartans used.

Development of the Spartan Political System

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 15:14:00 +0000

In a previous post (June 2009), I discussed Lycurgus and his influence over the development of the Spartan political system. I described him as a shadowy figure who may never have existed. Rather than speculate about Lycurgus as a person and his influence over the Spartan political system, I would like to focus now on the system itself, its development and the forces that pushed it forward.

The most cohesive story of that time was contained in Plutarch’s life of Lycurgus, which attributes the Spartan government to that great lawgiver. Many of his facts have been questioned and much may have come from Plato – a biased source writing centuries later – but still it’s a place to start.

Prior to the advent of its militaristic model Sparta, like many of the other Greek Poleis, was managed by an aristocratic faction. We talked previously about splinter experiments in new government, like the Basileus as a military leader, which failed to catch on. But at some point, possibly the mid-eight century B.C, the Spartan political system began to evolve in a unique direction. Was Lycurgus the prime mover? Maybe, but there were certainly forces at work moving the Spartans toward equality whether or not they were driven by a single individual.

The foundational step was the creation of the Council of Elders, which as Plato stated had the effect of “cooling the high fever or royalty” and since the Elders had equal vote with the kings, they could bring “caution and sobriety to their deliberations”. The Gerousia and was made up of thirty members including the two kings.

The second body of government was the Ecclesia or Assembly, made up of all members of the Spartan army (hoplites). These members were referred to as Homoioi. Remarkably, the Assembly was mandated by the Rhetra (pronouncement of the Oracle) of Lycurgus near the end of the 8^thcentury B.C, making it the first citizen legislative body in history.

Plutarch tells us what happened next. “Even though these changes had the effect of mixing the several powers of the state, successor generations, seeing that the powers of the oligarchy were unimpaired, and that it was, as Plato calls it, full of life and vigor, placed as a curb to it the power of the Ephors. The first Ephors, of whom Elatus was one, were elected during the reign of Theopompus” circa 675 B.C. The five Ephors were administrators elected for one year who were granted power greater than the kings with regards to the management of Spartan society, although in military matters, the kings were supreme. Speculation is that the Ephors were originally part of the king’s staff, but spun off as a separate governmental unit to reduce royal authority.

So we can see a balanced Republican government of three bodies: Gerousia, Assembly, and Ephors, remarkably similar to the Roman Republic which would come along two hundred years later. Seeing a similar structure in Greece and Rome, separated by time and space, one can’t help thinking that the Republic was a natural development of human society – the bridge system between autocrats and democracy.

Moving along in the evolution of the Spartan government, we again turn to Plutarch. “The second and the boldest of political reforms of Sparta was the redistribution of the land. Great inequalities existed, many poor and needy people had become a burden to the state, while wealth had got into a very few hands.”

According to our sources, thirty thousand lots were granted to the Perioeci (neighboring villages) and nine thousand (later twelve thousand) to Spartiates.

One wonders about the land distribution and it impetus. What factor would have caused the rich to share their land? While the formation of a Council of Elders and Assembly are logical, even inevitable, the redistribution of land is not. There answer of course is that the rich did not give up their land. The land distribution was public land similar to the Roman agar publicus. There was still private land held onto by the rich. Embedded in the land distribution somewhere is the relationship between Sparta and Messenia, the territory of fertile lands west of the Taygetos Mountains. See map below.

Its people fought the Spartans twice. The first time, circa 730 B.C, led to the subjugation of the Messenian people as helots. Perhaps only half the Messenian land was taken. Then, circa 675 B.C, the Messenians revolted and had to be brought under control again. The latter event most likely sealed the “Devil’s bargain” between Sparta and Messenia. The Spartans needed an army to keep the Messenians subjugated and the need to train that army meant that Spartans had no time for activities separate from war, so the helots were engaged to serve them – growing the crops, providing services, etc. Helots were not slaves in the traditional sense – they weren’t chattels. They were assigned to Spartans as their workers, married to the land that a Spartan owed but eligible to keep half its produce.

The military mindset of Sparta manifested itself in other more eccentric ways. The mess was an institutionalized meal ritual among Homoioi designed to create camaraderie between them . Each Spartiate ate his meals with the same men he fought beside in war and each man was required to contribute food to the mess on a monthly basis. It has been written that Lycurgus got the idea for the mess from a visit to Crete where he saw it in action, but Crete is not the only example of this ritual in antiquity.

The Agoge (military training) was developed to build the Spartan army and there is nothing that can be compared to it in history. Starting at age seven, boys received an “traditional education” along with physical training. Twenty-three years later at 30, the training ended and they became Spartiates. The Agoge was extreme – including periods of surviving in the wilderness, learning to steal to survive, and even killing Helots for practice, if writers from the time are to be believed.

And there were additional modifications to the Spartan system including the banning of gold and silver money, expulsion of worker in useless trades, and promoting of physical fitness among girls. Almost all of these were attributed to Lycurgus although some may be fantasy.

So we see an evolved Spartan Republic, perhaps by 650 B.C, consisting of a balanced political system built to support a militaristic ideal.

So much of it was eccentric: the anachronistic twin royal houses that lived on past their time, the Ephors, commoners elected by the shouts of the populace, and the odd relationship between Sparta, the Perioikoi, and the Messenians. But still the power of Sparta survived for centuries until the its army became weak in battle. The end came in 371 B.C. when a Spartan army of only 800 Homoioi was utterly defeated at Leuctra.

Victory on the Peloponnesian War had been an illusion. The Spartans could not rule others because their eccentric system did not prepare them for the task. Thirty years later, Spartan power had ended.

Review of the book Leonidas: A Heroic King by Helena Schrader

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic King is the third installment in the trilogy covering the life of the famous Spartan king, written by Helena Schrader. I have not had a chance to read the first two books but jumped at the chance to read this one because I wanted to see how Helena would approach the Battle of Thermopylae.

Helena Schrader graduated with honors in History from the University of Michigan and has earned a PhD in History from the University of Hamburg. She has published several books since 1993, both fiction and non-fiction. Among the former are several historical novels including six on ancient Sparta. She maintains a blog titled Sparta Reconsidered.

I approached A Heroic King as a person knowledgeable on the subject matter but curious about how the author would weave fact and fiction together. Would the story be convincing? Spartan names take some getting used to and I found myself struggling through the first two dozen pages as I tried to get to know the many characters – both historically familiar and unfamiliar. Knowledge of the vocabulary of Sparta was certainly helpful during this early part of the read.

Once the names were locked in, things moved along at a fine rhythm. There were many wonderful scenes -- Leonidas' election, the sacrificial ambassador’s trip to see Xerxes, and Gorgo’s shopping trip in Athens, to name a few. For a historical novel to be successful, you have to feel seamlessly transported back in time by the author. Then you can live the story and absorb the history along the way. Helena has successfully met this requirement by accurately capturing the lives and experiences of the people of Lacedaemon.

The Battle of Thermopylae was riveting – not mere choreography like the movie 300, but real tension created by 300 men trying to survive but also prepared to die. The reader has a first row seat as the realization of no escape transforms Leonidas and his men into determined heroes.

In sum, The Heroic King is a brilliantly written novel that gives life to one of the great cultures of history. Its mixture of drama and adventure can carry the reader forward at whatever pace he or she may desire.

My only concern in recommending the novel is for the reader who knows nothing of Sparta – whether they will have the perseverance to work through the new vocabulary. Like the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, I say “Don’t judge this novel by its first two dozen pages”. Acclimate yourself and move on to a great adventure.

Solon and the Polis

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:26:00 +0000

In the previous post, I outlined the life cycle of the Polis and included a chronology showing the significant events it its history. The chronology had one notation that was not mentioned in the post (Solon), so I am going to correct that omission here.

Solon was one of the most important figures of his time and on a short list of the greatest Greek politicians. He was an educated aristocrat, successful businessman, and poet. According to Plutarch, Solon had four character traits seldom found in one man: patriotism, integrity, political genius, and intelligence. And we must not leave out ambition – he wanted the job of saving the Athenian state.

As previously discussed, the Period of Tyrants dated from ~ 650 B.C. to 510 B.C. when Hippias was expelled from Athens. Solon was active during the middle of this period.

In 632 B.C, the opportunist Cylon tried to establish himself as a tyrant of, but failed. He had achieved victory at the Olympic Games and used his fame to gather supporters and take control of the Acropolis. Lured out of hiding with the promises of a pardon, Cylon and his followers were murdered by members of the aristocratic Alcmeonidae family. Athens was not ready to tolerate a tyrant.

A decade later in 621 B.C. the citizens of Athens asked a legislator named Draco to codify Athenian law for the first time. The results of his work were unduly harsh specifying the death penalty for even minor offences.

“…he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones."

By 600 B.C, Athenian politics was in complete disarray. The last decades had seen their pottery trade fall behind its Corinthian competition, and the aristocratic class had become more ruthless. Poor farmers became serfs of the rich when they could not pay their debts, and the landless were enslaved and sold abroad. Territorial groups could not be controlled by the weak central government.

As Plutarch tells it, “The state was divided into as many factions as there were parts of the country, for the Diakrii, or mountaineers, favored democracy; the Pedioei, oligarchy; while those who dwelt along the seashore, called Parali, preferred a constitution midway between these two forms, and thus prevented either of the other parties from carrying their point. Moreover, the state was on the verge of revolution, because of the excessive poverty of some citizens, and the enormous wealth of others, and it appeared that the only means of putting an end to these disorders was by establishing an absolute despotism.”

Enter Solon.

Again Plutarch sets the stage.

“In this position of affairs, the most sensible men in Athens perceived that Solon was a person who shared the vices of neither faction, as he took no part in the oppressive conduct of the wealthy, and yet had sufficient fortune to save him from the straits to which the poor were reduced. In consequence of this, they begged him to come forward and end their disputes.

But Phanias of Lesbos says that Solon deceived both parties, in order to save the state, promising the poor a redistribution of lands, and the rich a confirmation of their securities. However, Solon himself tells us that it was with reluctance that he interfered, as he was threatened by the avarice of the one party, and the desperation of the other. He was chosen Archon next after Philombrotus (594 B.C.), to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at once, because the rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the poor trusted him as a good man. It is said also that a saying which he had let fall some time before, that "equality does not breed strife," was much circulated at the time, and pleased both parties, because the rich thought it meant that property should be distributed according to merit and desert, while the poor thought it meant according to rule and measure. Both parties were now elate with hope, and their leaders urged Solon to seize the supreme power in the state, of which he was practically possessed, and make himself king.”

Solon consulted the Oracle at Delphi which said,

“Take thou the helm, the vessel guide,

Athens will rally to thy side.”

But he refused the monarchy saying in his own verse,

"Not a clever man was Solon, not a calculating mind,

For he would not take the kingdom, which the gods to him inclined,

In his net he caught the prey, but would not draw it forth to land,

Overpowered by his terrors, feeble both of heart and hand;

For a man of greater spirit would have occupied the throne,

Proud to be the Lord of Athens, though 'twere for a day alone,

Though the next day he and his into oblivion were thrown."

As senior Archon, Solon chose to proceed quietly to administer so as to

Not disturb or overset the state

Because if he did he would not have sufficient power to re-constitute and organize again. To rule properly, Solon thought it best to “Combine force and justice together”.

So he started changing Laws. What laws? Nearly all of them.

Solon cancelled all debts and obligations in Athens. He repealed the dreaded Draconian criminal code and substituted his own. Then he wrote a new constitution. Those born of free Attican parents would become citizens of Athens.

The populace would be divided into four classes based on wealth with the top three classes eligible for the magistracies formerly only available to the aristocrats. The lowest class was barred from magistracies but allowed to serve on juries. Solon also made decisions of the magistrate’s court subject to appeal to a special court (Heliaia) which had no judge.

And on he went. He suppressed dowries, barred men from speaking evil of the dead, allowed wills to give property to a friend if no relative was available, regulated the journeys of women, encouraged trade, barred exports except for oil, and allowed foreigners to become Athenian citizens.

Solon was no democrat, because he believed in the reality of the distribution of wealth. Anticipating the Roman Republic, which was ninety years in the future, he rejected equality – choosing instead a way of creating a balance between the classes. He believed the creation of a middle class would neutralize the conflict between the upper and lower, precisely the role the Knights would take in Republican Rome.

Solon’s year in power came to an end with passions high, yet there was enough support in each class for his reforms to keep the Polis stable. He ordered the new laws to be in force for one hundred years, and then, to the surprise of many, resigned his post and left Athens for ten years.

The balance of forces did not last. Returning to Athens as an old man in 561, Solon witnessed Peisistratus become a tyrant. He died two years later and his ashes were scattered around the Island of Salamis. When the last tyrant, Hippias, was exiled in 510 B.C, the first act of the Athenian government was to re-institute the laws of Solon.

Lifecycle of the Greek Polis

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:51:00 +0000

I have written several articles about the Polis -- mainly focused on pieces of its history. It’s hard to put the tell the whole story given the space limits of a blog, but I’ve decided to make the attempt here because the Polis is so important to Western Civilization as the model for modern political systems and Democracy. We’ll conserve space by sticking to the main inflection points in its history – the forces that propelled its development forward.

One more thing. We discuss the Polis generically until the rise of Athens because its evolution occurred across the Greek peninsula. One of the reasons for the success of the Polis was the number of cities and towns that served as laboratories for its development. Eventually Athens would become the standard and take the structure of the Polis to its endpoint.

We start with the chronology shown above. By 1100 B.C, Mycenae had fallen, dragging the Greek world into its own version of the Dark Ages. It took three hundred years to recover. During those three centuries, slowly but surely, a political system was created.

The military leader, or Basileus, was the first step. No royalty survived the Mycenaean collapse, so all that remained were aristocrats who possessed wealth but no legitimacy to rule. The Basileus, were not wealthy, but emerged because they possessed an uncommon skill – military prowess. The wealthy granted them one and only one power – control of the militia, and that power was confined to the local village or town -- not beyond. With the Basileus well established, the Greeks could have gone in either of two directions politically: strengthening collective action through a complex political organization or moving toward personal leadership. There is evidence that the latter was attempted; that the Basileus became more powerful. But that path was a dead end and they were eventually replaced by an administrator type – similar to the Archons of Athens. The Basileus lacked the historical requirements for personal leadership – wealth, a significant following among the people, and precedent. Ultimately, the people were unwilling to cede power and make them kings. Instead, they kept power for themselves and elected administrators they could control.

Even as a dead end, the Basileus was important to the future development of the Polis because it was the first structural element of an non-hereditary authority – a building block of the future Polis.

In the first half of the Archaic Period, which began in 800 B.C, the threads of the new political system became tighter as a result of two forces: aristocratic power and the unification of the lower class. In the former case, the aristocrats became a power class by banding together based on common interests and employing administrative types to carry out the operations of a rudimentary government. Concurrently, the tactical view of battle evolved and the Phalanx became the Greek’s prime military formation. As I have discussed in previous articles, the Phalanx gave power to the common people because it was a large scale military organization of equals. One they realized what they had, the people began asking for a part in government. The result was power sharing between themselves and the aristocrats.

By 650 B.C. the young Polis was functional but weak -- its structure lacking the power and legitimacy to exercise complete authority over the society. The delicate political balance between the aristocrats and the common people had produced a stalemate. It wasn’t long before that balance was upset by the aristocrats, who became more oppressive, driving popular support away from them and toward anyone who would stand for the people. Ultimately, tyrants stepped in and took power for themselves. The incubator of Democracy had rejected pure aristocratic power as an unworkable political system.

Oddly, the tyrants turned out to be benign rulers for the most part. They did not abuse their power but, instead, found ways to move their society forward. Herodotus wrote,

“not having disturbed the existing magistrates nor changed the ancient laws… they administered the State under that constitution of things which was already established, ordering it fairly and well”

Aristotle wrote, of Peisistratus, that “his administration was temperate…and more like constitutional government than a tyranny.”

Tyrants came to power because the early Polis did not have enough democracy in it to foster the long term stability that would come later. In the end, they corrupted themselves by attempting to prolong control as hereditary models but failed because of uneven governance. Fortunately, the Polis had not retrogressed, so it did not have to regain ground before it could advance again.

So we move on to the period, starting in 510 B.C, where the Polis rises to its zenith, helped along by visionarieswho sought to build a structure that would be stable, enduring, and divide power fairly. The strength of the Polis would often be tested over the next eighty years, and it would survive.

The first visionary, Clisthenes, blocked an effort by Isagoras to reverse the rising independence of the lower classes in 508 B.C. Clisthenes intended to permanently break the power of local social units in favor of the state, and to make sure power was permanently placed in the hands of the people. He organized the populace into demes or political units numbering about 140, requiring that each tribe contain demes located in the country, the city, and the coast so that self-interest would be equally distributed.

He also established a council of 500, consisting of 50 men from each tribe. The 500 were chosen by lot to make insure their independence. The council had responsibility for preparing bills for the assembly and supervising public business.

These reforms were tested immediately when Athens was attacked by Boetia and Chalcis in 506 B.C. Both were defeated and the balance between the classes held. The Polis was further strengthened by the wars with Persia. When Athens was attacked and occupied in 480 B.C, unity among the people, created to fight a common enemy, strengthened the bond between them and kept the Athenian political system together.

The second important Athenian visionary was Pericles,who instituted a variety of reforms after 461 B.C. An aristocrat, Pericles had the gifts of intelligence and leadership. He became the leader of the council of ten generals and served as the de facto leader of Athens until his death from the plague in 429 B.C. During his tenure, Pericles passed laws allowing poor citizens to attend plays for free, and began a system of compensation for magistrates and jurors. This allowed a broader spectrum of the populace to participate in government. He also lowered the property qualification for the archonship to help breakup the monopoly of the aristocratic class. The time of Pericles has been labeled the “Golden Age” of Athens because the stable, open democracy provided the fuel for continued Athenian intellectual development.

Still, there is a paradox in the label, because the high point of the Polis was also the beginning of the end. The accomplishments of the Athenians made them arrogant and they abused their partners in the Delan League. Hubris had them believing they could defeat the Spartan Army so they launched the Peloponnesean War in 431 B.C, only to see their political system destroyed after twenty seven years of conflict.

With Athens weak, Sparta felt it had to control Greece to protect itself but did not have the skill. She was engaged in a series of adventures during the thirty year period after the Peloponnesian War until Leuctra, when her military might was destroyed for forever. Thebes stepped in and spent nine years (371-62) trying to control northern Greece, but following the Battle of Mantinea its hegemony came to an end. Greece was now vulnerable as a divided people and that division would leave it ripe for the taking by an autocrat.

Philip of Macedonia was the man whose strong will would overcome a fragmented Greece. The Athenians, led by Demosthenes, tried their best to oppose him, but the end for Athens came at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C. As victor, Philip convened the League of Corinth, including all the Greek powers except Sparta who refused to participate. Now the Polis had reached the end of its life, superseded by autocratic rule. The reign of Philip and his son Alexander, the Diodochi, and regional kings occupied Greece until the Macedonian Wars with Rome made her a client state.

The Polis had lasted four hundred years. During that time it evolved into the greatest of the antiquarian political systems. But, like all systems man has created, it would fall. No concept or belief system can remain static because it must adapt to its time. Evolution brings risks and eventually the political structure fails to meet the needs of its people.

Caesar Against Vercingetorix – The Siege of Alesia

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 01:39:00 +0000

In 52 B.C. Julius Caesar, near the end of his war against Gaul, had one great enemy left – the charismatic Arvernian, Vercingetorix. Expelled from Gergovia, for being too rash, Vercingetorix raised an army on his own, and assumed the role of commander. His strategy against Caesar was simple -- use superior cavalry to harass the Romans and drive them away. Caesar, understanding his own weakness, compensated by recruiting Germans to strengthen his own cavalry units. After a series of reversals, Vercingetorix was forced to retreat to the walled city of Alesia with his army of 80,000.

No obstacle would deter Caesar, however. He knew direct attack was impossible because of the hilltop position of the city, so he planned a siege to starve the Gauls into surrender. Caesar had 12 legions with auxiliaries ready to bring to bear on the enemy. It was mid-summer, 52 B.C.

The image above shows the Gallic camp, town of Alesia, and the Roman fortifications.

This image is a view from the west showing the geography.

For this post we focus on the engineering aspects of the battle, as we did with the Masada and Rhine bridge posts. Here again the tenacity of the Roman people and the skill of their engineers would provide the margin of victory.

Let’s start with The Conquest of Gaul Book 7 chapter LXIX to set the scene.

“The town itself was situated on the top of a hill, in a very lofty position, so that it did not appear likely to be taken, except by a regular siege. Two rivers, on two different sides, washed the foot of the hill. Before the town lay a plain of about three miles in length; on every other side hills at a moderate distance, and of an equal degree of height, surrounded the town. The army of the Gauls had filled all the space under the wall, comprising the part of the hill which looked to the rising sun, and had drawn in front a trench and a stone wall six feet high. The circuit of that fortification, which was commenced by the Romans, comprised eleven miles. The camp was pitched in a strong position, and twenty-three redoubts were raised in it, in which sentinels were placed by day, lest any sally should be made suddenly; and by night the same were occupied by watches and strong guards.”

Before the circumvallation could be completed, however, Vercingetorix sent a party of tribal leaders through the breech on a mission to recruit allies and bring them back as reinforcements. We move on to chapter LXXII.

“Caesar, on learning these proceedings from the deserters and captives, adopted the following system of fortification; he dug a trench twenty feet deep, with perpendicular sides, in such a manner that the base of this trench should extend so far as the edges were apart at the top. He raised all his other works at a distance of four hundred feet from that ditch; [he did] that with this intention, lest (since he necessarily embraced so extensive an area, and the whole works could not be easily surrounded by a line of soldiers) a large number of the enemy should suddenly, or by night, sally against the fortifications; or lest they should by day cast weapons against our men while occupied with the works. Having left this interval, he drew two trenches fifteen feet broad, and of the same depth; the innermost of them, being in low and level ground, he filled with water conveyed from the river. Behind these he raised a rampart and wall twelve feet high: to this he added a parapet and battlements, with large stakes cut like stags' horns, projecting from the junction of the parapet and battlements, to prevent the enemy from scaling it, and surrounded the entire work with turrets, which were eighty feet distant from one another.”

Then the Romans began to construct the countervallation.

This photo shows the hills of Alesia from the Roman line.

Above is a portion of the reconstructed Roman fortifications.

“It was necessary, at one and the same time, to procure timber [for the rampart], lay in supplies of corn, and raise also extensive fortifications, and the available troops were in consequence of this reduced in number, since they used to advance to some distance from the camp, and sometimes the Gauls endeavored to attack our works, and to make a sally from the town by several gates and in great force. On which Caesar thought that further additions should be made to these works, in order that the fortifications might be defensible by a small number of soldiers. Having, therefore, cut down the trunks of trees or very thick branches, and having stripped their tops of the bark, and sharpened them into a point, he drew a continued trench everywhere five feet deep. These stakes being sunk into this trench, and fastened firmly at the bottom, to prevent the possibility of their being torn up, had their branches only projecting from the ground. There were five rows in connection with, and intersecting each other; and whoever entered within them were likely to impale themselves on very sharp stakes. The soldiers called these "cippi." Before these, which were arranged in oblique rows in the form of a quincunx, pits three feet deep were dug, which gradually diminished in depth to the bottom. In these pits tapering stakes, of the thickness of a man's thigh, sharpened at the top and hardened in the fire, were sunk in such a manner as to project from the ground not more than four inches; at the same time for the purpose of giving them strength and stability, they were each filled with trampled clay to the height of one foot from the bottom: the rest of the pit was covered over with osiers and twigs, to conceal the deceit. Eight rows of this kind were dug, and were three feet distant from each other. They called this a lily from its resemblance to that flower. Stakes a foot long, with iron hooks attached to them, were entirely sunk in the ground before these, and were planted in every place at small intervals; these they called spurs.

…After completing these works, having selected as level ground as he could, considering the nature of the country, and having enclosed an area of fourteen miles, he constructed, against an external enemy, fortifications of the same kind in every respect, and separate from these, so that the guards of the fortifications could not be surrounded even by immense numbers, if such a circumstance should take place owing to the departure of the enemy's cavalry; and in order that the Roman soldiers might not be compelled to go out of the camp with great risk, he orders all to provide forage and corn for thirty days.”

In late September, a relief force of eighty thousand Gauls arrived and both Gallic forces attacked the Romans – one from the inside and one from the outside. Caesar sent his cavalry against the relief force while his army fought off an attack from those trying to breakout from the city. Neither Gallic army was able to penetrate the fortifications. The next day Vercingetorix concentrated a new attack force against a weak spot in the inner fortifications. His army successfully broke through but were attacked from behind by Roman cavalry that had ridden around the outer ring to their rear. Caesar, himself, appeared with the troops trying to close the gap and the Romans were ultimately successful.

With their reinforcements routed, and no further hope to break the siege, Silesiasurrendered and handed over Vercingetorix to Caesar, who imprisoned him for six years and then paraded him through Romebefore his execution.

Sparta -- Ancient Map and Clans

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:20:00 +0000

On June 14, 2009 I published the following map of ancient Sparta showing the location of the villages/clans.

Unfortunately, the map has the tribes incorrectly located. This post ranks fourth in popularity and the thought of readers being exposed to incorrect information is unacceptable to me, so we must rebuild the map.

Searching the web (or looking in the literature) for maps of Sparta is difficult. The few examples one can find are eighteenth century posters, most notably the one by the Frenchman Bocage which first appeared in 1783. It appears that I used this to mark up my own map. I have recently read that Bocage’s map contained misinterpretations from ancient writings. Of course, he did not have the benefit of modern archeology which would have been helpful.

Now examine my rework of the map.

And I quote Toynbee’s description of the villages and clans:

“Thus, about 700 B.C., there were at Sparta, over and above the three privileged clan groups, five locally organized communities, embracing both the clansmen and a large unprivileged population besides. These five were: Pitane, the seat of the Agiadai-clan and their clients (containing the burial place of the Agiad phratria: N.W. of the agora: Limnai, the seat of the Eurypontidai clan and their clients (tombs of the Eurypontid phratria, on the street which seems to have branched N.E. from the agora) on the low lands bordering the Eurotas-bed: Kynosoura, the long ridge S. of Limnai, occupied by the community from Lakedaimon: andMesoa, between these three, and S. of the agora, occupied by the Minyai from Therai and their clients. Lastly, Amyklai, two miles S. of the Tiasa (Magoula) river, left in possession of its old inhabitants.”

Of course, Leonidas was of the Agiad line. Menelaos (husband of Helen and brother of Agamemnon) was Kynosouran. Forklore has it that Menelaos migrated from Therapne (old Lakedaimon) to the west bank of the Eurotos and later the Spartan people became Lakedaimons. There is a shrine to Menelaos at Therapne.

And there's that fifth village that was part of Sparta -- Amyklai. The map below shows it separation from the others.

Pyrrhus – The Underrated Military Mind of Antiquity

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 23:56:00 +0000

King Pyrrhus of Epirus is best known to us for his “Pyrrhic” victory over the Romans at the Battle of Asculum, but that single event does not begin to characterize the life and the skill of this great military mind of antiquity. Scipio Africanus described a conversation he had with Hannibal where he asked the Carthaginian general who he thought was the greatest commander of all time. Hannibal immediately named Alexander as the greatest. Then, when Scipio pressed him for his opinion on the second best, expecting Hannibal to name himself or Scipio, Hannibal replied, “Pyrrhus of Epirus”. Antigonus, when asked who he believed to be the greatest general said, “Pyrrhus, if he lives to be old.” Pyrrhus was good enough to rate a spot in Plutarch’s lives, paired with no less a figure than Gaius Marius. Sadly, the comparison document, which would have paralleled their lives, was lost.

Pyrrhus was born in 319 B.C, the son of Aeacides, King of Epirus, and Phthia, second cousin to Alexander the Great. Aeacides was deposed in 317 B.C. and his family took refuge with Glaukias, King of the Taurantians. Aeacides died in 313 B.C. so Pyrrhus, as heir, was placed his father’s throne by Glaukias in 306 at the age of 13. Deposed again in 302 B.C, Pyrrhus went on to serve under his brother-in-law Demetrius Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus, satrap of Alexander. In 298 B.C. he was sent to Egypt as a hostage after a treaty was concluded between Ptolemy and Demetrius. While there, Pyrrhus married Ptolemy’s step daughter Antigone and used the Egyptian King’s financing and military aid to regain his throne in 297 B.C. Pyrrhus then moved the Epirian capital to Ambrakia and began to wage war on Demetrius. At one point during the war, Pyrrhus was challenged to one on one combat against Pantaucus, one of Demetrius’ senior officers, and defeated him. He took Macedonia and was declared king, but the conquest could not be held and Pyrrhus was pushed out by Lysimachus in 285 B.C.

Plutarch tells us what happened next. "At this time, then, when Pyrrhus had been driven back to Epirus and had given up Macedonia, fortune put it into his power to enjoy what he had without molestation, to live in peace, and to reign over his own people. But he thought it tedious to the point of nausea if he were not inflicting mischief on others or suffering it at other's hands and, like Achilles, could not endure idleness."

He looked westward.

In 282 the Thurii tribe, located in the heel of Italy, asked Rome for help against the city of Tarentum, so Rome sent a small fleet to the Gulf of Tarentum to assess the situation. More than likely the Romans were exercising a show of support for the aristocrats of Tarentum who were trying to regain power from the democratic faction running the city. Whatever the reason, the convoy was attacked by the Tarentines, and four of the Roman ships were sunk. Rome dispatched an envoy carrying a protest and he was purposely insulted. The Tarentines clearly wanted a war and they appealed to Pyrrhus for support. The following year, the consul L. Aemilianus Barbula was sent with an army and an ultimatum for Tarantum to compensate for the attack on the convoy or face the consequences. The Tarentines were at the point of capitulation when the envoy from Pyrrhus arrived with a message saying the king would lend them a hand.

Pyrrhus, always the adventurer, was ready to move away from the frustrations of Greek politics and pursue something more interesting. As the son-in-law of Agathocles King of Syracuse and a relative of Alexander the Great, he had a legacy to apply to empire building in the west. Courageous, ambitious, and skillful, Pyrrhus would present a challenge to the Roman citizen army.

He arrived in Tarentum in 280 B.C. with 25,000 professional soldiers and 20 elephants.

“When he learned that the Romans were near and lay encamped on the further side of the river Siris, he rode up to the river to get a view of them; and when he had observed their discipline, the appointment of their watches, their order, and the general arrangement of their camp, he was amazed and said to the friend that was nearest him: ‘The discipline of these Barbarians is not barbarous; but the result will show us what it amounts to.’”

That summer he met the consul Valerius Laevinus in the Battle of Heraclea. The Romans had never fought the Greek Phalanx before and the horses of their cavalry were frightened by the elephants. Pyrrhus won the battle, leaving 4,000 men on the field versus Rome’s 7,000, but his victory was dubious because in a foreign land he could not afford significant losses with no way to obtain new recruits. After the battle, Pyrrhus, anticipating Hannibal, raced for Rome hoping to turn the Roman allies to his side, but his efforts to treat with Rome were unsuccessful, so he headed back to Tarentum. In the spring of 279, he fought the Romans again at Asculum, winning a second dubious victory. After that battle he quipped, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

But now Pyrrhus had become bored with Italy and looked to move on once again. As Plutarch tells it, “there came to him from Sicily men who offered to put into his hands the cities of Agrigentum, Syracuse, and Leontini, and begged him to help them to drive out the Carthaginians and rid the island of its tyrants; and from Greece, men with tidings that Ptolemy Ceraunus with his army had perished at the hands of the Gauls, and that now was the time of all times for him to be in Macedonia, where they wanted a king.”

Pyrrhus decided Sicily would be more interesting because it could serve as a gateway to Africa, so he proceeded there.

Named king, he sought to rid the island of Carthaginians, but his popularity quickly declined after he began to act like a tyrant. The Sicilians sought aid to expel him, but before they took action, Pyrrhus sailed back to Tarentum. The Romans used two consular armies to push him out of Italy in 275 B.C. and he was finished with Rome for good. Returning to Epirus, Pyrrhus sought war with Antigonus over Macedonia. After a few victories, he became restless once again.

Cleonymus, pretender to the Spartan throne asked Pyrrhus to back his claim with an army so he headed south to Sparta in 272 B.C. He was hesitant to destroy the city with no walls and delays caused by indecision allowed the Spartans to prepare a defense. The attack was unsuccessful.

Plutarch tells us what happened next. “He could accomplish nothing, and met with fresh losses, he went away, and fell to ravaging the country, purposing to spend the winter there. But Fate was not to be escaped. For at Argos there was a feud between Aristeas and Aristippus; and since Aristippus was thought to enjoy the friendship of Antigonus, Aristeas hastened to invite Pyrrhus into Argos. Pyrrhus was away entertaining one hope after another, and since he made one success but the starting point for a new one, while he was determined to make good each disaster by a fresh undertaking, he suffered neither defeat nor victory to put a limit to his troubling himself and troubling others.”

Pyrrhus took his army to Argos and fought a difficult battle within the city walls. His army took the market place but the fighting was treacherous because the streets were too narrow for elephants and he did not know the city. During a street battle, Pyrrhus was injured by a roof tile thrown down on him by an old woman and, before he could regain his senses, was beheaded by an adversary. The head was sent to Antigonus who wept at the death of such a renowned family member.

So the world lost an enigma – a man of many talents as a strategist and military leader, an aristocrat who was comfortable as king, but also a man who bored easily and gave up what he had won more often than not. When politics made his conquests stale, Pyrrhus invariably moved on to the next battle hoping for a better outcome.

Plutarch states “…Pyrrhus would seem to have been always and continually studying and meditating upon this one subject (warfare), regarding it as the most kingly branch of learning; the rest he regarded as mere accomplishments and held them in no esteem. For instance, we are told that when he was asked at a drinking-party whether he thought Python or Caphisias the better flute-player, he replied that Polysperchon was a good general, implying that it became a king to investigate and understand such matters only.

Men believed that in military experience, personal prowess, and daring, he was by far the first of the kings of his time, but that what he won by his exploits he lost by indulging in vain hopes, since through passionate desire for what he had not, he always failed to establish securely what he had. For this reason Antigonus used to liken him to a player with dice who makes many fine throws but does not understand how to use them when they are made.”

Pyrrhic Victory was coined from a single battle, but Pyrrhic behavior (half winning) was a self-inflicted disease that would haunt the man his entire life.

This post was originally published 3/10/2009.

The Greek Phalanx and Its Influence Over Politics in Archaic Greece

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:06:00 +0000

The word Phalanx conjures up images of the formidable Greek battle formation and its impact on warfare over half a millennium. Designed to be impregnable through its reliance on a structure of unit strength made up of equal parts, the Phalanx anticipated every power formation in the future of battle including the modern tank.

Lost in the military view of the Phalanx, however, is the impact it had on the development of the Greek political system. Indeed, it was also the social leveling force in Greek society that helped push the Polis into being and sowed the seeds of modern government.

Our story begins in the Greek Archaic period (800 to 500 B.C.) which saw the development of the Polis as a stable political institution. But to get to a Polis, we must first weave together the threads of government and war.

The phalanx was not invented by the Greeks. The earliest example of the formation was depicted in a Sumerian stone carving from 2,500 B.C. The word phalanx was first used by Homer to describe combat in an organized battle line as distinguished from combat between individuals. Trouble is we don’t know what kind of formation Homer was describing, so we can’t know if our concept of the Phalanx dates from his time.

In the time before the Phalanx, Greek battles were disorganized affairs consisting of two opposing armies running at each other in a line. Once the Greeks perfected it, the Phalanx became the default battle formation ancient armies, until the Romans developed the maniple.

Its political importance is based on the following scenario. At the time the Phalanx came into being, Greek cities contained a mixture of wealthy, poor, and those rising in economic status -- an emerging middle class. Ruling kings realized that they could build an army around larger military formations because more men could now afford to buy the necessary equipment. We can only speculate about the chicken and egg here. Did the kings coerce at first and then later the hoplites figured out how to leverage political power, or did the hoplites refuse to fight unless they were given political rights? I suppose we can imagine a case where the initial formations were small coerced units which grew in size when more independent men decided to participate.

Accurate data pinpointing the advent of the Phalanx is elusive. Written evidence is non-existent so we have to rely of archeology to guide us. The following image, referred to as the Chigi vase, dates from around 650 B.C.

We might ask how long the phalanx existed before it was painted on vases, but any answer is only a guess. Certainly the artists had to be interested in the subject and capable of representing it before it was first rendered. Unfortunately, the many attempts to validate the dating by translating the two dimensional formations on pottery into a three dimensional representation of the Phalanx have not met with much success.

The design of the Phalanx required that all hoplites operate as a single unit, meaning that each soldier had an equal, and important role, in the army’s success. Since everyone was an equal, each had the right to demand political authority when the war was over, because he had made an equal contribution to victory. This demand for political authority eventually manifested itself in the strengthening of the legal code, which protected the rights of the lower classes, and increased their participation in the apparatus of government.

With the advent of the phalanx, arms buried with the dead went out of favor because they lost their value as a status symbol. The new middle class could afford the weapons that would make them equals.

This article was originally posted 8/21/09.

Revisiting Old Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:49:00 +0000

My subject matter derives from a combination of influences, including efforts to broadly cover the subject matter, finding the truth (and excitement) in history, and reflecting on topics that stimulate me. But my readers matter too, because a major goal of this blog is to stimulate interest in ancient history, so if the posts are not relevant and interesting, I will have failed.

Looking at the 279 posts, I see about ¼ which have been read in high volume, ½ in moderate volume, and ¼ largely ignored. In some cases the former and the latter make me scratch my head at the number of reads, but I won’t question why people read a particular post in high volume. I'm very interested, however, in determining why good posts have not been read.

Some may have poorly chosen titles that cannot be identified by a search. Key words are absolutely critical, especially if the post is not recent. Many of the early posts are not as comprehensive or complete as recent ones. Often a page or less, they were snippets of history rather than stories from history. Old posts that are hard to find and lack completeness are justly ignored.

Still, there are some good topics there, so I’m going to resurrect them and freshen them up to re-connect them to my readers. The articles will be re-posted with additional content so they provide the complete picture my readers have come to expect from this blog.

Stay tuned.

Caesar’s Brilliance on Display Against Pompey Post Dyrrhachium

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 21:01:00 +0000

For this post, we abandon Michael Grant, who has been the source of our history of Caesar’s last years, and move on to the general himself writing in The Civil War, or more specifically Commentarii de Bello Civili. The work has three parts: The Struggle Begins, Securing the West, and the Great Confrontation -- the latter being our focus here. Cicero, never a man to avoid hyperbole, praised the books, saying the sections were “like nude figures, upright and beautiful, stripped of all ornament of style, as if they had removed a garment.”

The starting point for the Great Confrontation is the run up to Dyrrhachium, which we have discussed previously, so we’ll begin with Caesar’s retreat from that inconclusive battle.

Caesar headed south to Apollonia and the Oricum, where he cared for his wounded, paid the troops, and accumulated grain. Suspecting Pompey might follow, Caesar sent the baggage train out each sunset, following at daybreak with his troops unencumbered in case of attack. Pompey attempted pursuit but abandoned the effort after four days in favor of a different tactic.

You can examine the following map to see the movements of Caesar and Pompey as they danced before the final battle.

Caesar’s plan was to hurry to Domitius who was shadowing Scipio in Thessaly. Pompey read Caesar’s mind and began a march to Scipio. Domitius foraging west ran into advance scouts of Pompey who bragged Pompey’s plan to him. Sensing danger to himself, Domitius diverted south to join Caesar at Aeginium.

Pompey had spread the lie of a total victory at Dyrrhachium, endangering Caesar’s march east, because cities would not open their gates to him. Gomphi resisted and sent word to Scipio saying they were strong enough to hold out until his rescue, but Caesar took the city in a 24 hour siege and plundered it as an example. The next town, Metropolis wisely embraced Caesar as a friend and opened its doors to him.

Meanwhile, Scipio diverted to Larissa and requested that Pompey join him there.

Pompey’s speeches to his troops were so full of confidence his commanders got into arguments about the offices and villas they would commandeer after returning to Rome, following the defeat of Caesar.

Caesar evolved a plan to entice Pompey to battle, not knowing that Pompey’s lieutenants had already pushed him to engage. With Pompey settled in Pharsalus, Caesar employed a moveable camp strategy designed to wear down Pompey if he pursued, but Pompey declined. Then, one day, Caesar noticed Pompey’s lines farther down from the mountain and decided to offer battle.

Success for both armies hinged on the cavalry deployed on Caesar’s right (Pompey’s left). Pompey had a huge advantage in cavalry with some 7,000 available to him, including archers, but Caesar recognized this as a key vulnerability and pulled a cohort from each legion to create a “fourth line” of infantry behind the cavalry.

Caesar, aware of the importance of timing, told his commanders to watch him and expect signals from the waving of his flag. Pompey, acting on the advice of one of his commanders, decided to have his lines hold position rather than move forward, expecting Caesar’s troops to charge the whole distance and tire themselves out. The latter, consisting of the first two lines, closed half the distance and, observing Pompey’s forces in their initial position, stopped to conserve their strength. Then, after recovery, they renewed their charge until the lines were engaged. Pompey’s cavalry moved forward, forcing Caesar’s troops to give ground. Before they could attack the right flank of his infantry, however, Caesar signaled the fourth line to enter the fray. They fought with such vigor, Pompey’s cavalry took to the hills leaving the archers exposed and they were defeated. At that point, Caesar signaled the third line of infantry forward to relieve the weary first and second lines. This created an opening for the fourth line to encircle the left side of Pompey’s infantry and begin the rout. Pompey, now anticipating defeat, returned to camp and tent to await the outcome.

With victory on the battlefield complete, Caesar decided to press his advantage and storm the enemy camp. The camp was taken, but Pompey had escaped by horse to Larissa. His troops attempted to follow but they were intercepted by Caesar and forced to surrender. The Pompeian army of 45,00 yielded 15,000 killed and 24,000 prisoners.

Caesar after Dyrrhachium

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 01:54:00 +0000

History books don’t usually run through the details of Caesar’s life. They only lay out the big stories -- conquest of Gaul, crossing the Rubicon, Cleopatra, and the assassination. Here we have recently discussed the Battle of Dyrrhachium, an under-reported event, so I’m going to carry on a detailed chronology from there.

Here is a map of Caesar's travels from 48-44 B.C.

Caesar was busy the last three years of his life, yet there is mystery embedded in his activities. What was he trying to accomplish? Did he have a plan? How did he intend to solve the problems of the Republic? We don’t have the answers, but it’s interesting to look at the hints he gives us.

Caesar believed he could win the civil war by defeating his friend Pompey. Dyrrhachium had been a draw, but a month later when Caesar prevailed at Pharsalus, Pompey fled to Egypt. The latter was murdered upon his arrival based on the Egyptian’s mistaken notion it would benefit them to demonstrate allegiance to Caesar. When Caesar arrived in Alexandria four days later, following a month of tribute collecting in Anatolia, he was shown Pompey’s head and was not pleased. The Egyptians had ruined his opportunity to humiliate a defeated enemy by taking him back to Rome and, more importantly, crossed the line by murdering a senior Roman leader.

But Caesar still needed money and assumed the role of arbiter over the dispute between Cleopatra and her brother to gain position in the battle for control of the Egyptian treasury. Once Cleopatra became his mistress, Ptolemy and his minions rebelled, were defeated, and the king was killed. The end result was an alliance with Egypt, rather than annexation, because Caesar knew he could not trust any governor to manage an Egyptian province.

Ignoring the unrest in Rome, Caesar decided to seek additional tribute in the east, so he headed north with the goal of reducing Pontus as punishment for the murder of Crassus. Then, after its defeat on August 1, 47 B.C, he headed home via Athens and Tarentum, where he met with Cicero.

By early fall, Caesar realized that a revolt of Pompey loyalists in Africa was underway so he began to plan an invasion of Tunis. Departing on December 25^th from Marsala, Sicily, Caesar’s army traveled to Africa. A combination of food shortage and reluctance on the part of the Pompeians to fight delayed the climactic battle until early April of 46 B.C.

By July Caesar had returned to Rome and initiated forty days of triumphs to celebrate the end of the civil war. Included in this extravaganza was the strangulation of Vercingetorix, his old enemy from Gaul, who had been kept in prison for six years waiting for the right moment.

But now Pompey loyalists in Spain began to revolt and something had to be done about them. On November 1, 46 B.C, Caesar left for Spain with his army, for what would become his final campaign. Again, as in Africa, the enemy was elusive and it took until March 17^th of 45 B.C. before they were defeated.

In the single year that remained of Caesar’s life, we note three primary activities: attempts at colonization and resettlement of veterans, the making of his will, and the extension of his powers. With regard to the settlements, the Roman army at the end of the civil war consisted of no less than 35 legions, far more than needed and a dangerous risk to the stability of the Republic. The dictator initially proposed resettlement lands for the veterans but there was not enough free land available in Italy so the settlements were moved to occupied lands. Not east, because the Hellenistic world refused to be Romanized, but west to Spain and other parts.

In September Caesar returned to his villa at Lavicum to prepare his will. It left three quarters of the estate to Octavius, grandson of one of his sisters. The boy would also become his adopted son. Here Caesar chose family over colleagues because he had a good candidate. Octavian’s intellect and ruthlessness had impressed his uncle and overcome any concerns about his frail constitution.

What did Caesar intend to do about the Republic? Fix it later or let it be? We don’t know. Perhaps the answer lies in the plans he made in early 44 B.C. to invade Parthia. Battle was certainly something he loved and going to war put off having to deal with political problems he had no answer for.

In February of 44, Caesar had his dictatorship converted into a lifelong office, only a year after he had extended it to ten years. This new definition of dictator was deeply offensive to Roman traditionalists who saw it as an emergency office only. In a weak attempt to show modesty, Caesar refused to be named king when the crown was offered to him by Anthony on February 15, 44 B.C. Somehow he believed that the title was more dangerous than the authority, a frighteningly delusional position.

Once his enemies found out about the Parthian campaign, they decided they couldn’t live with the idea of an absent dictator operating by remote control. The assassination plan came together quickly and Caesar was killed. Unfortunately, those Republicans among the conspirators were as delusional as their victim and leaderless. Brutus decided that Anthony should be spared, so the public could see that the assassination was not a power grab. This foolish idealism would be their undoing. The conspirators had no plan for restoring the Republic or even taking control of the situation. They allowed Anthony to use Caesar’s funeral oration to build hatred for the conspirators, driving them from Rome while elevating himself.

How many times has this story been told in history? Idealists strike at the tyrant as an attempt to turn the clock back, but they fail because they aren't ruthless enough and don’t understand how to take power.

The brilliant fallout of the death of Caesar was the sham perpetrated on the Roman people by Octavian once he had defeated Anthony at Actium. He made the principate look like the Republic and everyone fell for the ruse.

The Ancients Hall of Fame

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:29:00 +0000

I recently came upon an article in about.com by N.S. Gill, their feature writer on ancient history. Its title is 69 Ancient People You Should Know, and it got me thinking about the most important people of antiquity – those who would be voted into an Ancients Hall of Fame.

For the purposes of exploring this subject I’m going to start with Gill’s list, which is as good a place as any. I don’t agree with many of her selections but I also admit that building a list like this is subjective. I don’t know if “people you should know” is equivalent to “most important’ but the latter is the direction I’m taking. I believe fame plays a significant role here, making it difficult to include those who are generally unknown to the public in general and me in particular. My sense of antiquity is that individuals whose fame has endured over the millennia were the most important. The only qualifier I put on that is that I’m avoiding the infamous whose misdeeds are their claim to fame.

To return again to the baseball analogy, there are a group of ancients that I will label first ballot hall of famers. That is individuals who would be on everyone’s list and would never have their selection questioned. That list includes,

Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Caesar Augustus, Cleopatra, Confucius, Constantine the Great, Hannibal, Herodotus, Homer, Jesus, Julius Caesar, Moses, Saul (Paul) of Tarsus, Pericles, Plato, Siddhartha Gautama, Socrates, Solon, and Thucydides. That’s nineteen.

In the second tier I would place Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Attila the Hun, St. Augustine, Demosthenes, Euclid, Euripides, Hammurabi, Hippocrates, Nebuchadnezzar II, Pindar, Sappho, Scipio Africanus, Sophocles, Thales, Virgil, Xerxes, and Zoroaster. Another eighteen.

My third tier would contain Archimedes, Cato, Empedocles, Galen, Justinian I Mithridates VI, Ovid, Plutarch, Ramses II, and Spartacus, making the list total 47.

Do we add more and by what criteria? A structured approach would dictate selection by category of accomplishment. For example, the Greeks made significant contributions in philosophy, science, drama, and poetry, so we should choose one or more from each of these. Right? But, when you build a list like this and make any attempt to limit its size, you get into trouble quickly.

It is generally thought that the four greatest dramatists of all time were Shakespeare, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, and Euripides. If all three Greeks are in a class with the Bard, aren’t they all hall of famers?

Philosophy is tougher still. You start with Plato and Aristotle and then it makes sense to add Socrates and Thales. Who else? There are so many candidates – Zeno, Epicurus, Anaximander, Heraclitus, etc.

There are three groups from Gill I have not added: those too obscure to be eligible, those who didn’t quite make the grade, and those who are unworthy. In the first group I include Ashkoka (Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty), Hashesput (fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt), Inhotep (a Polymath circa 2650 B.C.), and Sargon the Great (Akkadian king of 2300 B.C.).

The second group contains Agrippa (important as Augustus right hand man) but not quite good enough, Thermistocles (admiral of the Athenian Navy), Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Tacitus. The unworthy contingent includes Nero, Domitian, and Caligula. Not sure why they were chosen.

Now let’s move on to the people who are missing from Gill’s list and are worthy. There are seven in this group: Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Livy, Leonidas, Lysander, Isocrates, and Cicero. The Golden Age of the empire is an important period and Trajan and Marcus are its bookends. Trajan reigned from 98-117 A.D, stabilizing the empire and initiating a period of calm lasting 82 years. Marcus Aurelius was the last of the dynasty and is important for his reflective personality and stoic philosophy. It was a sad irony that Marcus hated wars and yet was fated to fight in them for almost his entire reign.

If you have Herodotus and Thucydides on the list you have to have Livy -- Rome’s greatest historian. We are all the poorer because so many of his books were lost.

In my view, you can’t construct an Ancient’s Hall of Fame without Spartans, so I have included two: Leonidas and Lysander. Leonidas is famous for one single event, his defense at Thermopylae. That story has resonated around the world ever since as an example of courage, honor, and devotion to the cause. Leonidas has a unique place on the list because his contribution occurred during a single event that cost him his life, rather than contributions over a lifetime. Lysander was Sparta’s greatest admiral, largely responsible for ending the Peloponnesean War in Sparta’s favor.

I thought of including Lycurgus, architect of the Spartan political system, but we’re not sure a single person with that name existed.

I include Isocrates, at risk, because some would call him obscure. He labored under the shadow of Plato but his contribution to the development of educational systems that followed him is unequalled. He was Athens’ greatest orator and had a great influence over the politics of is day.

So now we reach the end with Cicero, who as a philosopher, orator, statesman, lawyer, and political theorist had a significant impact on late Republican Rome. Cicero’s Latin prose was unequalled as he built a Latin philosophical vocabulary by translating the Greek. His letters, when discovered during the 14^th century, helped launch the renaissance, through interest created in the writings of antiquity. Cicero’s humanist philosophy influenced the renaissance, while his republicanism influenced the founders of the United States.

Now we have a complete list of 53 – an odd number and no more than an arbitrary stopping point based on subjective criteria. Still it’s fun to debate the greatest of antiquity. Wish we had a few like them today but unfortunately, in this modern age, image and money have subverted wisdom and knowledge.

Review of The Jericho River by David Carthage

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 21:08:00 +0000

I occasionally do book reviews, but its unusual for me to comment on a novel. The Jericho River is an exception because of its unique approach, which has us learning ancient ancient history while we enjoy the story. To me, any method of proliferating our subject matter is good and this is more fun than most.

The Jericho River chronicles the dream journey of Jason Gallo, a young man sent to the Land of Fore to rescue his father, William, who is trapped there. The father, a history scholar, has become unconscious and doctors are unable to revive him. One of them, the odd Dr. Valencia, convinces Jason that his father is stuck in a dream world and the only way to save him is to go there and bring him back. Jason agrees, not knowing what’s in store for him, and after falling asleep finds himself transported to ancient Mesopotamia where he has to learn to survive and begin the search for his father. Immediately captured by bandits, Jason is saved by a lumin in the form of a lion with a man’s head. Zidu quickly becomes his companion and friend for a journey down Jericho River – the dream world’s path through history. After Sumer, they travel to Egypt where they are joined by the exotic priestess Tia -- ordered to go with them by her guardian, who wants the girl to experience the world. Tia is strong willed and temperamental but honorable and passionate in stark contrast to Jason’s irreverent impatience.

The trio journeys to Crete, Babylon, Israel, and Persia guided by the tiniest threads of information about Jason’s father, while enduring the attacks of Barbarians and pirates who seek to enslave them. Along the way, Jason learns how to communicate to other lumins using his thoughts, and becomes intensely aware of the spiritual world.

At every step of the journey he hears rumors of a mysterious man, called the Rector, who is after him for reasons unknown.

Down the river our heroes travel to Athens, northern Europe during the barbarian period after the fall of the Roman Empire, and finally the medieval world. They are shocked when they meet a group of fairies living in a secluded wood – angry fairies who have lost the power to help mankind because they have been replaced by science. Jason learns this is the work of the Rector and his International Empirical Society -- men dedicated to destroying lumins and fairies as enemies of progressive thought. He sees the cruelty in this right away, perpetuated by those who would raise science to the status of gods.

At the climax of the book, Jason’s dream becomes a nightmare when he comes face to face with the rector and is forced to stand up for what he has come to believe. He is now a man and must survive on what he learned from his dreams.

The Jericho River is more than it seems on the surface and is not just one more adventure story. Advertised to be a subtle teaching of history in an action adventure wrapper, it is certainly that. You experience the history first hand from the characters that are living it and that experience is more real than dates and names in a history book. And while it may be geared to the adolescent reader, it fits the adult fun equation as well.

If you want to look beneath the fun and get philosophical, you can do that too by contemplating one of the great moral themes in the history of man -- the role of science and its impact on human spirituality. Man has embarked on a 2000 year journey to explain the world and, as he has done so, gradually replaced fear of the unknown with science. Where does this process end and what do we have when all is known?

I, personally, don’t want to live in a world of equations where everything is explained. Give me a fairy or two and let me dream.

The Battle of Dyrrhachium – Caesar’s Greatest Risk

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:34:00 +0000

I’ve been waiting for five months to write this article.

Back in March, while writing the post on the Visigoth sack of Rome, I came upon an interesting story about a siege the Goths conducted during the time period of the sack of Rome. The author said “this siege was the largest in history next to Dyrrhachium.” Huh? I had never heard of Dyrrhachium. After going back to retrieve the reference I couldn’t find it. Thought it was in Gibbon, but no.

The reference mentioned Pompey against Caesar and I realized that this battle was alluded to but unnamed in the HBO Rome series. Pompey and Cicero took refuge in Greece where Caesar eventually attacked them. He won with an inferior force for reasons I never understood.

After Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 B.C, Pompey retreated from the city, crossed the Adriatic, and set up camp in Greece. Caesar, not in a hurry to chase him, decided to stabilize Spain first. He also lacked ships to transport his troops so he had to wait for them to be constructed. By the end of the year 49 B.C, a now impatient Caesar was anxious to attack his old triumvir friend. There were only enough ships for half the fleet but Caesar decided to proceed immediately even though the January storms would make passage difficult.

The following map shows the movements of the two armies.

Unknown to Caesar was the blockade set up by Pompey using his fleet under the command of Bibulus. Caesar was very fortunate in that he caught Bibulus off guard with a winter crossing and was able to reach the coast of Epirus (1). When Caesar sent the fleet back to retrieve the rest of the army, it was intercepted, blocked, and many ships were lost (2). Caesar now faced the prospect of fighting Pompey’s army of 45,000 with an army of 15,000. He attempted to treat with Pompey several times but was rebuffed. Resigned to doing battle, Caesar instructed the newly arrived Anthony to break the blockade and head north to meet him at Dyrrhachium (3,4). Pompey, hearing of Caesar’s movements, marched from Macedonia to try and get between Caesar and Anthony (5). Unsuccessful, he set up camp along the coastline south of Dyrrhachium.

Caesar, using his classic playbook, decided to build a circumvallation around the army of Pompey. The latter responded by constructing his own fortifications opposite Caesar. By the end of spring Pompey’s army was suffering from lack of fodder and needed to break out. Some Gallic horsemen defected to Pompey, telling him of a hole in Caesar’s line to the south. Pompey attacked there, forcing Caesar to retreat in order to save his remaining troops (6).

Caesar then took Gomphi by siege and then defeated Pompey for the final time at Pharsalus. Pompey escaped to Alexandria but was murdered by Ptolemy.

The map below shows the fortification detail.

Caesar's circumvallation was about 13 miles long.

The Leonidas Trilogy

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:59:00 +0000

I wanted to introduce you to the Leonidas Trilogy, a series of three historical novels by my friend Helena Schrader. The trilogy divides Leonidas life into three parts: Boy of the Agoge, A Peerless Peer, and A Heroic King. I placed a youtube introduction to the series in the left hand column for you to see, so have a look.

Helena also writes her own blog, Sparta Reconsidered, which you can access through a link on the blog list below.

New Directions for This Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Anderson) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:26:00 +0000

The most important component of any blog is the content, which attempts to communicate information to the reader specific to the subject orientation of the site, but no blog can be successful unless the author finds ways to stimulate his readers and get them to return to the site.

There is a great deal of information that comes along with the words, such as images, maps, and charts that help frame the content of the postings and behind the article content sits the publications which act as source materials for the content.

I have recently been working to expand access to my background materials as a way to provide readers a pathway to more information, when they want to go deeper into the subject matter. The tools for this new effort are Goodreads and Facebook.

For those of you not familiar with Goodreads -- you should be. This site collects lists of books by subject and includes member reviews of those books. You can put your own library up there as a contribution or just read what others have to say about books you’re interested in. Another feature allows you to search for booksellers who have the book and buy it right in Goodreads. You can also join any one of a variety of forums on different topics where members openly discuss issues that matter to them.

I have 136 of the books in my Goodreads booklist including about 80 books on the ancient world. Every book I use for my postings gets added to my booklist there.

To make supplementary materials available, I have created a Facebook page for the blog which you can see at:

http://www.facebook.com/MikeAndersonsAncientHistoryBlog

Here I will be adding all of the image materials from the articles I post, including charts, artifacts, and maps of the ancient world -- located in the photo section organized by category. Not all of the materials are up there yet but I’m working on it. Take a look and see what you think.