Can you think of any contempo- rary
examples
of rulers or heads of state who dwell in comparably plush and extravagant living quarters?
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome_nodrm
?
?
?
?
?
?
121
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
? ? ? ? A SLUMLORD AND FINANCIAL PROFITEER EXTRAORDINAIRE
The first-century BCE politician Marcus Licinius Crassus amassed a fortune that would have been the envy of a Gates or a Trump . . . or even an Alex Rodriguez. One of his favored ways of maintaining and augmenting his bottom line was to buy up properties in lower-income neighborhoods in Rome and then rent them out at exor- bitant rates. He was especially aggressive in purchasing properties that had been destroyed by fire; according to the biographer Plutarch, destructive house and apartment fires were frequent in Rome because of the height and physical proximity of these buildings. Plutarch relates that Crassus bought about 500 slaves who were knowl- edgeable about building and architecture, and then when a conflagration was raging in some residential district in Rome, Crassus would appear on the scene and offer the distraught owner a bargain basement price for his property. The owner, figuring that something was better than nothing, usually agreed to the price. In this way, says Plutarch, Crassus acquired on the cheap a large number of burned-out houses and apartments, which his 500 slaves subsequently rebuilt, and from which Crassus profited greatly through the excessive rental fees he charged.
Oddly, Rome had no organized, government-sanctioned fire brigade until early in the first century CE, when the emperor Augustus placed throughout the city some 7,000 nocturnae vigiles--literally, "night watchmen"-- whose primary job was to guard against the outbreak of fires and to assist in extinguishing them when needed. These vigiles probably also had some law enforcement responsibilities, thus making them kind of a hybrid com- bination of police officers and firefighters.
The biographer Suetonius has an interesting, albeit rather cryptic, comment on firefighting, in his Life of Nero. [16. 1] He states that Nero ordered porticos to be constructed in front houses and apartments in Rome; these porticos had flat roofs, from which residential fires could be battled. However, Suetonius does not mention the methods that could be employed by rooftop brigades in containing fires. It was also during Nero's reign that the great fire of 64 CE swept through Rome, for six days and seven nights, according to Suetonius. Whether Nero himself set the conflagration, and whether he "fiddled while Rome burned," are both open to debate.
? ? to deal with the noise-pollution problem? How successful were they in doing so? Are there any parallels between ancient Roman cities and modern American cities in the way(s) in which they handled these kinds of problems?
Further Information
Green, Peter. Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires. Baltimore, 1967. Highet, Gilbert. Juvenal the Satirist: A Study. New York, 1954.
? ? ? ? SATIRE: A ROMAN INVENTION
The ancient Romans, rightly or wrongly, are often accused of "borrowing" large portions of their culture-- mythology, literature, art, and architecture, to name a few--from the Greeks. But one literary niche was totally Roman: satire. A famous line from the first-century CE orator Quintilian attests to Roman ownership of this genre: Satira quidem tota nostra est: "Satire, at least, is all ours. " [10. 1. 93] This line occurs within the context of a lengthy defense of Roman authors and their sometimes implied, sometimes stated, equivalence or even superiority to their Greek counterparts.
? ? 122
Websites
Juvenal. http://www. nndb. com/people/055/000097761/
Sample Plan of a Roman house. http://vroma. org/~bmcmanus/house. html
Bibliography for Document
Creekmore, Hubert (tr. ). The Satires of Juvenal. New York, 1963.
Fairclough, H. Rushton (tr. ). Virgil: Eclogues; Georgics; Aeneid. Volume I. [LCL. ] Cambridge
and London, 1916.
You Take Your Life in Your Hands if You Live in Rome
123
This page intentionally left blank
25. AH! AT LAST I CAN LIVE LIKE A HUMAN BEING!
INTRODUCTION
For an egregious contrast to the conditions under which denizens of the insulae passed their days in Rome, we need look no further than the spectacular Domus Aurea, or Golden House, built for the emperor Nero in the first century CE. The biographer Suetonius (ca. 70-140 BCE) provides the details of this monument to excess.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
1. Nero had an obsession with over-the-top behavior, if Suetonius is to be believed. Some examples: There must have been a constant turnover in his closet, because he wore none of his clothing more than once. When he went fishing, he used a gilded net that was equipped with purple and red drawstrings. When he went on a trip, he was accompanied by a thousand carriages (minimum! ), all drawn by mules with silver shoes, with drivers wearing expensive woolen clothing, and horsemen and messengers all attired with finely wrought jewelry. It is hardly surprising, then, that his Golden House would exceed all boundaries of propriety.
2. Suetonius is occasionally accused of something approximating "tabloid journalism": that is, an inordinate interest in reporting gossip, scandal, and indecorous behavior. This charge, however, seems a little unfair, since the purpose of a biographer is to present a picture of the complete person, including that person's eccentricities and improprieties.
3. Although the exact square footage of the Golden House is unknown, it must have been built on a vast scale, since it was large enough to encompass a one-mile long colonnade and sprawling enough to fill the entire space in between two of Rome's famous Seven Hills, the Esquiline and the Palatine. So ambitious were Nero's con- struction projects that the comedians of the time joked that the buildings would eventually stretch in a continuous line all the way from Rome to the town of Veii, 10 miles away. Suetonius writes that Nero ordered all prisoners, anywhere in the Empire, should be brought to Italy to provide the unskilled labor for the projects, and that even those guilty of capital crimes would live to see their sentences over- turned. Working for Nero, apparently, was sentence enough!
? ? ? ? 125
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
4. The Golden House received its name not because it was literally a house made of gold (although Nero's housing proclivities would undoubtedly have tended in that direction! ), but most likely because--as Suetonius explains--much of its wall and ceiling space was overlaid with gold.
Document: Suetonius's Account of Nero's Golden House
There was nothing, however, in which he [Nero] was more ruinously prodigal than in building. He made a palace extending all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which at first he called the House of Passage, but when it was burned shortly after its completion and rebuilt, the Golden House. Its size and splendor will be sufficiently indi- cated by the following details. Its vestibule was large enough to contain a colossal statue of the emperor a hundred and twenty feet high; and it was so exten- sive that it had a triple colonnade a mile long. There was a pond, too, like a sea, surrounded with buildings to represent cities, besides tracts of coun- try, varied by tilled fields, vineyards, pastures and woods, with great numbers of wild and domestic animals. In the rest of the house all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of-pearl. There were dining rooms with fretted ceilings of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes. The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens. He had baths supplied with sea water and sulphur water. When the edifice was finished in this style and he dedicated it, he deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval than that he was at last beginning to be housed like a human being . . .
He was led to such mad extravagance, in addi- tion to his confidence in the resources of the empire, by the hope of a vast hidden treasure, sud- denly inspired by the assurance of a Roman knight, who declared positively that the enormous wealth which queen Dido had taken with her of old in her flight from Tyre was hidden away in huge caves in Africa and could be recovered with but trifling labor. [Tr. John C. Rolfe. Suetonius. Nero (31). Volume II. LCL, 1914. Page numbers: 135, 137, 139. ]
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? colossal statue of the emperor: Nero, never one to be too modest about his self-image as a larger-than-life authority figure, believed himself worthy of both adulation and com- memoration in the form of a colossal statue, 120 feet tall, as Suetonius records. The statue, designed by the first-century CE Greek architect Zenodorus, was made of bronze, with gold and silver overlays. Some historians doubt that it actually ever stood in the Golden House. Sue- tonius states only that the vestibule was large enough to accommodate a statue of that size, but it seems probable, given the immensity of Nero's ego, that an equally immense colossus did reside in his home. The statue is no longer in existence.
After Nero's death, his Golden House was demolished, and con- struction began on the Flavian Amphitheater, which was built on the site formerly occupied by the house. It is widely believed that this amphitheater, better known today as the Coliseum, derived its popular name from its proximity to the original location of Nero's colossus.
enormous wealth. . . queen Dido: Dido was a legendary queen of Tyre (a city of Phoenicia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea). She had a rather unusual fam- ily background. She was married to her uncle, Sychaeus, reportedly a
? ? ? 126
Ah! At Last I Can Live Like a Human Being!
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? man of great wealth. Dido's brother, Pygmalion, murdered Sychaeus in order to get his hands on Sychaeus's money. In the confu- sion following the murder, Dido and a group of her friends and sup- porters fled from Tyre, eventually landing in North Africa, where she became the founder and ruler of the famous city-state Carthage. In her flight, Dido supposedly took her uncle's considerable fortune with her; the rumor persisted-- more than a millennium after the event--that this treasure trove was hidden somewhere in the area and "could be recovered with but trifling labor. " Nero, at least, hoped so!
Dido is a principal character in the first four books of Virgil's Aeneid. When Aeneas and his friends are shipwrecked on the coast of North Africa, Dido welcomes them hospitably and even prepares a banquet in their honor. After the feast, she prevails upon Aeneas to tell her the story of the Trojan War and its aftermath. As the days go by, Dido becomes increasingly enamored of Aeneas, to the point where a marriage seems both logical and inevitable. However, Aeneas realizes that his destiny lies else- where, and so he and the Trojans sail away from her kingdom. From a watchtower, she sees the departing Trojans, and in her despair and anger prays to the gods that they will at some time bring forth an avenger to destroy the progeny of Aeneas. She then commits suicide.
Later generations of Romans will hark back to this tragic story and interpret it as a harbinger of the bitter Punic Wars (Rome versus Carthage) of the third and second centuries BCE, even suggesting that
? ? ? AFTERMATH
Nero's short and out-of-control life came to an ignominious end at age 31, in 68 CE, when he was toppled in a military coup engineered by one of his generals, Servius Sulpicius Galba. Apparently, Nero never saw it coming; he had been assured by a prophecy from the renowned Delphic Oracle that he need only fear the seventy-third year. Since he was a young man when he received that news, he felt certain that many long and "ruinously prodigal" years lay before him. It never occurred to him that the "seventy-third year" might apply to something or someone else. Galba's age when he deposed Nero? Seventy-three!
When the coup was underway, and Nero realized that his situa- tion was hopeless, he began making preparations for his own demise, all the while, according to Suetonius, saying over and over: Qualis artifex pereo! : "What an artist is dying! " This was perhaps a reference to his expensive appreciation for works of art, or perhaps to his own efforts at composing music and presenting recitals.
Shortly after his death, his Golden House was almost com- pletely demolished by the emperor Vespasian (Galba's eventual suc- cessor, after the very short reigns of Otho and Vitellius), although vestiges of the house still remain. The Flavian Amphitheater was built on the spot where the house once stood. Some say that this amphitheater derived its more famous name--the Coliseum-- because of its location near the site of the former colossus of Nero. Guilt by association!
ASK YOURSELF
1. Suetonius's account of the early years of Nero's reign indi- cates that the emperor (and he became emperor at age 17) was sensible and just. He showed great respect to his elders, he was generous to those in need, he was approachable and friendly, and he had a knack for remembering the names of people he met and then greeting them by name when he saw them. He was a supporter of the arts, patronized chariot races and gladiatorial shows, and established con- tests in music, oratory, and poetry. Why, then, do you sup- pose that the later years of his reign were marked by cruelty, greed, licentiousness, and extravagance, as exempli- fied by the Golden House?
2. As mentioned in the "Keep in Mind as You Read" section, Suetonius is sometimes accused of a sort of tabloid journal- ism in his biographies: reporting the salacious gossip about an individual while ignoring or downplaying the less scan- dalous but more serious aspects of that individual's life. Do you think the description of the Golden House falls
? ? ? 127
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
into the category of "salacious gossip"? Could this descrip- tion have been omitted entirely from the biography and still leave us with a more or less complete picture of the sort of life that Nero lived?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
e Consider the topography of ancient Rome. Find out approximately how far it was between the Palatine and Esquiline Hills. Would it have been practical, or even possible, to have built a house that occupied that much space? Was the house constructed entirely in the valley formed by those two hills, or were parts of the house built into or on the hills?
e Consider the information in the "Aftermath" sec- tion. Can you think of other examples in both ancient and recent history of iconoclasm: the intentional destruction of statues, paintings, or other graphic representations of previous rulers by successor regimes?
e ConsidertheimmensescaleonwhichtheGolden House was built.
Can you think of any contempo- rary examples of rulers or heads of state who dwell in comparably plush and extravagant living quarters?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? the intractable Carthaginian general Hannibal was the "avenger" for whom Dido prayed.
Palatine/Esquiline: Two of Rome's famous Seven Hills (although the city actually encompassed more than a dozen named hills and ridges. The other five: the Aven- tine, the Caelian, the Capitoline, the Quirinal, and the Viminal. The Palatine Hill (Mons Palatinus, in Latin) was home to a number of palatial residences; indeed, our word "palace" derives from Palatinus.
Roman knight: The equestrian class, sometimes called "knights," com- prised Rome's thriving upper middle class. Suetonius does not name the particular knight who provided Nero with this assurance.
triple colonnade: The vestibule's roof was supported by three rows of columns. It defies speculation or imagination to calculate how many individual columns would be required for a mile-long roof.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? BUILD 'EM BIG: COLOSSAL STATUES IN THE ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN WORLD
Nero's remarkable colossal statue was not a one-of-a-kind creation; there were precedents. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Built ca. the early third century BCE in honor of the god Apollo, it soared skyward some 100 feet and overlooked the harbor at Rhodes. According to the naturalist and historian Pliny the Elder, the circumference of its thumbs was greater than the span of an average man's hand. Legend has it that it straddled the harbor so that ships entering and leaving would sail directly beneath it; however, this is a largely discredited account. The Colossus did not long survive; it was destroyed by an earthquake about 75 years after it was erected.
The fifth-century BCE Athenian sculptor/architect Pheidias created some of the ancient world's most beautiful and noteworthy colossal statues. His statue of Zeus at Olympia--like the Colossus of Rhodes, ranked as one of the Seven Wonders--was reputedly 40 feet tall, and made of gold and ivory. Pheidias's statue of Athena in the Parthenon in Athens was also about 40 feet tall, and also crafted of gold and ivory; the gold alone was supposedly worth some 44 talents, the equivalent of perhaps $15 million. Pheidias sculpted another noted statue of Athena-- the Athena Promachos--which was situated on the Acropolis, the high hill overlooking Athens. This statue, includ- ing the base, was about 70 feet tall; according to the second-century CE travel writer Pausanias, the sunlight's reflec- tions off the statue's helmet crest and the point of the spear in its hand could both be seen by sailors on ships rounding Cape Sounion, about 40 miles from Athens.
? ? 128
Further Information
Ball, Larry F. The Domus Aurea and the Roman Architectural Revolution. Cambridge, 2003. Grant, Michael. Nero. New York, 1989.
Website
Domus Aurea. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Domus_Aurea
Bibliography for Document
Rolfe, John C. (tr. ). Suetonius. Volume II. [LCL. ] Cambridge and London, 1914.
Ah! At Last I Can Live Like a Human Being!
129
This page intentionally left blank
INTELLECTUAL LIFE
This page intentionally left blank
26. AN INTELLECTUAL ON TRIAL
INTRODUCTION
When we ponder the array of intellectuals who added color and controversy to ancient Athenian life, we would be hard pressed to come up with a more famous name than Socrates (469-399 BCE). For three decades, he wandered the streets of Athens, teaching, ask- ing questions, forcing his audiences to think. His annoying (to the authorities! ) habit of investigating and sometimes casting doubts upon established modes of governance, religion, and education eventually caused him to be put on trial and ultimately condemned to death. The transcript of that trial, written by his disciple Plato, remains one of the most famous documents that has come down to us from antiquity.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
1. The Greek title of Plato's recounting of Socrates's trial, Apologia, is often translated as The Apology. However, we must be careful to remember that the word apologia neither connotes nor denotes an expression of regret or sorrow. Rather, it means "defense," and that definition precisely applies to the words Socrates spoke at his trial.
2. Modern juries are traditionally composed of "12 good men (and women) and true," but ancient juries--both Greek and Roman--regularly featured much higher num- bers. The jury that convicted Socrates, for example, had 501 members; many jury- men were elderly citizens who depended on the stipends they received for jury service as part of their retirement income. An odd number of jurors was selected to preclude tie votes. However, if some extenuating circumstance caused the absence of one or more jurors, thus creating an even number, a tie vote went to the defendant, and the case would be dismissed.
3. Stating the case against Socrates were three accusers, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon. Apparently, they were very good at what they did; Socrates himself admitted that he was "almost carried away by them; their arguments were so convincing. "
? ? ? ? 133
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? gentlemen: In the original Greek, Socrates refers to the jurors as andres Athenaioi, "men of Athens. "
god at Delphi: The "god" is Apollo, who had an important shrine at Delphi, a remote location in the mountains, north of Athens. But why would Socrates call Apollo as a witness? According to translator Hugh Tredennick, the "explana- tion of its reply about Socrates is that it was well aware of his true character and ideals and thor- oughly approved of them. "
priestess: Apollo's pronouncements were conveyed via the priestesses who tended his temple.
professor of wisdom: The term is not to be taken literally; the Greek word that Socrates uses, sophos, simply means "a wise man. "
wisdom: Sophia in Greek, one of the elements of our word "philoso- phy," which etymologically means the "love of wisdom. "
? ? ? 134
Document: The Trial of Socrates
[O]ne of you might interrupt me and say "But what is it that you do, Socrates? How is it that you have been misrep- resented like this [i. e. , that his accusers' charges were base- less]. Surely all this talk and gossip about you would never have arisen if you had confined yourself to ordinary activ- ities, but only if your behavior was abnormal. Tell us the explanation, if you do not want us to invent it for our- selves. " This seems to me to be a reasonable request, and I will try to explain to you what it is that has given me this false notoriety; so please give me your attention. Perhaps some of you will think that I am not being serious, but I assure you that I am going to tell you the whole truth.
I have gained this reputation, gentlemen [i. e. , the jurors], from nothing more or less than a kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom do I mean? Human wisdom, I sup- pose. It seems that I really am wise in this limited sense. Presumably the geniuses whom I mentioned just now [other noted scholars, philosophers and teachers, including Georgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis] are wise in a wisdom that is more than human; I do not know how else to account for it. I certainly have no knowledge of such wisdom . . . Now, gentlemen, please do not interrupt me if I seem to make an extravagant claim, for what I am going to tell you is not my own opinion. I am going to refer you to an unimpeachable authority.
I shall call as witness to my wisdom . . . the god at Delphi.
You know Chaerephon . . . a friend of mine from boyhood . . . [O]ne day he
actually went to Delphi and asked this question of the god: . . . whether there was anyone wiser than myself. The priestess replied that there was no one. "
[At this point, Socrates relates that he went on a sort of pilgrimage, to test the god's response to determine whether it was actually true that no one was wiser than he. He interviewed a number of people, including politicians, poets, crafts- men, and other professionals, and he came to the conclusion that indeed he could not find anyone who surpassed him in wisdom. He also discovered, much to his surprise, that some people who had great reputations as intellectuals failed to live up to those lofty reputations, whereas others, who did not enjoy similar esteem, were "much better qualified in practical intelligence. "]
"The effect of these investigations of mine . . . has been to arouse against me a great deal of hostility, and hostility of a particularly bitter and persistent kind, which has resulted in various malicious suggestions, including the description of me as a professor of wisdom. This is due to the fact that whenever I succeed in disproving another person's claim to wisdom in a given subject, the bystanders assume that I know everything about that subject myself. But the truth of the matter . . . is pretty certainly this: that real wisdom is the property of God [i. e. , Apollo], and this oracle is his way of telling us that human wisdom has little or no value. It seems to me that he is not referring literally to Socrates, but has
merely taken my name as an example, as if he would say to us, 'The wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless. ' " [Tr. Hugh Tredennick. Plato: The Last Days of Socrates. (21-22. ) Penguin Books, 1954. Page numbers: 49, 52. ]
AFTERMATH
The conviction of Socrates could well have had a depressing effect on free speech and intel- lectual inquiry in Athens. A few years earlier (404 BCE), the city's democracy had been tem- porarily suspended, while a cabal of dictators--the Thirty Tyrants--held sway. Although the democracy was soon restored, the experience may have encouraged the harassment, and even prosecution, of free thinkers like Socrates. In any event, Socrates's famous student Plato left Athens shortly after the trial and did not return until some years later.
ASK YOURSELF
1. Do Socrates's words and arguments at his trial convey the impression that he really did surpass all others in wisdom and knowledge?
2. Socrates claims that his displays of knowledge inspired jealousy and even hostility toward him, because other people then assumed that he knew everything there was to know about a particular subject. He tried to deflect this hostility by claiming that "real wisdom is the property of God," and that "human wisdom has little or no value. " Are these arguments sensible? Believable?
3. Socrates was overwhelmingly condemned by the "men of Athens" who formed the jury. Why do you suppose he was unable to persuade them that he was innocent of the charges brought against him?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
e Investigate further Apollo's oracle at Delphi. How long had it been in the business of supplying answers and information to pilgrims who visited it
An Intellectual on Trial
? ? ? ? ARISTOPHANES'S SATIRICAL PORTRAYAL OF SOCRATES
One of the 11 surviving plays of the Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (ca. 445-380 BCE) was entitled Clouds, a satirical critique of the sophists in general and Socrates in particular. In the play, Socrates was por- trayed as accepting money for his teachings, founding a school, and corrupting his students by instructing them in deceptive methods of argumentation. None of these representations was strictly accurate; rather, they were exaggerations used to create an effective satirical portrayal.
Some historians think that the audiences interpreted the satire too literally, and therefore, they formed a dis- torted image of Socrates and his ideas. This, in turn (so the critics say), nurtured the climate of persistent and bitter hostility that Socrates claims surrounded him. However, the play was produced around 423 BCE, and Socrates was not put on trial until nearly a quarter century later; so it is difficult to imagine that Clouds had any direct impact on the decision to prosecute him. Furthermore, Socrates himself was reportedly in the audi- ence during a production of the play, and by all accounts, he laughed heartily at the scenes in which he was por- trayed. Apparently, he "got it. "
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 135
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
136
with questions? What accounted for its credibility? How did the process actually "work"? That is, how did the priestesses gain the information they relayed to the questioner? Do you suppose that pilgrims truly believed this information came directly from the god, or were they at least somewhat skeptical?
e In his speech, Socrates mentions the reasons why he is being prosecuted: "corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state. " How plausible do these charges seem? Could an argument be made that Socrates's accusers were jealous of his intellectual acuity and therefore his ability to attract large and interested audiences to hear his teachings?
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
? ? ? ? A SLUMLORD AND FINANCIAL PROFITEER EXTRAORDINAIRE
The first-century BCE politician Marcus Licinius Crassus amassed a fortune that would have been the envy of a Gates or a Trump . . . or even an Alex Rodriguez. One of his favored ways of maintaining and augmenting his bottom line was to buy up properties in lower-income neighborhoods in Rome and then rent them out at exor- bitant rates. He was especially aggressive in purchasing properties that had been destroyed by fire; according to the biographer Plutarch, destructive house and apartment fires were frequent in Rome because of the height and physical proximity of these buildings. Plutarch relates that Crassus bought about 500 slaves who were knowl- edgeable about building and architecture, and then when a conflagration was raging in some residential district in Rome, Crassus would appear on the scene and offer the distraught owner a bargain basement price for his property. The owner, figuring that something was better than nothing, usually agreed to the price. In this way, says Plutarch, Crassus acquired on the cheap a large number of burned-out houses and apartments, which his 500 slaves subsequently rebuilt, and from which Crassus profited greatly through the excessive rental fees he charged.
Oddly, Rome had no organized, government-sanctioned fire brigade until early in the first century CE, when the emperor Augustus placed throughout the city some 7,000 nocturnae vigiles--literally, "night watchmen"-- whose primary job was to guard against the outbreak of fires and to assist in extinguishing them when needed. These vigiles probably also had some law enforcement responsibilities, thus making them kind of a hybrid com- bination of police officers and firefighters.
The biographer Suetonius has an interesting, albeit rather cryptic, comment on firefighting, in his Life of Nero. [16. 1] He states that Nero ordered porticos to be constructed in front houses and apartments in Rome; these porticos had flat roofs, from which residential fires could be battled. However, Suetonius does not mention the methods that could be employed by rooftop brigades in containing fires. It was also during Nero's reign that the great fire of 64 CE swept through Rome, for six days and seven nights, according to Suetonius. Whether Nero himself set the conflagration, and whether he "fiddled while Rome burned," are both open to debate.
? ? to deal with the noise-pollution problem? How successful were they in doing so? Are there any parallels between ancient Roman cities and modern American cities in the way(s) in which they handled these kinds of problems?
Further Information
Green, Peter. Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires. Baltimore, 1967. Highet, Gilbert. Juvenal the Satirist: A Study. New York, 1954.
? ? ? ? SATIRE: A ROMAN INVENTION
The ancient Romans, rightly or wrongly, are often accused of "borrowing" large portions of their culture-- mythology, literature, art, and architecture, to name a few--from the Greeks. But one literary niche was totally Roman: satire. A famous line from the first-century CE orator Quintilian attests to Roman ownership of this genre: Satira quidem tota nostra est: "Satire, at least, is all ours. " [10. 1. 93] This line occurs within the context of a lengthy defense of Roman authors and their sometimes implied, sometimes stated, equivalence or even superiority to their Greek counterparts.
? ? 122
Websites
Juvenal. http://www. nndb. com/people/055/000097761/
Sample Plan of a Roman house. http://vroma. org/~bmcmanus/house. html
Bibliography for Document
Creekmore, Hubert (tr. ). The Satires of Juvenal. New York, 1963.
Fairclough, H. Rushton (tr. ). Virgil: Eclogues; Georgics; Aeneid. Volume I. [LCL. ] Cambridge
and London, 1916.
You Take Your Life in Your Hands if You Live in Rome
123
This page intentionally left blank
25. AH! AT LAST I CAN LIVE LIKE A HUMAN BEING!
INTRODUCTION
For an egregious contrast to the conditions under which denizens of the insulae passed their days in Rome, we need look no further than the spectacular Domus Aurea, or Golden House, built for the emperor Nero in the first century CE. The biographer Suetonius (ca. 70-140 BCE) provides the details of this monument to excess.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
1. Nero had an obsession with over-the-top behavior, if Suetonius is to be believed. Some examples: There must have been a constant turnover in his closet, because he wore none of his clothing more than once. When he went fishing, he used a gilded net that was equipped with purple and red drawstrings. When he went on a trip, he was accompanied by a thousand carriages (minimum! ), all drawn by mules with silver shoes, with drivers wearing expensive woolen clothing, and horsemen and messengers all attired with finely wrought jewelry. It is hardly surprising, then, that his Golden House would exceed all boundaries of propriety.
2. Suetonius is occasionally accused of something approximating "tabloid journalism": that is, an inordinate interest in reporting gossip, scandal, and indecorous behavior. This charge, however, seems a little unfair, since the purpose of a biographer is to present a picture of the complete person, including that person's eccentricities and improprieties.
3. Although the exact square footage of the Golden House is unknown, it must have been built on a vast scale, since it was large enough to encompass a one-mile long colonnade and sprawling enough to fill the entire space in between two of Rome's famous Seven Hills, the Esquiline and the Palatine. So ambitious were Nero's con- struction projects that the comedians of the time joked that the buildings would eventually stretch in a continuous line all the way from Rome to the town of Veii, 10 miles away. Suetonius writes that Nero ordered all prisoners, anywhere in the Empire, should be brought to Italy to provide the unskilled labor for the projects, and that even those guilty of capital crimes would live to see their sentences over- turned. Working for Nero, apparently, was sentence enough!
? ? ? ? 125
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
4. The Golden House received its name not because it was literally a house made of gold (although Nero's housing proclivities would undoubtedly have tended in that direction! ), but most likely because--as Suetonius explains--much of its wall and ceiling space was overlaid with gold.
Document: Suetonius's Account of Nero's Golden House
There was nothing, however, in which he [Nero] was more ruinously prodigal than in building. He made a palace extending all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which at first he called the House of Passage, but when it was burned shortly after its completion and rebuilt, the Golden House. Its size and splendor will be sufficiently indi- cated by the following details. Its vestibule was large enough to contain a colossal statue of the emperor a hundred and twenty feet high; and it was so exten- sive that it had a triple colonnade a mile long. There was a pond, too, like a sea, surrounded with buildings to represent cities, besides tracts of coun- try, varied by tilled fields, vineyards, pastures and woods, with great numbers of wild and domestic animals. In the rest of the house all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of-pearl. There were dining rooms with fretted ceilings of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes. The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens. He had baths supplied with sea water and sulphur water. When the edifice was finished in this style and he dedicated it, he deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval than that he was at last beginning to be housed like a human being . . .
He was led to such mad extravagance, in addi- tion to his confidence in the resources of the empire, by the hope of a vast hidden treasure, sud- denly inspired by the assurance of a Roman knight, who declared positively that the enormous wealth which queen Dido had taken with her of old in her flight from Tyre was hidden away in huge caves in Africa and could be recovered with but trifling labor. [Tr. John C. Rolfe. Suetonius. Nero (31). Volume II. LCL, 1914. Page numbers: 135, 137, 139. ]
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? colossal statue of the emperor: Nero, never one to be too modest about his self-image as a larger-than-life authority figure, believed himself worthy of both adulation and com- memoration in the form of a colossal statue, 120 feet tall, as Suetonius records. The statue, designed by the first-century CE Greek architect Zenodorus, was made of bronze, with gold and silver overlays. Some historians doubt that it actually ever stood in the Golden House. Sue- tonius states only that the vestibule was large enough to accommodate a statue of that size, but it seems probable, given the immensity of Nero's ego, that an equally immense colossus did reside in his home. The statue is no longer in existence.
After Nero's death, his Golden House was demolished, and con- struction began on the Flavian Amphitheater, which was built on the site formerly occupied by the house. It is widely believed that this amphitheater, better known today as the Coliseum, derived its popular name from its proximity to the original location of Nero's colossus.
enormous wealth. . . queen Dido: Dido was a legendary queen of Tyre (a city of Phoenicia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea). She had a rather unusual fam- ily background. She was married to her uncle, Sychaeus, reportedly a
? ? ? 126
Ah! At Last I Can Live Like a Human Being!
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? man of great wealth. Dido's brother, Pygmalion, murdered Sychaeus in order to get his hands on Sychaeus's money. In the confu- sion following the murder, Dido and a group of her friends and sup- porters fled from Tyre, eventually landing in North Africa, where she became the founder and ruler of the famous city-state Carthage. In her flight, Dido supposedly took her uncle's considerable fortune with her; the rumor persisted-- more than a millennium after the event--that this treasure trove was hidden somewhere in the area and "could be recovered with but trifling labor. " Nero, at least, hoped so!
Dido is a principal character in the first four books of Virgil's Aeneid. When Aeneas and his friends are shipwrecked on the coast of North Africa, Dido welcomes them hospitably and even prepares a banquet in their honor. After the feast, she prevails upon Aeneas to tell her the story of the Trojan War and its aftermath. As the days go by, Dido becomes increasingly enamored of Aeneas, to the point where a marriage seems both logical and inevitable. However, Aeneas realizes that his destiny lies else- where, and so he and the Trojans sail away from her kingdom. From a watchtower, she sees the departing Trojans, and in her despair and anger prays to the gods that they will at some time bring forth an avenger to destroy the progeny of Aeneas. She then commits suicide.
Later generations of Romans will hark back to this tragic story and interpret it as a harbinger of the bitter Punic Wars (Rome versus Carthage) of the third and second centuries BCE, even suggesting that
? ? ? AFTERMATH
Nero's short and out-of-control life came to an ignominious end at age 31, in 68 CE, when he was toppled in a military coup engineered by one of his generals, Servius Sulpicius Galba. Apparently, Nero never saw it coming; he had been assured by a prophecy from the renowned Delphic Oracle that he need only fear the seventy-third year. Since he was a young man when he received that news, he felt certain that many long and "ruinously prodigal" years lay before him. It never occurred to him that the "seventy-third year" might apply to something or someone else. Galba's age when he deposed Nero? Seventy-three!
When the coup was underway, and Nero realized that his situa- tion was hopeless, he began making preparations for his own demise, all the while, according to Suetonius, saying over and over: Qualis artifex pereo! : "What an artist is dying! " This was perhaps a reference to his expensive appreciation for works of art, or perhaps to his own efforts at composing music and presenting recitals.
Shortly after his death, his Golden House was almost com- pletely demolished by the emperor Vespasian (Galba's eventual suc- cessor, after the very short reigns of Otho and Vitellius), although vestiges of the house still remain. The Flavian Amphitheater was built on the spot where the house once stood. Some say that this amphitheater derived its more famous name--the Coliseum-- because of its location near the site of the former colossus of Nero. Guilt by association!
ASK YOURSELF
1. Suetonius's account of the early years of Nero's reign indi- cates that the emperor (and he became emperor at age 17) was sensible and just. He showed great respect to his elders, he was generous to those in need, he was approachable and friendly, and he had a knack for remembering the names of people he met and then greeting them by name when he saw them. He was a supporter of the arts, patronized chariot races and gladiatorial shows, and established con- tests in music, oratory, and poetry. Why, then, do you sup- pose that the later years of his reign were marked by cruelty, greed, licentiousness, and extravagance, as exempli- fied by the Golden House?
2. As mentioned in the "Keep in Mind as You Read" section, Suetonius is sometimes accused of a sort of tabloid journal- ism in his biographies: reporting the salacious gossip about an individual while ignoring or downplaying the less scan- dalous but more serious aspects of that individual's life. Do you think the description of the Golden House falls
? ? ? 127
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
into the category of "salacious gossip"? Could this descrip- tion have been omitted entirely from the biography and still leave us with a more or less complete picture of the sort of life that Nero lived?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
e Consider the topography of ancient Rome. Find out approximately how far it was between the Palatine and Esquiline Hills. Would it have been practical, or even possible, to have built a house that occupied that much space? Was the house constructed entirely in the valley formed by those two hills, or were parts of the house built into or on the hills?
e Consider the information in the "Aftermath" sec- tion. Can you think of other examples in both ancient and recent history of iconoclasm: the intentional destruction of statues, paintings, or other graphic representations of previous rulers by successor regimes?
e ConsidertheimmensescaleonwhichtheGolden House was built.
Can you think of any contempo- rary examples of rulers or heads of state who dwell in comparably plush and extravagant living quarters?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? the intractable Carthaginian general Hannibal was the "avenger" for whom Dido prayed.
Palatine/Esquiline: Two of Rome's famous Seven Hills (although the city actually encompassed more than a dozen named hills and ridges. The other five: the Aven- tine, the Caelian, the Capitoline, the Quirinal, and the Viminal. The Palatine Hill (Mons Palatinus, in Latin) was home to a number of palatial residences; indeed, our word "palace" derives from Palatinus.
Roman knight: The equestrian class, sometimes called "knights," com- prised Rome's thriving upper middle class. Suetonius does not name the particular knight who provided Nero with this assurance.
triple colonnade: The vestibule's roof was supported by three rows of columns. It defies speculation or imagination to calculate how many individual columns would be required for a mile-long roof.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? BUILD 'EM BIG: COLOSSAL STATUES IN THE ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN WORLD
Nero's remarkable colossal statue was not a one-of-a-kind creation; there were precedents. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Built ca. the early third century BCE in honor of the god Apollo, it soared skyward some 100 feet and overlooked the harbor at Rhodes. According to the naturalist and historian Pliny the Elder, the circumference of its thumbs was greater than the span of an average man's hand. Legend has it that it straddled the harbor so that ships entering and leaving would sail directly beneath it; however, this is a largely discredited account. The Colossus did not long survive; it was destroyed by an earthquake about 75 years after it was erected.
The fifth-century BCE Athenian sculptor/architect Pheidias created some of the ancient world's most beautiful and noteworthy colossal statues. His statue of Zeus at Olympia--like the Colossus of Rhodes, ranked as one of the Seven Wonders--was reputedly 40 feet tall, and made of gold and ivory. Pheidias's statue of Athena in the Parthenon in Athens was also about 40 feet tall, and also crafted of gold and ivory; the gold alone was supposedly worth some 44 talents, the equivalent of perhaps $15 million. Pheidias sculpted another noted statue of Athena-- the Athena Promachos--which was situated on the Acropolis, the high hill overlooking Athens. This statue, includ- ing the base, was about 70 feet tall; according to the second-century CE travel writer Pausanias, the sunlight's reflec- tions off the statue's helmet crest and the point of the spear in its hand could both be seen by sailors on ships rounding Cape Sounion, about 40 miles from Athens.
? ? 128
Further Information
Ball, Larry F. The Domus Aurea and the Roman Architectural Revolution. Cambridge, 2003. Grant, Michael. Nero. New York, 1989.
Website
Domus Aurea. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Domus_Aurea
Bibliography for Document
Rolfe, John C. (tr. ). Suetonius. Volume II. [LCL. ] Cambridge and London, 1914.
Ah! At Last I Can Live Like a Human Being!
129
This page intentionally left blank
INTELLECTUAL LIFE
This page intentionally left blank
26. AN INTELLECTUAL ON TRIAL
INTRODUCTION
When we ponder the array of intellectuals who added color and controversy to ancient Athenian life, we would be hard pressed to come up with a more famous name than Socrates (469-399 BCE). For three decades, he wandered the streets of Athens, teaching, ask- ing questions, forcing his audiences to think. His annoying (to the authorities! ) habit of investigating and sometimes casting doubts upon established modes of governance, religion, and education eventually caused him to be put on trial and ultimately condemned to death. The transcript of that trial, written by his disciple Plato, remains one of the most famous documents that has come down to us from antiquity.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
1. The Greek title of Plato's recounting of Socrates's trial, Apologia, is often translated as The Apology. However, we must be careful to remember that the word apologia neither connotes nor denotes an expression of regret or sorrow. Rather, it means "defense," and that definition precisely applies to the words Socrates spoke at his trial.
2. Modern juries are traditionally composed of "12 good men (and women) and true," but ancient juries--both Greek and Roman--regularly featured much higher num- bers. The jury that convicted Socrates, for example, had 501 members; many jury- men were elderly citizens who depended on the stipends they received for jury service as part of their retirement income. An odd number of jurors was selected to preclude tie votes. However, if some extenuating circumstance caused the absence of one or more jurors, thus creating an even number, a tie vote went to the defendant, and the case would be dismissed.
3. Stating the case against Socrates were three accusers, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon. Apparently, they were very good at what they did; Socrates himself admitted that he was "almost carried away by them; their arguments were so convincing. "
? ? ? ? 133
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? gentlemen: In the original Greek, Socrates refers to the jurors as andres Athenaioi, "men of Athens. "
god at Delphi: The "god" is Apollo, who had an important shrine at Delphi, a remote location in the mountains, north of Athens. But why would Socrates call Apollo as a witness? According to translator Hugh Tredennick, the "explana- tion of its reply about Socrates is that it was well aware of his true character and ideals and thor- oughly approved of them. "
priestess: Apollo's pronouncements were conveyed via the priestesses who tended his temple.
professor of wisdom: The term is not to be taken literally; the Greek word that Socrates uses, sophos, simply means "a wise man. "
wisdom: Sophia in Greek, one of the elements of our word "philoso- phy," which etymologically means the "love of wisdom. "
? ? ? 134
Document: The Trial of Socrates
[O]ne of you might interrupt me and say "But what is it that you do, Socrates? How is it that you have been misrep- resented like this [i. e. , that his accusers' charges were base- less]. Surely all this talk and gossip about you would never have arisen if you had confined yourself to ordinary activ- ities, but only if your behavior was abnormal. Tell us the explanation, if you do not want us to invent it for our- selves. " This seems to me to be a reasonable request, and I will try to explain to you what it is that has given me this false notoriety; so please give me your attention. Perhaps some of you will think that I am not being serious, but I assure you that I am going to tell you the whole truth.
I have gained this reputation, gentlemen [i. e. , the jurors], from nothing more or less than a kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom do I mean? Human wisdom, I sup- pose. It seems that I really am wise in this limited sense. Presumably the geniuses whom I mentioned just now [other noted scholars, philosophers and teachers, including Georgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis] are wise in a wisdom that is more than human; I do not know how else to account for it. I certainly have no knowledge of such wisdom . . . Now, gentlemen, please do not interrupt me if I seem to make an extravagant claim, for what I am going to tell you is not my own opinion. I am going to refer you to an unimpeachable authority.
I shall call as witness to my wisdom . . . the god at Delphi.
You know Chaerephon . . . a friend of mine from boyhood . . . [O]ne day he
actually went to Delphi and asked this question of the god: . . . whether there was anyone wiser than myself. The priestess replied that there was no one. "
[At this point, Socrates relates that he went on a sort of pilgrimage, to test the god's response to determine whether it was actually true that no one was wiser than he. He interviewed a number of people, including politicians, poets, crafts- men, and other professionals, and he came to the conclusion that indeed he could not find anyone who surpassed him in wisdom. He also discovered, much to his surprise, that some people who had great reputations as intellectuals failed to live up to those lofty reputations, whereas others, who did not enjoy similar esteem, were "much better qualified in practical intelligence. "]
"The effect of these investigations of mine . . . has been to arouse against me a great deal of hostility, and hostility of a particularly bitter and persistent kind, which has resulted in various malicious suggestions, including the description of me as a professor of wisdom. This is due to the fact that whenever I succeed in disproving another person's claim to wisdom in a given subject, the bystanders assume that I know everything about that subject myself. But the truth of the matter . . . is pretty certainly this: that real wisdom is the property of God [i. e. , Apollo], and this oracle is his way of telling us that human wisdom has little or no value. It seems to me that he is not referring literally to Socrates, but has
merely taken my name as an example, as if he would say to us, 'The wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless. ' " [Tr. Hugh Tredennick. Plato: The Last Days of Socrates. (21-22. ) Penguin Books, 1954. Page numbers: 49, 52. ]
AFTERMATH
The conviction of Socrates could well have had a depressing effect on free speech and intel- lectual inquiry in Athens. A few years earlier (404 BCE), the city's democracy had been tem- porarily suspended, while a cabal of dictators--the Thirty Tyrants--held sway. Although the democracy was soon restored, the experience may have encouraged the harassment, and even prosecution, of free thinkers like Socrates. In any event, Socrates's famous student Plato left Athens shortly after the trial and did not return until some years later.
ASK YOURSELF
1. Do Socrates's words and arguments at his trial convey the impression that he really did surpass all others in wisdom and knowledge?
2. Socrates claims that his displays of knowledge inspired jealousy and even hostility toward him, because other people then assumed that he knew everything there was to know about a particular subject. He tried to deflect this hostility by claiming that "real wisdom is the property of God," and that "human wisdom has little or no value. " Are these arguments sensible? Believable?
3. Socrates was overwhelmingly condemned by the "men of Athens" who formed the jury. Why do you suppose he was unable to persuade them that he was innocent of the charges brought against him?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
e Investigate further Apollo's oracle at Delphi. How long had it been in the business of supplying answers and information to pilgrims who visited it
An Intellectual on Trial
? ? ? ? ARISTOPHANES'S SATIRICAL PORTRAYAL OF SOCRATES
One of the 11 surviving plays of the Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (ca. 445-380 BCE) was entitled Clouds, a satirical critique of the sophists in general and Socrates in particular. In the play, Socrates was por- trayed as accepting money for his teachings, founding a school, and corrupting his students by instructing them in deceptive methods of argumentation. None of these representations was strictly accurate; rather, they were exaggerations used to create an effective satirical portrayal.
Some historians think that the audiences interpreted the satire too literally, and therefore, they formed a dis- torted image of Socrates and his ideas. This, in turn (so the critics say), nurtured the climate of persistent and bitter hostility that Socrates claims surrounded him. However, the play was produced around 423 BCE, and Socrates was not put on trial until nearly a quarter century later; so it is difficult to imagine that Clouds had any direct impact on the decision to prosecute him. Furthermore, Socrates himself was reportedly in the audi- ence during a production of the play, and by all accounts, he laughed heartily at the scenes in which he was por- trayed. Apparently, he "got it. "
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 135
Voices of Ancient Greece and Rome
136
with questions? What accounted for its credibility? How did the process actually "work"? That is, how did the priestesses gain the information they relayed to the questioner? Do you suppose that pilgrims truly believed this information came directly from the god, or were they at least somewhat skeptical?
e In his speech, Socrates mentions the reasons why he is being prosecuted: "corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state. " How plausible do these charges seem? Could an argument be made that Socrates's accusers were jealous of his intellectual acuity and therefore his ability to attract large and interested audiences to hear his teachings?
