Sex in the Forum

In 2 BC a scandal hit Rome. There in the civic heart of the eternal city, a woman was found by her father to be indulging in every form of vice and revelling in immorality. The old man having the rights of Patria Potestas, dealt with his daughter in a swift and decisive manner, exiling her to a harsh life on a small island. 

A simple tale of Roman law punishing immoral behaviour. However the players in the tale are not simple citizens of the ancient city. They are Julia and her father Augustus, the Princeps of Rome. The very first Emperor. Suddenly this isn't a simple case of a father exercising his Pater Familias power over his family, but a scandal that would rock the city. 

The Roman Forum

Julia had led a structured life, being married off by her father to various allies to help secure his position of power. Married to a cousin Marcus Claudius Marcellus, he had died when she was sixteen. At the age of eighteen she was married to Augustus' great ally, trusted friend and general, Agrippa. Agrippa passed away in 12 BC (and after the birth of their child named Agrippa Postumus, who Julia was pregnant with at the time) she was betrothed and immediately married to Tiberius, her step-brother and for all intents and purposes Augustus' new heir. 

Their's was not a happy marriage, blighted by the death of their child in its infancy. By 6 BC Tiberius had withdrawn from Rome, public life and his wife to Rhodes, giving Julia free reign of the city.

"He [Augustus] at length discovered that his daughter Julia was so dissolute in her conduct as actually to take part in revels and drinking bouts at night in the Forum and on the very rostra"

Cassius Dio Roman History Book 55

Augustus's response to his daughter can be seen as both harsh and lenient. At the time of the scandal breaking Augustus had been imposing laws to promote traditional Roman values. The shame of Julia's activities becoming public knowledge would have been highly embarrassing. It seems unlikely that Augustus wouldn't of already known of his daughters activities, it is hard to think of anything happening in Rome without his knowledge, but it is the public shaming of a man presenting himself as a model Pater Familias that probably resulted in her punishment. 

"He informed the Senate of his daughters fall through a letter read in his absence by a quaestor, and for every shame would meet no one for a long time, and even thought of putting her to death"

Suetonius Life of Caesar Chapter 65

A Marble Statue Identified as Julia the Elder

In any event, Julia was banished to the island of Pandetria to live a spartan and harsh lifestyle. She was forbidden to drink wine and there were no men on the island. No visitors were allowed to visit without Augustus's express permission. Five years after her initial exile, Augustus relented a little and allowed her to return to the mainland, but not Rome. A divorce was directly sent to Tiberius, her husband, in his own self imposed exile.

"He learned that his wife Julia had been banished because of her immorality and adulteries and that a bill of divorce has been sent her in his name by authority of Augustus"

Suetonius Life of Tiberius Chapter 11

The case of Julia and Augustus is an interesting one. In many ways Augustus acts exactly within his powers as the traditional Pater Familias of his family. This gave him the power of punishment over his children, even as far as to sentence them to death legally. But there are also signs that this is no normal Roman family. A speech was delivered to the Roman senate to explain what was happening. It is possible that Augustus' imposing of a divorce upon Tiberius indicate a wish to keep a possible future heir in place and relatively untainted from scandal. The situation is handled both within the family and as part of public business. 

The women of the Julio-Claudian family show up throughout the reign of the first emperors and it must be noted usually involved in some sort of scandal. Livia, Agrippina the Elder, Messalina and Agrippina the Younger are all fine examples. Perhaps it was due to Augustus' attempts to pass laws on morality that saw Julia punished so? Perhaps it was the public embarrassment of her father? However this first scandal is unique as being one involving a father and a daughter. A real family affair. 

Thanks for Reading

James

 

Perseus's Meteors

If you have been looking up at the sky the last few nights you may have noticed points of lights cartwheeling graceful parabolas across the heavens. They are meteors, the sons of Perseus streaking across the blackness of space to tell his tale.

Perseus and his Surrounding Constellations

They are named the Perseid Meteors because they originate from an area of space within the constellation of Perseus, and every August this prolific meteor shower lights up the night sky with its pyrotechnic display. However what few people may realise is that the myth of Perseus and his great deeds are written right there in the night sky.

A story in the stars, Perseus is visible in the northern skies, saving Andromeda from her terrible fate at the hands of the dreadful sea monster Cetus, while her parents Cepheus and Cassiopeia lie nearby.

Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini

The Constellation of Perseus, shows him in full heroic pose, sword thrust forward while the head of the gorgon, Medusa in his other hand, in the act of saving Andromeda. Andromeda herself lies to the right of Perseus in the night sky, chained to her rock, ready to be sacrificed to the dreadful sea monster Cetus, who eternally chases her across the night sky.

Above Andromeda sit her parents, Cassiopeia and Cepheus. Cassiopeia however did not escape punishment from the god Poseidon, for boasting to be more beautiful than all the nymphs of the ocean. She was placed high in the night sky, permanently spinning around the pole star, spending half her time upside down. Cepheus, her husband resides in the sky next to her, permanently reminded of his guilt and shame by the stars around him.

But how do these stories tell the myth of Perseus? Well they don't tell the whole myth that's true, but they do show one of the most exciting parts. Ridiculed by the king of Seriphos for liking his mothers company when he should be out doing daring deeds, Perseus was tasked with proving his courage by killing the gorgon Medusa.

With the aid of the gods, a shining shield from Athena, the winged shoes and sickle of Hermes and Hades helmet of invisibility, Perseus completed his quest to kill Medusa. Avoiding her gaze that turned a man to stone by looking in the reflection of his shield, Perseus set off home on his winged sandals.

Black Glaze Mug Showing Perseus Beheading Medusa
from the British Museum

Flying over the land of Aethiopi the hero came across the beautiful Andromeda in the act of being sacrificed to the sea monster Cetus, an attempt by her parents to appease Poseidon. Her mother Andromeda had claimed that the she and her daughter were more beautiful than the nymphs of the sea and Poseidon had flooded the kingdom at this boasting. The Orcale of Ammon had announced that the only way to assuage Poseidon was to sacrifice their daughter to the monster Cetus and that is where Perseus finds her.

Using either his sword to kill the monster or the Medua's head to turn Cetus to stone, Perseus was victorious and claimed Andromeda's hand in marriage. Returning home Perseus stopped the wicked advances of the king towards his mother, by turning him to stone with Medusa's head.

There is of course more to the tale of Perseus, there always is with the heroes of ancient Greece, but each year, in the early weeks of August small darts of light call you to look up into the night sky and see the hero in his greatest moment, saving a pretty damsel from a terrifying monster. A story in the stars.


Thanks for Reading
James

The Flavian Amphitheatre - Nero's Greatest Legacy

At the heart of the Rome, in the very centre of the Eternal City, stood a temple to its people. A place where 50,000 Romans could come together to worship their own empire and power. An icon, and one of the tallest buildings within the city. The Flavian Amphitheatre was started by the Emperor Vespasian, upon his rise to power after the chaos and civil war of the Year of the Four Emperor's, in AD 72. It was finished eight years later by Vespasian's son the Emperor Titus, and it's opening games were said to have been some of the biggest ever held, involving animal hunts, gladiatorial combat and even saw the theatre flooded.

 "Animals both tame and wild were slain to the numbers of nine thousand"

Cassius Dio Roman History Book 66 Chapter 25

So why is it, that this imposing and impressive building is not more widely called the Flavian Amphitheatre, but by the name it is known by all over the world, the Colosseum.

The Flavian Amphitheatre or the Colosseum?

In AD 64 the centre of Rome was swept clear by one of the most devastating fires to ever savage the city. Fire was common in Rome, over population, timber buildings one on top of the other and a population using oil lamps for lighting, meant fire was a continual problem. Despite the popular apocryphal tale that Nero fiddled while Rome burnt, Tacitus records that he was not even in the city at the time. However Nero seized upon a "golden" opportunity when it came along. 

"The report had spread that, at the very moment when Rome was aflame,

he had mounted his private stage, and typifying the ills of the present by the calamities of the past,

had sung the destruction of Troy"

Tactitus Annals Book 15 Chapter 39

The Emperor wasted no time in finally building himself a home right in the centre of the city, worthy of his stature, the Domus Aurea. His Golden House. The Golden House covered the slopes of three of Rome's seven hills, the Palatine, Esquilline and Caelian hills and is estimated to have covered an area of 300 acres. Within these grounds were groves and vineyards, fields of pasture on which flocks were kept and most imposingly an artificially dug lake. 

The house itself was no less impressive, with the huge amount of gold leaf used giving the buildings its name, pools and fountains, rooms individually decorated with frescos and semi-precious stones and most famously a supposed dining room with a revolving roof from which flower petals could be showered upon its guests. 

"He deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval that he was at last beginning to be housed like a human being"

Suetonius Life of Nero Chapter 31

As you might expect this opulence and excess didn't go down well with the people or the historians of Rome. Which is why, after the death of Nero, the chaos of civil war and the rise of the Flavian's as the new ruling dynasty of Rome, one of Vespasian's first actions was to build his temple for the people on the site of Nero's golden house. 

Colossal State of Nero outside the Colosseum

So why is it that the Flavian Amphitheatre is Nero's lasting legacy? Well, arguably its very construction was a response to the whole of Nero's "tyrannical" reign. Vespasian took the heart of the Roman's city and returned it too them. The Flavian Amphitheatre, was a visible symbol of what had been taken from them, and what had been returned. 

Secondly is the very name of the building itself. Part of Nero's great Domus Aurea complex was a colossal statue of himself within the grounds, a Colossus Neronis. Originally in the vestibule to his mighty palace complex, after his death, the statue was changed with a solar crown to a statue of the god Sol. 

"Its vestibule was large enough to contain a colossal statue of the emperor a hundred and twenty feet high"

Suetonius Life of Nero Chapter 31

During the reign of Emperor Hadrian, probably around AD 128, the statue was moved to just outside the Flavian Amphitheatre in order to create space for a temple. The proximity of this colossal statue to the Amphitheatre is one of the popular theory as to how the building got its nickname, the Colosseum. So, Nero's legacy lived on, even if it was in negative connotations, the Colosseum is just as much Nero's building and legacy as it was Vespasian's and the Flavians. 

Thanks for Reading

James