Historia de Grecia y Roma

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  • Celtiberian Wars of Hispania forced the Roman people to change their calendar

    The history of the Roman calendar and its permanence until today is a very difficult issue to be explained.

    The history of the Roman calendar and its  permanence until today is a very difficult issue to be explained. We must remember how at first the calendar, closely related to the agricultural works, was lunar, began in March and had only ten months.

    So on the Ides of this month, on the fifteenth of March, the consular year began, and since the consuls were the commanding generals, the military campaigns also began at the same time.

    Although the mythical tradition attributes it to king Numa, there was an important  reform or change by the middle of the V century BC and two more months were added to the calendar, consisting now of 12. 

    When the military campaigns took place in the part of the Empire comprising the Lazio or in Italy, their beginning in mid-March made sense, but when the war was taking place far from Rome, the consuls, whose term lasted a year, barely had time to move out to the fields where the military maneuvers or operations were taking place and end the war and go home before winter.

    This was evident due to the Celtiberian wars in Hispania. Therefore, the Senate agreed in the year 154 B.C. that next year, the year 153 B.C., the consular year was going to begin on the first of January. So did the consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior, who went to Segeda, near the modern-day city of Calatayud, in the current Community of Aragon, Spain, to war with its inhabitants, the Belli, who had fortified the city breaking the treaties they had previously signed. Anyway, in this campaign  Nobilior, who was an all powerful Roman consul, was beaten by the Belli, Titii and Arevaci, pre-Roman Celtic people settled in Hispania at the time.

    As is well known, the History of Rome is the story of a continuous war at one point or another of their  large Empire. Rarely the "pax romana", the "Roman peace" or period of time without war could be declared.

    So, since the year 153 B.C., the beginning of the consular year was established or set on the first of January, the day when the Kalends of January (Kalendis Ianuariis) start.

    It is interesting the unexpected influx that those from Segeda, small Celtic population placed in the center of the far Hispania, were going to have with regard to the setting of the Roman calendar, by making them change it, by forcing the Romans to change their calendar, which is now the more widespread calendar throughout the world.

  • The naptime (the siesta)

    The “siesta” is a widespread custom in Spain and increasingly copied abroad

    Today every person carries a watch or digital gadget that tells us the time to the nearest second and even more. Punctuality required today in our usual lives is not of hours, but usually of minutes or seconds, which is matched to the exact step of the sun by a given meridian.

    In the Ancient World in general and in particular in the Roman world times were less accurate. Say things happened or “ante meridiem”, a.m. (before noon) or "de meridie" or post meridiem, p.m. (after noon), "mane" (in the morning), "vespere" (in the evening), without much more precision.

    Romans should not be very interested in accuracy because when the first sundial was brought from Sicily in the year 263 BC, it marked the time wrongly, because it was built for a different latitude. It took them 99 years to correct the mistake, when in 164 BC they built a sundial matched to the latitude of Rome.

    The clepsydra or Geek water clock (horologium ex aqua) was not introduced until the end of the Republic.

    In these moments the day or light time was divided from sunrise to sunset in twelve hours and the night or dark time in four vigils. Depending on the season, the duration of hours or vigils was rather long and not very accurate.

    Hours were called or referred to the ordinal Latin adjective. So they talked about prima hora, secunda hora, tertia hora … (first hour, second hour, third hour…).

    Precisely the sixth hour (sexta hora) marked the noon time, when some lucky ones took a nap or slept for a while. Among these fortunate ones was the emperor Augustus, as Suetonius tells us in his “Lives of the Twelve Caesars”, II, 78:

    “After his midday meal he used to rest for a while just as he was, without taking off his clothes or his shoes, with his feet covered and his hand to his eyes”

    “Post cibum meridianum, ita ut vestitus calciatusque erat, retectis pedibus
    paulisper conquiescebat opposita ad oculos manu    ”

    From this expression "sixth hour" derives the Spanish word "siesta", that the “Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy"  defines as "a dream that is taken after eating or lunchtime", widespread custom in Spain and increasingly copied abroad, to the point that the word "siesta" has been assumed by the British and American people that accurately used it instead of their own word "the nap".

  • Wines with denomination of origin.

    The wheat, the wine and the oil are the three characteristic products of Mediterranean cultures from the Neolithic.

    These products are always present, essential for feeding people and also essential in many religious rites and in different moments of social life, including specially the banquet.

    We can say that in the Ancient World there are a whole wine culture in many ways similar to the current times. So then, as now,  there were some renowned ,but other less appreciated or common, wines.

    Then, as now, these wines received the name of their place of origin or provenance. So the "Rioja" or "Ribera”" or "Burgundy" or "Bourdeaux"  of the Antiquity  were then the "Caecubus”, the "Caelenus" the "Falernus" or "Formianus", natives of Caecubum, Cales,  Falernum or Formiae .

    The poet Horace  summarizes perfectly these data, for example, in an ode   (Odes 1.20) in which, wanting to regale their protector, the wealthy Maecenas, accustomed to fine  and high price wines, invites him to a common "Sabinus" , albeit it was of  the crop year in which the patron of the poet overcame a serious illness and  Horace  reaped it and now offers it to remember that happy time.


    You will drink with me this Sabine common wine in not large cups
    You  will drink then a "Caecuban" wine  and this  one pressed of Calenian grapes,
    Falernas vines or  vines of Formias hills do not   fill my cups

    Vile potabis modicis Sabinum cantharis….
       ……….

      Caecubum et prelo domitam Caleno
       tu bibes uvam: mea nec Falernae
       temperant vites neque Formiani
       pocula colles.

    Obviously, these wines were not affordable by the poet. Rarely   poetry and a good economic situation  formed  a couple.

  • Greeks and Romans did not have a prophet who will dictate their dogmas

    The Greek and Roman religions have no prophets, no dogmatic books, and have no hierarchy priestly class.

    Almost all religions have a holy book, a dogma and doctrine generally transmitted by a prophet or messenger of God. Christianity with his Bible and Jesus, Judaism with their holy books and prophets, and Islam with his Koran and Mohammed are known precisely as "religions of the book". In such cases the words inside the book are the word of God, and therefore its contents are dogmas that can not be questioned.

    In Ancient Greece and Rome there is not a prophet or theologian who has communicated a similar doctrine, religious rules of conduct. And therefore religion is a field in which you can act much more freely. There is no holy book like the Bible or the Koran, at most there are books of prophecies, called "Sibylline Books" that the Romans, very superstitious people, consulted in any circumstance of particular importance to the republic, for the State.

    Nor is there a group or priestly caste monopolizing the relationship with the divine, though some families may have a special relationship with a particular deity.

    The ones who set many of the different characteristics of the Greek gods were Homer, talking about them in his Iliad and Odyssey in the eighth century B.C., and then Hesiod in his Theogony briefly after. They set their names (Zeus, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Apollo, etc..), their figures, their skills and arts.

    It should be distinguish the gods whom the Greeks worship in their temples and their cities from the gods of mythology, created mainly by poets precisely thanks to a religion without prophets and without dogmas. And even more, we must differentiate "the gods of the philosophers", the result of reflection on religion that produces all kinds of thought towards religion, from atheism to deism or animism…

  • Apollonian and Dionysian

    Apollonian” is self-controlled person. In contrast, “dionysian” is an impulsive person.

    “Apollonian” is an adjective that we use to describe a person,  who has a perfect body and also to refer to a calm, quiet and self-controlled person, according to the definition that the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language provides us. In contrast, “dionysian” is an impulsive, instinctive and orgiastic person.

    With a more specialized philosophical and cultural meaning, we will say that they are two terms coined by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), inspired by the Greek mythology and used by him to expose his personal aesthetic conception and refer to two opposite attitudes towards life.

    Apollonian (derived from Apollo, the Greek god of reason, intelligence and light) refers to human cultural facts when they are bright, rational, balanced, content, subject to standard and individual. Dionysian (derived from Dionysus, the Greek god of Nature, life and wine) refers to what is instinctive and irrational in our behaviors, to the affirmation of the wish to live without restrictions, and also to how the group affects, influences or acts in human cultural facts.

  • Tyranny is the opposite of freedom

    Tyranny denies freedom, even when it is set in the name of freedom itself.

    Few words have a more pejorative meaning than the terms "tyranny and tyrant." The word derives from Latin word “tyrannus”, and this last one derives in turn from the Greek word “τύραννος”. The Royal Spanish Academy  defines it as:

    "Person who gets the government of a State by breaking the law, especially if he rules it without justice and imposing his will" and also: "person who abuses of his power, superiority or strength in any issue or subject”, and also “who imposes that power and superiority to an extraordinary degree" simply.

    But these are modern meanings that do not exactly match with the original meaning of the Greek word. In the long history of Greece there was a time when the primitive monarchical structures were disappearing because of the social and economic changes in the cities. In this development, the "democracy" or government of the people was their most remarkable creation, term that comes from the Greek people δῆμος  (demos = people) and κράτος (kratos = power). Fifth century BC Athens is the best example of "democracy."

    Sometimes, as the former royalty disappears, an individual person, a man, who comes out among the aristocratic families, gets the personal power and favors the social changes that are taking place at that moment, giving freedom to the people.

    But also, in the struggles of the working classes against the aristocratic groups were very usual, since the sixth century, revolts in which an individual, often supported by the people or the army, took possession of the power and established a personal and absolutist rule system. Many of these "tyrants" were loved by the citizens due to their good policy which also favored the working classes and not just the aristocratic classes.

    Thucydides is undoubtedly the most modern of the ancient historians for his critical sense and his strong commitment by telling us always the proved truth with objectivity. Speaking of tyranny, he tells us that at the beginning they had the royalty and that tyranny happened then as a result of the development of the power and wealthy of the Greek cities when they started to dominate the seas and set a lot of colonies (I, 13, 1). But he also says that tyrants only care about their personal situation, their own wealthy and their own person (I, 17).

    As every absolutist and one-person power, tyranny tends and makes easy all kinds of excesses, so it is easy to understand the evolution of the meaning of the term, which was getting a negative meaning until the current one, which is absolutely pejorative.

    From this point of view, it has a synonymous or very close meaning to other current terms such as dictator (originally Roman magistracy with exceptional powers), despot (also Greek word which means master, owner, headmaster and whose pejorative meaning is quite recent), satrap (head of a province of the Persian Empire) (see https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/satrap-persia-charlemagne-missi-dominici), totalitarian, authoritarian, etc.

    Unfortunately the examples of tyrannies and dictatorships throughout the History of mankind are endless, even in the present times, in which there’s no doubt that the primary good of men and fundamental human right, after life, is freedom.

    Neither is impossible nor absolutely uncommon to find that cruel tyrannies are established in the name of "freedom"; look how every tyrant always presents himself as a liberator and still nowadays they sometimes have the support of large groups of tyrannized citizens.

  • World Book and Copyright Day 2013. “Don Quixote” translated into Latin.

    The Day April 23 marks the “World Book and Copyright Day” by UNESCO declaration.

    As itself says UNESCO:

    “ 23 April is a symbolic date for world literature, since 23 April 1616 was the date of death of Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. 23 April is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.”

    Ms. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, said on the occasion of the celebration of the year 2013:

    "All forms of books make a valuable contribution to education and the dissemination of culture and information. The diversity of books and editorial content is a source of enrichment that we must support through appropriate public policies and protect from uniformity. "

    The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia (Spain) where it has become a tradition to give a rose and a book as a gift.

    Well, a tradition in Spain  in some public and private institutions these days is to proceed to a continuous reading of "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha". There is certainly a good initiative.

    “Don Quixote”  was printed for the first time January 16, 1605. Since then he has published countless times in Spanish  and has been translated into more than 50 languages and is one of the most translated books in the world.

    It has also been translated into Latin, and this allows us to include it in this blog dedicated to the classical world "Greco-Roman". It has been translated into Latín at least twice.

    One of them is due to Antonio Peral, born April 14, 1922 in Elche,(Spain), a multilingual and expert teacher in Semitic languages, died in 2000, with the satisfaction of having realized his whim,  to publish his “Historia domini Quixoti a Manica”, a good translation of Don Quixote into Latin.

    The other is actually more curious. Is the “macaronic”  Latin translation (kitchen  Latin or atrocious or pidgin translation)  of Ignacio Calvo,  priest, born  at  Horche (Guadalajara); in his seminary days was punished to translate during the summer  "Don Quixote" into Latin. When he presented the translation of the first chapter, he received the blessing of his teacher with "sufficit, Calve, jam habes aseguratum garbanzum."

    Well, Calvo continued the translation, which is a summary of the work of Cervantes. Was published in 1922 and recently, in 1999, has been reissued by Editorial Aache of Guadalajara.

    Note: “macaronic”  is said of a Latin wrong, burlesque and humorous which mixed and confused correct terms and structures with other Latin  incorrect terms or terms of other Romance languages, such as Spanish, Latinized in form. The term appears in the scrupulous humanists Latin scholars to refer to a kind of burlesque poems that appear in northern Italy. The authors form a group of revelers and freeloaders "macaroni eaters", so she called them and caricatured as macaronei and his poetry "macaronic". It attributes the first poem of this type to Tifi Odassi (circa 1450-1492), after  his death was published   the poem  Maccharonea or Carmen Macaronicum. In another time  we will address the issue in more detail.

    We reproduce in the first place a small piece of “macaronic”  Latin version, then a correct Latin and finally an English translation; so that the reader can compare:

    CAPITULUM PRIMERUM

    In isto capítulo tratatur de qua casta pajarorum erat dóminus Quijotus et de cosis in quibus matabat tempus–

    In uno lugare manchego, pro cujus nómine non volo calentare cascos, vivebat facit paucum tempus. Quidam fidalgus de his qui habent lanzam in astillerum, adargam antiquam, rocinum flacum et perrum galgum, qui currebat sicut ánima quae llevatur a diábolo. Manducatoria sua consistebat in unam ollam cum pizca más ex vaca quam ex carnero, et in  unum ágilis-mógilis qui llamabatur salpiconem, qui erat cena ordinaria, exceptis diebus de viernes quae cambiabatur in lentéjibus et diebus dominguis in quibus talis homo chupabatur unum palominum. In isto consumebat tertiam partem suae haciendae, et restum consumebatur in trajis decorosis sicut sayus de velarte, calzae de velludo, pantufli et alia vestimenta que non veniut ad cassum.

    Talis fidalgus non vivebat descalzum, id est solum: nam habebat in domo sua unam amam quae tenebat encimam annos quadraginta, unam sobrinam quae nesciebat quod pasatur ab hembris quae perveniunt ad vigésimum, et unum mozum campi, qui tan prontum ensillabat caballum et tan prontum agarrabat podaderam. Quidam dicunt quod apellidábatur Quijada aut Quesada, álteri opinant quod llamabatur otram cosam, sed quod sacatur in limpio, est quod suum verum apellidum erat Quijano: sed hoc non importat tria caracolia ad nostrum relatum, quia quod interest est dícere veritatem pelatam et escuetam.

                                                                        =============

    Capitulum 1. Ubi agitur de condiione et indole illustris fidalgi domini Quixoti a Manica

    In quodam loco Manicae regionis, cuis nominis solo memenisse, nuper vivebat quidam fidalgus ex eis de quibus fertur eos habere lanceam in repositorio, scutum antiquum, equum macrum canemque venaticum cursorem. Etiam erat ei olla potius ex carne bovina quam ovina, pluries in coena condimentum coquebatur, sabbato autem angores et afflictiones ut dicitur, die Veneris pulmentum de lentibus, dominico die vero ad haec omnia addebatur quaedam columba quibus et hoc modo tres partes boaroum eius consumebantur. Quod ei supererat serviebat ad vestes emendas tamquam femoralia ex serico praetexto pro diebus festivis cum tibialibus eiusdem generis, tamen per hebdomadam induebat vestem praestantem.

    Domi autem erat ei hera domus plus quam quadraginta annos nata et neptis, quae viginti annos nondum adimpleverat, et etiam famulus agri, qui eodem modo cingebat sellam equo vel utebatur forfice ad arbores putandas. Aetas huius fidalgi erat circa quinquagita annos. Complexio eius erat fortis, sed  macillentus corpore et gracilis vultu, promptus ad surgendum mane ex lecto atque aliquando fruebatur venatione. Dicebatur nomen eius esse Quixada sive Quesada, in quo est aliqua diversitas apud auctores qui hoc tractant, quamvis per veras oiniones eorum reperiatur eum Quexanam fuisse. Tamen hoc non est prorsus tam magni momenti ad nostram fabulan: satis est nobis ut narratio omnem veritatem ostendat.

      (Historia domini Quixoti a Manica .  Michael A Cervantes Saavedra ; versio latina ab Antonio Peral       Torres)


    DON QUIXOTE. CHAPTER I
    WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN
    DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

    In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook.

    The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.

    (DON QUIXOTE, by Miguel de Cervantes. Translated by John Ormsby (1829-1895))

  • The proskynesis or bow to the king:

    Why do some people bow to others to recognize them a higher social status?

    Nowadays in our world there are a big number of monarchies, although many of them, not all, are under the rules of democracy. Although they are very different now from past times monarchies when the kings really ruled the countries, they are still accompanied by certain rituals and protocol behaviors. Among the most important rituals is perhaps the bowing or genuflection that many citizens do to the kings’ greeting or presence. For others this act is wrong, unbecoming and unsuitable as long as to bob or genuflect doesn’t fit with modern times anymore.

    This act is an ancient ritual generally related to an eastern origin. In ancient Greek they called proskynesis (προσκύνησις), word formed by “pros” (to, towards) and “kyneo” (kiss, kissing), to the greeting ritual that the Persians made their king.

    It’s Herodotus, the father of History, who lived in the V century BC, who tells us in his Stories, 1,134 the way the Persians greeted each other:

    "When two Persians meet in the street, you can know whether or not they have got the same social status, because if they have, they do not greet each other with words but by kissing each other on the mouth; if one of them has a little bit lower status, they do it by kissing each other on the cheek; but if one’s status is much less noble than the another’s, he offers reverence to him by bending down or prostrating in front of him".

    In the royal court, this greeting, which Herodotus saw in the streets, was ritualized and formalized depending also on the people’s status, so people prostrated themselves, knelt, bowed or sent him a kiss.

    Herodotus does not judge this greeting negatively, but the Greek people thought this act was humiliating because they only prostrated themselves to their gods, so they interpreted that the Persian king was worshiped as a god, although the Persians didn’t worship him as such; it was just a rite of vassalage to recognize his superiority.

    So when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire and wanted to introduce this rite in the summer of 327 BC because it was the custom of his new subjects and aimed to unify the ritual, he caused some troubles with his Greeks fellows.

    The following text of Arrian of Nicomedia, a Greek historian and philosopher of the second century of our era, is illustrative of the moment:

    (Callisthenes’s intervention: Not even to Heracles the Greek people gave him divine honors while he was alive, and even after his death, we had to wait until the god of Delphi gave us his permission to worship him as a god. Now if by being talking about this issue in a barbarous region we have to think like barbarians, I think, Alexander, I have to ask you to remember Greece, which is why you organized this expedition to annex Asia to Greece. Think carefully about the following: when you come back to Greece, are you going to force the Greeks, who are the men who most appreciate their freedom, to accept the proskynesis or will you exempt the Greeks of it, keeping it as an outrageous obligation to the Macedonians? Or maybe are you going to get over with all these honor issues at once and for all, so you get those that are proper to man from Greeks and Macedonians, and will leave rituals that are used by barbarians for when you are among barbarians?) (Anabasis of Alexander the Great, IV, 11, 7-8; ).

    We do not know exactly what happened then, although Arrian tells us that Alexander the Great exempted the Greeks, but the rite was used later by his successors; it was also imposed in the ritual of the Roman emperors, especially in the second part of the empire, known as the Low Empire or the Dominate, and somehow it has come down to us, to modern times, as we said at the beginning, as many people feel a reverential awe to kings. 

    Related to this issue is somehow the deification of kings, of Alexander himself and of the Roman emperors, which we will discuss some another time.

  • Was the dominating Julius Caesar dominated by their women?

    In the Julius Caesar’s life, many women played a very important role. But historians do not judge in the same way their influence.

    Julius Caesar played a key role in the History of Rome and, therefore, throughout all Western History. This is the reason why thousands and thousands of pages have been written about this complex character.

    In Caesar’s life many women played a major role; the women who had a relationship with him for one reason or another. The famous historian and Nobel Prize (1902) Theodor Momsen (1817-1903), author of more than 1500 titles including the famous “History of Rome”, thought that these women dominated Caesar at will.

    Julius Caesar probably had an active sex life since he was young, given the special attraction that seems to have had for women. He met a few ladies of particular relevance, which demonstrate the importance of political expediency when building relationships with families more than love. Suetonius summarizes this feature reminding the verses that his soldiers sang with little regard in the day of his triumphal parade in Rome (that day they were allowed): "Citizens, keep your wives, we bring a bald adulterer with us."

    Caesar’s mother, Aurelia, had special importance for him, since his father died soon, as well as her sisters, especially Julia Major. In 83 B.C. he married Cornelia, Cinna’s daughter, thanks to the influence of his aunt Julia, wife of Mario, after breaking the commitment made by his father with Cosucia, of an aristocratic family. In this marriage with Cornelia, Julia was born, his only legitimate child. He must have felt true love for his wife, because when the dictator Sulla demanded him to divorce, he refused and had to flee Rome for his life.

    His daughter Julia, engaged to Caepio, the uncle of Brutus, married Pompey for political reasons once he got a divorce from Mucia, who Julius Caesar himself courted (Caesar wanted to ensure relations with the powerful Gens Pompeii). Julia died in childbirth in 54 B.C., as often happened then. It must had been a tough year for Julius, because his mother Aurelia also died, who had considerable influence on him, as we said.

    In 68 B.C. Caesar married Pompeii, granddaughter of Sulla, for obvious reasons of political expediency. He separated from her in 63 B.C. because she was adulterous with the violent and conflict Publius Clodius during the women-only parties dedicated to Bona Dea. Clodius disguised as women to have access to Pompeii. This is the episode that led to the famous phrase: "Caesar's wife must not only be honest, but to seem"  based on  Plutarch, Cic. 29.7  y Plutarch, Caes. 10.6.

    In 59 B.C. he married Calpurnia, twenty years younger, looking for descendants and good relations with Lucius Calpurnius Piso, influential popular leader who with his help was appointed consul in 58 B.C. He had no descendants.

    Calpurnia was the wife who the day before the murder of her husband had a prophetic and horrible dream of the death of her husband. But this marriage could not have lasted this long if Pompey had agreed to marry Octavia, Caesar's niece, and grant himself the hand of his daughter.

    A person so powerful, attractive (known is the erotic force of power) and as sexual, in an environment so favorable as that of Rome at the dawn of the Empire, had, naturally, numerous lovers. One of the most important was Servilia, sister of Marcus Porcius Cato and mother of Marcus Junius Brutus, one Caesar’s assassins. Servilia was undoubtedly the dearest and most beloved. There is even the possibility that the real father of Brutus was Caesar, but there isn’t any proof, although at the very moment of Caesar's assassination he pronounced the famous phrase "You too, my son?", ?”, en latín “Tu quoque fili mi?” , r Suetonius says that he said on greec ” Καὶ σὺ τέκνον, kai sy teknon” (Suetonius, Iul, 82,2) . The relationship lasted from 63 B.C. to 44 B.C., year of Caesar’s death, and it seems that love was underlay.

    It is particularly interesting that several of Caesar’s lovers were the wives of political opponents. It seems as if Caesar enjoyed especially these loves because they added the superiority as a lover to the political superiority. Hence he had sex with Postumia, the wife of Sulpicius Rufus, with Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius, with Mucia, second wife of Pompey who divorced from her because of this relationship, with Tertulla, wife of Crassus, the third member, along with Pompey, of the triumvirate that divided the power at the end of the Roman Republic.

    His relations with foreign women were very famous as well. For example with Eunoe, Bogud wife, king of Mauritania, of extraordinary beauty.

    But the most famous relationship was with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII Philopator. Along with the physical attraction there were undoubtedly political interests moved to control the rich Egyptian lands, granary of Rome. Cleopatra remained in Rome, in the gardens of Caesar, from September 46 to April 44 B.C. after Caesar's death. Julius Caesar wasn’t sure that he was the father of Ptolemy Caesar, known as Caesarion, but he allowed the child to carry his name. Caesarion was later murdered by order of Octavius.

    Finally, it seems clear that women from Rome and even from abroad, either by sexual or political reasons, could not reject the proposals of Caesar, so powerful; and the same happened with men, according to some authors. But it is difficult to know precisely how much is fact and how much is fiction in the biography of the character. This will be discussed in another time.

  • The satraps are people who have much power

    In some contexts the word “satrap” has a pejorative meaning, negative, derived from the great power than such position had in ancient Persia.

    The word satrap derives from the Latin satrăpa, this from the Greek σατράπης, and this last from the Avestan or Old Persian  šathrapāvan, meaning "protector of the territory."

    Currently, amongst other meanings, refers to the person who abuses power or authority of subordinates, with obvious negative and pejorative connotations in a time when freedom is a fundamental right and value of people.

    However in ancient Persia, Satrap was the governor’s name or title of a province, the viceroy who ruled on behalf of the king. They had absolute power, and often abuse of people, hence the pejorative meaning.

    Persian kings themselves distrusted the power and behavior of these "satraps" and thus created a curious figure: officials called "King’s eyes and ears", which traveled the empire and issued the reports.

    Well, accurate and reliable information always was a problem for the rulers of kingdoms and empires of great extent, because many hundreds of years later, around the year 800 AD, Charlemagne created the figure of the "missi domici " envoys of the lord, a couple of Inspectors constituted by a layman and an ecclesiastic, who roamed the Carolingian Empire.

    Today this task seems more complex but not least important, as indicated by the various centers and intelligence services of countries, or as reveal by the thousands of American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.