Historia de Grecia y Roma

Blog

  • The mythical origin of Rome

    The founding moment of many cities is lost in the mist of time, that is to say, it is unknown, although decorated “a posteriori” with beautiful myths; On the other hand, the founding moment of many other cities is very well known.

    Few cities are the result of a specific founding act, but of a long formation process. This is the case of Rome. However, according to the myth, the founders were a couple of twins, Romulus and Remus, sons of the god Mars and a priestess of Vesta and therefore virgin, left in the river Tiber and suckled by a she-wolf, who founded the city in 753 B.C. according to Varro, a historian in the first century B.C. Who does not have in mind the image of the she-wolf nursing the twins?

    Ilia or Rhea Silvia was the daughter of Numitor, king dethroned by his brother Amulius who made her enter the college of the vestals, priestesses who had to keep her virginity for thirty years under sentence of death by stoning or burial. When Rhea Silvia went to a water source, she was raped by the god Mars and became pregnant with twins, who survived the order of his uncle of being killed. Thrown into the river Tiber in a basket, they reached bank of the Palatine Hill, where a she-wolf heard them crying and nursed them until the pastor Faustulus picked them up, and his wife Acca Larentia raised them.

    The time passed and, when they knew their origin, they renominated their grandfather Numitor for the throne and decided to create a city where they were found by the wolf. Both of them claimed to be the founder. To resolve the issue they had to wait for a sign from the gods: Remus took the Aventine hill and saw six vultures, Romulus took the Palatine hill and saw twelve. Thus, Romulus founded the city according to the Etruscan ritual, tracing a furrow with the plow to define the urban space. Remus, circumventing the ban, armed jumped into his brother’s inviolable furrow, who killed him (Remus) during the fight.

    Plutarch in the Life of Romulus (2.4-8) offers a different version of the twins´ origin.

    The founding myth of Rome was drafted in the fourth century B.C., and though obviously has nothing to do with history, it is appreciated elements of ancient beliefs and myths: a state prior to the founding of the city, intervention of the god Mars, child of royal blood exposed  and fed by a wild animal, the fire, education by shepherds, wild country against city, initiation ritual.

    Myths involve great difficulties of interpretation, but they also contain information of times with little traces.

  • Knowing the date of an historical event is not so easy

    Men need to place events in time, need to give events a date; but the different cultures and peoples date based on several events, interesting to them, but irrelevant for other people.

    Man, a being with memory, moves and locates on two essential coordinates: space and time. To be effective, that memory has to place any fact, any event, any memory at one point in space and at one moment in time. Help comes from geography ("ge" in Greek means land) or the knowledge of the physical environment and from chronology ("chronos" in Greek means time) or the historical dating.

    An "age" (era) is a time period whose beginning coincides with a conventional event from which on we start counting years. As it is well known, we arrange facts and we date the facts from the birth of Christ, placing them before or after. That year is matched with 753, the year of the founding of Rome. But logically, this was neither always the case nor it was like this everywhere.

    In the beginning of ancient Greece, each year was recognized by the name of the most important magistrate, Archon, also known as "eponym" (Greek "epi" means "on" and "onoma" means name) . In the fourth century B.C. the historian Timaeus Tauromenium started dating with the first Olympiad, which was held in 776 B.C. Considering that the Olympics were held every four years, the third year of the second Olympiad corresponds to 766 B.C., and so on.

    In Rome, years were also given the name of the two most important annual magistrates, consuls, saying for example, "being consuls … and ….". Much later, historians dated from the founding of Rome, which was set in the fourth year of the sixth Olympiad, and used the statement "ab urbe conditia = since the founding of the city." Later on, in the sixth century, that year was made to coincide with the 753 B.C.

    The Christian era begins in the year 753 since the founding of Rome, i.e., in the first year of the Olympiad 195. This is year 1 of Christ, because it was set by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century. But we have to know that Dionysius erred and Jesus Christ would have been born probably about four years earlier.

    Of course, no one has now any interest in correcting this error, an ancient error, whose remedy would only complicate everything and would create many problems.

    But there have been many other eras according to peoples and cultures: the "Spanish era" started the year 38 B.C. , without knowing the reason for it; the “Byzantine era” that set the creation of the world in 5508 B.C. and was used in Russia until 1700; the “era of Abraham” which begins on October 1, 2016 B.C.; the Hijra (al-Hiyra = هجرة) or “Muslim era” that begins on July 16th,  622, when Muhammad leaves Mecca to Medina; the “era of the French Revolution” which begins on the 22nd of September 1792. And there are many more, in other parts of the world.

    The computation of time and age dating, that might seem so simple, are in fact quite complicated, especially when someone is determined to raise as a great moment for himself an event that for other men in other places do not have any meaning.

  • Christ was born at least four years before Christ

    The monk who, in the sixth century, set the birth of Christ to the year 753, year of the foundation of Rom, made a miscalculation. However nobody proposes to correct that historical mistake nowadays.

    One of the many needs of man is to list, order and date past significant happenings and events. But such a task requires a benchmark, or starting point to begin the counting.

    For Christians, and therefore the entire Western World, this point is the date when Christ was born. That moment, of course, could not be established in the early days of Christianity, when it was barely known or spread. Actually it took longer to set that date. By the early sixth century, Christianity had spread throughout the whole former Roman Empire. At that time the political structures of the Empire had disappeared and the reference to the founding of Rome had less meaning than before.

    Dionysius Exiguus (“exiguus” means small), a monk and astronomer born in Scythia, a region in southwest of present-day Russia, endeavoured thought to enhance and successfully did so the figure of Jesus by attempting to calculate the year of  Christ’s birth and later setting that date as a reference. For Dionysius, this reference date became the “year zero” or the starting point of history. As such, the date had the effect of setting the beginning of the "Christian era". Ultimately, Dionysius concluded that Jesus was born the year 753 after the founding of Rome. In sum, there is the success of the Christian calendar, which is now almost universally accepted.

    But now there is little doubt that Dionysius Exiguus is primarily responsible for erred in calculating Christ’s birth by approximately four years. At present, this mistake has still yet to be corrected. In support of this conclusion using other dates we also know that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod.  However Herod died in the year 750 of Rome, therefore Jesus must have been born before such date. The resulting error miscalculates Christ’s birth day by approximately four years, an error that had yet to be changed to reflect its inaccuracy.

    Currently, few people are interested in correcting the mistake, partly due to disadvantages and problems caused by the passage of time. For instance, can anyone imagine the billions of documents that would needed to be updated?

    Yet, celebrating Christ’s birthday on December 25th is another mistake. At first it was held on January 6th and it actually continues to be commemorated on that date in the Eastern Church. What happened was that, as in many other occasions, a prior celebration was Christianized: "the day of the unconquered sun" which was celebrated on December 25 the winter solstice, when the sun, as newborn, begins to lengthen the day and decrease the night.

    Such a date is noteworthy each year because the winter solstice is the precise date when the newborn sun arises and days begin to lengthen as a result of increasing sunlight.

  • The fire, air and water not only didn’t destroy, but retained the greatest archaeological sites

    The forces of nature are powerful, uncontrollable and destructive, but sometimes produce unexpected results

    Fire, air, water and earth are the four essential elements that make up the universe to the ancients. For us they are rather forces of nature with enormous destructive power. But it is paradoxical that precisely these destructive elements have preserved extraordinary many archaeological sites.

    Thus the soil piled on layers covers and protects most of the archaeological sites; the fire of Mount Vesuvius preserved for posterity the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum; the infested air of the Paestum marshes protected the collection of Doric temples best preserved; the sea water has prevented the looting of thousands of remains scattered throughout the Mediterranean. In fact the only unstoppable destructive agent is man, as evidenced every day.

    The ashes of Mount Vesuvius preserved the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum almost intact.


    On August 24th 79 A.D., during the reign of Emperor Titus, the ashes of Vesuvius, near Naples, covered with a layer of several meters the city of Pompeii. An avalanche of mud and lava also covered the nearby and coastal city of Herculaneum. Toxic fumes poisoned and killed their inhabitants.


    Both cities were destroyed, but also preserved under the ashes. This giant sarcophagus remained so for almost 1700 years, until in 1748 a farmer came upon the ruins of Pompeii while trying to dig a well. At that time the king of Naples was Charles of Bourbon, later Carlos III of Spain, who was the one who initiated the excavations.


    This unique city is discovered in all its complexity: its streets, sidewalks, public buildings, fountains, houses with their kitchens, courtyards and gardens, its shops, taverns, theaters, brothels, temples, workshops, … even human bodies in desperate attitudes of those who failed to escape in time.


    The fire, so powerful and often destructive, indirectly preserved us this time a city nearly completely paralyzed and fossilized in time.
     

  • But, what is century?

    A “century” is more than a hundred years, at least for the Romans

    Who doesn’t know that the word "century" mean a long period of hundred years, which now some men or women can reach with joy?. But originally this term had a meaning not so accurate in time. It meant lineage and period in which an entire generation take place until disappear. If the reference is the life of man, it appeared that one hundred years was the maximum term of life and thus acquired this precise numerical value.


    The Roman public life was steeped in religious rites, and sometimes they solemnly celebrated the end of a century and the beginning of another. So the Emperor Augustus, who never missed any opportunity to restore and enhance the official cult and publicize their time and work of government, held in the year 17 B.C. the “Secular Games” to announce that something new and great starts. He instructs the poet Horace to do the official anthem of the celebration, Carmen Saeculare, which was recited by choruses of youths and maidens and begins:


    O Phoebus, and Diana ruler of the woodlands,
    Radiant glory of the sky, O ye who are to be worshiped
    Always, and venerated, grant what we pray for
    In this sacred season
    …
    Fostering Sun, thou who in shining chariot the day
    Dost reveal and conceal and art as another
    Yet the same reborn, may you than the city of Rome be able
    To behold nothing greater!
    (Translation: Z. Philip Ambrose)

    The striking phrase “per saecula saeculorum” (for ever and ever) obviously refers to the endless eternity. In the monastic and religious context, "century" has another meaning, means life "in the world" versus "spiritual life". If "regular" monks are those who follow the rule of the convent, the "secular" clerics are those who live outside in the world.
     

  • Greco-Persian or Greco-Median Wars were not a health problem

    The Greeks lived throughout its history the confrontation with the Persians as a war of the democratic freedom against the tyranny of Persia.

    The "Medes" were tribes that inhabited the north-west of Persia, now Iran, in the area that was called “Media”, with its capital in Ecbatana. The Medes after many struggles and revolts were integrated into the Persian Empire since the time of Cyrus II the Great, founder of the Achaemenid or Persian Empire, who died in 530 BC. They dominated the so called "Silk Road”, a route from China to Western Europe.

    The Greeks used almost as synonyms "medes" and "persians", and therefore the three famous wars in the first half of V century BC between Greeks and the Persian Empire were called "median wars" (Μηδικά, Mĕdiká). In these wars, independent and small Greek cities had a confrontation against the huge and powerful Persian Empire.

    Against all odds the Greeks won, and confrontations lead to some of the most famous episodes in history as the heroic battle of Thermopylae, in which a handful of Spartans stopped the large Persian army, or the battle of Marathon, which result was communicated to the city of Athens by Philippides, a Greek soldier who ran without stopping the approximately  42 km between the two points, and what gave a name to the Olympic most famous race many years later.

    Herodotus (484-425 BC) tell us these wars in detail. He presents a great confrontation between Greek freedom and Persian tyranny, between Hellene democracy and Median absolutism, in short, as a conflict between West and East.

    Who would have thought that 2500 years later other conflicts would occur in the same area and they would be justified in a similarly way: West versus East, Western freedom and democracy against Eastern tyranny and despotism?. Do we possibly have these constant conflicts embedded in our genes?

     

  • History had a father

    The man is a being with memory of the past, at some point began the conscious reflection on the past. We also owe to the Greeks “History” as a literary genre and as a science.

    The man is a being with memory of the past, at some point began the conscious reflection on the past. We also owe to the Greeks "History" as a literary genre and as a science.

    By its own definition, history is the study and knowledge of the past of human beings from the moment that writing appears, in the late fourth millennium BC. The study and knowledge of mankind  and its  predecessors (bipedal hominid date from several million years) is called Prehistory (Latin prae = before).

    The very first written documents were accounts, reference numbers, contracts, commemorative stone plaques and religious writings. In fact, written literature  took a long time to appear, and historical writings came even later, i.e., reflections on men own deeds.

    The Greek Herodotus, who was born around 484 BC in Halicarnassus, a town placed at Caria on the coast of Asia Minor, is considered and called the “Father of history”. The word “history” derives from the Greek word ιστορειν (historein) meaning “to ask, to inquire”. It is that search that inspired  Herodotus’s travel across the East and the Mediterranean, where he observed  the monuments and customs of the people and inquired asking about the past. The result of his “investigations” are thus a litany of his personal “stories”, which contain  a miscellany of facts, data, curiosity and traditions. 

    Although  a man of his time, Herodotus refused to blindly accept oral and written sources; rather he often has criticisms and raises doubts. There is little doubt that he both acquired and employed this method while he was in contact with Athenian sophists. Hence, he is rightly considered "the Father of the history" as a new literary expresses  genre and as a new science. However, the second century AD philosopher Plutarch  unfairly call Herodotus “the father of lies".

    In his works, Herodotus’s main interest is to recant  the "Greco-Persian Wars" between the Greeks and the Persian (who are the “Medes”, named after one of the peoples inhabiting ancient Persia), a conflict that he presented as a conflict between Greek freedom and Persian tyranny, between Hellene democracy and Median absolutism, and in short, as a conflict between West and East.

    Judging by the current conflicts around the globe it is clear that this  conflict is still embedded in Europe's cultural genetics and has yet to be resolved.

  • NIHIL NOVUM SUB SOLE (There is nothing new under the sun)

    Why are we so interested in the “old world”? Probably because it is not as old as some people could think …

    Man is a being, perhaps the only one with a vital consciousness of time: past, present and future. Actually, everything is present, although present is a fleeting moment. At that present moment, past and future are updated. Without going any further into these philosophical questions, the truth is that in very general terms, mankind is very interested and attracted by the past, by history. In our western culture, we feel particularly attracted to the Greek and Roman past, to the so called "Classical Antiquity". That period was an essential part of our past.

    We certainly study  the past with great interest because it helps us to explain ourselves. Specifically  it gives us insight about  who or how we are. It  gives also us self-confidence with regard to our present way of life, where everything runs very quickly and is very ephemeral or short-lived.

    Understanding the past reveals that deep down we are very similar to our ancestors. We find that the tools we use today have changed and improved greatly, but our feelings, our relationships, our ideas and our hopes and desires are essentially the same. We empathize with an ancient love poem, we are moved with by Greek tragedy, we are excited about watching a Doric temple of exact proportions, we are fascinated with a perfect classical sculpture and we are stunned by a slender Roman aqueduct.

    Who knows the ancient world, he has the temptation to assume, again and again, the phrase from Ecclesiastes I, 10 (one of the books of the biblical canon) "nihil novum sub sole", "there is nothing new under the sun"; he has de temptation to think that everything is already said or done before.

    Generally, the search for  knowledge from the past  is a matter for historians. They analyze the facts and draw general conclusions that can be used in our lives today. As Cicero, the  philosopher and thinker said, “History is the  the teacher of life” (magistra vitae). He lived in the first century BC, from year 106 to 43 BC. Past experience is undoubtedly useful to us. Even those people that minimize the value of history  would be foolish to dismiss our own past experience or to dismiss the experience of beings who once famously were so similar to us and lived centuries or millenniums ago.

    That history, no matter how unclear or imperfect it may be, is always a partial interpretation based on some generally important facts. But the lives  of our ancestors are also made up of countless less interesting or unimportant little facts, details and anecdotes.Most historical scholars usually do not deal with these details, although many of them are truly interesting, appealing, insightful  and often even important.

    Therefore, this is the goal that I propose (trying not to fall into a "gossip" banal and useless of history), I intend to collect tens, hundreds or even thousands of anecdotes and curiosities of the ancient Greco-Roman world that have some meaning for us today; and I wil guides potentially serve as guides to our present and future. Regardless of the actual historical value of these anecdotes and  curiosities, they will undoubtedly increase our taste for the past.

    In this blog,  I intend to spell out the fruits of my research in a serious and profesional manner . I will deliver my findings in small daily pills, so they can be easily swallowed and can efficiently satisfy the interest, and sometimes  obsession, of many people about history. I also intend “to instruct and  delight", as every teacher desires.