Roman Art - the cost of Roman-era paintings

We tend to get blown away by the prices fetched by modern-era paintings these days - but in the Roman-era, those with cash weren't shy about spending it either. When the conqueror of Corinth, Lucius Mummius, brought captured artworks back to Rome for auctioning in 146BC, the King of Pergamum, Attalus, successfully bid 600,000 denarii (that's around $60-million) for a picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides (530BC-468BC). Mummius was so taken aback by the purchase price he withdrew it from sale and put it on display in the shrine of Ceres. Pliny says King Attalus wasn't particularly happy with this decision. For more on Roman Art, read 'Ad Lib' - available from Amazon, just follow the links

Roman Art - more on painting

I'm kind of starting to think old Pliny was a bit of an art snob - but he does give us an idea of what the insides of wealthy villa's looked like in 78AD, and to be frank, it sounds like nothing much has changed as we experience the same 'new money' world that Pliny was experiencing in the new Imperial Age.

"Meanwhile people cram the walls of their galleries with old pictures and revere portraits of strangers. As for likenesses of themselves, their concern for honour extends only as far as price."

Still convinced the Romans were nothing like us? For more on Roman art read 'Ad Lib' - available from Amazon, just follow the links

Roman Art - painting

Here's a quote for you...

'Painting - it was once a celebrated art - much in vogue with kings and nations - which brought fame to those it thought worthy of being handed down to posterity. Currently, however, it has been supplanted by marble and gold: slabs of marble not only cover entire walls but are also engraved with patterns and decorated with twisting lines that represent objects and animals.'

Sounds like someone shooting off at modern art again, doesn't it? Someone lamenting the appearance of Cubism and wishing the national gallery was filled with Rembrandts - the old 'everything old is going out of fashion' argument we've heard for the last century right? Trouble is, this is Pliny giving his opinion in 78AD. I guess he had a problem with modern art. For more on Roman art read 'Ad Lib' - available from Amazon, just follow the links

Weekend entertainment - Roman style

Here's another run of the mill wall advertisement from Pompeii -

VEN.ET.GLAD.PAR.XX.M.TULLI.PUGN.POM.PR.NON.NOVEMBRES.VII.IDUS.NOV



"Wild beast hunters and the twenty pairs of Gladiators of Marcus Tullius will perform in Pompeii between the Nones of November (4th) and seven days before the Ides of November (7th)"

This hoarding is advertising four days of gladiatorial combat in Pompeii's arena being put on by some cove called Marcus Tullius - possibly a distant relative of Cicero. Notice how his twenty pairs of gladiators (they'd have a value of at least 160,000 sesterces - $4-million) will be 'performing' for those four days. Doesn't sound like Mr.M.Tullius was expecting any combat casualties, does it? In fact this advertisement gives a fairly good insight into the Roman arena industry. These gladiators are 'performing' - not fighting to the death. They will be appearing four days in a row, possibly putting on the same show like a visiting circus, or maybe mixing it up for the punters who've bought season tickets. The point is, Marcus Tullius was running a weekend matinee. He wanted to make money and he had no intentions of letting his $4-million investment go to the sword - those gladiators were going out there to ham it up to the crowd, and they were going to do the same thing the next day, and the day after that. So while it happened, don't get fooled into thinking that every gladiator went into the arena expecting to leave in a coffin. For more on the Arena industry - read 'A Body of Doubt' available from Amazon, just follow the links 

How many Sixth legions does it take to make a civil war?

The Sixth Legion is one of those bits of history that typically take one and one to get three. The whole story of the Sixth gets very confusing between the late Gallic wars and the subsequent Civil Wars (52BC-46BC) - where it famously became the legion Caesar took to Alexandria and then later Pontus. However a lot of the confusion appears to extend to the fact that at certain points in time the Sixth seemed to be fighting on both sides. While the obvious answer implies there were two Sixth legions at the same time - one being a Gallic legion raised by Julius Caesar and the other, one of Pompey's - some quite elaborate alternatives have been created that often almost need time travel to explain. However I'm a keen proponent of the obvious answer. Let's go to the beginning.

Pompey began numbering his legions in 65BC when he had seven legions established in Spain - 1 to 7 - as logic would have it. Obviously a Spanish 6th was one of these. The 8th and 9th were drafted the following year and in 61BC Julius Caesar raised the 10th while he was a Spanish Governor. As Caesar's Gallic campaign began in April 59BC, the 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th were moved to Gaul, leaving the Legions 1 to 6 still in Spain. Then Caesar has a major set back losing almost two legions in 54BC resulting in him 'borrowing' the 1st from Spain. And this is where things get interesting...I promise. At the end of 53BC - having already raised six Gallic legions (the 14th twice) - Caesar began recruiting for a seventh while he was wintering in his eastern Gallic province of Cisapline Gaul. However the Great Rebellion of Vercingetorix began before this legion was fully formed and it departed with Caesar known only as the 'Italian Draft'. After joining with a provincial garrison in southern Gaul this 'draft' dug its way through snowdrifts to reach the majority of the wintering legions and then it disappears from Caesar's writings. What happened to the Italian Draft? As far as most historians seem to think, nothing...it just up and disappeared. The thing is, it didn't of course.

A Roman legion was formed at one moment in time...the new recruits signed up and retired on the same day sixteen years later...there were no new recruits added later on, which meant a fighting legion could start off with 4800-men but only a few hundred might be left at the end. So the Italian Draft had to become their own legion at some point during 52BC - and after the battle of Gergovia where Caesar lost the best part of another two legions, it certainly did. Filling out the rest of its numbers with Roman refugees or local Roman militia from central or southern Gaul, the 'Draft' legion was most likely named at Agendencum during August 52BC - prior to the Caesar's planned evacuatation of the province. Option two is he named it at the end of the year before winter quartering instead - and, yes, it was named the '6th'. The fact this was his newest Gallic legion from the Gallic wars and he knew what they had achieved single-handedly during the winter of January 52BC probably explains why Caesar used this legion for the Alexandrian and Pontic campaigns. And quite frankly, suggestions of him using Pompey's 6th Legion captured after the battle of Pharsulus instead of one his own trusted legions bends credibility a little too much.

Yep, you read it right...there were two 6th Legions in the Greek campaign - on different sides. So why did Caesar create this clash in numbers? It was probably unintentional, the 'Spanish 6th' was due to retire in 50BC and Caesar's intention appears to have been filling in the lower numbered legions as they
retired - he was going to have to do the same with the 7th as well. It may even have been a bit of insurance to force the retirement of the older legion on time. Pompey probably did retire his 6th legion in early 50BC, reforming it again at the beginning of 49BC when the Senate decreed some 170,000 Italian men were to drafted for the civil war against Caesar, and as the numbered legions were his idea, Pompey probably didn't care if Caesar had already used the number 6, as only a Pompeian 6th would be the real 6th. Chances are Pompey's enormous Greek army had several legions with the same numbers as Caesar's. For more on the Roman wars in Gaul you can read 'Vagabond' - available from Amazon, just follow the links

Where were Caesar's legions when the Civil War began?

When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon during the evening of January 10th, 49BC, he had nine legions spread throughout the two Gallic provinces and was in the process of raising another three. Of these there were his four famous Spanish legions - the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th, plus his newer Gallic Legions the 6th (the Italian Draft from 52BC), 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th. Being January, the legions were in their winter camps, the 7th, 10th, 12th & 14th were in the Rhone Valley city of Decetia under the command of Caesar's Senior Legate, Gaius Fabius. The 6th, 8th, 9th &11th were in the lands of the Belgic Remi at Andematunnum under the other Senior Legate, Gaius Trebonius. Julius Caesar was in Ravenna, his Cisalpine Gaul base with just the 13th Legion.

So when Caesar is crossing the Rubicon he had just the 13th - but he was planning on backup. Trebonius had sent the 8th legion through St Bernards Pass (in the middle of winter) and it was just sixteen days behind the 13th, while Fabius had sent the 12th across the lower Alps. After subduing Northern Italy Caesar chased his conservative enemies to Brundisium with the 8th, 12th & 13th, plus his new recruits from Cisalpine Gaul and a few thousand Italian conscripts he'd shaped into the 16th, 17th and 18th Legions along the way.

Meanwhile back in Gaul - Trebonius was heading south during January with the 6th, 9th and 11th to wait at Vienna in the southern Rhone Valley to see if Caesar would need more help in Italy or if  Fabius - who was moving towards the Spanish border with the 7th, 10th and 14th - ran into Pompey's Spanish Legions. At this stage the independent Greek city state of Massilia wasn't an issue. Things only changed there when Caesar was taking the 12th, 13th and 18th from Italy back across Gaul to join Fabius and Trebonius for a war on Spain in April.

He more or less came across Massilia in the hands of the enemy during what he intended to be peace negotiations. Luckily for him he had three legions with him (the 12th, 13th and 18th) but he wanted to go to Spain and have someone else take command of a simple urban siege...and since it was easier to transfer a Senior Legate than an army, he brought Trebonius over to Massilia. So by April 49BC the veteran Gallic legions, the 12th & 13th plus the newbie Italio/Gallic 18th Legion were besieging Massilia, while the 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th & 14th were the six legions in Spain. For more on the Roman world read 'Vagabond' - available from Amazon, just follow the links.

Mithridates - the ancient Doctor Evil

Julius Caesar, Marcus Tullius Cicero and Cleopatra get just about all the glory when it comes to acknowledging the great minds of the 1st-century BC. But there was at least one other chap who deserves an  honourable mention, even though he slots into the stereotypical role as that century's 'evil genius'. His name was Mithridates the Sixth, the last king of Pontus. Born in 134BC, he claimed to be a direct descendant of the Persian king Darius I as well as some of Alexander the Great's generals. In 113BC he did the normal kinds of things most eastern potentates made when coming to power - like murdering his siblings, his mother and anyone else who might have tried to claim his throne. After this he settled down to various conquests around the rim of the Black Sea and Greece which eventually brought him into the line of fire of Rome. Once this happened he would spend the last thirty years of his life trying to bring down the Roman Republic - through the kind of direct and indirect methods that would make Dr No and Professor Moriarty proud.

But enough of the humdrum...what made this guy such a stand out in intellect?

Well, for starters, Pliny claims Mithridates could speak twenty-two languages (that's right, 22), a record our Roman historian believed unequalled. Through-out his 56-year reign, it is said that Mithridates never once used an interpreter. So the guy was a linguist, what else? For one thing, he was very interested in chemistry - poisons in particular - since he considered this the most likely method for his ultimate doom. Self-guided he began drinking small doses of various poisons to increase his resistance, but he also set out to find as many antidotes as he could - in fact, he was a pioneer in this field. He continued research into more mundane medicines as well, gathering a vast collection of chemicals and medicinal specimens from across the known world, a collection so large that when it was captured by Pompey it became an important resource for Roman pharmacists.

Mithridates VI - 134BC-63BC,
you've got to dig those sideburns

So how did it all end for Mithridates? Well, with Pompey's invading army close at hand, he decided to poison himself so as to avoid being paraded in a Roman Triumph. Unfortunately, his anti-poison regime worked a treat and he remained unaffected by the same draught that had quickly killed his wife and youngest daughters. Depending on which story you believe he died by a sword blow he had ordered from his body-guard, or by the first Roman soldiers to get to him. For more about Mithridates, read 'The Hitherto Unknown' - available from Amazon now, just follow the links