Quotulatiousness

July 25, 2022

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous

Filed under: Books, Europe, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Rob Henderson considers the character of Julius Caesar (as filtered through Plutach and Shakespeare), and the “Dominance-Oriented Status Seekers” identified in a recent paper:

La morte di Cesare (The death of Caesar)
Oil painting by Vincenzo Camuccini between 1804 and 1805. via Wikimedia Commons.

In the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (which is drawn from Plutarch’s Lives), the commoners of Rome are seen celebrating Caesar’s recent triumph over Pompey.

Two tribunes (elected officials), Flavius and Marullus, accost two of the commoners, asking them to name their trades and explain why they are out in their best attire rather than working.

The commoners respond to the tribunes’ condescension with indirect answers and puns that annoy the tribunes even more.

Eventually, Flavius and Marullus learn that the plebeians are cheering Caesar. The tribunes scorn them for doing this.

They tell the commoners that Pompey was a Roman too. So Caesar’s success was not truly a triumph for Rome.

Flavius later tells Marullus that they should remove the decorations from Caesar’s statues during Caesar’s parade.

Marullus questions this plan, stating that it also happens to be the Feast of Lupercal, a celebration of fertility.

But Flavius is adamant that they remove the ornaments, because the removal will help prevent Caesar from seeing himself as too great.

This first scene of Julius Caesar shows that the tribunes want to prevent the rise of a potential tyrant. But they themselves are more than willing to push the commoners around.

Later, two other prominent Romans — Brutus and Cassius — are likewise shown expressing their concerns about Caesar’s growing popularity.

Cassius asks Brutus how Caesar has any more right to greatness than Brutus or himself.

Cassius tells Brutus a story: When they were young, Cassius saved young Julius Caesar from drowning. Cassius always viewed himself as superior for rescuing Caesar. He is now aggravated that Caesar has risen above him.

Cassius decides to orchestrate Caesar’s assassination. Cassius gradually convinces other members of the Roman elite to help him carry out the conspiracy.

Meanwhile, Caesar himself, speaking privately with Mark Antony, expresses suspicions about Cassius:

    CAESAR
    Let me have men about me that are fat,
    Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.
    Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
    He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
    ANTONY
    Fear him not, Caesar; he’s not dangerous.
    He is a noble Roman, and well given.
    CAESAR
    Would he were fatter! But I fear him not.
    Yet if my name were liable to fear,
    I do not know the man I should avoid
    So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,
    He is a great observer, and he looks
    Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
    As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
    Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
    As if he mocked himself and scorned his spirit
    That could be moved to smile at anything.
    Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
    Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
    And therefore are they very dangerous.
    I rather tell thee what is to be feared
    Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.
    Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
    And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.

Caesar is saying all men are hungry, either for food, entertainment (“he loves no plays … he hears no music”), or power. If prosperous men aren’t tempted by food and entertainment, then they crave power. Thus, prosperous men who are lean are dangerous.

Mark Antony dismisses Caesar’s concerns about Cassius, because Cassius is a “noble Roman”. But as events unfold, we see that Antony was misguided.

Caesar was correct in his judgment of Cassius.

The eminent literary critic (and my former professor) Harold Bloom has stated that Caesar’s “estimate of Cassius shows him to be the best analyst of another human being in all of Shakespeare”.

Bloom goes on to characterize Cassius as embodying a “spirit of resentment, unhappy as he is at contemplating greatness beyond him”.

Cassius secretly arranges to have fake notes sent to Brutus, who is fooled into thinking the notes have been written by ordinary Roman citizens who want the Roman elites to stand up against Caesar.

When persuading the other conspirators to help him carry out the assassination plot, Cassius’s stresses his concern for the future of Rome.

But Cassius’s story to Brutus indicates that the assassination was in part fueled by his resentment that Caesar grew into someone more powerful than himself, thus upending their former status disparity.

July 5, 2022

Julius Caesar and the City of Rome

Filed under: Architecture, History, Italy, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

toldinstone
Published 14 May 2021

Julius Caesar was not only a gifted general and fiercely ambitious politician. He was also a great builder, who reshaped the heart of Rome in his own image.

For much more on Caesar and his successors, check out my book Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Statues-…

If you’re so inclined, you can follow me elsewhere on the web:

https://www.patreon.com/toldinstone
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorian…
https://www.instagram.com/toldinstone/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show…

0:00 Introduction
1:29 The Forum in Caesar’s time
3:30 Caesar’s new forum
4:42 The Temple of Venus Genetrix
5:37 The Basilica Julia
6:10 The Curia and Rostra
6:57 Dedication games
8:02 Caesar the god

Thanks for watching!

June 10, 2022

The Early Roman Emperors – Part 1: Augustus

Filed under: Europe, History — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

seangabb
Published 26 Sep 2021

The Roman Empire was the last and the greatest of the ancient empires. It is the origin from which springs the history of Western Europe and those nations that descend from the Western Roman Empire. It is the political entity within which the Christian faith was born, and the growth of the Church within the Empire, and its eventual establishment as the sole faith of the Empire, have left an indelible impression on all modern denominations. Its history, together with that of the ancient Greeks and the Jews, is our history. To understand how the Empire emerged from a great though finally dysfunctional republic, and how it was consolidated by its early rulers, is partly how we understand ourselves.

Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in late 2021, in which he discusses and tries to explain the achievement of the early Emperors. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.

More by Sean Gabb on the Ancient World: https://www.classicstuition.co.uk/

Learn Latin or Greek or both with him: https://www.udemy.com/user/sean-gabb/

His historical novels (under the pen name “Richard Blake”): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Blak…

April 11, 2022

Republic to Empire: The Ides of March to Actium

seangabb
Published 13 Mar 2021

In 120 BC, Rome was a republic with touches of democracy. A century later, it was a divine right military dictatorship. Between January and March 2021, Sean Gabb explored this transformation with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.
(more…)

April 7, 2022

Republic to Empire: The Triumph of Caesar

Filed under: Europe, History, Italy, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

seangabb
Published 5 Mar 2021

In 120 BC, Rome was a republic with touches of democracy. A century later, it was a divine right military dictatorship. Between January and March 2021, Sean Gabb explored this transformation with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.
(more…)

April 3, 2022

History of Rome in 15 Buildings 03. The Forum of Caesar

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, History, Italy — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

toldinstone
Published 27 Sep 2018

In this third episode of our History of Rome, focused on the Forum of Julius Caesar, we discuss (as might be expected) Julius Caesar, the last and greatest of the generals who reshaped the Roman Republic in their own image. Caesar dominates the stage, but there are walk-on bits for a crew of pirates, forty trained elephants, and Cleopatra.

If you enjoyed this video, you might be interested in my book Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans. You can find a preview of the book here:

https://toldinstone.com/naked-statues…

If you’re so inclined, you can follow me elsewhere on the web:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorian…
https://www.instagram.com/toldinstone/

To see the story and photo essay associated with this video, go to:
https://toldinstone.com/the-forum-of-…

Thanks for watching!

March 28, 2022

Republic to Empire: Catiline, Cicero, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar the Death Spiral

Filed under: Europe, History — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Update 6 Feb 2024: Dr. Gabb replaced the original part 7 which discussed the cultural impact of Ancient Greece on the rising Roman Republic.

seangabb
Published 20 Feb 2021

In 120 BC, Rome was a republic with touches of democracy. A century later, it was a divine right military dictatorship. Between January and March 2021, Sean Gabb explored this transformation with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.

Here is the seventh lecture, which discusses the Catiline Conspiracy and the rise and disintegration of the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus. There is a digression on Eastern politics and the Parthian Empire.
(more…)

March 21, 2022

Republic to Empire: Sulla A Failed Reaction

seangabb
Published 10 Feb 2021

In 120 BC, Rome was a republic with touches of democracy. A century later, it was a divine right military dictatorship. Between January and March 2021, Sean Gabb explored this transformation with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.
(more…)

February 6, 2022

QotD: Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the most gifted and successful politicians of his day. Unlike nearly all of his peers in the Roman Senate, his family had not been in Roman politics for generations on generations, but rather was new to it. Cicero’s family was a wealthy one, but hailed from the town of Arpinum, about 60 miles from Rome, making Cicero an outsider to elite Roman politics. He made his name as a legal advocate, rather than (in more typical Roman fashion) as a military man. He was the first of his family to enter the Roman Senate (making him a novus homo or “new man”) and was the first such new man to rise all the way to the consulship (the highest Roman office) in thirty years, which should give some sense of the magnitude of that achievement. Moreover, Cicero had managed to get elected in the first year he was eligible, which would have been a banner achievement even for a member of Rome’s traditional upper-class. During that consulship (63 B.C.), he further distinguished himself by foiling a planned coup centered around the influential figure of Catiline (L. Sergius Catilina).

Cicero was a key politician in the Late Republic, but it was his misfortune that his life was spent in an era where words meant less than weapons. He sided with Pompey against Caesar, but was granted clemency after Pompey’s defeat. He was not involved in Caesar’s assassination – he was still too much an outsider for some of the stuck-up Roman elitists who made up the conspiracy (though he correctly pointed out at the time that leaving Antony alive would be a fatal mistake). In the aftermath of the assassination, he identified (correctly) Antony as the key threat to the Republic and worked to discredit him politically in a devastating series of speeches named the Philippics (in honor of a similar set of speeches made by the Athenian Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander). Cicero’s political assault on Antony succeeded – his reputation was ruined and his popularity in Rome never recovered – but it cost Cicero his life when Antony, in league with Octavian, moved into the capital and had Cicero murdered. Cicero’s literary legacy survived him, however, in part because it was useful for Augustus’ own political ends (e.g. Plut. Cic. 49.5-6).

Cicero’s position as the most eloquent orator of the Latin language – and probably its best prose stylist – is largely uncontested. It was his speaking skills – honed in the courts – that made him so politically successful. He was also a prolific writer and a tremendous amount of his writings survive, including both legal and political speeches, private letters, handbooks on oratory, and a set of philosophical works. As anyone who has read Cicero can tell you, he also has a deserved reputation for pride and self-aggrandizement. While many of Cicero’s contemporaries and readers down to the modern era have been impressed by Cicero’s thinking and eloquence, I feel confident in asserting no one – alive or dead – will ever be more impressed by Cicero than Cicero was impressed by himself.

Bret Devereaux, “Collections: A Trip Through Cicero (Natural Law)”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2019-12-12.

December 30, 2021

The Cursus Honorum of the late Roman Republic

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Government, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Founding Questions, Severian notes that the Cursus Honorum — the formal “career path” for ambitious men in the late Roman Republic was a remarkably effective process … that ended up being a victim of its own success:

Ahhh, God bless the autists at Wiki, they’ve got it down to a chart:

This is from Caesar’s time, and since one of this blog’s main themes is the confusion between process and outcome, let’s put it right up front: This system, the cursus honorum, was designed to produce men like Julius Caesar …

… and you can take that in either sense.

Caesar is one of the most mulled-over men in history, but nobody seriously doubts that he was at least competent at pretty much everything. Maybe he didn’t make the big list of “Greatest Pontifices Maximi” (or however the Latin goes), but he wasn’t a disgrace to the toga, either. If it was a public function in the Late Roman Republic, Caesar was at least decent at it.

And that’s what the cursus honorum was designed to do. It was a three-fer: It gave you competent public officials, but it also gave young ruling class men some seasoning. Most importantly, it was a way of nurturing talent that also hedged against the Peter Principle. If you want to argue that that makes it a four-fer, go nuts, but the point is, it was a pretty good system … up to a point, and if you’re a regular reader, you know what that point is: The Dunbar Number, at which point relationships become too complex to be managed personally, and bureaucratic structures replace them.

One wishes later governments had something like this — if a guy starts out as a quaestor and discovers he can’t handle it, he’ll bring that knowledge with him to the Senate. (Of course, if he can’t even manage to get elected to that, he’ll know full well his level of talent, and he’ll sit down and shut up on the Senate’s back benches). Note too that the bottom rung is military service — since at that time legionaries were all militia, the voters got a good look at you where it really matters, right from the beginning.

By the time a man reaches the top, then, he has intimate experience of ALL the public offices. Not only that, but he’s well known to everyone who matters, since in between the various offices he’s in the Senate, making connections (or out in the provinces, making other — but no less valuable — connections). A consul, then, is pretty much by definition omnicompetent. He did a good enough job in all the previous public offices that he didn’t disqualify himself for the top slot. Also, he’s been thoroughly vetted — everyone who matters, at pretty much every level of society, has had a good look at him (or, at worst, has a good friend who has had a good look at him).

Obviously it wasn’t a perfect system. Rome had her share of inept consuls, because people are people and sometimes “promotion to your level of incompetence” means “promotion to the very top job”. But for the most part it worked well, and even if a guy turned out to be a dud as consul, well, what can you do? Everyone had at least a reasonable expectation that he’d be able to handle it, which is pretty much the best one can consistently achieve in human affairs. Not only that, but because of the candidate’s long experience and careful vetting, you had a much better than average chance of getting a real winner …

… a man like Caesar, who is at minimum competent at everything, and outstanding at lots of things.

June 15, 2021

QotD: The destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria

The dramatic force of the New Atheist moral fable of the Great Library of Alexandria not only comes from the Library’s supposed size and unique nature, but also from its supposed cataclysmic and fiery end. The moral of this story has added impact if the Great Library ends in a violent catastrophe, so this is the story that tends to get told by those who use the tale as a stick with which to beat Christianity. The fact is, however, that libraries are delicate institutions and most decline slowly rather than ending in a sudden disaster, or – as in the Great Library’s case – decline slowly while suffering a series of disasters. Anyone who works in library services will tell you that the main enemy of a library’s continuation is a lack of funding. Ancient libraries in particular needed constant financial patronage from their founders and sponsors to survive. Papyrus scrolls decayed and fell apart from use, suffered damage from mice and other vermin and, in a period where artificial light tended to be from open oil lamps, were in constant danger from fires, great and small. The Mouseion, like all ancient libraries, needed a large staff to undertake the constant and unending task of repairing, replacing and recopying books and these staffs, even when made up of slaves, were expensive to maintain.

During the Mouseion‘s heyday in the third and second centuries BC the funding for this labour and the upkeep of the institution generally would have been regular and reliable. The Mouseion was, after all, one of the jewels in the crown of the Ptolemaic kingdom and it sat in the Broucheion or Royal Quarter where the Ptolemies themselves lived. By the first century BC, however, there is some indication that the prestige of the institution had begun to decline. In its first two centuries the Mouseion‘s directors were famous scholars, renowned for their intellects throughout the Greek-speaking world. By the time of the later Ptolemies, however, we find administrators, court favourites and even a former commander of the palace guard taking up the role, which seems to have become, as Lionel Casson puts it, “a political plum” to be awarded to flunkies rather than scholars. This continued under the Romans in the first century AD, with Tiberius Claudius Balbilus being awarded the post by Claudius, though he at least was something of a scholar if not a leading intellect. It is likely that the later Ptolemies began to neglect the institution and Roman imperial patronage of it was probably even less reliable.

But war has always been one of the main destroyers of libraries down the ages and the Great Library’s slow decline was marked by several sacks of the Broucheion which eventually led to the end of the Mouseion. The first and probably the most significant came in 47 BC when Julius Caesar took the side of Cleopatra in her claim on the Ptolemy’s throne and besieged her younger brother, the boy king Ptolemy XIII, in Alexandria. Caesar’s own account mentions that he burned a fleet in the docks of the city, but makes no mention of this fire destroying anything else (Civil Wars, III.11). His account was continued by his lieutenant Aulus Hirtius in his Alexandrine War and he too makes no mention of any fire damaging the city, but he does go out of his way to say “Alexandria is well-nigh fire-proof, because its buildings contain no wooden joinery and are held together by an arched construction and are roofed with rough-cast or tiling” (Alexandrine War, I.1) which could be read as an attempt at a defence against accusations of damage through fire, given his role in the siege. The earliest account of Caesar’s siege damaging Alexandria comes from a lost work by Livy via an epitome by Florus (Florus, II.13) which describes Caesar burning the area around the docks to deprive enemy archers of a position on which to fire on his troops, and this is echoed by Lucan (The Civil War, X.24). It is Plutarch who first depicts this fire destroying the Great Library in an almost casual mention that perhaps assumes this as common knowledge:

    In this war, to begin with, Caesar encountered the peril of being shut off from water, since the canals were dammed up by the enemy; in the second place, when the enemy tried to cut off his fleet, he was forced to repel the danger by using fire, and this spread from the dockyards and destroyed the Great Library, and thirdly, when a battle arose at Pharos, he sprang from the mole into a small boat and tried to go to the aid of his men in their struggle, but the Egyptians sailed up against him from every side, so that he threw himself into the sea and with great difficulty escaped by swimming. (Plutarch, Caesar, 49)

Aulus Gellius’ mention of the Great Library says that the collection numbered “nearly seven hundred thousand volumes” and then adds “but these were all burned during the sack of the city in our first war with Alexandria”, referring to Caesar’s siege (Gellius, Attic Nights, VII.17). Dio Cassius gives a slightly longer account:

    After this many battles occurred between the two forces both by day and by night, and many places were set on fire, with the result that the docks and the storehouses of grain among other buildings were burned, and also the library, whose volumes, it is said, were of the greatest number and excellence. (Dio Cassius, Roman History, XLII.36)

There is some debate about how literally we can take the reports that the whole Great Library was destroyed, especially given that the docks area of Alexandria were some distance from the Mouseion‘s likely location. The fact that so many writers agree that Caesar’s fire destroyed the Great Library simply can’t be ignored, however, and at the very least the fire seems to have destroyed a substantial portion of the book collection, probably stored in warehouses on the docks. It is clear that the losses were huge, as Plutarch also tells the (probably apocryphal) story of Mark Antony confiscating the whole collection of the Great Library of Pergamon and giving them to Cleopatra to replace the books lost in the fire (Plutarch, Antony, 58). While this was not the end of the Mouseion and not the end of its whole collection, writers from around the end of the reign of Caesar’s dynasty onwards tend to refer to the Great Library in the past tense and any surviving collection was probably greatly reduced after 47 BC.

Scholarship continued in the Mouseion, however, and the Roman emperors seem to have continued its funding under their patronage when the Ptolemaic dynasty came to an end with the death of Cleopatra. Claudius built a new wing or annex to the Mouseion, which was to house his works of history and see the public reading of them twice a year. But it was the calamitous third century AD that saw a succession of military disasters in Alexandria and seems to have seen the final end of the Mouseion.

In 215 AD Caracalla punished Alexandria for mockery of him with a wholesale massacre of its young men, after which his troops plundered parts of the city. It is not known if the Mouseion was sacked in this action, but John Malas records that its funding was stopped by Caracalla at this time (Delia, p. 1463). The real end probably came in 272 AD when Aurelian stormed the Broucheion with Ammianus noting “[Alexandria’s] walls were destroyed and she lost the greater part of the district called Bruchion.” (Ammianus, History, XII.15). If that sack didn’t mean the death blow for the institution, Diocletian probably finished the job when he too sacked the city in 295 AD, and it was later devastated by a major earthquake in 365 AD. The only mention of the Mouseion after this is found in a late source, the tenth century Byzantine encyclopaedia called the Suda, which describes the fourth century philosopher Theon as “the man from the Mouseion“, though it is hard to tell exactly what this means. Given that the Mouseion was most likely long gone by Theon’s time, it could be that some other successor “Mouseion” had been established and Theon studied there or it could be that “the man from the Mouseion” is stylised honorific or even a personal nickname – meaning “a scholar like one from the old days”.

The Mouseion and its library were almost certainly a memory by the late third century, destroyed in a series of calamities after a long period of decline. But what is missing from all this evidence is any howling, pyromaniacal Christian mob. If the Great Library ceased to exist in the century before Chrisitanity came to power in the Empire, how did Christians get stuck with the charge of destroying it? The answer lies not in the evidence about the Great Library, but in the history of its daughter library and annex in the Serapeum.

Tim O’Neill, “The Great Myths 5: The Destruction Of The Great Library Of Alexandria”, History for Atheists, 2017-07-02.

March 30, 2021

Caesar in Britain II: There and Back Again (54 B.C.E.)

Historia Civilis
Published 21 Mar 2017

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March 29, 2021

Caesar in Britain (55 B.C.E.)

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Historia Civilis
Published 22 Feb 2017

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February 14, 2021

History’s Best(?) Couples — Valentine’s Day Special

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 5 Feb 2021

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a look at some of the best couples in history. Well, “Best” is a stretch — definitely most entertaining — but the pairings on display today are FAR from healthy. Enjoy the slow descent into insanity that is “Me Discussing These Stories”.

SOURCES & Further Reading: Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars, Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: Julius Caesar, China: A History by John Keay, “Song of Everlasting Sorrow” by Bai Juyi, Smithsonian Magazine & Biography.com entries on Marie Antoinette & Louis XVI.

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TRACKLIST: “Scheming Weasel (faster version),” “Local Forecast – Elevator”, “Sneaky Snitch” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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November 14, 2020

The Decline of the Great Library of Alexandria

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 27 Mar 2019

Presented by Ms History. The Great Library was a center of knowledge. Its decline was not the single cataclysmic event that may seem to think, but its slow decline is perhaps, even more tragic. It is history that deserves to be remembered.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As images of actual events are sometimes not available, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.

Ms. History Guy is an avid reader and former reference librarian, and reviews around 100 books per year. Feel free to follow her progress or befriend her on Goodreads where she goes by the name “Heidi the Reader”: https://www.goodreads.com/MsHistory

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Script by JCG

#history #thehistoryguy #library

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