History of the West

Central European History from Antiquity to the 20th Century

Month: February 2019

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema – History in Paintings

In the Tepidarium, by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema
In the Tepidarium, by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

World famous in his lifetime, forgotten after death, and rediscovered since the 1960s, Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema’s ( 8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) depictions of Classical Antiquity have been called everything from kitsch to genius. Female beauty was his passion …

Following a family tradition, he was destined to become a lawyer – fortunately for the world of art, the plan tanked for good when he, aged sixteen, entered the Royal Academy of Antwerp in Belgium to study early Dutch and Flemish art. What happened then one can read on Wiki and many other websites, and we forgo the story and show the works …

The Woman of Amphissa
The Woman of Amphissa
The Baths of Caracalla
The Baths of Caracalla

He became known especially with scenes of daily life – quite distict from the hero-worshipping of mainstream classical painters.

A Favourite Custom
A Favourite Custom
View From The Villa Jovis by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
View From The Villa Jovis by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
At Aphrodite's Cradle
At Aphrodite’s Cradle
Watching and Waiting
The Colosseum
A reading by Homer - Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema
A reading by Homer – Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema
Comparison' by_Lawrence Alma Tadema  -Cincinnati Art Museum
“Comparison” by Lawrence Alma Tadema – Cincinnati Art Museum
Spring
Spring (Detail)

Websites:

Alma-Tedema Foundation

Athenaeum

(© John Vincent Palatine 2019)

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Cleopatra

Cleopatra by Edward Mason Eggleston
Cleopatra by Edward Mason Eggleston

The rarely seen British Production of “Caesar and Cleopatra” featuring Vivian Leigh and Claude Rains on YouTube

Claudette Colbert in the 1934 movie …
The famous picture of a red-haired Cleopatra

Did she really look like Elizabeth Taylor? We will never know, but the odds are she did not – what we know from coins and ancient busts speaks against it. She may have had red hair, as in the famous picture, but most likely she shaved all her bodily hair, as it was Egyptian custom, and wore elaborate wigs. It seems clear, however, that she knew everything about ancient make-up, using belladonna to dilate her pupils and stibium (also called kohl, antimony sulphide) to colour her eyebrows. Very little, however, speaks against Cleopatra VII Philopator‘s force of personality, wits and political shrewdness.

Although she was, technically spoken, survived for a few days by her and Caesar‘s son Caesarion as sole ruler, she was in practical regards the last true pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, successor to the various Egyptian Empires in the lands of the Double Crowns.

Papyrus document, right bottom corner an annotation by the queen’s own hand

Her descent features more than a few incestual, er, complications – within her last four patrilineal generations (father to father), there were three brother-sister marriages and the same number of uncle-niece marriages, so that in the end her family tree looks suspiciously like a vertical line – in fact, she only had two pair of (instead of four) great-grandparents – of which one was the son and daughter of the other!

In her youth as a scion of the royal Macedonian but thoroughly Hellenized family of the Ptolemies, founded in 305 BC by Alexander‘s general, companion and historian Ptolemy I Soter (c. 367 – 282 BC), she stood out by her talent for languages – she was the first of the family to learn the Egyptian language, but also spoke Ethiopian, Troglodyte, Hebrew or Aramaic, Arabic, some Syrian language – perhaps Syriac – Median, Parthian, and Latin in addition to her native Koine Greek.

Robert Auer-Cleopatra
Robert Auer – Cleopatra
The Handmaidens, by John Collier

From 81 BC on, mayhem, murder and very irresponsible financial planning within the royal family ended with the Romans’ – initially under Sulla – titular takeover of Egypt as collateral for outstanding loans. Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy XII succeeded as a client king of Rome hanging on to power – by his nails – from 80 to 58 BC and again from 55 to 51 BC with a small interruption when having been intermittently deposed by his daughter and Cleopatra’s elder sister Berenice IV.

After Berenice’s fall and subsequent beheading, Cleopatra was made co-ruler with her father some time in 52 BC, but faced serious problems after her father’s death in 51 BC.  Irregularities of the Nile flooding had left the land in famine and a debt of 17,5 million drachmas to Rome (it is hard to assign a present-day value to the then-drachma, but for a long time in ancient Greek one drachma represented the daily wage of a skilled worker) petrified the state’s fiscus – aggravated by the lawless behaviour of the largely Germanic/Gallic-Roman garrison left by the financiers of the Empire.

Two factors further complicated Cleopatra’s new royal position – her younger brother Ptolemy XIII, whom she had initially rejected as co-regent but probably married for the sake of tradition – aspired to power and the ascendancy of the Roman civil war, which began to extend to Egypt.

By the summer of 49 BC, Cleopatra was fighting her brother and losing, when Pompey’s son Gnaeus Pompeius arrived from Greece with a request for military assistance against Caesar – which was granted by both Ptolemy and Cleopatra alike in their last concurrent decision. Eventually, she had to flee to Roman Syria, where she attempted to find troops for an invasion of Egypt. Yet the invasion soon stalled, and she was forced to camp outside the town of Pelousion in the Eastern Nile Delta over the winter.

Cleopatra Testing Poisons On Those Condemned To Death by Alexandre Cabanel
Cleopatra Testing Poisons On Those Condemned To Death by Alexandre Cabanel

Having lost the Battle of Pharsalus in August 48, Pompey decided to make Egypt the basis for his tactical retreat but was promptly murdered by agents of Ptolemy XIII soon after having made landfall near Pelousion. Ptolemy believed to have perfected nothing but a masterpiece – having removed Cleopatra’s supporter Pompey, thus weakening his sister, and simultaneously earning Caesar’s gratitude for the removal of his enemy.

Uh oh. Caesar was royally angry about the coward murder and ordered – from the royal palace – both Cleopatra and Ptolemy to stop the nonsense, end the war, kiss and make up. We know what happened then: Ptolemy decided on war and Cleopatra on love, arriving at Caesar’s quarters, as Plutarch recounts, in a rug or bed sack.

Cleopatra Before Caesar
Delivery

Caesar’s subsequent attempts to find a solution for Egypt momentarily fizzled, and he had to endure the famous siege of the palace – protected by 4000 guards and most likely in the arms of the queen – until reinforcements arrived in the spring of 47 BC. Ptolemy XIII, his sister Arsinoe IV (half-sister to Cleopatra) and their supporters were defeated quickly, but Caesar remained wary of the intricacies of Egypt and the preceding chaos of the sole-female-rulership of Berenice and proceeded to set up Cleopatra with her younger brother Ptolemy XIV as co-rulers. While his consulship had expired at the end of 48, Mark Antony had provided him the dictatorship of Rome until the end of 47, and thus he possessed the proper legal authority.

Cleopatra and Caesar by Jean-Leon Gerome
Cleopatra and Caesar by Jean-Leon Gerome
Caesar investing Cleopatra as Pharaoh

In April 47, Caesar departed for Rome, leaving three legions in Egypt, and his son Caesarion was born on June 23. In Rome, Caesar paid respect to his childless marriage with Calpurnia by keeping his mouth horkos odonton in public while Cleopatra blazoned forth the news of his paternity to everyone.

John William Godward painting purported to show Caesar and Cleopatra

In late 46 followed the visit of Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIV to Rome which is so memorably depicted in Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor. The queen had to remain outside the pomerium, i.e., outside the holy precinct of the inner city, for no monarch was allowed to enter; she was put up in a villa in Caesar’s garden

They were still in Rome – unpopular with most of the senators – when Caesar was assassinated at the Ides of March 44. Perhaps she hoped for Caesarion to be named the heir to Caesar, but when that honour fell to Octavian, she left for Egypt, had her brother killed by poison (it is said) and elevated Caesarion to co-ruler.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony at the Funeral Bier of Julius Caesar, 1878. Lionel-Noel Royer

In the Liberators’ Civil War, forced by Mark Antony and Octavian against the assassins of Caesar, she was initially courted by both sides but quickly declared for Mark Antony. Alas, one of her own lieutenants, the governor of Cyprus, defected to the enemy and subsequently she had to attend a possibly dangerous confrontation with Mark Antony at Tarsus – which she, however, defused easily by a few lavish banquets and her considerable personal charms. Mark Anthony fell for her hook, line and sinker, and Arsinoe IV, who had only been banished before, and the treasonous governor were duly executed.

Antony and Cleopatra meet on a river barge, by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema
Antony and Cleopatra meet on a river barge, by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

The lovely couple was fond of parties and even founded their own drinking club, the “Indestructible Livers” …

The Triumph of Cleopatra by William Etty
The Triumph of Cleopatra by William Etty

But the high life did not last long – trouble developed soon. After the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, Octavian faced the task of simultaneously providing land for the retirement of the pro- and contracaesarian veterans of the civil war – most of the latter having been pardoned by Caesar before his death. The choice was either to enrage the citizens by confiscating the required land or enrage the veterans, who then might easily decide to support a possible opponent of the triumvirate. Octavian resolved in favour of the veterans by confiscating no less than eighteen towns and their hinterlands for the soldiers – driving whole populations out – which, of course, resulted in civil unrest.

On the terraces of Philae, by Frederick Arthur Bridgeman

Enter Fulvia Flacca Bambula, widow of two former supporters of Caesar and third wife of Mark Antony (from 47 or 46 BC until 40 BC). She was, through her family connections, by far the most powerful woman in Roman politics ever, and managed even during Antony’s absence in Egypt to raise eight legions – formally commanded by Lucius Antonius, Mark’s younger brother – in Italy for a civil war against Octavian and his veterans, the so-called Perusine War. She apparently committed, however, the critical mistake of not telling her husband of her campaign and Anthony’s supporters in Gaul – for the want of orders – did not come to her aid. The rebels subsequently lost the war and Fulvia fled to her husband in Athens. It would appear that the triumvir, upset with his dear wife, sent her into exile, where she dutifully died and sailed back to Rome to mend affairs within the triumvirate.

Antony thus had to return to Rome on urgent business and Cleopatra was absolutely not amused when he – in a scheme to lessen tensions within the triumvirate – not only married Octavia, the elder sister of Augustus, in Rome but also produced two daughters with her. Yet the Perusine War had critically lessened his subsequent political influence and Octavian gained the upper hand, first in Italy, and then in Gallia.

Cleopatra by Mose Bianchi

This was documented by a new agreement between the triumvirs in the Treaty of Brudisium, in which the West fell to Octavian and the East to Antony, while Lepidus received Africa Provincia as a sort of junior partner. In this context also fell the above mentioned marriage of Antony and Octavia.

Making plans …

Anthony then set out on his grand design, the war against the Parthian Empire – for which Cleopatra and Egypt had to chip in a most substantial contribution. The less is said about the campaign the better – there were a few successes but defeats as well and the “Endsieg” remained a chimaera. At least the campaign had a somewhat positive end when Anthony conquered Armenia in 35 BC.

Yet in the aftermath of this success, Anthony developed a clear case of megalomania – in addition to his infatuation, yes, besottedness with the queen. For a long time, he had followed a strategy to use the prestige and power of the Egyptian Ptolemy dynasty to set up a Hellenistic follow-up state to the Seleucid Empire in Asia and in 36 BC had presented a plan of making pseudo-donations to titular Hellenistic rulers – client kings – which were to form buffer-states on the Parthian borders. At this time, Octavian had agreed and such donations were presented at Antiochia. In 34, however, as Jenny Hill describes …

Frederick Arthur Bridgeman – Cleopatra on the Terraces of Philae

“… During this triumph in Alexandria (for his victory in Armenia the preceding year) , Mark Antony proclaimed Cleopatra the ‘Queen of Queens’ and claimed that he, not Octavian, was the adopted son of Caesar. He also formally pronounced Cleopatra and Caesarion joint rulers of Egypt and Cyprus, Alexander Helios (his first-born son by Cleopatra) the ruler of Media, Armenia and Parthia; Cleopatra Selene II (his daughter, twin of Alexander) the ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya; and Ptolemy Philadelphus (his second son by Cleopatra) the ruler of Phoenicia, Syria, and Cilicia.”

These declarations – usually called the Donations of Alexandria – meant not only the end of the triumvirate but were an invitation to war – not because of the titular land grants but because of Antony’s claim of the Caesarian inheritance for Caesarion – not Octavian. This Octavian could not suffer. His claim to rulership was adoption by Caesar – through which he not only had inherited possessions and authority but also the loyalty of Caesar’s veterans and personal popularity. This status being called into question by a biological son of Caesar – by the richest woman in the world – he could, politically, not possibly survive. Antony’s declaration meant war – but it hadn’t yet begun.

Cleopatra by William Wetmore Story

Sparks began to fly in earnest and a full-fledged propaganda war began. Octavian basically argued – very much in public – that Anthony was not only giving away the spoils of the Armenian war but also possessions that legitimately belonged to Rome and had been paid for by the blood of the legions, that Antony was but the “slave” of a foreign queen, to whom he had bequeathed huge properties – and that to his children, a most non-Roman idea. By his giving away provinces he also deprived deserving senators of proconsulships and was starting wars, as against Parthia and Armenia, without the senate’s consent. The pro-Antony faction in the capital accused Octavian of unspeakable crimes in Gallia and Spain in addition to homosexuality and cowardice. Par for the course, one could say.

In the eyes of most Romans, Octavians arguments were better and thus the political battle developed very much to his advantage. He was also able to rouse the feelings of the citizens of the capital in regard to the various executions without trial that had become standard procedure in the East – and of course in Egypt.

Marc Antony and Cleopatra planning …

In 32 BC, the senate formally deprived Antony of his powers and declared war on Cleopatra – not Anthony. It was very important for Octavius not to appear to start another civil war – thus Cleopatra – still very unpopular in Rome – was the perfect target. Yet the political majorities were not clear and almost half of the Senate left Rome and defected to Antony and Cleopatra in Greece.

War finally broke out, and the naval Battle of Actium on September 2, 31 BC, decided emphatically against the fortunes of the couple. In the August of 30 BC, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa led an invasion of Egypt which the wrought-out country was powerless to resist.

The Battle of Actium – September 2, 31 BC
The Battle of Actium – September 2, 31 BC

Antony committed suicide in the mistaken belief that Cleopatra had done so already. When he, lethally wounded, was informed of the fact that she was still alive, he was brought to her and died in her arms.

Louis Gauffier – Cleopatra and Octavian
Guercino – Cleopatra and Octavian

Octavian captured Cleopatra but allowed her to bury Antony in the usual fashion. She was destined to be led through Rome in Octavians’ subsequent triumph and afterwards ritually murdered. Robby House writes:

Another prevalent form of execution was that of Strangulation. This was perhaps the most popular form of execution for Rome’s greatest enemies although in those cases it was usually referred to as ritualistic strangulation which would often occur after the vanquished and shackled enemy was paraded through the streets of Rome as part of a Roman Triumph. While many of the victims were publicly strangled in the Forum area, perhaps the most famous war trophy was that of Gallic Chieftain Vercingetorix, arguably Caesar’s greatest foe in the field of battle. Perhaps out of some sort of pity, Caesar had him strangled away from the eyes of Rome’s citizens inside the confines of his cell in the Tullianum Prison (a.k.a. the Mamertine Prison).

Cleopatra knew very well what Octavian intended, and hence, after a few failed attempts, she took her own life – either on August 10 or 12, 30 BC.
The popular story goes that she died by the bite of an asp – an Egyptian cobra – but it is also quite possible that she took poison. Egyptian medicine knew many potent toxins, such as HemlockOpiumBelladonna or Aconitine, and combinations of them which yielded deadly potables or ointments.  The snake story is, of course, the best copy, and hence it does not surprise that the subject was taken on by a plethora of painters and sculptors, of which we show a few below.

La mort de Cleopatre. Rixens Jean Andre. 1874.
The Death of Cleopatra by Hans Makart
The Death of Cleopatra by John Collier
The Death of Cleopatra by John Collier
The Death Of Cleopatra – by Louis Jean François Lagrenée
The Death Of Cleopatra – by Louis Jean François Lagrenée
Cleopatra by Alfonso Balzico, 1874

And a few famous statues …

Esquiline Venus in the Capitol Museum – Woman and Snake
Esquiline Venus in the Capitol Museum – Woman and Snake
Cleopatra, by Charles Gauthier, 1880
Cleopatra, by Charles Gauthier, 1880
Cleopatra taking her own life with the bite of a venomous serpent, by Adam Lenckhardt
Cleopatra, taking her own life with the bite of a venomous serpent, by Adam Lenckhardt

Thus ended the life of the last Pharaoh of Egypt.

(© John Vincent Palatine 2019)

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The Division of Rome in 39 BC

The Pact of Misenum - 39 BC
The Pact of Misenum – 39 BC – Legend: Orange – remaining under the Senate – Yellow and Ochre: Client states – Purple: Octavian – Brown: Lepidus – Green: Mark Anthony – Blue: Sextus Pompeius – Pink: Cleopatra

Video: Octavian


Video: Octavian vs. Antony


It is barely known that, for practical reasons, one might as well attribute the end of the Roman Republic to the summer of the year 39 BC, when the triumvirs Gaius Octavius (Augustus), Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus negotiated a treaty with Sextus Pompey, the youngest son of the great Pompey and pirate scourge of the western Mediterranean Sea to the effect of a partitioning the Roman lands amongst themselves.

It is known as the Pact of Misenum, and its obscurity is illuminated by the fact that Wikipedia in English solely offers a stub on it, which is the reason why I link it here to the German edition.

The Place:

Capo Miseno today

Misenum was the imperial naval base for the Tyrrhenian Sea and Western Mediterranean, developed by Agrippa. Pliny the Elder was prefect of the fleet during the eruption of Mons Vesuvius in AD 79. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, apparently described the event watching from his uncle’s villa. His uncle died on this day on a rescue mission, probably due to a heart attack.

Eruption of Mons Vesuvius in AD 79

Gaius Marius had a famous villa there, which was, after his proscription, cheaply bought by Cornelia, the daughter of Sulla, who then sold it to Lucullus. [Link to source] Emperor Tiberius is said to have died there, en route to Rome.

The Background:

The Second Triumvirate had been established – distinctly from the first – by a legal act, the Lex Titia of November 43 BC, which invested its members with dictatorial powers for five years (and was duly renewed in 38 BC). They utilized the very convenient method of proscription – introduced by Sulla – to get rid of their political enemies, of which there were many. The prospective victims naturally fled – most to the camp of Brutus and Cassius but many also to Sicily to find refuge with Sextus Pompey, who provided shelter.

The triumvirs first and foremost aim was the destruction of their main opposition, led by the two most prominent assassins of Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus and his brother-in-law Gaius Cassius Longinus, who had, after the end of the Civil War, fled to Illyria and concentrated their forces in Asia. This being the triumvirate’s priority at the moment, they chose to ignore – for the moment – Sextus Pompey, who ruled Sicily and its neighbouring islands, and concentrated on the creation of a strong navy being the most useful instrument of his power he could imagine – and he was right. With his fleet, he was able to block the all-important grain shipments from Africa Provincia to Italy and thus had the triumvirs by the throat.

Mosaic of a Roman warship

After the assassins had been beaten at Philippi and forced to commit suicide, the triumvirate’s attention turned on Sextus and Sicily, but early skirmishes not only came to no conclusive result, but they also lost Sardinia to Sextus in 40 BC. 

Meanwhile, Antony, as the possessor of the eastern provinces, was hatching the egg of a decisive campaign against the Parthian Empire, the perennial scourge on the eastern border. For this, however, he would have to raise money in the form of new taxes, a plan that drove the already starving population of the capital to revolt. Octavian was forced to give in.

An armistice and a treaty with Pompey would free a few legions from guard duty against Sicily and ensure the unimpeded grain supply to Italy. Hence, in the early summer of 39 BC, a conference near Cape Misenum in the bay of Neapolis was agreed on.

Negotiations proved tough. Sextus apparently had the idea to replace Lepidus as the third partner of the triumvirate, and complicated things by his demand to reinstate the victims of the proscriptions and allow him to keep all the slaves who had fled with their owners to Sicily.

Yet finally a consensus was reached and a pact was signed with a period of five years’ validity.

Pompey was given the possession of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica as well as the surrounding islands. He was promised a province in Greece – historians argue whether it was the Peloponnese or Achaia, i.e. the whole Grecia Provincia, and a near future consulship together with Octavian.

Perhaps even more important for him – quite a family trait – were matters of personal possessions. He wrested from the triumvirs not only the restitution of his father’s possession – which had been confiscated – rewards for his soldiers after their eventual release – the manumission of all his slaves and the end of proscriptions and restitution of the refugees’ possessions.

The quid pro quo was the evacuation of all Italian grounds he had conquered or held occupied, restore unhindered trade to Italy, in particular, secure an unimpeded grain supply and stop his practise of providing shelter to runaway slaves.

The treaty was duly signed and stored with the Vestal Virgins but never came truly into force. It is true that during initial festivities in Rome – under the applause of the relieved burghers of the capital – Pompey plighted his three-year-old daughter Pompeia to Octavian’s nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus, but nothing further came of it. Many refugees subsequently returned to Rome but indeed, that was pretty much all that happened – the benefits to Sextus never really materialized.

By the following year the conflict flared up again and after several years of low-level warfare, the fleet of Pompey was destroyed by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the Battle of Naulochus. Sextus fled to Asia Minor, was caught in Miletus, and executed without trial on the orders of Antony

The Battle of Naulochus must have looked quite like the one at Actium pictured here
The Battle of Naulochus must have looked quite like the one at Actium pictured here

This was the end of the first division of  Rome …

(© John Vincent Palatine 2019)

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The Power of Command


Authority in Rome

The exercise of authority in Rome – at least during much of the Republic – things changed under the Principate and the Empire – was based, as were morals and religion upon the mos maiorum, the laws of the elder, and Roman society was very much a mirror image of its core, the family.

Representation of a sitting of the Roman Senate - Cicero attacking Catilina, from a 19th-century fresco
Representation of proceedings in the Roman Senate – Cicero attacking Catilina, from a 19th-century fresco

The family – which rather should be translated as “household” in the sense of an economic unit than referring to blood relatives only – was almost dictatorially headed by the pater familias, while the relations outside of the family were guided by the principles of patron (patronus) and client (cliens).  

It surprises little that these two elements were largely mirrored within the legal concepts of civil and military authority.

Caesar crossing the Rubicon River

The concept of potestas was applied, as we would say, in matters of the private law, within the family as the Patria potestas, and in civil law the power, or perhaps better the jurisdiction and responsibility, of a magistrate to promulgate the laws and arrange the workings of the state, i.e. rather an expression of socially recognized power than an executive function.

Paterfamilias
Paterfamilias

Auctoritas, however, was different in nature, not a matter of the law but a measure of the prestige a man (or, in Imperial times, a woman) enjoyed within the Roman society. Politically, it expressed itself predominantly in the Senate, in the auctoritas of the Princeps Senatus, the censors, and other outstanding personalities. (1) It was, naturally, a matter of charisma.

Imperium was a more serious matter. It was the legally prescribed formal power of command a citizen held over a civil or military entity – a military unit, a province, territory, campaign or special command (e.g. Pompey against the Cilician pirates in 67-66 BC). Imperium was held by the curule aedile, the praetor, the consul, the magister equitum, and the dictator, and such promagistrates (propraetors and proconsuls) which were appointed annually for the government of provinces.

Imperium was bestowed by a legal act of the Senate and originally limited to one year with the exception of the dictator’s term of six months and the rare imperium maius which could last as long as the underlying mandate. In the last century of the Republic, these rules were commonly broken – Marius‘ seven consulships, Caesar‘s five-year term in Gallia and his and Sulla‘s dictatorships. The emperors’ Imperium, naturally, ran for a lifetime.

Imperium sometimes included – at least for a dictator, or later the emperor – the power to command the death penalty for offenders (although various laws limited the death penalty for Romans citizens, which, however, tended to work better for the rich and famous than for the poor sods of Subura and the bottom of Esquilina, the two tribes reserved for the majority of the plebs).

Imperium was limited to geographical borders – see the praetor peregrinus outside of Rome but not inside; imperium over provinces ended on its borders. That is why Caesar crossing the Rubicon as the border river f Gallia cisalpina was technically high treason and was taken as the declaration of civil war.

The outside symbol of imperium was the prominence of lictors, guards accompanying the holder of office:

  • Curule aedile (aedilis curulis) – 2 lictors
    • Since a plebeian aedile (aedilis plebis) did not own imperium, he was not escorted by lictors.
  • Magister equitum (the dictator‘s deputy) – 6 lictors
  • Praetor – 6 lictors (2 lictors within the pomerium)
  • Consul – 12 lictors each
  • Dictator – 24 lictors outside the Pomerium and 12 inside; starting from the dictatorship of Lucius Sulla the latter rule was ignored.
    • Because the dictator could enact capital punishment within Rome as well as without, his lictors did not remove the axes from their fasces within the pomerium. (see Wikipedia)

Since many magistrates held Imperium, the question of overruling was a constant practical matter. Commonly it worked by seniority – an aedile could be overruled by a praetor, the praetor by the consul and so forth. Colleagues could overrule each other, i.e. veto – and frequently did, except for the dictator, whose orders were above the law and not subject to subsequent judicial proceedings.

In special cases – see Pompey above – the Senate could give out imperium maius (“greater”) to an official, usually for a closely defined task (dictators held it by definition). This proved such a desirable and effective method of office that it was quickly appropriated by the emperors and became their hallmark.

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, the two famous tribunes, by Eugene Guillaume

The last and rather different form of a command – being entirely a negative power – was the famous “Intercessio!” – ‘I step in!’, by which any Tribune of the Plebs (of which they were usually ten) could veto discussions, commands, trials and even laws. This being a most practical way of interference, every bigwig of the late republic – Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar and the like – made sure they always had one or two tame tribunes on their payroll which they could use for political sabotage.

This ability proved so useful and desirable that, from Augustus on, every emperor made sure to receive the tribunal character on the occasion of his ascension to the throne. Imperium maius and the tribunal power became the major instruments of Imperial reign.

Clemency could be obtained by appealing to a Vestal Virgin

(© John Vincent Palatine 2019)

(1) See Wiki: The 19th-century classicist Theodor Mommsen describes the “force” of auctoritas as “more than advice and less than command, a piece of advice which one may not safely ignore.” Cicero says of power and authority, “Cum potestas in populo auctoritas in senatu sit.” (“While power resides in the people, authority rests with the Senate.”)

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The Tigers of Cowardice – Global Censorship

Internet Censorship and Surveillance World Map
Internet Censorship and Surveillance World Map

I believe that nothing describes the intellectual condition of our world – as opposed to the economy – better than a look at the accessibility of information. We live in an information age – and, as I have argued in the post “What works and what does not – Government 101” – pertaining to Occam’s Razor it would be in the interest of every country to maximise that access for economic and intellectual gain.

Thankworthily, Wikipedia presents an extensive information page on the subject. Perhaps it is suitable if the reader keeps this page open in a separate window when reading this post, for the frequent references to this page.

Freedom Of The Press-World Map
Freedom Of The Press-World Map

The page first presents the alphabetical list of countries with an index ranging from “10” – which indicates the absence of censorship – to “100” for the worst case; although the perfect 100 is not reached, the list of the, er, usual suspects includes such delightful countries as Cuba (91), Iran (92), Belarus (93), Eritrea (94), Uzbekistan (95), Turkmenistan (96) and our perennial champion North Korea (97), whose internet consists of some thirty government-run websites and maybe fifty foreign propaganda outlets.

Four world maps provide information on Freedom of the Press, Internet Censorship and the blocking of You Tube by country. Alas, what we see is all but surprising – the situation is pretty much as expected. Freedom of the Press remains a Western idea, as remains unhindered internet access. The blocking of YouTube follows the predictable pattern – Muslim countries being mortally afraid of people making fun of their most serious religion (1) or not being scared enough of the next stupid terror act (which, however, in their infinite wisdome they mostly address at their own folks – of slightly different sacred persuasions) and China scared of any reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacres or investigations of how exactly they treat minorities, Ugurs or Tibetans.

Blocking of YouTube
Blocking of YouTube

This is all hardly surprising – but since its very un-entelechial (2) – we must ask for the reasons underlying this timidity, nay, fear, of their own people – does it reflect on the true inner stability of these countries?

I think it does. By definition, limitations on information are limitations on the development of society, and that explains well the intention of censorship – it is a defensive mechanism, born out of fear.

Its the cowards amongst the tigers who rely on censorship – afraid of their own people, insecure of their stability, precariously timid. Hence, dear Lords of China, Arabia, Africa and South America – why don’t you grow a pair of balls?

Best Regards

(1) I may quote the Ayatollah Khomeini here on the holy creed: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.”

(2) “Entelechy, (from Greek entelecheia), in philosophy, that which realizes or makes actual what is otherwise merely potential. The concept is intimately connected with Aristotle’s distinction between matter and form, or the potential and the actual. ” Encyclopedia Britannica. In this context, it means “productive” – the withholding of information by definition restricts productivity and impedes progress – hence it can be justified only by an all-pervavise interest, which, I assume, lies in the preservation of the state – in its present status-quo.

(© John Vincent Palatine 2019)

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