paterfamilias

Two things i've been reading recently have talked about fathers in Rome.

The Roman father had absolute power - the power of life and death - over his entire family: this is what paterfamilias meant. It was an absolute power over his legitimate children, over his slaves and his wife... In Rome, so long as one's father were alive, no one could act as fully independant, in particular in financial matters and in contract law. An adult son could own property only be means of a peculium, a sort of trust guaranteed by his father, but revocable at any point. While his father was alive a son could not make a will, nor inherit property in his own right. That son might be a magistrate, even consul, but if his father were alive he was still under his patria potestas.

[Watson, p275]

This attitude can be seen in the following declamation:

A father was accused of treason. One of his sons deserted, the other fought heroically. The father asks the hero to ask for suppression of his trial as his reward. The hero asks instead for impunity for his brother, and represents his father at the trial. The father is acquitted and disowns his son.

My son may say: ‘I am brave.’ What good is that to me if you defy your father all the more? He says: ‘The choice is mine.’ Is anything really yours while I am alive? I sent you into battle: it is my courage, my law, my choice. I should not be asking too much if I said: ‘Help with my friend’s trial.’ What if I said ‘Help with your father’s’?

‘But suppression is dishonourable,’ he says. What is that to you? I am the judge of my own situation. ‘But it was superfluous,’ he says. ‘You were innocent.’ So what? Had I asked you because I was guilty? I was afraid of the luck of trials. Conspiracy is hard even on the innocent.

‘But I chose my brother’s life,’ he says. You preferred someone else to me, a guilty man to an innocent, a convicted man, who certainly deserved death, to an accused man. If you pity your kin, at least help those on whom the judge has not yet decided. ‘What then?’ he says. ‘Should he have died?’ If you’re asking me, I am busy, I don’t hear; if you ask our country, he is a deserter. In itself it would be a cruel thing for your brother to die, but compared to me it is tolerable.

‘I saved my brother,’ he says. And now your father disowns you. He owes you gratitude for a good deed, I punishment for a wrong. But what if you were not doing it out of respect, but to kill me? ‘I represented you,’ he says. If you had not, would you have been merely disowned?

[pseudo-Quintilian, #375]

A bold claim

I'm reading this book at the moment, and I came across this quote from Gibbon's The History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (which I haven't read myself):

"If a man (sic) were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian [AD 180]. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm and gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws."

[cited in Watson, p 294]

I don't think many people would agree with Gibbon nowadays (and with good reason), though I'm not sure how much better we're doing at the moment.

Roman Inscriptions

For my Year 10 class

After you have read through the information on inscriptions in your text book (you can find similar information here), and have deciphered the inscriptions given there, have a go at doing these slightly trickier ones.

Four soldiers


Eumachia Inscription (a list of common abbreviations might help you here)

The Arch at Beneventum

Funerary inscriptions (scroll down the page and click on the individual tombs)

Other kinds of inscriptions

from other people's blogs...

[this cartoon is care of rogue classicum]

Here are two interesting posts (from laudator temporis acti) on the face that launched a thousand ships and 1001 books to read before you die.

Sydney Uni Latin Summer School

This week I recieved some brochures for the Sydney Uni Latin Summer School. The summer school is held every year, for people of all different ages and levels of Latin ability. I taught the beginners class at the beginning of this year (which was a lot of fun) and had a whole range of different people in my class- a year 7 student whose big brother was there and who wanted to come along as well, a couple of uni students doing ancient history who needed to learn a bit of Latin for their studies, a mum who wanted to find out a bit about this wierd language her daughter was learning, and an older couple who wanted something to stimulate their brains in retirement.

It's a great thing to attend if you're planning on doing Latin for the HSC, as you get a bit of grammar revision, but more importantly you get to read a wider range of texts than we would normally have time to do in school. The selections for level 3A (about the level you would be at if you're currently in year 11/12) look particularly good this year- they'll be reading bits out of Aeneid book 5, Metamorphoses book 1 and Catullus 64.

Friday Afternoon

Two silly posts, care of Byron

Dr Seuss learns Greek

Abbott and Costello learn Hebrew

Roman burial ground found in Vatican

This article is a couple of days old, but it's interesting. The article mentions that archaeologists found "terracotta tubes... through which mourning families would pour honey to nourish the dead". I think this is interesting as it suggests that the beliefs Romans had about the afterworld as expressed in mythology (think of Orpheus and Eurydice or Aeneid VI) or philosophy (think of the ideas of Cicero and Lucretius) existed alongside a whole other set of beliefs and customs about what happened to the dead. It's hard to say exactly what the Romans believed about life after death, or about religion in general, because there was so much variety and complexity. You can find more info on life after death and funerary customs here, here and here (click on the guided tour).

The Lesser Declamations of Pseudo-Quintilian

Over the school holidays (apart from having a great time in New Zealand) I had the pleasure of borrowing a book from the library which had never been borrowed before. It’s been a really interesting read- though I can understand why The Lesser Declamations II of pseudo-Quintilian isn’t exactly racing off the shelf.

These declamations are essentially speeches given in response to fanciful legal scenarios, used to train young Romans in what was considered to be the most important skill for a Roman statesman- the art of Oratory. The complexity of the cases imagined was designed to test the skills of aspiring lawyers and politicians, and often students were required to present both the for and against arguments of the same case.

Here are a few examples of the kinds of scenarios treated by pseudo-Quintilian which my year 8 class will be looking at over the next week.


#317- A general challenged by his son.

qui provocatus ab hoste non pugnaverit, capite puniatur.

filius imperatoris ad hostes transfugit. provocavit patrem. ille non descendit in certamen solus, sed acie commissa vicit hostes: in quo proelio et filius eius cecidit. accusatur quod provocatus ab hoste non pugnaverit.

Whoever is challenged by the enemy, but does not fight, must be put to death.

A commander’s son deserted to the enemy. He challenged his father. The latter did not come down to fight alone, but joined battle and defeated the enemy; in the same battle his son was also killed. He is prosecuted because he did not fight when he was challenged by the enemy.


# 321- Brother and doctor accuse one another of poisoning.

fratres consortes inimici esse coeperunt. diviserunt. alter ex his medicum instituit heredem. postea redierunt in gratiam.

is qui medicum amicum habebat, cum cenasset apud fratrem et domum redisset, dixit suspicari se venenum sibi datum. respondit medicus potionem se daturum remedii, et dedit; qua epota ille discessit. invicem se reos deferunt veneficii frater et medicus.

Brothers sharing an inheritance became enemies. They went their separate ways. One of them made a doctor his heir. Later they were reconciled.

The one who had the doctor as his friend, after dining with his brother and returning home, said he suspected that he had been given poison. The doctor replied that he would give him a potion as an antidote and did so. Having drunk it the man died. The brother and the doctor accuse each other of poisoning.


#332- The wills of a rich man and a poor man.

pauper et dives amici erant. dives testamento alium amicum omnium bonorum instituit heredem, pauperi iussit dari id quod ille sibi testamento daret.

apertae sunt tabulae pauperis. omnium bonorum instituerat heredem. petit totam divitis hereditatem. ille qui scriptus est heres vult dare tantum quantum in censum habet pauper.

A poor man and a rich man were friends. In his will the rich man made another friend heir to all his possessions, but ordered that the poor man be given what he gave in his will to himself.

The poor man’s tablets were opened. He had made the rich man heir to all his possessions. He claims the rich man’s whole inheritance. The man who was named heir wishes to give as much as the poor man has in his census.

A new poll

My new poll is inspired by my visit to the theatre last week. The selection is fairly arbitrary, based upon my short-list of favourites from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and what I've read with my classes over the past year and a half. If I've left your favourite out write me a comment.

You can also watch some short cartoons based on some of these myths (and others) at this site.

I will be in New Zealand for the next week and a bit, and so won't have any new posts for a while.

Aeneid part IV- A Tragic Loss

Aeneid II.776-784
"quid tantum insano iuvat indulgere dolori,
o dulcis coniunx? non haec sine numine divum
eveniunt; nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam
fas, aut ille sinit superi regnator Olympi.
longa tibi exsilia et vastum maris aequor arandum,
et terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius arva
inter opima virum leni fluit agmine Thybris.
illic res laetae regnumque et regia coniunx
parta tibi; lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae."

"O dear husband, why does it please you so much to indulge this mad grief? These things do not happen without the will of the gods; it was not right for you to carry your companion Creusa from here, nor does the ruler of Olympus above allow it. There is in store for you a long exile and the vast plain of the sea to be ploughed, before you come to land of Hesperia, where the Lydian Tiber flows in a gentle stream, amidst the fertile fields of men. There a happy fate awaits you, and a kingdom, and a royal bride; stop your tears for your beloved Creusa."


As Aeneas reaches the safety of the hills outside Troy with his father and young son, he suddenly notices that his wife, Creusa, is no longer with him. He rushes impetuously back to the burning city to try to find her, but to no avail. Finally her ghost appears to him in this passage, and reminds him of the destiny which awaits him in Italy (‘the land of Hesperia’). Creusa’s death at this point is a necessary plot device for Virgil. Not only does it allow him to emphasise Aeneas' destiny, but he also needs to get Creusa out of the way fairly quickly so that he can introduce the relationship between Aeneas and Dido. It is interesting that when Aeneas visits the underworld (book VI) he meets the ghost of Dido in a highly emotional scene, and is reunited with his dead father (more on this later), but nowhere is Creusa mentioned.

We also see again in this passage an important aspect of pietas. Aeneas’ desperate search for his wife amid the destruction of Troy is bravely heroic, and possibly even romantic, but that is not how Creusa describes it- she calls it an insano dolori- a mad grief. The pius thing for Aeneas to do in this situation is to recognise the will of the gods (as Creusa urges Aeneas to do), and to get on with the destiny that lies before him, not giving in to the pain he feels. This seems a little heartless, but it is a very Roman idea, and one found often in Stoic philosophy, which held that it was possible to overcome the discord of the outside world and find peace within oneself, by mastering one’s passions and emotions.

Aeneid part III- The End of an Era

Aeneid II.3-17

infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem,
Troianas ut opes et lamentabile regnum
eruerint Danai, quaeque ipse miserrima vidi
et quorum pars magna fui. quis talia fando
Myrmidonum Dolopumve aut duri miles Ulixi
temperet a lacrimis? et iam nox umida caelo
praecipitat suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.
sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros
et breviter Troiae supremum audire laborem,
quamquam animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit,
incipiam. fracti bello fatisque repulsi
ductores Danaum tot iam labentibus annis
instar montis equum divina Palladis arte
aedificant, sectaque intexunt abiete costas;
votum pro reditu simulant; ea fama vagatur.
“Unspeakable, O Queen, is the grief you order me to renew, how the Greeks destroyed the wealth of Troy and that mournful kingdom- I myself saw these most wretched things, and was a large part of them. Which soldier of the Myrmidons or the Dolopians or of cruel Ulysses would refrain from tears in the telling of such things? And now the dewy night rushes from the sky, and the falling stars urge sleep. But if you have such a great desire to learn of our misfortunes, and to hear briefly of the final suffering of Troy- although my mind shudders and recoils from the grief- I shall begin. Broken by war, and driven back by the fates, the leaders of the Greeks, with so many years now slipping away, build with the divine skill of Minerva, a horse the size of a mountain, and weave its ribs from planks of fir-wood; they pretend it is an offering to the gods for their safe return; this is the rumour which spreads.”


Having been shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, Aeneas and his men end up in Carthage, where Queen Dido welcomes them kindly. She has heard of the fame and sufferings of the Trojans and over a lavish banquet held in their honour (during which she begins to fall for Aeneas) she asks him to tell the story of the treachery of the Greeks, the sufferings of his people, and his own journey since leaving Troy. Aeneas obliges, and books II and III of the Aeneid are Aeneas’ recounting of the fall of Troy (book II) and his wanderings around the Mediterranean in search of a new homeland for his people (book III).

Aeneas’ narration of the destruction of Troy is an emotionally intense tale, full of pathos and drawing from elements of Greek tragedy. But it is more than that. As we have seen before, the progression from Troy to Rome is an important theme for Virgil, especially in the character of Aeneas. Aeneas’ journey from Troy can be seen as his journey away from the old model of heroism, towards a new and better ideal, characterised by pietas. Thus the city of Troy itself stands for the out-dated values of the heroic age, and its destruction is an important moment; the passing of the old is necessary so that something greater- Rome- may arise. Significantly the destruction of Troy in the second book of the first half of Virgil’s poem is balanced by Aeneas' visit to the future site of Rome in the second book of the second half of the poem (book VIII). Where book II laments the passing of the old world, book VIII celebrates the coming of the new.

In book III, on his journey round the Mediterranean, Aeneas meets Helenus, a son of Priam and survivor of the destruction of Troy, who does not seem to understand this principle. Helenus is living in the past, and has tried to recreate the city of Troy with “a citadel modelled on great Pergamum and a dried up river they called the Xanthus”. Helenus does not seem to understand that the destruction of Troy is in fact its judgement too. For Virgil, Troy was destroyed not simply because the Greeks were too clever, but because its time had passed and something new was necessary. Aeneas' task is not to resurrect a new Troy in Italy (as Helenus has tried to do) but to establish a new city, based on new ideals. As Juno says in book XII “Troy has fallen. Let it lie…”