Obelisk #4

May 9, 2024 by Sailoil

We remain in the city of Rome for our 4th Obelisk in this series. The Obelisk of Montecitorio in the Piazza of the same name is only a five minute walk from the Pantheon.

It began life in Egypt, commissioned by Psamtik II in the 6th Century BC, quarried from the red granite of Aswan and transported to the sanctuary of Ra in Heliopolis. Psamtik was of the 26th Dynasty, the last native Pharaonic dynasty before the Persian invasion. This is a far younger obelisk than those we have seen thus far in this series.

It was one of the two identified for transport by Octavian in 13BC. It arrived in Rome at the same time as the much older Flaminio obelisk. While the Flaminio was to be a very overt statement of dominance over Egypt the Montecitorio was a far more subtle symbol.

Uncle Julius Caesar also travelled to Egypt, also had a relationship with Queen Cleopatra. Caesars fling was altogether more fun for Cleopatra than her encounter with Octavian. The first ended with a Roman alliance and a baby Caesar. The second ended in death and destruction. Caesar got up to other things while he was in Alexandria. He is blamed for the fire that burned a warehouse containing 40,000 scrolls of the library of Alexandria. He did not burn down the library itself, but he burned down it’s export warehouse. By accident of course.

Another occupation of Julius Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus of Rome, was calendar management. In Alexandria he learned about the solar calendar of Egypt, which was many degrees more accurate than the lunar calendar used in Rome. Upon his return to Rome he gave Europe the Julian Calendar, which is still used to this day in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.

Octavian employed the obelisk of Montecitorio as the gnomon of a massive sundial in the Campus Martius. This was called the Solarium Augusti. In addition to serving as a clock it also functioned as a calendar marker. Each year on the Autumn Equinox it cast a shadow on the Ara Pacis, the altar of peace, on the birthday of Augustus himself. The symbology is powerful. Uncle Caesar established the calendar. Augustus links himself to Egypt, the source of the calendar, and to Uncle Caesar, establishing his legitimacy. He continues the family tradition of holding the post of high priest of Rome; the Pontifex Maximus. The very Gods themselves demonstrate their approval demonstrating the birthday of Augustus sits at one of the Cardinal points of the calendar. Finally Augustus, with his altar, demonstrates it was he who brought peace to Rome after decades of civil war.

Within 50 years the alignment of the gnomon was off and it ceased to function as a timepiece. Some time between the 9th and 11th centuries it collapsed and was gradually buried in detritus. Pope Sixtus V who restored the Lateran and Flaminio Obelisks attempted a restoration in the 16th century. But it was not until the 18th Century under Pope Benedict XIV that all the parts were located. It was at the very end of the 18th Century that they were reassembled under Pope Pius VI.

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Obelisk #3

May 8, 2024 by Sailoil

It was Octavian in the guise of Gaius Julius Caesar, later to become Augustus, who began the fashion for using obelisks as political statements. After he defeated Mark Anthony and Queen Cleopatra he emerged from the decades of Roman Civil Wars as the first man in Rome, Princeps, the first citizen. He was Master of the both West and East Rome, including the fabulous wealth of Egypt.

After Cleopatra responded to his request to return to Rome in chains as his Royal captive and symbol of his victory by commiting suicide Octavian was forced to seek a different symbol of his victory. What could be better than to steal the phallic symbols of the Promethian God Geb, stripping the manhood from Egypt and erecting it in Rome?

The Flaminio obelisk was one of a pair removed by Octavian from Egypt in 13 BC. This particular obelisk was commissioned in the 19th Dynasty by Seti I and was completed and erected in Heliopolis by his son Ramesses II (The Great) approx 1250 BC.

Special ships were commissioned by the Romans to transport the obelisk in an unusual manner. Two rectangular ships were bound side to side by huge timber beams strung across their decks. The obelisk was tied beneath the beams, resting in the water to reduce the weight on the ships. A third ship was placed in front of the two holding the obelisk, and was tied to them. The forward ship acted as a steering system for the transporter. The entire thing was powered by a combination of oars and sails.

It reached Rome in 10 BC and the obelisk was erected on the spina of the Circus Maximus. There, in the middle of the chariot races sponsored by their Emperor, the plebs of Rome could appreciate the largesse that entertained them with bread and circuses. Three centuries later it was joined on the spina by the Lateran obelisk. Along with the Lateran it collapsed in the 5th Century and was buried in the mud of the ruined Circus, smashed in three. A symbol now of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Pope Sixtus V had it excavated along with the Lateran, repaired and Christianised with a cross by the architect Domenico Fontana and erected in its current location in the Piazza del Poppolo in 1589 AD. The fountain and Egyptian style lions on step pyramids at its base were later 19th Century additions.

The fashion for obelisks established by Emperor Augustus was to become a badge of success for successive emperors, and successor nations.

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Obelisk #2

May 7, 2024 by Sailoil

In the City of Rome you will find the Lateran Obelisk. This is the largest standing ancient Egyptian obelisk in the world. It was commissioned in the reign of Thutmose III who succeeded in beating his aunt Hatshepsut who’s huge erection cracked in the quarry and was never installed. Thutmose III never got it up, because it was incomplete when he died. His grandson Thutmose IV completed and erected it at the temple of Amun in Karnak. The inscription on the obelisk says it lay on its side for 35 years before it was completed.

Originally called Tekhen Waty it was installed at Karnak around 1400 BC during the 18th Dynasty or the first dynasty of the New Kingdom.

Emperor Constantius II had it moved in the 4th century AD, originally to Alexandria, but then to Rome. He had custom made obelisk transporting barges constructed to move the monuments up the Nile. It was originally bound for Constantinople where it was to be one of a pair with the Obelisk of Theodosius but it never made it to the capital. Instead they erected the Masonry Obelisk to balance out the granite one from Egypt.

Constantius had the taller obelisk shipped to Rome for his one and only visit there in 357 AD and it was installed in the spina of the Circus Maximus, ancient Rome’s Chariot Racing stadium. There it formed a pair with the Flaminio, an obelisk shipped to Rome by Augustus in 10 BC. But this was Rome in decline after Constantine the Great had already moved his capital to the New Rome that became Constantinople. Rome OG was now a backwater in imperial affairs and Western Emperors preferred to locate their capitals in modern day Lyon or Milan.

By the 5th Century the Circus Maximus was a ruin and the great Egyptian obelisk collapsed, broke into a number of pieces and was buried in mud, which luckily preserved it from passing masons. Rediscovered in the 16th Century it was excavated by order of Pope Sixtus V. It was restored, Christianised with the addition of a cross and erected in its current location near the Lateran palace. In the process of collapse and re-erection it lost 4 metres of its height.

The Lateran is the last of 8 known Ancient Egyptian Obelisks to be erected in Rome.

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Han Guo

February 28, 2024 by Sailoil

In the West we take the name of this country from the first Dynasty, the Qin, and we call it China. The Chinese people name their people the Han, their country Han Guo and their language Han Yue. They take their name from the second dynasty, the Han.

For me the Han is equivalent or second only to the Tang for prestige in the history of China. The Han Dynasty ruled alongside the high point of the Roman Republic. The first Han Emperor was Liu Bang who became Emperor Gaozu of Han. Born in 256 BC when Rome was fighting the first Punic war against Carthage. He became Emperor on this day, February 28th in the year 202 BC. This was the same year that Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama ending the second Punic war.

Emperor Gaozu ruled until 195 BC. Although lasting only 7 years his rule is considered a golden age in Chinese history. The year he died was just after the Romans defeated the Macedonians, declared Peace in Greece and shifted their focus from Carthage in the West to Egypt and Asia in the East.

The Han Dynasty continued to rule in China in unbroken succession until 9AD when the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, lost his legions in the Teutoburg Forest in Germany. Following an interregnum from 9AD to 25AD (the Chu-Han contention and the Xin dynasty) the Han was reestablished until 220AD. To put that in context this was the reign of Elagabulus when the Empire was on it’s descent into the crisis of the third century.

I have a theory that the collapse of the Han and the near collapse of Rome were caused by the same pandemic. The Chinese were trading with Eastern Asia along from the Western end of the Great Wall of China along the Silk Roads. The bubonic plague endemic in the Marmot populations of the Asian Steppes spread due to a global climatic event. There was a great frost recorded in Roman Britain that lasted five months. The plague spread eastwards to China and westwards to Persia and on to Rome.

The Antonine Plague, or Plague of Galen is recorded in Rome from 165 to 180 AD. It was brought to Rome by legionnaires returning from campaign in the near east. The Plague of Cyprian is recorded from 249 to 262. Plagues are often cyclical, and reoccur every generation. There may have been another lesser plague between the Plague of Galen and the Plague of Cyprian around 210-220 which was more of an issue in China. I reckon there is a neat piece of research to be had in this theory.

I wish I had the energy to bring you a Han poem translation here, but I’m too tired. You will need to wait until I have the headspace. Goodnight.

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The Shame of Singapore

February 15, 2023 by Sailoil

On February 15th 1942 the British Commander in Malaya Lieutenant General Arthur Percival (pictured on the right) surrendered the British Empire Fortress of Singapore to the Japanese.

Beginning on December 8th 1941 the Japanese under General Tomoyuki Yamashita swept down through the Malay Peninsula, capturing 50,000 British and Allied prisoners en route. They reached the outskirts of Singapore on February 8th and the British command surrendered on February 15th, almost without putting up any defense. Churchill demanded they fight to the last man. Instead they surrendered with 80,000 troops, well outnumbering the Japanese.

It was the greatest ever loss by a British army and a huge embarrassment for the British Empire. Churchill himself called it the worst disaster in British military history. It plagued him as badly as the loss of 3 Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest plagued Augustus.

The Malay Campaign and the Battle of Singapore were a demonstration of can-do Japanese pragmatism vs British exceptionalism. The British could not conceive that an Asian army could threaten the might of the British Empire. Furthermore they believed the jungles of the Maylay peninsula to be impassible. The Japanese proved them wrong on both counts.

The British, supremely confident in their security, failed to prepare adequate defensive lines. The Japanese moved at great speed, outflanking, surprising and overwhelming the British at every attempted stand. Japanese bicycle armies outpaced motorized transport. They rapidly lost their rubber tyres, but kept going on the metal rims. The sound of the rims on the roads led the British to believe they were facing tanks, and they withdrew without a stand.

The Royal Engineers destroyed over 100 bridges to slow the Japanese down. In response the Japanese formed human bridges over the rivers, men, up to their shoulders in water, suspending planks over their heads. Their advance hardly slowed.

The Japanese lost fewer than 10,000 men compared with 16,000 allied casualties and 130,000 captured.

Singapore, which controlled one of the most important seaways in Asia with its big guns, had almost no defences on the landward side, so certain were the British that the Jungle and the Royal Navy, would keep them secure.

The Indian 11th Division were the only allied troops to put up a notable defence. They were lions led by donkeys. Major-General David Murray-Lyon of the Indian 11th Infantry Division was perversely one of those donkeys despite being called Lyon. He was sacked. But the Indians were outflanked by the Japanese who moved troops south of the Indians by sea, surrounded them and annhialated them. Where oh where was the vaunted Royal Navy?

The Aussies also tried to give the Japanese a bloody nose, but were themselves outflanked. They and Indian remnants, the Muar force, fought a desperate four day retreat only to find their route south cut off because the Japanese outflanked them yet again and took the bridge that was their escape route. In a desperate move their commander declared “every man for himself” and they ran for the jungle. They were hunted down, captured, tortured and massacred. Of 135 men of the rearguard only two survived.

The fall of Singapore was probably the lowest point of World War 2 for Britain. It shattered the illusion of British supremacy. The Japanese, although they demanded unconditional surrender, never actually expected it would happen. The invading force was running low on supplies and any tenacious defense would have caused them considerable difficulties.

When the British delegation arrived under a flag of truce the Japanese were notably confused. There were some translation difficulties and in all likelihood the British command broached the subject in highly couched and idiomatic language. Eventually the Japanese had to ask flat out if the British were intending to surrender. Percival assented to the shock of the Japanese officers.

That he has gone down as the greatest failure in British military history comes with no sadness to the people of Ireland. Of all the British officers serving during the War of Independence in Ireland “Percival stood out for his violent, sadistic behaviour towards IRA prisoners, suspects and innocent civilians……He also participated in reprisals, burning farms and businesses in response to IRA attacks.” (JBE Hittle) The King of England awarded him an OBE for the torture and murder of Irish prisoners, who were, supposedly, British subjects and citizens. Is it any wonder we wanted our independence? Is it any surprise that the men he threw into the front lines in Malaysia were Indians and Australians? Were we colonials ever aught but canon fodder?

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Friends, Romans, Countrymen

January 14, 2022 by Sailoil

Born on Jan 14th 83 BC Marcus Antonius was immortalized by Shakespeare with the Funeral Oration Speech in Julius Caesar. I give you a photo of James Purefoy who played the part of Anthony so well in the BBC mini series “Rome”.

I felt Purefoy brought just the right mix of qualities to the character. A tough soldier who had a way with the common troops, a man’s man, and a ladies man. But someone who struggled with the niceties of diplomacy. A loyal and true servant to Caesar and a good friend to the reprobate bad boy Publius Clodius Pulcher.

When Caesar went to Egypt he left Anthony in charge in Italy as Governor. When the brusque soldier encountered difficulties with the Dolabella affair(s) his response was to turn his troops loose in the forum. This angered Caesar who had to strip Anthony of his authority, replace him with Marcus Lepidus and return his attack dog to soldiering.

After the death of Caesar Anthony had ambitions to lead the caesarian camp, but Octavian had other ideas. They divided Rome between them, but ultimately it was Octavian who proved to be the better politician, diplomat and statesman. He defeated Anthony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium and rose to become Rome’s first Emperor, Augustus.

Purefoy played his interactions with Octavian perfectly, treating the young man with distain which soured the relationship into enmity.

But let us return to his brief moment of glory: Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene II, The Forum.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
the good is oft interred with their bones;
so let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
and grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
for Brutus is an honourable man;
so are they all, all honourable men–
come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
and Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
and, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
but here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
what cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
and men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
and I must pause till it come back to me.

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Happy Birthday Virgil

October 15, 2021 by Sailoil

Publius Vergilius Maro was born in Italy on Oct 15th 70BCE. He became a Roman in the year 49 when Julius Caesar expanded citizenship north of the Po river. His family then lost their land after the second civil war, displaced to make room for the Veterans of the armies of Octavian/Augustus.

Octavian subsequently became a Patron to Virgil, who went on to create the Julian Family myth and the Epic of Imperial Rome: The Aeneid, telling how Aeneas fled from the burning ruins of Troy to Italy where he was instrumental to the foundation of Rome.

Excerpt from 3rd Georgic; by Virgil (Trans. John Dryden)

Thus every Creature, and of every kind,
the secret joys of sweet coition find,
not only man’s imperial race; but they
that wing the liquid air, or swim the sea,
or haunt the desert, rush into the flame.

For Love is Lord of all; and is in all the same.
’Tis with this rage, the mother lion stung,
scours over the plain; regardless of her young:
demanding rites of love, she sternly stalks;
and hunts her lover in his lonely walks.

’Tis then the shapeless bear his den forsakes;
in woods and fields a wild destruction makes.
Boars whet their tusks; to battle tigers move;
enraged with hunger, more enraged with love.
Then woe to him, that in the desert Land
of Lybia travels, o’re the burning sand.
The stallion snuffs the well-known dcent afar;
and snorts and trembles for the distant mare:
nor bitts nor bridles, can his rage restrain;
and rugged rocks are interposed in vain.
He makes his way o’re mountains, and contemns
unruly torrents, and unfoorded streams.

The bristled boar, who feels the pleasing wound,
new grinds his arming tusks, and digs the ground.
The sleepy leacher shuts his little eyes;
about his churning chaps the frothy bubbles rise:
he rubs his sides against a tree; prepares
and hardens both his shoulders for the wars.

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The gloomiest of men

November 16, 2020 by Sailoil

Tiberius, the second Emperor of Rome, was born on this day in 42 BC. He was called by Pliny the Elder “the gloomiest of men” and when you read his story you can understand why.

Tiberius was the son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. When Augustus rose to power Livia divorced her husband and moved in with Augustus, with her two sons. Tiberius grew up as the son of the two most controlling parents in the history of the world. Between them they controlled all aspects of court life in Rome. Nowhere was this clearer than in the succession.

Tiberius was not a Julian except by adoption. As a Nero he found himself low down in the order of succession. But he seemed happy with this situation. He showed no ambition to become Emperor. He moved through the administrative ranks as any good Roman should. He served time in the courts. He trained in military matters. He fell in love with the daughter of Agrippa, Augustus’ friend and the muscle behind the Emperor. Vipsania Agrippina married him and they lived a life unusually blessed in romance as far as Romans were concerned.

Then the interference from his parents went to a new level. On the death of Agrippa in 12 BC Augustus was forced to re-order the succession. He ordered Tiberius to divorce Vipsania and marry his own daughter, the widow of Agrippa, Julia the Elder. Julia had made advances to Tiberius and been refused when he was married, and now she was his wife. But her “triumph” was short lived. She despised Tiberius and shamed him with a string of public affairs. He met Vipsania and followed her home, following which Augustus ensured they would never “accidentally” meet again.

Unlucky in love Tiberius was triumphal on the battlefield, winning great victories over the Germans. After another term as Consul in Rome he tried to retire to the island of Rhodes in 6 BC.

With the death of the Grandsons of Augustus, Julia’s sons by Agrippa, Tiberius became the only suitable surviving candidate to succeed Augustus. He was fully adopted as the son of Augustus, promoted to co-emperor and given imperium, the power to rule. When Augustus died in 14 AD Tiberius became sole emperor.

The reluctant emperor began to make plans for retirement almost immediately. He promoted his nephew Germanicus and his son Drusus to important positions and began to take extended breaks from Rome. Germanicus died, followed by Drusus, and Tiberius was forced to soldier on. As he became older he became more gloomy and sullen. He brooded over the death of his son. His attempt to delegate management of Rome to Sejanus was an unmitigated disaster as the Praetorian Prefect became mad with power. He instigated a reign of terror, with proscriptions and sham trials aimed at the extended Julian family. When he tried to usurp Tiberius he was captured, tried and executed.

History held Tiberius responsible for the acts of Sejanus, but there was worse to come. Yet again Tiberius found himself responsible for a job he did not want. He retired to the island of Capri and the last years of his rule demonstrated the resilience of the civil service established by Augustus, as the Empire trundled on under its own inertia. The power vacuum was filled with lurid and salacious rumor. Tales of Tiberius engaging in cruel, dark, sadistic and sexual practices in his secret island palace. Those are the stories that endured.

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Good or not good?

April 26, 2020 by Sailoil

Richard Harris

These days he is best known in popular culture as portrayed by Richard Harris in the film “Gladiator”. Marcus Aurelius was born on this day in 121 AD during the reign of Hadrian. He lived his life under the Pax Romana in the glory days of second century Rome.

He became Roman Emperor in 161 AD and ruled until 180 AD.

Marcus Aurelius is traditionally seen as the fifth of the five “good emperors”; Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. But there is a view at large that he should not be in that club. What marked out the good emperors was their replacement of dynastic rule with a meritocracy.

Dynasties often begin on merit with a great emperor, like Augustus who was first Emperor of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, and Vespasian who was first of the Flavians. They tend to end badly with an idiot. The last Julio-Claudian was Nero who was replaced by Vespasian. The last Flavian was Domitian who was replaced by Nerva.

There is another trend in family dynasties that leads to the rise of a terrible emperor or ruler. Disaster generally follows the appointment of a headstrong teenager to the top job. Sometimes they can survive their teenage years if they listen to their mothers, but most are doomed to ignominy.

The “good emperors” built a meritocracy quite by accident. There was a procession of childless emperors. Each handed the baton to a successor who was already well proven. Until we get to Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius had 13 children with his wife Faustina of which one son and four daughters survived. The Emperor appointed his son Commodus as co-emperor in 177 AD when the boy was 16 years old. If Marcus Aurelius had lived longer perhaps Commodus would have been a better emperor, but the father died when the boy was still only 19 years old.

He liked to fight in the arena as a gladiator and styled himself a demi-God in the likeness of Hercules. When a fire devastated Rome he had the city “re-founded” seeing himself as the new Romulus and renamed Rome after himself. He also renamed the months of the year after all his own names. He replaced the head of the colossus of Nero with his own head.

Commodus was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard and his death led to the era of the barracks emperors and the crisis of the 3rd Century. All legitimacy disappeared from the imperial office. The Roman Empire entered a period of decline which might have been its death knell if not for the arrival of Diocletian.

With this in mind can Marcus Aurelius count as a “good emperor”? Do we blame the father for the sins of the son?

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Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus

December 15, 2019 by Sailoil

Born on this day, December 15th, 37 AD, the great, great grandson of Emperor Augustus, known popularly as Nero, he was the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Nero was a populist. He instigated broad improvement and reform programmes in his reign, and entertained the people with games, plays and music. All of which was funded by taxing the rich. As a result the wealthy Romans and Provincial magnates hated him and made numerous attempts to assassinate him.

The greatest damage to his name in posterity was his supposed persecution of Christians. The great fire of Rome in 64 AD destroyed a quarter of the city. Accounts of what happened vary, but the version handed down by the Medieval Christian Church is the one that stuck. Nero fiddled while Rome burned (violins had not been invented). He burned down the city himself to create space for his personal mansion. He blamed the Christians and had them fed to the lions in the Colosseum (which had not yet been built).

When Rome was rebuilt after the fire the insulae were well spaced on broad boulevards and constructed of brick, greatly reducing the risk of future conflagrations. At the heart of the rebuilding was the Domus Aurea, the Golden House of Nero, the palace that drew the wrath of the wealthy taxpayers.

In the vestibule of the Domus Nero erected a 100 foot bronze statue of himself, called the Colossus of Nero. For reference it was about the same size as the Statue of Liberty in New York. A generation later when the Flavians were building their amphitheatre they they modified the statue to convert it from Nero to a representation of Sol, the Roman Sun God.

In 128 AD Emperor Hadrian had the Colossus moved, a feat requiring the aid of 24 elephants and had it erected outside the Flavian amphitheatre. The Romans nicknamed the Flavian the “Colosseum” because of the statue, and the name stuck.

Quandiu stabit coliseus, stabit et Roma;
quando cadit coliseus, cadet et Roma;
quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus.

While the Colossus stands, Rome stands;
when the Colossus falls, Rome falls;
when Rome falls, the world falls.

Attributed to the Venerable Bede, the 8th Century monk, Father of English History.

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Mindship

Tag Archives: Augustus

Obelisk #4

Obelisk #3

Obelisk #2

Han Guo

The Shame of Singapore

Friends, Romans, Countrymen

Happy Birthday Virgil

The gloomiest of men

Good or not good?

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus