Those About to Die (of tedium)

I have been watching the new epic drama Those About to Die, which is set in Rome in AD 79. (Well, what else would an ancient historian do with a free trial subscription to Amazon Prime?)

According to the makers (Peacock), it “explores a side of ancient Rome never before told : the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most : blood and sport”. Never before told? Isn’t this just like the mini-series Spartacus, or Ben Hur from 2010?

And it’s surely just a coincidence that the series has aired four months before the eagerly awaited Gladiator II.

I couldn’t identify a recognizable plot, other than (a) lots of nasty things go on in the seedy parts of Rome, (b) lots of nasty things go on in the imperial palace at Rome, and (c) it’s nasty and seedy being a slave in Rome.

The producers allegedly drew inspiration from a 65-year-old book of the same title by Daniel Mannix. I had a quick flick through and I can’t see any resemblance beyond the title and the fact that neither has managed to place Scorpus the charioteer in the correct faction (the term used to differentiate between the four “teams” of charioteers).

Scorpus the charioteer

In the TV drama, Scorpus is the star charioteer of the Blues (and — Episode Three spoiler alert — the Golds), whereas Mannix already assured us that “we have plenty of old records of the sport such as ‘Scorpus of the White Faction got first place seven times, second place twenty-nine times and third place sixty times’.”

In fact, the poet Martial, who was a contemporary and an eye-witness to (amongst other things) the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80, writes about “Scorpus and the Greens”! In addition, seven victories is laughably meagre for a champion charioteer. The well-known epitaph of the Hadrianic charioteer Diocles, who raced mostly for the Reds, records 1,462 victories. Unfortunately, I have no idea where Mannix got his information, as he begins his book with this rather unbelievable disclaimer: “so many sources were used in preparing this volume that it would be impossible to name them all”!

Although Those About to Die shows all the usual signs of writers who are resistent to the slightest historical advice, the admittedly entertaining twist in Episode Three (“Death’s Door”), alluded to above, does have — astonishingly (perhaps accidentally, though it could’ve come from Mannix) — a basis in fact: for Suetonius records that Domitian, when emperor, “added two factions of drivers to the previous four in the Circus, with gold and purple as their colours”. They did not outlast his reign. Nor did they predate it!

Shallow Flavians

I stayed with this dull drama for three episodes, long enough to see if Vespasian (played, rather low-key and with minimal screen-time, as an aged and infirm emperor by Sir Anthony Hopkins; see above middle) would die accurately. I must acknowledge that, yes, we did hear him say (as his biographer Suetonius reported) “Oh, dear, I think I’m becoming a god!”

But the writers have failed to capture anything of the genuine man, whom Suetonius claims was a witty fellow, a man of the people, in fact. Nor have they captured his elder son Titus, who was his father’s right-hand man all along. So there’s no basis for the spiteful on-screen sibling rivalry. Titus was also his father’s spitting image (unlike actor Tom Hughes, here sporting a full beard, moustache and bouncy quiff, and no double chin; see above left). Nor have the writers done Domitian justice in this caricature of an insane deviant (played by a mad-eyed Jojo Macari, who really should have gained 20lbs to play this part properly; see above right).

For those who would excuse the inaccuracies on the grounds that “it’s a TV show not a documentary”, that simply excuses sloppy writing, sloppy research, and misdirected budget.

There’s a scene (pictured here) where we can clearly see a bust of Caracalla (born over a hundred years later) in the background, and I’m sure I saw the Arch of Titus (not completed until AD 81) in one of the aerial views.

As for the lazy writing, when Vespasian warns his sons about the threat of “Parthians, Gauls, Britons, and Huns”, he displays an enviable skill for clairvoyance (the Huns would not emerge for another 300 years). Perhaps that doesn’t matter to the average viewer. But when your writer thinks it’s a good idea for a first-century Numidian character — in AD 79 — to address a Syrian character in Arabic, invoking the name of Allah, it’s time to hire a new one.

No sh*t!

I have just returned from the sweltering 32° heat of Solin, ancient Salona (or, sometimes, Salonae) in Croatia. To be honest, I expected to see more archaeology, although there is a bijou amphitheatre for those willing to trek two kilometres, there and back; and the municipal baths building is impressive. (‘Provincial’ impressive, not ‘eternal city’ impressive.)

However, I was struck by the complete absence of inscriptions on the site. After all, Mommsen reported no fewer than 791 in 1873 (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Vol. III, pp. 304–355, nos. 1933–2674; pp. 1030–1034, nos. 6373–6405; pp. 1061–1062, nos. 6549–6564), besides an additional 1,134 published in the 1902 supplement (pp. 1509–1608, nos. 8565–9698). Since then, several hundred more have apparently come to light, judging by the indices in L’Année épigraphique, the annual round-up of newly-reported inscriptions.

So, while seeking some much-needed shade behind the site office (dubbed “Tusculum” by the Croatian archaeologist Frane Bulić, when he had it built in 1894), I was overjoyed to see an inscribed lintel on the door of this curious privy-like shed (pictured here).

An unusual inscription

I was overjoyed, because of its remarkable message, and I laughed aloud as I read.

Line 1: quisquis hoc in loco stercus non posuerit, “whoever has not dumped filth in this place ...” (stercus seems usually to mean dung or manure, as in Columella, On Agriculture 2.5 and elsewhere, but Vitruvius, On Architecture 7.9.1, uses it to mean the dross produced when extracting metal ore, so the word probably covers any unpleasant detritus.)
Line 2: aut non cacaverit aut non miaverit, “or has not shat or pissed ...” (miaverit confused me for a while, but it seems to be a variant of minxerit, the past tense of the verb meio, later mingo, “to urinate”.)
Line 3, lefthand side: habeat illas iratas, “may he (or she) make them angry ...” (It’s not entirely clear who illas, “them”, are supposed to be. I’ve seen the epithet iratae used of the deae Manes, the “ghosts of the departed”, who are supposedly tetchy; e.g. CIL X, 2289. That might be the point of the threat.)

Line 3, righthand side: si neglexerit viderit, “if he or she disregards this, watch out!” (a tricky line, not helped by an evident misspelling of NEGLEXERIT as NEGEEXEBIT.)

... with an unusual message

The message is an odd one: the gods will be angry with anyone who does not defecate here. Crap away! This seems strange, as normally in the ancient world people were preoccupied with the danger of their property being fouled, defiled, or otherwise polluted by others.

Graffiti from Pompeii repeatedly warns the cacator (literally, “defecator”, or “one who voids excrement”, according to the older, quainter dictionaries) that no good will come of his (or her) misdemeanor: cave malum, “beware of something bad” (e.g. CIL IV, 5438; 7714). A well-known graffito from the vicinity of the Nucerian Gate (CIL IV, 6641) gives the following advice: cacator sic valeas ut tu hoc locum trasia, “Hey, shitter! You would do well to keep walking!” (literally, “pass this place by”, reading transeas for misspellt trasia).

The mystery grew deeper as I finally noticed that the inscription must be a modern one, perhaps dating from the days of Bulić himself (although I was unable to verify this), for at bottom right I could just make out the letters “CIL 1966” (beneath the word VIDERIT).

The authentic inscription

In fact, this refers to CIL III, 1966, an ancient inscription discovered in Salona in the eighteenth century and taken to Vienna, where it now resides. However, the wording on this threatening message bearing the image of the diva triformis, the “three-formed goddess” Diana–Selene–Hekate, is subtly different.

Quisq(ue) in eo vico stercus non posuerit aut non cacaverit aut non miaverit habeat illas propitias si neglexerit viderit, “Anyone who has not dumped filth in this neighbourhood or shat or pissed, may he make them gracious; if he or she disregards this, beware!” (I’m still not entirely sure about illas iratas, “the angry ones”, and illas propitias, “the gracious ones”, but I think I might have got the gist of the message.)

Whoever designed the inscription that I saw in Solin was clearly making a joke based on the authentic inscription (now in Vienna).

And I can only assume that the privy-like shed was indeed a toilet, where people were encouraged to defecate and urinate (hoc in loco, “in this place”), as opposed to the original message threatening people not to defecate and urinate in eo vico, “in this neighbourhood”. In fact, it is remarkably similar to the one pictured here, even down to the padlocked door.

No shit!

Conan the Praetorian

I have been reading the “Warrior of Rome” trilogy by Harry Sidebottom (sorry, “Dr Harry Sidebottom”, as he appears on the title page, to assure us that he knows what he’s talking about).

The books are now a dozen or more years old, and have always been greeted with favourable reviews, like this one from TV’s Bettany Hughes: “Dr Harry Sidebottom’s prose blazes with such searing scholarship that there is enormous enjoyment in this rumbustuous tale of the late Roman empire”.

I must agree that Sidebottom knows how to spin a yarn, dragging his hero Marcus Clodius Ballista into (and out of) all sorts of predicaments, but in my opinion he’s no Patrick O’Brian (as British explorer Tim Severin claimed in his review). Rather, he reminds me of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. It cannot be a coincidence that his Ballista is really “Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, Warleader of the Angles and one of the Woden-born” (which, incidentally, permits him the liberal use of Anglo-Saxon expletives throughout).

I must admit that I enjoyed Fire in the East (Part One of the trilogy), as it was soundly based on the Sasanid siege of Dura-Europos around AD 255 (though why Sidebottom coyly renamed the town “Arete” I cannot imagine). My enjoyment gradually declined thereafter, through Part Two (King of Kings) and Part Three (Lion of the Sun), as Sidebottom, lacking the focus of the siege, took his hero traipsing rather tediously up and down the Middle East. (Sidebottom later added a second trilogy, and I confess that I started to read Part Four, The Caspian Gates, but ... life’s too short.)

The sure hand of a scholar?

Several reviewers praised Sidebottom’s “superb knowledge of the ancient world” (this was Professor Bryan Ward-Perkins) or his “sure hand of a scholar” (this was Professor Barry Strauss), while the late Lucinda Hamilton (wife of Bryn Mawr College’s Rick Hamilton) lauded “his considerable knowledge of 3rd century warfare and Roman military terminology”.

I think I find this most ironic of all. The one thing that never rang true to me, in each of the three books, was Sidebottom’s attempt to evoke the Roman third century, for there is no doubt in my mind that his version of Ballista inhabits the fourth century. When the hero enters the presence of the emperor Valerian, who is floating like something out of Frank Herbert’s Dune (“as befitted his role as mediator between mankind and the gods, the emperor Valerian appeared suspended in mid-air ... bathed in bright sunlight ... gaze fixed over the heads of mere mortals”), Ballista “prostrated himself full length on the floor” (which Sidebottom calls “proskynesis”, the adoration reserved for Persian kings).

However, the fourth-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus explains that “it was the emperor Diocletian who was the first to introduce this foreign and royal form of adoration, whereas we have read that, always previously, our emperors were saluted like the holders of other high offices” (Roman History XV.5.18). Aurelius Victor agrees that it was Diocletian, some thirty years after Valerian, who “was the first of all, besides Caligula and Domitian, to allow himself to be called ‘Lord’ and to be worshipped and addressed as a god” (On the Caesars 39.4). The recuitment of northern barbarians into positions of military authority is also a fourth-century phenomenon. (It is interesting that reviewers like Bettany Hughes, quoted above, assume that the novels are set in the “late Roman empire”, which is not how historians characterize the mid-third century.)

Military expert?

Lucinda Hamilton was not the only reviewer to praise Sidebottom’s military expertise. But is this particular compliment deserved?

One of the most egregious errors in Part One must be the classification of Ballista’s military engineering friend Mamurra as a praefectus fabrum, which he translates as “chief of engineers” (in fact, it is literally “prefect of the workmen”, which in practice was an honorary “rank” given to non-military toffs).

Another is certainly the repeated translation of Ballista’s title Dux Ripae as “Commander of the Riverbanks”, when the Romans held only one bank of the Euphrates river (ripae is the genitive case of a singular noun meaning “of the riverbank”). Several other such blunders, while admittedly minor irritations, make Sidebottom’s flippant comment — that, because his books are set in a period “about which so little is known”, no one can prove him wrong — seem just a little ironic.

We may certainly forgive Sidebottom’s ignorance of technical matters, such as the 20-pounder ballista on the north-west tower of “Arete”, which is pointlessly over-engineered if its torsion-frame is 10 feet wide and its springs “as high as a very tall man”. (For comparison, the ballista illustrated on the cover of my Greek and Roman Artillery book is a 40-pounder.) And finally, still on the subject of artillery, Ballista is credited (in Part Four) with the invention of the onager, the single-armed catapult used by the Romans at least since the days of Hadrian and which, in truth, had probably taken over as the standard stone-projecting catapult by the time Sidebottom is writing about. But in Sidebottom’s version, the machine’s single arm held the stone “in a sort of bowl at the end”, so Ballista had actually built a medieval mangonel!

Clearly, many thousands of readers have enjoyed Sidebottom’s ripping yarns, but the unwary Roman army enthusiast may assume that they are historically sound, whereas Ballista is as grounded in reality as Conan the Barbarian.