... and he builds a privy

The eighteenth-century merchant Jonas Hanway, who achieved notoriety as an anti-tea-drinker, briefly travelled in Afsharid Persia and published his observations as An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea in 1753.

In Volume 2, subtitled The History of the Celebrated Usurper Nadir Kouli, he described Nadir Shah’s recapture of Isfahan from its Afghan occupiers in 1729, during which a most peculiar event occurred.

The inhabitants, keen to expunge all traces of the Afghans from their town, directed their wrath towards the mausoleum of Mahmoud al-Afghani.

“Having obtained the permission of the Shah for this purpose, they levell’d this edifice to the ground, with the fury of an enraged mob; they would not even suffer the repose of his bones; and, to add yet a greater mark of contempt and abhorrence, in the very place on which this mausoleum had been erected, they built a public jakes” (i.e. a latrine).

History repeats itself

Perhaps the Isfahanians knew their Old Testament. Certainly, on reading this curious story, I was reminded of King Jehu’s treatment of Ahab’s family and the prophets of Baal (2 Kings 10:1–28). At verse 27, καὶ κατέσπασαν τὰς στήλας τοῦ Βάαλ καὶ ἔταξαν αὐτὸν εἰς λυτρῶνα ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης, or in the sonorous King James Version, “they brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day” (draught-house being a euphemism for latrine).

It is interesting that the tenth-century Byzantine chronicler Symeon Logothetes, in his abbreviated account of biblical history, chose to highlight this particularly colourful event: “Then, gathering all the prophets of Baal and the priests and the people, by pretending to order a public sacrifice, (Jehu) slays them all at once and he destroys the sanctuary of the idol and he makes it a latrine” (Chronicon 44:10).

Confusion and battle cavalry

I was reminded of all these interconnections this week, on reading a remark made by Australian classicist Byron Waldron, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cyprus, in his review of my book Phantom Horsemen (in which I question the existence of Gallienus’ battle cavalry).

Briefly stated, the evidence — such as it is — for the emperor Gallienus’ battle cavalry, beloved of generations of writers on third-century history, is a sentence written by the above-mentioned Byzantine chronicler Symeon Logothetes in his Chronicon.

A century and a half later, George Cedrenus then lifted it for his own Compendium of Histories, which is where twentieth-century scholars found it. I have told the whole story in Chapter 2 of my book.

Cedrenus, it should be explained, followed the example of Symeon (and his other tenth-century source, George Monachus) in presenting — when his world chronicle got to the period of the Roman empire — one or two salient facts about each emperor’s reign, especially if they involved church-related events.

For example, in the paragraph on the emperor Severus Alexander, he records that Alexander’s mother Mamaea “happened to be a Christian, and she summoned Origen, who resided in Antioch, as she wished to be taught the mystery of Christ”. Cedrenus lifted this almost verbatim from Symeon’s Chronicon.

For the emperor Gallienus, the chosen “fact” — tellingly characterized as “Cedrenus’ confused remark” by the earliest modern writer to cite it — was that “he first appointed units of cavalry, for in general the soldiers of the Romans were infantry”. This is patent nonsense. As I explain in my book, neither Symeon nor Cedrenus is a particularly trustworthy source for Roman imperial history. They periodically make some very odd allegations. (I gave some examples in my book, to which we might add the “bread falling from heaven” during the reign of Probus.) My own instinct is to reject “Cedrenus’ confused remark” as either corrupt or mistaken, or both.

Choosing the right verb

However, I threw out the possibility — an intriguing one, I thought — that Symeon (or his unknown source) may have misconstrued a remark that originally referred not to “units of cavalry” (ἱππικά τάγματα), but to Rome’s “equestrian order” (ἱππικόν τάγμα), that wealthy class of citizens who stood second only to the senators in terms of prestige. I have explained my reasoning in the book. In short, there was a belief, current in the centuries after Gallienus’ death, that he had been responsible for removing senators from legionary commands and appointing equestrians in their place.

I deliberately translated the Greek verb καθίστημι (kathistêmi) in the above-quoted remark using the rather awkward “appointed” (as I explained in my book) because I found it an odd choice of word to convey the meaning that modern researchers wish to give it — namely, that Gallienus “created” a new style of military unit.

The verb, in my opinion, usually implies “appointing” someone to a role or “posting” someone somewhere. To be sure, it can also (when suitably qualified) indicate “imposing” or “rendering” or “bringing about” a particular state of affairs.

Choosing the right translation

When we consider other ancient Greek writers, Josephus consistently uses this verb for appointing people to particular positions or tasks. For example, in his description of King Solomon’s army, he writes that David “appointed as commander of each division a man whom he knew to be brave and just” (Jewish Antiquities 7.369; many other examples at 4.165, 7.232, 8.318, 9.4, 9.188, 10.97, 10.182, 10.249, 12.254, 13.146, 15.322, 18.95, 18.237, 20.247 and 248). Xenophon uses it in this way, too (e.g. Hellenica 3.4.29, 7.1.45).

As for the meaning of posting existing troops, Xenophon uses the verb in this way, for example, when he writes that the Spartan Pharnabazos “armed the sailors and posted them as guardians of his own coastal territory” (Hellenica 1.1.24; other examples at 6.2.33 and Cyropaedia 5.3.1, 7.5.69, 8.6.17). Josephus often uses the verb in this sense, as well (e.g. Jewish Antiquities 8.181, 9.287, 13.157, 13.227, 15.184 and 185).

And it can imply the arranging of existing troops, as when Xenophon describes how the Spartan Clearchus “arranged the army so that it presented a fine appearance from every side as a compact phalanx” (Anabasis 2.3.3). But I cannot find an instance where it means creating troops or raising troops, in the manner required by “Cedrenus’ confused remark”.

Rendering a privy

Of course, it is always important to consider how a particular author uses a particular word. Each may have his own idiosyncrasy. I found that Symeon — again as I wrote in my book — often uses this verb to mean appointing people. I gave four examples (48.2, 53.6, 54.4, 88.2). I could have added more (34.6, 42.16, 42.19, 45.2, 45.4, 48.1). And he uses the related verb ἐφίστημι (ephistêmi) with this meaning, also (83.1). But I could not find a single example where it is supposed to mean creating an institution.

Returning to Waldron’s review, he is lukewarm about my tentative proposal to reinterpret the offending sentence (to mean Rome’s “equestrian order” rather than “units of cavalry”), although he concedes that “this is an intriguing idea that should be carefully considered”. Far from considering it, though, he immediately claims, by way of rebuttal, that “Symeon on three other occasions uses καθίστημι to mean ‘make’ or ‘establish as’ (42.17, 44.10, 49.2)”. I’m not convinced that “Gallienus was first to establish as cavalry units” is much of an improvement. The grammar still strikes me as odd.

But what about those three occasions cited by Waldron on which Symeon allegedly used the verb in a sense that would really help us here? Well, prepare for disappointment.

In the first one, Symeon describes how Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, invaded the Levant and “made all of Judaea subject to taxation”. Here he uses καθίστημι in the sense of “imposing” or “rendering” a particular state of affairs, qualified by the adjective ὑπόφορος (hypoforos, “liable to pay taxation”). In our sentence, Gallienus did not render a particular state of affairs on the cavalry units; he just “rendered” them — there’s no qualifying adjective!

Jumping to the third one, here Symeon uses the same construction to describe how Julius Caesar conquered parts of Germany, Gaul, and Britain, and “made 500 inhabited towns subject to Roman taxation”. Again, it is καθίστημι with the adjective ὑπόφορος and the same objection applies.

Waldron’s second reference is more interesting. Certainly, it is as irrelevant as the other two, but it brings us back to Jehu’s desecration of the precinct of Baal, quoted at the start. Here, perhaps uniquely in the Chronicon, Symeon uses καθίστημι not with an adjective but with a noun. The verb is, again, used in the sense of “rendering” or “bringing about” a particular state of affairs, but in this case, the subject of the sentence is the destroyed sanctuary of Baal, and it is being “rendered” as a λυτρών (lutrôn, “latrine”). Or as Hanway would have said, a jakes.

Final thoughts

Perhaps I was too hasty in excluding the meaning of setting up an institution. To be sure, Symeon doesn’t ever use the verb with this meaning. But I have found an instance of its use by Josephus referring to the Roman general Gabinius “setting up five councils” in Judaea (Jewish Antiquities 14.91). Could this apply to the creation of cavalry units?

Just to clarify, this is a grammatical argument only. I am still convinced that “Cedrenus’ confused remark” is either corrupt or mistaken, or both!