10 things you thought you knew about the Romans . . . but didn't

I shall be replying to the flood of comments about the last post on the Greek fires by the by (though let me say here and now that something very odd happened in the translation of my post on the Greek website that so many people saw!). But meanwhile to happier topics. A fellow blogger suggests that we classicists tend to keep too many secrets about the ancient world to ourselves. So let me share a few.

Here are 10 things you thought you knew about the Romans but didn’t. 10 myths about the Romans exploded…!

1) JULIUS CAESAR’S LAST WORDS WERE ‘ET TU BRUTE’
Well, only in Shakespeare’s version of the assassination. Probably our best ancient source is Suetonius and he records the words as (in Greek) “kai su teknon” – or “you too my child”. What this means, in fact, isn’t so clear. If it is has a question mark, it smacks of quizzical, dying desperation. Give it an exclamation mark and it becomes a threat (“they’ll get you too kid…”).

2) ROME WAS BUILT ON SEVEN HILLS.
Some serious miscalculation here. Palatine, Aventine, Capitoline, Janiculan, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Pincian, Vatican. That’s 10 for a start. Though it all depends I suppose, on what you call a hill.

3) ROMANS HAD ‘VOMITORIA’ TO BE SICK IN BETWEEN COURSES AT LAVISH DINNERS
Sorry. This is an old one, But vomitoria were the exit routes which spewed people out of the amphitheatres.

4) ROMAN MEN DRESSED IN TOGAS
OK sometimes they did. But it was very formal wear – and it’s a bit like saying ‘Englishmen wear dinner jackets’. Actually you’d have seen all kinds of dress on the Roman street, from tunics to trousers -- and, just to confuse things, prostitutes in togas. (Here’s a neat article which sets this one straight.)

5) NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME BURNED
Not if you mean that he sat around ineffectually twiddling his thumbs while the city went up in flames. Actually what Nero did was fiddle in another sense: he played the violin (or so it was said).

Five more after the jump. . .

6) THE PLEBEIANS WERE THE ROMAN POOR
OK Romans, just like us, did sometimes use the word ‘plebeian’ or ‘plebs’ for the ‘great unwashed’ (literally ‘sordida plebs’). But in the strict sense both ‘plebeian’ and ‘patrician’ were old hereditary divisions of the Roman people. These may once have signalled the poor/powerless versus the rich/powerful. But by the time of the later Republic there were enormously rich plebeians – like Marcus Licinius Crassus, the plutocrat who famously said that you couldn’t be counted as rich if you couldn’t raise your own private army.

7) GLADIATORS SAID ‘HAIL CAESAR, THOSE ABOUT TO DIE SALUTE THEE’ BEFORE EACH SHOW
This favourite phrase is actually attested only once in classical antiquity – and not at a gladiatorial show. It was apparently spoken by the participants at a mock naval battle laid on outside Rome by the emperor Claudius. I tried to lay this particular myth to rest in the book on the Colosseum I wrote with Keith Hopkins – but not with much success I fear.

8) WHEN THE ROMANS FINALLY DESTROYED CARTHAGE IN 146 BCE, THEY PLOUGHED SALT INTO ITS SOIL -- TO MAKE IT COMPLETELY BARREN
This is slightly trickier ground, but I know of no ancient writer who says this. It’s a view that got common currency thanks to an article by B Hallward in the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History – and he gives no ancient reference.

9) THE ROMANS WERE MUCH SMALLER THAN US
Depends on who you mean by ‘us’. The skeletons found in Pompeii and Herculaneum actually suggest that the Roman inhabitants were on average a bit taller than the modern Neapolitans.

10) HADRIAN BUILT HIS WALL TO KEEP THE BARBARIANS OUT OF THE PROVINCE OF BRITANNIA
Only if he was a military idiot. A good proportion of it is built only in turf anyway, which wouldn’t have deterred many self respecting barbarians. Even if the rest was in stone, it is now thought much more likely that the whole thing was administrative (for customs levying perhaps) – and to help east-west communications.

And that’s only the first ten!

Comments

[poulsbo florist]

thanks this is a really great post!

[Mick]

I think the Bards immortal lines paint an accurate picture of Caesars assassination -
CAESARS WIFE - "Last night I dreamt statues of you dripped blood"
CAESAR - "Hmm..a bad omen, i'd better stay home today"
WIFE - "Good, now go spruce yourself up a bit, mothers coming over later"
CAESAR - "Er...on second thoughts i'd better go in, pressing affairs of state to attend to, you know how it is"
SOOTHSAYER on Capitol steps -"Caesar, beware the ides of March"
CAESAR - "**** off you crackhead"
(Inside, Caesar staggers towards Brutus with multiple stab wounds)..
CAESAR - "Help me Brutus my loyal and trusted friend!"
BRUTUS - "**** you Jack" (stabs him)
CAESAR - "Argh you mother******, I thought you was my mate"...

[turner]

Surely the more contemporary sense of "fiddling" which Prof Beard mentions is a transference from Nero's musical act? i.e. to do something trivial while one should be responding to something of great importance? I for (another) one have never thought of "fiddling" in this sense, and can't see one entry for it on the first page of google(search term: "fiddling"). The entries are almost all about square dancing and such. Maybe new Britspeak? But the term Prof Beard uses in another blog on the subject to explain it--"footling"--THAT I don't understand.

[Rob Spear]

Ugh. Must you use "BCE" instead of "BC"? I know it is trendy in the latest generation of academics, but it jars normal people unnecessarily, and does nothing to achieve its stated aim of pretending that our current calendar is not Christan in origin (as if that was even a worthwhile cause - academics are meant to be about the truth, not trying not to offend people)

[Rabid Bibliophile]

I'm a homeschooling mother and have just printed out the main article to share with my sons (11th grade and 7th grade). So far, what we've found most amusing are the statements that *made the list* in the first place! A little logic refutes MOST of them!

The only one that was a bit tricky to explain was the 'Seven Hills' comment, which I was taught not to take literally; I was told that the Seven Hills were the first established, and thus housed the key political centers. This may *also* be inaccurate, but at least it didn't set me up to take the statement at face value, either. (I pictured it in my head as 'downtown Rome' when I was a teen.)

Oh, and thanks SO MUCH for the definition of 'vomitoria'. (Sarcastic grin.) Picture my 12yo renaming *all* exits ALOUD for the remainder of the day. (Laughing.)At least he'll remember the word and what it means!

[Alan Myers]

Yes, Peter Ustinov played the lyre in Quo Vadis. Slip of the brain.

[Alan Myers]

In the film Quo Vadis, Peter Ustinov as Nero is shown strumming on a lute and spouting some execrable 'poetry' -

'O! O lambent flame!

Several cities have 'seven hills' including Sheffield. Probably a borrowing from Rome.

The end of the Roman Wall near Carlisle was of turf but most of it was of stone. The stretch eastward from Newcastle to Wallsend was not quite so sturdy I believe.

Most of the Wall is on the flat. The celebrated central stretch, much photographed, rises to an average 700 feet (like Hampstead) but reaches 1000 feet at one point.

When the Wall was occasionally overrun, the opposition indulged in a good deal of destruction, so it obviously had a disagreeable symbolic significance.

The supposed bad weather on the high Wall is often mentioned, as if it were a picnic in winter continental Europe, but in England you had seaside resorts 30 miles off at each end. Lovely in the summer.

[Antonio]

Damn people, Nero was not in Rome during the fire at all. And he lost many of his own property in the same fire.

[ron fontes]

Nero played the lyre and sang. No bagpipes, no violins.
besides building his Golden House in the ruins (and the grounds were open to the public), he rebuilt substantial portions of the city on a grand scale and instituted contruction standards to prevent fires.
According to some sources, Nero actually fought the fire himself, joining a bucket brigade after a 50 mile trip form an out-of-town concert.
The skeletons in Herculaneum and Pompeii show that women averaged 5' tall, men about 5'4"-5'6". Legionairies were ideally 5'10".
Cleo's comment on the 7 hills is correct.

[Mary]

A reply to John David Galt. The rumor is the ancient equivalent of a conspiracy theory, and as with all such theories -- it's impossible to know whether it is true (though I myself see no reason to believe it). It is based on the fact that Nero did use tracts of the destroyed city as land on which to build his great palace, the Golden House. So (this is the logic) you ask who ultimatey benefited from the fire, and you say he must have started it. Nero in turn of course pointed the finger at the Christians.

[Matt]

The Seven Hills thing was even carried over to Constantinople, where 7 hills were arbitrarily numbered, despite there being more than 7.

It even survived into American thought--"the city on the hill."

[John David Galt]

Can you speak to the rumor that Nero actually set the Great Fire to make way for his expansion of the palace?

[Ross]

The ancient Romans did not have tomatoes, corn, chocolate, potatoes, peanuts, peppers, vanilla, popcorn, pineapples(Not native to Hawaii, either.), squash, pumpkins, tabacco, and even most kinds of beans, but at the same time they did not know what they were missing.

That is because all of these crops are native to the Americas, and were not known in Europe or Asia until after the Columbus voyage of 1492.

If Michael Jackson and former Rep. Mark Foley lived in the Roman Empire, they would have been accepted as normal Roman citizens. That is because the ancient Romans considered women and boys to part of a well-balanced sex program!

[Mary]

Gelfling -- Thanks...but in fact this blogging business teaches you humility all round -- s/he who has 66 comments today may have none tomorrow and vice versa. It'll be me looking enviously at Peter's "spike" (as we bloggers call it) next...

[Gelfling]

Ooh and another thing! I bet your esteemed fellow blogger, Mr Stothard, is very envious of your 66 comments. Come on, Peter! Tell us 10 things we thought we knew about ... ?

[Gelfling]

Wow! 66 comments on this site and counting!
Superb work, Mary, to get the minds of this varied gang of scholars and all working and buzzing hard!! What a winning blog to produce such a vast and deep array of thoughts! Job well done!
Message to Roman scholar - loved the highly comical image of the 'amateur, pedantic historians playing at night'! It could be a promising sketch for a Radio 4 play. Regards, Gelfling.

[emi]

hey, in any case, "Kai su Teknon" would be translated as "tu quoque fili mei"...

[Warren O'Leary]

BCE instead of the correct B.C. ? More Marxist, anti-Christian "political correctness" propaganda within a Western country ; what chutzpah !

[Hein Maassen, Leidschendam, The Netherlands]

Re the salting of the Cathage site: it would not hinder the building of a new trade city, which could easily buy its foodstuffs elsewhere in Africa. The new city could even make a fortune extracting the salt from the soil and selling it for a nice profit. As regards the fiddling Nero: I seem to remember that he played the bagpipe (or is that just another sham)?

[Kieran Gillespie]

Augustus: is this book "et tu brute" by Greg Woolf the very same that the publisher, profile, on their website describe as

"The second title in the new Profiles in History series, edited by Mary Beard."

I guess that leaves out the trouble of shelling out $20 for it.

[Mary]

I am extremely pleased that Augustus enjoyed Greg Woolf's book, Et Tu Brute -- which I think is excellent. Alpha plus.
But as the series editor I am a bit biased and held my light under a bushel, in case people should say I was just promoting my own...

But now Augustus hath spoke, I can fully recommend G Woolf's Et Tu Brute (and the other books in the Profiles in History series.. Emily Wilson on Death of Socrates just out). Enough pliug...

[augustus]

The fist issue about Brutus after he was stabbed, "Et tu Brute?" doesn't take a classicist's attempt to destroy the work of Cicero, leave alone Shakespeare.
It is a shame exalted Beard has not read:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WOOETT.ht
ml?show=catalogcopy or is $19.95 too many €?

[Mary]

thanks tony..will have another go, m

[Tony Francis]

That link is working for me. But, just Google "PubMed.com" and you will get to the same place. In the "search" area, type "archeology height". There is a string of articles tracing various populations in medieval and earlier times. One of interest is: Econ. Hum. Biol. 2003, Dec, 1(3): 367-77 relating that medieval populations did not change in stature during various climatic changes. Leprosarium (Leprosy) patients were shorter. Monastic skeletons were stockier for the height. Common parishioners were more thin for their height. There a several dozen related articles on "related links". You can type in "cacciari" under search to find the other article.

[Mary]

Tony.. I have failed to get into that site, but will try again. I t may be exactly what I and F Gamberini are looking for (but I'm keeping to my basic point though!).

[Tony Francis]

Mary, I don't know if this is the article you are looking for:
"Italian Growth Charts for Height, Weight and BMI." J. Endocrinol. Invest. 2006 Jul-Aug 29(7):579-580. The abstract can be found at the NIH site:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
Then type in the key word: "cacciari". It is the fifth article down. There are some related links that are of a similar nature. If you type in key words "archeology height" there is a series of articles about pigs and dogs at Pompeii; also some articles about reconstructing prehistoric skeletons and height, among other things. Check the "related links".

[Mary]

F Gamberini.. thanks. I have tried to track down the Cacciari ref. but without success. Their interest is in the relation of stature to coeliac disease, I think. And it is a wider sample than naples...
But if you have looked at their stuff, beyond Wiki I would be v interested, could you give me the exact reference so I can consult it. I should say that disease based studies are not always helpful as comparisons, mb

[F.Gamberini]

HEIGHT: S.ITALY & ISLANDS-

Height of people aged 20 in the years 1994-2000 (published 2001):
Men 174.2 cm.
Women 160.8 cm.

(source: Wikipedia, "statura")

[Kieran Gillespie]

I Think the fact that some people are protesting against these choices so vigorously goes to show that Prof. Beard has really picked some good things that people thought they knew about the Romans.

[Mary]

A commenter on another site questions my claims about Scipio at Carthage. "Iamsocruel" writes:
"As a history major i have read many articles from that period where it is stated that salt had been tilled in the soil. to get a real academic perspective on the issue (Excluding B Hallward), the author of this article should have researched his claims more accurately."

The true is that those "many articles" are what produce the myth. The complete absence of ancient evidence for this is demonstrated by R. T. Ridley, in "To be taken with a pinch of salt", Classical Philology 1986 (who points the finger at Hallward and investigates the biblical background for the claim).

[Cleo]

Sorry, Franco, but although you are right to view the blog's reference to the Vatican hill as odd, it is listed as one of the seven in more than one fourth century CE text, while the Quirinal and Viminal (which the ancients seem to find as difficult to remember as we do) are ejected. I'd blame Constantine myself for the Vatican's inclusion!

[subcorpus]

good article ...
thanks for sharing the points ...
appreciated ...

[Salman]

Regarding Nero, I second the lyre/harp comment: the violin (a fiddle is just a violin -- they only difference is introduced by the fashion in which they are played) was not invented until much later: the wind box series of instruments (such as the guitar, violin and cello) weren't around back then.

Furthermore, most historical accounts point out that Nero wasn't actually IN Rome during the fire and that he rushed back when he heard about it. He also used a lot of his own money (not just the state coffers) to help rebuild and aid the people.

He may not have been a good emperor, but he certainly did his duty with regards to the Fire.

[Mr eel]

"Mary Beard is a wickedly subversive commentator"

Ooooooh delightful!

"She is a professor in classics at Cambridge and classics editor of the TLS."

OMG, a paid subscription to academia. Doesn't get more subversive than that!

Not having a go at you Mary my dear, but whoever wrote that wee blurb needs to wind back on the hype.

[Dennis Smith]

Very interesting but you missed on Nero by 1500 years--That's how long it was after Nero before the violin (fiddle) was invented. Actually Nero recited poetry while the fire raged,

[Shipley]

Much of Hadrian's wall did not need to be very strongly built since it runs along a natural ridge, close to 200 feet high for much of its length and extremely steep on the Scottish side. Even on top of this formidable ridge, at least most of the wall is of stone and 15-20 feet high; at least the part I walked when I was there six years ago! Is the writer confusing Hadrian's Wall with the Antonine Wall (much further North running between the Firths of Forth and Clyde) which was pretty much a disaster as a defensive barrier, and much of which is only an earthwork?

[Roman Scholar]

I love when amateur, pedantic historians play on the internet at night.

[matje]

When I think of Rome in the future, I think of this in the Book of Revelation, of things to come.

Rev 17:8 The beast that you saw once was, is no longer, and is going to come from the bottomless pit and go to its destruction. Those living on earth, whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, will be surprised when they see the beast because it was, is no longer, and will come again.

Rev 17:9 This calls for a mind that has wisdom. The seven heads are SEVEN mountains on which the woman is sitting. They are also seven kings.

[Marc Savoy]

Here's something of monumental historical significance about the Romans people will be very surprised to learn.

How did the Romans go about specifically financing the construction of the Coliseum?

The Coliseum was built on the booty the Romans pilfered in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in Ancient Israel

[Col]

I seem to remember the Romans using the same salt despoiling method in Yorkshire and yes, it was a common currency of the Romans.

[Mary]

Franco: for Mons Vaticanus, see (for example) Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, XIII, 7281 (= Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 3805).

[Franco]

I dare say that the level of the comments is much higher than that of the article they comment. The "vomitoria" item is particularly dull, sort of a pun, while Nero "fiddling" is simply hilarious. And the Vatican included in the seven hills? Back to school! Or: Sutor, ne ultra crepidam! (yes, give it an exclamation mark).

[Mary]

I'm not quite sure what JCDER is on about. Apart from admitting to a loose definition of 'fiddling" (yes -- I know the Romans didnt really have violins) I'm standing firm on every one of these.
For those of you who are worried about the hills and keep quoting wikipedia back to me (yes I've spotted!), let me add a few more to trouble the calculations: Fagutal, Oppian, Cispian hills. And for those interested in the Septimontium festival, as Cleo points out, this might not derive from "septem" meaning "seven" at all .. and in any case it appears to have involved 8 montes, two of which (Subura and Cermalus) we dont think of as montes at all!

[Jcder]

The title should actually be:

10 things I thought you didn't know about the Romans . . . but I thought that I did.... but actually didn't know all that well as I thought I did...

but probably to long for a Blog title....

[Arthur Ray]

Nos qui morituri te salutamus.

Oh my masters, if you had known your stuff I would not have burdened my memory for the last 67 years with those words and an image of armed, muscular men prepared to fight to the death.

[judith@judithweingarten.com judith]

On wearing togas, remember Juvenal (III, 175): "There are many parts of Italy, to tell the truth, in which no man puts on a toga until he is dead". He goes on to say(not that we need necessarily believe him) that, in Rome, togas were even worn at the theatre whereas, outside of Rome, they weren't worn even for a festival and not even by the aediles.

Judith
Visit Zenobia's new blog, Empress of the East

[CsB]

To Nr. 2. It is not by incident that Rome is called "a città dei sette colli" ("the city of the seven hills"). Vatican Hill (Latin Collis Vaticanus) is northwest of the Tiber and is not one of the Seven Hills of Rome. Likewise, the Pincian Hill (Latin Mons Pincius), to the north, and the Janiculum Hill (Latin Ianiculum), to the west, are not counted among the traditional Seven Hills.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_hills_of_Rome

Personally, I remember the same.

[Edmund Burke]

Surely Caesar's dying remark to Brutus, as presented by Shakespeare -"et tu, Brute?" - is a tragi-comical witticism, which makes the tragedy even deeper? There are two levels of wit and logic here. The immediately obvious level - the ironically comic one - is that if a Roman citizen, of the standing of Brutus, has both condemned him to die and participated in his execution, then Caesar acknowledges that it is just for him to accept his punishment. The deeper level is that if Brutus, a friend whom he loved and respected, turns against him to the point of participating in his murder, then there is nothing left to live for: "Then fall Caesar."

[Giorgio di Giacomo Roma]

I read with pleasure the Times but some difficult,
Excuse me. Many regards and good luck!
Giorgio Roma

[Al]

M. Williams: Sorry to deflate your knee-jerk anti-PC bashing but the statistics show that even when the sample is restricted to native-born whites, average heights in the U.S. is still falling. Furthermore, rich American whites are coming up shorter than rich Western European and poor white Americans are also shorter than their Western European counterparts. Apparently the degraded American diet (juice and pop instead of milk, etc.) that is to blame.

[B Keeling]

Classical Latin was probably spoken only by educated people after 300 BC. The locals spoke a form of old Italian, which is why the modern Romance Languages share much more grammar and syntax with each other than with Latin. Very little of this old Italian was written down, though Church Latin gives us a few clues as to how it must have been. Caesar would have spoken good Greek, as it was considered the language of poetry and philosophy. When the Empire split, the stronger Eastern side happily returned to Greek. This fact is well documented and is not at all moot.

[Tony Francis]

Re: Jon Capp- my local newspaper reported that Hispanic and Asian populations had been left out of the Euro/American height studies. Looking at the original articles (which have been around since 2004), it is not at all clear that these populations were left out. There is only an assertion (unsupported) by the German researcher that these populations wouldn't have affected the study.
http://www.pushby.com/friends/jesse/archives/007260.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/04/05/040405fa_fact
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3293191
The stories from the Guardian and The New Yorker have the most information. This quickly took on a political angle, since there is reference to the "more than 40 million" without health insurance. But this is only anecdotal. More than half that number is undocumented, or illegals who are not, in general, permanent residents. It is not clear that the basic family of these immigrant workers even live in the US. In the last 50 years, there have been massive influxes from Asia and Mexico. It has not been shown that these groups are genetically shorter. But it hasn't been shown that they aren't. So the whole study is suspect on several key points. Junk food is mentioned. This may be a good association, and the fact that kids sit around playing video games and don't exercise. But even these conclusions are anecdotal.

Concerning Oliver P Nicholson- I am glad you translated the Latin. All I know is self taught, and I would have been sitting there with several Latin dictionaries trying to figure it out. Years ago, such effort was worth expending. But not anymore! By the time of the French Revolution, men were forced by social custom to wear full length trousers. It was more egalitarian, since not all men have good looking legs. Of course, women didn't have to worry, since everyone wore full length skirts. Still, the women got rid of the full look, and wore more form fitting dresses:
http://www.temple.edu/gender/body/bodysource_F.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suit_(clothing)

[Candadai Tirumalai]

I need to tread warily in this area. Was it that Julius Caesar as a member of one of Rome's most illustrious families and the learned but non-patrician Cicero were expected to know Greek and knew it, whereas the "ordinary" Roman could have honestly said that something was Greek to him. Cicero considered writing in Greek but deliberately chose Latin. Marcus Aurelius chose Greek for his undying "Meditations."

[Shona]

re: Oliver Nicholson

I thought bracae were Gallic trews?

[Nick Beard]

Nero's fiddling seems a peculiar choice for this list - surely it has always been known to be a musical tale? The implication of "sitting around ineffectually twiddling his thumbs" is obviously metaphorical - like the updated phase "re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

[Mary]

On the height of Neapolitans and Pompeians.
Re F Gamberini's point that the heights of Neapolitans would have changed in 40 years: yes, maybe a little, but not substantially. So far I have found no more recent data.
On Jon Capp's question: on the basis of surviving skeletons, mean height for adult Pompeians is 154.75 cm for women and 167.6 for men. The Herculaneum material has produced two rather different calculations by different archaeologists: either 155.2 cm for woman and 169.1 cm for men, or 151.7 and 163.8 cm. (For discussion see Lazer, in Dobbins and Foss, The World of Pompeii (2007).
Sorry M Williams, I dont think I am out of my depth on this one.

Funny, but to a Canadian, fiddling means playing the violin in a folky way. The term "fiddling around" is used sometimes but it means fixing or adjusting something. What does fiddling mean to you guys?

[labrialumn]

On this side of the pond, we still know what a fiddle is, and how it is played, from Cape Breton Celtic to Kentucky Bluegrass.

If Nero was playing an instrument, which is perhaps doubtful, the only bowed instrument available to him would have been the croud, or crwth as the Cymry call it, and it may not have yet been bowed at that early time.

What an odd notion about Hadrian's Wall. The Duke of the Wall (including the famous "King Cole" (Dux Coelestius)maintained forces there long after the Roman regulars had been recalled to Gaul for fighting in the latter part of the two centuries of civil war in that region.

There is a reason for the importance of York and that Cumbria was one of the last surviving Romano-Britain polities, complete with fountains and aqueducts working in the 8th Century A. D. Coelestius "went native" (including importing three bards from Ireland, Aneiran, Taliesen and Merddyn) and his descendants ruled the place.

[George]

Nero did not play the violin. It was not invented until long after the fall of Rome. What he did play was a lyre, a variation of a harp.

[M. Williams]

This passes for exploding myths or wickedly subversive commentary? Only a profound nitwit would suggest that the Romans were not much smaller than us. This woman is clearly out of her depth.

[jon capp]

Can you please email me the statistics that state that the 'Romans' were actually taller than moden day Neopolitans. I do find that an interesting statistic. I currently live in the US, and people are making much of the fact that the average height has fallen and are (subtly)equating that to a Roman like decline.
Of course hispanic immigration could have alot to do with it-but in our PC world that is forbidden fruit so to speak. Perhaps the Romans were tall and suffered a similar fate.

[Oliver Nicholson]

Much thanks to Dr. Francis for the link - I thought that I had come across the whole Codex on the Interweb somewhere, but then (in the way of web-sites) it had disappeaered.
Anywaqy the edict about trousers is Theodosian Code XIV, 10, 3 of 399 (and 2, of 397):
"intra urbem romam nemo vel bracis vel tzangis utatur" - within the City of Rome, let no one use brarae or tzangi. Bracae is cognate with breeches (or what Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary charmingly calls trowsers); tzangi is not in Lewis and Short but I seem to recall was some sort of 'barbarian look' trousers. There is also an entertaining law which orders senators not to wear military dress in Rome in the mornings (the chlamys, which eventually became the uniform of the early Byzantine mandarin)), but -putting aside the 'terror' of military dress - they should wear the colobon or the paenula (i.e. the chasuble - as in Canon Chasuble) or togas, if they have official business to do. John Lydus (mid 6th century) could remember city councils wearing togas. I recall H. Trevor-Roper castigating those who attended his Gibbon lectures without gowns. Quite right too.

[Kev]

Apparently the Romans flavoured their wine with lead, so no wonder they went into a decline and fall, with a vicious neorotoxin gnawing away at their ability to make the correct decisions...

[F.Gamberini]

Is "Mary" the same Prof. Beard? I should think the statistics on average Neapolitan height will have changed somewhat in the last 40 years.
As for Hadrian's Wall, I would not rule it out as a defensive barrier. First of all, I wager it ain't made of turf -not the final version, anyway. The ditch is remarkably steep and could have been made insurmountable (to unequipped men) if other obstacles like thick bushes had been included; horses and chariots in any case could not have passed through. And the whole stucture was quite heavily manned.

[Tony Francis]

The Theodosian Code is available in Latin:
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/latinlibrary/theod.html

[David Gwilliam]

Things are far worse than JS can imagine. I mentioned to a taxi driver that the Saxons in Leicester had used Roman bricks to build a church we were passing. The taxi driver was puzzled as he thought the Romans and Saxons were different tribes living in Leicester at the same time.

[Strathclyder]

Well the eastern roman citizens spoke Greek, and the western roman citizens spoke vulgar Latin, the great grandfather of modern Italian, I think. Indeed, how do we know what the Caesar said when he died, and especially in what language, since only Brutus was there! (Και συ Τέκνον)
Perhaps it's just an ... urban legend.
Nevertheless I would be more than happy if the last words of Caesar were indeed in Greek. He must have had a bad accent though! :P

[Robert H. Olley]

So Crassus was a pleb! What with ill-thought-out Middle Eastern adventures, he seems to have been the Dick Cheney of his time.

[Mary]

I am trying to get hold of something more e-accessible on the toga problem.
Meanwhile: modern Neapolitan mean height (for S Cuomo) is 152.6 cm for women, 164 cm for men. (Figures derived, via E Lazer's work on Pompeii, from S. D'Amore et al., 'Definizione antropologica...', in Rend. dell'accademia delle scienze..in Napoli, 31 (1964), 409)

[Oliver Nicholson]

I thought that Theodosian Code XIV,14 (late 4th century) made the wearing of trousers illegal in the City of Rome. Alas I cannot check quickly because I can only finds Books I to VIII on the Interweb.

[Susan Deal]

Unfortunately your article about togas is not available to the general public, (according to the website your link brings up) except for its first page. A pity because I would have been interested to read it

[Frank Upton]

And did the Romans actually speak Latin? Many of them actually preferred Greek, and when they spoke Latin it was not, I've heard, much like the classical Latin that is still taught to a few today.

[Classics Lecturer]

Eheu JS. I fear that you are a dreadful optimist (or have been living on another planet). I'm a Classics/Ancient History lecturer at a 'good' university...and I can tell you that one of the commonest mistakes is to think 'plebeian' equals 'poor'. And so far as I can tell, at least 95% of humanity has forgotten that 'fiddling' has anything to do with a musical instrument. For most of these myths, see HBO's 'Rome' passim. (Actually, I reckon Number 3 is the one that people would be least surprised by...)
I think that Mary had a post a while back on how many of her students could plot the major classical sites on a map...go read and weep.

[S. Cuomo]

Ref. number nine: exactly what is the average height of Neapolitans these days?

[Sally]

Wasn't Brutus Caesar's illegitimate son? Thus making the meaning of his last words obvious?

[JS]

I wasn't aware that people had those understandings of 1,2, 4, 5 and 6. Maybe I am just over-optimistic about the state of classical knowledge. But as a non-classicist, for the most part (Suetonius read only in translation, graecum non leguntur and all that) these seem basic knowledge. If not, oh dear.

[Strathclyder]

That's very interesting! I would expect him to be a ... Nationalist, and stick to Latin! :P

[Mary]

Yes, Strathclyder, I think I am happy to confirm that Caesar was -- so far as the usual boffins can tell -- frighteningly bi-lingual (at least he had more than "restaurant Greek").

[Strathclyder]

Did Caesar speak Greek, Professor?

[Eugene]

It is nice to think that the Great Caesar's love of Greek was so strong that it flowered in his last breath. I wonder if he could recite Homer from the forst to the last verse.

[Cleo]

Yes, the Romans are responsible for the idea, but it is an idea which does not neatly fit the geography. The evidence for the festival to which you refer (the septimontium) is a bit of a can of worms, which may or may not have originally been linked to the number seven (i.e. some scholars have read 'saepti-montium) and which embraces a different set of names from those associated with the canon. 'Rome as a city of seven hills' seems only really to have taken off in the late Republic/early empire and to have involved some creative counting (e.g. bringing what had been seen as separate peaks together under the heading of an individual hill). Though something like the Janiculum was indeed outside the city, it was still sometimes included in lists - even then!

[DemetriosX]

Aren't the Romans themselves responsible for the idea of the seven hills? If I recall, they even had a special festival for the "original" seven hills: Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, Palatine and Capitoline Hills. The other 3 you mention were somewhat outside the city and only incorporated as Rome grew.