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The Gallic Sack of Rome - Part 5

The sacred geese have attempted to save Rome, but the siege of the Gauls is still not over! What could possibly happen next? We continue our deep dive into the events purported to all take place in 390 BCE. Despite the Romans apparently being surprised by the Gauls turning up on their doorstep, the Gauls have been in northern Italy for some time as far as we can trace archaeological evidence. Rumour has it that the Gauls came to central Italy in the search for cooler weather, but instead what they find is a city of Romans, and as the siege drags on, hygiene starts to emerge as a problem. Maybe we can come to an arrangement? The siege is getting tedious for both sides, so amidst the military encounters, conversations start about maybe bringing the siege to a close through mutual agreement. The details of the siege consequences include lack of food, issues with cadavers, and spread of disease. And it seems neither the Romans or the Gauls want to keep going with this situation. “Woe to the Conquered!” Those Gauls are pretty cheeky in the moment of coming to a monetary agreement to ensure they’ll pack up their siege and leave Roman territory. Not only do they ask for 1000 pounds of gold, but they have the nerve to add some extra items to the scales to encourage the Romans to pay even more than this sum. Perhaps even worse, are our sources really telling us a story of Rome resisting the Gauls, or could it be the case that ALL the city was taken and the Romans were legitimately and completely defeated? We explore the possibilities. Where in the world is Camillus? Is he in Ardea pumping out a training montage with the locals in preparation to swoop in and rescue Rome? Or is waiting in the wings but misses his cue to come on stage leaving Rome to deal with the Gauls all by themselves? Our sources have some disagreements which we’ll delve into. Things to listen out for: An origin story for Jupiter Pistor (Jupiter ‘the baker’) The centrality or not of Camillus to the siege narrative Important references to “Eye of the Tiger” What are the Gauls interested in? What might colour the Romans’ perceptions of the Gauls? Where did the Romans find 1000 POUNDS of gold???? The role of the Roman matrons in saving the City The tricky legacy of who paid the ransom to the Gauls and what happens afterwards… Salt’N’Pepa and Roman history together at last Our Players Military Tribunes with Consular Power Q. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) K. Fabius M. f. Q n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 404, 401, 395 N. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 406 Q. Sulpicius -f. -n. Longus (Pat) Q. Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 402, 398, 395, 388, 386 P. Cornelius P. f. M. n. Maluginensis (Pat) Cos. 393? Mil. Tr. c. p. 397 Dictator M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381 Master of the Horse L. Valerius (L. f. L. n. Poplicola) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 394, 389, 387, 383 OR L. Valerius (L. f. P. n. Potitus) (Pat) Cos. 393, 392; Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398 Pontifices ?-390: M. Folius (Flaccinator?) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 433 Pontifex Maximus; slain by the Gauls C. or K. Fabius Dorsuo (Pat) Augurs or Pontifex 439-390: Q. ? Servilius P. f. (Sp. n. Priscus or Structus Fidenas?) (Pat) Successor: [—- Furi]us Q. f. P. nepos Fusus Mil. Tr. c.p. 403 Other notable Romans Marcius Manlius Capitolinus Gauls King Brennus (questionable identity in this narrative) Our Sources Dr Rad reads Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 5.45-55; Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.113-117; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 13.6-12; Appian, BC, 2.50; Appian, Gallic History, 1-4; Justinus, Epitome of Pompeius’ Trogus’ Philippic Histories; Aurelius Victor, De virus illustribus 23; Eutropius 1.20 Armstrong, Jeremy. War and Society in Early Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316145241. Bernard, Seth. “Rome from the Sack of Veii to the Gallic Sack.” In Building Mid-Republican Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190878788.003.0003. Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association) Cornell, T. J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC) (Taylor & Francis) Forsythe, G. 2006. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press)  Duff, T. E. 2010. ‘Plutarch’s Themistocles and Camillus’. In N. Humble, ed., Plutarch’s Lives: parallelism and purpose (Classical Press of Wales: Swansea, 2010), pp. 45-86. Elvers, K. (., Courtney, E. (. V., Richmond, J. A. (. V., Eder, W. (., Giaro, T. (., Eck, W. (., & Franke, T. (. (2006). Furius. In Brill’s New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e416550 Gowing, Alain M. 2009. “The Roman exempla tradition in imperial Greek historiography: The case of Camillus in Feldherr, A., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Hyden, Marc, Marcus Furius Camillus: The Life of Rome’s Second Founder. Pen and Sword, 2023. Lomas, Kathryn (2018). The rise of Rome. History of the Ancient World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674919938. ISBN978-0-674-65965-0. S2CID239349186. McIntyre, Gwynaeth. “Camillus as Numa: Religion in Livy’s Refoundation Narratives.” Journal of Ancient History 6, no. 1 (2018): 63–79. https://doi.org/10.1515/jah-2017-0011. Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).  Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley). Roth, Ulrike. “The Gallic Ransom and the Sack of Rome: Livy 5.48.7-8.” Mnemosyne 71, no. 3 (2018): 460–84. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525X-12342339. Roth, Ulrike. “Was Camillus Right? Roman History and Narratological Strategy in Livy 5.49.2″ Classical Quarterly 70, no. 1 (2020): 212–29. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838820000385. Stevenson, T.R. “Parens Patriae and Livy’s Camillus.” Ramus 29, no. 1 (2000): 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0048671X00001673. Sound Credits Our music is by the superb Bettina Joy de Guzman. Ancient Roman Coins – These ones come from the imperial period and Rome wasn’t necessarily using coinage in 390 BCE! Automated Transcript Lightly edited for our wonderful Australian accents Dr Rad 0:12Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:16We explore all the details of ancient Rome, Dr Rad 0:20Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad Dr G 0:30and I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts. Dr Rad 0:41Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad. Dr G 1:01And I’m Dr G, hello. Dr Rad 1:04This is going to be a tough one. I think Dr G, in more ways than one, because for listeners who might be listening at a different point in time, we are currently recording in the midst of an Australian summer as affected by climate change. Dr G 1:24It is a heat wave, a tropical heat wave. Dr Rad 1:27Exactly. We’re having a heat wave. That’s a Marilyn reference, in case you didn’t pick up on that one, Dr G 1:35I knew you would figure that one out. Dr Rad 1:39But not only that. Dr, G, of course, we are in a year that seemingly never ends. As far as ancient Rome is concerned, Dr G 1:47the hottest year on Roman history’s record 390 BCE Dr Rad 1:52Yeah, I knew it was going to be a big one, but it’s it’s even surprised me. Dr G 1:57We are many parts into this effective mini series on this year, and the last time we talked about this, there were some interesting moments. There was visitations down the Tiber, aided by cork Dr Rad 2:13visitations Dr G 2:14visitations. There were sacred geese, and boy did they honk. And there were some people thrown down off the top of what we think is the Capitolini Hill rather than the Tarpeian rock, although we can’t be entirely certain. And some Roman bodies end up amongst the Gaulish forces, it seems. Dr Rad 2:34Absolutely yeah. So we’re right in the midst of this Gallic siege of Rome. We’ve got this stalwart band of Romans who have remained behind to defend the Capitol and all the sacred buildings and animals, apparently, that reside upon it. And when the Gauls tried to assault them, it almost worked, not quite, and that’s where we got people being flung off rocks, etc, etc, etc, yes. Dr G 3:07So this siege, we think, has been going on for quite some time at this point, our sources suggest that it’s anywhere between six or seven months at this stage, and everybody’s really starting to feel the effects of it would seem. So Plutarch, who I would not consider a close source to the action at hand, nevertheless suggests that the Gauls themselves are running into some trouble engaging and maintaining this siege, partly because they lack provisions, but partly because, in an encamped situation for a long period of time, outbreaks of disease are quite common. It’s hard to keep up sanitary conditions when you’re in a place where you’ve kind of constructed everything from scratch, but it’s all kind of temporary. And they’re also encamped amongst ruins of Roman buildings. Effectively, in some parts of this siege area, there’s also a growing extent of corpses because they’re engaging in various raids. And obviously some people die in those and they haven’t seemed to have dealt with those bodies necessarily in the best way possible. Dr Rad 3:07Well that’s just gross. Dr G 3:07Some of them, they’ve been able to cremate, but seems some of them, they haven’t, so they’re also amongst the dead at the same time. So this would be pushing disease outbreaks as well. But the worst thing of all, according to Plutarch, is that the Gauls came from a cool place, and as we know, one of the theories that brought the Gauls into Italy is that they were looking for somewhere even cooler. But boy, were they wrong, because Italy is hot, and even in autumn, apparently, when this siege is still continuing, it’s still quite hot, and they are unhappy campers about the weather. Dr Rad 4:56I could not feel more simpatico with the Gauls than right now recording this ridiculous Australian heat. God, I hope we do something about climate change so it doesn’t get any worse. Because I was going to make fun of this whole scenario and say, this sounds like anti-Gallic propaganda in a sense, where they’re like, they can’t function when it’s hot, when it gets above 35 degrees celsius, they just completely melt, like the Wicked Witch of the West. But then I’m like, You know what? I don’t think I function particularly well, when I get too hot. Mind you though. Dr G 5:32Yes, now, now, it comes down to it. Yes. Dr Rad 5:36They have been in Italy for a bit of time at this point. But maybe it’s because this is one of their forays more into, you know, central Italy, whereas when they started crossing the Alps, which I mean at this point, the Gauls are meant to have been crossing the Alps for a couple of hundreds years, like we think it starts around sort of 600 BCE, that we start getting Gallic peoples on the move and coming into Italian territory, but I think they have tended to stay further north, which for anyone who’s been to Italy, it is a bit of a different climate to other parts of the country. Dr G 6:17Very much so, much cooler, maybe more delightful if you’re you prefer the wintertime, but now they’re in central Italy and doesn’t agree with them, not not in their constitution. It would seem, physically, they’re having a tough time. Dr Rad 6:32Yeah, no. Look, this is what Plutarch has said. Is very much what Livy says. He says, look, the siege is obviously terrible because the goals aren’t making the headway that they need. They weren’t necessarily planning on this whole situation. It was somewhat foisted upon them. If we had to leave our accounts by the Romans, terrible behaviour. Dr G 6:52That’s right, you can’t deny an insult like that and just walk away, Dr Rad 6:56Even if we say like, whether we say it was the insult which, let’s face it, most people don’t think that that was probably what happened, or whether we say the Gauls were actually on their way somewhere else, maybe to do something particular, like serve as auxiliaries, or something like that. Either way, they haven’t planned for a lengthy siege, so they don’t, as you say, have all the provisions that they need. The Romans are certainly feeling it because they’re really lacking in provisions, because they can’t really leave the capital to get anything, and they just up there, God knows what kind of exercise they’re getting. Dr G, and this is exactly when, yes, a pestilence hits. Livy also mentions where the Gauls had set up their camp, that because it was low ground between hills, and there was also, like, polluted air, I guess in his in his mind, you know, because they’ve torched so many beautiful Roman buildings that barbarians, it’s just not good. And he also mentions the the corpses, and the fact that they kind of had tried to dispose of some bodies they’ve made, like, mass burial pyres. But when it comes to people who’ve maybe died just, you know, randomly and like a little siege, they’re kind of like, it’s just one body. I don’t know if I can be bothered sitting on fire. Dr G 8:15Bad choice. Bad choice. At least bury it. Dr Rad 8:17Yeah. And so this is what drives the Gauls to seek out the Romans and to try and enter, introduce get some talks going, see what they can sort out here. Dr G 8:33Yes, this is an interesting moment, because it seems like the siege actually becomes a bit of a fizzer, and it’s like the Gallic sack of Rome, and here we are, and everybody’s tired, and we’re months into it, and the Gauls are like, we kind of want this to be over. And the Romans like, we’d like this to be over too. And the Gauls are like, how about you give us 1000 pounds of gold. Dr Rad 8:53Oh, well, it gets a little bit heated before we get to that point in my account. Dr, G, there’s a little detail in mind that I particularly like, which is that the commanders on both sides are obviously talking trying to figure things out, and I guess to drive home that they were in the stronger position in this siege situation, the Gauls start making fun of the Romans and mocking them for the fact that they’re literally starving to death in front of their eyes, which, after, say, six or seven months, I can understand. And they’re like, surely the Romans should just give in. I mean, you’re clearly going to die from starvation if we don’t kill you first. Now this is not the way that you negotiate with the Romans, as we know. Dr G, it’s not going to get them on side. It riled them up so much that they started, apparently, throwing bread down from the Capitol towards the Gallic camp being like that’ll show them. We rain down bread upon you. We’re not starving to death. We’re strong, stronger than we’ve ever been. Whoa. I think I’m feeling a little woozy from the lack of food. Phew. Dr G 8:54First of all, the Gauls are like, is this the hill that you’re willing to die on? And the Romans are like, yes, it is. Dr Rad 8:54Yes, the Capitol is the best. Dr G 8:54This is the the exact hill that I’m willing to die on. And not only that, it doesn’t seem in any way strategic to be like, how about you guys have some of the bread. We’re having a tough time, but you’re gonna have it tougher because you can’t handle this level of gluten. Dr Rad 8:54That’s right, yeah, exactly. We know how you guys are. You can’t handle the food here. You can’t handle the climate here. Get outta here. Dr G 8:54Yeah, good luck with this bread. The Gauls are like, I will eat it. Dr Rad 8:54My commentator believes that this little tidbit that Livy includes might have been something that’s trying to explain a development of the cult of Jupiter Pistor, which is the story that turns up in some other sources like Valerius Maximus, Ovid, etc, etc. Dr G 8:54Lovely. Dr Rad 9:41Well, I mean, this is the thing about the way that our stories are coming together at this point in time, as we’ve talked about, Livy’s drawing on multiple things. He’s using earlier analysts. He’s also using, probably family histories that have been passed down. They might be oral stories. They might be oral stories that became something that was written down or preserved in some other way. He’s using archeological sources like inscriptions, etc, etc. But one of the things that might be influencing him is this antiquarian tradition as well, where the Romans are obviously trying to explain all sorts of details about their culture, and that’s particularly flowering at the time that Livy’s writing probably because Rome has undergone such a troubled century in the sort of late Republic and early Empire, the Romans seem to have been inspired to figure out their origins, to find out, why do we call it that place name, and, where did that cult come from? And how do we explain this building or this monument? And sometimes they might have come up with things at some point to try and explain why something is the way it is. And obviously it’s really hard for us to trace exactly how strong their evidence is for these stories. They’re coming up with another example of that is the story that we talked about last time about the crucifixion of the dogs, which happened every year, obviously, with the whole thing with the geese and the dogs and the assaults on the Capitol, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to go back and listen again. It’s one of those things where it’s obviously a tradition that has survived. But is this really what happened? Is this really why the Romans had this cultural practice, or is this something that’s been woven into the account of the Gallic sack to try and explain a custom that people have kind of lost track perhaps, of exactly why they do what they do? Dr G 12:56Yeah, fair enough. There is a sense in which the Romans are definitely trying to figure out what their identity is like, and this is a landmark event in their imagination, at the very least, because we don’t have a lot of archeological evidence to back up. Dr Rad 13:12We certainly don’t Dr G 13:13This Gallic sack and so even this idea of a Gallic invasion that moves so far down into Central Italy is difficult to navigate from an evidential perspective as ancient historians, and the significance of this tale for the Romans is huge. Dr Rad 13:32Absolutely. Dr G 13:33There’s so much detail. This is why we’re in part five of this narrative, because they do focus in on every moment, and this idea that eventually, what it sort of boils down to is this embarrassing exchange where Rome gives up, essentially. Dr Rad 13:59Yeah. Dr G 14:00They do, they do pay the money to the Gauls. And even though both sides are looking a little worse for wear and neither are having a good time, there does seem to be a recognition from those who remain on the Capitol that they cannot stick this out, that if this does go on, ultimately they will be the losers from it. They’re not sure whether any of their neighbours are going to turn up with forces. What has happened with the messages from they has not necessarily resulted in something positive or tangible that they’ve been able to see. And there is still the looming figure of Camillus, who is in exile, and nobody really knows where he is, and nobody knows if he’s ever turning up. And even if he did, would he have any forces with him? Dr Rad 14:42Well, of course, at this point, they have sought him out. They’ve tried to go through the proper processes in my account, because for Livy, at this point in time, it’s the Camilla show. We know that, as you say, this story is such a big part of the way that the Romans imagine their history by the time people like. Livy were writing the traditions around it had been fairly well established. The narrative had been fairly well established. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t obviously these differences in exactly how the story unfolds. And certainly Livy works Camillus in in a very particular way, and he constructs the whole of his first 10 books kind of around Camillus, particularly now that we’re into this, this later period here we’re talking about, you know, books sort of five to 10, and 10 is where we unfortunately lose the detailed Livy for a little while. But yes, Camillus is a big part of that. And exactly as you say in my account, the Romans pelt the Gauls with bread, feel good about themselves and like that’ll show them. But then they turn to each other and they say, but I’m actually really, very hungry. Really, really hungry. I don’t know how much longer I can last. And you know what? I think we just used up the last of the bread to make an emphatic point, yeah. Dr G 15:59Do we have any grain stores on hand? No, we don’t. Dr Rad 16:03No, I think maybe, maybe I might have let my temper get the best of me. Dr G 16:12Rome – never! Dr Rad 16:15And meanwhile in Livy’s account, this is where we flash to what’s going on in Ardea, because that is where Camillus is in exile. Camilius- Dr G 16:24and now for a new chapter, Dr Rad 16:25Yeah. Now that Camillus has managed to have his proper appointment where he’s been properly selected as dictator, he’s getting into action. So he’s conducting a levy. He’s also selected a master of the horse, naturally, a guy called Lucius Valerius, and he’s asking him to bring his army from Veii meet Camillus in Ardea, I presume. Camillus is then starting to train the troops – Drill, baby drill! This is the time he wants to make sure that they’re going to be able to kick some Gallic ass. Yeah, gun show. Mwa Mwa. Dr G 17:04It’s time for a training montage. Dr Rad 17:05It is, yeah, it very much is. It’s a point where, if we could afford it, we would play Eye of the Tiger. He’s got them punching meat in butchers shops, in the animal warehouses. He’s got them in gray, sweatpants. They’re running up and downstairs. Dr G 17:22It’s all happening. Yeah, look, I don’t want to ruin Livy’s show just yet, but I’m just going to put a flag here to say that the stories that Dr Rad is about to tell you from Livy are highly contentious. Dr Rad 17:36Whoa, I can’t believe you’re throwing me under a bus in front of the listeners. Dr, G, they’re watching. They’e listening. Dr G 17:45Just putting it out there. Listen carefully. Listen well. Warning. Warning. Dr Rad 17:50Sorry. It’s very confusing, because we’re kind of video recording this as well as audio recording this. So I’m like, I don’t know who to address. Do I address YouTube? Do I address people who have just got me in their areas? I don’t know. Okay, so back in Rome, we’re switching back. Okay, we’ve gone from the butcher storehouse to Rome. So the army on the Capitol really is at their absolute lowest at this point in time. They are well worn down, not so much from fighting the Gauls, just just doing their regular duties that they have to do, which I presume means, you know, standing guard being centuries and presumably helping each other out to keep life turning as well as it can up there on the Capitol, because we know that some of them have family out there. It’s not just fighting men there and then obviously the level of starvation, that old chestnut, of which I’m sure it’s much worse by the bread display earlier, they are desperately wanting to hold out until Camillus shows up, because that’s the plan, as far as they’re concerned. You know, Camillus has been made dictator. They’re watching. They’re waiting. And nothing happens. There’s just nothing on the horizon. They don’t know what Camillus is up to. They unfortunately can’t hear ‘Eye of the Tiger’ from the Capitol, Ardea is just a little bit too far away, and so they’re almost getting to the point where they’re too weak to even wear armour when they’re on the lookout. They are at that level of starvation, which actually does sound pretty somber and terrible. Dr G 17:50That’s bad. Dr Rad 17:50Yeah. No surprises. So the Romans are starting to discuss, what are we going to do in terms of surrender? How do we handle this whole situation? Do we literally just surrender? You know, get us the whitest piece of fabric that we have left after being up here on the Capitol for seven months and wave it. Or do we do something like, say, ransom ourselves to the Gauls. The Gauls had said that they weren’t necessarily like looking for a lot in order to bring this whole situation to the end. Because, as we talked about, it’s not like the Gauls are having a fabulous time either. This isn’t like ‘Roman Holiday’ here. So the Senate have a meeting, naturally, process, process, yes, and they say to the military tribunes with consular power that are up there, look, just, just organise some terms. Have a meeting and somehow organising this, this can’t go on much longer, so a meeting is set up. A guy called Quinctius Sulpicius, one of our military tribunes, meets with the so called leader of the Gauls Brennus. Suspicious name, but sure, here we are, and this is where, in my account, the Romans agree to pay 1000 pounds of gold. Livy, at this moment is like, I’m wigging out, guys, this is crazy. Rome is about to become the greatest empire ever, and here they are on their knees agreeing to pay these barbarians. I mean, how hilarious and ironic, right? Guys, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Yeah. Dr Rad 19:22It is an interesting moment for the Romans where they’re like, okay, not only is that an outlandish sum to ask of us, but yes, we’re going to pay it. And we have Quinctius Sulpicius, as you mentioned, is the military tribune who’s sort of leading the conference with Brennus. And they agree that they’ll deliver that gold, and then the Gauls will depart, not just away from Rome, the city, but out of Roman territory. They’re just, they’re just gonna leave everything. Dr Rad 20:08Which sounds extensive, but isn’t really that. Dr Rad 20:08It means they have to get past right at the very least, I’ve got to go, at least, keep going, get out in here, it’s going to be at least a day’s walk. And this is where we start to get the stories about the interference with the scales. Dr Rad 20:31Yes. Dr G 20:31So the Gauls are like, you know what’s going to be fun if we just keep piling things on our side of the scales? And the Romans are like, what are you what are you doing? We’re weighing out a precise measure. You can’t just keep adding things to the scales. Dr Rad 20:31It’s 1000 pounds, not like, whatever pounds. Dr Rad 20:31Yeah, and the Gauls are like, we might be hungry and willing to leave, but we still got a sense of humour. And if you want us to leave, we’re just going to add this little extra piece to our side of the scale and be like, oh, well, that’s that’s not 1000 pounds of gold. The Romans are like, you’ve got to be kidding me. Dr Rad 20:54Yeah. And when the Romans try and point this out in my account, this is a very dramatic moment where the military tribunes say, I’m very sorry to be that guy. But I couldn’t help but notice that the mathematics of this situation, they just don’t seem to be 100% correct. I think you might be asking for more than 1000 pounds of gold, and this is where a Gallic soldier rips out his sword, throws it on the pile where they’re stacking up all their stuff to skew the weights, and says “Woe to the conquered”, which is a fancy way of saying tough titties, guys, we get to call the shots around here. Dr G 20:59Yeah, this idea of this phrase that variously translated as “Woe to the conquered”, “Woe to the vanquished”, and the Gauls basically standing there at this moment of a peace treaty being like some of these ones. Dr Rad 23:52Dr G is giving me two fingers up for those listening in audio format only. Dr G 23:58And this phrase passes into Latin proverb, it becomes a thing that they say to each other. Dr Rad 24:03It does. Well, and this, it’s no wonder the Romans go back to this supposed moment, because it’s obviously deeply shameful that not only was their city taken, not only did the Gauls steal a bunch of their stuff and set a bunch of their buildings on fire, allegedly, not only did they massacre the elderly patricians, senators, whatever you want to call them, and not only have they continued to siege for a number of months, but they haven’t been able to get themselves out of this situation, and now they’re actually having to pay to get these guys to go. I mean, I can’t really imagine much of a lower point for the Romans at this moment in time. Dr G 24:45This is a huge low point. I don’t think Rome has ever been so low. I put it to you because from the very beginning, they’ve been on a upwards trajectory with some little bumps in the road, admittedly. But always quite quickly back to an upwards trajectory, and this, this is a massive blow. Most of their population doesn’t seem to be in the city. It’s limited in supplies. They’re at their wits end. They don’t think they’ve got any help coming. If they know about Camillus, which is not clear from my source material that they do, then they really are having to make the best decision that they can for their own survival under terrible circumstances, and they’re just really lucky that the Gauls agree to go away for a sum of cash, because, I mean, any other enemy in central Italy at this time, and Rome has a few of them would probably not have gone, yeah, give us some cash and we’ll go. Dr Rad 25:48Yeah, well, and that, I think, shows the fact that the Gauls aren’t necessarily here because they want to establish, like a permanent settlement themselves in this particular location. I think that’s why they’re happy to accept this money. Apparently, in order to go away, they’re interested in having portable wealth. And this is, this is part of the narrative that we’re given about why Gauls are on the move at this time, they are looking for more land. They’re looking for more goods. And so with them being so far south at this point in time, they probably do want stuff that they can carry – cash and carry only, thank you very much. And that might explain some of the archaeology, the fact that we don’t find a huge conflagration in the in the records when we sort of dig down deep enough, there is evidence of a great fire that probably was fairly destructive, but it’s just not the right time period. And even though we might be a few years off here with the Gallic siege, obviously, people sort of speculate it happened sort of between 390 and sort of 387 386 because of the differences in dating. But it’s definitely at around this time that this supposedly happened, this encounter. So the dating is just off. It would make sense if the Gauls were more interested in stealing things, because that wouldn’t leave any trace in the archaeological records for us to see, and it explains why, in spite of the fact that the Romans think that the Gauls set most of their city on fire, there are, in fact, still buildings and inscriptions and statues that predate the Gallic sack of Rome standing hundreds of years later into Livy’s time. Dr G 27:24I think there’s also something to be said for the way that the authors of the sources that we’re able to access have particular ideas about the Gauls because of Rome’s engagement with Gallia in the first century BC as well. So there’s a very particular picture that has been built up about what Gallic people are like on the basis of things like Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul and so for a Roman writer like Livy and even for a Greek writer like Didorus Siculus, there is a sense in which there is a pre-established idea about what Gallic people are like. They’re a raid and plunder kind of people. They are not about firm sort of settlements, necessarily. They’re more about moving and raiding and being able to pick up and be on the go if they need to. And those kinds of ideas, I think, are partly what is feeding into this narrative as well, because the Romans don’t conceive of the Gallic people as a people that would want to stay in Italy, even though, historically, they’ve been in the northern parts of Italy for a few centuries already, and they got to have lived somewhere. Dr Rad 28:49Hey Dr G 28:50They’ve probably put down some roots. Dr Rad 28:52It’s well beyond where the Romans are at this point in time. Northern Italy, what’s that? Now, this is where I’d like to do a bit of a tangent, if I may. Dr, G, I mean, I know, I know, I’m making this series even longer, but I have been doing a bit of extra reading around these accounts, because it’s so complicated, picking apart the slightly different narratives that we get and the details that we get. And as we say, we’re dealing with this thing where we’ve got this very epic, detailed narrative history, and yet at the same time, we’re kind of like, did this happen though, Livy, did it? I have some questions, exactly, so I’m going to put it to you. Dr G, where the hell did this 1000 pounds of gold come from? Dr G 29:35Well, I would say if it came from anywhere, it’d have to be the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, because that’s on the Capitolini hill. Otherwise, not sure. Dr Rad 29:47Yeah, and this is exactly the problem. This is something that one of the academics I read has delved into. If you’d like to read the article, please check out our show notes. They have tried to figure out, okay, so where’s the money coming from? Because in our different accounts, we’re given slightly different details, which probably reflects the particular perspective of the person writing. So the account that we get of this whole galaxy each of course, is that most Romans have left by the time the Gauls arrive. You know they the Romans are defeated at the Alia. They know things aren’t going well for them. They’ve scattered. We know that a lot of the population has therefore left the city. The whole idea is you just have this band of fighting men and a couple of extras who are left behind, and then, of course, the older gentlemen who are all sorted so they don’t count. Dr G 30:37Yeah, anybody who reasonably could go has gone. Dr Rad 30:41Yes, exactly. And we know that because this was seen as such a monumental moment for Roman history. Obviously, this is a story that was told and retold, and, you know, we slightly reworked over time, depending, I guess, on what the Romans needed to sort of get out of it, I suppose. So, what this person has actually suggested is that what we’re witnessing here was, in fact, a total Gallic capture of Rome. So the entire city is taken. It’s not this situation where some of the buildings are set on fire, but then the girls say, You know what? We’re going to leave you just a tiny little bit of hope so that you’re going to pierce the ransom and leave some of the buildings, etc, etc. Dr G 31:20I like that one, leave it. Dr Rad 31:23I think this is a total takeover. And then we have to figure out where are the assets coming from? Because we only have this tiny group who are left behind and starving to death. Where are they coming up with 1000 pounds of gold? Now, in Livy’s account, he is very particular that they do not use temple treasure in the ransom. Dr G 31:43Oh, well, that’s a problem that’s my one source. Dr Rad 31:49Well, the reason being, of course, and this feeds into the other things I’ve been telling you, Livy is all about protocol at this point in time. You know, the Romans have got themselves into this situation, apparently, because of their lack of attention to the signs that the gods are sending them there, they got off balance with the gods. They weren’t doing things properly, not pious enough. And so now they’re in this situation. And once they’re in this situation, when the chips are down, they’re doing everything by the book. So even when they’re besieged, they’re like, We have to go through the proper procedures to appoint a dictator. Guys, can’t just wait for someone to come in on a white horse. You know how we feel about white horses, especially if there’s more than one of them, we really got to make sure we do everything properly. You know, cross every T, dot every I. Dr G 32:36You know what? In our alternative history, it’s really fortunate that Camillus isn’t around, actually, because he would have talked them into giving over the temple treasure, and then it would have all gone downhill from, Dr Rad 32:47I don’t know, I don’t know if he would. He’s such a pious guy, it’s all very confusing. But anyway, in Livy’s account, it’s not the temple treasure, okay? Because that would be, obviously, it’s, I suppose, slightly offensive to the gods, you know, not perhaps exactly the picture he wants to paint at this point in time. And so it’s just state gold. I mean, I guess it’s possible that they just have some state gold with them, because, as I constantly point out, when discussing climate change, you can’t eat money, so you may as well use your money to fix the situation around. But yeah, so maybe they do, I suppose, have some state gold. They don’t have quite enough, and this is where Roman matrons apparently chip in some of their gold in order to make up the balance. This will come back to later, and it’s because of the Roman citizens pulling together, uniting, showing what Rome is all about, showing off those values that they’re able to make up the account. In other accounts, it absolutely is temple treasure that is used. However, we also have to question exactly the nature of this temple treasure, because, of course, we know that a lot of valuable objects have been taken. We had that whole story, Dr G about the Vestals fleeing in a cart meant for a family, and they’re far, far away, and they’ve buried some of the treasure as well, so they don’t have access to everything at this point in time, even Varro, who is one of these antiquarians we were talking about before, who we only have snippets of, he is one of the sources that we have that mentions that temple treasures were used, but also jewelry donated by Roman matrons. Dr G 34:31Look, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re scrounging for every piece of gold that can get their hands on. Really, they’re confined to the Capitoline hill, so that immediately limits their physical accessibility to storage. So it’s either temples or if they do have a physical structure that houses the public treasury at this point, which is when I’m not sure archaeologists, please weigh in and let us know. Did they have a public treasury building at this point? Was it on the Capitoline? If yes, we can all start to make sense of this. But turning to the people themselves seems the ultimate answer to this as well, because once you’ve depleted all of the publicly accessible wealth, what do you do next? If you’re still falling short, and this is a very specific figure that we’ve been given 1000 pounds of gold is a massive amount to ask, and it’s the kind of round figure that that feels questionable, like many of the round figures that we get from ancient sources, but it’s obviously designed, from a literary perspective, to give us a sense of the overwhelming nature of what the Gauls require in order to go away, to perhaps lessen Roman shame around this idea that they had to capitulate, that it was a capitulation that was substantial enough to make sense, that they they did it, and it was possible, and it allows them maybe to save some face there. But I think it’s really, it’s a really interesting question that this scholar has asked, like, what gold? Dr Rad 36:09Follow the money Dr G 36:10Like where? Yeah yeah yeah. And it’s hard to follow the money when we have so little understanding of what’s going on in that archaeological record. Dr Rad 36:19Well, yeah, the more they pulled these threads, the more I was like, Oh, my God, they’re totally right. Because not only have all the Romans gone, not only have they apparently removed a lot of the valuables for safe keeping, the Gauls have then plundered all the rest of the parts of the city, apart from the capital. So it’s not like the Romans can sneak out and get their little piggy bank from their house that they left behind. It’s all gone. Dr G 36:42Although maybe that’s exactly what they did. I mean, we had that priest who snuck down into the forum… Dr Rad 36:48Not snuck he just walked out. He was just like, out of my way. I’ve got a ritual to perform. Dr G 36:52But if he could get away with that, maybe everyone’s like, you know what? I’m just gonna do a quick, sneaky run to my house. I’ll be back. Dr Rad 36:59I’m now come back, bring a Gallic warrior with like a spear held above somebody’s head, as a Roman, you know, pulls aside like a fresco, and it’s like, yeah, getting into their wall safe. Dr G 37:10Exactly. It was like, I know where the family jewels are hidden. I’ll be back, guys. Give me five minutes. Dr Rad 37:15I think this is the way this scholar is sort of imagining it. So basically, to preserve Rome’s dignity, as you were talking about, we have this scenario where they have at least managed to keep the Gauls off the Capitol, and even though that it’s extremely shameful to enter into these negotiations, have to pay the Gauls to go away, at least the Gauls, in this narrative, didn’t take the Capitol. You know, it was all protected. This scholar, I think, is suggesting that’s actually not the case. Everything was taken, and this is why the Romans find themselves in this scenario. And of course, they actually probably don’t have the resources. And if everything was taken, then maybe we are actually dealing with a ransom situation. Because if we think about that particular institution of Rome, the patron-client relationship, which, whilst we can’t obviously be 100% sure exactly how it played out at this point in time, it is a constant. We know it existed at this point in time, there would have been an obligation to help out. If you could, you know, call on your clients, or, you know, you know, call on your patrons. There’s an obligation there to help each other out. And so it’s possible that what actually happened in this scholar’s imagination is that the Romans are calling on outside sources, maybe even other cities. So like Caere has come up in our narrative, we know that Rome is going to, after all this is over, have a special relationship with Caere because they, you know, they were real, a real pal, a real solid friend in Rome’s time of need. And maybe this is indicative of a role that Caere played that has not made it into the narrative in the most accurate way, perhaps that you know the reason why the Romans have this sense of obligation to them, and with so many Romans sort of spread in the surrounding area, this scholar sort of highlighted that it would have been potentially possible to call on these outside sources To deal with this ransom situation, and it would explain why Livy can’t exactly pinpoint for us, where have these state funds been hidden this entire time? What’s going on with, you know, the matrons? You know, not, not even all the patricians, are in Rome. It’s not like, we’re talking about, like all the rich guys stayed behind to fight. No, they didn’t. It’s just a select group of people, so it’s just a question of, yeah, it doesn’t seem likely that they’re going to have everything that they possibly need, particularly if they are completely under Gaelic control, and the capital was potentially actually seized. At this point in time? Dr G 40:01Yeah, definitely. And thinking back to earlier accounts of this same situation, we know that even though some of the women stayed that the men weren’t happy about that, they thought they were just going to be a burden. Dr Rad 40:18Well, women can’t fight or do anything useful! Dr G 40:25Not from a Roman perspective, but maybe they were making the bread. Goodness knows, if I was a matron who had finally made some bread and then my fellow men had thrown it off the Capitoline, I mean, I would be ropeable. Dr Rad 40:43Talk about the mental load. Dr G 40:46And so even in the context where I think this is a nice, also a literary echo, the idea that the matrons are giving up their jewelry, because this is referencing another moment in history a couple of centuries later. Dr Rad 40:59Yes, well, we’ve had this happen before, not that long ago as well, like where matrons have given up, yeah, yeah. Dr G 41:05And again, probably that one also maybe a literary echo. Dr Rad 41:09You ruin everything, Dr G. Dr G 41:12And this idea that in in times where Rome is really in strife, that it’s actually the women who come forward and do the thing that needs to be done in order to get things across the line. And so Rome has this sort of ongoing narrative about itself, where, when it when push comes to shove, it is the matrons who stand up, and it makes all of their narratives around women being unhelpful or not useful, not in their place, blah, blah, blah, or the misogyny incredibly infuriating, because every time the Roman men have ruined it to the point where it’s not working anymore, those women stand up and say, fine, you know what? I’ll get us out of this. Dr Rad 41:58I’m getting a big scenario here. Okay, so these starving Roman men have just pelted Gallic soldiers underneath with the remaining bread that they have left. And then they turn around, their anger kind of disappears, and they’re like, What are we going to do now? And there are some women just sitting there on a couch, and they’re like, Well, who needs my help now, boys? Dr G 42:25Exactly – every time Roman women come through. Dr Rad 42:28Now, there is a detail that this scholar has highlighted, which I actually probably would have missed, because there’s a bit of a gap. We’ll come to it later, but there is a bit of a gap in between this moment and when this reference comes up in a few years, when we get to another moment involving our hero of the Capitol, Marcius Manlius Capitolinius, he’s going to become a real douchebag in a few years. And when he is being a douchebag, he makes reference to the fact that the patricians are somehow hiding the Gallic gold, and they’re somehow abusing public funds. And it’s thought that this could be a reference to the fact that it is definitely the plebs that have managed to escape with all their movable wealth, which might be more than usual, because, of course, we’ve just had the conquest. They things have been going relatively well for Rome. So who knows what the plebs managed to escape with? Who knows what they’ve got in Veii. But these people who have pitched in to pay this ransom, if they are indeed from outside of the city at this moment in time, they then obviously want that money to be accounted for in the aftermath of this ransom being paid. And there’s this very brief reference that sort of indicates that Livy knows, or at least he’s repeating something, and maybe he hasn’t even picked up on, you know, the significance of what he’s sort of saying here, but that there is something else that’s gone on here that’s been kind of concealed in his original narrative. Dr Rad 42:29Wow. Look like I said earlier. I think Livy’s account has some question marks over it, so… Dr Rad 43:58Well it does, because, of course, one of the things we’re going to get into in the aftermath, and I’m sorry to give this away, but there is going to be disputes about land, as we’re going to go back to that old chestnut in a few years. And it’s possible that one of the reasons why this pops up is because the plebs contributed to saving Rome in this moment. And therefore, when we’re talking about distributing land, which, of course, is a form of wealth, a base of wealth, and particularly in this sort of society here, that there is something to do with this moment of crisis in terms of why they feel perhaps they have a stake in what’s going on going forward after this particular moment. Definitely, I think it makes sense to raise all these sorts of questions, and we’re about to get to this moment in my account, and I’m sorry again for spoilers, because I don’t want to ruin the drama here, but I sort of have to highlight it now. I have no choice, Dr G, Camillus is going to show up in my account whilst this is all happening. Okay, this is where he makes his heroic return. Dr G 45:17Agent of chaos – back on the scene. Dr Rad 45:19Yeah, absolutely. And he’s going to set everything to rights. Don’t you worry. Dr G, here he comes to save the day. But it’s possible that the Gauls are the ones that actually get screwed over here. So we have this account, obviously, where the Gauls are being tricksy, because, you know, that’s what they’re like. Where’s their code of honour? But what if it’s actually the other way around, and Camillus showing up here? Maybe Camillus is showing up to make the payment, or maybe there’s, maybe there’s a band of Romans showing up to make the payment, and then they get all tricksy. Dr G 45:59I’m going to hold on to to what I’ve said earlier, which is that there was at least one other scholar in my corner who says Diodorus Siculus has the most accurate account of the stuff that’s going on. Dr Rad 46:12Look, I have read such things, even though it seems ludicrous. Dr G 46:16And the thing is that Camillus is in no way involved in the Gallic siege, beginning to end. He’s not there. He’s just not there, and he turns up not only after the Gauls have left, so they’ve received their payment and keeping to their word, although winking and laughing to themselves as they go, being like, wasn’t that a bit of fun. As they exit stage left, the Volscians enter stage right. And it is only when the Volscians have turned up being like, oh, Rome, this is the best thing we’ve seen. Look at you now, and the Volscians are gearing up for what they think is going to be a very easy takedown of Rome at this point, because the Romans are just sort of lying on the Capitol line Hill being like, I’m so glad the Gauls have gone and I don’t even know what I’m going to eat, because there’s nothing up here, and I don’t know if I can crawl down far enough to find a piece of bread that I threw three days ago. And while they’re doing that, the Volscians are like and it is only then, it seems, that Camillus sort of emerges out of the countryside with a fully fledged force that he’s been gathering for quite some time, probably made up from the folk of Veii and people he’s come across in the countryside who are also Roman, who like, oh, Camilius! Ah! Well! And he has turned up, and it’s the Volscians that he engages with initially, because that’s the most immediate threat that Rome is facing. Dr Rad 47:59Well, look, I am just going to say that Livy’s account is far more comforting than this rubbish you are spewing, Dr G, if we go with Livy’s account, then the Romans are not so impious or lame as to use their temple treasures in order to pay the Gauls. They hold onto the Capitol. There is no complete Gallic invasion the Romans at least, can say that they’ve done their duty to the city, and then they get Camillus to show up and put everything to right and put those freaking barbarians in their place. Livy’s account is the account to go for because, let me tell you. Dr G, this is the moment where Camillus settles up. Because, of course, the gods are not going to let the Romans be pulverized into the ground because they’ve been doing the right thing. They’ve been making sure that everything is appropriate. So it’s whilst there’s argument over the weight where the Romans keep saying, No, I refuse to believe that this is 1000 pounds in gold. I think you’re being a tricksy little Gaul. And the Gauls are saying, I am so evil. I have no interest in your concerns, Roman accountant. Dr G 49:18And it’s like, what are you gonna do about it? How you’re going to stop me? Dr Rad 49:21Exactly. So the stalling is when Camillus enters the scene and no money has actually changed hands. So the shame of Rome is somewhat averted by the entrance of Camillus, because whilst they’re about to make the payment, they don’t. No, instead, Camillus shows up and says, hey guys, why don’t you make like a tree and leave the Gauls say, I don’t think so, mate, we had a deal. Now this, of course, is the moment where maybe Camillus is actually showing up with the money the Gauls are just waiting to get the money. And instead of paying them, Camillus and his band start a war. And the Gauls are like, what the hell I thought we had a deal? Dr G 50:09I don’t want to say that this is almost unbelievable, but there’s a lot of holes in this story. Dr Rad 50:15It gets better. Camillus then says, pish-tosh, your deal is null and void because you made it with some other magistrate, some lowly military tribune with consular power. Whereas I am dictator. So put that in your pipe and smoke it King Brennus. Instead of a pile of gold, I’m going to be giving you a steaming pile of war. How do you like that? Dr G 50:46I do like how the Romans have turned into British imperial, aka Star Wars style. Dr Rad 50:53Entirely intentional, I assure you. I’m just following Livy’s account to the letter. Dr G 51:00Look. So problem number one the timeline. Camillus is not here. He’s just not here. He’s somewhere else. He doesn’t turn up. The money definitely changes hands. As far as Diodorus Siculus is concerned, the Romans give over the 1000 pounds of gold. The Gauls start to walk away. In Diodorus’ account, Camillus isn’t even appointed dictator until he turns up and the Volscians are already at Rome’s door. And Rome is like, We really need your assistance. And he’s like, Well, I need to be able to command troops, because I don’t have permission to do that, because I’m an exile. And they’re like, oh, right, right, right, right, right. Quick meeting. Quick meeting. Quick dictator title is offered. And so it’s this idea in this intense situation where the Gauls are moving off into the distance with all of the treasure, the Volscians there being like, and the Romans are like, okay, we’ll make it legal for you to lead this army

The Emperor Titus with Marc Hyden

Marc Hyden returns to the show to discuss the life and times about the second Flavian emperor Titus. The Flavians were the second dynasty of the imperial period extending from 69 CE until the assassination of Domitian in 96 CE. Titus’ reign is short, but significant. We sit down with Marc to consider details of Titus’ rule of Rome and its impact across the Mediterranean, particularly involving Judaea. Marc’s book Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian (2025) is out now and explores at lot of the contextual details that helps us appreciate Titus’ rule as emperor from 79-81 CE. What’s the state of Rome in 68/69 CE? Nero’s death leads to a period of political chaos in Rome. If you’re keen to delve into the notorious Year of the Four Emperors, we recommend checking out our interview with Dr Rob Cromarty. Once the dust settles, the military general Vespasian ends up as the top dog in Rome. From unlikely beginnings, Vespasian sets up the Flavian family for dominance over the next thirty years and his eldest son, Titus, was his right-hand man. The Flavians and Judaea It is impossible to truly understand the Flavians’ rise without considering the foothold that they had in Judaea. Military actions in the east were part and parcel of the Roman empire, but the particulars of Vespasian as the Roman general in Judaea when relationships broke down means that Vespasian (and thus the Flavians) are substantially enriched by the sack of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Marc takes us through some of the key details including Josephus’ role in the conflict, the riots across the region Titus and Berenice Apparently you can be a Roman a war, but still fall in love with a lady from the local aristocracy. The story of Titus and Berenice is one of the most interesting details of the Flavian era, and we don’t know as much about their relationship than we’d like, but there’s enough gossip to create something of a historical record! Tune in for the details of their seemingly on-again, off-again liaison. The Busiest Reign and the Most Tragic Demise Titus comes into full imperial power on the natural death of his father Vespasian and, oh boy, is he busy. He rules over the eruption of Vesuvius, he formally opens the Flavian Amphitheatre (aka the Colosseum), not to mention a pestilence. With all this busyness, we can only wonder how his reign would have gone if he lived for longer. But sadly it is not to be. Titus dies after a short but intense illness opening wide speculation about the cause of death. We explore some here. Things to listen out for Questions about the reliability of Suetonius (shock, horror!) Titus, the playboy? The marriages of Titus and Arrecina Tertulla and Marcia Furnilla The role of Praetorian Prefect Josephus’ account of the war in Judaea An important farm house in Sabine country Sound Credits Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. The Arch of Titus which celebrates Rome’s victory in Judaea. Automated Transcript Lightly edited for our wonderful Australian accents. Dr Rad 0:15Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:19We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Dr Rad 0:23Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr Rad. Dr G 0:33And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Dr Rad 0:56Welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad. Dr G 1:02And I am Dr G. Dr Rad 1:05Dr G, we are once again privileged to be joined by Mark Hyden, who holds a degree in philosophy and has a love for the ancient Roman world, which shines through in his publications. Mark has published books on a number of ancient Roman personalities, including Romulus: Rome’s legendary fratricidal founder; Marcus Furius Camillus – and you can check out our previous interview with Mark on Camillus; Marius, one of the towering figures of the late Republic, and the second Flavian emperor, Titus, who is the subject of this interview. If you’re keen to get into the heady detail of Titus life and rule, then we recommend Mark’s latest book, “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”. Welcome to the show again, Mark. Marc Hyden 1:55Thank you so much for having me a second time at that. I’m gonna have to keep writing books just so I can hang out with both of you. Dr Rad 2:02That’s our plan. Always, always more books, more chats. Dr Rad 2:06All right. Well, let’s get into the questions shall we, Dr G, and find out more about the emperor Titus? Dr G 2:12Oh, yeah, I even like forgot to look at the document properly. So to get into it by the time we truly meet Titus in our historical sources, the Roman Empire has been going through a bit of a rough patch, you could say. So, to get us oriented, I’m wondering if, Mark, you can tell us a little bit about the state of the Roman Empire in 71 CE, when Titus enters Rome, besides his father, Vespasian. Marc Hyden 2:41Yeah, absolutely. So Titus was born in what’s known as the Pax Romana. This was the golden age of the Roman Empire. But matters, they weren’t as rosy as the name might suggest. They were regular conflicts with barbarians. There were threats from the east, there was periodic rioting, and there was, of course, deadly Imperial intrigue, which we all love to read about today, but then it wasn’t quite as riveting, but by the time Titus reaches manhood, he Rome is under the control of Emperor Nero. We remember him as kind of the pudgy, lackluster emperor who preferred the arts and athletic contests and an ample helping of sexual deviancy to Imperial administration. So this irked quite a bit of Romans, quite a few Romans, and his problems didn’t end there. Around 64 it comes 64 ad Rome catches fire, as we know, the Great Fire of Rome and much of the city, the majority of it, has turned to ashes. Now, Nero has been blamed for having something to do with this. It seems pretty clear that he didn’t have anything to do with it. However, with Rome turning to ashes, he saw an opportunity to build a grand estate for himself and redesign Rome in his image. And to do so, he siphoned money away from from the provinces like Gaul and even the Jewish homeland, to Rome so that he could realize his his architectural dreams. This is we hear about this, these sorts of things in the ancient accounts. And this overburdened and really upset the provincials. I mean, we don’t like taxes today, and they were even more angry about it back then, apparently. So not long after this goes down, the Jewish people who fell under Rome’s domain, they grew really weary of Rome’s heavy taxes, the constant mistreatment of them, and really it was egregious, some of the things the Romans did to the Jewish people. So as a result, they rose up in revolt. But, you know, we hear about different revolts in the Roman Empire, but this was no minor revolt. It demanded the Emperor’s attention and really immediate action. It also required generals of great repute and 1000s of battle hardened legionaries to be able to quell this, this burgeoning rebellion. So this is when we see Vespasian and Titus and 1000s of legionaries head to the east, and they lead the armies. And over the course of a few years, they neutralize city after city that had stood against Rome until the revolt was really secluded to primarily to Jerusalem, machaerus, Herodium and Masada, which is now very famous, but we see the success and Vespasian and Titus successes were a bit of good news for for Nero, but trouble was brewing in the West. He thought the problems were in the east, but the biggest problem was in the West, because that’s where a rebellion broke out to depose him, and ultimately he saw the writing on the wall, and with the help of his servant, decided to go ahead and kill himself. But that wasn’t the end of the troubles for the Roman Empire, because everyone wanted to be emperor, apparently. So this sparked a cascade of events and civil war in which first Galba, then Otho and then Vitellius all claimed to be emperor, and before long, Titus, you know, he’s sitting over there in the east and his son, or excuse me, Vespasian, his son, Titus, urges him to stake his claim. So Vespasian goes and challenges Titus, and ultimately is successful, and he defeats the corpulent Vitellius, which left Vespasian squarely in control of Rome. So that brings us. We’re in 70 ad at this point, and with Vespasian now sole Emperor with no real other claimants that are legitimate around he tasked his son with finishing off the Jewish revolt by sacking the highly fortified city of Jerusalem, which is where 1000s of rebels had been congregating. And really what resulted is this incredibly bloody, incredibly brutal and lamentable affair that supposedly left upwards of a million Jews dead, at least according to Josephus. But these numbers are a little suspect. But despite this terrible toll, Titus was victorious, and by 71 AD, which is your question, he can finally return to Rome and triumph. Dr G 7:09An impressive time. Not great for Judea, by the sounds of it, but the Romans, well, they do like a good victory, and it sounds like they threw everything they had at this one. Dr Rad 7:19So we obviously get a bit of a snapshot about what Titus was up to in his early life through that account that you’ve just given. But what else do we know about Titus public career prior to his father becoming emperor? Marc Hyden 7:33So a lot of Titus early career and life is a bit of a mystery. And this kind of goes into how the ancient writers looked at people they didn’t generally, they didn’t care much about their their early life when they recorded it, because it was unimportant. Now for us historians, we want to know what happened. But what is clear is that Titus was born into the Flavian family, which had, at this point, had only recently become a senatorial clan. So because of this wealth and being a senatorial clan, Titus received rudimentary education that you’d expect of a well to do child, you know, and thanks to Vespasian growing increasingly close to Claudius court at the time, Titus was eventually even educated in the Imperial Court, which was really a blessing as well as a curse, because he learned alongside Claudius’ biological son, Britannicus. And this causes some some serious problems. Claudius’ scheming wife at the time, Agrippina was the mother of Nero, whom Claudius adopted. Now this is getting kind of convoluted and complex, but that’s the way the imperial family was. Agrippina didn’t seem to like the flavians too much, at least their friends that were in the imperial court. This caused plenty of grief. But then there was also the issue with Nero, who was distrustful of Britannicus, who, you know, rightfully, he probably should have been emperor, but he didn’t become emperor. So Nero decides to have him poisoned by tainting his drink. It turns out, though, that Titus was lounging next to Britannicus when this went down, and in fact, Titus even drank some of the poison. But Britannicus died, and as we all can tell, Titus survived, although he had a long term ailment that actually stemmed from him imbibing some of this poison. But despite him surviving Vespasian and Titus, at this point, they realize they’ve fallen from favor, and they needed to see to their own safety, so they decided to lay low for a while, and it worked in their favor, because not long after, they had some developments in the imperial court that really benefited them. So Nero really got tired of his his meddling and very overbearing mother, and he first banished her, and then he had her murdered, and this is after numerous botched attempts, and he’s finally successful, and with with her dead, both Vespasian and Titus, their futures looked a lot a lot brighter at this point in fact. Is able to enter the cursus honorum, the path of honors. And he took his first step toward senatorial admission by serving, most likely, in a one year term. And really, this, really lower level college of magistrates. And that’s this might have happened around 60 AD, and it was the next year in which he probably held the military tribuneship, and he was at first stationed in Germany, and then the ancient writers tell us that Titus and his troops were eventually transferred from Germany to Britannia. The ancient writers don’t tell us why this happened, but some modern historians have pinpointed a very plausible and what I find to be a pretty fascinating reason, and it was the Boudicca rebellion. Now, as a lot of your listeners know, Boudicca was this Iceni royal, and she was a woman not to be trifled with, but the Romans decided to trifle with her anyway. They stole her property. They publicly abused her and even raped her daughters these this was an unconscionable crime, and after facing this Roman treachery and ignominy, she decided to work to kick the Romans out of Britannia. And within a short span of time, she raises this massive army, allegedly numbering around 230,000 people, and she led them into battle. And this happens around 60 ad and with relative ease, she overruns numerous cities, raises them to the ground, and shows that she can be pretty barbaric as well. But the Romans were bent on stopping her, and in 61 the following year, the local governor Paulinus defeated her in battle. And then afterwards, Boudicca either dies by suicide or illness, we don’t really know, but the remnants of the revolt remained active, and that’s where Titus enters this story. So in an effort to shore up the Romans defenses in Britannia and provide reinforcements, Nero decided to transfer some folks from Germany to Britannia. So this is, this is when historians think it’s very likely that Titus found himself there, and he may have actually seen some legitimate experience and action in the Buddha revolt, although we don’t really know what exactly he could have been doing. So the Boudicca revolt is subdued, and then, following Titus term as military tribune, he returns to Rome to kind of foster his nascent public career, promote his private business interests, including a legal practice. And he seeks the quaestorship, which is the this will give you senatorial admission at the time. And with his father’s help, the Senate presumably elects him, providing him a seat in the Senate. And through some guesswork, educated guesswork. Historians think that his quaestorship may have fallen around 64 AD which is when the Great Fire of Rome happened. But it was two years later that really propels Titus to what we think of when we hear him in 66 that’s when the Jewish rebellion begins, and Nero realizes that he desperately needs some help. So he looks around to find someone who’s someone who’s a competent general, but not particularly inspiring so he could never really challenge them, and someone who’s close by that happens to be Vespasian. He’s not a very exciting guy at the time and not thought of as a real threat. So he appoints Vespasian to command the war effort against the Jewish people, and Vespasian in turn, appoints Titus to lead the 15th legion. And as I alluded to earlier, together they sweep through the Jewish homeland and they reassert Roman control, but at a really terrible cost. Dr G 13:38Yeah, it’s a quite a trajectory, and one that, because the Flavians are not such a prominent family, we just don’t know those intricate details about those shifts through their career paths. But by the time we get into Titus having ruled, boy, does he get some praise and Suetonius in his “Life of Titus”, notably says, and I quote, “Titus, of the same surname as his father, was the delight and darling of the human race. Such surpassing ability had he, by nature, art or good fortune, to win the affections of all men.” End, quote, To what extent should we see this level of positivity as justified when it comes to Titus rule? Do you think so? Marc Hyden 14:29That’s a little bit of a complicated question. So first things first, Suetonius is one of the least reliable historians of the era. He is really a terrible historian. Excuse me, he represents or presents rumors as verifiable fact. Essentially, he also presents his histories thematically, instead of chronologically, which really makes it difficult for historians to unravel what truly happened. But that aside, now that I’ve really just uh denigrated the memory of Suetonius, does that statement ring true? So I guess my my answer, my roundabout answer, that is, it depends on which Titus we’re talking about. So as a Roman commander in Judea, Titus was he was successful, but he was absolutely brutal, and he made so many tactical errors and perhaps he also strategic errors. As a Roman prince, he acted as a spoiled playboy and was really happy to ruthlessly murder just about anyone rumored of conspiring against his father. So these are not something you would think of as the darling of the human race, but he reinvents himself as a Roman Emperor. After he succeeded to the throne, he acted like a forgiving and loving father. He spared conspirators lives, He lavished gifts on on the Roman people, and he guided the empire through some really challenging circumstances. So from the Roman perspective, Titus was about as good as it gets as an emperor and his brutality as a commander, from the Roman perspective, was probably lauded, since the Romans found it to be necessary. So if Suetonius, if his statement is referring only to Titus emperorship, then from the Roman perspective, his positivity is probably merited, at least to a degree. But we all need to be very honest with each other, calling Titus the darling of the human race, is is beyond excessive, and it’s quite a bit ridiculous. Dr G 16:27Just what we come to expect from Suetonius, though. Dr Rad 16:34Someone who had a bit of a wild young life and then reinvented themselves as emperor… I wonder who that reminds me of Dr G? Dr G 16:43I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess. Dr Rad 16:46So one of the things that we love most about Titus is his love life, because he doesn’t actually have the smoothest of love lives. What do we know about his relationships with women? Marc Hyden 16:57Well, it was a long time before the dating app. So things, things weren’t very smooth when we look at what the ancient accounts say about it. So this is, this is a bit of a longer, longer answer, since he he got around a little bit. So in the early to mid 60s ad, that’s when Titus marries his first wife, Arrecina Tertulla. So the union between them, it really revealed a lot about the Flavian family standing and how they are an up and coming group. Because Titus wife, or Vespasian’s wife, didn’t really hail from a particularly exciting family, but Arrecina Tertulla really was from a family of some more notable successes, notable recent successes. Even though their family was a bit more obscure in their origins, they had achieved equestrian status, so they were pretty wealthy because of this. That probably pleased Vespasian quite a bit, since he seemed to perennially just have all these financial problems. And some of that happened probably as a result of Agrippina stiming his career for a while, so he really couldn’t milk money out of the provinces or anything along those lines. So that must have pleased Vespasian. But this is really a legitimately important family that they married into, because Arrecina’s father was Marcus Arrecinus Clemens, and he was well to do, very influential, and he even served as a Pretorian Prefect. So he was, and this was under Emperor Caligula, so this was a very prestigious position in which he was one of the two commanders of the Imperial Guard. But it also means that he may have had something to do with Caligula’s assassination, whether he was active in or just had knowledge of it, but whatever the case, no one liked Caligula afterwards. So it turns out, he’s probably more of a hero than anything else. But the family aside, so far as modern academics can tell, the two newlyweds, they wasted little time building a family, and arachina had a child, and this was likely a girl named Julia Flavia, although there is scholarly debate over which family or which marriage this belongs to this child, because there’s confusion of even how many children he had. But we, we know that Arrecina dies sometime shortly thereafter, and the ancient accounts don’t tell us why. And really, this is really more of this kind of male dominated view that I think a lot of ancient historians had, where they don’t tell you what happened to a lot of these, these female characters in history. But considering that it happened so soon after birth, she might have died as a result of childbirth, which is a very hazardous thing in antiquity. I mean, very conservative estimates suggest that the maternal mortality rate in ancient Rome might have been around two and a half percent. And again, that’s that’s conservative, but that’s also very terrifying. So this may have caused Titus to to grieve to a degree he lost his first wife, but he remarries really quickly. Um. It’s not clear if he did it because he found love or Vespasian wanted to find another rich family to marry into because he needed cash. But whatever the case, Titus marries into another pretty influential family, and he took Marcia Furnilla’s hand in marriage. Now she was part of a noble family that traced its roots to one of Rome’s fabled kings, Ancius Marcus, so one of the the fourth fabled king of ancient Rome. And even in this era, they enjoyed the family enjoyed quite a bit of success and considerable wealth, which Vespasian probably appreciated. But this marriage is very short lived for an undisclosed reason, the two get divorced fairly quickly. And the ancient authors, they don’t tell us why, but what seems to be the case is that some of her family members were accused of conspiring against Nero. This was a big problem. They could be terrible. Things happened to the people that were involved in these alleged conspiracies, and the Flavians wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted to continue their rise to the top, be successful, enjoy fame and fortune, and they probably wouldn’t have faced any legal problems just being married to having Titus married this woman, however, it could have stopped their careers from ascending. So Titus probably just thought of his wise we’re going to get divorced. I’m going to move on, even though she was likely innocent of any wrongdoing. So that’s the last Roman woman that we know for sure that Titus has this really close relationship with, and the next relationship that really dominates the rest of Titus life, she wasn’t even a Roman. So after joining with his father in the east to quell the Jewish revolt, Titus noticed the Jewish king Agrippa’s sister. This is the powerful queen, Berenice. So whether it was her beauty or charisma, he was quickly smitten with Berenice, and they begin this long standing romantic relationship that it spanned many, many years, and she probably welcomed this development because it brought their her family and her people as a result, closer to the Romans, but it also helped quell probably some rumors that went around suggesting that she had an incestual relationship with her brother since They lived together, something that was probably very unfair, but the the rumor existed, so she may have welcomed this. So this, this romance, probably lasts throughout the war, and then Titus goes home, but he goes home without Berenice, but in 75 CE roundabouts, he invites her to come. There’s plenty of debate. Why didn’t she come with him? Why did they wait this long? But to me, it seems pretty clear, the Flavians probably looked at her as a little bit of a liability, and they wanted to make sure that they had stable control over their position in Rome before they brought this eastern queen to come. And in relatively short order, she did arrive, and she moves into the Imperial Palace, shares a bed with Titus. She expected that they would get married, and in fact, Titus might have even promised his hand in marriage to her already, but they didn’t feel like they needed to be married for her to act in like these official ways. And this really shocked the Romans, because she flexed her newfound power. Quintilian even complained about having to plead some sort of case before her, which he just thought was bizarre. He’s a Roman. This is, this is an Eastern queen. And to the Romans, this was really unacceptable. They believed that the members the Imperial Household, especially heirs to the purple, they were expected to marry upstanding Roman women, not foreign Queens. And I’m sure this, this generated a lot of racist comments about letting an Eastern Queen infiltrate the imperial palace, and it also conjured up images of another very unpopular Eastern queen, Cleopatra. So the Romans were very suspicious about Berenice, and they spoke out against her. And it seems like the flavians tried to contain these objections, but it became clear that the Romans were very unforgiving of this, and Titus and Vespasian knew that they had to send her back to the east to ensure that they remained popular. So they sent her on her way. It probably around 79 AD, and then it was all it was very shortly after that that Vespasian dies and Titus becomes emperor, and for some reason, Berenice comes back to Rome. We don’t know if she was invited or came out of her own accord. Whatever we know is it was a very short stint – Titus sent her back to the east. I guessed, I guess the Romans were still very unhappy with that relationship. But whatever the case, this seems like it was. She was his true love, and that would be the last time he ever saw her. Dr Rad 24:48Ah the tragedy. Dr G 24:51Yes, particularly with the parallels with Cleopatra as well, the Romans are not well set up to handle women from elsewhere. Yeah, maybe having just the capacity to lead and to be in the high echelons of Roman society. So it’s perhaps not a surprise. And I do wonder about that last visit where it’s like, can we make this work? And Titus is like, I don’t think we can. And it’s not about you, it’s about everybody else. I’d love you to stay. Dr Rad 25:19It’s not you, it’s Rome. Dr G 25:21It’s Rome. Yeah, it’s always Rome. And you’ve alluded to the things that are going on in Judea already, because obviously they play a hugely significant role in the lead up to Titus coming into this position of leadership. But this conquest also has a lot of written sources attached to it as well. So I’m interested in why the conquest at this point is so significant, and how do our written sources help us build a detailed picture of what is going on in the east in this time period? Marc Hyden 25:54Well, I think you absolutely have to consider this is really part of not just Titus legacy is as well as Rome’s. This is very important. But when you look at the the sources that we have for this, really the only bulked out source that we have is Josephus. He his account is what has survived. You see mentions of the Jewish War in the different, different writings. You know, Cassius Dio, Suetonius. I mean, we have these passing accounts, but nothing like Josephus has. But we also need to be careful when we read Josephus, because the Flavians essentially bankrolled him. So of course, he’s going to make Titus look fantastic. He’s going to make Vespasian look great as well. And despite all of Josephus faults this, he provides so much knowledge and so much information about Titus in his corpus of writing. So I think it’s very important to bring that in, to consider that and when you if you just look at the the war very briefly, so it’s sparked through different riots and mistreatment of the Jews by the Romans, as well as the Greek speaking population, they rise up. And Josephus is even one of the generals for the rebellion. And he’s stationed in Galilee and fights against Vespasian. And there’s the this, this penultimate battle in Jotapata, where he tries to hold out for over 40 days around about and eventually falls and even predicts that Vespasian will become emperor one day, and they decide not to execute him. So that’s also a very good tale, a cautionary tale, if you ever captured in war, tell the person that captures you, he’s going to be emperor one day, and he’ll probably spare your life. So Titus is alongside Vespasian through this. And they go through all these these cities, and there’s these exciting battles that Josephus has really provide a wealth of knowledge about. So it’s Vespasian who really wins a lot of the Jewish war. And he goes to Alexandria later on to wait until he goes to Rome and leaves Titus in charge here. And this is when Titus has 60 to 80,000 men under his command, and he uses them primarily for the siege of Jerusalem, which is extended, as I mentioned. It’s very bloody. We have terrible accounts from Josephus of cannibalism, starvation, famine. You know, I mentioned that Josephus said that a million Jews died just in the siege. Again, that’s his accounting. It’s probably an exaggeration. According to Tacitus, it’s no more than 600,000, but even if it’s 100,000 which is what some modern academics suggest, that is a massive number. So even though a lot of the other writers, Cassius, Dio, Suetonius, Tacitus, they kind of sidestep a lot of the Jewish War. Josephus gives us an amazing account and shows how important this is, not just to stabilizing the Roman Empire, but turning Vespasian and Titus into what they are. They’re able to use this to propel themselves to take over, because during the year of the four emperors, Vespasian is sitting there with all these legionaries at his disposal, and he’s able to use that to come in and take over. And meanwhile, Vespasian does that, and then Titus plays clean up sacks Jerusalem, which is critically important, and he also destroys the Temple. But I think one of the things that really is is probably overlooked by many, is what Titus did in Jerusalem helps lay the groundwork for unrest in the Middle East that persists to this day. Dr Rad 29:37It’s such a such an interesting time to be talking about right now. So when Vespasian eventually heads back to Rome during this troublesome time, he does so after having been proclaimed Imperator by his troops and his son, Titus is, of course, at his side. Now this is a really unusual time in Rome’s history, because it’s the first time that. That an imperial dynasty has ended and a new one is now coming in, although, of course, nobody knows that that’s definitely what’s going to happen at this point. But we’re curious to know how, how is Titus training to be emperor different from and similar to that of the Julio-Claudians who preceded him? Marc Hyden 30:18Yeah. So unlike a lot of the other Imperial successors Titus, he wasn’t originally groomed for this purpose. He had no inkling that he would ever be in this position, and that he had no reason to believe that he ever would be. He simply wanted to be a senator, like his father, be a lawyer and somehow find wealth, fame and success. Maybe it’s in the political realm. Maybe it’s in the military. So as I mentioned, he got this aristocratic education, climbed the political ladder, fought in the legions, but as we know, he was destined for a lot more. So once Vespasian rose to power, he very unmistakably, from the beginning, marked Titus out as a successor in some similar as well as different ways than his forebears. So Vespasian worked to ensure that Titus had a resume that of someone that you would want to be emperor, and the power to be able to seize it. So he shared consulships with Vespasian. Titus and Vespasian shared consulships. They shared a triumph together through Rome after the sacking of Jerusalem, and Vespasian ensured that Titus had the notable military successes, namely the sacking of Jerusalem to really put on his resume and build out his curriculum vitae. But beyond this, Vespasian elevates Titus to almost his equal, at least on paper. So they kind of rule together, but it was very clear that Titus was a subordinate. But as a prince, he enjoyed Imperium, he enjoyed tribunician potestas. He represented Vespasian in the Senate sometimes. And then Vespasian also makes this very novel decision to make his son one of the Praetorian Guard prefects, essentially the head of a couple legions that are stationed in and around Rome who were asked to protect the Emperor. Now, no Emperor’s son had ever held this role before, but it ensured the allegiance of the sometimes fickle Praetorians. So because of all of this, there was nobody more qualified and better position to succeed Vespasian than Titus, any of the backing of the pretorians to ensure that seamless transition. So thanks to Titus work and Vespasian’s preparations, Titus became the first biological son of a Roman emperor to succeed him. Dr G 32:37Oh yeah, that is an interesting detail, isn’t it, the Julio-Claudians, what a mess. So one of the incredible things that sort of happens in this period of time is that we have the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, which is considered by scholars to be a hugely significant document. It bundles together for the first time, all of the powers, all of the privileges that had gradually become associated with the concept of the Emperor under the Julio-Claudians and because it was assumed kind of knowledge up until this point. But we now have a change in family. There’s a sense in which, how can we formalize and make it legal for this kind of de facto position of power to be passed on to somebody who’s not in that family. I’m interested in to what extent you would say that this influences Titus as he shifts from being vespasians, right hand man to Emperor himself. Marc Hyden 33:37Yeah, that’s that’s a bit of a tough one. So the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani has long been debated by people far smarter than than me, so like you two, far smarter than me, and it only exists in fragmentary form, so some of it’s missing, but what I will say is that this was an important piece of Flavian PR because it really it legitimizes Vespasian’s rule, it makes it clear, or at least tries to make it clear to his subjects that he wasn’t just another usurper, like like Otho or Vitellius. He was legitimate. He was different than those guys. But how did this influence Titus? That’s that’s not really clear, but I will say sure it provided a framework for him to follow as emperor, but he enjoyed a lot of that same power before he became emperor. So when he was Vespasian’s companion, but he, like the rest of Rome, they now saw Rome for what it was. It was a military dictatorship. The year of the four emperors washed away any sort of veneer of Rome being a republic or being even a constitutional principate. The truth was that armies now made emperors, not the Senate, not the people and anyone could really stake their claim to the throne and could seize it without senatorial approval or without approval even in the comitia. But it was still, despite that, it was still important to maintain the pretenses of legitimate rule and Republican forms, even though the Republic had been long, long dead. So from that perspective, it was important for Titus, and considering that at large, he gave emperors unfettered power, he probably felt like it was pretty easy to operate under those confines, but he understood that he could violate any provision he wanted, because he was an autocrat and the head and he had the Army’s backing, and that was the sad reality of Rome at this time. Dr G 35:35What a place to be – you’ve revealed yourself for what you are, finally Dr Rad 35:40The veil has been lifted Dr G 35:42None of this principate business Dr Rad 35:44I know. I know So with all this build up and it seems so promising. You know, Titus, the darling of the human race, he seems to have got his resume just right, first biological son to succeed his father as emperor, and yet he only rules for such a short time, just over two years, from 79 CE, when Vespasian passed away, to 81 CE, nonetheless, that’s still some time for him to have some achievements and certainly face some obstacles. So we’d love for you to tell us a bit more about what happens when he’s actually emperor. Marc Hyden 36:23Yeah, so Titus may have presided over the busiest two year span in the Empire’s history, at least up until this point, Agricola was at war in Britannia. Vesuvius erupted and laid waste in numerous cities, including Pompeii and Herculaneum. Fire ravages Rome and a plague decimates its numbers. But despite this, Titus did everything within his power and also his financial means to guide the empire through adversity, even though it supposedly led him nearly to fiscal ruin because of it, but the people just they realized the world was a different place. They were facing all of these calamities, but they appreciated Titus endeavors, because he responded to each crisis with great aplomb, or at least with the best of intentions, and they understood this. But his tenure, it was not just marked by adversity. There were tranquil moments as well. He constructed his eponymus baths. Built roads and bridges and updated aqueducts, and he finished the Colosseum, which we could all go look at today, at least well enough for the inaugural games. It probably didn’t have the final floor finished at the time, at least in stone. And he opened it, and he hosts an unprecedented 100 days of games, and they bear witness to 1000s of beasts being killed, myriad executions, and an untold number of gladiators sparring with another which the people loved. And during his tenure, he also saw that his father was deified. So you know, that’s also another great thing. If you become emperor, you can make your dad a god, which makes you the son of a god or a daughter of a god, really work. It’s a great system that they had in place there. And even though a lot of his predecessors would not have done this, he showed forgiveness to people that plotted against him in ways that they they never would have dreamed of doing so. In short, this was a very action packed two years. Dr G 38:21I do like the idea that many emperors start off with quite a good stint early on, only for things to go tragically downhill the further they’re in power. And I wonder to what extent Titus has been saved from that fate by dying so soon into his reign, and we will just never know he dies suddenly from a fever, which a tragedy. This is shocking to everybody, and led to great speculation, even at the time, that this was not the case of poor health, necessarily, but murder most foul Dr Rad 38:56Mwahahahaha Dr G 38:59Exactly. I’m wondering, Mark, what’s your view on Titus death based on your research? Marc Hyden 39:05Well, first of all, to go back to what you were talking about, about emperors having a great, you know, honeymoon period, and that’s, that’s something that they talked about. Believe it was Cassius Dio said, you know, he just didn’t live. He may not have lived long enough to become the terrible Emperor he was destined to be. We just don’t know. He might have turned into Domitian. Who knows? But to answer your question about his death, it goes back to 81 AD, so a little over two years into his Imperial administration, he and some of his followers decided to go to the countryside for a break. They wanted to get out of the busy Rome, the stench and everything else that comes with it. But as they made their journey, Titus realizes something is really wrong. He develops this incredibly high fever, and then his servants, they rush him to a farmhouse in Sabine country, near near react, and along the way, Titus’ condition continues to get worse, and he understands that this is going to claim his life, and this really confused him. So he was 41 years old, which I may humbly present as a very young age. Dr Rad 40:12I totally agree. Marc Hyden 40:14He believed that he had lived a life pleasing to the gods, and he was at the height of his power. Why would the gods take his life at this moment. So on the verge of death, he he throws open the curtains on his litter and exclaims, I have made but one mistake. Now we don’t know what that one mistake was, but we do know that he dies not long after on September 13, 81 AD in the very farmhouse in which his father Vespasian had perished. So the question of what killed him, what was the cause of death, has really vexed ancient and even some modern historians and the ancient authors, they provided kind of a slew of theories to attempt to explain what killed him, and they range from impossible to improbable. But thanks to the diligence of some modern scholars, we may have the answer, but first we have to talk about what the ancient authors thought. So, given the rapid and very unexpected death of a pretty popular emperor, the Romans grew suspicious that Titus had been slain, and some claimed that Domitian was behind it. One theory suggested that Titus, or excuse me, Domitian, had Titus packed in ice when he was sick, knowing that that would kill him. So it’s not impossible that Domitian had this done, and he may have done it along with doctor’s orders as a way to reduce Titus uncontrolled fever. But other ancient authors said that Titus died through other means. Domitian poisoned them, so more Imperial intrigue. And Flavius Philostratus even says that Domitian used a sea hair to taint Titus food or drink somehow, which which killed him. But modern academics, they’ve kind of poo-pooed that idea. They don’t believe that that would really have worked. And this also kind of reveals what the ancient writers thought about Domitian. They did not like the guy, they loathed him, and he was an easy target, at least at this point. So they latched on to all these unsubstantiated rumors saying that Domitian was somehow behind Titus death. And, you know, he did have a motive, because he became emperor, it just seems very unlikely that he had anything to do with with killing his brother, at least on purpose. Then there’s a Jewish tradition, and this is one of my favorite ones, and it suggests that a gnat flew up Titus nose, lived in his brain for seven years and slowly picked at his brain as it grew to the size of a sparrow. This is a tradition that obviously is, I don’t believe that anyone thinks of it as fact, it might be part of some sort of tale. Gnats don’t operate this way. They don’t grow to the size of small birds, at least where I live. And the Romans generally didn’t do autopsies and open up Emperor’s brains to see what’s going on in there. So this didn’t that was not the cause. Could not have been. Dr G 43:09That’s a real shame. That’s a real shame because, I mean, come on, if that was, that was what happened. We need to know. We need to go back and find the body, do an autopsy. Was he somehow trapped by a gnat while he was in Judea that lived in his brain. Marc Hyden 43:24If that is possible, I’m never going outside again. But Plutarch, he went in a different direction, said that Titus died because he loved taking a bath too much. And I also think that that’s probably not the case, unless he caught some sort of contagion while bathing with with other people. But what really seems to be the case is relatively clear in the ancient record, if you look through it through a modern lens. So if we go back, it’s September in ancient Italy, and Titus acquires a high fever that strikes him down quickly. So we’ve got several things to look at here. And Saul bastomsky theorized, based on that that Titus died from malignant malaria. It was relatively common in Titus era and region at the time. It surged in late summer and early fall, and it’s marked by a high fever that kills its victims really quickly. So it seems that was probably natural causes that led to his death. And if it was malignant malaria, then sadly, Titus, he just never stood a chance. Dr Rad 44:29How intriguing the potential of an emperor to have died from the Ice Bucket Challenge? Who would have thought so? Perhaps, to wrap up now that Titus has departed from this earth. What is it that you think makes Titus unique from the Emperors that came before him? Marc Hyden 44:50Well, he was just so different from the Julio-Claudians. For starters, he was a true warrior. He led troops. He got into the nitty gritty of battle. Unlike the Julio-Claudians, with the exception of Augustus and Tiberius, they saw some some real battle. But for the rest of the pampered Julio-Claudians, Titus was very different. He was also the first, as I mentioned, Pretorian Prefect to become emperor, and the first biological son of an emperor to become emperor. Again, very different from the Julio-Claudians, and during his short stint, he proved to be a forgiving and magnanimous ruler who eschewed killing even conspirators, and so far as we can tell, he didn’t have a single scandal throughout all of his Imperial tender tenure. Again, it was only a couple of years, but still, no scandals. Most Julio-Claudians couldn’t have said the same about about their own. Dr Rad 45:43Oh, yeah, Caligula had scandals pretty quickly. Marc Hyden 45:47Yes, they would. They stacked up very quickly. You’re right. He also gave the Romans a gift that his predecessors would have killed for the Colosseum, and he gave the Romans 100 days of games and killing, just on an industrial scale, and they loved him for it. And he was also different. This is a little less interesting, but he was different because he had the shortest Imperial tenure to date, excluding the usurpers of the year, the four emperors, of any of his predecessors. And unlike many of his predecessors, when he died, he was probably at the height of his popularity, the Romans loved him. Remember, he’s he’s the darling of the human race, although, of course, that’s exaggeration. So to close out neatly, I would say the life of Titus is one of the greatest stories rarely told. So it’s the tale of Titus unlikely ascent to power, a veritable holy war in Israel, the coliseums rise, and of course, we know Pompeii’s fall and then tragic Titus own tragic and untimely death. But for whatever reason, a lot of the story has been buried beneath centuries of silence. And you know, a lot of the ancient Romans loved and even worshiped Titus. They considered him this model of virtue, essentially as an emperor to be emulated. But modern scholars, they have overlooked him for whatever reason. They’ve cast him aside, perhaps because of his short Imperial tenure, and this has left some unmistakable gaps in the record. So I decided to take on this project and write emperor Titus the right hand of Vespasian. And hopefully, hopefully it will end his long term neglect, and we won’t have to worry about the massive gaps in the record that have been there for so long. Dr G 47:35Yes, thank you so much for providing all of this detail, and I cannot recommend your book, highly enough, that’s “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”, because you do go into so much of the detail, particularly with what is going on in the early days of Titus building his military reputation, particularly when it comes to what is happening in Judea, which is an extensive campaign that really funds a lot of what The Flavians are able to achieve. So I think understanding that side of it better. How did this seemingly unassuming family rise to the top is really important, and seeing how Titus is able to carry on that legacy of Vespasian particularly interesting as well. Marc Hyden 48:18Yeah, and I really appreciate that the kind words. And it really is something I find to be pretty amazing. Everyone has heard of Vespasian, who’s interested in ancient Rome, and even his ascent is is very unlikely. And he brings he brings his family along, and as people will find out that are students of history, they’ll see the Flavian dynasty. It starts off very stable, but it goes off the rails pretty quickly. But they want to say that, you know, Vespasian and Titus, they had a good run. Dr G 48:48Yeah, two out of three ain’t bad. Dr Rad 48:50I was gonna say. I can’t help but wonder if Titus reputation is also somewhat improved by the fact that Domitian is the one that follows. Marc Hyden 48:59That certainly does help his standing. It also helps his standing, as well as Vespasian that a lot of the people at the time, the historians at the time, that wrote the history, they tended to bankroll so you tend to say nice things about your benefactor. So they they benefited greatly from some fantastic PR and that’s that’s another thing. If you’re going to be emperor, pay people to write your history. They’ll say nice things. Dr Rad 49:25That’s the mistake that Julia-Claudians made. Rookie errors. Rookie errors. Dr G 49:34Well, thank you so much Mark for joining us and sitting down to tell us all about Titus and the way he comes to power, and those precious two years he gets to be emperor, we’ve really enjoyed it. Marc Hyden 49:44Hey. Thanks so much for having me on and I’ll just have to burn through another book real quick so I can come back. Dr G 49:56Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com we offer a huge thank you to you, if you’re one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we’d love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We’re on Ko-Fi for one off or ongoing donations or Patreon of course. Our latest book, “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire”, is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don’t want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome’s glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire. Transcribed by https://otter.ai The post Special Episode – The Emperor Titus with Marc Hyden appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Episode 169 – The Gallic Sack of Rome – Part 4

We’re back with more exciting episodes from the infamous Gallic sack of Rome. If you haven’t listened to our previous eps, make sure you go back to the beginning of this tale! The Bermuda Triangle? Or the Holy Trinity? We have action in three different locations in this episode – Camillus in Ardea, the remnants of the Roman army in Veii and the Romans under siege on the Capitoline. A recreation of the Temple of the Capitoline Triad on one of the peaks of the hill (albeit in a later period). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The siege had entered a fairly quiet stage where little was happening on either side. It was at this point that one of the Fabian clan decided that his duty to the gods was worth more than his life. Gaius Fabius Dorsuo calmy descended from the Capitol, past the stunned Gauls and went off to the Quirinal to perform an annual sacrifice that was part of Fabian tradition. His piety so impressed the Gauls that they allowed him to pass, unscathed. The Romans in Veii had selected the centurion, Quintus Caedicius as their commander. They were growing in numbers as stragglers who fled during the attack sought refuge. Latin allies also joined the Romans. It depends on which account you read as to what happened next. Livy claims that the forces at Veii decide that they have had enough beauty sleep and now they want Camillus recalled from exile so they can seek their vengeance. Other sources indicate that they were just trying to get word to their fellow Romans that they were, in fact, ALIVE! Either way, a sprightly young man named Publius Cominus was selected to travel to the besieged city and smuggle himself onto the Capitol to deliver his message. The Return of Camillus Whichever version you believe, somehow Camillus worms his way back into our narrative, and our hearts. Naturally, Camillus would not set foot outside of Ardea without all the paperwork being in order, but once his exile was officially over, he was ready to step into the role of dictator. However, Camillus was still packing his bags when the Gauls noticed a possible route up the top of Capitoline. It meant scaling up a cliff face, so surely the Romans would never suspect it. It’s so crazy, it just might work. A bronze sculpture of goose from the Capitoline Museum collection. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Slowly, the Gauls helped each other to make the difficult climb. They were so quiet, the Roman dogs did not hear the coming. But the sacred geese sure did! They caused such a ruckus that Marcus Manlius woke up and realised what was going on. This allowed him to arouse the other Romans and lead the charge against the attackers. It gets pretty grisly at this point. Best case scenario: the Gauls were hurled to their deaths. Worst case… you’ll have to listen to find out! Things to Look Out For: Far too many songs from Dr Rad Sustainable travel, Roman-style LOTS of piety A kamikaze Fabian On a serious note, please be aware that this episode does include discussion of animal cruelty. Our Players 390 BCE Military Tribunes with Consular Power Q. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) K. Fabius M. f. Q n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 404, 401, 395 N. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 406 Q. Sulpicius -f. -n. Longus (Pat) Q. Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 402, 398, 395, 388, 386 P. Cornelius P. f. M. n. Maluginensis (Pat) Cos. 393? Mil. Tr. c. p. 397 Dictator M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381 Master of the Horse L. Valerius (L. f. L. n. Poplicola) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 394, 389, 387, 383 OR L. Valerius (L. f. P. n. Potitus) (Pat) Cos. 393, 392; Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398 Pontifices ?-390: M. Folius (Flaccinator?) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 433 Pontifex Maximus; slain by the Gauls C. or K. Fabius Dorsuo (Pat) Augurs or Pontifex 439-390: Q. ? Servilius P. f. (Sp. n. Priscus or Structus Fidenas?) (Pat) Successor: [—- Furi]us Q. f. P. nepos Fu[sus] (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 403 Our Sources Dr Rad reads Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 5.45-47; Pliny the Elder 29.14 [57] (for the story of dog crucifixion) Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.113-117; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 13.6-12; Appian, BC, 2.50; Appian, Gallic History, 1-4; Justinus, Epitome of Pompeius’ Trogus’ Philippic Histories; Aurelius Victor, De virus illustribus 23; Eutropius 1.20 Bernard, Seth. “Rome from the Sack of Veii to the Gallic Sack.” In Building Mid-Republican Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190878788.003.0003. Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association) Cornell, T. J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC) (Taylor & Francis) Forsythe, G. 2006. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press)  Duff, T. E. 2010. ‘Plutarch’s Themistocles and Camillus’. In N. Humble, ed., Plutarch’s Lives: parallelism and purpose (Classical Press of Wales: Swansea, 2010), pp. 45-86. Elvers, K. (., Courtney, E. (. V., Richmond, J. A. (. V., Eder, W. (., Giaro, T. (., Eck, W. (., & Franke, T. (. (2006). Furius. In Brill’s New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e416550 Gowing, Alain M. 2009. “The Roman exempla tradition in imperial Greek historiography: The case of Camillus in Feldherr, A., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Lomas, Kathryn (2018). The rise of Rome. History of the Ancient World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674919938. ISBN978-0-674-65965-0. S2CID239349186. Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).  Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley). Stevenson, T.R. “Parens Patriae and Livy’s Camillus.” Ramus 29, no. 1 (2000): 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0048671X00001673. Automated Transcript Dr Rad 0:15Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:19We explore all the details of ancient Rome, Dr Rad 0:23everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged, and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad Dr G 0:33and I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Dr Rad 0:57Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts. Dr rad, Dr G 1:05and I am, Dr G, and I am excited. We are deep in the Gallic sack of Rome. Dr Rad 1:14You know, I knew this was going to be a big event. Dr G, but even I had underestimated just how much detail we have to get through today. Dr G 1:22There is so much. And this is episode four in this mini series, this limited series on the Partial Historians channel, Dr Rad 1:32just when you thought the girls couldn’t do any more to the Romans they do. So Dr, G, I feel it might be necessary to do a brief recap, because we’ve already covered multiple episodes, and I suspect this will actually not be our last on the Gallic sack of Rome. So let’s revisit where the Romans are at right now. Dr G 1:53It’s tough times for the Romans. They have encountered the Gauls. Taking us right back to the beginning, they’ve offended the Gauls. The Gauls have marched on Rome. The Romans have hidden in their own city, being like they’ll never fight us here, and the Gauls have found them there. And the Gauls are determinedly outside the walls of the city, and increasingly encroaching into the city space itself and pillaging the local area as well, because if there’s anything that 70,000 Gauls need, it’s food and supplies, and you can’t just sit down and have a siege if you yourselves are going hungry. Dr Rad 2:33No, and we’ve definitely seen some brutal deaths as the Gauls have undertaken this process of sacking Rome, most tragically, perhaps, the elderly senators. So it hasn’t been great. Dr G 2:49The Romans did decide at a certain point that they could only feed and look after so many Roman citizens on the Capitol, which is where they’ve retreated to the high point of the city. And in a very noble gesture, it seems that the eldest of the aristocracy have decided to give up their lives by sitting down in the lower parts of the city in their own homes and just waiting the Gauls arrival. And the Gauls do arrive, and it goes exactly as you might expect. Those old men aren’t physically tough enough to resist the Gauls, and they do get killed. Dr Rad 3:25I feel like the Brave Heart line kind of applies here. You may take our lives, but you’ll never take our freedom. Dr G 3:33They die as free men. They die as Romans. There’s weird to us. I suppose it’s a good thing, as much as we criticize the patricians constantly on this show, it might be one of our characteristics as a podcast. Dr Rad 3:46That’s one of our partialities. One might say, Dr G 3:49potentially Yes, in this moment, the aristocracy do show themselves as people who are willing to put Rome before themselves in that very last moment. So I do give them kudos and respect for that, Dr Rad 4:06I would, but I feel like this is the kind of story that the Romans like to tell about themselves to justify this elite nonsense. Dr G 4:15Never believe anything that the elite Romans tell you. Dr Rad 4:19Perhaps one of the big problems though, that the Romans are facing Dr G is that the hero of the day, Camillus, who has been such a character throughout the past episodes we’ve been doing, he has been exiled by the Roman people. And it seems like this, at least for Livy, is one of the reasons that the Romans are in such a pickle right now, Dr G 4:44the best guy’s been left out. Of course, we can’t win Dr Rad 4:47exactly if you missing one man, clearly, you cannot resist a Gallic invasion. Dr G 4:53Yes, the morality of Livy never fails to inspire Dr Rad 4:58but in our last. Episode, we have started to see the return of Camillus. He’s got his warrior act on. Dr G He’s making himself into a Marvel superhero, coming out of exile, starting to cause some headaches for the Gauls in the region, Dr G 5:19and this is a very confusing part of the story, and one that historians have wrestled with, because within the context of the various narratives that we have about this Gallic sack, Camillus plays a bit part at best, and he is in it Dr Rad 5:40A bit part? Camillus? Dr G 5:43I know, I know he’s got main character energy, but one of the variations on this narrative is that in vey the commander, there a guy called Quintus Caedicius is the one who puts forward the idea that they need Camillus to be able to get through this time of trouble, and that’s before we even suppose for a moment that they and Rome know about their split forces, which it is not clear at all in other versions of the narrative, but we do have This account of Quintus Caedicius Raising the call for Camillus to be recalled and instated as dictator, and it is something that is apparently agreed to by the Roman Senate in Camillus absence. So the suggestion seems to be in some versions of the story that Camillus is still in exile and ultimately receives word that he has been appointed dictator without his knowledge, and now must do the great things that are required by a dictator. Now, on some level, you want to believe a story like that, because it sounds incredibly characteristic of the way the Romans want to believe that their republic worked. On the other hand, what we see Camillus doing is leaving Ardea raiding a Gaulish camp that is a foraging and pillaging camp, and then disappearing from the narrative again. Well, the whole Gallic sack actually happens. Dr Rad 7:13Well, see, this is the chronology that Livy gives me, the sack of that Gallic camp that we dealt with last time that all happens before any talk of dictatoriness. So it seems like Camillus is more just concerned. You know, he’s a concerned on looker. He’s invested in Rome’s fate. Dr G 7:34He’s like, I see trouble on the horizon. I see some Gauls in my local area. I should do something about that, because that’s the Roman way, Dr Rad 7:41exactly yes. And so that’s kind of where we were up to, I think, in our last episode. And so I don’t know about you, Dr G, but I am. I’m ready for some Gallic sacking. Ah, ah, Dr G 8:15we’re up to seeing one of the great parts of this story in this episode, because at the same sort of parallel timeline that we have Caedicius, sort of seeking out the dictatorship for Camillus, we also have another figure from Veii, a guy called Cominius Pontius, who seems to wander down to the city on the premise that they need to give Rome the information that there is a whole additional Roman force. So we have this moment where the Roman forces in Veii come to the understanding that maybe, just maybe the Romans don’t know that there’s a whole bunch of Romans also in Veii, and we saw the fear that had happened in the aftermath of the Battle of the Allia, where people were just running away, sort of in any direction that they could to get away from the Gauls. And we know that some of them end up back in Rome and some of them end up in Veii but they do not seem to be aware of how many have ended up where, Dr Rad 9:22and that would, that would make sense, I think, in the panic of a truly horrible battle which really hasn’t gone their way, that people would just scatter and you wouldn’t know what had happened to various sides of the army. Dr G 9:36Yeah, definitely. So you’ve got this situation where you’re running for your life. You’re not necessarily counting who’s going in your direction and who’s going in another direction. Dr Rad 9:44Hey, Bill, Bill, are you heading to Rome or they? I’m kind of thinking they. That’s kind of my vibe right now. Are you thinking Rome? Oh, oh, this is awkward. Dr G 9:54I guess I’ll catch up with you later. Yeah. Like, Dr Rad 9:57we’ll, you know, like, have some exile and. You with some sages, and then I’ll catch you when I see you. Dr G 10:03Send me a letter. Dear Bill, I’m still in Veii. Dr Rad 10:08Dear Marsha, our love for each other will never die. We just have to endure this siege a little longer and this separation, my darling, please hang on. Ever Yours. Dr G 10:26It’s a tragic time, but they’re not letter writing either. They literally don’t know anybody’s anywhere. So it seems, at some point into this whole process, and we’re of the understanding that the siege of Rome is something like six to seven months worth of siege. At some point in this process, the Roman forces that have gathered in Veii are like, maybe we could help and maybe Dr Rad 10:52second, wait a second, we’re here, but nobody knows we’re here. Oh my god, Dr G 11:02we could be the secret backup force that breaks the siege. We could. Dr Rad 11:08I’m sensing an opportunity, guys, Dr G 11:13is it strategy or is it tactics? Nobody knows. So we have this moment they come to this realization. The Romans in Veii are like, Wait a minute. We could be we could help. And they decide to send a delegate, just one person, it would seem, maybe accompanied by a few others, but only one is named, Dr Rad 11:32oh, he’s definitely by himself in in my account. In fact, I particularly appreciated the detail that Livy gives me that he managed to get to Rome by floating down the Tiber on some cork. Dr G 11:48Wow, that is not the story I’ve got. That’s amazing look. Dr Rad 11:52I’m all for sustainable materials, but that just seems flimsy to me. Dr G 11:56I mean, the cork would float, but it would have to be a very large piece of cork to work to float a human Dr Rad 12:01picturing him being like, you know, if everybody had an ocean, then everybody be surfing. Dr G 12:12Just amazing. All right, so, listeners, picture in your mind Cominius Pontius floating on a piece of cork down the type Dr Rad 12:21of river look. I should also add that in Livy’s account, he is described as a sprightly young thing. So surfing would be in his wheelhouse. I have to assume, Dr G 12:32yeah, look, I mean river surfing, it’s a whole new wave, isn’t it? So Cominius Pontius, he decides to be the one he’s the delegate, or maybe he chooses off his own back. We’re not sure, to take the happy news that there is an additional force really in vain that could surprise. We’re all alive. We lived. And so he heads towards the Capitoline Hill. And in my account, which is maybe less exciting than Livy’s. He is starting out alone, swimming the river by night, and doesn’t seem to have a cork. Dr Rad 13:09He’s swimming okay. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Dr G 13:14Exactly he’s gonna be fine. He reaches one of the cliffs that leads up to the Capitoline, and it is a very difficult climb, but it is night time, and he manages to get himself up this cliff, and he gets to the top, and everyone’s like, what are you doing? He manages to convey the message to the Romans that have placed themselves on the Capitoline for defense, that there are troops at Fay and they are waiting and watching for an opportunity to attack the Gallic forces. The Romans on the Capitoline hill are like that is such good news. Thank you so much. But maybe you should go home. Don’t stay here. This is not a great place to be. So he climbs back down the cliff in the middle of the night and swims back up the Tiber. Dr Rad 14:07That is all very difficult in a time period without much street lighting. He’s doing some Cliff climbing and swimming in the Tiber. Dr G 14:16It’s a one night journey to swim from day night only Dr Rad 14:21one night only, really just there’s so many songs that can be added to the story. Dr G 14:27I’m glad you’re here to lend the sense of drama that is appropriate to this moment. He goes out for one night, swims down the Tiber, climbs a cliff, leaves a message, climbs back down the cliff, swims back up the Tiber, which seems to be more difficult, I would assume, because the tire is working against you now. Yeah, heads back into Veii Dr Rad 14:48well, see that’s where the cork thing makes sense, coming down. But what about going back? Dr G 14:54You get tired. You stop kicking your legs for a bit. You hold on to the cork board, and you lose all of your progress, but when you start again, you haven’t sunk. Dr Rad 15:03Livy gives me a few additional details in the lead up to this Dr G and look, I think this actually goes to show the awkwardness of this account, even though it’s obviously such a notable event, perhaps because it’s such an important event for the Romans, there are obviously going to be various things that people are trying to sandwich in for various reasons, and one of the things that they are trying to sandwich in is Camillus, because who doesn’t love a Camillus sandwich? Oh, no. How does Camillus end up in this story? Well, okay, so I’m going to start at this moment of the sprightly young thing that is Pontius Cominus, and explain how this works with my Camillus narrative. Because you know that Livy in particular is very invested in Camillus story. Pontius caminus is not actually going to Rome in my account to tell the Romans who are besieged by the Gauls up there that we live. There are people in Veii. You might not have known this, but you have this secret surprise extra force that’s reasonably sizable on your side. He’s actually there to tell them that, hey, there’s this collection of us at Veii, and we’ve decided that we need Camillus. That is His sole purpose to be like you guys need to summon Camillus, but we have to go about this the right way. And we knew back in Veii that the right way to handle this was to ask the Senate, because they’re the only ones who can really initiate this whole process. And Livy’s like, what men are the Romans. I mean, even in the darkest of times. They know that you have to follow the proper channels. You know there’s a line of communication here that must be followed. Doesn’t matter if you’re under siege. Doesn’t matter if there’s a gigantic Gallic army that’s just burnt down your city and murdered all the patricians. You still need to go to the appropriate people and get permission before you Dr G 17:01do anything, we will always follow protocol, and Dr Rad 17:05that is what he is there to do. So in Livy’s account, it’s not night time, as far as I can tell. He doesn’t explicitly say that, but what he does is, when he arrives, he sneaks up a very steep part of the Capitoline, which the Gauls had thought, meh, we need to guard that. There is no way any Roman could possibly get up that way, and that’s how he reaches the Capitol. It’s not under the cover of night. It’s just because it’s a part that the Gauls had been like. I think we need to guard that interesting. Dr G 17:37All right, so I mean the insertion of Camillus classic, I suppose, yeah. Dr Rad 17:43And basically he then he gets the permission the magistrates hear him, and the Senate decide that the Curia Comitia, or the Comitia curiata, would indeed end Camillus exile. And they decide at this moment that he would be appointed dictator. And so Pontius Cominus, then has to get back to ve to tell them, right, we’ve got permission. Everything’s happening in the proper way. The proper bodies have been performed. They’re voting, they’re talking, they’re debating. And then they have to send messengers off to Camillus, who is still in exile in Ardea, to tell him to go to they as his first point of call to, obviously, meet the men there. And Livy even explicitly says that he likes to think that Camillus would never have left Ardea until it had all been confirmed that the proper law, etc, had been passed to, like, end his exile. Because, you know what Camillus is like. He’s the straighty-180, keep it legit, man. You got to get the people’s permission. You can’t actually be a dictator. You know, take the auspices in the army until it’s all very official. Put a ring on it, guys, Wow. Dr G 18:54Just wow. I’m just going to put it out there. I don’t think this narrative is very plausible. Dr Rad 19:02Dr, G, I’m disappointed in your lack of imagination. Dr G 19:07First of all, it’s the people in Veii, the Romans in vain, that decide that they would like Camillus to be dictated. That does seem to be a consistent thread in most of the versions. Why would it matter for Camillus to then travel to Veii, because it’s still the Roman Senate in Rome that is making the decision to place him in that position. So if he needs clarification from anybody, it’s not the people in Veii who were like, we think this would be a great idea. What do you reckon Rome? Dr Rad 19:36No, he’s not going he’s not going to Veii. For that, he’s going to ve because those are the forces he’s going to use to help them. Yeah, okay, summon there, because basically in my account. So this is where I’m going to backtrack a little bit. So I actually have a little bit of build up to this moment. Livy explicitly tells me that at they the Romans have spent some time recovering. You know, they’ve been going to the spa. They’ve got cucumbers on their eyes. They’ve got the. Their hair wrapped up in little towels. They’ve got the bathrobes on, and because they’ve had a little bit of downtime, they’ve been getting stronger and braver. They’re feeling regenerated. They’re ready. And they also have additional people constantly joining them. So obviously, with the sack of Rome, there are various Roman people who are just wandering aimlessly throughout the countryside being like, Oh my God, I don’t have a city. I don’t have a home anymore. And they’ve managed to find their way to ve because, as we’ve talked about, they actually isn’t that far away from Rome. So they’ve been joining so they’ve got growing numbers there. Interestingly, Livy also tells me that there are volunteers from Latium who are joining the Roman forces at Veii, because they are after plunder. They smell a battle, and they’re down for it. Now my commentator who I consult, and sadly, this might be one of the last episodes I actually have this commentator to refer to, points out, I think, quite rightly, that this is most likely actually supplies from the Latin treaty, who are turning up. They’re not necessarily volunteers. It’s just the Latins who are obliged to give Romans military service, probably even though the Romans are down in their luck, and this probably seems like a suicide mission, they are there. I also have a really interesting detail before all of this happens, that the Roman soldiers, at they had actually spotted some Etruscans trying to do a bit of raiding while the Romans were down in their luck. And because they were at they and I guess, apparently nobody knew that they were there, they’re just sort of looking out, and they see the Etruscans, you know, being all predatory. And they’re like, oh my god, we’re in this situation, in this exiled city, because we tried to help you Etruscan people. And where has it got us sitting here in Veii watching you trying to take advantage of our situation? I mean, God, these people, these people. And this is where I first get the mention of the centurion Quintus Caedicius, seemingly the commander of they because he organizes an attack on these people. And it’s after this attack, when they sort of dealt with these predatory Etruscans, that he’s like, look, you know what? I think it’s Camillus that we need really, because he’s following, he’s following the example that Camillus has set for him before, like attacking at night and that sort of thing. And so he sort of realizes that this is the moment where I think that we need Camillus. We need a hero. Dr G 22:37Look, this is quite similar to the stuff that Diodorus Siculus tells us, but there are nuances of difference. So we don’t have Quinctius quidictius, for instance, attached to this idea of leading forces against Etruscan opportunists. That doesn’t seem to be a thing. The idea of the Etruscans taking the opportunity is definitely covered. So it seems that as the forces, the Roman forces in Veii are trying to look after the area that they’re locally attached to, in this moment, they notice that there are raiding Etruscan forces, and they do disrupt a number of Etruscan camps and steal the booty from them. So classic raiding mentality going on, being like my shoes. Finally, they have returned to me. Dr Rad 23:27You know what? My city may have been burnt to the ground, but thank god I’ve got my sandals. Dr G 23:32Goodness me, I’ve been waiting years to get these sandals back from the Etruscans. And so they end up in possession of a whole bunch of additional arms, essentially, which allows them to then feel a sense of confidence, being like, Okay, we could raise an armed force of some substance in this moment, which could help break the siege of Rome. Dr Rad 23:55Yes, and that’s, that’s exactly, I think, the point of that story in my account as well. It’s about confidence. Dr G, the Romans need to believe in themselves. Again. They’ve suffered quite a blow. Dr G 24:06Yeah, they do. And now they’re holding a sword in their hand. They’ve got their sandals back on, and they’re like, I can do it now. Dr Rad 24:12I’m ready. I can. I can. I also have this really interesting little story. Dr G, which involves people who used to be called the fabulous fabii, but who I have now dubbed the foolish fabii, Dr G 24:26probably a better classification for them, really, Dr Rad 24:29yes, although this is not a moment of foolishness. And again, I feel like Livy’s really trying to constantly build up throughout his narrative of the siege. This idea that look the Romans definitely screwed up in the lead up to this event, they ignored portents. They didn’t look at the signs properly. You know, things were not as they should have been. But once the siege begins, all we seem to see is Romans behaving correctly. And there’s this moment in the siege that Livy. Tells me about. So there’s a lull. Nothing’s really going on. The Gauls are kind of just hanging out watching being like, God so dull, just trying to make sure that the Romans really aren’t escaping at this point. And they’re obviously all up there, you know, Citadel, capital, whatever. But then suddenly, both the Romans and the Gauls are astounded to see a lone Roman leaving the area where the Romans have secured themselves. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s one of the fabii. Dr, G What? Yeah. Gaius Fabius Dorsuo, hmm. This is a Dr G 25:41narrative which I have never come across in any other source, so I’m fascinated to hear how this goes. Dr Rad 25:46Okay, so the family of the Fabii allegedly make an annual sacrifice on the quirinal hill. Okay, okay, I take it back. I do have a source on this. Okay, and it’s this moment that Gaius Fabius Dorsuo is like, well, Siege or no siege, sacrifices must be held, so I’m just going to leave by myself in the midst of this siege, and he’s all ready for the sacrifice. We can tell this because Livy tells me he’s in the gabinian Cincture, which basically means that he’s like, belted his toga so that His arms can be free. Because, as we’ve talked about before, the toga is an unwieldy garment not really made for doing anything but gesturing with one arm emphatically, Dr G 26:29yeah, Heaven forfend, you have to grab a jar off a shelf with two hands, because that would be impossible in your toga, exactly. Dr Rad 26:34And he’s having to carry sacred vessels, so he needs his hands. Dr G 26:39These are sacred vessels that have not been removed from Rome. I note, Dr Rad 26:43well, exactly. I mean, these are presumably something to do with his family, I guess. Anyway, so he leaves the Capitol. He just walks straight through the pickets erected by the Gauls, and they obviously start hurling threats at him. He completely ignores them. He’s in the zone. He cares not for these Gallic threats, he just goes straight to the Quirinal hill and starts carrying out the rights and then returns seemingly entirely confident that because he is doing the right thing, he would be unharmed. He would not let death scare him away from the proper worship of the gods the Gauls have their jaws on the floor. They are completely confounded, kind of impressed by the level of his religious dedication. And there is maybe a little insult here in Livy’s account about the Gauls being like an overly superstitious people. I can’t really figure out if it’s meant to be a compliment that the girls were impressed by the Roman but I think it’s probably more a bit of a backhander where he’s like, you know, the girls, overly superstitious, foolish people, Dr G 27:54fascinating, given that the whole story, and the premise of it is that the gods must be upheld at all times, and the Romans must do it in the face of All troubles. Yeah, that’s Dr Rad 28:02why I can’t I couldn’t quite figure it out like, I think it is meant to be a little bit of an insult, or at least, sort of playing on this idea that the goals were a very superstitious people, and so were likely to be impressed by religious dedication, which is perhaps why they didn’t do anything to this guy. They just let him pass and that sort of thing. Now this is obviously a very curious story, and there are other explanations for what is going on here. There is a fragment from Cassius Hermina, and I think this will intrigue you, Dr G who says that Fabius was not actually carrying out some sort of family sacrifice, but was instead actually tending to the cult of Vesta. Dr G 28:46Oh yes. Now this is where it ties in very nicely with a small fragment from Appian, because this is mentioned and the priest isn’t given a designation as part of the Fabii. The name Dorso is part of it, but he is called Dorsonote Dr G 29:07I think there are variations in the name, yeah. Dr G 29:09And apparently he does go down from the Capitol because the annual sacrifice that is required of his priesthood is required at the Temple of Vesta. And he goes down into the city. He’s carrying all the sacred utensils that he needs. He goes through the ranks of the Gauls, and they seem. It’s described that the Gauls are either awed by his courage in going through with this act, or they have a high level of respect for the piety that he’s demonstrating, which would suggest that the Gauls recognize what sacred dress and sacred utensils for the Romans even look like, which is myself, I think, a big assumption, and the fact that he looks venerable in his appearance, all of these things are enough for them to be like. Well, this. Is curious. Let’s just watch and see what happens. And so he goes and he does the sacrifice in the Temple of Vesta and returns back up the hill. So be it. And that seems to be the end of the story. Why this story is told to us is less clear, Dr Rad 30:19I think in Livy’s account is definitely meant to be showing the piety of the Romans, given the fact that the Gallic sack of Rome seems to be a result of their lack of attention to things like omens importance and and that sort of thing. So I feel like that’s what Livy is trying to build up here. And it is a bit of a weird story, because we don’t necessarily have that much evidence to suggest that the fabii as a gens did have a very strong connection with the Quirinal there is some sort of connection, maybe, in the way that the family set out for the battle of chimera, where most of them are apparently slaughtered. But there’s no archeological evidence to show that any of the fabii ever lived in this location. We don’t really have any other mention of this sacrifice, as far as I’m aware. So it is a bit of an interesting one. Dr G 31:19It is, and the quirinal is not where the Temple of Vesta is, either. So these are two different versions of a story, and it’s hard to know what might be going on here. I do suspect that, given there are variations on their story, that there’s something to it, that at some point, perhaps there was some sort of agreement made with the Gauls that it was important for this religious right to take place, and they’d only be sending one man down the hill, and would it be permitted, and some agreement had been reached which allowed it to take place. But aside from that, this doesn’t seem to be the big ticket item that leads to the next thing that happens in this siege. Dr Rad 32:03No, I feel like it’s just part of the redemption story of Rome. But basically, once the chips are down, all of a sudden, the Romans remember how they should be conducting themselves and start, you know, polishing their shoes, making their beds. Dr G 32:19I suspect that might present a kind of literary foil to what we’ve seen with camilius, journey of accidentally promising things that he couldn’t keep to the gods whoops. And in this case, if there is a Fabian connection, the idea that they have acknowledged that there was wrongdoing on their part when they were in Clusium. And this is an attempt to write things and square things with the gods in this instance. Dr Rad 32:46Well, yes, lest we forget, that one of the earliest analysts of Rome was from this family, yes. Dr G 32:53And so this could be a redemptive arc as well, but for the Gauls and what is happening with this siege, it is really the situation with Pontius Cominius That seems to spur on the next act, because at least in the account of Diodorus, for all of the fact that he goes out under the cover of darkness to make contact with the Capitoline, the Gauls do see him. Interesting. Dr Rad 33:24See in Livy’s account, they see the footprints that he left behind, which is weird, because allegedly, they weren’t watching this part of the cliff because they thought nobody could possibly climb it. And yet they notice his footprints. Dr G 33:37I do like the we’re not looking. We’re not looking. Is that a shoe? What? Dr Rad 33:44Nobody’s been walking up this side of the cliff. We’ve all agreed it would be insane. Quick Get me my Sherlock Holmes outfit and my magnifying glass Dr G 33:51exactly like, what is this? I’ve seen something suspicious in a spot I was never looking Dr Rad 33:59Yeah, they even actually tested out themselves. They’re like, Oh my god, maybe there is a pathway up here that we haven’t noticed. We better try it out ourselves. And, oh my god, it does seem possible. Dr G 34:13And this is, I think, leading into what I think is the best part of this whole story, yeah, is that the Gauls do then send a force up the Capitoline, up this notoriously difficult cliff that maybe they were watching or maybe they weren’t watching. It’s no longer clear. Dr Rad 34:30I think it’s probably like kind of near the most difficult part. I don’t think they’re necessarily going up exactly the same path that our sprightly youth took, but yeah, they certainly are looking at the Capitoline and being like, oh my god, I think there’s a pathway that we hadn’t detected. Dr G 34:47But they do take this opportunity to sort of mirror what Cominius Pontius has done, which is, under the cover of darkness, send up some men to find a pathway, a secret way up the cliff, and be like, yes, well. Well, if one man can get up to the top without being spotted, dude who gets to the top, what if we send our men? Dr Rad 35:05Yes, and I’m actually given a precise location. It’s the cliff near the shrine of commentus. Now this is a reference to someone, I think, more commonly known as commenta, the mother of Evander. Evander is a character we have mentioned from time to time, because he’s kind of a bit of a alternative character to Romulus, I guess, an important character to the mythical foundations of Rome. Dr G 35:33Yeah, Evander comes through very strongly in Livy’s writing as an alternative sort of founding figure, and perhaps this idea that it’s near this place of carmenta will reveal some meaning over time as we get further into this story. Dr Rad 35:51Well, yes, I mean, I presume that there apparently Evander landed at Rome on advice given by his mother, Carmentis, Carmenta. And I presume that the shrine, obviously there is there for there to honor her part in the whole story, and him being able to establish himself on the Palatine. So I wonder if maybe it is something about, something to do with, you know, like the foundations, the establishment of Rome, and, you know, like sort of connecting to those ideas, that Rome is going to survive and going to be re established, perhaps, but I might be reading too much into it. Dr G 36:27I think it’s useful to think of this as a foreshadowing, because definitely some of these ideas are going to return into our narrative as we get further into this story. But the Gauls do this great moment of like, well, we’ll climb up this cliff. We’ll get to the top in the middle of the night. Nobody will know, but unfortunately, and most unfortunately, they do escape the detection of the guards. Apparently, they have landed upon a relatively unfortified section of the top of the Capitol line where the guards, for whatever reason, are either not paying attention or haven’t been looking there very closely, even though somebody of their own team just climbed up there the other day. Dr Rad 37:09Well, look, I presume it’s because, given the way that Livy’s sort of painting this, we’re well into the siege by this point. And we have talked about these moments where there’s been a real lull, nothing much is going on, therefore Fabii, I are just wandering around the place, seemingly ignoring all the signs saying, Stop Danger, danger. So maybe it’s just because, as would happen, I think with a siege, the really tense adrenaline kind of moments have passed, and maybe they’re just, you know, getting used to life on rations, yeah, Dr G 37:41and it’s hard to pay attention all of the time for sure, particularly when nothing has happened for a while, and it seems that maybe nothing has happened for a while, but lo and behold, the sacred geese of Hera aren’t having any of that. They’re paying attention, and they might be the only ones on the Capitoline paying attention. The sacred geese are what raises the alarm, and it’s the honking in the nighttime that really wakes everybody up and alerts them that the Gauls have climbed up the cliff face of the Capitoline Hill. And I love this moment. I think it’s such a beautiful way of thinking about the way the gods can interfere with people’s lives. And I do like that the geese get to have a starring role in this Dr Rad 38:32Well, see, I’m very intrigued by all of this, so I’m not a religious expert, as you know, when it comes to ancient Rome, so I hadn’t really ever thought about this story before, in terms of questioning exactly how the animals play a part. So this is actually part of one of my least favorite stories about Rome, because in my account, in Livy’s account, it’s the dogs that are supposed to wake everybody up if there are goals approaching. So presumably it’s part of their contingent, even though they’re so desperately short on food, they have dogs up there on the on the Capitoline, and the dogs don’t wake up. They sleep through and it’s the geese, as you say, that are sacred to Juno who, who wake everybody up. And the Romans, even though they were so desperately short on food, had not eaten animals like the geese because they were sacred. So again, their piety is kind of part of the story here. Unfortunately, the fact that the dogs didn’t wake up and they were supposed to means that the Romans are going to crucify a dog every year. It’s kind of like a remembrance and a punishment of this failure, which is absolutely my least favorite thing ever to have heard about the Romans. It’s just that is horrifying. I understand how important this moment is to them. I understand it could have led to the total collapse of their civilization, but crucifixion is just the most horrific way to kill. Kill any living creature. And the idea of putting a dog that knows absolutely nothing about what is going on into that position, like, I just can’t like the fact that when animals can’t understand what is going on around them, you know, they don’t understand war, they don’t understand these, these sorts of things, crucifying them. You know, when they have absolutely no choice in it? It just, yeah, it’s the same kind of thing. I don’t understand about our world these days. I don’t understand how people can be horrible to animals, particularly animals like dogs, who just want to love and serve human beings like they just have no malice towards anything. It just, I hate this story so, so much. Dr G 40:43Yeah, I agree with you, and this is part of the account that doesn’t come through in the source material that I’ve looked at. And so I have, I don’t know, upwards of 15 sources for this Gallic sack, and not once has the story of the dog being mentioned. And I find that interesting as well, because I’m hearing it for the first time from Livy’s account, and it’s it is horrifying, and I think we need to take on board that this is also just one of many horrifying acts of sacrifice that the Romans engage in. And because animal sacrifice is clearly very much part of their culture, and this is a particularly cruel way to engage Dr Rad 41:28in it true. I think it’s the thing of, I don’t like the idea of animal sacrifice, you know, I’m very much about just treating other living things with the dignity and respect that we would expect for ourselves. I don’t believe there is a difference between humans and humans and animals, because humans are animals, but I think when it comes to animal sacrifice in Rome, it’s my understanding. Correct me, if I’m wrong here, dr, G, that when you are sacrificing an animal, you actually don’t want it to be panicked at the moment of death. It is meant to be a relatively calm procedure. So whilst it isn’t my favorite thing, at least, I can kind of understand that the animal hopefully didn’t really feel much fear. You know, I think it’s actually probably certainly a kinder way to be killed than what millions of animals around the world endure at the hands of factory farming, where they’re literally lined up like on a conveyor belt, and have to watch other animals be killed and smell the blood and smell the fear and the urine and the feces that probably goes along with that whole process. Like what we do to animals is definitely, I think, far worse because of the scale and the fact that we actually should know better by now, but at the same time, and so I guess that’s why I can kind of overlook the animal sacrifice part of ancient Rome, but this particular thing I can’t really overlook, and look, Livy, doesn’t give me the full story right at this moment. It’s actually putting together other sources that I’ve read that I understand the ongoing impact of this moment for dogs and geese. The other side of this story is that the geese are on it every year, so you do have that side of the story. But the interesting thing I did come across about the geese, and this is where they say my lack of religious knowledge sort of came into play, because I wouldn’t really have actually questioned this. But apparently, geese are not really known to be sacred to Juno. They’re not really depicted, generally on monuments connected to her. And so it’s interesting that it is geese that are mentioned at this moment. And one of the sources that I read suggested that actually maybe there were birds on the Capitol, because we know that there was an auguraculum where birds would be watched for divine signs by just how they ate their food. You know, like, do they eat a lot? Do they eat greedily? Do they not eat a lot? And you would ascertain what the gods wanted from watching that. And we apparently don’t really know exactly which birds might have been used. Of this, we know that later on, hens were used, but maybe not always hens. So maybe the geese were there because they were a part of that, Dr G 44:11quite possibly. And yeah, you’re quite right. I mean, if we’re thinking about Juno’s Greek counterpart, Hera, often associated iconographically with the peacock, and we seem to have a real lack of peacocks in this story. Dr Rad 44:26It’s a different bird altogether. Yeah, you wouldn’t Dr G 44:29make the mistake, I don’t think. But anyway, the sacred geese very handy in this moment one because, as we all know, geese are great guard animals, and they raise the alarm. And it’s at this moment that we get to have a new hero enter into our story, because once the geese are off and running, being like, Alert, alert, something’s going wrong, flapping the wings, honking around Marcus Manlius or Maelius, he has variations on his name. He seems to be the first and the only named figure that rushes to the defense of the Capitoline hill in this moment. He’s definitely the one who encourages others to take up their swords in this moment. And what he does is horrifying as well. He starts cutting off Gaulish hands. So as the hands of the Gauls reach over the top edge of the cliff to finally achieve the ascent that they’ve been working on all night, he starts cutting off hands. Oh, my Dr Rad 45:34God, I don’t have that detail at all in my story, even though he is the one who wakes everybody else up, gathers all the weapons and is like, come on, slapping people awake. Get your act together. We’ve got some stuff to do. When he spots a Gaul who had almost made his way to the Romans, he uses his shield to sort of push him and beat him back. And when this Gallic person then slips and falls, it creates this domino effect where all the goals are kind of knocked down, like, and the goals are like, Oh my God. And the goals are obviously taken by surprise that they have been spotted, even though, surely they also heard the geese, but apparently not. And so they kind of drop all their weapons, and they are just hanging on to rocks. Now this would be the moment where you’d think, okay, he could come in and slice off some hands. But all I am told is that he kills them all. So just as they’re sort of dangling on the cliff face there, he kills them all, which is horrifying, but oh my god, the hand thing. Yikes. Dr G 46:34Yeah. Apparently Diodorus tells us that he goes for the hands first and then pushes them back. And so some of them start tumbling off the cliff. And he keeps going with that, and he encourages others to keep going with that, because it seems to be working. He’s like, go for the hands and then push him off. Dr Rad 46:50I mean, look, logically, that makes sense. If they’re scaling a cliff face in order to reach the Romans, it would absolutely make sense to be like stomping, stabbing, cutting their hands, yes. Dr G 47:01And once you fall off a cliff face, like the Capitoline Hill is high enough that if you fall off the top of it down a cliff face, it’s going to end badly for you. You’re either going to be very severely injured with not much longer to go, or the fall will kill you. So this places the Romans in a position where they’re feeling a little bit superior. They’re like, we’ve knocked back this attack. And this is sort of opens the door for some negotiations to take place. Dr Rad 47:33Okay, interesting. Before you get into the negotiations, I just have to add my favorite inconsequential detail about this whole story. So as you say, Manlius is attacking all these Gauls. The rest of the Romans join in. They’re using their javelins, they’re using stones, and all the Gauls are hurled to their death. And once all the Gauls have been killed, who’ve been trying to scale this cliff, the Romans are like, ooh, bit of adrenaline pumping through them, but it’s all kind of dying down now that they can see that there are no more attackers. And the Romans turn to each other, and they’re like, finally, we can get some decent sleep, and let’s go back to bed. Amazing. I’m also told by Livy that at dawn, the Romans are woken up, you know, like the trumpet sounds, the soldiers are all called to assemble before the tribunes because it’s time, Dr G to reward the good and the bad performances of the night. Manlius, of course, is the hero singled out for his bravery, and he is given gifts, not just from the tribunes, but all the soldiers had, somehow in the space of a night where they slaughtered some goals and got a decent amount of sleep, managed to get together, and they’ve each brought half a pound of spelt and a gill of wine to his house, which was handily enough on the Citadel, which is obviously meant to be a huge sacrifice, because the Romans don’t have a ton of provisions at this moment in time, so he would presumably appreciate this more than anything else, but the bad performance is, Dr G, uh oh, what to do with not just the dogs but the men who were supposed to be on watch? I mean, guys, guys. Guys. How did you let this happen? This is kind of your one job. Dr G 49:25You telling me you delegated to the geese. Dr Rad 49:30So a tribune named Quintus Sulpicius said, I’m going to punish you all in the military fashion. Now I’m not really given any more details than that, but I presume that might mean something like decimation. Dr G 49:45I didn’t know they had decimation at this point in time, but it doesn’t sound pleasant look. Dr Rad 49:49I’m not sure exactly what that means. Is it? I mean, maybe it just means death, like in the military fashion, Dr G 49:54it might be a whipping of some kind. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re being scouged with. Odds, for instance, that might be a military punishment at this point, because we don’t have a formalized military that’s true. It does make it hard to know what the military punishment would be, because this is not something that has tended to come up so far. It might be too early for decimation, but it also Dr Rad 50:17might not look decimation was just my guess as I was reading this because I was like, What does in the military fashion mean? I mean, look, I think we can safely say not pleasant, not something you want to happen to you. Dr G 50:28Yeah, obviously, yeah, if you think about the military, what’s something that you don’t want to happen to you as a military person? Many things. Dr Rad 50:36Yeah, exactly. But all the soldiers protest and say, no, no, no, that is, pardon the pun, but overkill. You don’t need to go that far. And they basically decide that they’re going to throw one guy under the bus completely. Wow, yeah, they’re like, it’s all his fault. All his fault. Don’t worry, listeners, Livy assures me that he completely deserves it. It definitely was entirely this guy’s fault, and so he is held off the top of a rock in punishment. Wow. Dr G 51:09Throw him down on top of the dead Gauls. That’s where he deserves to be. Look. Dr Rad 51:15I presume that is what Livy means. But I must admit, there have been some accounts that I have read that also seem to suggest that maybe Livy is referring to being hurled off the Tarpeian rock, which does happen to people as punishment in ancient Rome. But Dr, G, you know the geography of Rome, and you, I don’t think will believe this. Dr G 51:38I find that unlikely. I mean, yes, we do have the Tarpeian rock. Is a classic rock to throw people off, but the Romans are in a siege situation, and they’re confined to the Capitoline hill. So the idea that they would be able to get through the Gaulish forces all the way across to where the Tarpeian rock is and throw this guy off the specific rock that they like to throw people off, rather than the rock that they have that they’re on top of right now, which they’ve been defending for their lives. Seems unlikely at best. Dr Rad 52:08Well, I guess it would be very symbolic to hurl a Roman who you regard as having really broken his trust with the people to like, throw him down on top of the dead. Dr G 52:19Gauls, yeah. Serves him right. Yeah, you’re as good as the enemy to us, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, after the fall of the rock, yes. Dr Rad 52:29So this whole section of the account wraps up for me with Livy noting, as one might expect, that the guards for the Romans and the Gauls are now on much higher alert after these nighttime shenanigans. Dr G 52:41Well, well, well, maybe we do need to pay attention. Dr Rad 52:44Yeah, and the Gauls have definitely picked up on the fact that there is, I think, some communication going on between they and Rome. They’ve picked up on that. They saw the cork, and they were like, hang on a second. There’s only one reason for a piece of cork to be floating in the Tiber. And the Romans, of course, have almost just lost everything, so they’re like, We need to, like, pick up our game, guys. We need to get the show on the road. Dr G 53:10Yeah, look, I swear. Look, I’ve seen some cork, and I’m pretty sure it’s from Veii. What, man, but we’re besieging Rome. I know. Isn’t that virtus? Dr Rad 53:23In your account, it may be this that opens the negotiations, but in my account, we’re all about to be in for famine and pestilence. Oh, goody, yes, yes, no one shall be spared. Dr G 53:41Chapter Two, a siege is not a siege until you have famine and pestilence Dr Rad 53:45indeed, and that Dr G is where I would like to lay my hat. Ooh, the suspense. I haven’t been podcasting for 13 years without learning a trick or two about suspense. Dr G 54:00Well, I guess that means it is time for the partial pick. Dr Rad 54:10It is indeed, Dr G, can you please explain to our listeners what the partial pick is all about? Dr G 54:15Well, Rome has their chance to win 50 gold eagles, 10 Eagles each across five categories. I would say that the Romans made up these categories, but they didn’t. We did. We thought about them when we made them up, and maybe that will help. Dr Rad 54:31So what is our first category? Dr, G, Dr G 54:33our first category is military clout. Dr Rad 54:38This is very tough because there has actually been a little bit of military success on the Roman side, in some ways, it just depends how you look at it. They have apparently dealt with some marauding Etruscans in the region of they and been victorious there, largely because they follow the Camillus blueprint and then. They have also managed to beat off an attempt by the goals to break the siege. Dr G 55:06That’s true, cutting off a few hands, pushing people back with shields. Yeah, yeah. I mean that in a siege, that’s kind of as good as it gets, apart from busting out of the siege itself is resisting the attack on your location. So I guess maybe a five, Dr Rad 55:25wow, a five. That is uncharacteristically generous. Dr G 55:29Well, I’m thinking like, how hard is it to have a military clout moment when you’re in Siege conditions? And I’d say it’s probably pretty difficult, because one you’ve either got to summon up the courage to do an attack yourself. So leaving your defenses and going down and engaging directly, that would be more military clout, I would say, but to sort of take on the sort of the pillaging roaming camps of the Etruscans when you’ve got a split force, and also to defend yourself successfully, although, I mean, you did have to rely on the geese. Yeah? Dr Rad 56:06Yeah. I was gonna say, I feel like I can’t believe I’m saying this, me of all people, but I feel like five is too generous. Dr G 56:12I feel like the geese deserve 10, yeah, but maybe the Romans deserve less than five, now that I’m thinking about it, yeah. Dr Rad 56:19I kind of feel like maybe a three or four, because, like, it’s something, but they are still kind of slowly starving to death on the capital, Dr G 56:29okay. Well, if we’re measuring it by that, it’s a three, Dr Rad 56:34all right, so three, it is, all right. Dr G 56:36The second category is diplomacy, Dr Rad 56:39hmm, well, I think we agreed that diplomacy has to be something in between Roman foreign powers, because whilst there is definitely some secret messaging going on between the Romans and their fellow Romans, I don’t think that counts. Dr G 56:55No, that is not diplomacy. That’s a zero, yeah. Zero, okay. Dr Rad 57:00Expansion, I feel like this is going to be a continual zero for some time. That’s a no. Wirtus, huh? Well, I think Manlius definitely would meet some of the criteria for that with his actions in bravely waking everybody up and thrusting swords into their hands and then single handedly cutting off the hands, of

Episode 168 – The Gallic Sack of Rome – Part 3

In this episode, we discuss one of the more tragic episodes from the Gallic sack of Rome. Want to know how we got here? Check out our previous coverage! We Who Are About to Die… The Romans who have remained in the city take up their defensive positions on the Capitol. The old patricians did not join them. Instead, their retired to their houses. Wearing their old robes of state, they settled down in the middle of their houses on ivory chairs to await the end. Livy reports that some of his accounts indicate that the pontifex maximus (chief priest) led the ex-magistrates in a vow, in which they were devoting themselves to death for the sake of the city and its citizens. The Gauls found their blood had cooled; after all, they had not had to fight the Romans to seize control of the city. They had just wandered in. They could see that the Capitol had been fortified, so they kept an eye on that area. However, it was time to go SHOPPING! All these abandoned streets and houses – it was theirs for the taking. After some pillaging and plundering, the Gauls touched base again in the Forum. The plebeian houses in the area were locked up – they weren’t taking any chances whilst they were out of town. But the houses of the elite were mysteriously open. As the Gauls entered the patrician dwellings, a shocking sight met their eyes. The old ex-magistrates, sitting as still as statues, dressed in their robes of state, just waiting for them. Not quite believing their eyes, one of the Gauls reached out to touch the beard of one of the patricians. How rude! The patrician clocked him in the head with an ivory mace. The Gauls were not going to show restraint now. The patricians were slain, the houses of the Roman citizens looted, and finally, the city was set on fire. ‘Destruction’ by Thomas Cole (1836), Courtesy of Wikipedia. Up in Flames? But not the whole city – these Gauls weren’t FOOLS! They wanted to keep a bargaining chip in their back pockets. Maybe these pesky Romans on the citadel might surrender to save their homes? The Romans in question were in their own kind of hell as they sat on the Capitol and had to watch the destruction. Fortune had turned her back on them. Did this mean that the Romans were going to give up? It most certainly did NOT! When the Gauls finally assaulted the Capital, the Romans were ready for them. They managed to hold the line. If the Gauls wanted to seize all of Rome, they were going to have to settle in for a siege. The Exiled Camillus As the Gauls made themselves comfortable and set about plundering the countryside, over in Ardea, the exiled Camillus heard of the attack on Rome. What could he do? Could he possibly whip up an inspirational speech and persuade the Ardeates to fight the Gallic invaders? You betcha! Things to Look Out For: Dazzling rhetoric Far too much bloodshed Silent, manly tears from the Romans on the Capitol Ye olde time Roman racism The Gauls putting on a SHOW of destruction for the Romans Our Players 393 BCE Military Tribunes with Consular Power Q. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) K. Fabius M. f. Q n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 404, 401, 395 N. Fabius M. f. Q. n. Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 406 Q. Sulpicius -f. -n. Longus (Pat) Q. Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat) Mil. Tr. c. p. 402, 398, 395, 388, 386 P. Cornelius P. f. M. n. Maluginensis (Pat) Cos. 393? Mil. Tr. c. p. 397 Dictator M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401, 398, 394, 386, 384, 381 Master of the Horse L. Valerius (L. f. L. n. Poplicola) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 394, 389, 387, 383 OR L. Valerius (L. f. P. n. Potitus) (Pat) Cos. 393, 392; Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398 Pontifices ?-390: M. Folius (Flaccinator?) (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 433 C. or K. Fabius Dorsuo (Pat) Augurs or Pontifex 439-390: Q. ? Servilius P. f. (Sp. n. Priscus or Structus Fidenas?) (Pat) Successor: [—- Furi]us Q. f. P. nepos Fu[sus] (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 403 Our Sources Dr Rad reads Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 5.41-45. Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus 14.113-117; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 13.6-12; Appian, BC, 2.50; Appian, Gallic History, 1-4; Justinus, Epitome of Pompeius’ Trogus’ Philippic Histories; Aurelius Victor, De virus illustribus 23; Eutropius 1.20 Bernard, Seth. “Rome from the Sack of Veii to the Gallic Sack.” In Building Mid-Republican Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190878788.003.0003. Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association) Cornell, T. J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC) (Taylor & Francis) Forsythe, G. 2006. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press) Duff, T. E. 2010. ‘Plutarch’s Themistocles and Camillus’. In N. Humble, ed., Plutarch’s Lives: parallelism and purpose (Classical Press of Wales: Swansea, 2010), pp. 45-86. Elvers, K. (., Courtney, E. (. V., Richmond, J. A. (. V., Eder, W. (., Giaro, T. (., Eck, W. (., & Franke, T. (. (2006). Furius. In Brill’s New Pauly Online. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e416550 Gowing, Alain M. 2009. “The Roman exempla tradition in imperial Greek historiography: The case of Camillus in Feldherr, A., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Lomas, Kathryn (2018). The rise of Rome. History of the Ancient World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674919938. ISBN978-0-674-65965-0. S2CID239349186. Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press). Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley). Stevenson, T.R. “Parens Patriae and Livy’s Camillus.” Ramus 29, no. 1 (2000): 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0048671X00001673. Sound Credits Our music is by the superb Bettina Joy de Guzman. Automated Transcript Dr Rad 0:15Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:19We explore all the details of ancient Rome, Dr Rad 0:23everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged, and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad Dr G 0:33and I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Dr G 0:56Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr G, Dr Rad 1:02and I am Dr ad, and we Dr G 1:05are deep, deep inside the Gallic sack of Rome. And so far, it hasn’t happened yet. But Just you wait, I think it’s gonna happen in this episode. Dr Rad 1:15Well, that just sounds dirty. Dr G, not even a minute in, and already disgusting. Dr G 1:21The Romans, they do it to me every time. Dr Rad 1:26Well, Dr G 390, as we know, is an epic year, so epic that we may not even be able to cover it in three episodes, which is kind of what we were anticipating. But I see a fourth in our future. Dr G 1:37Yeah, it’s quite potential. Now that I’ve sat down and re looked at my notes. I suspect today is not the day that we finish the sack. It’s going to go on a bit like a siege goes on for much longer than anybody wants it to. Dr Rad 1:49Exactly now we’ve got up to the point Dr G, where the Gauls are at the walls of Rome. Things are very dire. We’ve had Vestals in distress, fleeing before the horde of Gallic attackers, Dr G 2:07running away with all the sacred items that they can put their hands on, and hitching a ride to a nearby Dr Rad 2:14city. Yes, which we presume is Caere Dr G 2:17yeah, which is so far away that’s not nearby at all. You don’t want to walk all the way. That’s 50 or so kilometers, 30 miles. Luckily, they get picked up in a cart, yeah. Dr Rad 2:28And they kick out a wife and child so that they can get a ride with this guy, Albinius. Dr G 2:35And I think in terms of orientation, of where we’re up to in this story, I think it’s important to note that the Romans are losing most assuredly, this is not going well. They’ve already lost a major battle at the union of the Tiber River and the Allia, and they have retreated. Some of their soldiers have fled to ve that will become important, and some have fled back to Rome, also important. And now the Gaulish forces had time to sort of do their roundup of the sorts of things they like to do post battle, which is go around and cut everybody’s heads off and then make their way to Rome itself. Dr Rad 3:09Yes, so Rome itself, we have a force that have been left to defend the Citadel. Dr G because, God forbid, the Citadel should be captured. Dr G 3:20And importantly, the Citadel is on the Capitoline hill, so it is on the highest viewing point of the city. It has the best defense. And everybody’s like retreat to the highest place of the defenses. Retreat. Dr Rad 3:35And this is a particularly sacred part of the city as well. The Romans would indeed rather die than let this be taken so it is obviously very, very grim at this moment in time. Dr G, everyone has fled, except for this band of defenders. We’ve got sacred objects being stored in other cities because they can’t be left in Rome. They’re just not safe anymore. There’s also one other group who have been left behind in the city by choice, Dr, G, and that is a bunch of really old men. Dr G 4:09Ah, yes, those who are fabled not to be able to travel well, and have decided to take upon themselves the ultimate sacrifice, which is to defend Rome in whatever way that they can up until their last dying breath. Dr Rad 4:24It’s a very interesting episode. This the massacre of the senators, is what we’re going to entitle it. Sorry, everybody, yeah, it’s such a cheery episode. So we’ve got these guys who are older gents. They are mostly ex magistrates. They are prepared to take a stand. Dr, G, but it seems like there might be a bit more to this story than meets the eye, something something sacred, if you will, which I think will be right up your alley. But I’m just going to tell the story as Livy tells it first, and then we can get into the analysis of it. Dr G 5:02All right, I’m interested in your version because I have a version as well, and we’ll see where they cross over, and if they’re in Dr Rad 5:08any way similar, is yours Valerius Maximus? Dr G 5:11No, I’ve gone with, although I could have pulled from Valerius Maximus, I’ve actually gone with a little bit of detail from Plutarch. Dr Rad 5:19Okay, all right, so in Livy’s version, we’ve got these ex magistrates, older gentlemen. They decide that they’re going to dress up in their robes of state and triumphal robes, because they know that they are going to be meeting their deaths when the goals arrive. Indeed. Dr G 5:39Okay, so they’re going to go out with the accouterments of their their roles. This is a very noble thing for the elderly patricians to do. I have to say, we don’t tend to give the patricians a lot of credit on this podcast, because they tend to make terrible decisions, but this moment of personal sacrifice and acceptance of that sacrifice is incredibly noble of them, and I have to give them props for that. Yes. Dr Rad 6:10Now they position themselves on ivory chairs in the middle of their houses, ready to meet the enemy. Livy tells me that some historians, yes, I am quoting him there. Some historians say that the Pontifex Maximus, a guy called Marcus Folius, led the senators in a recitation of a solemn vow in which they devoted themselves to death on behalf of Rome and the Quirites, basically the Roman citizens. So this is where the sacred stuff comes into it. Dr, G, I’ll return to this later. The Gauls were not actually quite as raring for a fight at this point in time, after a night had passed and things had died down a little, I guess their adrenaline wasn’t pumping quite as hard as it had been previously. They hadn’t really faced a tough battle against the Romans as they were expecting previously, at the battle that you referred to the Ahala As we know, the Romans did not acquit themselves very well, and now, even more puzzling, it looks like there’s not going to be much resistance put up by the city itself. It’s pretty much deserted. They just wander in through the open Colline gate. They toddle along until they get to the forum. They’re kind of having a look at the temples, checking things out as they go. And when they spot the Citadel, they think, Okay, it looks like this might be a place where people are readied for battle. The Gauls decide that they’re going to station a small number of guards to keep a look at on the Citadel make sure that they’re not going to be attacked whilst they’re scouring the streets because they’re wary of that place. But most of them are now free to roam the city streets and go in search of booty. They meet nobody in the streets, and so some of them start getting into little groups and going into just the closest houses. Some of them are going into houses that are the furthest away, because they think, well, if these are far away, it’s probably going to be the most stuff in here that’s left behind. I’ll get there first. I’ll get all the really good stuff. But then they kind of get a little bit scared because they’re so far away from anyone else. And they kind of run back to the forum and go, it’s so spooky. There’s nobody here. Dr G 8:42Like nobody this place is creepy. Dr Rad 8:46Don’t leave me alone, you guys. I don’t even like going to the bathroom without a friend. So the houses near the forum are a popular place to look for booty because they’re all close to each other. The plebeian houses are all locked up. Gotta lock your doors when the goals are in town. Dr G, security first. Dr G 9:05Also you’re plebeian. It’s like, I can’t afford to lose any of this lock it up. Dr Rad 9:09I have no insurance. But the elite houses were open. The goals are, again, a little freaked out to find that these patrician houses aren’t locked up, and when they enter, what a sight they see these guys, dressed to the nines, just silently sitting there in the middle of their houses on ivory chairs. The Gauls were naturally awed by the sight of these God like creatures the patricians, it’s a trap. Well, not really. I don’t think these older gentlemen, no matter how spooky they look, are gonna be able to put an end. Oh no, Dr G 9:56they’ve taken a vow to death. It’s good. Dr Rad 10:00Yeah, so the goals slowly, I think, approach the older ex magistrates as they sit there, and they’re kind of gazing at them, almost like they’re looking at a sculpture or a piece of artwork, because they’re just sitting there unmoving. And this is where we get a story. And there are a couple of different versions about exactly how this plays out and indeed, who is the ex magistracies in question? But in Livy’s version, one of the Gallic warriors decides he’s actually going to touch the beard of Marcus Papirius. So sort of give it a stroke just see what’s going on there. Apparently, at this time all Romans had long beards. Didn’t know that. Dr G 10:44Yeah, wait a minute. So a couple of things. One, they seem so statue like that. You’re like, you know what? I wonder what would happen if I just gave a touch to the fuzz? Dr Rad 10:56Exactly. Papirius then hits him in the head with an ivory mace, which is seen as a provocative act on behalf of the Gauls, Papirius is therefore the first Roman in Livy’s account in the city in the sack by the Gauls to be killed. And the Gauls now longer have no interest in holding back. They are just looting through all the houses. They’re setting them on fire. They’re going crazy. And this is where we get the massacre of any patrician left in the city that’s not in the Citadel. Dr G 11:32Oh no, yeah. Okay, wow. Dr Rad 11:36Now, do you want to tell me your version of things before we get into what exactly is going on here. Dr G 11:41It is quite similar. So I suspect that Plutarch has read his Livy so he doesn’t mention anything about a religious connotation to it. There’s no involvement of a Pontifex Maximus, which is real shame, because I do love that kind of stuff. And hopefully this means that the Gauls have been cursed through their murdering of the old patricians, but I suppose we’ll have to wait to find out. But there is this sense that the city has been abandoned, and the Gauls take a few days to come to grips with that idea. So they’re sort of looking at it, and they’re like, doesn’t look like there’s many people here. Should we go in? And they do spend some time thinking about that. And eventually Brennus leads them into the forum, and they see men sitting in the forum, actually in this account, and they don’t move those patricians do not get up. They don’t make any gesture towards acknowledging that the ghouls are there. They continue to sit quietly. They’re leaning on their staffs, very appropriate old man, and they gaze into each other’s faces. So it’s almost like they’re in a circle of meditation with each other. How intriguing. And the ghouls are amazed and perplexed by this. And we do have this moment of one of them going up to a guy aptly named Papirius Marcus, as opposed to Marcus Papirius. Dr Rad 13:10Oh, I see what he did there, Dr G 13:12gently grasping his chin, stroking his long beard. So you know, keep in mind, patricians with long beards, they seem to be a thing right now, Papirius grabs his staff and smote the guy in the head. This pretty offensive to the Gaul, he draws his sword and kills the guy. So that’s the end of Papirius. And after that, the goals are like, we need to deal with this. They’re clearly all kind of dangerous. They look old, but someone just got hit with the stuff, so that’s not okay. And they then proceed to murder all the rest of them. They sack and plunder the houses of the city. They do that for days. Rome is quite substantial at this point in time, according to the historical record, as people understand it, maybe not so much archeologically, but they go through and apparently it takes them a few days at least of plundering to realize that they’ve got everything, and the only thing that remains is that holdout of the Capitolini hill and the Citadel upon it intriguing. Dr Rad 14:15Okay, well, let me unpack this episode a little bit, because this is obviously a moment of extreme weird or stuck to G Oh yes, the partial pick is going to have a field day at the end of the episode. Igor is already stretching his wings. He is he’s getting ready. It is possible that part of the details of this story has once again, come down to us through family tradition. Now it depends, obviously a little bit on who is named as the guy who strikes the Gaul in the head with his mace or his staff or whatever he’s holding, but in my account, it would presumably be someone from the gens Papirius, because that’s the person who is highlighted as being. Being the one that strikes the first blow. Dr G 15:02Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And Livy’s Usually on top of his family histories in this sort of way. Does he make any gesture in that direction that he’s using family histories in this point? Dr Rad 15:13He doesn’t. But we know that he does use those sorts of sources, and we know that by the time Livy and Dionysius are writing, that they are using earlier analysts who might have had those stories passed on to them. We don’t know if Livy is consulting anybody directly in this particular story. He doesn’t mention it. But the thing that I thought you might find interesting is this hint of this idea of devotion, of giving up their lives in a sacred way. So this is something that is apparently discussed in Cicero, where he talks about this idea that someone could, in fact, devote themselves, and it had to be somebody who had held Imperium, or was holding Imperium, and if you were in a particular moment of crisis, someone who had held Imperium could kind of claim it again and do so by clasping their chin. And therefore, the reason that whoever it was hit the goal in the head is not just because, well, this guy is the enemy, and he’s going to kill me as soon as he has the chance, but because by stroking the beard, he might have interfered with what was a ritual gesture. Dr G 16:31Oh, very interesting indeed. Oh, I like it a lot. Dr Rad 16:36I thought you might have now, the reason that it’s not maybe easy to exactly trace all of this is that the later retellings don’t necessarily make all of this clear, but certainly, Livy has taken it to be more about wirtus than a religious act by This interpretation, if that’s what indeed is going on here. Dr G 17:03Well, look something like this calls into question a whole bunch of things to do with how does Imperium really work? Is it as simple as touching your chin and you Dr Rad 17:15return the hairs of my Chinny, chin, chin, dr, G, they’re a bit more numerous these days with perimenopause. Dr G 17:21Well, exactly. I mean, there’s so much Imperium to be taken as well. So I think to myself, if this is a ritual gesture, it might be related to how somebody comes into Imperium and how someone comes into that position of power. This might be related to it. So if there are gestural elements to the transference from one position to another, where one includes Imperium, perhaps we be on to something, and this is something that we really don’t have a lot of great sense about, or at least, I’ve never come across anything like this in my research. And so I’d be really interested to find out, because we know that there’s lots of gestural elements to Roman culture. There’s a whole bunch that are related to oratory, for instance, and we see some great interpretations of how gesture could be used in the public space in HBO as Rome as well, with the news teller, which I think is probably getting as close as anybody has come on screen to demonstrating how some of that might have looked in a public space, but the idea that there is a performative element to these things, and that there were understood deliberate physical movements and performances that you could do, I wonder how that would play out when we think about Imperium in a different way. I don’t know that you can necessarily just claim Imperium back. That seems like a recipe for chaos. Imagine all of those magistrates in the Senate. Dr Rad 18:53I think it has to be in a moment of particular crisis that you could have this ritual gesture and sort of be reclaiming your Imperium, Reclaiming my time, Reclaiming my time, fair enough, more power to you. But yes, this is something this, maybe this is something I could dig a little bit further into. But certainly, there are some questions about exactly who the person is. Valerius Maximus does include this story as well as of course, he would be totally attracted to this episode of weirdos as well, and he talks about ateleus, rather than Papirius being the person at the center of it. So I think this is probably why people have thought, hmm, have families got involved and tried to argue that it was in fact, their relative that struck the first blow against the Gauls. Dr G 19:43It is my ancestor who started the path to victory. Dr Rad 19:47It is my ancestor. No, it is my ancestor. Dr G 19:51I touched my chin at you. Haha, Imperium. Dr Rad 19:54In Livy’s account, there may have been division amongst the Gauls about what exists. Exactly to do once they had started attacking Rome, Livy mentions the possibility that maybe not all the Gauls wanted to trash the entire city, or perhaps there was a bit of a tactic going on here amongst the leaders of the Gauls, where they just wanted to freak the Romans out a little bit by just burning some of their buildings, thinking that the Romans who were left on the Citadel might surrender themselves if they saw that their homes were in danger, and then keep some of them standing so that there was a reason for them to come back out. Because, of course, if you destroy everything, the Gauls realize, Well, why would the Romans surrender like they’ve already lost everything they may as well hold out as long as they possibly could. So in Livy’s version, the fire at this point is not as terrible as it could have been in a city that’s just been seized by a gang of barbarians. Oh, wow. Dr G 20:58Interesting controversy reigns. So I do have a sense from some of our sources. And my sources are a little bit all over the shop. My best account comes from Diodorus. I flagged that in a previous episode. He’s considered the most reliable. I’m going to hold on to that moment for the rest of my life. But we do have a sense in which the Gauls set up their camp outside Rome to start the siege. All very clear cut. Diodorus claims that the Gauls have a force of about 70,000 for this, which is massive, and we then proceed with the burning of buildings. So a whole bunch of the houses get burnt. That’s obviously prudent from the Gauls perspective, because it clears their sight lines, but it also ensures that there’s nowhere for enemies to hide. In their opinion, they can concentrate solely on the main focus of their siege, which is the capitolini’s hill and the Citadel on it, which is where they know most of the Romans have been congregating. So once they clear out the city proper, it makes sense to level it to the ground. While this is happening, though, there is stuff going on elsewhere which is going to become important. So the Romans are in the middle of their siege preparations, all of their important goods, all of their food stuffs have been taken up to the Capitoline. They’re not aware of what’s going on outside. They can only see as far as the Gaulish army and beyond that, the Etruscans have started to raid into Roman territory, and this appears to be a bit of an issue. And what happens, at least from the accounts that I’ve been able to put together, is that the Roman forces that have bundled themselves up in Veii go out to meet those Etruscans and take them on. Dr Rad 22:51Okay, sorry. Can I pause right here? This is so far ahead in my account that I don’t think we’ll even get to this today. So I don’t know whether we maybe pause and come back to this part of your account. Or not, up to you, let’s pause. Dr G 23:05Yeah, yeah. I’m this is where my account goes next. It’s like, kind of like, we’re in Siege territory, and now the Etruscans are taking their opportunity with Dr Rad 23:14absolutely does happen, but it’s so far in the future for me that I don’t I couldn’t even imagine we’re going to get there. Dr G 23:20That’s incredible. What does Livy have to tell me? Dr Rad 23:25It’s mostly a lot of like histrionics, but, you know, I’ve got it to go through. So do you want me to tell you a little bit more? And you can just see, yeah, see where we go. We might get up to the Etruscans, but I’m not sure. Dr G 23:35Do tell me more. I’m keen to know what might be missing from my accounts, or what Livy might have invented. Dr Rad 23:42It’s mostly very emotional and speculative, but you know, all right, so I’m going to go back to the fire not having been as quite as terrible as it could have Dr G 23:51been. Okay, Rome’s on fire, but it’s not that bad. Dr Rad 23:55Okay. Now the Romans are watching on from the Citadel. Dr G, they see the Gauls wreaking havoc in various areas of the city, and it’s just so distressing for them. Dr, G, I know we do make fun of the Romans, and it’s hard sometimes not to laugh a little bit at how over the top sometimes Livy’s description is, but you can kind of appreciate, I suppose, they’re holed up. They can’t do anything about it. They’re just in total sensory overload. You know? They’re watching their beloved city be destroyed. They feel like there’s nothing that they can do about it. They’re hearing the sound, smelling the smells. It feels to them like fortune herself is putting on a show, a drama, for them to watch, forcing them to watch Rome fall apart. Dr G 24:42No, okay. Romans, very dramatic. Dr Rad 24:46It is. The Romans Now could see they have nothing left but themselves to fight for all their possessions are gone. The city has completely been taken by the enemy, and they had to enjoy. Endure this knowledge for the day, another night, another day. To be honest, the timeline is very unclear in Livy’s account, but I gather it’s several days of nightmarish events. But in spite of all of this, Dr G the Romans are still determined to fight. They’re gonna hold that Citadel and the Capitol they’ve lost everything, but that, in a way, makes it easier for them to stop dwelling on themselves and the pain that they were in personally, and just focus on the fight ahead. Wow. Dr G 25:36Okay, so they’re galvanized by what they’ve witnessed. They’re horrified and then galvanized Dr Rad 25:42they are. Now this might be a good point to mention that archeologically, there is very little trace of the Gallic sack in Rome. Dr G 25:50Yes. Well, there might be a few reasons for that. One, it didn’t happen. Dr Rad 25:55Two, wow, you just went straight there, didn’t you? After that dramatic account, you just completely Dr G 26:00undercut it. I think it’s important to register the details that maybe this did not happen. Second of all, that we’re talking about a Rome that is not monumental in the way that we think about it today. We don’t have a lot of stone structures. Yet. We don’t think we’ve got a few, but we don’t have heaps. So if you burn wood and your house is made of wood, how long do you do you think that’s going to last in the archeological record? Like there has to be some sort of layered process for that. If you’ve got a lot of ash and you’ve got a whole ash deposit layer, that’s kind of incredible. But if the Gauls are just sort of burning strategically, and it’s not a bad as fire around the city, as might be anticipated, then we’re talking about spot fires, essentially. That’s going to be very hard. You got to put down a whore as an archeologist to look at all the layers, and you picked a spot where maybe a house didn’t get burnt in 390 BCE, doesn’t look like there was a siege, does there? Dr Rad 27:00This is true, but there are some buildings that predate this time period that survive. So clearly, not everything was completely trashed, if we believe that there was indeed a Gallic sack of Rome at this time period. So the archeology is Dr G 27:20confusing, oh yes. And we’ve also got a sense that there are some walls. So there are speculation about when the servian walls were built. Was it under? Was it during the period of the kings, or was it later? It would be really handy if there was a wall right now, because the Romans are in a siege. Dr Rad 27:40So I guess the goals have given have given up on the idea that they’re not going to totally trash the city, in my account, and they are gradually working their way through building by building until all that’s left is the Citadel. And at this point, the girls turn around, and according to Livy, make a desperate resolution to attack the Citadel. But to be honest, that seems like a completely sane move to me, because they’ve pretty much looted the rest of the joint. What else are they going to do? Dr G 28:08It is the next logical step in a siege. But maybe the Gaulish people aren’t siege warfare types, generally speaking, they might be run in, hack people to pieces, chop off their heads later. Dr Rad 28:20Types, possibly so. At daybreak, the Gauls give a signal. They all gather together in the forum, and they decide to begin their attack. But the Romans are ready for them, and I guess because of the state of mind that they have adopted, they’re not acting in a foolhardy manner. They’re not overly passionate everything about their moves very calm and deliberate, which means that they really are ready to take on these Gallic attackers. So all possible entrance points to the citadels, the Romans had made sure were reinforced with guards, and when they saw that the Gauls were finally on their way, they made sure that their very best soldiers were in position, they let the Gauls advance, and their idea was that the higher up the Gauls came, the easier it would be for the Romans to push them back, because they held the high ground. So they’re thinking very strategically here. Dr G 29:18Yes, it makes sense. It gets steeper. And if you can push somebody over and then they do that thing with their arms, where they’re like, whoa, and it can have a cascading domino effect upon the other people behind them. It’s fantastic as a defense strategy. Dr Rad 29:32Now finally, our two forces meet in the midst of a declivity Dr G, which I learned is a part in the approach, where it’s lower than all the areas around it. So a perfect moment for the Romans to encounter the Gauls, and it really allows them to throw themselves in. And they managed to drive the Gauls back so definitively that the Gauls decided, whew, we cannot attempt that again. That is. Crazy that it’s just suicide, even though we so clearly vastly outnumber this tiny group of people who only have a limited amount of provisions. We can’t possibly attempt that again. And so this is where they decide that they’re just going to blockade the Romans who are on the Citadel. They hadn’t planned for this. They hadn’t foreseen this in their future, and they had actually burnt all the corn in Rome when they had set fire to the various areas in the city, or perhaps the corn in the field had just been taken to they so the Gauls decided instead that they needed to split their army. They’re going to use part of their army to go around and loot all the people that live around Rome so that they can get the supplies that they need to feed the entire group and the rest are going to stay and besiege the Romans on the citadels, and they’re going to have the supplies brought to them by the pillagers. Dr G 30:54Okay, so the Gauls have made some mistakes, some tactical errors. They weren’t prepared for a siege, as it turns out, the truth has finally revealed, and now they’re like we have to ravage the surrounding countryside to feed ourselves, to sustain us while we conduct a siege. Dr Rad 31:11And this would make sense if we go back to a theory which I mentioned before, which is that the whole backstory we have for the reasons why the Romans and the Gauls are at war is totally made up, and that it is somewhat accidental that the Gauls end up encountering the Romans, and that they were, in fact, headed somewhere else, hired as mercenaries to serve somebody else, and that this whole thing is just a chance encounter. Dr G 31:39Well, be that as it may. I think the most valid reason is the one where they were looking for somewhere that would be cooler to live. But they’ve ended up in Rome in July, and that’s not a great time. It’s pretty hot now. They’re unhappy, and they’re involved in a siege. So I don’t know if the Gauls are having the best year so far. Dr Rad 32:00Fortune is starting to, I think, look out for our little Romans again. Dr G because the departing Gauls fortune makes sure that they head towards Ardea. Why is Ardea a fortunate place for them to have gone? Why Camillus had gone there in his exile, and he was completely devastated when he heard about the attack on Rome. He was even more upset about the sack of Rome than he was by his own personal misfortune, which had driven him into this exile. But he also is confused. Dr G he doesn’t understand how he had led such valiant warriors from Rome against city of A and the falerii, and they had just triumphed completely trounce them, and then all of a sudden, the goals just walk in and take it doesn’t make sense even to Camillus. Dr G 33:00Now this is really interesting, because Livy is going in a direction which my narrative definitely goes in, but doesn’t enter into until way later on. So interesting. The idea that Camillus is even part of this narrative is completely questionable. When I start looking at the source material and I try to line it up in some sort of chronology that would make any kind of sense, and this is way too early for Camillus to be turning up in this narrative, in some respects, based on how his story is told in other sources, including Appian Dionysus of Halicarnassus and Diodorus Siculus. So but to recap a little bit about where Camillus is. He is in aedea because he’s been exiled from Rome, and he’s chosen exile because he doesn’t want to pay the bills and nobody’s going to support him. He’s fallen out of favor. And he does say, in that moment, he was praying the prayer of Achilles that the time might come when the Romans would long for Camillus. So he’s had that moment where he’s kind of set Rome up for this misfortune, maybe inadvertently, but he wants to be wanted, and he wants Rome to be desperate enough to want him back. Now, however, we start to see a turnaround in the books, and there’s a few different places in the narrative where this second prayer from Camillus could come in, but this would be one of the potential times where he says, I could not have prayed to the gods that the Romans might sometime long for me, if I had cherished any such feeling as that towards them. Now I pray the nobler prayer that I may render my country, a service equal to the calamity that has befallen Dr Rad 34:44her. That’s good stuff. Dr G 34:47Yes, juicy Camillus. Dr Rad 34:50Look, I am not surprised at all that your Greek sources would be bringing Achilles into this whole mess. Well. Debbie, you’re right. You are right. This is something that definitely academics have highlighted, that Camillus is obviously a major figure in this story of the sack of Rome, even though he’s not actually there for the sack, apparently. And certainly, other scholars have noted the lack of agreement in our sources in the order in which things happen so completely, Livy has got a different order to all of these other sources that you’ve mentioned. And it highlights, I suppose, different things about Camillus role in this whole story. To get back to my version of things, which is obviously the correct version, yeah. Camillus hears at this moment, whilst he’s wondering what on earth happened to Rome. Have the Romans lost their groove? Do I need to help them get it back? He hears that the Gauls are on their way heading out to Ardea. Naturally, the people in Ardea are in a total state of panic and have no idea what to do. Luckily for them, Camillus, the hero with the mostest, is around, and he’s struck, and I quote, with an inspiration, nothing less than divine. Oh, the gods look out for him. And he inserts themselves into their state of panic. Dr G 36:24Wow. Camillus. Dr Rad 36:26Livy tells me that Camillus doesn’t really like these sorts of meetings. Not a crowd man, not a crowd pleaser. But this is a different scenario. Get ready for an inspirational speech. Dr, G, Dr G 36:40I will strap myself in. Come on. Camillus, do your worst. Dr Rad 36:44He addresses the ardeans. He says he’s aware that he is in exile, and he wants to repay their kindness for allowing him to come and live amongst them. Did they know he has a bit of a handy little knack for war. The Ardeans owe the Romans because of the relationship they have had in the past. We’ve talked about their relationship with Rome. Previously, the Romans have lavished benefits upon them, and the Ardeans know that Camillus doesn’t need to list them all. Now, ADEA could now also not only repay the Romans for their past kindnesses, because they’ve sorted out disagreements with other cities in the past, but they could win themselves glory if they decided to take on the goals and win the goals were naturally bold, brave and big, very scary. Camillus acknowledges this, but they also need to remember that they are scatterbrained, changeable, racist comment, racist comment, racist comment. Dr G 37:53They can’t think when they overheat. Dr Rad 38:00The tend to malfunction in the snow Dr G 38:03exactly a strong wind knocks them right over. Dr Rad 38:07And I again, I’m going to quote my translation of Livy so in Camillus, words to every conflict, they bring more terror than strength. And you can see this in what they have just done to Rome. They may have just been able to waltz in and completely devastate the city, but that’s because there weren’t really any Romans around. As soon as they came up against a teeny, tiny little group of Romans. The Romans had managed to keep them in their place, and Camillus knew that the Gauls, by this stage, were getting bored by the siege. They don’t have a long attention span. Racist comment, racist comment, they’re not able to stay in one place. Racist comment, racist comment, they’re constantly wandering off into the countryside to stuff themselves with food and wine. Racist comment, racist comment, and at night, they don’t even bother to erect any protections around themselves. There are no ramparts, there are no pickets, there are no sentries. They just sleep beside a stream like animals, so much victory has gone completely to their heads that they’re not even taking proper precautions. Racist comment, racist comment, racist comment. Dr G 39:20Ah, well, this is in keeping with some of the comments that come through from other sources as well. Apparently, the Gauls get soft from eating all the delicious Roman food and drink, and they lose their fitness and become quite incapable of running all hardship. And when any exertion is required, they become exhausted by perspiration and shortness of breath, according to Appian. And we also have this idea coming through in Plutarch as well about Camillus capabilities in persuading the Ardeans to get involved. He doesn’t necessarily put it into a speechifying moment, but he does. Say that when they notice that the Gauls are on the horizons of Ardea, that he is able to persuade the young Ardean men in particular to pluck up their courage and support Rome’s desperate cause. Dr Rad 40:14Yes, this is exactly the moment that I am building to, because the end of Camillus speech, he says, Look, if you guys want to save yourselves and also win that glory for stopping the relentless advance of the Gauls, which might just be an accident, we don’t know. They need to get their arms together. They need to follow Camillus. And again, I’m going to quote my translation, not to a battle, but a massacre. Camillus says to them, If I do not deliver them up to you, fast asleep, to be butchered like cattle. Well, you can exile me from Ardea, just like I was exiled from Rome. He loves making these really bold pronouncements. Why is it always have to come down to this. Dr G 40:59I’ll just leave this place as well. That’s fine. Failure is exile. I understand. Dr Rad 41:07I’ll land on my feet. I always do. Now, the people who like Camillus at this point, as well as the people who are opposed to him are just blown away by him at this moment. Doesn’t matter which side you were on, everyone’s now on Camillus side. And again, I can’t help but quote my translation. There was no such warrior in those days anywhere. He is incomparable. Dr G so when the Ardennes left the council, they wait for a signal to leave, and when it came in the early evening, they go out to meet Camillus at the gates, and it’s not far out of the city when they stumble across the camp of the Gauls. And it was exactly like Camillus had told them, no guards, no security. And so they’re feeling very cheerful about that. Now I’m going to pause at this moment and highlight that most historians think that all of this is completely fictional. Dr G 42:04Yes, yes, I hate to say it. I’m sitting with those scholars. One this order of events seems mad, but also I don’t know. I mean, what’s going on guys? What is even happening in our day? What is happening in central Italy. What we do get is a sense that if we’re following this line, and this is definitely a line that Plutarch and Livy agree on, is that by cutting off this Gaulish force, which is out foraging essentially as far south as Ardea, which is indicative of some information that we haven’t covered yet, which is the length of the siege of Rome to be foraging this far south of Rome. This means that the Gauls have stripped bare everything between Ardea and Rome already, and one of the estimates in the literary sources is that this is a siege that takes about seven months and it starts in yay, starts in July and doesn’t wrap up until February of the next year. Wow. So it’s the height of the harvest, essentially when the siege begins. So the things are pretty bright for the picking. So for if we, if we’re playing with that kind of timeline, and it’s all very hypothetical, and obviously it’s the sort of thing that scholarship has lots of questions about. But let’s, let’s say for a moment that the siege did start in July for them to wind up all the way down in Ardea, which is a goodly way from Rome, like they’re nearby. If you’re driving a car today, it doesn’t take too long, but if you’re walking and you’re stripping the fields as you go, and then taking the stuff back to the people who are holding the siege, because you’re going to have to do that pretty regularly. It’s going to take a bit of time to get this far. We’re probably months into the siege already, and then Camillus, apparently, with the help of the ardean force, sacks this Gallic camp, which is a pillaging and foraging camp, and if they have booty, so be it. But they’re mostly there to pick up food stuffs and to make things easier for the siege back at Rome. So this is a bit of a blow to the siege, if this is the kind of narrative sequence that we’re looking at, Dr Rad 44:16for sure, and certainly, I think one of the things that modern scholars are pointing out is that all of this just seems to be set up to heighten the tensions of the story and obviously make it a real like, Ooh, what is Camillus going to do? When is he going to return? What’s going to happen? And this in Livy’s account, I think gives Camillus a role in striking a blow for revenge against the Gauls by events playing out in this manner. I’m going to have to go to a spoiler here at this point, dr, G, and that is something that I don’t think I’ve mentioned so far, which is that we do have a mention of these events in Polybius, who is using a very early source. Fabius Pictor, quite a respected analyst, one of our earliest Roman historians. In fact, I think he is the earliest Roman historian, and one Dr G 45:08of the ones that we kind of wish we had as well. We don’t. We don’t have a lot of Fabius pictor only through other sources. Dr Rad 45:14Now, he doesn’t mention Camillus at all when he’s talking about these events, and he makes mention in his account that the Romans, when the Gauls show up at their gates, pay them to go away. Dr G 45:29We’ll get to that. Don’t you worry. And I would also put Further to that, that in Diodorus Siculus account, Camillus does not turn up until very late in the piece as well, and he’s considered relatively accurate, I suppose, for for for some so I think that’s quite interesting as well, that Camillus does take a very different role in Diodorus Siculus account, and it’s a much lesser role than the One that Livy wants to give. I would say Dr Rad 46:02yes, but hey, at least Livy’s account has given him a chance to put hideous stereotypes of barbarians into Camillus mouth. Dr G 46:11Look, I love a good story. I don’t appreciate the racism. Dr Rad 46:15So Camillus and his forces from Ardea having stumbled across this camp, as you noted, Dr G, completely slaughter everyone in it. Now this is helped by the fact that the camp was complete mess and total chaos, because, you know, barbarians, stereotype, stereotype, the aedeans and Camillus just basically kill men in their sleep, anyone who is sleeping a little bit further away, they are in obviously a state of total confusion. If they do hear what’s going on, they kind of try and run away in a really panicked state. And some of them end up just running smack back into the attacking forces because they don’t know what’s going on. Some of them manage to get away, get away. And apparently a lot of them end up in antium and they’re kind of just wandering around until the locals come out and finish them off. Dr G 47:09That’s terrible. I Dr Rad 47:11know it’s a bit of a sad story, all right. Dr, G, so I feel like this is maybe a good moment for us to wrap up. We’ve got our moment of revenge upon the attacking Gauls, although it feels oddly unsatisfying after all the stereotypes that Camillus has played on thanks, Camillus once again. But that means that it’s time for the partial pick. All right. Dr Rad 47:40Dr, G, can you please tell us what is the partial pick all about? Dr G 47:43Oh, the partial pick. We are going to judge the Romans as they would have wished to be judged by their own standards. And there’s going to be 50 Golden Eagles up for grabs, 10 across, five categories each. The first of all being military clout. Dr Rad 48:01Well, some I guess it’s a bit of an odd one, isn’t it? Because we’ve got camilius Getting this revenge at the last minute, but he’s assisted by the aedeans. I don’t know how much that counts. And then we’ve got the Romans on the Citadel managing to hold off the Gauls, but the Gauls are sacking the city. I don’t know how I rate this. Dr G 48:22Yeah, it’s a challenging one. The Romans push some people down a hill, and Camillus cuts some throats while people are sleeping. Yeah, I would say that none of these are great examples of military clout, necessarily. The siege defense is the siege defense, and it’s probably great for the Romans that they’ve managed to push the Gauls back there, but attacking a camp of people who have been described and set up to be killed essentially as being not very military minded, doesn’t seem like an example of Roman military clout. Dr Rad 48:58So well, it’s not cidans. Yes, Dr G 49:02there’s one Roman in there. We give, I suppose we could give them one point for one Roman doing something. Dr Rad 49:09Yeah, okay, let’s give them one point. All right. Dr G 49:12Our second category is diplomacy. Ah, I don’t think so. I’m not feeling a lot of diplomacy, no. Dr Rad 49:20I mean, unless we count Camillus talking the aediles into helping out the Romans. Is that diplomacy? I feel like it’s not. That’s persuasion. Yeah, yeah, all right. Third category, expansion, most decidedly not. They’re about to lose everything they’ve Dr G 49:39ever had. Boo zero for expansion, yeah, our fourth category is virtus. Dr Rad 49:46Okay, now we have something to work with. We’ve got a bunch of ex magistracies who maybe have committed a religious act, or maybe they are just extremely virtuous men, but either way. Okay, they’re going down with the ship, Dr G, and I think it is meant to be kind of protecting Rome. You know, they’re giving their lives for Rome, and maybe trying to, I wonder if this is almost trying to win back the favor of the gods. Because remember, in the build up to this whole account, we’ve constantly been seeing the Romans get on the wrong side of the gods, and this is meant to be a sign that they’re heading towards disaster. The disaster is here, but the last moment Romans finally acting in a way that the gods can be like, I see Dr G 50:30you, yeah. And you could read what is happening with those men sitting in really prominent places, either in their houses or in the forum, as being within the sacred bounds of the city. So them, yes, their blood being spilt by an enemy does constitute some kind of sacrifice in a kind of ritual, God fearing kind of way. This is not just any kind of death. This is blood of Romans spilt within the sacred bounds of the city Dr Rad 51:00and the Romans don’t, well, they like to think that they don’t go in for human sacrifice, in spite of later things like gladiators and whatnot, but let’s not go down that path now, certainly for the Romans, a human sacrifice is the highest kind of sacrifice. Dr G 51:17Yes, and I dare say that if you’d asked them about Gladiators, it’s too early for that. But if, even if you did ask them in a time where it was relevant, they would say, well, they’re not Romans. Dr Rad 51:28This is true. But what about the vessels that get buried alive? Dr, G, what about Dr G 51:31them? Oh, that’s a real sacrifice. Yeah. Dr Rad 51:35Anyway, okay, so how much we’re gonna give them for their the massacre of the senators? Dr G 51:41Look, I don’t want to give them full marks, because I feel like the patricians will be rewarding them outsized for the thing, like they the reason why they’re there is because they’re physically not able to handle the travel of fleeing. Dr Rad 51:54So we’ll see that’s not actually something that Livy mentions. Now, obviously he’s building it up to be a really stoic moment in his story, and he wants the Romans to come out like a hero, but that is not really what they seem to be doing here. Dr G 52:10Hmm, okay, well, leaving that aside, yeah, we’ve got the eldest former magistracies of Rome remaining behind as a kind of divine gesture. I think that’s pretty good in terms of where to us. Dr Rad 52:26Yeah, I think it’s more in Livy’s account, the way it’s set up. I mean, there is probably a practical element to it in terms of, you know, where they get a run because they’re older, but it does seem more like these are old men who have long and storied careers behind them, and they’re just prepared to die. They’re like, this is my moment, and that’s why they decide to stay. Dr G 52:48And also like, this is my home. I am Roman. This is Rome. I stay in Rome. Yes, exactly, yes. And all of that makes sense. So I think we’re looking at maybe a seven. Dr Rad 52:59Okay, yep, seven is good, all Dr G 53:02right, and our final category is the citizen score. Is it a good time to be a Roman? Dr Rad 53:09What Romans? I mean, Dr G 53:12it’s not a great time to be a Roman. I don’t think the people on the Capitoline Hill are having a great time, but they’re alive. Dr Rad 53:19They are alive, but they are living on rations, and they’re having to watch their beloved city get torched and looted by people that they don’t understand and seemingly came out of nowhere. All right, sounds like a solid zero, yeah. I mean, there are still some people alive at they obviously, and maybe they’re doing a little bit better, but they’re there because they can’t go back to Rome. Dr G 53:44Oh yes, do not forget about they. Oh, I’ve got a lot to say about they. Dr Rad 53:48All right. Well, Dr, G, if that’s why we’re calling it, it means that the Romans get eight out of 50 Golden Eagles for this episode. But I have to say that’s kind of still more than I was expecting during the sack of Rome, and this is obviously for only part of the year of 390 or thereabouts. Dr G 54:10Look, they’ve definitely earned less. And I mean, kudos to them. The patricians are getting them over the line this time. Dr Rad 54:19Oh gosh, what a sad sentence to have to finish on. Dr G 54:22Well, I look forward to continuing. I suspect we will be talking about the Gallic sack of Rome in our next episode. Dr Rad 54:30Oh, I think we will. In fact, I’m actually starting to think, is this going to Dr G 54:34be five episodes? Yes, I’m now, yes, now that you threw a curve ball at me and you were like, we’re not up to the Etruscans. Yet in this episode, I was like, Oh no, Dr Rad 54:45I know how the Romans feel. By Dr G 54:48the end of it, we’ll be like, I’m so glad the Siege has broken. Dr Rad 54:52All right. Dr, G, well, I shall look forward to being holed up on the citadel with you for a few more episodes. Woohoo. Dr Rad 55:09Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of the Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive, to find more from the Memory Collective head to collective mem.com. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad free content. Today, we would like to send a special shout out to Margaret, Evan and JJ Scout, some of our newest Patreon members. You can also support us by buying us a coffee on ko fi. However, if the girls have recently ransacked your village, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome. Transcribed by https://otter.ai The post Episode 168 – The Gallic Sack of Rome – Part 3 appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Special Episode - Camillus with Marc Hyden

Marcus Furius Camillus is an ancient Roman that it is hard to ignore, especially in the early days of the 4th century BCE. He has been regularly popping up in our episodes from the era, so we thought it would be wonderful to invite on a special guest to discuss his whole life in one handy biographic episode. Who is Marc Hyden? Marc Hyden is the Director of State Government Affairs at a Washington DC-based think tank, as well as being a weekly columnist for the Newnan Times-Herald, Albany Herald, and Rome News-Tribune. Marc graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy. Marc has authored many, many books on Ancient Rome. His most recent work is Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian (McFarland, 2025), and we will be talking with him about that in a future episode. He has also authored Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Saviour (Pen & Sword, 2017), Romulus: The Legend of Rome’s Founding Father (Pen & Sword, 2020), but our focus today is going to be on Marcus Furius Camillus: The Life of Rome’s Second Founder (Pen & Sword, 2023). Things to Listen Out For: Camillus’ controversies Camillus’ rise to fame The many virtues of Camillus The legacy of this Roman hero We are sure you will love hearing Marc talk about Camillus, the man who served as a role model for later Roman luminaries like Julius Caesar and Augustus. If you would like to hear more, we have a stack of episodes in our back catalogue that feature Camillus. Sound Credits Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Automated Transcript Dr Rad 0:15Welcome to the partial historians. Dr G 0:19We explore all the details of ancient Rome, Dr Rad 0:23everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr rad, Dr G 0:33and I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Dr Rad 0:55Hello and welcome to a special episode of the partial historians, I am one of your hosts. Dr rad, and I am, Dr G, now. Dr G, we have been basically hosting the Camillus show for a good many episodes now. And so it is with great pleasure that we welcome on our next guest, Marc Hyden. Marc Hyden is the Director of State Government Affairs at a Washington DC based think tank, as well as being a weekly columnist for The Newnan Times, Herald, Albany Herald and Rome News-Tribune. Marc graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy. Marc shares a love for ancient Rome, and has published numerous books on the subject. His most recent work is Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian, which came out with MacFarland in 2025 and we will be talking with him about that in a future episode. He has also authored Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Savior with Pen and Sword in 2017, Romulus, The Legend of Rome’s Founding Father with Pen and Sword in 2020 but our focus today is going to be on Marcus Furius Camillus, the life of Rome’s second founder, which came out with Pen and Sword in 2023 and so I’m sure everyone is cheering right now because they want to hear much, much more about Camillus than we have ever told them. Welcome Marc! Marc Hyden 2:28Hey, thanks so much for having me, and I’m glad I can find some other people that I can nerd out with about Camillus. Dr Rad 2:34You are indeed in the right location, all right. Well, let’s kick it off with some general questions. We know that family is very important in ancient Rome. Can you please tell us a bit about Camillus’ family and background? Marc Hyden 2:51Sure, and you know, I started writing the book about Camillus at the beginning of the pandemic, and I was trying. I thought I would write this book chronologically, which is what I did. I decided to try to figure out start off with, well, essentially, who was his father and his grandfather? That’s kind of how these things work. And unfortunately, his whole family, more than a generation or so before him, there’s not really much known. We do know that he hailed from a patrician family, the gens Furii, and judging by some of the members names and some epigraphic evidence, they were probably of Latin stock, and they had roots in the cities of Tusculum and Medulia, not too far from Rome. However, they wouldn’t have been originally Roman from the Romans eyes. They were they were Latin. They were a little bit different, but eventually they were incorporated into the early republic. And actually they might have been incorporated even in under the monarchy. But initially, the Furii they they weren’t really that influential, at least compared to some of the other clans. I mean, we think about the great clans like the Fabii, who seemed to like have a stranglehold on early and even later part portions of the Republic. But in spite of this, the fury, they clearly did enjoy some sway in old Rome, beginning about a generation before Camillus was born. And we know this. We can see from the Fasti Capitolini and from some other evidence, I believe that the first person in his family to gain prominence with Sextus Furius. So he was a consul at some point in 488, BC, most likely, although Varronian dating is off, you know, that might have been off by at least three years or so, but he became one of Rome’s two consuls. And he was probably a direct ancestor of Camillus, or at least somehow related to him. But after he came to power then, then other people start in his family started to ascend to the pinnacle of elected Roman politics, and by the mid fifth century BC, Camillus was born into this increasingly ascendant family. And that brings me back to trying to figure out who the heck was his father and his grandfather. Father, because Livy doesn’t mention this. Plutarch doesn’t mention this. No one mentions this. So I started looking at the inscriptions from the Fasti Capitolini, and within it, it, you know, it has his name, Marcus Furius Camillus. And then there’s these weird abbreviations in there. What those abbreviations are? They tell you the shorthand of what his grandfather and his father’s name was so we know that his grandfather was Spurius, and his father was Lucius. So with that, we can deduce that his grandfather is probably Spurius, Spurius Medullinus Fusus, who happened to be consul in 464, BC. And his father was Lucius Furius Medullinus, and he served as a consular Tribune a few times after Camillus birth, Dr G 5:45you’re setting us up really nicely, because Spurius Furius is one of our favorite Romans of the early republic in all of his iterations, because there were a few Spurius Furii. But to know that Camillus might be related into that line as well. Well, well, it warms the heart. It makes so much sense to us as fans, thinking about when Camillus starts to rise to prominence. Can you tell us a little bit about how his early career starts to take off? Marc Hyden 6:15Yeah, much like his family, there’s not a whole lot known about Camillus in his early life, we know kind of the first big thing we hear about him is that at a young age, probably around 15 or 16 years old, he served in the cavalry during the Battle of Mount Algidus, which pitted the Romans against the Aequians and the Volscians. These these generational enemies that your listeners are very familiar with. And during this, this pivotal battle, the teenager, unlike what I would have been like at that age, he rode out beyond the Roman infantry’s line, and he engaged the Republic’s foes, and he had a bolt, an arrow, some sort of projectile, fired at him and it lodged in his leg. And despite it being stuck in there, and he’s probably suffering from blood loss, he urges his his steed forward and fights. He the enemy with distinction. And you know, all of his his colleagues saw this. They thought it was they thought it was excellent. They ended up winning the battle. And you know, he might have contributed to that as well, but he earned a name for his bravado, and he got plaudits back in Rome. But unfortunately, after he goes back to Rome and he has he gets to go enjoy a triumph with the dictator who won the battle of Mount Algidus. Nothing, there’s like a dark age for Camillus. The next 27 or so years, we don’t know a thing about him. We can glean some stuff. You know, he probably we he would have gotten married, and we know that he had kids, at least two boys, and he may have had many, many girls as well. And he probably worked on the family business, managing some farms and that sort of thing. But eventually he decided to follow his family’s footsteps and enter the political world. And this is, this is a kind of a mystery to me, and I’m sure it is to you, because the first office that we know of they decided to run for was the censorship. So the censorship was, was relatively new by this age. It had only been around for about a generation, but throughout much of Rome’s history afterward, the censorship was something that was a crowning achievement after a long, long career, a very successful career, not something you’re going to give some upstart freshmen. Somehow he, at least, according to the ancient accounts, he he succeeds. He’s one of Rome’s two censors, and he serves probably around 403 to 402 BC. And during that period, he did some for modernize, some some weird things. He worked to raise taxes by ensuring that orphans couldn’t get out of paying them, which sounds really, really terrible, but really he was probably, probably had to do with inheritance for very rich orphans whose parents had passed away, not poverty stricken ones. And he also worked to ensure that bachelors either paid a fine or married widows, because with all the plagues and all the wars, there were a lot of single women out there that were probably struggling to make ends meet, and he encouraged them to get married. And then afterward, after having what that was viewed as a very successful censorship, he decided to serve the state in some other ways, and he eyed the consular tribuneship. This is a very weird quirk of Roman politics, because we’ve already talked about the consuls. There’s two consuls that supposedly headed up the government in normal times, but then periodically in this era, there were no consuls. So the ancient writers suggest that since the plebeians at the time could not hold the consulship. They’d obstruct the government and force them to appoint people other than consul so they would do consular Tribune ships or tribunes and plebeians could hold that as well as patricians, and that was supposedly the genesis of it. But there’s been some modern debate. One academic suggests that consular tri. Tribunes weren’t even an official position. They were actually war band leaders that the ancient writers misinterpreted. Meanwhile, others disagree, and they believe that they were actually a real position that was elected by the Roman populace. But the reason that they opted for tribunes rather than consuls is that you could have four, six, maybe even eight consular tribunes that serve at the same time. So you could fight a lot of wars, you could manage a lot of problems, a lot more than you could with only two consoles. And at this time, Rome was surrounded by enemies, or at least potential enemies. They had so many problems, so they were they were willing to kind of bend the rules and have consular tribunes lead them. So Camillus, after that long digression, Camillus decides he wants to run for this. And he wins a term in 401, and in 398, and immediately he’s put to the test. He He wages kind of a scorched earth campaign, first against the capitanis and then the filiscans, who are both allies, frenemies, something like that, with with Rome’s really serious foe, Veii and his he was successful. I mean, there was no major, major turning points in those but he waged a scorched earth campaign that really left them in pain, and this gave him the chance to propel within Roman society and eventually become a Roman hero. Dr Rad 11:23Yes, let’s talk more about his reputation as a Roman hero. There are a few moments that have started to emerge in our episodes that seem to put Camillus in the limelight. So can you tell us a bit about these times in his life which seemed to cement his reputation as a Roman hero, yeah, Marc Hyden 11:41I’d love to so around the time that he wraps up his his second consular tribuneship, Rome has been mired in this long siege of the eye. They just this is this settlement that really was kind of the counter to Rome. They were Etruscan. It was built on this big, craggy mount, and it was very well fortified, and they had been fighting each other, supposedly since the days of Romulus. They these guys just did not like each other. But over the years, Rome slowly had started to outperform Veii and really everything tended to center generally around the city of Fidenae because of the control of a lot of different routes, communication lines and that sort of thing. Rome, at this point, they were really ready to smite their foe and just be done with it for years to come. But it wasn’t going well. They kept having embarrassing mishaps happening on the front and after about 10 years of the siege, and we’ll talk about later on, about how the siege probably didn’t actually last 10 years. But according to the ancient accounts, it lasted 10 years. It wasn’t going well. Rome decided we’ve got to just name a dictator, the dictators of today’s era. I mean, it’s, it’s a scary, very bad thing. No one wants a dictator. Back then, it wasn’t considered a bad thing. It was. It was a term of no more than six months, and they appointed someone in times of emergency so they could control the city state’s resources and focus it all on the main issue, which was vi so they appointed Camillus to do that, and he performed ably. And instead of using the same tactics that had not been working there, he decided to undermine the city. So he had these mines cleaved underneath. And while that was going on, they scaled the walls, opened the gates, and VI fell. And in fact, supposedly, you can still find some of the mines or drainage pipes that Camillus and his troops might have used today in the vicinity, which is pretty exciting for a big nerd like me. So he has the success there. It’s a very big success, but it causes him serious grief later in his life, not too much later, but we’ll get to that in a little bit his next moment that really cements him as a Roman hero comes in 394, BC. So at this point, Camillus is once again serving as a consular Tribune. And as you’ve talked about on on your podcast before, he was charged with eliminating Falerii as a threat. So he battled them. He hems them into into the city, and he begins to lay siege. And as your listeners know, Faliscan schoolmaster, you know, he’s got all these these noble children under his tutelage. He teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic and whatnot, and also lets them exercise. So every day he takes them out of the city walls, and each day gets a little bit closer to the Roman sentinels, until he’s able to finally hand these children over to Camillus. And he tells them, hey, you know, this is a great opportunity. You can take these children, use them as hostages, pawns of war, and bring the city to their knees. And the schoolmaster probably thought that he was going to get recompense. And rewarded for, for this, this terrible act. Well, instead of it working out, it really ticks off Camillus, like he’s a man of integrity, at least we’re told that he is. So he has the man stripped of his clothing, has him flogged, and, you know, in it just weird Roman form, gives all these children canes to just beat this poor man senseless as they march back to Falerii, where everyone’s watching in kind of disbelief, and they’re like, gosh, you know, this Camillus guy could have used these children against us, but he chose not to. He’s a man of honor. Rome must be a city state of honor. We’re going to be at peace. So it ends bloodlessly, and they become friends, supposedly, and that is one of the that it’s the second and a very large episode in which it really cements his his legacy. Now the last major episode comes later, and we’re talking about Rome sacking the most one of the most embarrassing and humiliating moments in the record, although there’s a canonical view, and then there’s the view of what really happened, and we can get to the reality a little bit later. But according to legend around 390 BC, this is veronian dating again in Livy, a band of Gauls known as the Senones, and were led by Brennus, King Brennus, and they defeated the Romans at the river Alia, sacked Rome, with the exception of the capitolin Hill, and then laid siege to it. They’re unable to capture it, because barbarians, of course, don’t know how to do things. So they can just, they can just make people’s lives miserable. And eventually they say, hey, we’ll leave. Give us 1000 pounds of gold. No big deal. The Romans, eventually they agree, we’ll give you 1000 pounds. They start carting it down, and the Gauls are weighing it to make sure they have enough, but they’ve actually rigged the scales so that they can get more than 1000 pounds. And the Romans, they get wise to this, and they figure it out. And when they complain. There’s the famous moment where Brennus walks up to the weighing plate and throws his sword on it. And when the Romans asked, What does this mean? He, you know, exclaims, Vae victis, or Woe to the vanquished. So while all this is going on, Camillus is living in exile. And we can we’ll talk a little later about why he’s in exile and he is appointed dictator in absentia. At first they asked him to take, take control the troops that were around Rome’s vicinity. He refuses to do it, but they they appoint him. He refuses to do it because it would be inappropriate at first, because he didn’t have the statutory power. So once they appointed him formally dictator, he takes the troops, eventually marches back into Rome, and he sees this exchange with gold, and he’s he’s furious, and he explains to Brennus, in uncertain, no uncertain terms, that he’s dictator, he’s Supreme Leader. This is not a real agreement, because he would never agree to it. And then they start to battle. He pushes them out of Rome, and then the next day, at the near the eighth milestone, they had wage a big battle. And at that point, Camillus destroys the barbarian threat and collects a lot of the gold, or at least the canonical account suggests that. So the last major episode that really lifts Camillus into being this demigod, really for Romans, is the reversal of the Senones at Rome. Speaker 1 18:27It’s such a big moment as well, very dramatically told in Livy and some of our other ancient sources. And I do really enjoy this idea that Camillus is furious at Brennus, because that ties in very nicely with the gens as well. So Camillus has these moments of glory. They’re pretty significant, significant enough that Romans continue to talk about them centuries later. But you’ve already hinted at the idea that there are some things that don’t go so well for Camillus. And you noted that he’s actually in exile in the lead up to this sack by the Gauls. Can you speak to some of the more controversial things that are going on with Camillus? Marc Hyden 19:14Yeah, and it seems, it seems bizarre that this exempla of Roman virtue is somehow embroiled in any controversy. But there’s, like, there’s several moments, so there’s quite there’s a bit of a laundry list. So bear with me. But after sacking Veii Camillus is awarded a triumph. And you know, he’s He’s excited. This is a celebratory parade through Rome that everybody wants it. Children probably dream of getting this. And he gets it, and he wants it to be pretty fancy. So, you know, he gets dressed up, most likely, as paints his face red and makes him look like Jupiter, and even secures four white horses to pull his his triumphal carriage to modernize. That’s who cares. That’s a big shrug to the road. Romans. This was symbolism the four white horses. No one had ever done this before in Rome, supposedly, and to them, this was symbolism that was more appropriate for for the gods, as opposed to a man. So he, he goes through, you know, down the via sacrum snakes the Rome, and he probably sees all these lawn lookers recoiling at his impious display. So that causes a lot of grief for what now is seems like a very minor infraction, especially when you consider what later emperors like Nero are up to my goodness, this is, this is a nothing burger. But this wasn’t the only controversy. There’s several stemming from Veii’s fall Camillus, while he was the sacking was underway or getting ready to he pledged that he would donate a 10th of the spoils to Apollo, the god Apollo. Unfortunately, he didn’t really define what the spoils were or how the tithe would get collected. And what really made collecting this tithe so difficult is that immediately after the sack, the Senate, along with Camille, has decided, you know, we’re just going to let the people go and take whatever spoils they want. We’re nice guys like that. Just take whatever you want from this poor city that we have just ravaged. So you have all these people living in poverty, that their lives might be slightly better because they got a gold bowl or a gold cup or something silver that they were able to take from Veii well, they start witnessing these portents that perhaps the gods are pretty angry that this tithe has not been paid. So, you know, priests, the Senate, Camillus, they start talking, they they realize they really shouldn’t have reneged on on their on camillius Promise. It was solemn, it was inviolable, and they needed to deliver it. So they kind of mulled over ways of trying to do this, and they settled on telling the people that they had to voluntarily donate 10% of whatever they took from the city. Well, this ticked a lot of people off. I mean, they recently had a windfall. Some of them may have already spent it, you know, buying land, buying tools or whatever, and now they had to somehow find a way to donate a 10th of it. Supposedly, everyone did it. So good for Camillus, you know, his pledge was ultimately fulfilled. But you can imagine how angry the populace was. You know this, this guy had come in and his four white horses acting like a god, and now he told me that I gotta give back 10% of of what I’ve got recently. Marc Hyden 22:30So rude. How do you give back 10% of a gold bowl? You had to chip part Marc Hyden 22:31You had to chip part of it off, I guess, I’m not quite sure. So this, this really embittered quite a few people against him, but more, as I hinted, there’s, there’s more issues related to the sack, the sacking after doing so, a plebeian Tribune named Sicinius advocated for splitting Rome in half. Said half the Senate can go to Veii, half the plebeian populace can go there. You know, it’s a great place to live, despite what the Romans had just done to it. It’s defensible. They have good land, that sort of thing, and plus, it’s going to enrich everybody, because everyone’s going to get land, and we’re all going to be very happy doing this. Well, the plebeians probably loved this. The Senate, the patricians, they hated it, including Camillus, and the reason was, you’re splitting Rome in half, that’s going to weaken them, the two cities, even though they were supposed to continue operating under the same city state, they probably would have fought each other. And also, the very religious Romans probably thought that this was a slap in the face to the gods who had cultivated Rome that space for them. So Camillus fights against his proposal, and he and the patricians are victorious. But again, a lot of the people were probably pretty upset. They thought that they were going to get farmland to settle and these sorts of things. So then finally, the last issue related to the sacking comes from a different plebeian tribium, and this is Apuleius. He filed bogus charges against Camillus, suggesting that he had embezzled spoils from the the sacked city. Now the ancient writers are pretty much in unison saying that this is false. Camillus didn’t do anything wrong. The the justification for this was supposedly that Camillus had some bronze doors on his house, and supposedly that came from Veii he was allowed to collect spoils. He probably was even allowed to collect the commander’s share of spoils. So that’s not an indictment. This was Trump. These were trumped up charges. But the problem for Camillus is that he knew he was gonna lose in court. He was not gonna be able to win this his powerful friends wouldn’t be able to help them, or at least refuse to help him. So instead of suffering the ignominy of a kangaroo court condemning him, he decides to go live in exile, voluntarily in the city of Ardea, which explains why he was absent when. The Gauls sacked Rome, but when he comes back and saves the Romans from the Gauls, the people, once again mold the idea of relocating wholesale to Veii Camillus, again, was very opposed to this, and he derailed the measure, but it probably irked a lot of Romans, and then the last piece that really that tainted Camillus legacy to a much more minor degree, had to do with Marcus Manlius Capitolinus. He was a patrician who charted his own path to power. He, for some reason, felt like he couldn’t rely on the patricians to propel him toward his dreams. And he saw the plebeian body is much larger, and he knew that they suffered under the yoke of debt. So he advocated for essentially total debt forgiveness. He said the patricians actually had enough money to pay for all their debt, pay all the debt off, and they were hiding the money. And he knew where it was, but he wasn’t going to tell him where it was at just yet, at least. So Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, decides to go a step further, like he wants power, and he tries to use debt forgiveness to do that, something that really doesn’t go far, but it seems that he starts to warm to the idea of a revolt, maybe taking over the Capitoline Hill. And he’s also open to becoming the king, which is something at that time of Rome, yeah, they didn’t like kings too much, not at all. So eventually the Romans captured him, they tried him. Camillus was involved in in this situation, and eventually they they executed him in pretty gruesome fashion. And of course, this really angered a lot of the debt stricken plebs. So Camillus many great things to talk about, but he was not without controversy. Dr Rad 26:48Ah, it sounds like his patrician loyalties are what often gets him into trouble. So we know that the Romans love using an exemplar in both ways, both people that are to be admired, and also people that are to be reviled. Tell us what are the distinctive qualities that we can see in someone like Camillus? Marc Hyden 27:08Well, Camillus, despite these faults, despite controversy, he emerges, at least in the canonical accounts and much of the literature, unscathed. Really, he’s able to find redemption. And as I mentioned earlier, a lot of his infractions were a lot. They were pretty minor compared to the later, mad emperors and all that sort of thing. So I would say, first of all, if we’re talking about the distinctive qualities that that they saw in in Camillus, first of all, he was a Roman patriot. No one could say that he wasn’t. The Romans turned on him, and they sent at least according to the canonical account, and they sent him essentially into exile. These are his friends, his compatriots, the people that he had defended. They turned on him. But then when the senonas Sack Rome, they beg him to come back, and he’s willing to do so he comes back and he saves them, and apparently he doesn’t hold any grudges, uh, afterwards. So this is, this is kind of a selfless patriotism that we see from from Camillus. He also obeyed the law to the letter. And this is something that, you know, these fastidious Romans appreciate it, so before coming to Rome’s defense, after the sacking from the Gauls, he required that the government appoint him dictator, otherwise he would only be a private citizen without any power to lead armies. Now it was pretty difficult for this besieged band of Romans to appoint him dictator. But they managed to do it, and it pleased him, and it left him feeling as though that he was obeying the law and he wasn’t violating the Constitution, the unwritten constitution, in any way, shape or form. So he obeyed, obeyed the law, and he was generally fastidious at it. He also understood inequity to a degree, and often tried to avoid its controversy. So at the beginning of the podcast, we talked about how the consulship was reserved only for patricians at this point. Now, some rich plebeians, they certainly wanted to participate in this, and they would soon be able to. But this created a lot of controversy, and despite having this incredibly long curriculum vitae, Camillus refuses to ever be consul. He’s consular Tribune, but he won’t be Consul, supposedly, because of the controversy that surrounds it, and he also respected the gods. The Romans were a very religious people. I mean, some of their religious activities and everything are just really bizarre to modernize, but it was their thing. You know, it can’t be too judgmental. But he respected the gods, and even though he forgot or somehow didn’t immediately fulfill his promised tithe to Apollo, he generally worked to keep his his other oaths and remember the the pantheon of deities and then the last. Last the last distinctive quality, I think, that I would mention, is that he was a man of integrity. In the Faliscan the Falerii episode, he refused to use children as pawns in war, and he even worked to ease strife between the plebs and patricians after the plebeian tribunes, this is later in his life, suspended government for around five years and obstructed just about everything. Camillus worked to secure a compromise that gave the plebs more power. Then, after he did that, they could finally hold the consulship and some some pretty serious priesthoods. And this ended some of the inequity, but certainly, certainly not all of it. Dr Rad 30:40Politician with integrity, Dr G 30:42such a rare combination. Well, would we ever see such a man in our lifetimes? So I think this leads us really nicely into thinking about legacy, because Camillus gets a lot of attention in our ancient source material, and a lot of these written sources in particular are coming from a much later period of time, often the first century BCE, whereas Camillus is living his life and career in the fifth and the fourth centuries. So there’s quite a long period of time between the activities he’s involved in and when we get this flourishing of material about him. So I’m interested in what is Camillus legacy for the Romans? Marc Hyden 31:23To the Romans, Camillus was, without a doubt, he was an exempla of Roman virtue, which is a little bit different than you know what the virtues that you and I probably hold, but for Roman virtue, he was an exempla, and he was a role model for all subsequent leaders. Now you talked about a lot of the writings come hundreds of years after he died, and that is a problem with a lot of this, that era and the monarchical era. And I think he probably was able to shine in that era, when you had increasing numbers of corrupt and base politicians and people that were involved in power grabs and tried to violate the constitution. They had someone that they could say in row in our history, that is who you should be like. Now, of course, we know what happened to the Roman Republic and then what happened to the Empire. They kind of forgot their way, but they had someone to point to when they needed to try to correct themselves and the remote the Romans, they looked at him more than just this exemplar. He was the man who who finally vanquished Veii, he saved Rome from the Gauls. He rebuilt it after they had razed it to the ground, and he worked to ensure that the city of Rome, despite numerous, to at least two attempts to abandon or partially abandon, it would continue to be the seat of the republic and the empire for for hundreds of years to come. I mean, he’s known as the second founder of Rome. He held so many consulships, dictatorships, triumphs, and even was a censorship I mean, this is a man, a bit of a renaissance man that did just about everything and did almost everything right, at least according to very good PR, Dr G 33:09sounds dangerous. Sounds like it might almost be too good to be true. Dr Rad 33:14Ah, speaking of that, Dr, G, let’s talk about the historiography around Camillus. So one of the more intriguing theories we have stumbled across when we’ve been covering this time period is that Camillus was not, in fact, a historical figure at all, or at least his life and career might actually be some sort of amalgamation, perhaps, of numerous men from his family clan, and we’re curious to hear what your thoughts are on this mark. Marc Hyden 33:46So I take the position that I believe Camillus absolutely was a historical character who played an outsized role in the early republic, and he probably even played a role in the sacking of Veii say this, he’s incredibly well attested in the literary record, although it does come later, he’s well attested in the Fasti Capitolini and even famed historian, I think he was famed historian, TJ Cornell casted no doubt whatsoever that he was a historical character that did some some fantastic things for the Romans. However, outside of those two things, that he was a historical character, held some public offices of some kind, and did something at Veii after that, we really don’t know. That’s when things start getting a little fuzzy. So I think we can look at some of the issues around it. You know, I talked about the siege of the eye lasting 10 years. Well, we don’t believe most historians don’t believe it actually did that was a literary creation that they tried to borrow from, the Trojan War that supposedly lasted 10 years and the mysticism around it. But we still think. I mean, Veii was a real place, and it was sacked, and there’s no reason to believe that Camillus didn’t have something to do with that. Now, plenty of people have talked about Camillus life being embellished, exaggerated and combined with his family members, and I think that absolutely probably is the case. I don’t have any reason to doubt that it would be just incredibly hard, probably, especially in this era, to accomplish so many different things, even into old age. You know, we’ve talked about the Gallic sack of Rome, but there is supposedly another war that he led against against a different band of Gauls, and he would have been in his late 70s. My goodness, in ancient Rome, that’s a ripe old age, and you’re supposed to be leading armies. I’m not so sure. So I think that there was a family, the Marcus Furius Camilla’s, his family, his descendants and relatives, that were really accomplished. And somehow it got attached into this, this one person, you know, it might have been a son that engaged the Gauls at a later time. And there’s some theories about how this might have happened. You know, the histories were very bad back then. So people, there were family histories, there were eulogies to go off of. So families might have been embellishing their own story and building up this hero, but yes, I think Camillus was real. Did he do everything that the ancients said? Almost certainly not. Speaker 1 36:28Oh, Camillus a man of many faces and perhaps many men at the same time. To round off this conversation, one of the things that gets bandied about about Camillus, is this idea that he is actually the second founder of Rome. And I kind of love the phrasing of this. It’s almost, it’s a very Roman idea to think about somebody in this way. And I’m interested in, to what extent do you agree with this idea that he’s the second founder? Marc Hyden 36:57Well, it’s romantic. Let’s, let’s, let’s not doubt this one too. I’m joking. Of course, this is a tough one, so especially with only limited knowledge, I can tell you what the archeological evidence shows, what my research has showed, and we can just put the cards on the table. So the Romans, they mostly believe that he was the second founder of Rome. And modern scholarship, of course, who cast doubt on that? Now he supposedly received the sobriquet from defeating the Senones, defeating a measure to abandon Rome for Veii and then overseeing Rome’s reconstruction. So that’s why they named him. Supposedly named him Rome’s second founder. He was another Romulus. So Romulus is the first founder. He literally founds Rome. Camillus saves it and rebuilds it. And then, of course, Marius becomes the third founder of Rome, or was at least styled that way. But there’s a lot of problems here with regard to Camillus, which, of course, is someone who thinks he’s a pretty cool guy. Breaks my heart, because Camillus might not have actually had anything to do with the Senones, the sacking in the first place, which really just kind of throws Roman history out the window. And the theory behind this, it resonates. The claim is that his exile is actually a work of fiction, because it was just so embarrassing that the Romans were sacked by a bunch of bumbling barbarians that they needed to exculpate their hero, this guy that had already sacked their chief enemy, so they sent him into exile, so that he wouldn’t have been part of this sacking and this embarrassment, at least that’s the theory. He might have been there when it happened, and then went and left the city like many other people did. But there’s actually some ancient evidence that the Romans didn’t kick the the Gauls out. They actually paid them. There are a few references to the Romans getting the the money back later, sometimes much later, which is really embarrassing for the Romans that they had to pay these people to leave, so Camillus probably not in exile, probably didn’t come save them. The last real indictment on the being called the second founder is that the archeological evidence doesn’t show that the sacking was really that bad. It was a very mild sacking, as far as they go. Dr Rad 39:18Well, more like a pillow tussle. Marc Hyden 39:20The Gauls were busy. They were doing other stuff. They were probably in the pay of the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysus. So they were probably going south, tackling some of Syracuse’s enemies, and then if there was anyone in their way, they would just go ahead and sack them and steal all their stuff and then move on. So like they didn’t want to hang around. They probably had other things to do. But and also, the archeological evidence shows that the sacking was pretty mild, so there might not have been any reason for the Romans to talk about abandoning Rome in the first place. And if there was, it’s very possible that the that Camillus is counseled against it, but everything else. Is really doubtful. And there is one other theory that, in fact, Camillus was later grafted onto the story to replace a city Caere, which had come to the Romans aid during the sacking. Well, eventually their friendship fell apart, and they didn’t want to sing the praises of the city that they no longer liked. So they created this myth around Camillus, saving them and not the city that they don’t like anymore. That’s not they’re not cool. And even when you look at more ancient sources, Aristotle has a very curious line. So he was a little interested in what was happening in Rome, even though Rome was not important on a global scale at the time, and he said that a certain Lucius saved Rome, not a certain Camillus, which some people have theorized it was, I think it was Lucius Albinus who had selflessly tried to help the Vestal virgins. But it could have been anybody else, because being called Lucius was kind of like being called John. Now, it could be anyone. But it’s very telling that he didn’t say Camillus, and for that, it breaks my heart a little bit. Speaker 1 41:07Oh, Camillus, not even getting his first name, right. Aristotle, come on. Dr Rad 41:13Oh, well, what a fascinating look at Camillus’ life. We know we covered over so many episodes, it’s really great to be able to pull it all together into one biographic study. So thank you so much for joining us today, Marc. Marc Hyden 41:25Hey, thank you so much for having me and and let me nerd out on Camillus. Dr Rad 41:28I’m sure our listeners would love to pick up a copy of your biography of Camillus. It is highly readable, I can definitely say that. And we really look forward to having you back on to talk about the emperor Titus soon. Marc Hyden 41:40You know, not a second or third or fourth founder, but he’s a pretty interesting guy. I was Dr G 41:45going to say he’s very cool. I’m excited to talk about him. Dr Rad 42:00Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of The Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive. To find more from the Memory Collective head to collectivemem.com you too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and add free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch. We have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on ko fi. And we’d like to say big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this one possible. However, if your Imperial coffers do not overfloweth, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review wherever you listen. Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome. Transcribed by https://otter.ai The post Special Episode – Camillus with Marc Hyden appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.