Acis and Galatea: a Graeco-Roman myth

The story of Acis and Galatea, although it purports to be a Greek myth, is not wholly so. The version that is generally known is that told by the Roman poet Ovid in his “Metamorphoses”, although his source is almost certainly a poem attributed to the late Greek poet Theocritus, who lived in the Greek colony of Sicily in the early 3^rd century BC. It is thus probably fair to call it a “Graeco-Roman” myth.

The story

The tale is a version of the love triangle in which two men love the same woman and the outcome is a violent one.

The woman in this case is Galatea, a sea nymph. She is in love with a young shepherd named Acis, but her beauty has not gone unnoticed by Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant and a son of the sea-god Poseidon. This is the same character who appears in Homer’s Odyssey as one of the monsters that Odysseus and his men encounter, although he is drawn in a somewhat different light in the story told by Theocritus and Ovid.

In the Galatea story Polyphemus is portrayed as a stalker who follows Galatea everywhere and does everything he can to ingratiate himself with her, including dressing smartly and trimming his beard. However, nothing he does is likely to persuade Galatea to abandon Acis, whom she sees as a far better prospect.

Polyphemus decides that music is the answer. He makes a set of “pan pipes” with a hundred reeds that can be heard for miles around when he blows it. He composes a love song which he belts out at full volume.

Acis and Galatea, lying in each other’s arms on the sea shore, cannot help but hear the song and the pipes, and they find it all highly amusing. How could the rough giant Polyphemus possibly hope to win the love of a beautiful nymph?

The pair are still laughing to each other when the song stops and they find that Polyphemus is standing over them, roaring with anger at being mocked in this way.

Galatea is able to slip into the sea but Acis is not so lucky. Polyphemus grabs hold of the side of a nearby hill and throws most of it at the shepherd, who is crushed to death.

Galatea is powerless to restore her lover to life, but she has enough magic in her to transform his blood into water that then flows as a river from underneath the rocks thrown down by the giant. Acis arises from the river as a river god who can then always be in contact with Galatea at the point where the river meets the sea.

Origins of the myth

One possible origin of the myth is that it explains the nature of a small river that flows underground on the eastern side of Mount Etna and emerges into the open shortly before reaching the sea. This river is still known as the River Akis.

There are other suggested explanations, such as the story being a political satire aimed at a ruler who had a mistress named Galatea.

There is another variant of the myth, in which Polyphemus wins the hand of Galatea in a sort of “Beauty and the Beast” scenario. She then becomes the mother of three sons who are subsequently the founders of the Gauls, the Celts and the Illyrians.

The myth inspired a large number of artistic and musical works in later centuries, with one of the best known being Handel’s celebrated opera “Acis and Galatea” which reached its final form in 1732. 

© John Welford

The first inhabitants of Scotland

The first inhabitants of Scotland were probably living there before the last Ice Age. However, no trace has been found of any Scots who were quite that early although remains of humans from that time have been discovered elsewhere in the British Isles. It is probable that, as the ice receded, humans would have moved in from the south, in pursuit of the animals that had preceded them.

The earliest trace of human habitation that has been found so far is around 11,000 years old and is a stone arrowhead. This was found on the island of Islay, showing that the final retreat of the ice was soon followed by hunter-gatherers who found island-hopping to be the best means of progress.

On Rum, which is about 85 miles north of Islay, there is evidence of early industry in the shape of tool-making based on local supplies of bloodstone that could be fashioned into small blades. This work was being done around 9,000 years ago.

Other traces have been found of hunter-gatherer communities all round the Scottish coast and on the islands. Even older than the site on Rum are the archaeological remains of settlements near Dunbar and at Cramond, both on the Scottish mainland near Edinburgh.

The very first people of Scotland were therefore nomads, moving on as the herds of reindeer moved, building structures only when they settled in a place for more than a few weeks or months. These structures would have been little more than tents made from animal skins stretched between posts hammered into the ground. At other places, natural shelters such as caves would have been used.

Agriculture arrived in Scotland some five and a half thousand years after it was first practiced in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, and it may have been as recently as 2000 BC before most inhabitants of Scotland were farmers who lived in settled communities. Scotland has never been an easy country to farm, due to the thin soils and often adverse weather, and these problems were made worse by the increasing deposits of peat that built up, making the land boggy and unsuitable for growing crops. Many early Scots may therefore have continued as hunter-gatherers long after others had become more settled.

Evidence of two remarkable communities has been discovered in the Orkney Islands, at Knap of Howar and Skara Brae. The latter site, which dates from around 3000 BC, was probably occupied for about 500 years which means that many generations of Orcadians lived and died there. A group of small stone houses were linked together by passageways such that maximum protection was offered against winter storms.

These people were the “Picts” whom the Romans encountered when they sought to extend their empire northwards in the 80s AD.  These scattered tribes, living in habitable corners across mainland Scotland and the Isles, proved not to be worth conquering, hence the decision in 122 AD by Emperor Hadrian to build his wall from the Tyne to the Solway, thus marking the northern limit of the Empire.

The Picts had developed a civilization of their own, with bronze and later iron working, religious practices that included sacrifices to their gods of some of the products of their metal foundries, and trade with their neighbours to the south. They were skilled boatbuilders and navigators and were far from being ignorant savages. Pictish culture was well developed, with social structures that included a hierarchy from kings and nobles down to farmers and workers. Items have been found that show advanced craftsmanship in stone, metals and jewels.

  

As well as the Picts, who were the direct descendants of the original hunter-gatherers, the area that now comprises Scotland was, in the years following the withdrawal of the Romans in the 5^th century AD, also occupied to the south by Britons who had become Romanized and Gaels who probably come from Ireland (although this is not absolutely certain).

These Gaels settled on the western coasts and islands and lived in an uneasy relationship with the Picts. Confusingly, the Gaels were also known in Latin as “Scoti”, from which the name Scotland clearly derives. However, the original “Scottish” people were Picts, not Scots!

The other major component of the early ethnic mix of the people of Scotland was provided by Vikings from Norway, who came first to plunder and then to settle. The Viking invasions began in the 8^th century and continued into the 9^th. Wars between Vikings, Picts and Gaels continued for many years, at the end of which the Gaels had usurped the Picts on mainland Scotland, and the Vikings had taken firm control of the northern islands of Orkney and Shetland.

In the northern isles a form of ethnic cleansing took place, with the men being killed or driven off and the women being seized as wives. The DNA of the modern population shows strong Norwegian origins in male DNA but Pictish traces in that of the women. It was only in 1472 that the islands became part of the Kingdom of Scotland, having been Norwegian (and later Danish) possessions for some 600 years.

The first people of Scotland were therefore a mixture of Picts, Gaels, Britons and Vikings. However, with the exception of the northern isles, none of the later invaders were so numerous that they were able to overwhelm the original bloodline that stretched back to the first post-Ice Age hunter-gatherers. Although the Picts lost out politically to the Gaels, which is why the country is called Scotland and not Pictland, the descendants of the people whom the Romans contained by building a wall are still very much in evidence today.

© John Welford

Elagabalus, Emperor of Rome

Not many Roman Emperors are mentioned in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, but one who does is an early 3^rd century Emperor who crops up in the patter song of Major-General Stanley in “The Pirates of Penzance” when he boasts that he can “quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus”. The name is more usually given as Elagabalus, but even so it is unlikely that many hearers of the song would know to whom the Major-General was referring. So who was Elagabalus and just how criminal was he?

Comparisons can be made between Elagabalus and some other Roman Emperors, such as Caligula and Commodus, in that they had short and disreputable reigns that ended by being murdered when their activities could no longer be endured. Elagabalus shared with Caligula the distinction of being known to history by a nickname rather than the name he was given at birth.

Elagabalus started life in around the year 203 as Varius Avitus Bassianus, his birthplace being Emesa in Syria. His father was Sextus Varius Marcellus, a politician based in the Roman province of Syria, and his mother was Julia Soemias Bassiana, a member of the powerful Severan clan that had already produced the emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, the latter being Julia’s cousin.

As a young man, Varius Avitus became the chief priest of a religious cult dedicated to the Syrian sun-god Elagabal. However, Julia and her mother (Julia Maesa) saw the boy as their way to regain power for the Severan clan, which had been sidelined by the accession as Emperor in 217 of an outsider, Macrinus, who may have been responsible for the murder of Caracalla. They therefore started a rumour to the effect that Varius Avitus was the illegitimate son of Caracalla, to whom he did bear a passing resemblance.

They persuaded the local legion to accept Varius as Emperor, at the age of 14, which naturally led to Macrinus declaring war on him. The Severans won the ensuing battle and Macrinus was captured and executed, leaving Varius as Emperor with the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

The new Emperor, together with his mother and grandmother, spent a year at Nicomedia (in what is now northern Turkey) then proceeded to make their way to Rome, but they also took with them a large conical black stone that had been the centrepiece of the Elagabal cult at Emesa. Convinced that this Semitic former mountain god was the supreme deity, young Marcus was determined to convert Rome to this view and he intended to do so by moving the large black stone, and hence the the worship of Elagabal, to Rome. That is why he is known to history as Elagabalus.

Once in Rome, Elagabalus enlarged a temple on the Palatine Hill (formerly dedicated to Jupiter) in lieu of building one dedicated solely to Elagabal. The new supreme god clearly needed a partner, so he moved the image of Vesta from her temple in the Forum. The Emperor followed suit by marrying a Vestal Virgin, but this marriage ended in divorce. Elagabal therefore also had to take a new wife, this being the sky god Urania.

Eventually the purpose-built temple of Elagabal was completed on the Capitoline Hill and an elaborate ceremony took place in which the sun god appeared to drive a chariot to his new home, with the Emperor walking backwards in front of it.

Despite Elagabalus’s obsession with religion, the government of the Empire was not neglected, because his mother and grandmother made sure that things ran smoothly. They were clearly the real rulers of Rome, and they were the only two women in the history of the Empire ever to attend meetings of the Senate.

So what were the “crimes of Heliogabalus”? The main one, in the eyes of the people of Rome, was his upsetting of the religious status quo, coupled with the terrible offence of marrying a Vestal Virgin. He also appears to have indulged in a particularly lascivious lifestyle, carrying on with many women apart from his various wives (he may have been married as many as five times during his short reign) and indulging in orgiastic ceremonies, same-sex relationships and transvestisim. However, it is always possible that some of the stories grew in the telling, especially if related by his enemies.

Elagabalus’s failure to produce an heir was almost certainly not the result of any failings on the part of his various wives, but it was clearly a problem. There was also a serious rift between the two women who were the real power behind the throne. His grandmother, Julia Maesa, could sense that the Roman Senate and people could not tolerate the Emperor’s eccentricities for ever and that a violent end to his reign was possible if not probable. She therefore persuaded him that he should adopt as his successor his cousin Alexander Severus who, at the time of this move, was probably around ten years old. The older Julia would thus cement her own position should events turn out as she feared, in that one grandson might die but another become emperor in his place.

Her daughter, Julia Soemias, did not see things in the same light. Naming Alexander as successor to her son would, in her view, only increase the threat to Elagabalus, given that the former did not share his cousin’s extreme views on religion and would clearly be seen as a more acceptable alternative. The younger Julia therefore had a perfect motive for getting Alexander out of the way.

In March 222, Elagabalus and Julia Soemias went to the camp of the Praetorian Guard and ordered them to murder Alexander Severus. However, things took a very different course because the guards promptly murdered the young Emperor (still aged only about 19) and his mother and threw their bodies in the River Tiber. It is always possible that Julia Maesa had foreseen such an event and bribed the guards to do precisely what they did.

The net result was that Alexander Severus became Emperor and the cult of Elagabal was sent packing back to Emesa.

© John Welford

The spread of culture in the Hellenistic Period

The word “Hellenistic” means “of or pertaining to things Greek”, and particularly to Greek culture.

The Hellenistic period is generally taken to be from the death of Alexander the Great (in 323 BC) to the first century BC, when the whole of the Greek world had been subsumed within the Roman Empire. It is therefore a relatively short interim period between classical Greece and the might of Rome. However, that connection was of vital importance in the development of European culture.

The ancient Greeks of the mainland and islands were very cultured in many ways, and were highly advanced in the fields of poetry, drama, art, music, architecture, education, politics, philosophy and religion. However, Greek culture was largely based on the city state, and the Greek people were not naturally outward looking, either in terms of trade or conquest. This all changed when Alexander the Great got going.

Alexander was not a native Greek but a Macedonian, but he received an education that was very much in the Greek model, being tutored by Aristotle at one stage. In cultural terms he was a virtual Greek. His conquests of Persia and Egypt therefore took Greek influences with him, and the cities he founded (usually called “Alexandria”) were Greek colonies in all but name.

However, there is no evidence that Alexander had a conscious wish to export Greek culture eastwards. The Hellenization of the east was more accidental than deliberate, and occurred mainly because Alexander’s empire allowed trade routes to flourish throughout the region.

The most famous Alexandria was undoubtedly that on the coast of Egypt, and this became, in the Hellenistic period, a major centre of Greek culture. Apart from its architecture, including the lighthouse that was one of the “Seven Wonders”, its library became the largest in the world until its final destruction in the 7^th century AD. It was reportedly founded by another of Aristotle’s pupils.

However, the main reason why Greek culture spread far beyond its own borders was the expansion of the Roman Empire. Whereas the Greeks were masters of culture but reluctant conquerors, the Romans were the opposite. Having no notable cultural background of their own, they were more than happy to absorb and adapt the culture of the people they took into their Empire.

Rome’s first encounter with the Greek world would have been via its colonies, such as Syracuse which was conquered in 212 BC. However, in this case the import of culture got off to a bad start, in that one of the victims of the taking of Syracuse was Archimedes, the mathematician.

Mainland Greece started to come under Roman control from 146 BC onwards, that being the date of the Battle of Corinth, although the total destruction of that city was hardly a highlight of cultural enrichment.

Later conquests were conducted less violently, so that cultural life in Greece was able to continue under Roman rule. Many Greeks also travelled to Rome and other parts of the Empire, taking their language and culture with them.

That high-born Romans were greatly impressed by what they found is evident from the cultural conquest referred to by the Roman poet Horace, when he wrote: “Captive Greece took her fierce conqueror captive, and introduced the arts to rustic Latium”. This was especially so in the realm of education, in that the somewhat haphazard methods of instruction used by Romans were brought face to face with organised Greek schools. Greek teachers came to Rome and the Romans willingly sat at their feet.

Indeed, so popular were the Greek teachers, who taught in their own language, that many upper-class Romans came to regard Greek as a superior language to Latin, which was relegated to being the language of the common people. It took the efforts of poets such as Horace, Virgil and Ovid to rescue Latin as a literary language, although it is notable that Virgil’s “Aeneid”, his greatest work, took Greek myth as its subject matter, extending the story of the Trojan War to tell how Rome was founded by one of its heroes. Virgil was also the master of the “eclogue”, a form of pastoral poetry first developed in Hellenistic Greece.

The Roman theatre was heavily influenced by that of Greece. Indeed, many plays performed on Roman stages were direct translations of Greek plays. Roman theatre design copied that of the Greeks, based on the semi-circular arena, and the Roman circus, for chariot racing, developed from the Greek hippodrome.

Greek music was also extensively copied and imitated, even down to the notation method used for writing and playing.

In philosophy, the two schools of thought that had most influence on Romans were both Greek in origin, namely Stoicism and Epicureanism. The former, with its emphasis on virtue as its own reward, an afterlife of sorts, and resolution in the face of adversity, spoke to the Roman mind, and continued to be developed well into the 2^nd century AD.

Greek religion also found a ready audience among the Romans, who adopted not only some Greek religious practices, such as divination, but also some of their gods and heroes, including Apollo and Heracles (renamed Hercules). Other Roman gods were identified with Greek equivalents, such as Jupiter/Zeus, Neptune/Poseidon and Minerva/Athena. The Greeks had a whole host of stories about their gods, which the Romans did not. Greek mythology therefore became the foundation for Roman mythology.

In the realm of architecture, Greek ideas were also exported to the world via the Romans. In particular, examples of the three Greek orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, are found in countless buildings throughout the Empire, although later architects refined and adapted Greek ideas to suit their own needs.

The Greeks were great town planners, and their ideas of creating substantial public buildings and open spaces found their way into Roman thinking. For example, the “agora” of the Greek city became the “forum” in Roman hands, where the populace could gather in one place to exercise democracy or, in the Roman world, be harangued by orators.

In virtually every aspect of Greek culture, the Hellenistic period saw its wholesale exportation to the civilized world via the Romans. Because the Roman Empire was so extensive, Greek influence therefore spread throughout western Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. After the fall of Rome, the influence continued in the succeeding Byzantine Empire, and in many of the languages of Europe.

Today, we can still see many signs of Greek culture in our cultural life, such as the words we use for theatrical concepts, including “scene”, “orchestra” and, indeed, “theatre”, and even in names of American honour societies that comprise (usually) three Greek letters.

It can therefore be seen that the Hellenistic Period, despite not contributing much that was culturally original in its own time, was crucially important in the spread of Greek culture throughout the civilised world.

© John Welford

Was ancient Athenian democracy a model to follow?

When people argue that democracy is the best possible form of government they often cite ancient Athens as the prime example of “pure” democracy and the ultimate exemplum that other civilized communities and nations should seek to follow.

However, there are a number of reasons why the Athenian model may not be as desirable as we are sometimes led to believe.

For one thing, there is a world of difference between governing a city of a few thousand people and a country of many millions. In the latter case, democracy can only be representative, in that the citizens have to vote for people who will represent their interests, and this usually takes the form of voting for a member of a political party that incorporates a wide range of viewpoints concerning a spectrum of issues that are of more or less concern to the individual voter.

In the Athenian model people voted directly on specific issues. When the Assembly (known as the Ekklesia) met, the voters gathered at a hill known as the Pnyx and listened to the arguments for and against the propositions under debate and their votes decided whether or not these would be put into effect.

The Ekklesia was administered by a council (the Boule) that was not an elected body in that its 500 members were decided by lot, 50 coming from each of the ten Athenian tribes, with each tribe leading the council for a tenth of the year. The ruling tribe was led by a chairman who was also chosen by lot rather than voting and who could only serve for one day and one night before another chairman took office.

Athenian democracy was therefore based more on participation than voting. In itself this was not a bad thing, because any citizen might find themselves thrust into the spotlight as the leading official in the city, albeit only for a short time. The voters at the Ekklesia also knew that they were voting for actions in which they were often directly involved, such as mounting a military expedition against another city in which they would take part – or their near relatives would if they were themselves not fit for military service.

Although there is much to admire about the notion of all the citizens being directly involved in what the community did, there were severe limitations as to who counted as a citizen.

Perhaps not surprisingly, government in Athens was an all-male affair and women were not able to vote. The lack of surprise comes from the fact that female emancipation is a very late development in world history and “votes for women” have been around for less than a century in many western countries.

However, citizenship was also denied to anyone who had not been born in Athens and did not have Athenian parents. That rule would disenfranchise a vast number of people were the equivalent to be applied in modern Britain, for example.

It must also be remembered that the Athenian economy depended on slavery and citizens who exercised their democratic rights and duties could often only do so because they could delegate their work to slaves.

There was also the problem that the decisions made by democratic vote were not always the wisest ones. There was no “second chamber” that could challenge what the Ekklesia decided, and several cases were recorded in which actions were decided upon that turned out to be far from desirable. In one case, in 427 BCE, the voters approved a motion to punish the people of Mytilene, an Athenian colony on the island of Lesbos that had revolted against the rule of Athens, by slaughtering the entire male population and enslaving all the women and children. The following day the Athenians thought better of it and rescinded their earlier vote. A trireme had already set sail with troops who were to carry out the massacre, but a second one was now dispatched that fortunately caught up with the first and was able to prevent a terrible injustice.

It is therefore a mistake to equate Athenian democracy with anything that could work in the modern world, and it is probably unwise to accord it as much admiration as is sometimes pushed in its direction.

© John Welford

Valentinian II, Emperor of Rome

Valentinian II was the younger son of Valentinian I and half-brother of Gratian. He was born in 371 and was therefore far too young to be Emperor in anything but name when his father died on 17^th November 375. Gratian took over as Western Emperor (Valens continued to rule in the east) but there was opposition to him having sole control. The commander in the Balkans, Merobaudes, in collusion with the elder Valentinian’s widow, Justina, ensured that the younger Valentinian was proclaimed Augustus within five days of the elder Valentinian’s death.

Valentinian therefore became the nominal emperor of Illyricum, Italy and Africa at the age of four, with the real power being held by Merobaudes and his mother. His life as Emperor was merely that of a figurehead, being used by those around him as a political pawn.

In 383 Magnus Maximus invaded Gaul from Britain and succeeded in deposing Gratian and replacing him as Emperor of Britain, Gaul and Spain. In 386 he moved into Italy, causing Valentinian and his mother to flee to Thessalonica to seek the help of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius, who promptly invaded Maximus’s part of the Empire and captured and executed him.

Valentinian, now aged 15, was thus restored to his throne, with the Frankish general Arbogast left in effective charge when Theodosius returned to Thessalonica. Valentinian found himself under virtual house arrest in Vienne in Gaul. He clearly hated this arrangement and sent messages to Theodosius to complain about his treatment, although his protests fell on deaf ears.

Valentinian died on 15^th May 392, possibly from suicide or perhaps he was murdered by Arbogast. Whatever the cause, it was a sad end for a young man who never had a chance to prove himself or to lead a life that was at all fulfilling.

It does however appear that he played a part in the controversy within the Christian Church over Arianism. His mother Justina was an Arian (i.e. a follower of the doctrine propounded by Arius to the effect that Jesus did not exist before his physical birth, as opposed to the official Church view that God the Father and God the Son had existed for all time). By taking the side of his mother, Valentinian incurred the wrath not only of Bishop Ambrose and Magnus Maximus but also Theodosius. The latter took the view that Valentinian had brought his misfortunes on himself by denying the true faith.

© John Welford

The priests of Diana at Nemi

Some job offers require candidates to undergo the most extraordinary tests and trials before the right person is selected. Anyone who has tried to become a NASA astronaut will attest to just how difficult that is. However, gaining the job of “Priest of Diana” in ancient times had one particular requirement that might have held one back from applying!

Priests of Diana

Anyone who sought to become the priest of Diana at her sacred grove at Nemi, near Rome, could only do so by killing the incumbent, and they would then know that the next candidate waiting in the wings had their death in mind. There are many reasons why somebody might commit a murder, but to do so in the certain knowledge that one had signed one’s own death warrant by so doing does sound a bit extreme.

The story of the priest of Diana, who carried the title of “King of Nemi” was told by Sir James Frazer in his famous book “The Golden Bough”, and he used the legend as his starting point for a very long investigation into the development of religion, especially as it concerned the recurrent themes of death and rebirth across many civilisations.

The cult of Diana in ancient Italy (it lasted until the first century of the Imperial era) seems to have been imported from Greece, and it originally involved the human sacrifice of any stranger who approached too close to the shrine of the goddess.

However, the cult at Nemi was not quite so bloodthirsty, in that only one death was required from time to time. Within the sacred grove was a tree from which only a runaway slave was allowed to break off a branch. If he did so, he was then allowed to challenge the priest in single combat and, should he succeed in killing the priest, take over his role.

That might explain the reason why someone might seek the job. The life of a runaway slave would be very unpleasant should he be caught – he would probably be branded or even executed or forced to fight for his life as a gladiator – so becoming the “King of Nemi” was an alternative to putting off the inevitable. At least he would be fighting someone just like himself as opposed to a trained gladiator.

Even so, would you have taken this choice, or just kept running?

© John Welford

Gratian, Emperor of Rome

During the later history of the Roman Empire the top job became too much for one man to handle, with the result that the Empire was governed at various times by two or more Emperors. Gratian, who reigned from 375 to 383, was one of many such joint Emperors.

Flavius Gratianus was born on 18^th April 359 at Sirmium in Pannonia (a Roman province that covered parts of modern Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and several former Yugoslav republics). His father was Emperor Valentinian I and his mother Marina Severa, who was later divorced by Valentinian, probably in 370.

On his elevation to Emperor, Valentinian had requested that his brother Valens should rule jointly with him, the latter taking control of the eastern part of the Empire while Valentinian ruled in the west. This arrangement, which had also been made by Diocletian in the previous century, was to become a familiar pattern until the eventual collapse of the Western Empire in the 5^th century.

Gratian’s early years

Gratian’s first public office was that of consul in 366. Two (sometimes more) consuls were appointed for one-year terms, this being an office that had its origins in Republican Rome but had long been merely an honorary position. As Gratian was aged seven at the time this was simply an acknowledgment of his high status as the Emperor’s son. 

He accompanied his father on campaign in Gaul in 367, and it was on this campaign that Valentinian fell seriously ill and there was concern among his courtiers about who would succeed him if he died. Discussions were held without either Valentinian or his brother being consulted, which many Emperors would have regarded as treasonable behaviour. However, when Valentinian recovered, his only action was to appoint his son Gratian as “Augustus” (i.e. Emperor-in-waiting), thus indicating who his successor would be.

Despite the boldness of this move, there were many people who doubted whether this was the best thing to do. Had the young Gratian shown signs of being suited for high office, possibly to be attained within only a few years, the senior officials might have had their fears assuaged, but this was not the case. Gratian appeared to have little interest in military matters and his father had great difficultly in persuading the army that his son had the qualities of a potential Emperor. He took steps to educate Gratian for his future role by appointing the poet and rhetorician Ausonius as his tutor, although this seems a strange choice given that a military-style education would have been more appropriate. Gratian clearly found Ausonius to be a tutor he could get on with, as he appointed the poet to the consulship when he became Emperor.

Gratian married in 374, his wife Constantia being the daughter of a former Emperor (Constantius II). She died in 383, shortly before Gratian himself.

Gratian as Emperor

When Valentinian died on 17^th November 375, Gratian was declared Emperor as his father had decreed, but this did not please everyone, and particularly not the army commanders in the Balkan region. They sought a leader, albeit only a nominal one, who would allow them to be the real force in the part of the empire that they controlled, namely the eastern part of the Western Empire. Within five days of Valentinian’s death, his son (by his second wife Justina), also called Valentinian, was declared Emperor by the army of that region.

Gratian was therefore left as one of three Emperors, having jurisdiction over

Gaul, Spain and Britain. The provinces in Italy, Africa and Illyricum were nominally governed by Emperor Valentinian II, although he was not yet five years old at the time of his accession. The Eastern Empire continued to be ruled by Valens, who was fully occupied in repelling invasions by the Goths.

Despite the fact that the decision to appoint his half-brother as co-Emperor was taken without his consent, Gratian appears to have accepted it without too much fuss, and even took steps to help the young Emperor with his education.

Gratian had problems of his own to contend with, namely incursions by the Alamanni tribe into what is now southern Germany. Although the situation was peaceful at the time of his accession, the Alamanni needed to be watched, which presented a problem when a request came from Valens in 376 for help to repel the Goths in the east. Gratian was willing to help, but his chief general, Merobaudes (who had also been mainly responsible for the appointment of Valentinian II), disobeyed Gratian’s orders and held some of the legions back in order to guard the border against the Alamanni. The fact that Merobaudes could get away with this shows that Gratian was not strong-willed enough for the job of Emperor, although the actions of Merobaudes were probably correct under the circumstances.

In late 377 Gratian prepared to set off east to help his uncle against the Goths, but this was the signal the Alamanni had been waiting for. They invaded in February 378 but the legions left in place by Merobaudes were able to deal with the threat, with some 30,000 Alamanni being killed in battle at Argentovaria (near Colmar, France).

With his own borders secure, Gratian could now provide the assistance that Valens had asked for, but the latter seems to have changed his mind and decided to take on the Goths without waiting for his young nephew (still only 19 in 378) to arrive. The result was a devastating defeat at Adrianople at which two-thirds of the Roman army, and Valens himself, were killed.

Gratian was now left as the senior Emperor in the whole of the Roman Empire. However, he clearly needed help and he called on a Spanish general, Theodosius, to assist him. This was an interesting choice, because Theodosius’s father, also called Theodosius, had fallen foul of Merobaudes during the reign of Valentinian I and had been executed following a trumped-up charge of treason. The appointment may have been partly a move by Gratian to assert himself against Merobaudes.

Theodosius allowed himself to be declared Eastern Emperor by his troops, and Gratian did not oppose this move. It at least allowed him to carry on with the more peaceful life of being Western Emperor.

Gratian, who like all the Emperors since Constantine was nominally Christian, now interested himself in Church affairs.  In 381 he moved his capital from Trier (in Gaul) to Milan, where Ambrose had earlier been appointed bishop with the Emperor’s help. Gratian involved himself in the debate between orthodox Christians and the “heretics” who followed the teachings of Arius. He was persuaded by Ambrose to call a council of bishops to debate the matter, and this convened at Aquileia (in northern Italy) in September 381. Ambrose made sure that the decision that was made favoured his position and had the Emperor’s backing.

Gratian continued to support Theodosius in the east, by sending troops when needed, but the support was not reciprocated. In 383 the commander of the British garrison, Magnus Maximus, revolted against Gratian and invaded Gaul, where he was supported by Merobaudes. Theodosius indicated that he would not oppose the revolt, and Gratian was subsequently defeated and forced to flee. His pursuers caught up with him at Lyons and he was killed on 25^th August 383, aged 24.

Gratian’s career as Emperor was not a particularly distinguished one as he simply did not have the qualities needed to be a strong Emperor. In his defence it could be pointed out that, during the turbulent times of the later Roman Empire, there were very few men who did.

© John Welford

Valens, Emperor of Rome

Flavius Julius Valens was born in 328 at Cibalae, which is now Vinkovci in eastern Croatia. He was the second son of Gratian the Elder (so called to distinguish him from his grandson who became Emperor Gratian) and the younger brother of Valentinian by about seven years.

His early life

Although Valentinian held important military commands under Emperors Julian and Jovian, Valens stayed mainly on the family estate although he did accompany his brother on Julian’s ill-fated foray into Persia in 363-4.

Valens only came to public notice when his brother was unexpectedly elected Emperor by the troops after the sudden death of Jovian. Valentinian, quite wisely, decided that the job was too big for one man to do and asked that Valens should share it with him. Valens therefore became Emperor of the eastern half of the Roman Empire on 28^th March 364. Based in Constantinople he had jurisdiction over the provinces bordering the eastern Mediterranean and extending towards Persia. The eastern Balkans, as far north as the Danube River, were also part of the Eastern Empire.

The two halves of the Empire were run as separate units to all intents and purposes, with very little contact between the governments in Rome (or wherever the Emperor and his officials chose to base themselves) and Constantinople. When Valentinian fell dangerously ill in 367, the discussions over a possible successor did not involve Valens, and when Valentinian died in 375 and his son Gratian succeeded him, the subsequent proclamation of his much younger brother as co-Emperor was carried out without Valens being asked to agree to it.

Dealing with the Goths

The main issue to face Valens during his reign was the threat of an invasion from Goths who lived north of the Danube but who were threatening to cross over into the Empire. After a number of battles against the Gothic tribes a truce was concluded in 369 according to which the Goths agreed to stay north of the Danube, but they then came under severe pressure from the Huns and sought refuge within the Empire.

The Gothic tribes in question were the Tervingi and the Greuthingi. Many of the Tervingi had abandoned their lands and sought refuge among the Greuthingi. When the Greuthingi also sought to escape from the Huns by moving across the Danube, their numbers were therefore greatly swelled by the neighbouring Tervingi who were incorporated with them.

In principle, Valens was not against allowing the Goths to cross the Danube, as he saw them as a potential source of recruits for the Roman army. However, he hoped to regulate their numbers by only allowing the Greuthingi to settle in the Empire, which might have worked had it been possible to control the situation by assigning enough troops to separate the two tribes and monitor their entry.

As it was, most of Valens’s troops were stationed on the eastern borders where the Persians were a constant threat, so it was impossible to prevent far more people crossing the Danube than had been intended. The situation was made worse by the food supply network being totally inadequate to cope with a sudden influx of so many hungry Goths.

Relations between the Romans and the immigrants broke down completely. Instead of the expected 30,000 to 40,000 people, around double that number were now swarming across into a relatively small area south of the Danube. If the Goths could not be contained, they would have to be countered on the battlefield.

Valens sought in vain for help from his western colleagues. Merobaudes, the military commander in the western Balkans region that was nominally ruled by Valentinian II, was more interested in securing his own borders against any incursions by the Goths. Gratian, Valens’s nephew, might have been willing to send troops east but had problems of his own in the form of an insurrection on the lower Rhine.

  

It was not until 378 that Gratian was able to help, but by the time he could advance eastwards Valens had taken action on his own behalf, with disastrous consequences.

The Battle of Adrianople

By August 378 the Goths had advanced into Roman territory as far as Thrace (modern Turkey-in-Europe). An army of some 30,000 men encamped at Adrianople, which is where Valens’s force of 30,000 to 40,000 men met them on 9^th August after an eight mile march from their camp. The Roman left advanced and was routed by the Gothic cavalry, which then encircled and destroyed the Roman centre. The defeat was total, with up to two-thirds of the Roman army being killed.

Valens died along with his troops, although his body was never found. There was a story that he was wounded and taken to a farmhouse which was later set on fire, thus cremating his remains. Whatever the truth of this story, the Battle of Adrianople was certainly one of the worst defeats ever suffered by a Roman army.

The Arian Emperor

Valens is also notable for having been a proponent of Arian Christianity, as opposed to the Trinitarian Catholicism that had been sanctioned by the Council of Nicaea in 325. In this he had differed from his brother Valentinian, but unlike his brother had been less tolerant of opposing views. There was therefore a degree of persecution of Catholic bishops in the Eastern Empire during Valens’s reign. However, Theodosius, his successor in the east, was a Catholic, so Arianism in the Eastern Empire died with Valens.

© John Welford

Theodosius I, Emperor of Rome

Theodosius I was born in Spain on 11^th January 347. His father, also called Theodosius, was a general who was involved in the campaign to restore Britain to the Empire after the “Great Conspiracy” of 367. It is quite likely that the younger Theodosius accompanied him on this campaign. It is certainly the case that he learned a great deal about the arts of war from his father.

The elder Theodosius was later involved in a rigged trial in which he was unjustly accused of treason and then executed in 376. It was possibly for this reason, as a way of making amends, that Emperor Gratian appointed the younger Theodosius to take military control of Illyricum after the death of Valens, who was Gratian’s co-Emperor.

Theodosius had no experience of senior command but was clearly a fast learner. He allowed himself to be declared Eastern Emperor in January 379, which was not actually unwelcome news to Gratian, whose officials offered Theodosius all the help he needed. Being in charge of the Eastern Empire was clearly going to be a difficult job, after what had happened to Valens, and anyone who was willing to do it was welcome to do so.

However, it was not possible for him to claim the throne in any realistic sense until the problem of the Goths had been settled. He therefore decided to set up court in Thessalonica rather than Constantinople so that he could keep an eye on both the northern and eastern frontiers.

Theodosius continued to benefit from assistance from Gratian’s generals up until the treaty of 382 that Theodosius struck with the Goths. This gave them lands in the Balkans, to be governed by their own chiefs, in return for giving service, when required, to the Roman forces in the east. The effect of this treaty was, far from the Goths becoming staunch allies of Rome, that they were henceforth mere pawns in the power struggles between different parts of the Roman bureaucratic machine.

Despite the generosity that Gratian had shown to Theodosius, when the former faced problems of his own Theodosius did not rush to his aid. Indeed, when Magnus Maximus invaded Gaul from Britain in 383, Theodosius responded by recognising Maximus’s claim to be Emperor of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. However, Maximus then invaded Italy in 386, sending the young co-Emperor Valentinian II (then aged 15) into exile in Theodosius’s part of the Empire. Theodosius responded by attacking Maximus, who was captured and executed near Aquileia. Valentinian was restored to power, but only nominally, with Theodosius being the only Emperor that mattered.

Theodosius made use of the services of marshals to mop up any further resistance, one of these being the Frankish general Arbogast, who placed Valentinian under house arrest at Vienne. When Valentinian tried to depose Arbogast, he paid with his life.

In 390, while Theodosius was in Milan, a riot broke out in Thessalonica and several officials were killed. Theodosius sent an army of Goths eastwards to take revenge on the city. The people were tricked into gathering in the circus where they were massacred, with at least 7,000 people being killed. This act led St Ambrose to rebuke Theodosius and demand that he acknowledge his guilt, which he did in front of the whole congregation in the church at Milan. The Emperor was excommunicated for eight months.

Civil war broke out in 394 between Theodosius and Arbogast, which the former represented as a war between Christianity and paganism. Theodosius regarded his victory at the Battle of the Frigidus in September as being due to divine intervention in the form of a violent storm.

Theodosius died in January 395, having declared that his sons Arcadius (18) and Honorius (11) would rule jointly after him.

Theodosius was the last Emperor who could claim to rule the whole Empire. The split that followed between east and west placed the Balkan dioceses of Illyricum and Macedonia, which included the lands settled by the Goths after 382, in the west. The Goths therefore became a problem that only the Western Empire would have to face in future.

© John Welford

Hades in Ancient Greece

Hades is the name both of the Greek god of the underworld and of the underworld itself. However, this article concentrates mainly on the latter.

Much of Greek mythology derives from what the people of ancient Greece saw in their world, and the stories they told each other to explain how that world came to be as it was. The Greek mainland consists largely of a mass of limestone that has been broken up by frequent violent earthquakes into a succession of steep mountains and deep valleys. It is common for rivers to disappear underground into inaccessible caverns, and so it was natural for people to imagine that that was where the souls of the dead must go, borne along a river into the underworld.

Although the Greeks did have a concept of Heaven, it had nothing to do with the hereafter of righteous souls; not even the Gods lived there, as their abode was the top of cloud-wreathed Mount Olympus.

Hades was therefore where all dead people went, whatever they had done in their lifetimes. Also, the dead were seen as retaining most or all of their bodily functions, as opposed to being merely disembodied souls.

The concept of Hades changed somewhat down the centuries. Homer describes Odysseus visiting Hades in the Odyssey. Its entrance is in a grove of black poplars beyond the stream of Ocean. It is a dark sunless abode, populated by ghosts and the dim figures of dead heroes, who have only a shadowy existence. The god Hades and his wife Persephone live in a region called Erebus.

Later authors developed Hades into a much more substantial place, where the life of the upper world and its amusements can be repeated. There are many entrances, protected by rivers as mentioned above, in particular the Styx, Cocytus and Acheron. Indeed, these are real rivers, to which mythical attributes were then attached.

The dead must be ferried across by the boatman Charon, and the Greeks placed a coin in the mouth of a dead person before burial, to pay Charon for the journey.

The landing place, and thus the actual entry to Hades, was guarded by Cerberus, the “hound of hell”. Greek people were used to seeing dogs guarding properties in the real world, so it was natural to assume that Hades would have its own terrible guardian, which, according to some myths, had a hundred heads, but later writers only ascribe three heads to him, plus a serpent’s tail and serpents round his neck.

The notion of Hades as a place of judgment and retribution also developed down the centuries. The stories of Tantalus and Sisyphus, for example, appear in Homer but were probably later additions. The stories have many variations on the theme, but the punishments consist of something always being out of reach, in the case of Tantalus; or a task having to be constantly repeated, as with Sisyphus rolling a stone up a hill only for it to roll back down again.

Judgment was not conducted by Hades the god, but by Rhadamanthus (for Asiatics) or Aeacus (for Europeans), with Minos acting as referee in cases of doubt.

Homer, and later writers, introduced the concept of Hades being divided into different regions, such as Tartarus, the prison of the Titans, which was set apart by the flaming river Pyriphlegethon. Those who deserved neither reward nor punishment dwelt in the asphodel meadows.

For Homer, Elysium was not part of Hades, but a separate world to which heroes went without dying and enjoyed a pleasant eternity. However, some later writers placed the “Elysian Fields” firmly within the realm of Hades.

These “departments” of Hades saw their greatest development many centuries later as Dante’s seven circles of Hell.

The role of Hades the god, as ruler of the underworld, is not well defined in the ancient myths, and it was left to later Roman writers to develop his character as “Pluto”, who is also regarded as the god of the earth and all that it gives.

The best developed myth involving Hades is that of the abduction of Persephone, the corn goddess who is buried underground for much of the year but is allowed to emerge briefly in the springtime so that the corn can grow.

It is not surprising that, given the oral nature of storytelling in ancient Greece, and the centuries over which the stories were refined and developed, there are many various and conflicting versions of what Hades meant to the Greeks, and indeed to the Romans, who subsumed much of the Greek culture into their own. This short account, however, summarises what can be taken as the accepted version of Hades in the bulk of the writings that have come down to us.

© John Welford

Julian, Emperor of Rome

Julian was born in Constantinople in the year 331, being the son of Julius Constantius and a nephew of Emperor Constantine the Great. On the death in May 337 of Constantine, who had begun to convert the Empire to Christianity, his sons, Julian’s cousins, divided the Empire between them, although the youngest, Constans, was still a minor.

The reign of Constantius

The real power was wielded by Constantius, the second son of Constantine, whose first move was to arrest and execute all his cousins, with the sole exceptions of Julian and his older half-brother Gallus. The boys were confined to virtual house arrest in Diocletian’s former palace at Nicomedia.

Constantius began by ruling the eastern half of the empire but in 350 found himself challenged in the west when his surviving brother Constans was killed and a usurper, Magnentius, declared himself Emperor. Constantius had plenty of problems of his own to sort out, and he needed a figurehead to fly the dynastic flag in the west, this being somebody who would make it clear that the western empire had not been abandoned to Magnentius but who, at the same time, would not do anything rash to put Constantius’s realm at risk.

Having only two cousins left, Constantius had little choice but to appoint Gallus to this role, at the same time releasing Julian from his house arrest, so that the studious young man could resume his education.

Julian’s unexpected rise to power

Julian chose to travel to the eastern Mediterranean where he was influenced by Greek philosophers and teachers who had not been converted to Christianity. One such teacher was Maximus of Ephesus, a Neoplatonic thinker who kept in his house a statue of the pagan goddess Hecate which appeared to speak and produce bursts of flame. Julian seems to have been greatly impressed by Maximus and his statue, and he developed a belief in “theurgy” which taught that, by dint of intense study, magical ritual and animal sacrifices, humans could influence the actions of the gods.

As his reign advanced, Constantius became ever more dangerous to those around him, ruling by sowing fear and suspicion among his senior officials. Among those to suffer was Gallus, who had forgotten that his role was a purely nominal one and tried to exercise a modicum of power in Gaul. Constantius had him executed for treason and appointed Julian to take his place.

Julian may have been eccentric in his beliefs but he was no fool. He knew that, as the last survivor of his generation apart from his cousin the Emperor, he would be in constant danger. His best chance of staying alive was to go along with everything that Constantius demanded and not excite his wrath or envy. He also decided that, by doing as little as possible, he could not be held to blame for anything that went wrong.

His plan worked quite well in 356, when a campaign against the Alamanni (a Germanic tribe) was led by generals Ursicinus and Marcellus with Julian acting solely as figurehead. When Julian found himself cut off by Frankish raiders he was able to lay the blame entirely on the two generals and take the credit for his own escape.

In the following year a similar operation was conducted under a new general, Barbatio, with Julian again doing as little as possible while hoping that this campaign would also run into trouble so that he could be relieved of his duties and go back to the life of a scholar that he much preferred.

However, this time things did not go quite as Julian expected, because he found himself faced with an army of Alamanni near Strasbourg which he was able to defeat through his own efforts as a commander, thus revealing talents that even he did not know he possessed. Julian now found himself in Constantius’s good books and entrusted with real authority.

Julian decided to follow the course adopted by Constantius and stay at arms length from the day-to-day administration of his province. By only trusting a small circle of close acquaintances he was able to build an atmosphere of fear among the officials who really ran things. This was designed to keep everyone in line in that nobody really knew the wishes of the top man, or who was watching whom.

But, just like his half-brother Gallus, Julian began to get ideas about seizing more power than his cousin was prepared to yield. In Julian’s case, not surprisingly, he claimed to have had dreams that foretold that he would overthrow Constantius and he then corresponded with his spiritual gurus in ways that were frankly treasonous. The Emperor, again not surprisingly, became suspicious of Julian’s motives and took steps to place his own men in Julian’s inner circle. However, it would not have been in his best interests to remove Julian at this stage, given that the latter was at least efficient and Constantius had more pressing issues to deal with.

The empire was threatened from the east, with the Persians under Shapur II invading in 359 and besieging the city of Amida (in modern southeast Turkey), which eventually fell with huge losses of life. The Persians withdrew, having been delayed by the long siege, but would clearly return during the next campaigning season. Constantius knew that he had no chance of defending his borders without help from the west, and for that he needed the co-operation of Julian.

Julian now grabbed his opportunity to rebel against his cousin, occasioned by the troops in Gaul refusing to move east and declaring their loyalty to Julian instead. In 360 Julian allowed himself to be declared Augustus and offered to divide the empire with Constantius. The emperor had little choice but to accept.

As Julian moved east with his army to meet any challenge from Constantius he heard confirmation that his faith in the old gods was justified, because Constantius died from a fever in southern Turkey on 3^rd November 361, leaving Julian as the undisputed Emperor.

Julian as Emperor

Julian’s short reign as Emperor was marked by constant attempts to turn back the tide of Christianization that had been begun by Constantine. Julian had little reason to put his faith in the new religion, especially when he recalled how his supposedly Christian cousins had behaved, and had he lived longer he might have succeeded in restoring Paganism to the empire.

His main tactic was to set bishop against bishop and to establish rival pagan priesthoods that would attract people away from the Christian ones. In this latter endeavour he was largely unsuccessful because the pagans could not replicate the charitable works of the Christians and so were unable to compete with them.

Another plan was to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem that had been destroyed by Titus in AD 70. Julian’s idea here was to disprove the Biblical prophesy that the Temple would never be rebuilt. However, the project ended in 362 when an earthquake struck Jerusalem.

Julian then turned his attention to taking on the Persians, by beginning an invasion of Iraq in the spring of 363. However, his planning was woefully inadequate, neglecting, for example, to include equipment for laying siege to cities along the way. As he advanced along the Euphrates the Persians flooded the land in his rear, thus cutting off his retreat by the same route.

The invasion was a disaster and Julian had no choice but to return along the Tigris, his troops being harried from the rear all the way along. The army eventually ran desperately short of food and supplies.

On 26 June 363 Julian was killed during a Persian attack on the rearguard of his army and a relatively junior officer, Jovian, was declared Emperor in his place.

Julian is known to Christian historians as “The Apostate” for his attempts to revive the old religion, although his conduct before and during his reign was, in the main, more in keeping with Christian principles than that of several of his predecessors and successors.

He left behind a number of writings that show evidence of a remarkably active mind, including letters and satires.

© John Welford