Atalanta in Greek mythology

Mortal women (i.e. not goddesses) do not get a particularly good press in Greek mythology. They tend either to be driven to murder as revenge for wrongs done to them, e.g. Clytaemnestra and Medea, or seducers who bring death and destruction in their wake, most notably Helen but others include Phaedra and Astydameia.

An exception to this pattern is Atalanta, a character who fights like a man, is involved in no subtle plots, and has forsworn sex. It is when she is finally tricked into marriage that her fate overtakes her.

There are not many warrior women in the Greek myths, with the notable exception of the tribe of Amazons encountered by Jason and his Argonauts, the latter including Atalanta among their number. This in itself makes her story an interesting one.

As with most Greek myths, there are conflicting details that occur as a result of different sources saying different things. The oral tradition of stories being passed down the generations, eventually being written down by a number of writers in different places and at various times, is bound to lead to variant accounts. In the case of Atalanta, two different regional traditions included her story, namely those of Arcadia and Boeotia, and these stories, although clearly referring to the same character, have a number of differences. The myth of Atalanta can therefore be pieced together by combining these accounts.


Childhood and upbringing

Her father Iasus (or Schoenus in the Boeotian version), was unhappy to have fathered a girl and had the child left on a mountain slope in the expectation that it would die. This practice is familiar throughout the Greek myths, and almost invariably the baby is rescued by a passing shepherd, bear or wolf and survives to adulthood, often much to the surprise of the original parent. In Atalanta’s case it was a she-bear who became her foster mother, and she grew up to be strong and healthy because she was then found by a group of hunters who taught her the skills of hunting.

The mountain in question was Mount Parthenius, which was sacred to Artemis, the virgin huntress goddess. It was Artemis who sent the bear to rescue Atalanta, and in return Atalanta forswore men and determined to remain a virgin. Her protection by Artemis continued; on one occasion she almost died of thirst but, on striking a rock with her spear and calling on the goddess, a spring burst out and saved her.


The Argonauts

Atalanta’s reputation as a fearless huntress was enough for her to be chosen as the only female crew member of the Argo, captained by Jason in the quest for the golden fleece. Accounts of that adventure make little mention of her, except that she was one of those wounded as Jason and his companions escaped with the fleece to their ship at the mid-point of the story. She was healed by the magical medicines supplied by Medea, the king’s daughter who had now agreed to help Jason.


The Calydonian boar

Atalanta also took part in the quest that followed that for the golden fleece, namely the hunting of the Calydonian boar, which had been sent by Artemis to ravage the countryside of Calydon after an oversight, in terms of sacrifices offered, by Oeneus, the king of Calydon.

Although Atalanta’s presence on board the Argo had caused no problems, it did so now because several members of the hunting party objected that having a woman among their number would bring bad luck. The king’s son, Meleager, declared that if they did not back down, the hunt would not take place. His main reason for taking this line was that he fancied Atalanta for himself, despite already being married.

Atalanta was armed with a bow and arrows, which she first used to shoot dead two centaurs which tried to ravish her. She was also successful in inflicting the first wound on the boar, which was finally killed by Meleager.

The original deal had been that whoever killed the boar should be presented with its pelt and tusks, and Meleager proposed that Atalanta should be so honoured, as she had drawn first blood. However, this led to objections that in turn led to much greater violence, but that is definitely another story!


Avoiding marriage

Atalanta’s success led to her being accepted back home by her father, but he was determined to see her safely married, which was not what she wanted, especially as the Delphic Oracle had warned her against marriage. As she was exceptionally fleet of foot, she offered a deal along the lines that any man who could beat her in a race could marry her. There was a catch, though, in that she claimed the right to kill anyone who failed the test.

Many suitors tried playing this highly dangerous game, which might sound surprising given that the later contenders would have known full well what had happened to their predecessors, but that is typical of myths and folk tales! The men would be given a head start and be allowed to run unencumbered by clothes, which was normal practice in ancient Greek athletics. Atalanta, however, ran fully clothed and carried a spear. Every time she would overtake her opponent and thrust her spear into him as she did so.

There was a successful applicant, but he only won by cheating. Melanion (or Hippomenes in some versions) called on divine assistance in the person of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. She gave him three golden apples, which he was instructed to drop, one at a time, during the course of the race. Atalanta stopped each time to pick them up, which was just enough delay to enable Melanion to win the race. This is therefore a version of the “Tortoise and the Hare” fable that is ascribed to Aesop. (The picture attached to this article is based on this story)

Atalanta was therefore obliged to marry Melanion, but the Delphic prophecy proved true in the end. Not long after they were married, Melanion persuaded her to make love in a place that was sacred to Zeus. As their punishment, Zeus changed them both into lions. The reasoning behind this was the strange belief that lions cannot mate with each other, but only with leopards, the error being possibly because, at a distance, a lioness might be mistaken for a leopard, unlikely though that might sound. The couple would then have been fated to remain together for ever but unable to mate.

One version of the story has it that it was Cybele, the “Earth Mother”, whose precinct was defiled and who had the couple turned into lions to draw her chariot.

There is also a story that Atalanta was not as virginal as she pretended, and had actually had a child by Meleager. This was Parthenopaeus, who was abandoned by his mother at the same place that she had been, and with a similar result in that he was rescued by shepherds and survived to become one of the “Seven against Thebes” in the Oedipus story.


Messages in the Atalanta myths

One can read several messages in the Atalanta story. One is that male story-tellers cannot abide the idea that a woman could really wish to remain a virgin, and will eventually succumb to her natural urges. When she does so, as in the Atalanta story, she suffers no ill consequences for that reason but only for the sin of offending a sacred place.

Another reading could be a sexist one, in that a woman’s high principles can be overcome by dangling something bright and shiny in front of her. This is a similar theme to one that runs through the literatures of many nations, namely that women are inconstant and fickle, whereas men are made of sterner stuff and are more trustworthy.

This is, as mentioned above, a highly sexist conclusion to draw, and the current writer has no intention of endorsing such thoughts!

© John Welford

Caratacus, a Celtic British king

Caratacus was a Celtic British king at the time of the invasion of Britain by the Romans under Emperor Claudius. Caratacus’s defeat and capture marked the true beginning of Rome’s occupation of Britain that was to last for nearly 400 years.


Caratacus – his origins and early successes

Caratacus was the son of Cunobelin, who was king of the Catuvellauni tribe and, incidentally, a possible original of William Shakespeare’s character of “Cymbeline”. The Catuvellauni tribe were very powerful and had led the earlier resistance to Julius Caesar when he had tried to conquer Britain in 55 BC. Their tribal lands were in the area to the north and west of present-day London, but they had aggressively tried to extend their influence to both east and west. The Catuvellauni capital of Camulodunum (present-day Colchester in Essex) had previously belonged to the Trinovantes tribe but the Catuvellauni moved their base there when they defeated the Trinovantes.

Caratacus first came to notice as a warrior chief in the struggle against the Atrebates tribe in what is now central southern England. Fighting alongside his uncle Epaticcus, he had some success, but when Epaticcus died in about 35 CE the Atrebates, under their king Verica, fought back. Caratacus eventually regained the upper hand and was able to depose Verica and take over much of the territory of the Atrebates.


The threat of the Roman Empire

British tribal chiefs at this time were well aware that the mighty Roman Empire was expanding across Europe and that their positions were threatened by it. A king might fancy his chances at being able to resist any future invasion of his lands, or he might consider that his best bet was to do some kind of deal with Rome to protect his territory and status. It was therefore open to any defeated leader to appeal to Rome for protection in exchange for loss of independence as a client or vassal of Rome.

This was what Verica did, and his appeal to Emperor Claudius was all that the latter needed as an excuse for a full-scale invasion. Caratacus, who had by now succeeded his father as king, therefore found that, by defeating a relatively weak enemy, he had acquired a much more formidable one. Given that none of the other British kings had the strength to oppose the Roman legions, it was left to Caratacus and his brother Togodumnus, who ruled jointly with him, to lead all the Celtic tribes in their defence of Britain.


Defeat by Rome

For a time Caratacus had some success, especially when he used guerrilla “hit and run” tactics against the Romans. However, he had no answer to the legions when it came to set-piece battles, and he lost two crucial ones at the Medway and the Thames. There is a possibility that Togodumnus had thrown in his lot with the Romans and was acting against his brother, thus leading to the latter’s defeat, but it is also possible that he was killed in battle.

At all events, Claudius was able to march into Camulodunum and turn it into his own provincial capital. Caratacus escaped and continued the resistance to Roman rule from Wales, where he led the tribes of Silures and Ordovices. However, he suffered another defeat, this time at Caer Caradoc, and was forced to flee northwards.


Arrest and exile

Caratacus had hoped to find sanctuary with Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes but, unfortunately for him, she had already done a deal with the Romans and promptly had Caratacus arrested and handed him over. He was taken in chains to Rome in full expectation of being publicly executed when he arrived, on the grounds of having dared to oppose the might of the Roman Empire.

However, he was allowed to make a speech to the Senate, in which he made a reasoned argument for clemency along the lines that his dignity as a leader of royal descent required him to defend his people and territory rather than surrender meekly, which would have been a dishonourable thing to do. This impressed the senators, who appreciated that Caratacus had behaved in exactly the same way that they would have expected a Roman leader to behave. The Emperor granted him a pardon and the right to live in Rome with his family.

Caratacus therefore spent the rest of his life in Rome as a guest rather than a prisoner. Meanwhile, his defeat in Britain meant that his country would remain a Roman province for centuries to come.

© John Welford

The Fire of Rome. 64 AD

On 18^th July 64 AD large parts of the city of Rome were consumed by fire. At least, this was when the fire started – it burned for several days, died down, then had another go. By the time it finished only four of Rome’s fourteen regions had not been touched and three were consumed entirely. There were hundreds of deaths.

Blame for who started the fire has been laid at more than one door. Many historians have claimed that it was started on the orders of Emperor Nero, who had plans to rebuild the city so that it would become a permanent memorial to him. Nero chose to blame the Christians, and the event was used as an excuse for an orgy of persecution and punishment.

In all likelihood it began accidentally. Fires in tightly-packed cities were not uncommon, and given the fact that most of the houses in the poorer districts would have been built of wood, the rapid spread of a fire, once it started, was to be expected.

Nero’s conduct during the fire has long been debated. There is some evidence that he organised relief efforts for the people who were made homeless, but there is very little for the story that ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned’ – a fiddle being a violin. For one thing, violins did not exist in Nero’s time, and for another he was not in the city at the time.

The fiddle reference might have been to the ‘fidicula’, which was a lyre-type instrument as depicted in the illustration which is a movie poster for ‘Quo Vadis’. However, there is no evidence that Nero played this instrument.

However, there is evidence that, after the fire, Nero donned his actor’s costume and recited his own composition ‘The Sack of Troy’.  Nero’s recitals were not voluntary – an invitation to one was a command and falling asleep during the performance was a capital offence. People were known to feign death during a recital of his terrible poetry – the idea was to be dragged out before one really died of boredom, but then to make a miraculous recovery!

© John Welford

Caracalla, Emperor of Rome

Caracalla was a thoroughly disreputable Roman Emperor who, not surprisingly, came to a violent end.


A son who was not like his father

The study of the history of the Roman Empire throws up several instances of the sons of “good” emperors turning out to be very different in their own behaviour. One notorious example was Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Aurelius in 180. Only 31 years later history repeated itself when Caracalla gained the throne from his father Septimius Severus.

His real name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (originally Lucius Septimius Bassianus), which is ironic considering the very different characters of the emperors who had borne those first two names. The name Caracalla was a nickname derived from the long tunic of Gaulish origin that he liked to wear. There is therefore an interesting throwback to another notorious emperor, in that the name Caligula was a nickname referring to the soldier’s boots that the earlier tyrant wore as a child.


Caracalla becomes Emperor

Caracalla was born at Lyons in 188, and was only aged ten when he accompanied his father on the latter’s expedition against the Parthians. He returned to Rome in 202, married, and in 208 joined his father on campaign in Britannia, along with his younger brother Geta. He was with his father when Septimius Severus died at York in February 211, and his father declared that the brothers would rule as joint emperors.

However, this plan soon went astray, because the brothers could agree on very little. Caracalla plotted to assassinate Geta and succeeded at the second attempt in December 211. Thereafter he reigned as sole emperor, having also purged the Roman establishment of anyone suspected of being on Geta’s side. These included his own wife and members of her family, and perhaps as many as a thousand others.


A tyrant on the loose

Caracalla spent much of his six-year reign touring the empire, and being every bit as severe on the provinces as on Rome itself. In 214 he visited Gaul, Germany, Dacia and Thrace, giving himself the name Alemannicus after a successful campaign against the Alemanni.

In 215 he went to Syria and Egypt, slaughtering perhaps as many as 20,000 people in Alexandria for not showing enough respect to him and his mother.


An undignified end

In April 217 he set out to wage war on the Parthians, but was assassinated while en route. The emperor had stopped to relieve himself at the side of the road, for which the members of his personal guard stood aside to give him privacy. However, one of their number had a personal grudge against Caracalla and took the opportunity to stab him to death.

Despite this scenario, it is almost certain that this was more than just a personal matter, and that a larger plot was being hatched. The assassin was quickly killed and was thus unable to be questioned. The prefect of the guard, Macrinus, immediately declared himself emperor in place of Caracalla.


Caracalla’s legacy

Caracalla was clearly a thoroughly bad emperor, in terms of his tyranny, and his death was mourned by few, if any. He may have bought a degree of popularity with his soldiers by increasing their pay, but this caused a serious drain on the economy, as did the baths project mentioned below. This expense was paid for in part by granting Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, a device that made everyone eligible for the inheritance tax which was now set at ten per cent. Another economic move was to debase the silver currency by twenty-five per cent, as an anti-inflationary measure.

The major project of his reign, for which his name is best remembered, is the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, although he merely completed what his father had started. The ruins can still be seen today, and the vast size of the complex fully appreciated. The main building was about 750 feet long, with the baths able to accommodate 1,600 people at a time. It is estimated that up to 8,000 people a day may have visited the baths. The decoration was lavish, with huge mosaics and massive statues adorning the building. The complex included two large libraries and a public garden. It is estimated that around a million bricks went into its construction, employing 9,000 workers for five years.

In a way, Caracalla did achieve a measure of stability, but it was at the expense of creating much human misery wherever he went. His biggest mistake was to make himself detested by the Senate and, although the Senate was not particularly powerful at this time, very few emperors who defied it died in their beds. Caracalla was one of many who did not.

© John Welford

Septimius Severus, Emperor of Rome

Lucius Septimius Severus became Emperor of Rome in 193 and reigned until 211, but he spent most of those years on campaign, either in fighting off other claimants to the imperial throne or defending the Empire from attack.

His rise to power

Septimius Severus was born in 146 near Leptis (in what is now Libya in North Africa). He held a number of military commands under emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus and rose to be commander-in-chief of the army in Pannonia and Illyria (the western Balkans and the western half of modern Hungary). When Emperor Pertinax was killed in 193, Severus was declared emperor by his troops and he proceeded to march on Rome to make good his claim.

The Praetorian Guard in Rome, who had murdered Pertinax because of the latter’s attempts to instil discipline in the Guard, had taken the extraordinary step of putting the Empire up for auction to the highest bidder. A wealthy Roman, Didius Julianus, had won by offering large sums of money to the soldiers, but was otherwise totally unsuited for high office. He was in turn executed by order of the Senate as Severus approached, and the latter was therefore able to claim the throne without opposition in Rome.

However, the eastern legions had also proclaimed a new emperor, this being Pescennius Niger, the governor of Syria. Severus therefore had to leave Rome almost immediately to face this challenge, which he did decisively near Issus (on the southern coast of modern Turkey) in 194, with Niger being put to death.

Severus then attacked Byzantium, laying siege to the city which had refused to submit to him. The siege lasted for two years, after which Severus had the walls demolished to ground level and all its soldiers and senior officials put to death. While the siege was in progress, Severus crossed the Euphrates in 195 and subdued the Mesopotamians.

In 196, Severus was able to return to Rome, only to find that there was another challenger for the throne, namely Clodius Albinus, who had been proclaimed emperor by the troops in Gaul. Albinus was defeated and killed in battle at Lugdunum (modern Lyons) on 19^th February 197.

After another short time in Rome, Severus again had to march eastwards, to confront an invasion of Mesopotamia by the Parthians. He crossed the Euphrates in 198, and was successful in his campaign, but he spent three more years in the eastern Empire, visiting Arabia, Palestine and Egypt, and did not return to Rome until 202.

Severus as Emperor

He was now able to settle into something approaching a peaceful reign as emperor, for the next seven years anyway. He imposed a degree of stability that had been missing during the reigns of his predecessors, notably Commodus, although this was done by strong-arm tactics that made him unpopular in many quarters. Severus was always a soldier and not a politician.

In 208 he returned to the campaign field, accompanied by his sons Caracalla and Geta, by going to Britain and defending the province against the Caledonians. As part of this campaign he ordered the strengthening of Hadrian’s Wall, which had been completed some 80 years previously.

Severus never returned to Rome, dying of natural causes at Eboracum (York) on 4^th February 211. He had decreed that both his sons should rule jointly as emperor, but this arrangement was to be short-lived. Septimius Severus had brought stability to the empire, but this was only to be a welcome interval in the chaos wrought by his predecessors and his successors.

© John Welford

For sale - the Roman Empire

Let us suppose that instead of going through the wearisome 4-yearly process of holding primaries and then a presidential election, the American constitution was set aside and the office of President was announced on eBay as being available to the highest bidder. It would certainly take nothing like as long, although some might claim that the arrangement lacked a little something in terms of democratic endorsement! Could it happen? Well, something very similar did actually happen in the year 193, during a turbulent period in the history of the Roman Empire.

Wanted: a successor to an unworthy Emperor

The emperor Commodus had proved to be a latter-day Caligula, in that he had become emperor at a young age (20 in the case of Commodus), had allowed his unworthy favourites to have far too much influence, and had led a thoroughly debauched life including fighting as a gladiator, demanding to be worshipped, and eventually being murdered by people who feared for their own lives were he to live any longer.

One consequence of his reign was that the Praetorian Guard, the troops under the direct command of the emperor who were supposed to be an elite fighting force and the emperor’s personal bodyguard, had become ill-disciplined and more interested in acquiring personal wealth and living the good life than anything else.

When Commodus was removed in December 192, the new emperor, Pertinax, had a very different attitude and sought to lick the Guard into shape with a regime of enforced discipline. He was from an older generation, aged 66 at his accession, who had originally been a schoolmaster and then a soldier, rising through the ranks from centurion to general. Although the new approach was no doubt welcomed by many in Rome, who were sickened by the downward moral spiral of Commodus’s imperial court, the Guard foresaw their privileged and luxurious lifestyle coming to an end and were determined not to let that happen. Consequently, Pertinax was murdered after a reign of less than three months’ duration.

What would the Praetorian Guard do next?

The Praetorian Guard now faced a dilemma. Once news reached the outer reaches of the empire that the post of emperor was again vacant, new candidates were declared for the post, these being military men who were far more likely to resemble Pertinax in their attitude towards military discipline than Commodus. The Guard needed a new Commodus, who would lavish favours upon his closest aides, but how was such a one to be found?

Somebody then came up with a brilliant idea, or so it must have seemed at the time. The person who would pay them most for the job should be the new emperor. Their loyalty was up for sale, and bids would now be accepted.

An auction is held

Two bidders soon appeared on the scene. These were Flavius Sulpicianus, a prefect of the city, and Didius Salvius Julianus, a senator (aged about 60, pictured above on a coin) who had held various military and civil posts and grown to be enormously wealthy.

The conduct of the auction was somewhat farcical, because Sulpicianus was inside the army camp, having gone there to try to placate the troops, and Julianus was on the outside, having learned about the auction while at a banquet and persuaded by his wife and daughter to go along and make a bid.

It would appear that the soldiers were not prepared to allow a senator to enter the camp, so he stood at the gate and shouted his bids, these being relayed back and forth by the soldiers standing inside the gate. The process was therefore not unlike a modern auction in which one of the bidders is in the room and the other is on the telephone, with an employee of the auction house announcing the bids on his behalf.

What was being debated was not so much the value of the imperial office as the size of bribe that the candidates were prepared to offer the members of the Guard. It was therefore an utterly corrupt and despicable procedure. Sulpicianus’s final bid was 20,000 sestercii per man, but Julianus topped it to bid 25,000 sestercii, at which the guards threw open the gates and declared Julianus to be the new emperor.

Not such a good idea after all

If we take on board the fact that the pay for a legionary at this time was around 1,300 sestercii a year, this offer represented an enormous bonus, and it had to be multiplied by the number of men in the Praetorian Guard, which could have been something like 2,000. Even given the vast reputed wealth of men like Julianus, the size of this sum puts into perspective his desire for the imperial honour.

However, having achieved the crown, he must have started to regret his decision quite soon afterwards. The Senate was forced to accept the decision of the Praetorian Guard, although clearly with great reluctance. The people of Rome also thought that this was an extremely shabby procedure, such that Julianus was given no respect whatsoever, with insults and even stones being thrown in his direction as he passed by.

Things were to get even worse for him as the troops of Septimius Severus approached Rome. No field commander would accept Julianus as emperor, and their combined forces were clearly much greater than those that could be mustered by the Praetorian Guard, which was in no shape to act as an effective military force, having given up proper soldiering years before.

Julianus offered to share the empire with Severus, but the latter would have none of it, instead offering a deal to the Praetorian Guard to be lenient with them if they gave up the murderers of Pertinax to face justice. This was clearly their safest bet and the one they accepted. The Senate was also emboldened to declare their loyalty to Severus and pass a death sentence on Julianus.

Julianus was killed in his palace by a member of the Guard that had organised his purchase of the empire less than three months previously. Severus executed the guards who had killed Pertinax, and then disbanded the Praetorian Guard altogether, later reconstituting it from a fresh beginning.

The experiment of auctioning the imperial office had been a dismal failure that besmirched the honour of Rome, and it was not an idea that was ever repeated.

© John Welford

Alexander the Great's major battles

Alexander the Great, born in 356 BC, was a warrior from a very young age, fighting his first battle, at Chaeronea, when only 18 years old. He spent virtually the whole of his short life as a campaigner, waging war firstly to defend the Kingdom of Macedonia and then to build an empire that was unrivalled at its time.

The Battle of Issus

The Battle of Issus (333 BC) probably counts as Alexander’s first major battle in his campaign against the Persians, whose forces, led by Darius III, outnumbered those of Alexander, although traditional estimates of Darius’s army comprising more than half a million men are probably gross exaggerations. Alexander had crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor with a force of no more than 35,000 men, although he had probably doubled this number by the time of the battle, whereas Darius could certainly have commanded at least 100,000.

Alexander won the battle by making good use of his cavalry to form a mobile attack force that could pick off weaker elements of the Persian army and then retreat. The battle was decided when a direct assault on the Persian centre led to Darius fleeing the battle, leaving his wife, mother and children behind. These family members then became hostages; they were well treated by Alexander, but proved to be valuable bargaining chips in future dealings with Darius.

The Battle of Gaugamela

The next major battle between the two sides was in October 331 BC. The battle was fought at Gaugamela, although it is sometimes known as the Battle of Arbela. The modern Iraqi city of Mosul is not far away. Again, ancient sources have distorted the figures, but it is probable that Alexander had around 30,000 troops as against Darius’s 50,000. Alexander’s tactic was to encourage the Persian cavalry to attack his flanks, so that he could advance towards the centre, commanded by Darius himself. He also devised a trap to render useless the Persians’ new weapon, namely the battle chariot.

As at Issus, Darius proved to have little personal courage, and he once again fled the field. He retreated to Persepolis, the Persian capital, to rebuild the army, and was later murdered by Bessus, the ruler of Bactria, who then proclaimed himself King of Persia.

The Persian Gate

Alexander’s progress into Persia (modern day Iran) was through the Zagros Mountains, and it was at a pass known as the Persian Gate that he fell into an ambush led by the Persian general Ariobarzan. Alexander only had about half his army with him, and was taken totally by surprise by the ambush, which initially inflicted heavy losses, despite Ariobarzan only having about 700 men under his command. The action held the Macedonians at bay for about a month, but eventually Alexander was able to outflank the Persians and defeat them with a surprise attack of his own. There are stories that Alexander was shown the path through the mountains by a shepherd boy.

The Batte of the Hydaspes River

Alexander’s last major battle was at the Hydaspes River (now known as the Jhelum) in 326 BC. This was against the Indian King Porus, and occurred after Alexander had finally defeated the Persians and was advancing into India. For once, Alexander had a significant battle force under his command, probably as many as 55,000 men, but the opposing forces, although smaller, included about 200 war elephants, calculated to sow terror in the hearts of troops from far-off Europe.

The two armies were separated by the swift Hydaspes River. Alexander moved upstream to cross the river and return on the Indian bank, but gave the Indians the impression that the bulk of the army had stayed behind. Porus therefore only sent a small force to oppose them, and this was easily routed. He then realised that a greater force was needed and advanced with the bulk of his army, leaving the way clear for the rest of the Macedonian force to ford the river and attack the Indians from both sides.

Alexander appreciated that the war elephants were a powerful weapon, especially as they really did “frighten the horses”. He therefore adapted his tactics so that the cavalry were kept as far away from the elephants as possible.

Victory was assured, but at much greater cost than the Macedonians were used to. Alexander faced something of a mutiny, and this was therefore the furthest point of his conquests. He spent the rest of his campaign (only three more years before his death from disease at the age of 32) consolidating his empire in Persia and Mesopotamia.

Later generals learned much from studying Alexander’s battle tactics, particular his reliance on using fast cavalry units to outflank the enemy, the element of surprise, and his ability to change tactics at short notice when the occasion so demanded. Despite his youthful years, Alexander was certainly one of the cleverest generals ever to grace a battlefield.

© John Welford

Mithridates the Great, King of Pontus

Mithridates VI (132-63 BC) was King of Pontus, a country on the southern shore of the Black Sea in what is now northern Turkey. His reign coincided with the expansion of Roman influence eastwards into what had previously been the Hellenistic empire of Alexander the Great.

Mithridates came to the throne at the age of 12 when his father, Mithridates V, was murdered by his wife who sought to reign as regent until her son came of age. However, young Mithridates had good reason to fear for his life and went into hiding. He was most afraid of being murdered by poison, so he took the precaution of eating small amounts of poison in order to build up resistance. He later returned to his palace, imprisoned his mother (she may have been executed) and took over as king in his own right.

Mithridates saw himself as a latter-day Alexander and had the ambition of expanding Pontus so that the culture of Ancient Greece would spread throughout the region.

His first attempt at conquest was the province of Cappadocia, to the south of Pontus, but this brought him into direct conflict with Rome, which also had Cappadocia in its sights. Mithridates was therefore forced to back off.

This was followed by a direct Roman attack on Pontus. However, Mithridates was too strong for the invaders who were easily repulsed. He went one stage further by rounding up as many Roman settlers as he could find and massacring more than 80,000 people.

Mithridates and Rome were now enemies, and a series of wars ensued in which Mithridates continued to frustrate Roman ambitions. Things came to a head in 73 BC when Rome destroyed the Pontian fleet and forced Mithridates to flee east to Armenia after defeating him in battle at Cabira. His escape was mainly due to incompetence on the part of the Roman general Lucullus.

The King of Armenia was Tigranes, who had married the daughter of Mithridates. Tigranes now faced a terrible dilemma, because he risked invasion by the Romans if he continued to shelter his father-in-law.

Tigranes chose to stand up to Rome, although he must have known that he had very little chance of resisting for long. He was fortunate in that the Roman target was Mithridates; Tigranes was allowed to continue his reign but he was now a client king under Roman domination.

There was no further escape for Mithridates. With nowhere to go, and only the vengeance of Rome to look forward to, he took his own life. He took poison but it was ineffective, possibly because of the precautions he had taken in his earlier life. He then commanded one of his soldiers to run him through with his sword.

Mithridates is known to history as Mithridates the Great for good reason. He proved to be Rome’s most difficult opponent who frustrated their eastward expansion for thirty years.

© John Welford

Pertinax, a short-lived Emperor of Rome

The reign of Pertinax as Roman Emperor was, at 86 days, one of the shortest of any Emperor. It took place during one of the Empire’s frequent periods of chaos and gave rise to one of the most extraordinary and shameful episodes in the history of Rome.

The rise of Pertinax

Helvius Pertinax was born on 1^st August 126 in Milan, of humble origins. He worked as a schoolmaster before joining the army and becoming a centurion. He distinguished himself in various theatres of war, including Britain and against the Parthians, before rising to the highest military and civil commands under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, being consul on two occasions.

The reign of Commodus ended in violence with his murder at the hands of a group of conspirators who included his mistress. They succeeded in their prime aim of removing the Emperor, but took no steps to put anyone in his place. The murder took place on 31^st December 192, and on New Year’s Day they approached the nearest owner of a safe pair of hands they could find, namely Pertinax. He made the mistake of accepting the job.

Pertinax was 66 years old at the time, which made him a very old man by the standards of ancient Rome. It might have been that the conspirators chose someone who commanded respect but who could, in theory, be easily moulded to follow the wishes of the people who put him there. There is an interesting parallel here to the events of the year 41, when Caligula (to whom Commodus bore many similarities) was succeeded by his elderly uncle Claudius on the whim of Caligula’s murderers.

The wrong moves for a supposedly puppet emperor

However, Pertinax had no intention of being anyone’s puppet and set about his duties as Emperor in the manner of a new broom sweeping clean. Many people with an army background must have been disgusted at the way Commodus had conducted himself and allowed the Praetorian Guard to become sloppy and ill-disciplined. Pertinax sought to deal with the sloppiness he encountered from day one.

The Praetorian Guard was supposed to be the cream of the army whose reward was to form the Emperor’s personal guard; however, under Commodus this was far from the case. He had given himself up to a life of pleasure and extreme vanity, seeing himself as a latter-day Hercules who even performed in the amphitheatre as a gladiator, having made sure that his opponents only had wooden swords with which to defend themselves. His closest companions in the Praetorian Guard had been highly rewarded and been allowed to do whatever they wished.

Pertinax aimed to stop all that and immediately tried to impose harsh discipline on the army, and especially the Praetorian Guard. Not surprisingly, his efforts were greatly resented. He would in any case have been hard pressed to be popular, given that the murder of Commodus had been occasioned by a palace revolution in which the Guard had played no part. They had therefore been presented with a fait accompli. Anyone taking his place was always going to have an impossible job in being accepted, and for Pertinax to set about reforming the situation as he did was simply asking for trouble.

Trouble came on 28^th March 193 when 300 members of the Guard stormed the imperial palace and, when Pertinax tried to face them down, murdered him.

And the next?

Like the murderers of Commodus, the Guard had nobody in mind to take the place of Pertinax, but they knew that they wanted somebody to continue to pay them at the rate they had been used to, or preferably much more, so that they could return to the “good old days” of luxury and laziness. They therefore made it clear that the job of Emperor was open to the highest bidder and began a virtual auction of the Roman Empire.

The winner was an exceptionally wealthy Roman called Didius Julianus, who had absolutely no qualities that fitted him for the job. Fortunately he was soon overthrown by the next strong Emperor, namely Septimius Severus, who took over in June 193.

Clearly Pertinax should never have allowed himself to become Emperor, although for a military man of his distinction it would probably have been difficult to turn down the job of the most powerful man in the known world. However, he should have seen that he had no chance of succeeding under the circumstances and stepped aside in favour of someone else. It was his tragedy that he did not.

© John Welford

Commodus, Emperor of Rome

After the “five good emperors” (Nerva to Marcus Aurelius), the Roman Empire took a step backwards with its next incumbent, namely Commodus.

Commodus comes to power

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) began his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” with the reign of Commodus (180-192), as he regarded the rot as having set in with this thoroughly unworthy Emperor. The decline had another 300 years to go, so there were plenty of people and events to come that would play their part in the Empire’s eventual collapse, but the contrast with what had gone before was stark enough for Commodus’s reign to mark a real turning point.

Lucius Aurelius Commodus was born on 31^st August 161, his father being Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was renowned as the “Philosopher Emperor”. Commodus was given the best education his father could envisage for him, and the members of the Emperor’s circle would have had every confidence that the successor to Marcus Aurelius would continue to govern along the same lines, namely wisely and justly. However, if they did so, they were sorely mistaken.

Marcus Aurelius died suddenly, while on campaign, on 8^th March 180, so that Commodus became sole Emperor when a few months short of his 19^th birthday. It soon became clear that his careful training for the job, which had included being joint emperor with his father for the previous three years, had been a complete waste of time and that Commodus had none of the qualities of his father. He lacked Marcus’s intelligence and was lazy as well. He was happy to leave the business of government to his favourites and to spend his time enjoying himself.

A series of plots

Not surprisingly, he soon made many enemies, one of them being his own sister Lucilla, who was probably about twelve years older than Commodus. She had enjoyed a high status during her father’s reign but was now relegated to a very minor position at court, which she resented. A plot to assassinate Commodus, which involved other family members, failed and Lucilla was banished to Capri where she was later murdered on the Emperor’s orders.

One consequence of this incident, in which a man with a dagger had lunged at Commodus and been overpowered before he could strike, was that the praetorian prefect, Tigidius Perennis, was able to work himself into Commodus’s favour and become the effective power behind the throne. For the next five years Perennis made virtually all the decisions that kept the Empire stable, making sure that Commodus got all the credit.

However, Perennis made plenty of enemies of his own, and it was not difficult to persuade Commodus that Perennis was plotting against him. When Perennis fell, and was murdered, a former slave called Cleander took his place, to be followed in turn by a man called Eclectus, a chamberlain, who was, unknown to Commodus, in a long-standing romantic liaison with the Emperor’s mistress, Marcia. The government was now effectively in the hands of Commodus’s chamberlain and mistress, together with Laetus, the new praetorian prefect.

In 192, Marcia came across a document that showed that Commodus had plans to purge a number of people, including Eclectus, Laetus and herself. She therefore decided to succeed where Lucilla had failed and poisoned the Emperor’s food. However, the poison was not strong enough and Marcia needed to switch to plan B, which was to employ a professional wrestler named Narcissus to strangle Commodus with his bare hands. This ploy worked as intended, and Commodus died on 31^st December 192.

The gladiator emperor

Throughout Commodus’s undistinguished reign he had shown signs of becoming increasingly divorced from reality, and his behaviour had become bizarre in the extreme by the time of his death. He combined tyranny and cruelty with extreme vanity, such that he ordered Rome to be renamed “Colonia Commodiana”.

He took enormous pleasure in gladiatorial spectacle and trained as a gladiator himself, although during practices he sometimes killed his sparring partners. Modelling himself on Hercules when he appeared in the arena, he made sure that his opponents were only armed with wooden swords. His depravity reached extreme lengths, on one occasion involving the killing of dozens of disabled people who were dressed up as mythological monsters to be slain by Hercules. There can be little doubt that Commodus had turned into a homicidal sociopath, perhaps even worse than Caligula some 150 years before.

The aftermath

His death was widely welcomed in Rome, especially by the members of the Senate who feared for their futures. Orders were given for statues of Commodus to be torn down and for his name to be chiselled off public inscriptions. Needless to say, Colonia Commodiana became Rome once more.

Unfortunately, the assassins of Commodus had made no plans for what would happen next, and a short period of chaos was to follow, including the extraordinary event of the position of Emperor being offered by the Praetorian Guard to the highest bidder. The next Emperor of any substance, Septimius Severus, was to have a difficult job in undoing the damage that the reign of Commodus had caused.

© John Welford

The reign of Marcus Aurelius as Emperor of Rome

Marcus Aurelius was the last of the “five good Emperors” who ruled the Roman Empire between 96 and 180 in the period that Edward Gibbon (in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”) described as that “during which the human race was most happy and prosperous”. The other four “good” Emperors were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was born in Rome on 26^th April 121. In 138 Emperor Hadrian adopted Aurelius Antoninus as his son and heir on condition that he in turn adopted Marcus Annius Verus and Lucius Verus as his joint successors. As well as being favoured by Hadrian, Marcus was betrothed to Faustina, the daughter of Antoninus, who was also to become his sister by adoption. Their marriage was to last for thirty years and produce thirteen children.

When Antoninus died in 161, Marcus (who took the name Aurelius) and Lucius Verus became joint Emperors, although it was clear that Marcus was the senior partner. For one thing, Lucius Verus was nine years younger than Marcus and for another he was more interested in enjoying himself at the theatre and in chariot racing than in undertaking the business of government.

Trouble on the frontiers of the Empire

Although the long reign of Antoninus (23 years) had been largely peaceful, trouble was brewing on the Empire’s northern and eastern frontiers. Verus led an army eastwards to counter the advance of the Parthians who were threatening Rome’s trade routes to India, although Verus himself had no experience of military command.

In 163 the Romans, led by general Avidius Cassius while Verus adopted a backroom role, threw the Parthians back and advanced as far as Medea (in modern Iran). Rome’s borders were strengthened by the appointment of client rulers in the frontier regions who would be loyal to the Empire after the armies withdrew, which they did in 166. Verus was awarded a triumph in Rome, but he died of a stroke in 169 which left Marcus Aurelius as sole Emperor.

Dependence on the gods

The withdrawing Roman armies brought with them a devastating plague, probably of smallpox, which spread throughout the Empire as the legions returned to their usual stations. It has been estimated that as many as six or seven million people died, representing some 10% of the entire population.

Marcus consulted various oracles, thought to have a direct link to the gods, for advice on what to do about the plague, and he issued Empire-wide edicts that prescribed the rites to be followed, although how effective these were is not known.

He also relied on oracles to determine his policy regarding the threat from north of the Danube posed by various tribes. One such oracle prescribed the throwing of two lions into the Danube as an offering to the river gods to prevent the barbarians from crossing. This was a complete failure, in that not only did the lions promptly swim to safety but the tribes crossed the river and penetrated as far as northern Italy before they could be repulsed.

Marcus found himself under siege in the town of Aquileia and again called on the gods for help. This time he had better luck as a lightning strike destroyed a siege engine. Later, a violent thunderstorm caused confusion among the barbarians and helped a Roman legion to force them back. Various claims were made as to whose god was responsible for this, as some Christian writers have suggested that it was the prayers of the Christian members of the legion, rather than those of the pagan Emperor, that did the trick.

Further trouble

In 175 Marcus Aurelius declared that his son Commodus, then aged 14, was to have the rank of Augustus and therefore share the imperial power. The generals did not take well to this move and Avidius Cassius rebelled to the extent of declaring himself Emperor. Having concluded a peace with the northern tribes, Marcus set off eastwards to deal with the rebellion but Cassius was assassinated by his own troops before Marcus arrived.

Marcus Aurelius had the good sense to deal with the aftermath of the rebellion by conciliation rather than by exacting revenge on actual or imagined plotters. None of Cassius’s accomplices was put to death and Marcus ordered that all Cassius’s papers, which might have implicated people in the plot, be burned without being read.

Trouble continued on the northern borders, and after a short time in Rome (176-178) Marcus had once more to turn his attention in that direction. His forces were largely victorious and he was able to repeat the policy adopted on the eastern frontier of setting up client buffer states. However, he was still campaigning in the north when he suddenly fell ill and died on 17^th March 180 at Sirmium in Pannonia (modern Serbia).

The philosopher emperor

Marcus Aurelius is renowned for having been a highly intelligent and cultured man who is often referred to as “the philosopher Emperor”. This reputation is largely due to the twelve books, written in Greek, that have been entitled his “Meditations”. These comprise jottings, made on campaign, that express thoughts and reflections on the meaning of life and the transient nature of all things, including power. They are consonant with the philosophy of the Greek Stoics and have been much admired by later thinkers, who have come to regard Marcus Aurelius as a “pagan theologian”.

His writings were to have an influence on later Christian leaders and theologians, although ironically he was not averse to persecuting Christians. The martyrdoms of St Polycarp and St Irenaeus took place during his reign.

Marcus Aurelius’s worst error of judgment had nothing to do with throwing lions into rivers but everything to do with imagining that his son Commodus would be a worthy successor. Far from being “a chip off the old block”, Commodus was to prove to be a disaster as Emperor and the reason why Gibbon believed that the death of Marcus Aurelius marked the beginning of the Empire’s decline and fall.

© John Welford

Antoninus Pius, Emperor of Rome

Antoninus Pius was Emperor of Rome from 138 CE to 161 CE. However, despite this long reign (second only to that of Augustus out of all the emperors) he is one of the lesser-known Roman emperors. This is due to the fact that during those 23 years hardly anything happened!

His early years

Antoninus was born into an aristocratic family on 19^th September 86 CE at Lanuvium, which is about 20 miles from Rome. He rose smoothly up the ranks of the Roman governmental system and included a spell as governor of Asia from 130 to 135.

He made a very good marriage in around the year 112 (the exact date is unknown). This was to Annia Galeria Faustina, who was the aunt of Marcus Annius Verus, a young man who was highly favoured by Emperor Hadrian.

Hadrian had no natural sons of his own, and, when his initial choice of successor died unexpectedly, he adopted Antoninus as next in line.

Various conditions were attached to the adoption, including that Antoninus must agree to adopt, in his turn, the young son and the intended son-in-law (i.e. Marcus Annius Verus) of Hadrian’s original choice as successor.  Given that Antoninus was already in his 50s at the time and with no natural sons of his own, Hadrian clearly wished to establish the succession for the foreseeable future.

Antoninus ‘s piety

The title Pius (meaning “dutiful”) was added to Antoninus’s name in recognition of his loyalty to Hadrian’s wishes. He also fought to clear Hadrian’s name – he had made many enemies among the Senators who promptly declared him “hated by all” at his death – by persuading them to lift this “damnatio memoriae” and allow Hadrian to be deified.

An exemplary emperor

As emperor, Antoninus went out of his way not to cause offence with people in all stations of life, and thus made few enemies during his long reign. He was personally generous and ready to give immediate aid when disaster struck, such as when 1,000 spectators were killed and many more injured when a grandstand collapsed at the Circus Maximus.

He chose his governors and administrators wisely and instructed them not to levy excessive taxes on the people under their control.  A general feeling of well-being pervaded the Empire as a result, marking what was probably the high point of the Empire in terms of overall prosperity.

There were no major wars, no scandals, and only one example of an execution of a would-be challenger to Antoninus’s authority. 

Unlike his predecessor, Antoninus saw no need to tour the Empire in order to protect its borders, and did not set foot anywhere beyond the Italian peninsula during the whole of his reign.

The Antonine Wall

This is the poor relation of Hadrian’s Wall, being a construction mainly of turf blocks laid between the estuaries of the Firth and Clyde in Scotland. It was therefore much shorter (39 miles as opposed to 73 miles) and less impressive than Hadrian’s Wall, and it was much less effective.

The wall was built on Antoninus’s orders on the advice of Quintus Lollius Urbicus, the governor of Roman Britain who harboured ambitions to extend Roman influence into Scotland.

The wall took twelve years to build and was intended to mark the ultimate limit of the Empire 100 miles further north than Hadrian was prepared to go. However, this proved to be a short-lived venture and the Wall was finally abandoned in 163 only eight years after its completion.

The Wall only just outlived the Emperor who built it. Antoninus died in 161 at the age of 74. His loyalty to Hadrian’s wishes outlived him in that his two adopted sons ruled jointly, just as Hadrian had intended.

© John Welford

Hadrian, Emperor of Rome

Emperor Hadrian, who ruled the Roman Empire from 117AD to 138AD, is best remembered for ordering the construction of the wall in northern England that bears his name. His reign was largely peaceful – due in no small measure to Hadrian’s constant vigilance for signs of trouble on the Empire’s borders.

Hadrian’s early life

Publius Aelius Hadrianus, who is usually simply referred to as Hadrian, was born in Rome in 76AD. His family came originally from Spain, as did that of his kinsman Trajan, who was largely responsible for Hadrian’s upbringing when the latter’s own father died in 86AD.

Hadrian was a keen student at a young age, and became a soldier in Spain at the age of 15. When Trajan became emperor in 98AD, Hadrian married Julia Sabina, a great-niece of Trajan, and rose rapidly in the emperor’s favour. He became a quaestor in 101, a praetor in 107 and a consul in 109.

He was active alongside Trajan in various military campaigns, such as the Second Dacian War of 104-6, and in the war against the Parthians (115-16), having been made governor of Pannonia (roughly equivalent to modern Hungary) in 108. Trajan fell ill while still campaigning, and entrusted the army to Hadrian when he left to return to Rome. However, he died before reaching Rome, in August 117, and Hadrian was declared emperor by the legions in Syria, a decision that was later ratified by the Senate.

Emperor Hadrian

His first act as emperor was to make peace with the Parthians and return to Rome, but he then had to leave again to deal with an invasion in Moesia (modern Serbia). He also had to deal with a revolt against his rule by a number of Roman nobles, all of whom were executed. In order to keep the peace at home, he provided lavish entertainments and cancelled all tax arrears accrued over the previous 15 years.

Feeling secure in his own back yard, he felt able to spend most of his reign as emperor travelling through the Empire to inspect the provinces at first hand, starting in 119. It was while on this tour that he ordered the building of a wall across northern England, and much of this wall can still be seen today. His main concern was to consolidate the Empire rather than seek further expansion, and the wall was part of that plan. It was not so much a defensive wall against marauding tribes from the north as a symbolic gesture of saying “thus far and no further”, and a means of establishing a trading regime so that goods entering and leaving the Empire at this point could be properly monitored.

His travels also took him to Africa, Spain and the East, and he settled in Athens for three years from 123 to 126, where he was particularly generous to the Greeks.

In 131 war broke out with the Jews, who were in revolt over the establishment of a new Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem (which had been largely destroyed in 70AD). This colony was part of a deliberate plan by Hadrian to destroy all vestiges of Jewish nationalism, with one measure being the outlawing of circumcision. The colony, named Aelia Capitolina, included a temple to Jupiter on the site of Solomon’s Temple. The war lasted for five years, with the whole area being reduced to a state of devastation.

In his last years, Hadrian’s health failed and he became suspicious, despotic and cruel. He had no children of his own, and his first adopted successor predeceased him. He then adopted Antoninus, who became emperor (as Antoninus Pius) when Hadrian died in 138, at the age of 62.

  

Hadrian’s reputation

Hadrian’s reign was one of the happiest in the long history of the Roman Empire, with many years of peace. He was keen to extend Roman law to the provinces, drawing up codes of laws that were remarkably humane and aimed at improving public morality.

As well as the famous wall, his building works included aqueducts, harbours and other public buildings. He was particularly active in his favourite city, Athens, where he built an entire new city to the south of the existing one.

He was a patron of the arts and literature, being a writer himself. He also established a scientific institution at Rome, the Athenaeum, which was still in existence many years after his death.

Rome’s emperors included many who were unspeakably evil and caused misery and pain wherever they went. Hadrian’s record was by no means spotless, particularly as far as his policy towards the Jews was concerned, but in general terms he must be considered as one of the wisest and best of the emperors.

© John Welford