Jovian: Emperor of Rome

If Jovian is not a familiar name when you think about Roman emperors, that is hardly a surprise. His reign lasted for less than eight months, beginning with the death of his predecessor in battle and ending with his own in circumstances that suggest either murder or an unfortunate accident.

Flavius Iovianus was born in 331 (or thereabouts) in Singidunum (present-day Belgrade). His father was the commander of Constantius II’s personal guard, and an army career clearly beckoned for Jovian. He had reached the rank of senior staff officer when he took part in the campaign by Emperor Julian in 363 to force the Persian emperor Shapur II to withdraw from Mesopotamia. This campaign had been badly planned and resulted in the Romans being forced to retreat.

During the retreat, Julian was fatally wounded and the army commanders found themselves in need of an immediate replacement as emperor. Julian had no children, which meant that the dynasty that began with Constantius I could run no further. In the search for a suitable candidate, Jovian came into the reckoning.

His first task was to negotiate a safe withdrawal for the Roman army. This was done by making territorial concessions to Shapur in return for safe conduct. Previous emperors had fought hard and long to retain parts of the empire that Jovian now signed away in an instant, but it was generally agreed that he had no choice.

Jovian had little opportunity to make a mark on the domestic front, but one important reform of his was to revoke Julian’s law that forbade Christians from teaching grammar and rhetoric. Jovian was quite prepared to tolerate all forms of religion and took no steps to oppose Julian’s pagan supporters. From now on, the empire would be ruled only by Christian emperors.

There is every possibility that Jovian would have proved to be an excellent emperor, given his recognition that progress could only come from negotiation and tolerance, but this has to remain one of history’s “what ifs” because Jovian was found dead in his bed one morning in February 364.

No investigation was held into the circumstances of Jovian’s death, which might have hinted at a cover-up of murder, but there is every chance that Jovian died as result of an accident – carbon monoxide poisoning from an ill-ventilated coal fire was a distinct possibility.

At all events, the general staff were faced with the same dilemma they had faced the previous June and, after a week or so’s deliberation, they came up with a similar solution, namely the declaration as emperor of another relatively junior officer who would reign for the next ten years (jointly with his brother Valens) as Valentinian I.

© John Welford

Neolithic Greece

The Neolithic (New Stone Age) era in ancient Greece must be reckoned to date from around 6800 BCE to 3200 BCE. Climatic changes made it possible for groups of people to settle in fixed locations and for the hunter-gatherer economy of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic eras to give way to more settled ways of life, including farming, stock-rearing, and the creation of pottery. Around 1,000 sites have been identified that show signs of occupation in the Neolithic period.

Communities grew up where there was an adequate water supply and suitable conditions for growing food. This included settlements where mud huts were built in groups, in both coastal locations and further inland, and places where caves were used as shelters. The plains of Thessaly and Macedonia were the mostly densely populated areas, and the more mountainous districts less so.

The archaeological evidence shows that some communities were more advanced than others, such that some had houses built at least partly of stone, or bricks made from dried mud. They were mainly single-room dwellings, but some may have been two-storey. Villages were often surrounded by a ditch or a stone wall.

In the early Neolithic, communities probably consisted of extended families who decided to settle in one place, but during the later Neolithic it seems likely that several families grouped together to create villages of 50-100 people. As villages started to produce objects such as pottery, arrowheads and jewelry, some members of the community would have acquired greater social status and taken on leadership roles.

Pottery production became necessary for the storage of food, particularly grain and legumes, and the existence of pottery workshops indicates that professional potters must have been at work. Likewise, the development of metallurgy led to the rise of specialist metal-workers and producers of jewelry.

Evidence for the existence of religious practices in Neolithic Greece is sparse. However, many small figurines, made of terracotta or stone, have been found which may have a religious significance. These are often in the form of naked female figures, with exaggerated breasts, bellies and buttocks. These have traditionally been regarded as depictions of a Mother Goddess, with connotations to fertility symbols, but more recent scholarship has cast doubt on this interpretation.

It is more likely that the Neolithic Greeks performed quasi-religious ceremonies at burials and carried out animal sacrifices. The figurines mentioned above also appear to have played a role here, because excavated offering pits have been discovered containing animal bones and figurines as well as ash and pot fragments.

Ceremonies and rituals from the classical era of ancient Greek civilization certainly seem to have had ancient roots. In particular, at one site, sacrifices to the goddess Demeter took place within a stone circle. Demeter was the corn goddess of the classical Greeks, but her worship seems to have had much earlier origins, based on primitive ideas of a goddess who descends to the underworld by force every Winter and pushes up the corn on her release in the Spring.

Again, agrarian festivals in the classical period often featured sacrifices of a pig, and terracotta pigs, which would have been studded with corn, have been found in shrines to Demeter. An impressive clay pig, dating from the Neolithic, has been found at a site near Marathon. The link is unmistakable.

Clearly, much of what we think we know about Neolithic Greece, and especially its religious practices, must be speculative, as there is no written evidence. However, it seems highly probable that the classical Greeks, most of whom were descended from immigrants to the area from around 1000 BCE, absorbed at least some of the culture and religion of the indigenous people whose ancestry in the region went back much further.

© John Welford

Mount Olympus: facts and mythology

One fact to make clear at the outset is that Mount Olympus and Olympia are two entirely separate places. The latter is on the western side of the Peleponnese peninsula of southern Greece, whereas Mount Olympus is more than 160 miles distant, on the eastern side of mainland Greece, where Thessaly meets Macedonia. No Olympic Games were ever held on the slopes of Mount Olympus!

The facts of Mount Olympus include that it is the highest mountain in Greece at 9,570 feet (2,919 metres), and that it rises virtually from sea level, making its appearance all the more impressive. Its top is covered in perpetual snow, even when tourists are basking in Mediterranean sunshine on the Greek beaches and islands not far away.

It is a massive cone-shaped mountain, with eight distinct peaks, the highest being Mytikas. It is popular with hikers and climbers, although it should not be attempted during the winter months, when the weather makes the slopes particularly dangerous. Even so, a climb to the summit and back is a two-day excursion for most. The views from the top, on a fine day, are well worth the effort, with the Aegean and its islands and peninsulas stretching to the horizon.

The lower slopes of Mount Olympus are covered in dense forests of oak, beech, cedar and pine, which are home to a vast array of plants and animals, the latter including bears, wolves and lynxes. It is no surprise that the area around Mount Olympus was declared Greece’s first national park in 1937.

It is also no surprise that the ancient Greeks held Mount Olympus in very special esteem. It marked the northern limit of Greece proper, so it was the edge of their world. It was also so high, and more often than not had its summit lost in cloud, that it was the natural location for the home of the gods. When people looked to the north and saw and heard lightning and thunder coming from storms on the mountain, they knew that this had to be the place where Zeus lived and from where he threw his thunderbolts.

This was not a mountain that people dared to climb, so the ancient Greeks could literally believe that the gods lived here. The legend of the giants trying to assail the gods had them piling two other mountains on top of each other so that they could reach the upper slopes of Olympus where the chief gods lived in splendid mansions, consuming nectar and ambrosia to preserve their immortality. According to Homer, the gods had their council chamber right at the top, hidden from the eyes of mortals by a wall of cloud. However, the cloud did not prevent the gods from seeing what mortal men were up to, and interfering in their affairs when the mood so took them.

In the Odyssey, the abode of the gods is described as a peaceful abode unshaken by storms, and the same notions are found in the poems of Hesiod and some other poets. However, most of the later Greek poets either regarded the true abode of the gods as being in the vault of Heaven above the mountain and not actually on it, or they thought that the mountain was infinitely high and therefore reached all the way to the aether, or Heaven.

Whether you believe the myths or not, the mountains of northern Greece are impressive enough to deserve their reputation. Where else would the most powerful gods live, if not at the top of the most powerful mountain?

© John Welford

Empress Theodora saves the day

On 17^th January 532 the Byzantine Emperor Justinian was saved from being overthrown by a rioting mob, his saviour being his strong-willed wife Theodora.

She had started her adult life as a prostitute and actress, and therefore an unlikely candidate for the position of wife to the empire’s crown prince. However, Justinian was so smitten with her that he persuaded the then emperor, his uncle Justin, to change the law that prevented noblemen from marrying actresses.

When he became emperor in 527, Justinian made her his partner in matters of government and she was instrumental in carrying through a number of what might be regarded as social reforms, such as outlawing the killing of adulterous wives and unwanted children (who were traditionally abandoned to the elements).

Justinian’s crisis occurred in 532 after an incident at the Hippodrome in Constantinople when rival groups caused mayhem at the chariot races. Seven rioters were condemned to death by hanging, but two of them escaped when the scaffold collapsed and the mob gave them sanctuary. The rioting continued and chaos reigned in the city for a whole week.

Eventually the mob put forward their own candidate for emperor, a man named Hypatius, and some of them marched on the royal palace to evict Justinian.

Justinian was all for giving in and leaving the city, but Theodora stepped in and made a defiant speech that urged him to face down the rioters, whatever the consequences. He listened to her plea and sent his army to the Hippodrome to deal with the rioters who were there. In all, some 30,000 people were killed as the army put down the revolt. These included Hypatius, whose body was thrown into the sea.

Justinian ruled for another 33 years, thanks to Theodora having given him the courage to fight back. The magnificent church (then mosque then museum) known as Hagia Sophia stands to this day on the site of a church that was burned down by the mob.

© John Welford

Platonic love

A Platonic relationship, as the term is understood today, is one in which the couple are extremely fond of each other, and might even be said to be in love, but who do not express that fondness or love in physical terms.

Do you know the old song by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields that begins: “A fine romance with no kisses / A fine romance, my friend, this is”? That sounds like a passable description of Platonic love.

But what has it got to do with Plato?

There is a sense in which one should maybe refer to it as a Socratic relationship rather than a Platonic one, because the concept is based on a story about Socrates. Plato, who lived in the 4^th century BC, was a pupil of Socrates, and he presented much of his philosophy through the mouth of Socrates, so it is not always clear whether Plato is being original in his thinking or is merely passing on the philosophy of his master.

Plato’s works are mainly in the form of dialogues, in which Socrates is one of the speakers. One of these dialogues was entitled The Symposium, the setting for which was a dinner party in Athens at which a number of the leading lights of the city-state were present. Whether this was a real event or merely a fictional one is immaterial – the important thing is that it provided a vehicle for Socrates to converse with the political and social cream of Athens society. They are, naturally enough for the times, all men.

As the dinner progresses, and the wine flows, inhibitions become relaxed and the conversation turns to a discussion of the true nature of love. It must also be remembered that in ancient Greek society physical love between men was seen as being just as valid as love between men and women. Indeed, many ancient Greeks regarded gay love as being on a higher plane than heterosexual love.

According to Plato, Socrates was not physically attractive. He had a coarse and unkempt appearance and his personal hygiene was not of the best. In short, he looked ugly and smelt horrible! However, at the dinner this did not stop one of the other guests, Alcibiades, from making a play for Socrates. Alcibiades was the complete opposite of Socrates in that he was handsome, fragrant, and renowned for being a great lover, although his mental powers were way below those of Socrates. He recognised that Socrates possessed great wisdom and that was what attracted him to the philosopher.

The reaction of Socrates was to declare that there was a higher love that went beyond the merely physical.  This was a pure love that was based on spiritual beauty. There could be philosophical passion that was not expressed in sexual terms, and this would always be superior.

Hence Platonic love, as originally envisaged, was the sort of love that the true philosopher should aim to achieve, whatever the gender of the other party. Today, Platonic love is regarded as being of lower quality than “the real thing”, but that was not how Plato saw it.

© John Welford