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

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