Seen on the Classicists list (please direct any queries to the folks mentioned in the item and not to rogueclassicism):
University of Reading Department of Classics Research Seminar
Spring Term 2011
Wednesdays at 4 pm, Ure Museum
Jan 19
Andrew Laird (Warwick),
“Classical humanism and ethnohistory in early colonial Mexico. A Latin letter from the native rulers of Azcapotzalco to Philip II of Spain”
Jan.26 Neville Morley and Christine Lee (Bristol),
“’Thucydides as a text for hard times”
(This paper is part of the series, “The Legacy of Greek Political Thought”).
Feb.2
Anna Boozer (Reading)
“Beyond romanization: an archaeology of daily life in Roman Amheida, Egypt”
Feb.9
Alan Greaves (Liverpool)
“Mantic practice in Ionia”
Feb.16
Matthew Hiscock (UCL)
"The professor as oracle: Porson and the construction of academic authority
Feb. 23
Peter Parsons (Oxford),
"Kalligone in the Crimea. A new fragment of Greek fiction”
Mar.2
Christina Riggs (UEA),
“’Shrouds and sorrow: mourning women in Roman Egypt’”
Mar.9
Edith Hall (RHUL)
“Why was Euripides’ Tauric Iphigenia so popular in antiquity?”
Mar.16
Oriol Olesti (Barcelona),
"The Roman occupation of the Pyrennes:Cities, landscapes and gold mines"
Mar.25 (NB: Friday)
International colloquium: “The aulos in antiquity”
All are welcome. Papers are followed by refreshments and in most cases dinner with the speaker.
For directions to the University of Reading, please see: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/about/find/about-findindex.asp
Coins are not only used as a mode of exchange but they also reflect heritage. Indian-Roman relations was one such area where coins played a major role in establishing and strengthening ties between two countries.
At a special exhibition on Roman coins and other Roman antiquities found in South India, inaugurated by the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre director Angela Trezza at the Government Museum in Egmore on Tuesday, rare coins and antiquities were put on display for the public. “The exhibition will showcase the story of Rome-India contacts through artefacts, photographs and charts. The museum has the biggest collection of Roman coins 4,000 outside Europe,” TS Sridhar, secretary and commissioner of museums, told The Times Of India.
The exhibition, jointly organised by the Government Museum, Italian Embassy Cultural Centre and Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will be open everyday between 10am and 4.30pm till February 2 at the museum’s centenary exhibition hall.
Historically, trade between ancient Rome and India can be traced to the rule of Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD). Romans came to India in search of gemstones (mainly beryl), silk, cotton, ivory, spices (pepper and cardamom), sandalwood and peacocks. In return, India obtained coral, wine, olive oil and metals like gold, silver and copper.
Metals imported from Rome were mostly in the form of coins and medals. “The most striking feature of Roman coins found in India is that they have slash marks on them, generally 1 to 2 mm long and marked by a knife or a chisel or a file. In Tamil Nadu, Pudukkottai and Soriyapattu are the most important Roman coin hoards containing such slashed coins,” said N Sundararajan, curator, Numismatics section of Government Museum.
Another peculiar feature of the coins found in India is the occurrence of countermarks on some. Roman coins found in India are of gold, silver and copper mostly between 2nd century BC and 6-7th century AD the closing years of the Roman Republic to the time of Byzantine rulers. A majority of the Roman coins found in India occur as hoards buried underground in earthenware pots.
The range of coins is somewhat surprising, but even more surprising (isn’t it?) is that revelation that hoards have been found in India in pots just as they have been found all over the Empire. That would suggest settlement, wouldn’t it? Or was burying coins in pots a sort of ‘universal’ thing? The slash thing (as seen on the accompanying photo … not sure if it is part of the exhibition) is also a very interesting feature and clearly seems to be a way to check whether a coin was solid or merely plated.
Hot on the heels of Adrian Murdoch’s podcast on the nutty emperor, and just a few weeks before we mark the anniversary of the nutty emperor’s assassination, comes nutty news from the Guardian (tip o’ the pileus to Tim Parkin, who first ‘broke’ the story on Facebook last night):
The lost tomb of Caligula has been found, according to Italian police, after the arrest of a man trying to smuggle abroad a statue of the notorious Roman emperor recovered from the site.
After reportedly sleeping with his sisters, killing for pleasure and seeking to appoint his horse a consul during his rule from AD37 to 41, Caligula was described by contemporaries as insane.
With many of Caligula’s monuments destroyed after he was killed by his Praetorian guard at 28, archaeologists are eager to excavate for his remains.
Officers from the archaeological squad of Italy’s tax police had a break last week after arresting a man near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, as he loaded part of a 2.5 metre statue into a lorry. The emperor had a villa there, as well as a floating temple and a floating palace; their hulks were recovered in Mussolini’s time but destroyed in the war.
The police said the statue was shod with a pair of the “caligae” military boots favoured by the emperor – real name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus; as a boy, Gaius accompanied his father on campaigns in Germany; the soldiers were amused he wore a miniature uniform, and gave him his nickname Caligula, or “little boot”.
The statue is estimated to be worth €1m. Its rare Greek marble, throne and god’s robes convinced the police it came from the emperor’s tomb. Under questioning, the tomb raider led them to the site, where excavations will start today.
The first thing we might advise the Guardian about is to not take the word of the police when it comes to matters historical/archaeological — Romans generally didn’t entomb folks on country estates is one obvious thing to point out. Another thing worth pointing out is the passage in Suetonius, which relates what happened to Caligula’s perforated corpse (ch. 59 via Lacus Curtius)
His body was conveyed secretly to the gardens of the Lamian family, where it was partly consumed on a hastily erected pyre and buried beneath a light covering of turf; later his sisters on their return from exile dug it up, cremated it, and consigned it to the tomb. Before this was done, it is well known that the caretakers of the gardens were disturbed by ghosts, and that in the house where he was slain not a night passed without some fearsome apparition, until at last the house itself was destroyed by fire.
Just to be legit, here’s the Latin (via the Latin Library):
Cadaver eius clam in hortos Lamianos asportatum et tumultuario rogo semiambustum levi caespite obrutum est, postea per sorores ab exilio reversas erutum et crematum sepultumque. Satis constat, prius quam id fieret, hortorum custodes umbris inquietatos; in ea quoque domo, in qua occubuerit, nullam noctem sine aliquo terrore transactam, donec ipsa domus incendio consumpta sit.
It is sometimes assumed (as in the Wikipedia article, which has already added the ‘discovery of the tomb’ story) that Caligula’s ‘reburial’ was in the Mausoleum of Augustus. This is not attested in any ancient source and as Anthony Barrett suggests in his biography of the guy (p. 167), it is “unlikely, but not impossible” that he was so interred. Knowing Roman burial practices, however, it is pretty much unlikely and impossible that Caligula would have been interred at the villa at Nemi, especially with all the haunting he supposedly did in the Lamian Gardens …
Proprio in quel paesino a due passi da Roma si era sempre immaginata l’ esistenza di una dimora fatta costruire dallo stravagante nipote di Tiberio, magari con un mausoleo. Ma non se ne erano mai trovate le tracce. Tanto meno decisive come una statua dello stesso imperatore: ragion per cui gli esperti sono quasi certi che villa fosse lì, affacciata sul piccolo lago vulcanico, in un punto spettacolare, da cui si vede il mare fino ad Anzio, dove Caligola era nato. Anzi, potrebbero essere lì anche i suoi resti.
… There are also details about the statue, including that it was headless and made of Parian marble. It depicted the emperor (presumably) as Zeus and had been broken in two pieces, apparently in antiquity.
rogueclassicism 