Month: July 2012

A newly discovered Mithraeum in Scotland

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondent writes to tell me of the discovery of a Mithraeum in Scotland, at Inveresk.  There is an announcement in Epistula 1 (PDF), page 5, the organ of the Roman Society, from John Gooder (AOC Archaeology Group) and Fraser Hunter (National Museums Scotland):

Excavations on the eastern edge of the fort complex of Inveresk in East Lothian have revealed the first evidence for the cult of Mithras in Scotland. The excavations, for East Lothian Council by AOC Archaeology Group, preceded the rebuilding of the cricket pavilion after it was burnt down. The findspot is over 750 m from the fort, in an area where little Roman activity was previously known.

Excavations exposed part of a sub-rectangular sunken feature 6.1 m long, at least 4.1 m wide and 0.65 m deep. Buried face-down at its north-west end were two intact altars, both offered by the same person, C Cassius Fla[vianus?], a centurion.

One is dedicated to Sol and bears a bust of the god, his pierced eyes and radiate crown allowing light to shine through from a recess carved in the rear; the capital carries busts of the four seasons.

The other is dedicated to Mithras, with imagery linked to Apollo (lyre, plectrum and griffin) and sacrificial implements carved on the sides. Traces of pigment survive on both altars. Close by was an altar base.

Inveresk was only occupied in the Antonine period … Was the sunken feature a timber-built mithraeum?

All this is immensely interesting.  I wish we could see the inscriptions!  I wish we could see photos of the altars!

AOC refers to these as the “Lewisvale Roman Altars“:

In March 2010 AOC Archaeology Group was undertaking routine archaeological investigations in advance of the erection of a new cricket pavilion in Lewisvale Park, Inveresk, East Lothian, when two large sandstone slabs were uncovered.

It soon became apparent from the ornately carved side panels that these two slabs were significant remains relating to the Roman occupation of Inveresk, and by the end of the day it had been confirmed that they were in fact Roman altars. Wider excavation revealed that they had been deposited in a pit also containing an altar base and an area of paving.

In addition to the altars and altar base the artefact assemblage includes nails, fragments of lead, Roman ceramic (including Samian, fine ware and black burnished ware sherds), and later prehistoric ceramic. …

The two rare carved Roman altars, one dedicated to the Roman God Sol and the other to Mithras are amongst the most important Roman finds ever to be made in Scotland both for the quality of the carving and the importance of the inscriptions. The Mithraic altar is the first dedication to Mithras known from Scotland and the most northerly example to date.

The discovery of Roman altars from within a secure Roman context, presents a unique opportunity to investigate a purposeful Roman-period event. The wider artefact assemblage of both Roman and local objects, along with ecofacts recovered during soil sample processing provide the opportunity to investigate activities within the pit from whence the altars were recovered, and from the adjacent area.

The AOC archaeology site also has a blog — confusingly called Diary — with photographs and details of the whole process!!!  I deeply approve of this.  Well done, AOC archaeology!  Snippets:

Today we have uncovered all of the inscription on the Mithras altar. It reads DAEO/INVICT[.]MY/C CAS/FLA, which may mean “To the invincible god Mithras” followed by the dedicators name…

Here are a couple of preliminary laser scan images of the Sol altar, there will be more to follow…

The sides of the altar have been carved with laurel wreaths. It has been suggested that these wreaths represent Sol Invictus, the unconquered Sun. …

Today we have uncovered the inscription “SOLI.C.CAS.FLA >”….  The capital is characterised by a row of four figures with an inscribed panel beneath that bears traces of red and white pigment. The figures most likely represent the four seasons.

Spring and Summer have been fully cleaned using soft brushes and wooden skewers. As can be seen Spring, on the left, has more flowers in her hair than Summer.

The final figures on the capital of the Sol altar have now been cleaned. We believe that they represent autumn and winter;  Autumn with grapes in her hair and Winter with a shawl covering her head.

Today we have finished cleaning the Mithras altar. There is a carving of a beautiful winged mythical creature on the side that we have just finished, as well as a patera (handled bowl). It is possible that the creature is a Griffin. What do you think.?

On the side of the Mithras altar you can see a finely carved lyre, a plectrum (small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument) and a jug. Specialists have indicated that the jug is a standard vessel of sacrifice and the lyre with a plectrum are typical attributes of Apollo.

We will start with the Mithras altar….

 

I’ve linked to the original images, rather than copied them here.

This is only a tiny selection of the materials in the diary, which is very, very interesting and includes UV examination.   This blog is really a model of how material should be presented online.  Truly it is!

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Vedius Pollio and the lampreys

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This evening I found myself wondering just what ancient sources record the story of the cruelty of Vedius Pollio. 

For those unfamiliar with the story, Pollio used to keep man-eating lampreys in a tank.  When a slave displeased him, he would order the slave thrown to the lampreys.  One day the emperor Augustus was dining with him, when a slave happened to break a crystal cup.  Pollio ordered him thrown to the lampreys; but the boy escaped and threw himself at the knees of the emperor, begging to be executed in some other manner than being eaten alive.  The emperor sought to calm Pollio, who was implacable.  Then Augustus ordered that all of Pollio’s valuable cups should be brought; and when they were, he ordered them smashed.  The slave seems to have been allowed to live.

Here are the sources that I can find.

Seneca the Younger, De ira (On Anger), book 3, chapter 40:

To reprove a man when he is angry is to add to his anger by being angry oneself. You should approach him in different ways and in a compliant fashion, unless perchance you be so great a personage that you can quash his anger, as the Emperor Augustus did when he was dining with Vedius Pollio.

One of the slaves had broken a crystal goblet of his: Vedius ordered him to be led away to die, and that too in no common fashion: he ordered him to be thrown to feed the muraenae, some of which fish, of great size, he kept in a tank. Who would not think that he did this out of luxury? but it was out of cruelty. The boy slipped through the hands of those who tried to seize him, and flung himself at Caesar’s feet in order to beg for nothing more than that he might die in some different way, and not be eaten.

Caesar was shocked at this novel form of cruelty, and ordered him to be let go, and, in his place, all the crystal ware which he saw before him to be broken, and the tank to be filled up. This was the proper way for Caesar to reprove his friend: he made a good use of his power. What are you, that when at dinner you order men to be put to death, and mangled by an unheard-of form of torture? Are a man’s bowels to be torn asunder because your cup is broken? You must think a great deal of yourself, if even when the emperor is present you order men to be executed.

Seneca the Younger, De Clementia (On Clemency) book 1, chapter 18:

Slaves are allowed to run and take sanctuary at the statue of a god; though the laws allow a slave to be ill-treated to any extent, there are nevertheless some things which the common laws of life forbid us to do to a human being.

Who does not hate Vedius Pollio[10] more even than his own slaves did, because he used to fatten his lampreys with human blood, and ordered those who had offended him in any way to be cast into his fish-pond, or rather snake-pond?

That man deserved to die a thousand deaths, both for throwing his slaves to be devoured by the lampreys which he himself meant to eat, and for keeping lampreys that he might feed them in such a fashion.

Cruel masters are pointed at with disgust in all parts of the city, and are hated and loathed; the wrong-doings of kings are enacted on a wider theatre: their shame and unpopularity endures for ages: yet how far better it would have been never to have been born than to be numbered among those who have been born to do their country harm!

[10] Vedius Pollio had a villa on the mountain now called Punta di Posilippo, which projects into the sea between Naples and Puteoli, which he left to Augustus, and which was afterwards possessed by the Emperor Trajan. He was a freedman by birth, and remarkable for nothing except his riches and his cruelty. Cf. Dion Cassius, LIV. 23; Pliny, H. N. IX. 23; and Seneca, “On Anger,” III. 40. 2.

Cassius Dio, book 54, chapter 23 (via Lacus Curtius):

1. This same year Vedius Pollio died, a man who in general had done nothing deserving of remembrance, as he was sprung from freedmen, belonged to the knights, and had performed no brilliant deeds; but he had become very famous for his wealth and for his cruelty, so that he has even gained a place in history.

2. Most of the things he did it would be wearisome to relate, but I may mention that he kept in reservoirs huge lampreys that had been trained to eat men, and he was accustomed to throw to them such of his slaves as he desired to put to death.

Once, when he was entertaining Augustus, his cup-bearer broke a crystal goblet, and without regard for his guest, Pollio ordered the fellow to be thrown to the lampreys.

3. Hereupon the slave fell on his knees before Augustus and supplicated him, and Augustus at first tried to persuade Pollio not to commit so monstrous a deed. Then, when Pollio paid no heed to him, the emperor said, “Bring all the rest of the drinking vessels which are of like sort or any others of value that you possess, in order that I may use them,” 4. and when they were brought, he ordered them to be broken.

When Pollio saw this, he was vexed, of course; but since he was no longer angry over the one goblet, considering the great number of the others that were ruined, and, on the other hand, could not punish his servant for what Augustus also had done, he held his peace, though much against his will.

5. This is the sort of person Pollio was, who died at this time. Among his many bequests to many persons he left to Augustus a good share of his estate together with Pausilypon, the place between Neapolis and Puteoli, with instructions that some public work of great beauty should be erected there.

6. Augustus razed Pollio’s house to the ground, on the pretext of preparing for the erection of the other structure, but really with the purpose that Pollio should have no monument in the city; and he built a colonnade, inscribing on it the name, not of Pollio, but of Livia.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book 9, chapter 39 (via Perseus):

Vedius Pollio,[7] a Roman of equestrian rank, and one of the friends of the late Emperor Augustus, found a method of exercising his cruelty by means of this animal [the muraena], for he caused such slaves as had been condemned by him, to be thrown into preserves filled with muraenae; not that the land animals would not have fully sufficed for this purpose, but because he could not see a man so aptly torn to pieces all at once by any other kind of animal.

[7]. This wretched man was originally a freedman, and though he was on one occasion punished by Augustus for his cruelty, he left him a great part of his property. He died B. C. 15. He is supposed to be the same person as the one against whom Augustus wrote some Fescennine verses, mentioned by Macrobius, Sat. B. ii. c. 4.

Tertullian, De Pallio, chapter 5:

6. Equally do I plunge the scalpel into the inhumanity which led Vedius Pollio to expose slaves to fill the bellies of sea-eels. Delighted, forsooth, with his novel savagery, he kept land-monsters, toothless, clawless, hornless: it was his pleasure to turn perforce into wild beasts his fish, which (of course) were to be forthwith cooked, that in their entrails he himself withal might taste some savour of the bodies of his own slaves.

It is not suggested anywhere, note that Vedius Pollio committed any crime in law; merely that he had acted in a gauche and ignoble manner.  Seneca states above:

Servis ad statuam licet confugere; cum in servum omnia liceant, est aliquid, quod in hominem licere commune ius animantium vetet.

Slaves are allowed to run and take sanctuary at the statue of a god; though the laws allows a slave to be ill-treated to any extent, there are nevertheless some things, which the common laws of life forbid us to do to a human being.

Literally: “although all things are allowed [to be done] to a slave”. 

It is perhaps fortunate that such “law” is not part of our inheritance from Rome.

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A series of posts on Cyril of Alexandria at “All along the watchtower”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An incoming link draws my attention to a blog previously unknown to me, All along the watchtower.  The blog has begun a series of posts by “Chalcedon451” on Cyril of Alexandria.

It is certainly the case that few of the Fathers enjoy a lower reputation in the English-speaking world than Cyril.  “Chalcedon451” suggests that we have Gibbon to blame for this.

He’s probably right.  Few other than specialists had any access to the Fathers, and the impact of Decline and Fall on the literate world was immense.  His slurs on Eusebius are still repeated; his negative opinion of Cyril was likewise definitive. 

It is telling that the 19th century American pirate edition of the Fathers, the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, while it reprinted the translations of Augustine and Chrysostom, left sternly to one side the translations of Cyril of Alexandria in the same series.

I have always felt that Cyril suffers from his association with the Nestorian dispute.  That was a matter of high politics, in which he is unlikely to appear very pleasing to our eyes.  It would be much, much better if we could start with something we DO sympathise with, the Contra Julianum.  One of the last apologetic works of antiquity, the arguments of Cyril would at least be directed against the anti-Christianity of Julian the Apostate, rather than Nestorius, with whom many of us feel some sympathy.  A translation of this work is in progress; but it seems unlikely that it will be accessible to non-specialists.

It will be interesting to see what is said in the blog series, all the same.

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The festival of the Maiuma at Antioch

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was discussing a description of a festival at Antioch by Ernest Renan last week, and following the references.  One reference remained outstanding: Renan’s abbreviated reference to “O. Müller, Antiquit. Antioch.” p.33 — and how would any reader know what this is?

After some poking around, Müller turns out to be Antiquitates Antiochenae, Gottingen, 1839.  It may be found here.  Page 33 is here, and note 6 is the reference given for the courtisans part in the festivities.

Renan refers to the festival of the “Naiouma”.  But this word is, I find, used only by Renan. Müller refers to the festival as the “Maiuma”.  The note refers back to the same ancient source as Renan; to Chrysostom, whom we quoted earlier, and who appears below.

Enquiring about the Maiuma festival — the word is Syriac — leads me to an interesting Finnish website, the Melammu Project.  This gives ancient sources for the festival, all apparently from one article, which it is useful to give here[1]:

Julian the Emperor, Misopogon 362D:
Yet every one of you (= Antiochenes) delights to spend money privately on dinners and feasts; and I know very well that many of you squandered very large sums of money on dinners during the May festival (Maiuma).

Malalas, Chronicle 284-285:
During his reign the landowners and citizens of Antioch sent a message and petitioned the emperor Commodus that by his sacred command he make over to the public treasury the revenues … in order that a varied programme of spectacles and different contests might be celebrated in the city, and that the city’s officials should not appropriate the funds but that the public treasury itself might make provision to celebrate the Olympic festival and certain other spectacles in the city of the Antiochenes for the enjoyment of the city … Likewise for celebrating the nocturnal dramatic festival, held every three years and known as Orgies, that is, the Mysteries of Dionysus and Aphrodite, that is, what is known as the Maioumas because it is celebrated in the month of May-Artemisios, he set aside a specific quantity of gold for torches, lights, and other expenses for the thirty-days festival of all-night revels.

Codex Theodosianus 15.6.1-2:
1. It has pleased Our Clemency to restore to the provincials the enjoyment of the Maiuma, provided, however, that decency and modesty and chaste manners shall be preserved (25 April 396).
2. We permit the theatrical arts to be practised, lest, by excessive restriction thereof, sadness may be produced. But we forbid that foul and indecent spectacle which under the name Maiuma a shameless license claims for its own (2 October 399).

Libanius, Orationes 41.16:
There the theatre led to many deeds contrary to the laws, and some were seized from there and held fast by a few words spoken by a few men. For the love of shouting compels (one) to be a servant in every respect and among other things to run to Daphne and to hold the festival which brings ten thousand evils to the city. For even young men (endowed) with prudence who go up there return having cast it aside. Having witnessed these things, it seems to me, a good emperor suppressed the practice, but it grew up again; and it takes place with some giving the orders, and you leading the way in helping in this felicitous (enterprise). For five days or more the procession (going up) there is seen to continue, with a lack of shame, some of which reflects on the participants, and some on you. And yet if someone were to ask you know as you come back from that varied drunkenness, to what are you devoting so much time?

John Chrysostom, In Matthaeum Homiliae 7:
For tell me, if anyone offered to introduce you into a palace, and show you the king sitting (there), would you indeed choose to see the theatre instead of these things? … And you leave this and run to the theatre to see women swimming, and nature put to open dishonour, leaving Christ sitting by the well? … But you, leaving the fountain of blood, the awful cup, go your way to the fountain of the devil, to see a harlot swim, and to endure shipwreck of the soul. For that water is a sea of lasciviousness, not drowning bodies, but working shipwreck of souls. And while she swims naked, you, as you behold, are plunged into the depths of lasciviousness. … For in the first place, through a whole night the devil takes over their souls with the expectation of it; then having shown them the expected object, he has at once bound them and made them captives … If now you are ashamed, and blush at the comparison, rise up to your nobility and flee the sea of hell and the river of fire, (I mean) the pool in the theatre … And you, when there is a question of precedence, claim to have priority over the whole world, since our city first crowned itself with the name of Christian; but in the competition of chastity, are you not ashamed to be behind the ruder cities?

John the Lydian, De Mensibus 4.76-80:
In this way (they explain) according to theology, but according to the method of enquiring into the nature and origin of things (physiology) many wish May to be water. For among the Syrians who speak (their) foreign language, still even now water is so called, so that aqueducts are called meiouri. … They call feasting ‘to do the Maiuma’, from which [we get the term] Maiuma. The festival was held in Rome in the month of May. The leading men of the city went down to the shore, to the city called Ostia, to enjoy themselves by throwing one another into the waters of the sea. And so the time of the festival of this type was called Maiuma.

Severus of Antioch, Homily 95:
But those who have gone up to Daphne in pagan fashion have had no regard for the truth, which is so terrible (and) on account of which everything moves and trembles. But in the dark moments of the night they even lit lamps of [wax] in the stadium and added incense, stealthily bringing about their own destruction; and it was certain strangers, take good note, who informed me of this while trembling and crying. Do you not see the nets of the Calumnator, and his hidden traps, which on the one hand have as a pretext the joy and pleasure at first sight and lead on the other hand to idolatry and the celebration of festivals in some ways criminal and harmful? And are you not ashamed, when we call ourselves Christians, we who were born on high for the purification which (comes) from the water and the Spirit and call ourselves children of God, to run equally to the solemnities of Satan, which we have renounced by divine baptism? For whenever you change your clothing and afterwards go up to the spactacle, dressed in a tiny linen tunic, which hides the arms but not the hands, waving about a wooden stick and with all skin shaved with a razor, so to speak – look, is it not quite clear that you have made a procession and celebrated Olympian Zeus?

Interesting to see these references, I think you will agree.

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  1. [1]Greatrex, Geoffrey and John W. Watt. “One, Two or Three Feasts? The Brytae, the Maiuma and the May Festival at Edessa.” Oriens Christianus 83 (1999) 1-20.↩

Free speech online gets less free … but who can blame them?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The abuse — in every sense — of anonymity online has driven another major website to ban anonymous “comments”.  YouTube has given in, and who can blame them?  H/t the Daily Mail:

YouTube puts an end to vicious, anonymous comments which have turned site into ‘Wild West’

YouTube is set to overhaul its comments system to curb the droves of online trolls writing nasty and anonymous messages.

Speaking at Google I/O, an annual developer’s conference held by YouTube’s owner, head of product Dror Shimshowitz leaked the news that the website is developing a new method to halt the abuse.

Mr Shimshowitz and Google declined to elaborate on the plans but many speculate it could be the end of anonymous rants and raves posted at the bottom of YouTube channels. …

YouTube’s comment section is notoriously nasty. Buzzfeed called its commentors the ‘worst on the internet,’ likening them to ‘the dregs, the scum, the poison.’

The comments are so bad, they have inspired a parody blog entitled ‘Stupid YouTube Comments‘ that collates the worst of the website.

Wired postulates that YouTube may ask users to include more information about themselves before posting a comment, getting rid of the anonymous anarchy of the comment chorus.

‘Many members use anonymous handles since YouTube, unlike other Google sites, allows people to create distinct accounts,’ Wired’s Ryan Tate writes.

‘As a general rule, people are far less likely to troll under their real name.’

 It’s a sad day, but the fact is that everyone is using the web these days, and that includes the criminal classes.  The latter may be defined as those who will do whatever they feel that they can get away with.  These scum don’t contribute anything; they merely harass those who do.

Which means that anonymity on the web is doomed.  And that is not a happy state of affairs.

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