The title: took me six chapters to find it. There are metaphoric reasons I'll not go into here -- at least not all -- but it certainly has to do with Gaius' view of wizarding skills as gifts that are being suppressed and allowed to slip away. The header is in Greek -- ha dorea, more or less phonetically -- -- because in the ancient magical texts, the "magic word(s)" are often assumed to be in Greek or another non-Latin tongue. It's an odd conceit, but I like it. Many thanks to peacockharpy for confirming the word choice and giving me the correct spellng!
Kudos to LJ User jcscot, who guessed the basic familial relationships given a teeny snippet previously published on LJ: Corvinus (Snape, given my indentification of the family with ravens); Nigellus (Black); Lupercus (Lupin, although there are no werewolvian tendencies in the family to date -- and another name in that family is Mallius, which might transform to or be a collatoral family that becomes Malfoy). All the Roman names are established Roman cognomens (or nomen, in the instance of Mallius). Daughters -- all the daughters in a family -- are usually known by the feminine of their father's nomen -- hence Julia Nigella, daughter of Julius Nigellus and Longinia Corvina, daughter of Longinius Corvinus. They are differentiated by major, minor, tercia, and so on. (Says a lot about the way a society thinks of its females, doesn't it?) For more info on Roman naming conventions, consult http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/roman_names.html and http://www.novaroma.org/via_romana/names.html.I should preface this by saying that I've tried to narrow down my research to the 1st Century AD, give or take a few years. And it's always wise to consider the source -- we're either dealing with a lot of generalities, or specific primary sources which are, by definition, only giving one person's viewpoint or observations.
73 C.E.: Year 73 of the Common Era (A.D.). The now politically-correct academic designation.
the shady character with no discernable employment: Marcus Didius Falco, of course. See Lindsey Davis' Falco series. A lot of fun: really brings ancient Rome and Romans to life. Falco lives in Fountain Court, the Aventine, which isn't a particularly nice part of ancient Rome. (I would apologise for the characterisation of Falco as "shady," but anyone who's read the series might well agree that he looks shady, even if he's a good guy.)PRID. NON. IVL. DCCCXXVI: Romans reckoned the calendar dates backward by the Kalendas (the first); the Nones (the seventh in some months, the fifth in others); and the Ides (fifteenth or thirteenth), and the dates were inclusive (you counted the day you were counting back from). The "PRID." refers to "day before," also sometimes abbreviated A.D. or "ante diem.", as in A.D. II NON. So he is writing on the day before the Nones of July (Iulius, or "IVL."), or the 6th of July, 826 (counting from the founding of Rome). Bear with me: I decided to use Roman alphabetic convention for dates, and then go to normal text for the letters themselves. For more info on the Roman calendar, consult http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/aegsa/rome/romec.html or http://www.roman-britain.org/calendar.htm#top. http://www.guernsey.net/~sgibbs/roman.html is also fun.
Verulamium, Province of Britannia: now St. Albans, north of London. (Verulamium is the spelling given at the Museum website, but I have also seen Verulamiom, and others say Verulanium.) Not nearly enough is known about Verulamium -- it's largely unexcavated, as much of it is covered by the modern city and a privately-owned field. Verulamium was razed during Boudicca's rampage, and at the time almost certainly had a military camp, but had not yet been rebuilt to its previous glory.
Arranged marriages: fathers did indeed have the right to arrange their childrens' marriages -- even their sons' -- and in some instances could compel them to divorce a spouse, even if they loved one another. (Several of the Emperors played those games.) In theory one could refuse, but it was a gross violation of the ideals of paterfamilias and pietas, cornerstones of the Roman philosophy and society. Lucius is actually being quite indulgent in putting up with Gaius' demands -- and Nigellus very desperate to agree to them. Love had nothing to do with marriage: it was all about the alliance and having children. This is not to say that a married couple could not become devoted or actually love each other -- many epitaphs demonstrate that they did -- but our (modern Western) ideals of love as a condition for marriage don't apply.
Portus: the newer port city servicing Rome, superceding Ostia which had significant silting problems. Smaller vessels could make it into Ostia or up to Rome, but deeper-drafted vessels had to put in to Portus, their cargoes unloaded, and be transported by smaller boats or wagons up to Rome.
corbita: the basic Roman merchant vessel.
calling father "Pater", etc.: my little jab at the literary public-schoolboy tendency to call the parental unit "Pater" or "the pater" and "Mater." For all I know, they actually did or still do. Gaius uses it to distinguish between the formality of "Father" and "Mother," versus a less formal/lower-class "Dad" or "Mum."
ases, sestertii and denarii: we know how these correlate with each other and sometimes what they might buy during various periods of Roman history, but it's almost impossible to draw a parallel to today's currency. (I consulted every applicable book in the local library and trawled the web for three straight days.) I was unable to find a good comparative for the rent on a nice first-floor apartment in an insula in Rome for the period, for example, and so those figures are blatantly estimated/made up: the closest I can get to is a 48-47 B.C.E. price cap on apartments of 2,000 sesterces, or 500 denarii (1 denarius = 4 sestertii), and I'm guessing that that's for the ground-floor apartment. Presumably the cap has been lifted by 73 C.E. due to inflation (although runaway inflation will not be a problem in Rome for another couple of hundred years): and as a former worker in the real estate management business, I can attest to several ways a landlord can get around price caps, in any case. (Martial claims that a friend paid the equivalent of 50,000 denarii for what must be a single-family house in The City in mid first-century C.E. -- so they are exhorbitant.) Further info and input is welcomed. Falernian wine is another example, one complicated by several factors: aged Falernian was highly prized and could command much greater prices than the average vintage, but I have no comparable for a very rare aged vintage. I based the per-amphora rate, then, on the price of a half-litre of good Falernian and jacked up a bit to reflect its rarity. (Even then, Nigellus has probably made a good deal on the initial purchase, if he can make it back three times in Rome.) For futher info on Roman currency, costs of living, etc., consult http://www.ancientcoins.biz/pages/economy/ or http://romantables.8m.com/money.html.
villa: these exist in several permutations, but they are larger single-family homes, often complexes, that range from the vacation home of the Hamptons type to working estates/plantations/farms (villa rustica). Nigellus' is probably more toward the Hamptons end of the scale, while Corvinus' is more of the wealthy businessman who likes to dabble in agriculture (or give the appearance that he does -- it's probably a greatly tarted-up villa rustica. Like the kind of people who keep a flock of ten sheep and call themselves sheep farmers). A google search should pull up tons of info on architectural sites. (The only villas in Rome tend to belong to the emperors and the fabulously wealthy, often in the Palatine area -- hence our words palace and palatial.)
domus: the equivalent of a single-family residence, more modest than a villa. By the Second Century B.C.E. these were becoming rare in Rome, supplanted by the insulae (apartment buildings) due to population expansion. Even the wealthier might live in an insula (although in a ground-floor apartment) rather than a domus.
insulae: see above. Unlike today, the lowest floor is more desirable and might consist of several rooms, while the higher one went the smaller and more cramped the quarters became -- and the more dangerous in the event of a fire.
The Menu -- because peacockharpy and other re-enactor types might freak if I don't give it:In Mitulis (Sea Mussels): 1kg fresh sea mussels; 100ml Liquamen; 1 branch of leek, finely minced; 1 tsp cumin; 200ml Passum; 1 tblsp minced Saturei; 500ml white wine; ca. 500ml water. First water mussels, and clean them. Mix together Liquamen, wine, water, Passum and spices. Boil the broth for about 20 minutes, then add mussels. Boil additional 10 minutes. Serve. Found at Roman Cuisine.
Vitellina Fricta (Fried Veal): 800g - 1kg veal; 300g dried raisins (sultanas); 1 tblsp honey; 2 tblsp vinegar; 200ml wine; 100ml oil; 100ml Defritum; 100ml Liquamen (or 1tsp salt); pepper, celery seeds, Liebstoeckl, cumin, oregano, dried onion to taste. Fry veal in olive oil until well done. Mix raisins, wine, vinegar, honey, oil, Liquamen and spices together in an extra pan, shortly boil the sauce. Pour over the veal, then leave the meat for 10 minutes in the sauce and cook on low heat. Found at Roman Cuisine.
lecti: couches. In the classier dining rooms these would be arranged in a "U" shape, giving the room the name triclinium. This and other info can be easily found on the web. Roman dinner-parties were not usually the standard Hollywood orgy, by the way, although Ovid recommended pulling a cloak over one and ones' partner while at a dinner party and enjoying "the full delights of a good screw." (Ovid, Love Affairs.) What can I say -- Ovid was almost as randy a bugger as Catullus. Or maybe it was wishful thinking on his part.
Continue to text of Part II
All right, look, I know I'm footnote-crazy. It is perfectly
acceptable to read only teh smut -- uh,
Gaius' obsession with his penis (wait, he's male, that's
redundant) -- the text alone. I won't be
offended. I'm not going to stop with the footnotes, though -- I
know there are research-happy whackos like me out there.
Hyperion a Greek (squib) slave: technically he'd probably be identified from a particular part of Greece, but I haven't figured out his specific backstory yet, beyond this. He is quite accurate in saying that a Roman master was entitled to do more or less what he wanted with a slave, including using them sexually, whether male (at least males until they reached puberty and developed a masculine physique) or female: therefore a household could include legitimate children of the master's plus their slave half-siblings, fathered on female slaves. It's not unreasonable to compare the antebellum American South with the Roman Empire. (Hyperion is blasé about the manumission because he's intensely practical: he might well have taken it had it been offered earlier in his life.) A former master did not relinquish all responsibility for a freedman, however: he became a de facto patron in many instances, and was expected to look after the former slave's welfare to some extent.
Hyperion also brings up an interesting point in terms of age: if he's been with Longinius Corvinus for sixty years, they are both probably closer to eighty years old -- at a time when both the median and average life expectancy was twenty-seven or twenty-eight (As the Romans Did, Shelton, p16). Yup, you read it right. Wizards would stick out even more in Roman society due to the longer life expectancy.
Implications of life expectancy: there was every likelihood that you would not live to see your children marry and provide you with grandchildren. Families tended to be very like extended families of today, in some sense -- if either parent died, the survivor would remarry and you would acquire a new network of the step-family, which you cultivated because you didn't expect your blood parents, grandparents, etc. to be around much longer. The extended family of siblings, half- or step-siblings, and related and unrelated aunts, uncles and cousins were quite important. Guardianships in the event of parental death before child puberty were also very important. Age at marriage was significantly lower, too: girls were usually eligible by 12, and boys by 14. And you tried to have babies right away. So Julia at 18 and Gaius, at about 22, are starting very late in terms of the overall society, and Julius Nigellus' concerns don't seem quite so unreasonable. (As the Romans Did, op cit.)
flammeum and other matters of clothing: the flammeum was a veil worn only on the wedding day -- Catullus says it's red, other sites I consulted say yellow or gold. *shrugs* As the Note section is going bonkers, I'm just going to point you to two pages on another site for further clothing refs: Men's and general clothing and Women's clothing.
Roman marriage customs: I've been fairly faithful to what is known of the available forms, though we don't really know in which order some of the customs occurred (and I've omitted some things due to point of view and the fact that villae Nigelli and Corvinii aren't that close to each other). I would guess that conferreatio is the equivalent of a full religious ceremony (patricians would have usually insisted -- to attain some offices, you had to be a patrician whose parents were married with conferreatio), while coemptio would be nipping over to the Registrar's Office or having the JP stop by the house. In either case, the manus, or legal guardianship, of a women was transferred from her father to her husband: if they divorced her guardianship went back to her father or another guardian stipulated in her father's will (with certain exceptions: after a certain point in time a widowed woman could appeal for independence -- if she's provided the Empire with three or four children). I've seen the manus referred to as "guardianship of the child," and I get the sense that that is exactly how an adult woman was viewed legally -- as just another child in the household. Common-law marriages also existed, though they were not particularly approved-of and were only for plebes. A woman had absolutely no right to her children in the event of divorce, by the way -- they were their father's property. See this site and this huge site of everything Classical for further info on the labyrinth of Roman marriage law and marriage customs.
coemptio and the nummus usus: that simple, the payment of a bride-price and Bob's your uncle. Whether "Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia" was actually a required declaration or was simply part of the usually-observed ritual isn't known: it may have happened when the bride entered her husband's house for the first time, and might be restricted to conferreatio.
the marriage contract: this is based on surviving examples from Roman Egypt, where papyri have survived. No Roman papyri apparently made it due to the climate, although some letters (on bark-paper) survived in Roman Britain.
abducting the bride: a ritual re-enactment of the rape of the Sabine women (gee, those Romans were romantic bastards). This brings up an interesting point about Roman society in general, and affects many of the subjects below: it's all about power. As a warrior society, dominance and power are the ideal, whether you're looking at warfare, governance, family life or sex (marital or otherwise). I think this is, in part, what's going on between Gaius and his father -- a massive pissing contest, and Gaius is struggling with wanting to be a good son, but needing to follow his own rules and ethics as well. As a consequence he's very conflicted, and doesn't manage to be a good son/Roman or uphold any consistent ethics.
the naughty songs: known as the Fescennine verses or Fescennine jokes, these are purportedly really bawdy ("more dirt than wit"). Extensive trawling of the 'Net didn't produce any concrete examples, so I used parts of one of the nearest parallels: Catullus' Carmen 61 (suitably dirtied up, as if coming from the rather more explicit slaves). Good ol' Catullus saves my bum again.... Why they're called Fescennine is lost in the murky mists of history: they might be Greek in origin, or not.
So what's with the catamite and the nuts? Are you saying the Romans were gay?: homosexual behavior certainly existed in Rome/the Empire, although the distinction was, apparently, not "hetero/homo" but "powerful, real man/effeminate wuss." (They blamed it on those wild and crazy Greeks, of course.) Disapproval appears to be weighted less on moral objections -- because it was perfectly acceptable to be a "top" or dominant -- than on the fact that it was thought to discourage men from doing their duty by marrying and producing good little Roman soldiers for the Empire. (Loving male/male sexual relationships were probably looked down on -- because it would be considered weak, and we're back to the power thing again.) We know that nuts were often thrown or distributed at weddings (one source says walnuts, specifically), and given Catullus' "stage directions" -- and a nasty comment by Martial -- I decided it was very possible that the nuts were not only fertility and phallic symbols but, just possibly, symbols of... ah, well, nuts, and of the groom renouncing any dedication to "Greek Practices." Martial aptly demonstrates that some men were bisexual and continued to be after marriage. (Believe me, after reading a little Martial and Catullus it's more than reasonable to come to that conclusion, as well as my interpretation of "nuts." Or perhaps not, I know perfectly well that I'm perverse, thank you very much.) Bear in mind that for the Roman, sex was just another bodily function that ought to have nothing to do with love, and therefore marital fidelity does not come into the picture -- unless the "other woman" is married, in which case you're trespassing on another man's property and endangering the paternity of his offspring, which is baaaaaaaaad. See "Non-Standard Roman Male Sexuality" at About.com's Ancient/Classical History section for a good basic overview, and Martial's Epigrams (in translation) -- vulgarity warning! Extremely explicit and outrageous material, but much elucidation on the viewpoint, not to mention catty fun.
alone at last (sort of): technically the new couple wouldn't have been left entirely alone unless the groom owned his own house, but I decided to give the poor kids a break. The entire procession (possibly including all the parental units) probably would have entered the house, there would have been more feasting, and the female attendant (a married woman, married only once and husband still living) would have gotten the bride ready in the cubiculum (bedchamber), given her advice, and then sent the groom in (or his buddies may have pushed him in). The revelers may well have stuck around outside and provided "encouragement" by singing more dirty songs. (One site claims that Roman marital sex was only acceptable in a dark room at night, and with the woman still wearing the equivalent of a bra: the one exception was for newlyweds, who could shag like bunnies the whole day after the wedding. To which I can only say, Yeah, right. And Ursine mammals don't deposit excrement in areas of densely-packed foliage. When it comes to sex, humans will break all the rules at any opportunity.)
stadia: nautical measure -- 125 paces, or about 187.5 metres; also used as a measure for a race-track, hence the singular stadium. See what a Classical Education can larn you? (Too bad I don't have one.)
All right, I give. From now on I will try not to beat you over the head with the italics on every Roman word or go into long explanations, unless it's something very important or very fun.
Continue to text of Part III
her old loom: *sniggers* Gotcha, neotoma. (And thank you for the heads up.) This is the one advantage to posting as you go: the possibility of explaining away the oopsies and omissions, although not necessarily gracefully. This looks as though it might develop into a very minor plot snarl, or at least an inconvenience for Gaius and Co. (neotoma gave this reference for weaving in the Ancient World, should anyone be interested: Women's Work.)
Hyperion calls Gaius "Gaius": It wouldn't be unusual for a slave to call his master by the praenomen -- one little peculiarity I ran across in the Names research. Only family and very close friends, and family slaves, would do so. (I can't have Hyperion keep calling him "Master," at least not in private -- Hyperion's starting to look like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein in my mind....). I might as well admit now that I'm a bit confused with some of the naming conventions: the source I was working from stated that by the late Republic sons were taking their father's cognomen as well as the gens, but Lindsey Davis (writing in the same Imperial time period as Gaius' story is set) is clearly going with the "old" convention whereby the cognomen is unique to each individual -- Falco's prospective father-in-law is Camillus Verrus, but Verrus' brother is Camillus Meto. *shrugs* It has the advantage of clearly delineating individuals in a family if the name is exactly the same -- as in Lucius Longinius Corvinus elder and younger -- but I've started down this track, and I think I'll stick with it unless someone can provide me with a definitive answer.
The Feast of Portumnus (Portunalia): *hee* I hadn't planned this, and only noticed it when I went back to put the festivals in my Excel calendar -- but the day the Circe made port, August 17th, really is the Portunalia; I'd just been counting the days and not worrying about the dates until the last minute. Probably large crowds, a lot of drinking, and the god's statue may have been removed from the sanctuary and paraded about outside. Quite a first experience of the Rome environs for Julia. She'll get used to the ruckus soon, though -- in August, at least, there's a damned feast day every other day. (Crap. Now the most obsessive reader will be checking my dates and looking for Flints....) Please note, however, that I'm not going to be obsessing enough to try to make the days of the week match, either historically with the date or with the internal logic. So looking for Flints there will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Getting goods to Rome: I've made up quite a bit here. Larger ships would put in at Portus because of the silting problems at Ostia: a ship as small as the Circe might have put in at Ostia, though. It's very true that most, and possibly all, of the goods intended for Rome were sent up on barges, drawn by oxen along a tow-path (at least from Portus, because the channel from Portus was certainly too shallow until it joined up with the Tiber). I'm speculating as to why one would send things overland, though, and the problems that might make that necessary. It's factual, however, that wagons and carts were forbidden in Rome during the day.
Second hour, etc: this will vary greatly depending on the time of year. There were 24 hours to each day, but hours didn't have set minutes, as ours do: they were reckoned from sunrise to sunset (and vice-versa), and depended on the position of the sun for length. At the summer solstice the second hour (hora secunda) would run from approx. 5:42am to 6:58am, and we can adjust that down a little because this is mid to late August. (See http://www.villaivlilla.com/time.htm.) If anyone has a quibble about the late hours the rooster chooses to keep, please take it up with the lazy bastard itself, not me.
The author would like to take this moment to apologise for Florius Crispus and for perpetuating stereotypes. I have no excuse other than the immediate and insistent image of Robin Williams in full, flaming Birdcage mode. Hairy arms, jewelry, and all.
phallic lamps: I'm not kidding. Don't believe me? Here's some pictures (WARNING! VERY EXPLICIT -- NOT WORK OR UNDER-17 SAFE): http://www.apollonius.net/pompeii2.html and http://solomonsrefuge.com/secret_room.htm. And they could get a lot more explicit -- the Romans, they liked them some porn and smut. (The symbol of Rome might be the She-wolf, but the symbol of the Roman mindset is definitely the phallus: it was, after all the generative organ [forget about the female womb, it's just a vessel for the Mighty Male Seed]. See also my earlier comments re: Roman sexuality and mores.) There's a whole room in Naples devoted to the naughty stuff found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and they only started letting male scholars see it in the 1970s (and women even later). No puritans need apply for Roman citizenship. (Gaius isn't necessarily a puritan, but he sure doesn't want Julia seeing anything like that.)
tintinnabulae: wind chimes. See the photos cited above. *hee* Little winged penii.... Not to mention all the statuettes of Priapus....
Am I hitting on the sexual issues too much? Ummmm. I don't think so, not yet. Again, this is a society which viewed sex as a normal, healthy, animal exercise that had nothing to do with love, and which apparently had no hang-ups about depictions of it. Gaius is all of 22, he's a healthy boy with full and frequently-functioning plumbing, and he's constantly bombarded with these images and expectations from his society: moreover, he's really screwed himself up by putting his brain in conflict with his body and emotions. If we were looking at it from the Greek point of view, he's worshipping the Apollonian Ideal of rational thought and the Mind, and ignoring (even denying) the Dionysian Ideal of Emotion and release. And anyone who's familiar with The Bacchae knows that if you ignore Dionysus, he will kick your arse but good.
Horreae: warehouses (these in particular are on the bank of the Tiber).
Clivus Cosconius: Clivi were uphill roads, FYI. This one is an actual road somewhere in Rome, but not necessarily in the Aventine. Knowledge of things like road names (with the exception of the major arteries) is somewhat spotty and based on surviving evidence, which doesn't always say in which Region a road was placed. We know more about the actual layout of Rome in the late Imperial period than we do of the names, thanks to a massive piece (or rather, thousands of pieces) of rock called the Forma Urbis, aka the Severan Marbles. There's a fascinating project going on at Stanford University that may help academics piece together this huge jig-saw puzzle someday (plug "Stanford" and "Forma Urbis" into google to find this).
balnea: a small, privately-owned bathhouse, rather than one of the huge, monumental government-owned buildings. The big one usually appearing on plans of the Aventine wasn't around yet: Trajan had the Baths of Decius built on the hill -- pretty close to where I've mentally placed Gaius and Julia's prospective home.
caupona: a bar, more or less. The Latin names are a bit confusing: a taberna is a shop, not a tavern, so I tend to use the English name.
Nero's purges: I haven't dug up any specific "purges" in Nero's time, per se -- however: there are two known "magi" during his reign. The first, Simon, claimed he used demons, practised necromancy, and create homumculi. (Acts chapter 8 talks about him.) The second man, Apollonius of Tyana, is more interesting in terms of Gaius' goals: he claimed to be more of a philosopher/scientist. He was arrested for magic (which was punishable by execution) twice, once by Nero and a second time by Domitian. We'd probably call him more of a mystic: he was a vegetarian and teetotaller, and claimed that his more ascetic lifestyle made what appeared to be Divination possible. (He denied engaging in "obvious" magical practices such as blood sacrifices.) Now, Domitian actually banished all "philosophers" (occult practitioners) from Italy in C.E. 89 and 95. (Arcana Mundi, George Luck, ISBN 0-8018-2548-2.)
manifests and problems with: I have no idea if shipping procedure would work this way. Pure speculation. But bear with it: it looks as though it might turn in to a decent plot point.
Spartacus: I was just being a smart-ass when I first sketched Spartacus out and named him -- no intentional parallel with the Spartacus -- although I thought he probably was a slave. The branding came later, when I read of it. Yes, they branded fugitives and otherwise mutilated them, although treatment of slaves might have improved in the Imperial period.
Crap. I actually didn't feel I wanted to smack Gaius for two whole days, and then he had to pull the pouty I-Have-A-Higher-Purpose crap. *smacks Gaius*
Continue to text of Part IV
the bleach vats: urine was apparently a very desirable commodity for bleaching the snowy-white togas of the patrician Roman: it was so valuable, in fact, that Vespasian taxed it, which is why the laundress is happy to take tax-free contributions from the neighborhood. See the first book of Davis' Falco series for a more lively and detailed description. And you can probably guess by now that Falco and Helena have just made their one and only real cameo in Gaius' story. If they were out of town in August '73, don't tell me -- I'm not up to re-reading the whole bloody series at the moment to check.
fauces: a small hallway sometimes placed beside the tablinum, to preserve the master's privacy when working there. (I know, I said I'd cut down on explanations, but that's pretty obscure....)
women not allowed in baths: depends on the size of the facility and time of day. The larger baths might well have a wing for the ladies (especially those built during the Republican period), but by the Imperial period it was customary for women to use the baths in the morning until noon or 2:00, and then the men would take over -- because their workday, which started at sunrise, was usually over by 2:00 or 3:00. (I'm assuming the bath Gaius uses in the Aventine was built earlier, so he can take his early-morning bath of the previous chapter.) The larger thermae (as opposed to the smaller balnea) might include a gymnasium, library, and lecture hall -- in a way much closer to a gentlemens' club than simply a bathing facility. Often the public latrines were located at a bath, as well, since they had a steady supply of running water.
Milk-fed snails, etc.: no, I'm not joking. The French didn't come up with escargot, the Romans did. 20 snails, 2 pt (1,1L) milk, Anchovy essence, Salt, Oil, 1 tbsp red wine. Remove the membranes from the snails to enable them to come out of their shells easier. Put the snails into a pot and cover with the milk. Leave for 2 days. Once an hour take the waste material the snails produce from the milk. (The servants can do this.) Change the milk daily. After the seven days, the snails will have absorbed the milk, and they will not be able to get back into their shells. Remove the now fattened snails from their shells and fry in oil. Serve with the anchovy essence and the wine. (From Romans in Britain.) Yes, a Larks' Tongues recipe exists, but I can't bear to give it to you.
Matrona: I'm using this in the sense that the head cook in an upper-class British house, if female, would be given the courtesy title of "Mrs" whether she was married or not. Not done, I'm sure -- just another little jab at Brit conventions.
Rufia Docila: yes, we all know I'm perverse. Just like me to put together two names that sound like "ruffian"and "docile." Deal with it. What do you expect from someone who called a gay Roman real estate agent Florius Crispus? As far as Rufia Docila goes, for once I heartily agree with Gaius' snap judgement.
Rufia Docila's Chicken a la Fronto: from this site. The recipe itself was actually published by Apicius. Defritum is either a thick fig syrup, or a wine must that has been boiled down to a fraction of its original volume; liquamen has been covered elsewhere; and saturei is a white- or violet-flowering plant native to Southern Europe that was used as a spice (often in bean dishes, so you might be able to guess at an equivalent). The actual liquid measures are 100 ml oil and 200 ml liquamen or wine. 2 teaspoons salt added to the wine, if that's your choice instead of the fish-gut sauce. Cook time/temp is 1 hour with 220 deg C. (Get your calculators out, I'm not attempting the conversion.)
Hyperion given a lectus: this is probably very unusual, but as Gaius intends his primary duty in the household to be door-keeper I've let it pass. In actuality, a personal slave would sleep very much as Hyperion had to aboard-ship: on a pallet or cot in the master's room -- even if the master was enjoying himself with someone. (All right, perhaps I'd better consider that Gaius might indeed have a puritan streak, although he has a good excuse not to have Hyperion hanging about the bedroom.)
The Roman work week consisted of seven or eight days, with every eighth or ninth day being a market day (no week-ends off for the Romans, apparently -- but then there were so many major festivals that they still wind up with more days off than our modern Western society). And Gaius might still have to work market-days anyway, depending what ships were coming in. (At least according to my logic.)
"arse-buggered": Well, I suppose Rufia Docila is a woman of her time: we'd say "arse-buggering," but she clearly places Hyperion in the Roman-derided passive position instead. What else would a decent Roman woman expect from one of those nasty Greeks? For more inventive invective, see Prurient Latin Vocabulary List.
Publius trapped in a monstrous, burning figure, sacrificed to the fires of the strange Hibernian gods: Now, this is not fair of Gaius. The reference is to the Druid "wicker man" which Caesar claims the Druids constructed to punish criminals and to make sacrifices to the gods. There isn't much, if any, proof of this beyond Caesar's claim, and Caesar was less in the business of being an impartial historian than of justifying Roman conquest of the barbarians. (And Gaius is, of course, practicing the same kind of prejudice that he protests at home....) Furthermore, the Romans may not have practiced human sacrifice to the gods, but they certainly torched criminals -- there was even a particular word for a pitch-soaked tunic that the condemned were dressed in, and Lord knows throwing the condemned to the lions in the arena wasn't any better. It's all a matter of cultural context.
Continue to text of Part V
Libraries: This is probably a fairly accurate picture of libraries. They were free in the sense that you had much more access to a larger range of books, but you would have to pay to check them out. And the early, true libraries probably were more for academic and technical texts -- often whatever the builder/patron had been able to "liberate" (i.e., pillage) from the lands where they'd been stationed as a military officer, as Asinius Pollio did. Books were difficult and expensive to copy, and before the days of the codex (like our modern hard-bound books) they got a lot of wear and tear; so you'd think twice before wasting time and money on a work of fiction. The libraries that were eventually added to the larger baths might, indeed, cater to more "plebeian" tastes (I use that more in the A.S. Byatt sense than a Roman sociological one *snert*). Near the end of the Empire, Rome had 28 or 29 libraries scattered across the city -- but these rapidly shut down as the Roman economy and society declined. Caveat lector. And that poor librarian is just reflecting the prevailing social bias -- don't hate him too much.
Gaius thought he'd like to dig his eyes out with a spoon: yes, that is a reference to sporkage. I am bad. I just can't seem to write straightforward angst, folks.
"A thousand thanks, whichever one of you did this.": egregious movie quote! A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Senex thanking the gods on thinking that someone's acquired a new housemaid for his "enjoyment." Let's see if I can avoid putting in quotes from History of the World, Part I. I can't very well have poor Julia experimenting with "Roman Red".... (I have very low-brow tastes when it comes to comedy, can you tell?)
lupanari: werewolf night-club. (NO, it's not. Gee, you guys are gullible.) It happens to be a brothel (lupanar).
What's the fuss about the silk?: what Gaius is failing to consider -- and shame on him, as an importer -- is that a pound of silk could cost more than a number of slaves (by the time of the Diocletian Edicts, it was up to 12,000 denarii). Julia isn't going to be willing to trust to just any dressmaker, and it explains her shock at Claudia's generosity.
Julia's shopping list: 1 peck wheat, 1st-quality olive oil, wine (2nd-quality, for cooking), 1 chicken, 1 peck lentils, honey, eggs, cabbage, bunch grapes, green olives. (There's more, of course, but why bore you absolutely to death? That's just for Rufia Docila's first couple of days.) These prices CANNOT be taken as gospel: the best source we have for prices is Diocletian's Edict of 301AD, which set maximums due to rapid inflation. 1st and 2nd C prices may have been 50 percent lower or more. (I tried at first to make some kind of correlation based on the 1st C prices we do know, but it was an exercise in futility as math is not my strong suit, and there weren't enough items to get a good idea of the percentage of difference. If any fellow Obssessive out there wants to give it a shot or has a more complete list of 1st C items, I'll be happy to help or gack....) Anyway, most of them are guesses, and prices would have varied greatly due to seasonal availability. (Get this -- chicken was almost always much more expensive than beef. I wonder why?) Yes, many Romans received welfare from the State in the form of the Grain Dole: Rome had to import huge quantities of wheat, largely from Egypt, and bad planning on the part of the Emperor could cause widespread famine if sufficient stores didn't make it to port. (That also usually meant "Buh-Bye" to the Emperor, too. Hungry Romans = Nasty Romans.) The day the grain ships made it to port from Alexandria were huge festival days, with the navy escorting the ships in.
cremation and burial: Yeah, yeah, Gaius and Julia are being superior wizard gits re: cremation. I don't know why the Romans stopped using cremation, but it might have to do with diminishing resources. Romans insisted (though not necessarily for health concerns) that the necropolis be located outside the city walls. Much more sensible than our medieval ancestors who chucked the dead into the nearest churchyard and then proceeded to live in close proximity to the stinky and infectious (non-cremated) dead.
House of Jove and Ganymede: an actual domus in the Ostia suburbs, located approximately where I've indicated. I've made up a great deal about the decor, but the site I consulted (http://www.ostia-antica.org/regio1/4/4-2.htm) had some lovely pictures of the surviving wall-paintings and a wall-mosaic. (Ostia is amazingly well-preserved, though not in the "snapshot" way of Pompeii: when the harbor and city were abandoned, it was quickly silted-over, and so many of the buildings were spared the pillagings of the medieval period.)
"And I'll be the first to admit that a quim can't compare to a boy's nice, tight" etc.: I only slightly loathed Quintus before this. Now I'm totally disgusted. On the other hand, he is, in his particularly crude way, only expressing what the average Roman may have felt about sexual matters. (Ah, yes, the age-old question -- if objectionable material finds its way into your work, do you censor yourself? I think that's a far worse thing than I've ever written, and I might use less loaded words -- but I won't. That's how Quintus is, disgustingly crude, and I can't change that about him. If this was a Hogwarts story I probably would tone it down a bit.
pathicus: (Latin) the receptive male in anal sex, which, as you're sick of hearing me say by now, was ridiculed and considered weak. The only equivalent (or possibly worse) thing would be to provide oral sex (to either a man or woman).
Quintus' Dinner Menu: (note that the Romans used pepper
in practically everything, even sweets....)
Ne Lactucae Laedant (A Harmless Salad): 2 oz. ginger, 1
oz green rue, 1 oz. meaty dates, 12 scruples ground pepper, 1 oz.
good honey, 8 oz. of Ethopian or Syrian cumin, crushed. Infuse
these in vinegar and strain. [This is "harmless" in that too much
lettuce was deemed potentially harmful to the digestive tract,
apparently.]
Lucanian Sausages: crush pepper, cumin, savory, rue,
parsley, condiment (?), laurel berries, and broth; mix with
finely chopped pork and pound well with broth. Add whole pepper
and nuts. Carefully fill casings. Hang sausages to smoke.
[Apparently much like a modern salami.] Both the above recipes
from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3296/recipe.htm
Patina de Pisciculis (Soufflé of Small Fishes):
500g boiled fillet of small fishes or whole sardelles, 150g dried
raisins (sultanas), 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper, 1 tblsp
Liebstoeckl, 1 tblsp oregano, 2 small diced onions, 200ml oil,
50ml Liquamen, or 1/2 tsp salt, some cornstarch. Mix raisins,
pepper, Liebstoeckl, oregano, onion, wine, Liquamen and oil
together and put in a casserole. Cook until done. Then put small
boiled fish fillets or boiled small whole fishes into it. Thicken
with a bit of cornstarch and serve. Found at
http://www.realm-of-shade.com/sweetlady/cuisine/rec9.html
Pullum Aniseum (Aniseed Chicken): 1 chicken. For sauce:
Aniseed, Mint, Ginger, Wine vinegar, 3 finely chopped dates,
Chicken stock, Mustard seed, Olive oil, Boiled white wine, Honey,
Ground pepper. Braise the whole chicken in water for approx. 20
minutes. Drain, keep the stock, and wipe dry the chicken. Sauce:
Mix aniseed, mint, ginger, vinegar, dates, stock from the
chicken, mustard, olive oil, boiled white wine and honey. Heat to
the boiling point and simmer gently for 20 min. Now score the
chicken's skin and pour aniseed sauce over it. Roast in a hot
oven for 2 hours, basting frequently with the liquid from the
roasting pan. Sprinkle with pepper before serving. Found at
http://www.romans-in-britain.org.uk/arl_roman_recipes-aniseed_chicken.htm
Gustum de Praecoquis (Starter with Apricots): 1kg firm
ripe apricots or nectarines, 200ml white wine, 250ml Passum, 1
peppermint tea bag (portion for one cup), pepper, Liquamen or
salt, cornstarch, a little vinegar and honey. Wash, cut and stone
apricots. Put them with a little cold water in a pan. Ground
pepper and dried mint (that's where the tea bag comes handy...),
add Liquamen, honey, Passum, wine and vinegar. Pour into the pan
with a little oil. Cook approximately 20 minutes on small to
moderate heat. After it boiled add a bit of cornstarch to thicken
the sauce, sprinkle with pepper and serve
Sarda Ita Fit (Tuna Pate): 500g cooked tuna fillet, 1/2
tsp ground pepper, 1/2 tsp Liebstoeckl, 1/2 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp
oregano, 1/2 tsp rue, 150g dates (without stones), 1 tblsp honey,
4 hard boiled eggs (in quarters), 50ml white wine, 2 tblsp wine
vinegar, 50ml Defritum, 2-3 tblsp green olive oil. Cook tuna
fillet. Mash filet together with dates, honey, wine, vinegar,
Defritum and oil. Put mass into a bowl and garnish with egg
quarters. Serve. (This isn't actually called a pate, but it
certainly sounds like that to me.)
Aliter Dulcia: 250g coarsely ground nuts, 100g coarsely
ground stone-pine kernels, 3-4 tblsp honey, 1 tsp minced rue,
50ml Passum, 50ml milk, 2 eggs, honey to drip on afterwards, a
small amount of ground pepper. Mash pepper, pine kernels, honey,
rue and Passum with milk and eggs, and boil the dough. Serve
topped with honey and sprinkle with pepper.
Tiropatinam (A Kind of Soufflé): 500ml milk, 6
eggs, 3 tblsp honey, a little bit of ground pepper. Sweeten milk
with honey, add eggs and mix together until smooth. Cook on low
heat until stiff, sprinkle pepper on it and serve. [This looks
more like a custard, actually.] All four of the above recipes
from
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/ant-rom-coll.html
I think Gaius is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of food -- we're talking several chickens (which as I indicated earlier were expensive), large pates and soufflés, here. It's certainly far more and of more variety than he's used to. (I think he got off lucky -- Lavinia might have chosen something really gross, like stuffed sow's udder or vulva. Believe me, I was tempted when Lavinia's character became known, but that's too much even for me.) Gaius and Julia tend to eat too much meat too, by the way -- I seem to always mention a meat dish. Assume they're eating much more simply on a daily basis than I indicate.
Quintus on his mother and step-mother: I had no idea until now why Gaius' father had had a first family, much older than Gaius' generation. I'd assumed it was just because of the social demographic, and lo and behold Quintus made something out of it. I don't think Gaius really understands yet how his family is both very typical in its composition and very unusual in its interpersonal relationships. Claudia must have been a very loving stepmother. (Quintus is the baby of the first family (at least the last surviving one), and is at least six years older than Gaius.... Maybe I'd better work up a chart.)
Oh, crud. I really wanted to keep hating Quintus. Guess I can't. (Not that I approve of the fucking boys part, no, but again, we're dealing with a different cultural attitude on that score....) I mean the loyalty to Icky Lavinia and the way he treats Lucillus. Funny, what you learn about people if you only give them a chance to talk. Quintus' family may be ugly, but he's obviously committed to it and loves it in his own way, and I have to give him kudos for that. (As far as thinking of the wife as a business asset, lots of people do -- politicians, military men who aspire to be officers, etc. A wife who knows how to entertain/knows proper protocol/can schmooze can really help a guy get ahead in certain circles.)
I don't know exactly what Lucillus has, other than a degenerative muscular problem. I expect Nigellus will inform us later. (Oooops -- Spoiler. Subject to change, however.)
Continue to text of Part VI
I've never had turbot, but Lindsey Davis' Falco seems to hold it in great esteem, and he goes on at length about how wonderful and prized it is. Since Falco seems to have a keen palate and appreciation for good cooking, I'll take his word for it.
Seneca died before this period (as did Plautus and Menander). We actually know a lot more of Greek drama than Roman, but we can assume that many of the same subjects were called upon. However, if I recall my Theatre History and Criticism properly (all two semesters of it), the Greeks probably got away with a lot more in the way of political commentary -- Roman statesmen and Emperors did not precisely appreciate criticism. If you wanted to poke fun at anyone, best confine yourself to the lower classes, unless you wanted to lose your head or guts or be exiled. (Roman audiences were probably just as rowdy as Elizabethans are reputed to have been, by the way.)
vigiles: There is no official police force in Ancient Rome. The vigiles (often pensioned soldiers) serve as a kind of Watch/Firefighting force, and might be conscripted by local magistrates to help with arrests, tracking people down, etc. Official Imperial "police" action might be enacted by the Praetorian Guard, on the other hand. There are other "unofficial" groups in the areas of law enforcement, but we'll look at those later.
Latrunculi board: Latrunculi was a game of strategy with a goal similar to that of Go: the idea was to box the other player's pieces in between yours, though the rules are lost and probably did not resemble those of Go or chess. No analogies to Gaius as Chessmaster, please -- it's just that it's more of a thinking mans' game (most of the others we know of involved chance and gambling). And while Primus is probably appreciates gambling more, that isn't exactly what Gaius wants him to take from the experience.
Ancient birth-control: the Rhythm method (though whether they actually understood when conception was likely is a good question); smearing the cervix with old olive oil or honey or cedar or balsam sap -- alone or mixed with (urk) white lead, and possibly mixed with a 'clump of finespun wool.' Astringents were thought to close the cervix, preventing sperm from getting through (I think we can accurately guess that they probably acted more as a spermicidal barrier). Then there are REALLY strange ideas, like the 'worms' to be found in the head of a particular kind of spider, which would prevent conception for a whole year if tied to the woman with a strip of deerhide (according to Pliny the Elder). Abortion methods might include excessive physical activity and bathing in or poultices of various nasty things, suppositories of various substances, or bloodletting. A physician, Soranus, sensibly notes that insertion of sharp objects into the uterus is not a good idea, but we can conclude from that that it was probably practiced by some. (Source: As the Romans Did, Jo-Ann Shelton.) Julia isn't telling me yet which methods she advocates.
Magical texts: Most, if not all, of the magical texts still existing from the ancient world describe the rituals in some detail, but then have the equivalent of "INSERT MAGIC WORD HERE!" included in them. So you would, indeed, have to be taken on as an apprentice to learn the Super Sekrit Password part of being a magus. (Source: Arcana Mundi.)
fellow in Judaea: before anyone flips out and accuses me of being sacriligious, let me point out that at this time in history the line between magic and religion was still very fine, and very fuzzy. If you compared the life and miracles of Jesus to that of the known magi of about the same period, the only difference is the claim that Jesus was the god incarnate. (Debating, of course, whether Jesus actually claimed that -- rather than in the sense of all men being able to find the divine spark within themselves -- as opposed to what his supporters would later claim for him). On the other hand, someone like Apollonius would claim not to be an incarnation, but to possess a daimonion -- insight or a kind of divine inspiration. Socrates claimed his daimonion was an inner voice that warned him when he was going to do something wrong, so it could also be thought of as a kind of conscience. (These are murky waters -- we're getting into the area of conscience and "sin," here, which really isn't going to take off until Christianity. The Greeks would think of things in terms of "balance" or "imbalance" [hamartia, or "missing the mark"] and of "crime," but not sin, and the Romans were probably similar. If you want the full lecture on hamartia and how Christian scribes probably mucked things up, email me.)
cultural split: I am speculating, obviously, about how wizards became divorced from the early Roman society, but in theory as a society evolves and more state control is applied to aspects like religion, the role of the tribal shaman becomes less important, and possibly detrimental, to the established "official" state-sanctioned religions. Other cults were eventually tolerated in Rome, but these are allied to very specific foreign gods, and prior to the ascension of the nominally-Christian emperors.
Caesar Germanicus' death: a documented case of witchcraft. Tiberius' adopted son, Julius Caesar Germanicus, died in Antioch in A.D. 19; on his deathbed he accused the Syrian governor, Piso (and his wife) of poisoning him. A search of Germanicus' house revealed (according to Tacitus) all the paraphenalia associated with a magical curse: the remains of human bodies, spells, curses, a lead tablet engraved with Germanicus' name, and "other implements of magic." Piso was condemned by the Senate and committed suicide; although his wife was cleared of the charge, she was later accused of other acts and also committed suicide. (Source: Arcana Mundi.)
Continue to text of Part VII
Ursus' "war council": I've fudged a bit on how a host would really do this -- it was probably far more subtle -- but then the pretext is a business meeting with a potential client; the dinner is more work-related than purely social. The seating is accurate, however: if you look at the lectus arrangement as an inverted "U," the host's lectus is on the left, and he reclines at the top, on his right side; the guests of lowest status, or his family members, fill the two spots below him. The guest of honor lies to his left at the end of the middle lectus, with guests of lower status than he to his left. Gaius is given the head (top) of the right-hand lectus given his position in the firm. Nine guests was considered a reasonable and ideal number, although Ursus apparently couldn't scare up a ninth. It really does mirror the kind of nit-picky social niceties you see observed in films like Gosford Park.
Sergius Honoratus and Vatia: you know who they are. (Don't look at me like that. I needed a bloody investigator for a plot device, and I couldn't very well nick Falco for more than a cameo -- he's not in the public domain.)
culleae: the culleus was the largest measure of liquid volume and could hold the contents of about 20 amphorae (each amphora held about seven gallons and was the one commonly available). There are remains of culleae buried in the ground in the ruins of warehouses in Ostia. Big buggers, and so they would really only be useful for long-term storage, as in a warehouse or grainery.
Alcyone and Ceyx: from Ovid's Metamorphoses, one of the more beautiful (if slightly morbid) stories. This is my version, from a more modern English translation found at The Ovid Collection at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center. (The tag-line about "halcyon days" is not in the original, but is a neat little bit from Mary Zimmerman's play Metamorphoses, of which I'm very fond.) I think I chose this one less for the theme of abandonment (willful or not), and more because I simply love that particular one (I like Baucis and Philemon as well) and its connection to the sea, given the Gaius' shipping background. It's a lovely example of Ovid's metaphoric "explanation" of a natural phenomenon -- the way some seabirds mate and raise their young -- as it applies to ideal human virtues.
Continue to text of Part VIII
frumentarii: Honoratus' explanation is more or less accurate -- the frumentarii, orgininally meant to supervise the grain dole, were very similar to a secret service agency by the 1st Century CE.
Honoratus' criticism of the early Christian sect: the conversion issue was obviously important to the Romans. During Domitian's reign, a Roman senator converted to Christianity (still considered a Jewish sect) and was exiled; various sources have him either killed on Trajan's orders, or a suicide. (Could be the same thing, more or less -- ordered to kill himself, or Trajan's man would do it for him.) The animus is, possibly, due to earlier Roman belief that Jewish insistance on studying the Law of Moses constituted a refusal to study (or observe?) Roman law. Can't very well have a Roman senator who refuses to follow Roman law.
"Unless, of course, you're a sport?": agricultural/biological term -- when a hybrid plant produces a child plant that has reverted to one of the varieties that produced the hybrid (like a pink pansy or sweetpea producing a red or white second-generation plant). "Muggle" has not yet entered the lexicon, so I can't use "Muggleborn."
Gaius' run-in with the two louts: a bit more complex than it reads. A patrician boy was protected from physical assault or sexual predation, and wore an amulet to signal his caste and this legal status. Once he reached manhood, the amulet was set aside and he was considered vir -- yes, as in virile. A vir was not to be touched or assaulted -- not by anyone, though most certainly not by anyone of lower status -- and to hit him or sexually assault him was so demeaning as to cause him to lose his status. While Gaius can't be certain they intended to rough Primus up in any way, they were certainly intent on robbing him at worst, or taking advantage of his goodwill at best; Primus might well not call them on it because of the humiliation. Gaius is reminding Nerva what a grave offence this is not only by using the term vir, but in laying his own hands on the man -- something he, as a person of higher status, could do with impugnity. (I hope he washed his hand afterwards.)
Continue to text of Part IX
Hora sexta: about noon.
Hannibal's forty elephants: Hyperion knows Roman History -- who'd a thunk it? (Naw, probably picked it up at a tavern.)
"It's a most curious incident, really." "What incident, the dog?" "That the dog did nothing, Corvinus." : Well, y'all know who I ripped that off from. And while Honoratus is quite callous about Vatia's injury, I'm quite certain that certain versions of his allusional counterpart had moments in which he wished Watson would STFU. (I will not go so far as to switch the location of Vatia's wounds, either – I hope never to perpetrate a Flint of that magnitude.)
"Motive is far less important than Who. Once we know Who, we shall learn the Motive soon enough....: Honoratus rips from the best: that's pure Peter Wimsey, Gaudy Night.
cool philosophic reasoning: not "scientific", because at this time Science had not evolved as a separate discipline; Science, Philosophy, Logic, Anthropology, etc. -- it all fell under the heading of Philosophy, though I think an argument could be made that Anthropology could be under the heading History, which was certainly a fairly distinct subject.
Roman attitude toward Jews: more on this next chapter.
Back to Palimpsest index.