Greeks in Glasgow

The Greeks have landed at Glasgow's Burrell Collection, so I made the journey (from Lanuvium, of course) to pay my respects.

First off, this is not the easiest gallery in the world to get to. It was deliberately sited, in the 1980s, in a suburban woodland location to minimise exposure to pollution, so private transport is recommended.

And second, the exhibition is rather disappointing in scale and presentation.

Ancient Greeks: Athletes, Warriors and Heroes

This is "a major touring exhibition from the British Museum". Now, the British Museum undeniably has an unrivalled ancient Greek collection. But they've been rather parsimonious in parcelling out the artefacts on tour.

Focussing on war, politics, drama and sport, there is a notable emphasis on red figure pottery, and very little else! A bust of Sophokles, a couple of perfume pots, some miniature statuary and relief carvings, a case of weapons (helmet, greaves, arrowheads, and spear point) and an inscription. Frustratingly (for visitors who lack a Roman emperor's facility with the Greek language), the inscription -- a list of war dead from the Peloponnesian War -- is untranslated. Also, the design of the exhibition -- a few glass cases dotted around a fancifully painted centrepiece -- seems a little uninspired.

Hit or miss?

It is certainly nice to see British Museum artefacts doing the rounds. (The exhibition has already been in South Shields, renowned for its Roman connections.) But an exhibition of this type cannot inspire interest in those who do not already possess it.

Fly me to the moon ...

A Roman emperor hunting for a topic to begin a new year naturally seizes upon Janus, the god of doorways.

But did you know that the planet Saturn has a moon named Janus?

This photo, property of NASA, was taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2006, two years into its 4-year mission.

Truly an amazing image to start the new year.

Empire and Conflict

I couldn't let October slip by without mentioning my illustrious forebear's exhibition at the British Museum in London. Hadrian: Empire and Conflict closed on October 26.

Objects were assembled from 28 museums worldwide, and included the giant sculpture fragments recently unearthed at Sagalassos in Turkey. The Independent trumpeted the "sex, rebellions, wealth and intrigue", while for The Times the exhibition "invites us to speculate on what this most fascinating and complex emperor might really have been like".

British Museum promotional video: http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/hadrian.aspx

What gladiator?

So, the tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus has been found at Saxa Rubra, north of Rome.

This is the man hailed as the inspiration for the character of Maximus Decimus Meridius in the movie Gladiator. But, needless to say, no Roman senator ever became a gladiator.

Macrinus' career was already well-known from a long Greek inscription found in the ancient city of Ephesus, where his statue must have stood. Catalogued as no. 8830 in Hermann Dessau's Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, the inscription lists the succession of posts held by Macrinus, first under Antoninus Pius, and then under Marcus Aurelius: tribune of legion XVII (surely a mistake for XVI), legate of legion XIV Gemina, praetorian governor of Lower Pannonia, consular governor of Upper Pannonia, and finally proconsul of Asia. The inscription pointedly refers to him as "general and companion of the greatest emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus".

The newly discovered inscription is badly damaged and only a fragment has so far come to light. But it clearly records that Macrinus was comes et legatus imperatoris Antonini Augusti, "companion and legate of the emperor Antoninus Augustus".

Faustina found!

Beautiful, isn't she?

A larger-than-lifesize bust of the empress Faustina, wife of the emperor Antoninus Pius, has just come to light during excavations at Sagalassos in south-west Turkey. For some reason, the Thai Indian News imagined that "archaeologists in Rome" had found the head, but the BBC have the correct location!

Annia Galeria Faustina, surnamed Major ("the Elder") to differentiate her from her homonymous daughter, was born around AD 100, into a patrician family in Spain. She died young in AD 141, whereupon she was deified as Diva Faustina. The charity of the puellae Faustinianae (the "girls of Faustina") was founded in her memory, giving us some insight into this wonderful woman's morality.

A little perspective

While the UK press has understandably trumpeted the Antonine Wall's success in achieving World Heritage Status (reports appeared, for example, in The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Times, and The Press Association), a glance at the official UNESCO press release reveals that we are just an "extension to an existing property".

How humiliating.

The copy-editors at UNESCO haven't even punctuated us properly! We appear (somewhat breathlessly) as "Mountain Railways of India Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain The Antonine Wall (United Kingdom)". El Pais newspaper understandably chose to emphasize the Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain, an extension to the Cave of Altamira, inscribed in 1985. And I don't know about the Indian newspapers, but the Philippine Daily Enquirer didn't even mention us at all!

I suppose when you're an old Roman emperor, it's easy to lose perspective.

Mission accomplished!

Wall gains World Heritage Status

Today, the BBC reported the good news: "An ancient fortified wall which formed the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire has been made a World Heritage Site by Unesco." Full report here.

"Falkirk councillor, Adrian Mahoney said: 'Gaining world heritage status is a major achievement and there are so many new opportunities to maximise the benefit to our local area in the future.' But with new opportunities come new responsibilities. This is not the time for resting on laurels.

Exciting times in Quebec

This week saw the opening of the 32nd Session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in Quebec City.

Exciting times for a Roman emperor with a personal interest in the archaeology of Scotland, because The Antonine Wall is the UK's official 2008 nomination for World Heritage Status.

Regular visitors will know that, as the owner and instigator of the Wall, I am an enthusiastic supporter of the bid. (See new "Favorites" sidebar for previous posts on this subject ... mehercule -- it's been a long journey!) But some of the less salubrious sectors of my frontier give me pause for reflection. It would perhaps be a good thing to post a few caretaker garrisons, just to maintain proper decorum; also, they could spend a moment whitewashing the distinctly faded bits (as, for example, in this photo).

The timetable of the 32nd Session of the World Heritage Committee suggests that a decision will be reached on Monday 7 July. I am perched on the edge of my throne ...

The Birds of Rome

Tacitus calls the legionary standards lost by Varus in AD 9 "the birds of Rome, the guardian spirits of the legions" (Annals 2.17). In a recent post, I suggested that the gathering of eagles found in Matthew's Gospel represented Roman legions, rather than the vultures found in many translations.

So I was gratified to see that precisely the same conclusion was drawn in a scholarly paper which I recently found. In "Are there imperial texts in the class?" (Journal of Biblical Literature vol. 122/3, 2003), the author Warren Carter discusses "Intertextual eagles and Matthean eschatology as 'Lights Out' time for Imperial Rome". He argues that, throughout the Bible, imperial powers function as God's agents in punishing people's sins, and are often envisaged as eagles. If Rome were the imperial power used in this way, a gathering of eagles would be a doubly appropriate symbol, as the birds were already the dominant symbol of Rome.

Finally, Carter argues that Rome was seen as the agent of God's punishment in destroying the Temple at Jerusalem in AD 70. But God uses, then judges and destroys. The scene of the corpse and the eagles gathered together thus represents the final punishment of the punisher.

Uncomfortable reading for an emperor ...

Mists of antiquity, fog of scholarship

A brief notice (at 200 words, it's hardly long enough to qualify as an article) in the Times Online caught my eye this week. It has the rather convoluted title, Romans and a Link to Egypt - but Scots came from Ireland, a title so lengthy as to account for a fair percentage of the word count! I was amused to see that the author, Magnus Linklater, manages to work in a reference to our own dear Ninth Legion in his first paragraph!

"The earliest written accounts [of Scotland] are to be found in the works of the Roman historian Tacitus, whose father-in-law invaded southern Scotland with the 9th Roman Legion in 81 AD."

Okay, the father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, did invade southern Scotland, but may not have been the first to do so. Archaeologists are more and more inclined to expand the role of his predecessor-but-one, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, to include a certain amount of ravaging in the Lowlands. Nor was it just the Ninth Legion that accompanied Agricola. Britannia was a four-legion province, after all. And by limiting his involvement to southern Scotland, Mr Linklater does his memory a grave injustice.

But that's only Mr Linklater's first paragraph. Here's his second:

"At that time Scotland was inhabited by tribes of Celtic origin, notably the Picts, about whom very little is known but who left behind many distinctive stone carvings."

Notably the Picts? Well, we've already scotched (ouch!) that factoid. But, from Agricola and the Ninth Legion, Mr Linklater has effortlessly drawn us onto the subject of the Picts. Where will he go next?

"Around the 6th century, the Picts converted to Christianity and some of their carvings show links with the Middle Eastern Coptic church. This image [what image?!] of two hands receiving a loaf of bread from a raven, depicts StAnthony and StPaul the Hermit in the desert. It is found on a monastery wall in Egypt and a Pictish stone at St Vigeans, Dundee."

Egypt?! Is Mr Linklater subtly suggesting a link between Pictish Dundee and monastic Egypt? I'm afraid we'll never know because, in the next paragraph, his final one, he's off on another tangent.

"Originally referred to as Alba or Alban, the name Scotland is said to derive from the Scots, a warlike Celtic race from Northern Ireland who invaded southwestern Scotland in the 3rd and 4th centuries and established the kingdom of Dalriada."

Mr Linklater should perhaps have pointed out that the Scotti (for it is they to whom he alludes!) are first mentioned in the 4th century (not the 3rd) and that the evidence for Dalriada is even later.

And that's it. A frustratingly teasing promise of Romans in Egypt that ends with an enigmatic early Scottish kingdom. Not with a bang but with a whimper ...