The Romance of the Romans

The Roman Empire in 117 A.D.

The Romance of the Romans

The Roman Empire took its time to disintegrate and we can argue about exactly when and exactly how, but let’s leave that for another day and place our vote for 476 A.D. , when Romulus, the last Roman Emperor, was overthrown by a Germanic leader, Odoacer.   After some 1500 years, the Roman Empire was no more, but of course that includes the time the Empire was split into east and west.  If you want to only consider the time it was what we think of as the united Roman Empire, then it lasted just over 500 years..

So, Rome is not worth thinking about, right?  Surprise, surprise!!  There are still vestiges of Roman life and Roman culture all around us.

Take the Romance languages for example that all emanated from Latin:  French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Catalan. The widespread of Romance Languages means through the centuries, at least linguistically, Roman influence has stretched, not only around the Mediterranean region, but North and South and Central America, along with parts of Africa!  Wait, I forgot to mention the Philippines.   Yep, don’t forget Spain owned the Philippines for decades.  I met a Filipina/American in Japan and asked her if she spoke Tagalog or Filipino and she said, no. “On our island we spoke only Spanish.”

“Oh yeah?” you say, what about English?  Glad you mentioned that. Linguists say that English, although called a Germanic language, takes 65% of its words from French!  Just one example:  all the words ending in …ion are written the same in French and English, but pronounced differently.  As the French Prime Minister George Clemenceau  (1841-1929) famously said, “English is just badly pronounced French.”

But is there nothing more than language?  Nothing more???? Are you kidding?

We still use the Roman Gods.  Really?  Yep.  In the days of the week.

The Romans copied the Babylonians in naming some of the days of the week after heavenly bodies, which we still use today. 

Monday – Moon Day  (Luna)  

Sunday – Sun Day (Sol invictus)

And the Roman threw in one of their own for Saturday.  Saturn. 

As you know from the phrase, all roads lead to Rome, the Romans built a lot of roads all over the Empire.  Hundreds, if not thousands of them still exist and often are in use today, although you may not realize it.  Some have been paved over.  In all the Romans built over 250,000 miles of roads, with over 50,000 miles of them paved.

Roman Roads in only one small part of Germany

And not just the roads, but so much more.  Go to Segovia and see the huge aqueduct that was in service and still moving water to the city until the early 1970s. Take a look at Hadrian’s Wall in the north of Britain.

Aqueduct in Segovia, Spain

How about place names?  Rome, of course is still Rome, and Londinium we know as London, and look at the very name of Britain, from the Latin, Britannia.!

Parisiorm is now Paris.  In Spain, Segovia is still Segovia.  The list goes on and on.

Let’s not forget the foods and animals the Romans introduced wherever they went.  If you missed it on a previous blog, read through the Romans in Britain and you’ll spot fruits and vegetables galore.

https://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2018/03/a-bit-of-british-history-part-ii-romans.html

Did you know our own sense of the rule of law is based heavily on Roman law?

The rights of personal property.

The validity of contracts.

The right to vote.

The right to pay taxes.

The right to appeal and the legal status of corporations.

An accused person had the right to a defense and was innocent until proven guilty.

Here’s something dear to your hearts:  Wine!  Look along the Rhine and Mosel valleys in Germany, the notable vineyards in France (Bordeaux) and Italy and even Spain (Rioja).  I haven’t begun to name them all.  Romans believed wine was essential to life and everyone drank it, even the poor Romans and the slaves.

“There with the wine before you, you will tell of many things.”  Ovid, Roman Poet, 43 B.C. – 17 A.D.  Husbands and wives should remember this!

“The great evil of wine is that it first seizes the feet.  It is a crafty wrestler.” Titus Maccius, Roman playwright (254 -184 B.C.)

Something you might not know about Rome:

The Colosseum was not called the Colosseum when it was built (between 72-80 A.D.), but Amphitheatrium Flavium after the two emperors who build it.  Around 1000 A.D. the word Colosseum came into use, but even then it didn’t mean the building itself, but an enormous statue of possibly Emperor Nero.  The statue has since disappeared.

The city has grown taller.  If you visit some of Rome’s major sights of antiquity, you’ll notice you have to walk down. The Forum and the Pantheon are good examples.

Look around and you’ll soon find, the Roman Empire may have fallen, but many of the buildings, the language, and the Roman ideas live on.

 

Now I think it’s time to drink a little wine and think about that.

A Bit of British History, Part II: The Romans

Roman campaigns in Britain

Roman Empire 54 A.D.

A Bit of British History, Part II:  The Romans

Rome was constantly expanding.  How many times in history class did you hear “The Far Flung Roman Empire?”  Yes, they did a lot of flinging.

As I told you in Part I, written British history began in 43 B.C. with the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar, but Britain took its time in being conquered. Not only that, but good old Julius  tried to conquer Britain a few time earlier, in 50 and 54 B.C.

Julius Caesar

 

As I also told you, for more than a hundred years the Romans didn’t hold the ground.   Lots of attempts, but it wasn’t until 77 A.D. that the last of the northern tribes were defeated and all of Britain became Roman.  Roman rule lasted until 410 A.D.

Let me again make it clear, this very succinct thumbnail is only enough to let you conquer the conversation at a cocktail party.  Believe me, this short bit will do the job unless you get stuck at a cocktail party with history professors, then keep your mouth shut and nod your head in agreement.  Most of your inebriated friends, on the other hand?  No contest!

I’m not going to pretend to acquaint you with every Roman emperor, every general, and every battle.  Want that much thoroughness and a treatment for insomnia?  Grab the six volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, or more recent books on Roman civilization.  As for me, I’m a whimp and a thumbnail is all the time I can afford between now and happy hour.

A thumbnail:  Counting Julius Caesar’s first foray into Britain, the Roman influence lasted about 450 years, from 43 B.C. to 410 A.D., but there were upheavals along the way.

Here are some highlights:

43 B.C. –Julius Caesar invades for the third time.  This time it sticks

77A.D. – the Northern tribes of Britain are conquered and Romans establish a permanent presence.

383 A.D. – Magnus Maximus, the Roman ruler of Britain takes his army to Gaul (France) and the Emperor of Rome makes Maximus the Emperor of Britannia and Gaul.  By depleting his army, he effectively gave up control of western and northern Britain.  In 388 A.D. he got too big for his armored skirt and tried to become Emperor of all of Rome.  Died in the attempt and that was the final decline of comprehensive Roman rule over Britain, although it took awhile longer to see the end of all Roman troops.

Magnus Maximus

402 A.D. – The Roman emperor, needing more troops to defend Rome against the ‘barbarians’ stripped the Roman forces guarding Hadrian’s Wall (Northern Britain), essentially destroying any hope the Romans had of holding onto control.

410 A.D. – Romans gone from Britain.

What interests me more than names and dates is how the Romans controlled all of Britain and what life was like under the Romans.

How the Romans ruled:

Apparently, the Romans took a very smart and convenient approach to ruling.  Not just in Britain, but in other places, they left much of the governance or at least a consultant part, with the chiefs of the local tribes.  Based on the Roman rule lasting for some 400 years, the system worked pretty well.

By the mid 2^nd Century, there were about 16,000 Roman legionnaires in Britain, along with 40,000 auxiliary troops. The auxiliaries were native forces, usually not stationed in their home countries.  Many of the auxiliaries for Britain came from what is now France and Germany. 

At this time, the native population of Britain was about 4 million, with the largest city, London, having a population of about 35,000.

How the people lived:

Not much changed from today’s stratus of haves and have nots, except today all our strata definitely live better.  Rich Romans lived very well, with villas and servants.  Yes, there were slaves.  It was that way a long time, from the Celts before them to the Saxons after them.

A Village Hut

The native Britains (Celts) lived much as they had before.  Huts with thatched roofs, food that they grew or gathered or hunted.  45 years old was an old man.  Half of all children died before they were ten years old.  However, since Roman villas were elaborate, native towns tended to grow up around them, with shops and markets and such, but apparently, they were small, more like neighborhoods than villages.  The central place in a Roman town was the forum.

Typical Roman Villa

The particulars of life under the Romans is fascinating and more than there’s room to go into here.  But here’s more cocktail party fodder:

Baths were essential to the Roman way of life and had three sections, the Frigidarium (cold), the Tepidarium (warm) and Caldarium (hot).  They end their bath time with a dip in a cold war pool.  To clean themselves, Romans oiled their skin and scraped themselves with a tool called a strigil.

A Strigil

You know the symbol for Wales is a leek.  But, did you know leeks were first introduced to Britain by the Romans?  As were a number of fruits and vegetables, such as cultivated apples, shallots, onions, garlic, cabbage, peas, turnips, radishes, and asparagus, grapes, mulberries, and cherries.  You can do a lot in 400 years.

The Welsh symbol of a leek has nothing to do directly with the Romans, however.  Legend has it that the patron saint of Wales, Saint David, asked his soldiers to wear a leek on their helmets to identify themselves in a battle against the Saxons.  The Saxons wore saxophones.  Ok, I made that last part up.

Evidence of the Romans in Britain:

The most famous remnant of the Roman years is Hadrian’s Wall, that cuts across the north part of England and was begun in 122 A.D., however it is not and never has been the Scottish-English border and in one case is about 68 miles from the border, while in another part, the border is only 4 miles away.   More than just a stone wall, it also housed turrets and forts, some of which are still evident.  There is another wall farther north, Antonine’s Wall, but was only used for about twenty years.

Roman fort along Hadrian's Wall

The city of Bath has a wonderful Roman bath that was still in use until circa 1970. It still contains water and visitors can walk around inside what’s left of the building.  Even better is a magnificent museum telling all about the bath itself and Roman construction.

Colchester, which was the second largest city in Roman Britain, has a host of Roman ruins.  Use this link to take a virtual tour:  http://www.camulos.com/virtual/romantrail.htm

Revolts against the Roman occupation:

There were many over 400 years, but the most notable and one that came close to succeeding was the one led by Queen Boudica, also spelled Boudiccea and Baudicea of the Iceni tribe.  Her husband was an ally of Rome and when he died, he left a will leaving his kingdom to his daughters and the Roman Emperor.  However, the Romans ignored this, annexing his kingdom and raping his daughters.  Around 60-61 A.D. the Queen led an army of Iceni and other tribes against Colchester and burned the city, then moved toward Londinium (London).  The Romans, fearing they were not strong enough, abandoned the city. Queen Boudica led an army of 100,000 and sacked the city as well as others nearby, killing between 70-80,000 Romans and Britains who opposed her.  This made Emperor Nero consider abandoning Britain altogether.  But, before that could happen, the Roman Governor Suetonious Paulinius reorganized his forces and though greatly outnumbered, decisively defeated Queen Boudica.  The historic chronicles are not clear, but she either killed herself or died of an illness.

A quick question:  Why didn’t the Roman’s Latin last and the native languages of Britain become another romance language?  Ans: Sorry, you’ll have to wait for the next installment of ‘A Bit of British History:  After the Romans, what???

Now for the quiz:

1.    Did Julius Caesar’s friends call him Julie?   Ans: One did, once.

2.    Why was Magnus Maximus called that? Ans: Just a nickname his girlfriend gave him.

3.    Why did Hadrian build his wall?  Ans:  Nobody knows, so it will never appear on a test.

Roamin' With the Romans in Trier

Porta Nigra, the lasting symbol of Roman power

Inside Germany's oldest cathedral

The Hauptmarkt

A flower seller on the Hauptmarkt

Time for lunch

The bar at the Kesselstatt

The smoked fish and smoked fish plate

Coffee in an old wine cellar

View from Porta Nigra

 Ok, centurions, gird your loins, grab yourselves by the togas!  The battles are won, the Frankish rabble scattered like stray dogs at a Korean barbeque! We’re off to shrug the tempestuous turmoil and savagery of conflict and get some R&R  (that’s rollicking and rolling) at the wine center of the northern empire, Trier.

            What can we say about Trier?  Everything.  It’s such an old, cobblestone city, dating back to well before the Romans.  Population is just over 100,000 and the location, right on the Mosel River, has played a big part in making this a center of wine commerce for thousands of years, right up to the present.  Really great wine was another good reason.

            Officially, the city dates from 16 B.C.E., making Trier the oldest city in Germany, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest there were settlements here long before.   Under Roman rule, the city really came into its own and the remnants are still the highlights of any visit. 

It’s not exactly Roman, but a good place to start, and one of the stars of your visit, is the Dom St Peter.  It was, however, built on a Roman foundation and contains what some believe to be the robe of Christ. When it was originally constructed, the cathedral was about four times the size it is now, but attacks by the Franks and Normans smashed it down to what you see today. There are relics galore in the Dom’s museum, including what is reputed to be one of the nails from the cross, now encased in gold and jewels. Tarry awhile.  Enjoy the magnificence of the towering ceilings and the majestic serenity.  You can drink later.  It’s the oldest cathedral in Germany, dating from near 330 C.E. Sometimes I think of Trier as a city of churches.  There’s the Dom and the Lieberfrauenkirche, The Church of Our Lady next door, with its fabulous gothic architecture. There’s an old Roman palace, now a protestant church (Aula Palintina), and dozens more.

Most famous of all the Roman ruins is Porta Nigra, or Black Gate. If you get to Trier, don’t miss this one.  There are also Roman baths, and an amphitheater.

Shortly after you leave the Dom, heading for the Porta Nigra, you’ll find yourself in the center of a huge walking plaza, Hauptmarkt, fully equipped with, food, drink, shops, and always a festive air. On the way, you’ll walk from the Hauptmarkt, down the Simeonstrasse.  No vehicles allowed!  About half way there, glance to the right at the House of the Three Magi.  Looking like something out of the Arabian Nights, you can’t miss it.  Dates from the 13^th Century.  That big hunk of dark stones and open portals at the far end of the street?  That’s the Porta Nigra. You can buy a ticket and visit both the Gate and the museum next door.  Climb the stairs; look out the highest windows for a spectacular view of the city.

Time for a break.  Time for lunch.  Head back toward the Dom.  Right across from the Dom is the perfect lunch spot, the Weinstube Kesselstatt, or Cauldron/ Kettle Place.  At lunchtime the weinstube is bustling, but the service is fine and the food wonderful.  Check out the wine–by-the-glass list over the bar.  Ask a barista to suggest something.  She'll probably off you a sip to try.  The waiters are also knowledgeable and speak English.  Try the local platter of smoked fish and smoked meats over salad.  It’s enough for two big eaters or three reasonable people.  It’s also a delight to just stop in the weinstube for soup or wine.  The décor is striking.  A large wine press and dark barrels stacked along the walls draw me back again and again.

Sated?  Time to pick up the pace.  Karl Marx was born here in 1818 and his home is now a museum.  To get there, you’ll have to wander out of the very center of town, but not very far.  Within easy walking distance of the Dom and the Hauptmarkt are the Roman baths, the amphitheater, the Roman museum, Aula Palintina, and the Roman bridge over the Mosel, dating to 150 C.E..  Short paragraph, but a long time, if you really want to give things more than a passing glance.  There are also stop-and-go buses that hit all the highlights.

All that walking and it’s time for Kaffee und Kucken.   Reverse course and trot back to the Haupmarkt.   I can think of no more interesting place for coffee and cake than in an old wine cellar.  It’s right near the House of the Three Magi, but on the opposite side of the street, underneath the Karstadt Department Store.  The entire city is an underground warren of wine tunnels and cellars.  Most cannot be visited except by appointment.  But, in this café, you can sip, nosh, and enjoy seeing the cellars, minus the wine.

            Even my glittering words do not do justice to Trier, a city of never ending discovery and enchantment.  Makes you want to paint a picture, write a book, light a candle, make a wish.  I think I’ll settle for another glass of wine.

Note:  You are probably used to seeing historic dates as B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D.  B.C. is English. A.D. is Anno Domini in Medieval Latin, translated as: in the year of our Lord.  B.C.E. stand for before the common era and C.E. stands for the common era.  C.E. has been used at least since 1708 and B.C.E. since 1856.  Short answer:  B.C. = B.C.E. and A.D. = C.E.