The Fall of Veii is finally upon us – or perhaps we should say it was finally upon them! After a shameful defeat early in 396, the Romans decided to appoint a dictator. It is time for a Republican hero to burst into the spotlight. Welcome to the stage, Marcus Furius Camillus!

Episode 159 – The Fall of Veii: Part II

Camillus is a legendary figure of Rome, possibly in more ways than one. He was held up as an exemplar for generations. Even the emperor Augustus was a fangirl. We have mentioned him before, but it is his service as dictator during the siege against Veii where we get to see him shine for the first time.

Bronze Sculpture of Marcus Furius Camillus ca. 1st century AD from the Capitoline Museum. Courtesy of Ancient Times Blog Spot.

The appointment of Camillus restored a sense of optimism to Rome and people were literally queuing up to serve under him. With suspicious ease, Camillus dealt with Veii’s allies, the Faliscans and Capenates, before turning his attention to breaking the siege once and for all. Through clever use of tunnels and military distractions, the Romans defeated their enemy – at last!

Rome has been engaged in almost constant warfare with neighbouring towns and cities for an exceptionally long time, but it is hard to overstate the importance of this conquest. Not only was Veii a wealthy and serious rival, but this acquisition also doubled the size of Rome’s territory. To quote Camillus as he surveyed the battlefield, “Cha-ching!”

However, Camillus made some promises to the gods both before and after this final battle, promises that will have various impacts for our hero and for Rome….  

Stay tuned for the next instalment on 396 BCE!

Need to catch up on the first part of 396 BCE? Check out Part One on the Fall of Veii!

Our music is provided by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of Orange Free Sounds.

Dr Rad 0:15
Music. Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:18
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad and

Dr G 0:33
I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:58
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am Dr G

Dr Rad 1:06
and I am Dr Rad,

Dr G 1:08
and we are in the middle of what is a chaotic time for ancient Rome. It’s the year 396, BCE, and oh, boy, are they not having a good time, as far as we can tell so far,

Dr Rad 1:26
indeed, 396 is a very big year for Rome. However, the start of it was not great. Mm,

Dr G 1:33
not great at all. It seems like there were some reversals in the field. There were some poorly planned ambushes and some confusing dealing about with Father Son combinations in the military tribunes with consular power.

Dr Rad 1:48
Yeah. Just for those who didn’t listen to our last episode A) I’d probably go and do that, because this is a bit of a narrative that we’re building here. However, we’re dealing with the end of the siege of Veii, an Etruscan city just to the north of Rome. Rome has had a somewhat complicated relationship with over the years, extending all the way back. And whilst the ancient sources make reference to the fact that, oh yeah, there was this truce from the second big conflict between Rome and of Veii, and it run out, and then there was a king, and he was a bit of a douche bag. And not only did the Romans not like the king of A, but the Etruscans didn’t like the king of Veii, and that’s why all of this happened. In spite of that, as Dr G rightly pointed out in our previous episode, it’s probably really about resources, trade influence in the region, because these are two increasingly important places, I would say, in the previous century that we’ve been looking at. Now we’re entering a whole new century.

Dr G 2:54
It does seem like they is the Southern tale of Etruscan influence in the fifth century, BCE. And so the big power base that is through central to North Italy is the is a true area, the Etruscan people, and Rome is now this sort of growing player in the center of Italy. And they seem to want a slice of the Etruscan pie. They’ve decided maybe they has to go to make way for the growth of Rome itself into a grander place.

Dr Rad 3:28
And we’ve got some allies of ve who have realized that a growing Rome is no good for them. That’s true,

Dr G 3:37
and Rome itself has been cultivating a whole bunch of their neighbors into being, variously allies or enemies, depending on how they’ve been treating them to the east and to the south. So there is a kind of a sense that there are a couple of blocks of power developing. The Etruscan block has been around for a long time, and it seems like maybe it might be on the wane in various ways, particularly when it comes to this southern edge where Rome is butting up against it. But there’s also this sense that there are now growing disputes amongst Rome and her other neighbors, some of which are turning violent. The Volscian The Aequians, have been long on the radar. But there’s also the

Dr Rad 4:22
turning violence.

Dr G 4:25
There’s also the Hernicians and the Latins that seem to have come together with Rome. Now, before we get too much further into the action of this year, I want to hark back to something that came up a couple of episodes ago now, where you were talking about the Roman electoral process and the concept of the praerogativa. Yes,

Dr Rad 4:49
this is how Calvus was apparently chosen for election to be one of the military tribunes with consular power in 396 even though he was not running for said election.

Dr G 4:59
How. Could it be possible to get elected in when you’re not even running? Well, no, the power of the praerogativa may be the answer to this question. Now we don’t know too much about it. In this very early period, like many things to do with ancient Rome, we only become more sure about stuff when we hit about the mid to late third century BCE. So we’re about 150 years away from having any good information to work with.

Dr Rad 5:28
So probably be in our 60s for the time we get to that.

Dr G 5:31
But those problems aside, this comes out of the concept of the comitia centuriata, which is this idea that some voting took place in a military style setup, where people were organized into centuries at some point in Rome’s history, the idea of the electoral centuries deviates very wildly from the military setup. That’s not our problem right now. We don’t know what’s going on, really, but we have this group, the comitia centuriata. They all turn up in their little groups. In their centuries, they head to the Campus Martius, and they get involved in a voting thing. Now, the prey rogativo Part of this is a invention that we don’t know when it starts, but it is an innovation where they change who gets to be the first entry to vote. And it used to be the case that it always followed the same order. You would start with the equestrians, strangely enough, and then you’d get into the other groups. But with the concept of the prerogative of what you could do is that you could have a nominated group from one of the higher echelons of society be the first one to vote. It was kind of like a lucky draw, but only the best of the best got to be put into the draw to be selected in the first place, and then they would kind of set the tone for how the rest of the vote should go. Now it wasn’t the case that all the other centuries, necessarily immediately would fall in line with what was voted for by that first group that was chosen as the prey rogativo. There seems to be some ideas that come to us in our very much later sources of the Republic like Cicero, that there was a bit of an omen component to all of this. So it was read as a bit of a sign of how the electoral result was going to go. So there was a persuasive factor in it that for the Romans would have been quite important, because they hold a lot of importance in things that relate to the gods and omens and signs. But that didn’t necessarily seal the deal. But if you had a group that came out and decided that they wanted somebody in to be voted, like this situation with calvis, who hadn’t been nominated, hadn’t put themselves forward, hadn’t canvas or any of that sort of thing, that could really turn the tide for something, because all of a sudden everybody like, yeah, we need that guy, yeah. Why wasn’t he running? And that might have a cascading effect. I

Dr Rad 8:05
think it definitely did. Everyone decided they wanted a taste of that vanilla bean plebeian.

Dr G 8:13
And so this is how you might get somebody voted in who didn’t stand for a position, absolutely,

Dr Rad 8:19
unfortunately. Dr G, he hasn’t got much longer in this position that we’re talking about. We did list our magistrates in the previous episodes. By the way, everyone I know you’re used to us listing out who all the magistrates are. So if you want to know the full details, please go and listen to the previous episode.

Dr G 8:36
I was going to say, I’m not going to put myself through that again. Yeah,

Dr Rad 8:40
definitely not. It’s way too much Latin for anybody to have to repeat. So we were up to this point in my narrative of Livy, where a rumor had gotten out of hand after the Romans had suffered a military reversal in the field against these allies of they, the Faliscans and the Capenates, who, by the way, were not themselves Etruscans, but were allied with they, because they were geographically and presumably politically tied to they, and they understood that the Romans were going to be coming for them, so they had managed to secure this success. Everyone’s panicking in the city. Women are praying. The Romans feel like it really is time for Veii tofall because they’ve done everything that the gods wanted them to do. They have drained that stupid album Lake, which had too much water. They have also made sure that the issue in the previous year where you had the magistrates elected improperly, that’s been resolved. So they’ve repeated whatever rituals or held whatever festivals or sacrifices needed to be held again, so they’re ready. They’re like now is the time God’s to show us that you’ve been paying attention. Have you been paying attention to all the things that we have done to please you? And it turns out, Dr G. That maybe they just have, however, before we get to that moment, it’s time for a dictator to be elected. Because clearly, with one military Tribune with consular power, dead in the field, and the other one disgraced, because this defeat is so embarrassing, you need someone with real chutzpah.

Dr G 10:20
Well, it does make sense, because everybody in Rome, as we noted in the previous episode, is in a bit of a panic. People have rushed to the temples being like guards, help us out. People have run to the walls of the city to look over and be like, can I see the enemy approaching? Like, is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the Etruscins. So that level of panic is the kind of thing that sets the stage up really nicely for the ultimate panic move that Rome has, which is put a dictator in charge, and

Dr Rad 10:56
are you ready to meet him? Dr G my name is Marcus Furius Camillus, father to other people with a similar name, related to people who are Spurius Furius and

Dr G 11:08
I will have my vengeance

Dr Rad 11:12
in this life all the next. I’m part of the Furii clan, but I’m always very calm. Actually, I

Dr G 11:17
feel like we could both be a pretty good Russell Crowe. Maybe we should do that one time.

Dr Rad 11:21
Well, Rusty, if you’re listening, love to have you on the show, mate. Let’s collaborate. So Marcus Furius Camillus is part of our favorite gens, the fury eye, however, lacking the praenomen that we prefer.

Dr G 11:37
He is no Spurius. That’s true, he’s

Dr Rad 11:39
no Spurius. But you know what, it seems like, the ancient Romans didn’t care as much about the alliteration of their names as we did, because he is definitely, I’m gonna get a limb, the most famous of the Furii clan. I’m not gonna go into all the details about him right now, because that will obviously unfold as we go into this. But the whole fall of a that is about to happen very much tied up with this particular figure.

Dr G 12:04
You’ve given away the game too soon. I’m

Dr Rad 12:06
sorry, but I feel like I’ve said it at least 100 times by now, everyone should know. So there’s a few important elements to the story of the fall of a which, as we’ve said, is so crucial to the way that the Romans view their own history. They say this is such a big thing that happens to them, and Camillus is a part of that. Now, we’ve talked in the previous episode about the fact that people like Livy are writing much later. They’re building on a variety of sources. You know, family Chronicles, epic poetry, archeology, presumably like some remains and stuff that they see around and one of the things that they would probably have seen people like Livy. I mean, when I say they there’s a statue of Camillus that was erected and still around, I would say, in his time period. And Camillus actually becomes a really important figure for the way that the Romans think about themselves and what makes a virtuous citizen. You know his story has huge resonance throughout the ages. He’s someone who inspires later, people like the scipios, who we’ll hear about during war with Carthage, Sulla and even your favorite Dr G Augustus, yes. So

Dr G 13:18
Camillus ends up having this incredible reputation. That means that he has a type of fame that within Roman society is pretty rare. It’s ongoing. People refer back to him. He gains a whole bunch of prestigious kind of epithets that are associated with him. This is the start of his journey in some respects that we’re going to be looking at in this particular episode. And I think it’s going to be the culmination of his career as a whole, which I reckon we’ll we’ll do a wrap up episode where we we look at all of that in detail, because this is going to be part of his story, but not the whole of it. And this is the start of the sorts of things that will make his reputation. But it’s not like he gets off to like a fantastic start now, obviously it is an amazing thing to be made dictator. That doesn’t happen to most Roman politicians. There is only a select group of these people that end up in this role, and the idea of the dictator is really a product of need. So Rome has found itself in a desperate situation. They think that everything is looking terrible, and they turn to a single individual and say, can you take charge of everything? Carte blanche while you’re in power, look after this problem and solve it for us. And they choose Camillus in this moment. And it would be amazing if we knew what it was about Camillus that made him the preferred choice. And maybe Livy talks about this, but certainly none of my sources reveal that to me.

Dr Rad 14:57
I was going to say I’m so glad you asked.

Dr G 15:01
I’ve set you up so well, gonna give you

Dr Rad 15:03
a bit of foreshadowing here about Camillus, there is a bit of doubt about whether he actually existed

Dr G 15:10
or, Oh no, he’s

Dr Rad 15:13
one of those people. Look, I think a lot of people agree that he is a historical figure. However, like with a lot of things from this time period, including the fall of they he’s been so mythologized, and there have been so many layers added to him, including, again, by Augustus, the fact that Augustus is like, hey, who am I going to put in my gallery of heroes when I’m working on the forum of Augustus, I know. I’ll put Camillus in there. It’s hard to untangle all of those different layers, because we don’t see a clear emergence where the Romans are gradually adding things. So it’s really hard to know exactly who Camillus was, where he came from, but certainly the fall of they has become an important part of his great story as a citizen of Rome. I think I would say that in the scholarship, most people think that this particular part of his story, this fall of a part of his biography, is probably one of the earlier events that are attached to Camillus and his legend. So whether that makes you feel more secure or not, dear listeners, let us know.

Dr G 16:30
Can I tell you some of the things related to this incident that come up in the source material that I have so you can verify against what Livy might be telling us. So it seems that he becomes dictator. And I don’t have heaps of details about how that comes about, but I suspect it’s the usual way. And then he’s basically in charge of the siege of they and that that seems to be the main thing that he has to take care of. They’re like, solve that problem for us, buddy. Yeah, it’s only been 10 years that have been great to have a solution. And he’s like, Sure, I’m your man. And then I get a various sort of combination of things where he either deviates from that plan slightly and does some things with the Faliscans, or he remarkably

Dr Rad 17:18
Dirty.

Dr G 17:20
He does something for Faliscan. I don’t know if you’re into that sort of thing, but, uh, yeah, something’s going on there. And I can talk about a bit more of that detail later if it indeed fits in this year. And that’s the other thing that I’m struggling with with my source material, is I’m not sure what sits in what year for some of this stuff. But the other story that gets told about the siege of Veii is that he wraps it up quite quickly with a series of tunnels.

Dr Rad 17:44
How dare you ruin the end of my story. I’m sorry, Livy, you’re totally on path. I don’t have much information either about why Camillus is the one who’s chosen. However, lest we forget, Dr G he was one of the elected magistrates for this year, and he is from the Furii who have been very much a part of our narratives for the past 100 years. So one can only assume it’s because he is part of a fairly prominent, influential, powerful Roman Gens. I will say one thing I have noticed whilst reading about Camillus, and made me reflect, because, as I say, he is held up as this Roman general par excellence. He is the fatalis Dux, the fateful leader, the one who comes when Rome needs it the most and turns things around in a really spectacular fashion. It made me realize that, like with movies, often the good guys are more boring than the villains. I mean, look with Roman history, as we talked about, because certain families are thought to have certain character traits. Sometimes it just feels like you’re meeting the same person again and again, because they seem to be very similar to each other if they’re from the same family, like with the happiest Claudius of the world that we have met, but there’s still something kind of fantastic about how evil those sorts of people are in our minds, by our standards, whereas someone like Camillus, I don’t get a strong sense of his character. And maybe this is because he’s been a little bit mythologized. Hmm, maybe it’s also because the Roman virtues for someone to be considered an exemplar, because Camillus definitely becomes an exemplar. So that’s where the Romans tell a story about a person and hold it up so that other Romans can learn from their example about how to behave politically, how to behave as a citizen, how to behave militarily, because that’s part of their whole idea of citizenship. And being a good Roman, Camillus is definitely one of those. And it’s been a little while since I feel like we’ve had one of these figures who is an exemplar for others to follow well,

Dr G 19:48
but it’s not like he is a clean, straight laced exemplar that you can just hold up and be like, Look at this heroic figure who does everything right, because he seems to get. Whole bunch of things wrong.

Dr Rad 20:01
Well, does he or did the Romans get it wrong and then they felt really bad about it? No, wait

Dr G 20:05
for it. I mean, I I assume that Livy would have this story about Camillus. But part of the problem for Camillus with the siege of they and however he takes it and the complexities of this tunnel system are outside of my source material, but I’m excited that they’re there, because I always think tunnels are highly unlikely in the ancient world as a system. But you know, how long does it take you to dig a tunnel? I don’t know. And how many tunnels did you have? I don’t know. Have they been working on them for nine years? And it’s just that Camillus finished the tunnels. I don’t know that could be believable, but there is this story that is also told in companion with this story about how great he is, and how he is this sort of exemplary leader, where he seems to have a bit of a mixed relationship with the gods.

Dr Rad 21:02
Should we save that for later in his story? I

Dr G 21:06
don’t know. I mean,

Dr Rad 21:09
look, I tell you what I’m gonna say, let’s save it, because I think I know what you’re going, where you’re gonna go, and that’s like the end of the narrative that Livy gives me. Oh, you reckon okay. I reckon so. I reckon so. Look, I do think I know what you mean, and I’ll just say at this point in time that, yeah, you’re right. But Roman examples, I don’t think have to be perfect. It’s more that, I suppose it’s more that they are thought to teach something important in at least the majority of their life. And look, I think his failings also say something that’s important too. It’s not that they can’t make mistakes. To me, they tend to be a little bit robotic, almost in the way that they behave. But anyway, we will see. So we have our dictator Camillus, who we will go into later. We also obviously need a master of the horse, every dictator’s assistant,

Dr G 21:58
Yeah, gotta have somebody to do the paperwork. I mean, exactly.

Dr Rad 22:02
Can’t expect the dictator to do it. He’s got way too much to do. We’ve got Publius Cornelius Scipio. Now this is a name that might ring some bells to people. So the scipiones come from the malukinensis, that horrible name that we hate to say. And he is actually listed in the Fasti as Publius Cornelius Maluginenses. Now, what does that say to you? Dr G,

Dr G 22:28
that says to me that the scipios are trying to borrow his story from later on. Yeah, they decided they wanted to hop on that bandwagon. There might be two branches of that family. And yeah, I’m not, I’m not sure. But I mean, the Cornelii are a very exceptional, well known foundational partition family as well. So yeah, the layers of the way that these families will then branch out is going to become important to understanding how Roman political structures operate, because it the family thing is huge. So, yeah,

Dr Rad 23:01
look, it’s not impossible that there is somebody from this family at this point in time which will become a very big deal. But we don’t have someone that we feel super confident about from this family until the 350

Dr G 23:17
I was gonna say, I feel like, yeah, it’s too early for scipiones. This

Dr Rad 23:21
is the general feeling, but nonetheless, here they are again, potentially showing us that the analysts or Livy are using sources from this family, and that’s how they end up in earlier periods than they perhaps should be. How convenient? Yes, with the dictator, chosen master of the horse, chosen Rome, apparently, like they’ve had a makeover. They’re feeling wildly optimistic. All of a sudden, their morale is through the roof. I mean, Rome is just literally bursting with possibility at this moment in time. Dr, G, it’s

Dr G 23:56
a quick turnaround. It’s the like the highs and the lows. Rome is having a very emotional roller coaster ride right now. They’ve they’ve had that huge dip where they’re like, the ambush and the tragedy, and now they’re like, and now we’ve got the best guy in as dictator, and it’s going to be great. I

Dr Rad 24:12
love the way that the Romans work. Now the first thing that Camillus does as dictator is he decides he needs to dish out punishment for anyone who ran away from the encampment at they during all that horrible panic. Oh, no, yeah. He’s like, you found that scary? You found the Falsicans and the Capenates coming at you scary. I’ll show you scary, my friends. So he deals with that situation because he can’t have cowards, right? Certainly not involved in a siege. Can’t have that, Okay, fair enough. He also needs to set a levy. Gonna need some troops, obviously. So he sets a levy. He then rushes out to they, because He wants to spread that optimism to the encampment in front of they. Then he’s back to Rome. Him for the levy, which he had set before he left. He’s just zipping all over the place. And because Camillus is so amazing, there are no problems at all with this Levy. In fact, everyone is super keen to get in line and serve Camillus. I was

Dr G 25:15
gonna say this is why they made him dictator, because obviously he’s charismatic, and it’s like, it’s hard to resist. And you’re like, sign me up if I have to die, I want to die under Camillus, exactly

Dr Rad 25:27
what the Romans are feeling at that point in time. In fact, not just the Romans. Dr G, the Latins and the Hernicians, who you alluded to earlier, also said, Rome, we’re totally behind you in this my friend, Sign me up. What a man and Camillus gives official thanks to their allies in the Senate. He’s like, thanks very much, guys. Presumably this means that there were envoys who had been sent from the Latins and hanisians who made some sort of official presentation. Got my slideshow here. Sorry, the PowerPoints just on the on the fritz. Just wait one second. So

Dr G 26:02
this is the location of Veii. This is Rome. And as you can see, we just down here. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to send some of our men up to Rome, and then they’re going to join with Rome, and then they’re all going to move north, you see, and that’s how we’re going to do it.

Dr Rad 26:16
Bob’s your uncle, mate, sweet as. Camillus’ also makes some large promises. Dr G he says that there will be great games, not just games, great games celebrated if they is taken, and this is apparently in pursuance of a senatorial decree, which seems anachronistic, because we don’t think the Senate issued senatorial decrees at this moment in time. But let’s ignore that and pursue our narrative. He also says that he will restore and rededicate the Temple of Mater Matuta, which had been originally set up by my favorite King Servius Tullius. Yes,

Dr G 26:58
yes. Now this does come up in some of my source material as well. So this also is Plutarch, who also insists that the master of the horse is Cornelius Scipio, which I did nothing with in my notes originally, because I was like, yeah, that’s not a thing. But now that you’ve mentioned it, I can, I can confirm that that is an idea that continues. But yes, this idea that there will be a dedication to the Goddess mata matuta and the great games is something that Plutarch definitely goes into. And Mater Matuta herself is a pretty ancient kind of deity. So she’s known in Italy. She’s known in Rome. And the matuta name has a couple of different meanings, the idea of in the right moment. So she’s the mother of the right moment. This is also translated as the good mother. And so there’s this sense in which she is also has bears resemblance to later Christian figures as well. So she’s often depicted holding a child with a solar disc around her head. And might be giving some people some imagery. How

Dr Rad 28:11
suspicious,

Dr G 28:13
and we know that she has an archeological record that goes back to at least the seventh century BC. So there’s some votive offerings that are found in Latium that are connected to her. Hers is one of the oldest temples that we know about archeologically in Rome as well. So her temple is right near the forum boarium, which, if you’ve been to Rome, or you plan to go, is right across the road from where you’ve got the guy that you can put your hand in the Mouth of Truth, the Mouth of Truth just across the road. And there’s a very impressive circular temple there that you can see that’s to Hercules Victor, which is a much later temple. But below that there are some foundations for a temple to mata matuda, so she’s considered quite ancient, even within the archeological record of Rome. So for Camillus to heart, back to her, there is some good evidence to suggest that that’s not a crazy thing to do, that she is a goddess that the Romans are already very interested in and have been interested in for a long time. And maybe this is a moment of potential renewal for her cult, which is kind of exciting.

Dr Rad 29:25
Of course, it’s not crazy. It’s Camillus that we’re talking about here. He’s going to do everything to inspire the Romans and make sure that they get this amazing victory, which is right there, Dr G, right

Dr G 29:40
so close, so close, we can almost see it. We

Dr Rad 29:43
can almost see it. So Camillus and his army, freshly gathered, march out. They fight those darn Faliscans and Capenates in the country of the Nepesine, which I believe refers to the town of Nepi which. If you were going to Italy nowadays, would be known as nepi and as you might expect, is to the north of Rome. Everything’s to the north of Rome at moment.

Dr G 30:10
I mean that. I mean that, obviously this is their big deal at the moment, everything to the north.

Dr Rad 30:16
So as you would expect, Camillus is very prepared. He has thought things through, unlike titanius and gaucius from the previous year. And so everything goes to plan. The Romans completely trounce the enemy. They take their camp. They take loads of booty. And I can’t emphasize enough loads of booty. How

Dr G 30:40
big is the booty? A lot.

Dr Rad 30:42
Yes, exactly. It’s very, very impressive. Most of it is given to the quaestor, though not directly to the soldiers. That’s going to become an important detail later. I think remember

Dr G 30:55
this detail, the quaestor has all the booty

Dr Rad 30:59
they’re off to find ve itself, and this is where they start to take a different approach, because Camillus is a genius. So previously, because it was a siege, you’ve got men on both sides, and they’re constantly engaging in minor skirmishes. 10 years of minor skirmishes. Oh god, yeah, I’m gonna throw this at you, and you’re gonna throw a stick at me, and I might throw something sharp and pointy, and

Dr G 31:29
your mother smells of elderberries.

Dr Rad 31:31
Yeah. I don’t know what a skirmish looks like in a siege, but you know, particularly between the town walls, where the Romans have set up this. Okay, that’s obviously where the action has been concentrated for the past 10 years, but we can all say it’s not really going anywhere fast. So Camillus says to the people who are assembled there, no one is to fight unless I personally give you a specific order that you are allowed to fight. So no fighting whatsoever. I don’t care what names they call you. I don’t care if they’re giving you the stink eye. I don’t care if they spit in your general direction. Not happening.

Dr G 32:08
All right, so if the population of they were to decide to make an attack under these circumstances, are the Romans just to lie down and let it happen to them?

Dr Rad 32:20
Look, these are questions I don’t have time for. Look, I presume if they were attacked, obviously, that would be a different story. But he means no more skirmishing. Just lay low. You don’t need to fight. Just walk away. Just walk away.

Dr G 32:35
Don’t think you’re in charge of this siege. And start your own skirmishes because you’re feeling in a bad

Dr Rad 32:40
mood. Instead, it’s time to dig, send down 30 feet of rope. Now this is what is where we come back to what you were talking about, the tunnels. The plan is they’re going to dig a mine that will take them right to the Citadel of they and for those of you who don’t watch enough fantasy stuff, or aren’t into ancient warfare, when we’re talking about the Citadel, we’re talking about the heart of they also

Dr G 33:08
don’t think too hard about this from a geographic perspective, because the city of they, as we know, is sitting on a plateau of tufa. So it’s going to take some time to hack away at the sheer rock that this city is sitting on to create a whole series of tunnels.

Dr Rad 33:26
Camillus is way ahead of you. Dr G, he has a plan. Okay? He knows that in order to get through this as quickly as possible, he needs someone to be digging at all times. So he splits the men into six groups, and each group has to work for six hours at a time, and then they rotate. So that way the digging is happening day and night, night and day.

Dr G 33:52
This is a Okay. So we’ve got a workforce that is operating 24/7, for however long it takes to cut through all of that rock. Yep, cool.

Dr Rad 34:05
And now this is an interesting point, because we’ve been talking a lot about tunnels when it comes to things connected with Veii. So obviously we’ve talked about the tunnel that was built in order to drain the excess water from the Alban Lake, which apparently needed to happen in order for the Romans to secure victory against Veii, and that would be the moment when they became vulnerable, the vulnerable Veieans, that’s right. Yep. We also, lest we forget, Dr G had a tunnel mentioned in a previous conflict with Veii when Fidenae was the bone of contention back in the 430s or the 420s who knew when that was taking place? But definitely earlier than this. I

Dr G 34:49
think the thing to keep in mind here is that once Livy has introduced the idea of tunnels into his narrative, it’s just going to keep going. So. Once we have this concept of tunnels being used for military purposes, everybody gets excited, and now you can use them all the time. It seems challenging. Like Veii is a city that is sitting in a reasonably hilly area. It is a volcanic area. It gets its water not just from the nearby river, but also from the spring systems, which are endemic in this region of Italy because of the volcanic activity. So there is a lot of natural sort of water courses that are happening underground. You could follow some of them potentially and open them up more. That might be a way to build some tunnels, but it does seem like a tricky business. I’m not saying that the Romans aren’t capable of it, but I do have some questions, and I’m not sure that we’ve seen archeologically that there’s any evidence for tunnels underneath they although I’m happy to stand corrected, please atroccologists, get in touch with us and help us out with this thorny question of the siege of Veiiand the tunnels that are apparently associated

Dr Rad 36:04
with it. Well, I can’t class myself as an Etruscanologist. However, it is possible, as you’ve said, that this seems to be part of the narrative in multiple ways. And we know that there is actually some sort of tunnel with the Alban Lake situation. So there is some proof there. It’s possible that, obviously this became an older part of the story, that people like the analysts and then Livy had to weave the narrative around it and incorporate it somehow. It is an entirely out of the question, because we know that the Greeks did use siege mines. So for example, there is one used at the siege of platea by the plateans. So that does happen. We do also know that there are these things, these cuniculi, which are drainage tunnels, which are found throughout the landscape in this area. It is possible that rather than, say, digging it, which, as you say, might be tough, maybe the Romans found a drainage tunnel that had been blocked up or closed off, and they just emptied it, and that’s what they were doing. However you are quite right. I believe that at the moment, we haven’t found one where you might expect to find one. So there definitely are some questions about this, but I don’t want to discredit Camillus, because the Romans certainly think he is the ants pants.

Dr G 37:32
Yes, I was going to

Dr Rad 37:34
say the bee’s knees. Yeah, as you say, it’s all very quickly turned around. You know, Camillus can tell that victory is near because of his genius digging program. They’re digging for victory.

Dr G 37:48
They’re digging, yeah,

Dr Rad 37:51
and he knows that he is getting very close to being able to seize they. And he also understands just what this will mean for Rome. This is such a big deal. They is really their only big competitor in this region, as we’ve talked about, in spite of the political reasons that we’re given for this conflict, there’s an awful lot of other stuff at stake here too. So Camillus knows that this is going to be really, really big. In fact, he’s expecting that there will be more booty in the capture of a wealthy Etruscan city like they then. The Romans have perhaps ever captured before, if you put everything that they’ve done all together,

Dr G 38:25
especially considering they’re often like just exchanging booty and finding refining their sandals that they lost last time, this would be a chance to actually acquire new stuff.

Dr Rad 38:35
I’m telling you, you know, laundry markers could have changed everything for them. Now, thinking ahead, because Camillus is a planner, as we know. He’s no titanius organucius. He’s worried about, what is he gonna do with all this booty? What are you gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?

Dr G 38:54
That’s a good question. What is he gonna do? Well,

Dr Rad 38:57
he understands that the soldiers might turn against him if he’s not seen as being generous enough to them with this booty. So there’s obviously an expectation that, given that they have put aside their weekend plans to help him conquer they there is an expectation that they will be rewarded for their efforts. However, the Senate might be angry if he’s too generous to the average soldier. Now I should say Livy actually says the fathers, but as we know, he uses these terms very interchangeably, so I’m presuming he means the Senate, because he immediately writes to the Senate and says, Look, victory is getting near. It’s going to be amazing. What should I do with all the stuff that I’m about to capture so brilliantly? The Senate had different opinions, and this is where we get into my favorite part of this narrative. We go back to our friend old puble. Licinius calvis, Oh, Mr. Moderate himself, all right, Mr. Moderate himself, who was apparently too old to be magistrate, and yet his son says to him, Dad, I want you to take the floor. Hmm, why would this happen? You ask good question. Dr, G, there is absolutely no reason why this would happen. It would be extremely odd for someone who is not a magistrate and a plebeian to boot, randomly be asked to be the first to speak on such an important matter over all the patrician senators who apparently are staring daggers at him right now. Why is he considered so senior in the Roman state right now that after being the first plebeian military Tribune with consular power, after coming out of nowhere in 400 all of a sudden, four years later, he gets elected without running for office when he doesn’t want to do it. He’s like, Oh, take my son. And everyone’s like, Yeah, cool. And then in a moment of great, important public debate, and his son’s like, Dad, I want to hear from you. Everyone’s totally fine with this look. I

Dr G 41:12
think I am incredulous, and I hear the incredulity in your voice as well. So I think we’re on a similar sort of emotional wavelength here. But I also wonder about the nature of what characterizes the Senate, because this is true. Age is definitely a huge factor. Of considerable years

Dr Rad 41:36
old and his memory’s going asides going exactly

Dr G 41:38
this is guy’s bit deaf, having trouble seeing doesn’t seem like he’s up to the gig. Is old enough that he feels like he should nominate his son to do most of the work. But when push comes to shove, his son is like, actually, I think my dad needs to take the floor and have something to say. There is a very conservative tradition amongst the senators about who gets to speak and when. Sure, and we know a lot of that from later periods of history, not so much this period. But if this group of fathers, which for so long we just assumed was all patrician, but as it has turned out now, seems to have always had at least one Levy.

Dr Rad 42:23
It’s this guy and his family the whole time, the

Dr G 42:28
whole time, maybe they’ve been there for a while. So he may actually be in a position of quite seniority within the context of the Senate itself, and often asking the oldest to speak first is less about monetary capacity or other ways that you might measure somebody’s worth within the context of Roman society, and is actually that idea of the fathers and the wisdom that comes from your elders. And potentially, this is what’s going on for calvis In this moment, where they’re like, he is really old. Maybe he’s got something to say.

Dr Rad 43:08
Look, I hear what you’re saying. I totally get it. You’re right. He is very elderly. But the idea that there aren’t equally old patricians who I mean, think about all the times we read out the list of magistrates and we’re like, oh yeah, this guy’s had about eight. You know, I just find it hard to believe that the one military tribuneship With consular power that he’s held somehow makes him outrank everyone else. Just considering that we had not heard of this guy up until a few episodes ago. It just seems so funny. And again, it kind of indicates that Livy must be leaning on Licinius Macer or Macer, depending on your preference, as a source who wrote about his family’s achievements when he was writing his work. So I just kind of feel like that maybe has something to do with it. On top of which, as we said last time, most of our sources, apart from Livy, agree that the dad is the one who’s the magistrate. So this would indicate that if he’s the one who’s speaking first, he’s speaking, because he’s an old magistrate in power. That would make sense this whole idea that his son held the office in his place. And then thought, You know what, this is my moment to shine, but Dad, you take the floor.

Dr G 44:27
Look. I could still believe that. To be honest, the idea is not so much that Calvus is not the preferred candidate in flavor of his son. He’s delegated some of the job to his son. He may still very well be the magistrate, and even if he’s not, and technically, his son is fulfilling the role. Everybody knows that it was Calvus The elder that people wanted in the position, so they’re still going to defer to him, because he’s got all of the cache. That has been built up through everything else. We’re missing the incidents that’s Yeah,

Dr Rad 45:07
totally. Anyway. Look, there are some questions. There are some questions clearly, but we will proceed.

Dr G 45:12
And like many things, we do not have the answers. So

Dr Rad 45:17
Licinius Calvus Senior, he stands up and he says there should be a public proclamation issued where anyone who wants some of the spoils that are going to come from, they need to get up and go to the camp at Vay right now. That’s the way you stake your claim. You get up and you go, wow. Strange system. But okay, I guess it dips. It’s basically ancient Roman. Dibs.

Dr G 45:42
We are not carrying it back for you. You won’t have to go yourself

Dr Rad 45:47
too much stuff. It’s a wealthy city like come on, guys, unreasonable. Now our old friend Appius Claudius is now going to take the floor in opposition to Calvus. For those of you who haven’t listened to the past million episodes that we’ve released, appias Claudius, the Appii Claudii, they’re known for being Uber patricians, very conservative. So no shock that this particular Appius Claudius thinks that this is an outrageous suggestion, far too generous, not at all fair. In fact, indicates that this dude is too old. He’s gone crazy, lost his marbles. No. Thank you.

Dr G 46:25
This is a bullock suggestion. Yeah.

Dr Rad 46:27
Now, you know, I hate to side with someone from this family with my natural leftist leanings. However, once again, there is a little bit of sense to what he says, If we believe this whole narrative, which is that Rome has been going through a lot of warfare lately. In case no one’s noticed there’s a siege going on, that’s kind of why we’re having this conversation. The Treasury is drained because of all this conflict. They should instead use whatever booty comes from the capture of a to pay the soldiers once again. Dr G, they the siege of a it all comes back to this question of military pay. Okay,

Dr G 47:09
well, that would make more sense in many respects, absolutely, let’s pay the people who have done the job.

Dr Rad 47:15
On top of which he actually points out that this would be of benefit to the plebs, because, whilst they’re not getting the booty in their pocket immediately, it would mean that less war tax is required to fund military pay, which apparently is something else that exists at the moment, and we’ve had discussions about the reality of that, but I’m not going to get into it again. So everyone would benefit in one way or another, if they just were sensible and put the booty in the bank.

Dr G 47:45
All right. Well, okay, so that means somebody’s definitely going to have to carry it from they to Rome, because how did it? Can’t just stay in Veii. That’s not how gaining wealth works. It’s all based on the physical stuff you’ve you’ve got to move it.

Dr Rad 48:00
Look, I hear your practical sense coming through. Miss Virgo, but I don’t think that this is what Appius Claudius is most worried about. His big concern is that lazy city slicker types are going to swoop in and take the rewards won by others and the real fighters, the real heroes, Dr G the men who’ve been on the front lines would miss out. So this is another very important point that he makes, that noble fighters from Rome always are the least greedy, and therefore they’re going to miss out if the Romans don’t take some sensible steps here. Wow.

Dr G 48:41
This is just a moment where Rome is like, we’re about to be more successful than we’ve ever been, and we do not know how to handle that.

Dr Rad 48:50
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It’s their lottery day, and they’re like, oh my god, we’re gonna be millionaires. What do we do? A new house. We put in a pool.

Dr G 48:57
I need a financial planner. They haven’t even won yet. They’re getting well ahead of themselves. It’s

Dr Rad 49:04
a shoe in Dr G. I mean, this is the funny thing, right? After a 10 year siege, I love the fact that everyone keeps saying, Oh, they’re trying to build it up to be like the Trojan War. Like this is nothing like the Trojan War in the sense that it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point in time. We all know it’s really hard to tell the story of the siege of a without giving away the ending, because we all know where it’s going, because they knew before it happened that it was going to happen. But anyway, now Livy is doing his thing here, where he has very contrasting speakers. You know, Calvus, obviously, is our vanilla bean plebeian, very moderate. Appius Claudius, once again, going in hard like his family always does, being able to play the plebeians like a fiddle and the patricians, to be fair, everybody loves a good speech from one of the Appian Claudius. However, Licinius comes back. Licunius Calvus comes back with another attack. He’s. Says, Look, this money is going to cause huge problems. Let’s be honest, the plebeians are going to arc up if we don’t look after them, and it’s going to lead to them making outrageous demands, like laws that might be to their benefit outrageous. Why not take this moment to get the plebs on side by being very generous. They are extremely tired. We can all see that they’ve been very cranky every morning. They’re not in a good mood. They’re teary all the time.

Dr G 50:32
10 years of a siege will do that to you? Yeah.

Dr Rad 50:36
They’re also broke, after so many years of having to pay this apparent war tax, which obviously is paid by everybody. It’s not just something that’s peculiar to the plebeians. However, obviously it’s toughest for the poorer people who are apparently the plebeians, at this moment in time to pay this particular war tax. It would mean so much to them as well, in a symbolic sort of way, if they were able to take something from the enemy rather than have decisions made for them and then be divvied up to them, is some form of payout or some sort of benefit, it would mean more to take it with their own hands, to be like, Aha, I’m taking this vase, and I don’t care What you have to say about it, person from Veii, you’re my enemy. The Senate would also come away from this looking like the coolest dudes. They’d be Mr. Popular all over the place, and we could all use a little bit of that.

Dr G 51:38
Goodness me, what a time to be alive as a Roman watching.

Dr Rad 51:44
I feel like I have to tell you where this debate ends up.

Dr G 51:47
Please do. I mean, I have some details, but I’m just not even sure where they fit at this point in time. So I’m really waiting for the end of this debate so I can figure out what to tell

Dr Rad 51:55
you next. I told you, this is a long 396, it’s a big year. Yeah, it’s amazing. I’m enjoying it. In the end, they go with Licinius, and a public proclamation is made that if you want a payout, you need to go to they and get it yourself. Oh, boy,

Dr G 52:12
after Appius Claudius was so reasonable and everything

Dr Rad 52:14
I know. Look, I have to admit, there is something annoyingly pragmatic about what he says, and that was the case the last time we had a big speech from somebody from this family. I can’t actually remember if it was the same guy. It probably was. Wasn’t that long ago. So lots of Romans do indeed hit the road and go to the camp because they want to get their pair out.

Dr G 52:35
I want my booty. They open the walls.

Dr Rad 52:39
Now, I know we are getting to a bit of a long point with this episode, but we’re so close to they actually falling I feel like I have to take you there. Dr G, take me there. I’m ready. So in the camp Camillus Is there, like a good general and a good Roman, he takes the auspices to make sure that everything is in their favor now. Dr G, do you want to tell us a bit about why he’d be doing this. What are the auspices?

Dr G 53:01
Well, it’s very important you can’t undertake any military action without consulting the gods first. So the auspices is when you look at the patterns of bird movements, generally speaking. So if you have been in Europe, you will have probably been lucky enough at some point to see a muration of starlings. For instance, the patterns that these birds make when they move around the sky can be incredible. Now, it’s not just starlings that you might be interested in. It could be eagles. It could be vultures, whatever’s out there, but reading and interpreting those signs gives you an indication of maybe how the gods are feeling whether it’s a good time to do a bit of an attack where it’s time to open up those tunnels and burst out of your Trojan tunnels, slash horse, is it time? Nobody knows. So consulting the birds can really help with something like that. So Camillus undertaking that duty, it does make sense. As a dictator, there is a sense in which there is a religious element to the role, and he could be very well in charge of looking after that side of things as well. So he may have some people on hand to help with the interpretation, but definitely he would be allowed to lead something like that, and it would be important for him to do so in the eyes of everybody from the Roman side, to make sure that everything is okay for going ahead with whatever happens next.

Dr Rad 54:29
Well, he clearly got the green light from the birds, and so he goes out, prepares the soldiers. He also chooses this moment to make a vow. Now, I know you’re going to want to jump in on this, but I’m I’m just going to tell the narrative and then we can unpack it later. So he makes a vow that he was led by Pythian Apollo. So probably because of the connection the Romans have had in recent years with this whole siege the lake Delphi. And with this God on his side, he is going to be able to conquer they and as a token of his appreciation, he is going to send Apollo the most gigantic box of Lindt chocolates. No, I’m just kidding. He’s going to send a tithe of whatever spoils he captures to Apollo. He also asks Juno, a very important goddess in ve to switch sides and come and live in Rome once they have totally trashed the city where she currently is hanging out. And he promises he would set up a really lovely temple with a white picket fence and a slide in the backyard, if she would agree to come over.

Dr G 55:44
He’s like, hey, girlfriend, you want to come over to my place? Forget these guys.

Dr Rad 55:49
Yeah. Now there’s a moment that we’re going to have to talk about with that later, but for now, I’m going to proceed. So Camillus now makes his advance against fair that much anticipated moment. He’s many soldiers on his side, because the Romans could not be more enthusiastic about this. And they attack. They on every side. However, this is not the key to victory. Dr G, this is a mere distraction from the real attack, which is, of course, through the tunnels. That’s right, we’ve seen the Romans do this many times, where they have a distraction and then the real thing going on elsewhere. This is a popular military tactic. Now the people of they did not know that the odds are totally stacked against them at this point in time. Of course, we know that there’s been an old soothsayer from they who’s totally betrayed his people by telling the Romans everything, maybe under torture, to be fair, but they don’t know that. They don’t know all the stuff that the Romans know at this point in time. They don’t know that the Delphic Oracle has said that they is going to fall. They don’t know that the gods had been made these promises if they switched sides and desert them so they have no idea of what is coming. They also have no idea about the mine. Apparently, all that digging was incredibly quiet. They had silences on their pickaxes. So they just do what they would normally do. They run to the ramparts. They’ve got their weapons. They’re wondering why? All of a sudden, after being pretty Quiet on the Western Front for a while, No, I shouldn’t say that pretty quiet on the Northern Front for a while, the Romans are being incredibly energetic in their attack. They’re like, Oh, what is going on? That’s been very, very tame, and now all of a sudden it’s like, they’re mad men, and we’re being attacked on all sides, what is going on. Now, I do love this next part, because Livy tells me specifically, and I quote my translation at this point, men introduce a tale. For those of you who love historiography, this is history being made before our eyes. People, this is Livy telling me that he doesn’t believe this story for a second, but he’s going to include it anyway, because it’s become a part of the folklore of the fall of they, and that is that the king of they, the douchebag that barely started all of this, just because he wasn’t very well liked, was making a sacrifice. Now, the Romans in the mine have dug so deeply into they that they can actually hear what is going on, because they haven’t broken through the wall yet. But you know, they can hear it. They hear the soothsayer that is with the king say that whoever cut up the innards of the animal that he’s about to sacrifice would win this war between Rome and they. So they instantly seize their mermaid. They’re like now, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. They break through the wall, they grab the entrails, they race back through the mine, and they present Camillus with the entrails so that he can be the person who cuts them and wins the war. Sounds tasty and not at all slippery. I know delightful, just the kind of thing you want to hear before a meal. However, Livy knows he’s talking about something that happened a really long time ago, and I love what he says about it. He says this story more fit to be displayed on the stage that delights in wonders than to be believed. It is worthwhile neither to affirm nor to refute. He’s like, You know what this is for the movies. I’m not even gonna talk about it. It’s not worth my time. What

Dr G 59:31
a tricky moment in Roman history, bursting in on a sacrifice. And, yeah, you know, stealing the entrails.

Dr Rad 59:41
You can see why. You know, I said in the previous episode that this part of Livy, where he’s talking about the fall of Veii is often something that people like to capture. This is where I think you can get that sort of cinematic feeling from Livy, even he knows it. Let’s get back to reality in the mind filled with soldiers and all of us. Sudden, they break through into the temple of Juno, which was on the Citadel of a which was their target point. So all of a sudden they are attacking some of the people from they from behind. You know, they’re not expecting this. Obviously, they had no idea that the mind was there. Even though the Romans can hear them, they can’t hear the Romans naturally intriguing others. Others race off to break down the gates. Women and slaves inside, they are apparently throwing stones and tiles at the Romans from the roof, and some of the Romans then retaliate by attacking them with fire. Interesting little detail there. We do know some things about roof tiles. They are often thrown.

Dr G 1:00:41
They can be deadly. Yeah, those things are

Dr Rad 1:00:44
heavy. The horrific sound of war fills the air. Women are screaming, children are crying, men are shouting. It did not take long for soldiers to be thrown over the walls of their city and the gates of they to be opened. The Romans are able to storm this enemy city. Battle is taking place literally everywhere. It’s

Dr G 1:01:14
happening in the streets. Now, the weakness of the tunnel coming from within, it’s not looking good for they

Dr Rad 1:01:21
and so Veii is taken. Dr G, it falls, just like we knew it always would, thanks to that trait of this there and the lake and the Delphic Oracle. And as it all starts to wind down, because the Romans have secured their victory, Camillus has his heralds proclaim that anyone without weapons will be spared, because, being an all round nice guy, he wants to prevent a lot of unnecessary killing from taking place. So those without weapons handed themselves over. The Romans, however, now turn their eye to the really important part of this mission, and that is booty, and that might be a good place, I think, to pause, because they has now fallen, but there’s a whole lot of stuff that we’re going to need to unpack about that next episode, I think. And as we get into the question of booty,

Dr G 1:02:18
yes, I think so. Now, one of the things that is common in the sources that I have is a prayer that Camillus makes to the god Jupiter, amongst others. And I’m not sure about where that happens in this timeline either, because it hasn’t come up in Livy’s account yet. So there is this one thing about Camillus journey this far as dictator and into the heart of they, which I think is worth mentioning because it’s going to start to have some consequences for him. And this is the moment where he offers a prayer to the gods, and in the moment of doing so, he makes some promises, like, I want this to all go really well. I’ll do whatever is needful to make sure that the gods are kept happy. I’m willing to accept personally any blame for stuff that doesn’t go well with this whole situation. So as dictator, and also fulfilling that kind of religious service function in this role, he’s really trying to make sure that everything gets pulled off really nicely. And the weird detail that continues to come up about this moment is that, as he’s doing this whole prayer thing and being like, let’s make this whole situation as great as possible. I’ll make this as good as I can. I’ll do whatever is needful. I’ll make the sacrifices. I’ll give you the things later, if as long as we can pull this off, God’s help me out. At the end of the prayer, he has a bit of a fall down. He has, yeah, he stumbles. So he has this moment where he’s like, I’m going to make this go as as well as I can be in right relationship with the gods. But the moment where he turns around, because apparently he’s veiled his head, which is a very traditional and appropriate Roman thing to do in this context of addressing the gods, to appear veiled as he turns around, slipping seems to be a pretty bad sign about how all of this is going to work out, either for Rome or for him, and I feel like that leaves us with another little bit of a cliffhanger, even though we seem to be in a really successful moment for Rome and its siege of a which seems to be in the midst of concluding now in a very successful way for the Romans. But this little religious stumble is perhaps going to be a problem for old mate Camillus. Yes.

Dr Rad 1:05:00
Now look, you are totally right in Livy’s account. It’s when he’s looking at all the booty that the Romans have just gathered after they’ve finished the fighting part of this evening’s entertainment, and he it’s just more than he could ever imagine. And that’s when he starts doing that thing where he gives thanks to the gods. And it is an interesting prayer, and it is one, I think, that repeats in Roman history. We might talk about that a bit again another day. But it’s certainly that idea that he says, Look, if any of the gods or any other men thought that he was being given too much good fortune and would get jealous of him, then he would personally sort that out and deal with that, hopefully without damaging his own prospects and life, and without any damage to Rome itself and the Roman people, which is a really weird thing to say, if you think about it, it’s not that. He’s not just saying thanks for the booty he’s making this really weird thing. And as you say in Livy’s account, he does fall over, which everybody sees as an omen, apparently. But I agree with you. I think it is more indicative of the fact that in Camillus’ life there are going to be some low lows as well as some high highs. Oh

Dr G 1:06:18
boy. Well, strap yourselves in. Listeners, Camillus, wild ride has only really just begun, it would seem, oh

Dr Rad 1:06:26
yes. And so, dr, G, I think it’s time for the partial pick.

Dr G 1:06:37
Okay, the partial pick? Well, Rome, let’s see how you stuck up against your own credentials. We have five categories of which they can earn up to 10 golden eagles in each one. So if Rome is being as Rome as it possibly could be, they could end up with 50 golden eagles. So let’s see how they go. Okay,

Dr Rad 1:07:00
so for this part of 396, military clout. Dr, G, what do you reckon? Wow.

Dr G 1:07:06
I mean, top notch military clout. I mean, they’re wiping the floor. They’re taking a whole city. It’s all going really well. There’s tunnels, there’s wall assaults. Everybody’s having a great time. People sign up willingly to the levy.

Dr Rad 1:07:21
Going, great, go to the plebs. Insight,

Dr G 1:07:25
it’s basically as good as it could be. Yeah, I feel like, you know we’re we’re nine or 10 territory here. I think

Dr Rad 1:07:31
so too, because, you know, it’s not just they obviously remember, Camillus has dealt with the Faliscans and Capenates with zero trouble. I mean, so little trouble. We don’t even get an account of what exactly happened. We just get told that it’s done dusted. Well,

Dr G 1:07:44
I might be able to tell you some more details about what happened, at least with the Philistines next episode. Oh, yeah.

Dr Rad 1:07:50
No, that. We’ll get to some stuff about them. But I mean, the the initial, the initial, putting them in their place, that’s just effortless, done

Dr G 1:07:57
and dusted. Yeah, yeah. Military clout, 10 out of 10. Golden Eggs.

Dr Rad 1:08:03
Remember the last time we did that? In fact, I don’t know if we’ve

Dr G 1:08:06
ever given a 10. Yeah, this is impressive stuff. The second category is diplomacy.

Dr Rad 1:08:13
Okay? I feel like this is not as good. I mean, we do have the Latins and Hernicians coming to Rome and saying, Whatever you do Rome, we’re there for you. And Camillus being like, Thanks, guys. I tip my hat to you. I tip my laurel wreath,

Dr G 1:08:31
yes, but it’s not at all clear that the Romans necessarily went out of their way to source that support in this particular instance, or whether the Latins and hanushe came to Roma, were like, Well, looks like you could use some help. Or, you know, so it’s not the details of it is not clear. So the idea, the central question here is, how much negotiation is being employed by the Romans in order to reach their goals? And since I’m not sure about that, but they do have some help, so we have to assume there’s some negotiation, even though we don’t know what it was. Then maybe we’re looking at like a four or five.

Dr Rad 1:09:11
Oh, wow. That’s way more than I was going for. I was gonna give them like a two.

Dr G 1:09:16
I’m clearly having a good day where I’m being very generous.

Dr Rad 1:09:20
You know what? You’ve been infected by Camillus spirit, just like the Romans were. You’re feeling wildly optimistic. I am being way too generous.

Dr G 1:09:29
Well, how about a three then, okay, three, it is expansion. Yes.

Dr Rad 1:09:35
I mean, this is a really big deal. We will talk about this, I’m sure, multiple times. But just to give the listeners some sort of perspective, dr, G, now that they falls under Roman control and remains there, estimates vary a little bit, but we’re thinking that this basically doubles the territory of Rome, maybe even more than double, maybe adds like another. 60% to what they currently possess. It’s a really, really big deal. They is a very prosperous Etruscan city.

Dr G 1:10:07
This is a massive moment. So yeah, if you think about it on just a scalable level, like Rome, is nothing like this sort of Imperial Rome that you see in popular film and things like that. This is a small city state that controls adjacent areas that are local to the city, and that’s true for all of their neighbors as well. So Veii is its own city state, and they have more of a connection to a true area than they do to the Latins or the Romans or anybody like that. So this is effectively doubling, if not more, as you say, the capacity of Rome in terms of what they control, because they’ve now taken a whole major other city, yes. So this is huge, off the charts, massive in terms of expansion,

Dr Rad 1:10:59
yeah, and an Etruscan one at that. I mean, come on, we know that taking land is obviously going to mean a lot for the Romans, because we’ve had these ongoing issues of debt, and we’ve had questions about public land, which, look, they’re probably anachronistic, but they’re being raised so in the narrative that we’re dealing with, this would definitely be a big deal. Plus, as you highlighted in the previous episode, its resources, its influence in the area. I mean, they don’t really now have another major rival in this Tiber Valley area. Yeah,

Dr G 1:11:33
Yeah, it’s pretty impressive. So in terms of expansion, I think we’re also looking at a nine or a 10.

Dr Rad 1:11:40
Let’s give them a nine. I think.

Dr G 1:11:45
Are they ever going to expand as much, percentage wise, upon themselves as they I was

Dr Rad 1:11:50
gonna say yeah, there are Yeah. There are some other victories and expansions that are obviously going to be very important. But in terms of percentage, I feel like this is a big one. This is huge, okay, so maybe 10, yes, proportionally, it’s all proportional. Rome, don’t get too

Dr G 1:12:07
my Camillus enthusiasm continues, indeed, all right, that leads us to the category of virtus. Ooh.

Dr Rad 1:12:18
This is a bit of a tricky one, because Camillus is obviously a very impressive, important figure, as the Romans think of him. But would you say we’ve really seen an act of virtus? Dr, G, no, yeah, I don’t think so either, not in this moment I think comes later in his career.

Dr G 1:12:38
Yeah, it’s not like so for Camillus to be participating in, like a classic virtus moment, we’d expect things, something like leading from the front, so him actually popping out of the tunnel first, for instance, could have been a thing. It wasn’t he clearly sent people ahead. Other things that might constitute weirdos for him is him facing off with the king of they and having a one on one combat. We don’t hear anything about something like that happening. So whoever that guy is, he seems to really fall off the radar. And we don’t get that sort of really personalized commander on commander thing that you would also definitely classify as a weirdos moment. So yeah, in that sense, like it’s not that Camillus isn’t doing a great job. He clearly is. He’s encouraging everybody. But those things aren’t considered traditional Roman weird tours. No,

Dr Rad 1:13:32
exactly. And also, I’m not so sure I subscribe to this idea of the king of a I mean, he pops up at the beginning of this story to get this war started, pops up at the end. We never really get much information about him, apart from everybody hates him. Who is this guy? Well,

he ain’t no Lars Tolumnius, that’s for sure

Yeah, okay, so not really. And surprisingly, even though we get this very cinematic description of the fall of a in Livy, where, again, he’s probably going for a bit of an epic moment there. We don’t get anyone who is singled out for their achievements, which I find surprising. I feel like that would surely have been a moment for somebody in Roman history, but maybe they just don’t want to detract from Camillus. You know, this is his moment

Dr G 1:14:19
to shine, yeah, yeah, like kimberlius have his moment in the sun. And the other point where you might potentially have some weird to us is in the senatorial chamber with the speech exchanges and how those go down depending on what people say. But it sounds like it’s a very reasonable debate, and it’s not the sort of one where people start showing off their scars or anything like that. So we’re not getting into like big masculine Roman energy there, either. We’re just getting some exchanges of opinions, which seems pretty standard for the day. Yeah, so I’m gonna say zero for virtus, because I’m not seeing any clear examples. I’m

Dr Rad 1:15:00
not, but you did just give me a great idea for a T shirt. It’s not BDE, it’s B, R, M, E,

Dr G 1:15:10
well, you know, I’m happy to make more T shirts. And our last category is the citizen school.

Dr Rad 1:15:18
Well, I do feel like there’s some things to celebrate here, even though normally, you and I would say that wartime is probably not a fantastic time to be wartime Rome not a great time. They seem to be extremely excited about this one, and it goes very well for them. As I say, it’s almost effortless in spite of all the mining. And then also the people who weren’t even involved in the siege get told to grab their stuff and head on out to the camp and, you know, take some spoils for themselves.

Dr G 1:15:57
Line up, get yourself a piece of a

Dr Rad 1:16:02
I love to think of they as being like the Berlin Wall is these days. You know how people say, you know, I have a piece of the Berlin Wall. I feel like that’s what people in Rome would be saying, they, Oh, my, my great grandfather still has a piece of they. You know, he still has some jewelry that he wrestled out of the hands of a crying woman. This

Dr G 1:16:22
bowl came from the temple in Veii, you know? Yeah,

Dr Rad 1:16:26
pretty much I feel like that is something that you would be trading in if you were a dealer of antiques in Rome. So

Dr G 1:16:35
everybody has the potential to increase their wealth slightly. And so part

Dr Rad 1:16:40
of it to be part of history. Dr, G, yeah.

Dr G 1:16:43
Oh, it’s great. Yeah, fantastic. Sack of a city, get in there constructed

Dr Rad 1:16:49
before our very eyes. I mean history, not the city. The city is being torn down before our very eyes. I

Dr G 1:16:54
was like, kids do not do as the Romans did. No, not cool. Okay, so, but on the citizen score level, as far as the Romans are concerned, this is a great time to be a Roman citizen. You’ve got this real opportunity. It seems like the fighting was pretty easy in the end, they just needed that little push off the edge, which was the tunnel system. And once that happened, it was like a house of cards, and now it’s booty Central, so probably at least a five, if not more, I

Dr Rad 1:17:24
think probably more. I reckon we have to go an eight for this one. I mean, not a 10, because obviously people are still dying, but I feel like it has to be an eight. Everyone seems very excited. There’s not a whiff of tribune of the plebs in this entire account. Yeah,

Dr G 1:17:42
they’re not even listed as magisters for the year. That’s how unimportant they are, yeah.

Dr Rad 1:17:47
And I mean, we’ve also got, you know, a plebeian hero as magistrate, or his son as magistrate, speaking up and winning against Appius Claudius, although, once again, it seems like class loyalty is bit of an issue, because he is talking about the fact that, hey, let’s get the plebs on side, and they’ve been doing it tough, clearly not associating himself. I think with that particular group of people, it

Dr G 1:18:13
does sound like there’s a lot of unbelievable things that are happening for this year. I’m happy for it to be an eight. Let’s do it. Fantastic.

Dr Rad 1:18:19
Well. Dr, G, hold on to your hat. The Romans have actually got over 25 Golden Eagles. For the first time in a really long time. We’re at the grand total of 31 golden eagles. Oh,

Dr G 1:18:36
my goodness, that is massive. I know we haven’t even

Dr Rad 1:18:41
talked about the whole year. I mean last episode, because we only did the very beginning of the year. They only got one. But if you add that one, it’s 32 so far and counting. For 396, BCE, very impressive,

Dr G 1:18:52
Rome, after what feels like a real sort of a desert scape of partial picks for the last few years, they’re making a resurging comeback Absolutely,

Dr Rad 1:19:05
and we haven’t even finished this year yet. Dr, G, I still have so much more to tell you.

Dr G 1:19:12
Well, I look forward to our next episode together.

Dr Rad 1:19:15
Indeed, you

music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buying us a coffee on ko fi, in return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say hello, hello, hello to Hannah, Dillon, Karl, Aether and Not who are enjoying. Their one year Patreon anniversary with us. Thank you so much for being a part of our partial band. However, if you spent all of your money in the post Saturnalia sales, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 159 – The Fall of Veii: Part II appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

396 BCE is finally here! Rome and Veii have been locked in a competition for space and resources for quite some time and it seems like the tide is about to turn. The year 396 BCE is perhaps one of the most significant years for Rome’s history in the early republic. Given the events at play, this episode is considering how the year begins and it might not be quite the thrills you might expect…

Episode 158 – The Fall of Veii – Part I

The situation with Roman magistrates in 396 BCE is quite complicated. We spend some time considering some of the challenges we face with the evidence. There seems to have been some problems with the military tribunes which leads to a changing of the guard. There also seems to be great fondness for the plebeian military tribune with consular power, Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, but is he really fit for public duties? We consider the details.

While Livy is providing plenty of narrative material for 396 BCE, every other ancient source seems only interested in some of the big ticket events and not the finer details of family politics in Rome. How can we reconcile these different accounts? We’ll try our best!

Rome gets off to a bad start in 396 BCE with a botched Roman ambush led by Genucius and Titinius. After waiting so long with the siege business, it seems a couple of the military tribunes with consular power decide that a little bit of action might be preferable. But things do not go according to plan… it’s only a matter of time for panic to set in among the citizens.

Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Additional sound effects from the BBC Sound Library,

Partial Reconstruction of a Temple at Veii – Photo credit to ArtSupp.

Lighted edited for our wonderful Australian accents.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr Rad

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad

Dr G 1:05
and I am Dr G and I am so excited for this episode, because we are hitting a bonanza of a year. It is 396 BCE and oh boy. After a long time of not a lot happening, except people sitting around in a siege. I think something might be about to happen, Dr Rad.

Dr Rad 1:26
I think you might be right. Dr G, oh, it’s been 10 long, wintry years.

Dr G 1:31
Yeah, look, I’ve grown a whole fur coat in that period of time, and it’s not going away.

Dr Rad 1:38
Oh, Dr G, this is a big year. And you know, I was saying to you the other day off mic, that it feels a bit like our podcast journey sometimes oddly mirrors that of ancient Rome, because during the early republic, due to locations of recordings being switched around and issues with microphones, etc, etc, we had some ups and downs in terms of our experimentation with the show, and I feel like we’ve got it all sorted out just in time for 396 which you could kind of see as one of the most important years in early Republican history, I think.

Dr G 2:16
This is a massive time, so we’re building the hype, and I don’t think that this is something that we’re over hyping at all. This is actually going to be an exceptional time in Rome’s history, and the Romans know it as well. Just to put that out there, maybe a little bit too much, they are well aware, and when they write their histories about this time period, there is a great consistency to the sorts of things that they talk about. So I’m looking forward to delving into that. But perhaps we should do a bit of a where are we at recap, before we dive in.

Dr Rad 2:54
You read my mind, I was going to say I know we did talk. I know that every time Veii has come up, we have talked about the relationship between Rome and Veii, but this is the last time that we’re probably going to really need to do this, and it is the end of the big conflict, the big feud. So I do think a recap is in order.

Dr G 3:17
Veii? Who are you and why do you exist?

Dr Rad 3:22
Why are you so far south? Why can’t you be further north, like all the rest of the Etruscan cities?

Dr G 3:27
Well, the thing about Eturia as a kind of a group of people is that they used to be much further south than they appear to be by the time we get into Roman history proper. So as far as we’re aware, there’s good evidence for the Villanovan culture, which is the precursor to Etruscan culture. Archeologically, as far down as Campania, which is, you know, the Amalfi Coast, Naples, Positano, Pompeii, Herculaneum…

Dr Rad 3:57
All the gorgeous places to go on holiday.

Dr G 3:59
Exactly. And so Etruria actually extended right through the region where Rome has sort of popped up like a little city state mushroom. And now we’re dealing with what is a legacy of kind of a fallout of many centuries of Etruscan retreat out of the south and the more substantial investment that they’ve had in their northern places of influence, so all the way up to what is now modern Milan, for instance.

Dr Rad 4:30
Yes, this is true, and we have seen some really interesting dynamics between the Etruscans and the Romans over the centuries. If we go back to our beloved regal period, Dr G, although we don’t know exactly what was going on with those last few things, with those last few kings.

Dr G 4:48
Oh, those guys

Dr Rad 4:49
Yeah, those guys, those things, yeah, those things, the kings, we certainly know that there’s obviously an interesting relationship between Etruria and Rome at that time period. Was it an invasion? Was it a hostile takeover? Did the Romans welcome them with open arms? We’ll never know.

Dr G 5:11
But there’s certainly lots of parallels in terms of the cultural exchange that seems to have gone on between early Romans and the Etruscans, and the fact that this rivalry between Rome and Veii has taken the shape that it has is mostly to do with their proximity to each other and the competition for local resources. So one of the things that has been a source of conflict is control of the salt pans at Ostia as the river hits the Mediterranean Sea, there’s been competition about that they used to control it. Rome eventually seems to have taken over. Veii is pretty unhappy about that. And then we do see increasing violence across the fifth century BCE, where the archeology suggests that there is ongoing raiding across both sides, and a lot of that agricultural land that sits in between these two places, which are a mere few kilometers away from each other, has produced this sort of escalation in violence across the century. And now here we are at the moment of a siege, which has been taking place for years now. Rome’s been sitting outside the gates of a being like hand over the keys, and the Etruscans inside. They are like, Not on your life.

Dr Rad 6:33
Well, this is the thing ,Veii is fairly well positioned in terms of the you know, this speaks to the fact that the Romans couldn’t just waltz in and take it. And so there’s probably no doubt that there was really a lengthy siege between Rome and Veii at this moment. However, was it a neat little 10 years as Livy wants us to think, Dr G?

Dr G 6:57
Well, I think that’s debatable. There’s obviously a lot of incentive to draw that Trojan War comparison that I think Livy explicitly references as well at some point. So, yeah, good times for the Romans.

Dr Rad 7:13
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So there’s some questions about the exact length of this siege, but a lengthy siege, I think would be an order, given how well positioned Veii is, and we have seen conflict throughout the early republic with Veii, Dr G, just a quick reminder of some of the biggest hits.

Dr G 7:33
Yes, please.

Dr Rad 7:34
483 to 474. That’s when we had the first conflict between Rome and Veii. And the Romans weren’t always beaten, but that was, of course, the time period where there was a fairly significant defeat with the fabulous Fabians, where we had a family that was almost entirely wiped out when they tried to take on they on behalf of Rome.

Dr G 8:00
Yeah, so we get this sense that we’ve got elite families acting as local war bands in the region, and presumably they is touching on Fabian interests in the area. But Cremera is a sad day for the Fabians. And fabulous or not, they mostly don’t make it through.

Dr Rad 8:21
Exactly. So doesn’t end that well for Rome on that particular point, because that becomes a pretty infamous moment in Roman history. However, when we get to the 430s we have another conflict with Veii, and this, of course, involves the possession of Fidenae, which is tossed backwards and forwards between Roman ve throughout the years. And this is where we get the murder of those Roman ambassadors at Veii. And then in the conflict that ensued, we see the king of Veii, Lars Tolumnius, slain by Cossus.

Dr G 8:58
Stabbed right through the groin. Yeah, what a time to be alive. So Fidenae, as far as we understand it from the archeological record, seems to also have been a mostly Etruscan populated area. So Rome has this real incentive as a sort of buffer zone, to take Fidenae, try to re populate it with Romans, colonialism, colonialism… and to create that sort of buffer point for themselves so that they can easily move forward towards they so the competition is really hotting up between these two by the time we get to what happens with Fidenae, and then also the devastation of they losing a king. And this feeds into a broader understanding of how are the Etruscans running themselves. And one of the narrative features of Rome’s conversation about the Etruscans is that the Etruscans have a group of 12 kings, and that’s kind of the leadership circle that runs everything. But it seems like what we can tell from the Etruscans is that there are a loose collection of city states that share some cultural interests. They have different leaders within the particular city states themselves who come together to talk about things. Now, whether that number is precisely 12 or some other number which isn’t quite as pretty from a Roman perspective, I don’t know.

Dr Rad 10:36
This is the big question. And then, of course, we’ve got the final conflict, the 10 year – asterix asterix – siege of Veii which is coming to an end in this particular year. Now, the interesting thing is that in this 10 years, we have seen they been continually rebuffed by its Etruscan sister, states, Sister cities. And this is something that the Romans, I think, find a bit puzzling, as well as modern scholars like ourselves. But I think that speaks to what you were just saying. The Etruscan cities are not a country or a nation in the way that we would understand it. In fact, even the way that they are represented in our sources might be a little bit questionable. We have these regular meetings where they all come together and they talk about matters that concern the Etruscan community. And this is where they says, Hey, I think I’ve got some remnants camped on my doorstep, little help. And the Etruscan saying, No. What some scholars have theorized is that maybe this collection was actually more religious in nature, or something along those lines, but it’s been painted as more of a military or political alliance because the Romans maybe wanted to build up the nature of the threat that they were facing in taking on Veii.

Dr G 12:04
Okay. This is a classic Roman literary trope, which, like listeners, need to be aware of, because the Romans will do this at every opportunity. There is nothing more satisfying than winning against a very worthy opponent. So it’s not cool to, like, just beat up your neighbors and be like, I did it, and everyone like you’re a bully. So it’s much better if you can be like, Look, these guys were aggressive. They’re a really potent force to have to deal with. They’ve got lots of friends in the north, but they’re not chipping in because they know these guys are on the wrong side of things, and they should just be bowing down to Rome at this point. So it produces a kind of narrative that allows Roman citizens to feel good about the violence that they do to other people. And I suppose if this was a more modern period in history, you might start to think of this as a kind of like military nationalism. This is not how the ancient Romans would have thought about it, but it certainly has that kind of quality to it where it’s about justification. It’s about being proud of the violence that you’re able to do, and that means that the enemy has to be worthy of being conquered in the first place.

Dr Rad 13:25
Absolutely. And what you just highlighted there again is that there have been all these supernatural signs as well that things are about to happen. The game is afoot, Dr. G.

Dr G 13:37
The gods are watching.

Dr Rad 13:40
We’ve seen in previous years, you know, the Romans needing to consult the Sibylline Books to go to the Delphic Oracle. We’ve seen the flooding of the Alban lake and the fact that the Romans need to, you know, fulfill a certain act in order to, in order for Veii to fall, you know, they’ve, we’ve seen them also trying to get the gods back on side. There’s been various things that they’ve had to do in terms of the spiritual world. And it’s possibly that actually what people like the later analysts had to work with, and the analysts of the people that Livy and Dionysus are working from, we presume they might have actually been working from probably your favorite source, Dr G, priestley records, who were keeping track of these big religious moments and developments which supposedly happened at around this time, and that might be part of that important skeleton that they’re working from. And then lean into epics a little bit.

Dr G 14:36
Just few details here and there. That’s fine,

Dr Rad 14:38
Yeah, just yeah. We’ll add in like a massive hero, and I’ll throw some Trojan war on top. You know, nothing, nothing too crazy.

Dr G 14:47
Get it all in there. Yeah, let’s make this a rousing read as well as an exciting time for the gods.

Dr Rad 14:55
All right, Dr G, so here we are. I think it’s time to actually dive in to 396. In the grand tradition of our podcast, please tell me who were the magistrates in this most momentous of years.

Dr G 15:46
Oh, this year is full of names. My God, there are so many. First of all, we’ve got military tribunes with consular power. Naturally, there’s six of them. Chaotic times, Siege of Veii times. This is now pretty standard for them to have so many in the field. First of all, we’ve gotLucius Titinius Pansa Saccus, previously military tribune with consular power in 400 BCE.

Dr Rad 16:17
Not an accident. I’m going to come back to that.

Dr G 16:22
Look, I put it to you that we’ve got quite the cohort of plebeians, and this guy is the first of many. He is accompanied by Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, also military tribune with consular power in 400.

Dr Rad 16:42
The first plebeian one apparently.

Dr G 16:46
Apparently, except he serves with a whole bunch of others. Apparently,

Dr Rad 16:51
Shhh, your reality is ruining it.

Dr G 16:54
I’m sorry that Livy got something wrong. I really am.

I think we might have to, though. Okay, well, you can keep that position for now. We also have Publius Maelius Capitolinus, previously military tribune with consular power in 400 also a plebeian. That’s three for three.

Dr Rad 17:21
Seeing a pattern here, seeing a pattern here,

Dr G 17:24
Quintus Maelius Vulso Capitolinus, now unfortunately, big brackets, patrician, then we have –

Dr Rad 17:33
There’s bound to be at least one.

Dr G 17:35
You know, they can’t help themselves, can they?

Dr Rad 17:36
Yeah.

Dr G 17:37
Gnaeus Genucius Augurinus, previously, military tribune with consular power in 399. Also notably a plebeian. And finally, last, but definitely not least, Lucius Atilius Priscus, also previously military tribune with consular power in 399. Also plebeian. So that’s five of the six plebeians.

Dr Rad 18:06
But there are so many question marks we’re going to get into this. But there are a lot of question marks about these names and who these guys are.

Dr G 18:12
And also like, does it matter if it’s also the year where you get a dictator?

Dr Rad 18:17
Yes, let’s roll him out. Dr G, who is our dictator for this year?

Dr G 18:23
Hold your breath, everybody. This is going to come as a massive surprise. Our dictator this year is a guy called Marcus Furius Camillus. Wow.

Dr Rad 18:32
The crowd goes wild! Now you know what? Our listeners might not be super excited to hear his name. Dr G, because whilst he’s been around for a little while now, he has always kind of just been there, you know.

Dr G 18:47
Just hanging about, not, not hugely distinguishing himself, although he’s done some things previously, military tribune with consular power in 401, and 398, so he’s had a couple of rounds in The top gig, but now he’s being given like a really special job dictator. And boy, we’ll see how that goes for him. And he is joined by the master of the horse. So what happens when a dictator gets selected? The Senate usually decides that things have gotten out of hand in really particular ways. It might be a religious way. It might be a military way. There is a problem that needs to be solved. They require a dictator, somebody to take up all of the reins of power for a really finite period of time to solve this particular issue, whatever it is. And when that person is decided upon, and they accept the position and be like, Sure, I’ll be dictator. Usually, the first thing that they do is select an offsider to be like their kind of like other person to be in charge of stuff. Now, the role of the master of the horse is something that I think we should definitely devote an episode to in the future, because there’s some complexity there. But for now, it’s sounds like a guy with a horse, very exciting. And this year we have Publius Cornelius Maguginensis.

Dr Rad 20:11
A mouthful.

Dr G 20:13
So he says. Previously, military tribune with consular power in 397. So everybody in these sort of top gigs has been around traps recently, but we also have some intereges. Oh, so finally, we’re on to the last magistrates of this year.

Dr Rad 20:34
Are you sick of all this Latin?

Dr G 20:36
It’s a lot, it’s a lot, and they’re all names. And you think to yourself, and after a while, you’re like,Lucius this Marcus that? And it’s like, look, we put them in here because we know the names. And apparently there’s lists of these names, and you’ll be surprised how little they’re referred to in any of the actual source material. So it is kind of incredible, but we have three interreges which means that we’ve got a situation where at some point the cohort of magistrates that we have in power have to come out of power. And it seems to be not just related to the dictatorship, it may be related to other things as well. And there needs to be a new set of people decided upon. So you’ve got to have some interim people to look after that situation. And the interreges are those people. And we have Lucius Valerius, possibly Potitus brackets. We also have Quintus Servilius Fidenas, and also stepping into a second role for the year, Marcus Furius Camillus.

Dr Rad 21:38
Hmm.

Dr G 21:39
Hmm. What could it all mean?

Dr Rad 21:41
Curioser and curioser. Well, Dr G, I think I can clear up some of your questions around these magistrates. Oh, please allow me to use Livy,

Dr G 21:52
Please. I mean, that’s the one source I haven’t read.

Dr Rad 21:54
All right. So in order to understand why we have so many magistrates, and some of the details about these magistrates, we do need to backtrack a little bit to what I told you at the end of last episode, so you might remember that. Well, I’m going to call him, I guess, can I call him Calvus? Publius Licinius?

Dr G 22:15
You could. You know this, this very moderate plebeian who’s completely okay for the patricians because he’s such a mediocre individual.

Dr Rad 22:26
Exactly, yes, I feel like Calvus is a name that kind of distinguishes him. So that guy, the guy that was the first official military tribune with consular power in 400 BCE, the end of last episode, when they were organizing the elections for the next year. He was brought in even though he wasn’t running for the position, because the Romans looked around and thought, You know what? We need someone moderate right now, things are a little tense in the city, between patricians and plebeians. This whole situation with they there’s been that whole lake issue. We need someone moderate who’s going to calm everything down. You know what? We’ll bring him back, and we’ll get the band back together, military tribunes with consular power, 400 BC, it’s your time to rock and roll.

Dr G 23:18
It’s retro.

Dr Rad 23:19
Only one slight problem with that, Dr, G, and you already highlighted it in your list of magistrates.

Dr G 23:25
And what is that problem?

Dr Rad 23:27
That they’re not all from 400 BCE.

Well, this is the issue. Livy tells us that this is what happened that he was brought in. And they were like, yep, we’ll bring back his whole little gang, because that worked really well. Let’s go with a tried and true recipe here. But the names do not match. Some of them do, sure, but not all of them.

Dr G 23:55
These people

Dr Rad 23:56
Problem number one. Now the interreges come into the story because, of course, they were holding power because, you might recall, there was an issue with the previous set of military tribunes with consular power, so they were holding power until the next elections were organized, and that’s why we have some interreges listed.

Dr G 24:16
Oh, okay, so they’re actually related to whatever happened in 397

Dr Rad 24:21
Yes, this is probably something we should probably mention quickly. The Roman year doesn’t function in the same way that our current calendar year works, where we say we begin in January and end in December. Technically speaking, Dr G and I have been misleading you somewhat. Listen in that there’s always kind of two of our years that make up a Roman year because they end at a different time. So it might be September, for example, that the Roman year ends in terms of when new magistrates are coming in. And the Romans, of course, date their years by the magistrates. They don’t know who Jesus is; they don’t care at this moment in time, and so they just don’t have the same system that we have. So yes, basically, as far as we can tell, there was an issue where the previous group of military tribunes with consular power, there was some problem with the way that they were inaugurated. I’m going to say

Dr G 25:19
yep

Dr Rad 25:20
And as a result, they had to have some interreges, and they had to organize a new set coming through. And this is where we had Calvus being mentioned as being someone who would be good for the job. So look, that is where we are at.

Dr G 25:33
Safe pair of hands. Get him in there.

Dr Rad 25:36
Exactly. Now, Calvus himself is pretty chuffed, as you can imagine, to have been brought up as the leader of this dream team. We are Dream Girls. Yeah, we’ll make you happy. Yeah, yeah. However, there’s a problem, there’s a problem, yeah, there is a problem, yeah, in spite of the exhilarating soundtrack to this year, Calvus is getting on in years. You might remember when we first talked about him as military tribune with consular power in 400 we talked about the fact that he’d apparently served in the Senate for like yonks, and we were shocked that he’d just been in the Senate. This little plebeian guy never heard of-

Dr G 26:19
Just hanging out there-

Dr Rad 26:19
Yeah, he is the one. So he seems to be an elderly man by this point in time, okay? And he doesn’t feel like he’s actually physically up to the job. He actually details all the different ways that he’s not up for the job. He’s got issues with his sight, his hearing is worse. I sympathize. And just generally, physically, he’s just about for he even says his memory is bad. I mean, I think we’re dealing with Joe Biden here.

Dr G 26:52
It’s a tough time. Yeah, look, look, put that guy in charge. You know, the one with the white hairover there. It’ll be great.

Dr Rad 27:00
Well, it would make sense as a senator, given where we think that word comes from, something to do with old men. However, he has a plan, because he doesn’t want to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. And after all, he knows why he’s being singled out, and he doesn’t want to ruin that for Rome, given that everyone seems to be on board. So he suggests, Hey, did you know I have a kid, Calvus 2.0 I like to call him the new and improved model. He has exactly the same values as me because I raised him. And as we all know, in ancient Rome, anybody has children, their children turn out to be exactly the same as them. That’s why all their families have exactly the same characteristics. It doesn’t even matter if you’re talking about the grandfather or the son, they’ll basically be the same person.

Dr G 27:54
Yes, so this is a way in which Roman families work very differently from the way we think of modern families. So the politics of the ancient Roman family seems to be really grounded in upholding familial tradition. So you gotta toe the line. If you don’t, you’re just not gonna progress with your career in any particular way, like your family won’t put you forward for things. We start to see this really particularly later on in the Republic. But I suppose what Livy might be suggesting here is that there’s some retrojection of those sort of ideas. Those ideas come from somewhere, and the natural sort of conservatism of the Roman family structure is on full display here.

Dr Rad 28:42
It is. And what is even more shocking than the fact that this guy was chosen for this highly contested office without putting himself forward and seemingly being on his last legs, everyone agrees that, yeah, we’ll just take the sun. That’s fine. We’ll take the discount model we want. We want him. We want a bit of that interesting. Okay, yes, now this is where I do have to highlight a possible problem with Livy’s source material, and it pains me to say it, Dr G.

Dr G 29:14
Well, I’m glad you’re confessing to it, because it sounds like a problem to me as well, and I was going to mention as such. So please. What’s the problem here?

Dr Rad 29:25
I shall atone for him. Shame. So Livy is drawing on, obviously, a bunch of earlier sources, which we unfortunately don’t often have, or if we do have any of them, it’s very fragmentary, hard to put together. We do know, though, that one of his sources that he switches around between is from a family chronicler called Licinus Macer or Macer, depending on how you like your C’s. Now the name says it all, Dr G, these two guys that we’re talking about, if I give them their full name, they are, of course, the Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus – that’s the dad Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus – Licinius, it’s right there. It seems like maybe one of Livy’s sources might have been trying to add a little bit of pixie dust to his family history, perhaps.

Dr G 30:19
Ah yes. So Licnius Macer is obviously part of the broader Licinius gens, and there’s a real incentive in terms of Roman family politics, to build the gens history up in various ways. So we are caught in a pretty tricky position, because we know that there is incentive in our source material to put together a certain perspective for us.

Dr Rad 30:48
absolutely it is the curated Instagram of ancient Rome, these family histories which have snuck into our source material.

Dr G 30:57
Well

Dr Rad 30:57
Dodgy.

Dr G 30:58
What else did Livy have to work with? I mean, this is the real trouble.

Dr Rad 31:01
Well, yes. I mean, if we look at the Fasti and we look at other sources, they all list the father as the magistrate for this particular year. So it’s interesting that we do have this embellishment where the Romans are like, yeah, cool, just flip your son in, yeah, you’re basically the same person because you’re related, right?

Dr G 31:20
Yes. So the Fasti Capitolini was produced quite a bit later, as far as we assume. But yes, they do mention the father holding the position for the second time.

Dr Rad 31:32
Yes

Dr G 31:32
Not the son, which would be distinguished with a different sort of ligature.

Dr Rad 31:38
Yeah. So obviously, there are huge issues with the lists of names for this year, given that Livy’s telling us, oh yeah, they got all the guys from 400 and then the father was like, No, take my son. And everyone was like, yeah, cool, sure. And none of this seems to be reflected in the records of names that we have. The names do not match up with the narrative that Livy is giving us. Now it is possible that they’re trying to perhaps imitate another story from Greece, with this whole father son dynamic, that of Periander, who was the second tyrant of Corinth and ruled from around 627, to around 587 BCE, there was a whole shindig with him possibly stepping aside for a son, didn’t really work out that well, but it might be that they’re trying to draw on other examples here. We don’t know what’s going on, but this is what academics have noticed in terms of the way that the source material is developing and the kind of narrative that might be being laid over the bare bones that they would have had to work with.

Dr G 32:45
Look to me, all of this is really fascinating, because, as you know, I don’t have a lot of Dionysus, of Halicarnassus right now, who was-

Dr Rad 32:54
What? This is brand new information.

Dr G 32:58
I’ve got a little bit, but I don’t have him in the fulsome way that I would really like to be able to offer a counter narrative to what Livy is doing. But because this year is so significant, I actually have heaps of sources for this year. But you know what? None of them care about anything to do with these military tribunes, fathers, sons or otherwise, it is not on their radar. It is not the centerpiece for this year at all. And so I’m really grateful that Livy is providing a little bit of embellishment and detail, because this is making up for a more fulsome story, which I had no idea existed because I didn’t have to read Livy in order to prepare for this episode.

Dr Rad 33:39
This is why you have to read all the primary source material, children.

Dr G 33:44
Let this be a lesson to you all. Now, as a good ancient historian, I would if I was studying this period for real, not within the context of this podcast, which is also studying for it, for real in another way,

Dr Rad 33:56
I was going to say – what? This isn’t for real? Am I in The Matrix?

Dr G 34:00
But let’s say, If I was writing an academic paper, obviously I would have also read Livy

Dr Rad 34:04
Sure

Dr G 34:04
But because that’s not what we’re doing here, because we’re reading different

Dr Rad 34:08
We have a schtick

Dr G 34:09
Yeah, we’re reading different primary source material. That’s part of the process with this. So it creates these really interesting gaps for me at times, and this is definitely one of them, like I had all of this list of names that I got from Broughton. Love Broughton always thankful for the work that Broughton has done here, compiling these massive lists of magistrates for every year throughout all of the Republic. And I had this list, and then I had the source material. And look, I have excerpts from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Valerius Maximus Pliny the Elder, Appian, Florus, Aulus Gellius, Eutropius, the anonymous but pseudo Aurelius Victor, Augustine, Orosius, and Zonaras. I have. All of these sources. And you know what? None of them mention this controversy with father and son as military tribunes with consular power.

Dr Rad 35:07
Well, quite frankly, you just look lazy, now.

Dr G 35:12
What are they not telling me?

Dr Rad 35:13
I do appreciate all that different source material, because I have read… Livy.

Dr G 35:18
The suppression of information here is profound.

Dr Rad 35:24
Now let’s get on to some action, because I think this is what your sources want us to get to. So Titus and Genucius some of our military tribunes with consular power, they are sent to deal with the allies of Veii. Now I know I just said that the Etruscans were later-dazing the people of They, however, not all Etruscans turned their backs on the people of Veii. We do have people from nearby cities, the Faliscans and the Capenantes, who decided that, oh, I guess if Veii falls,that means that we’re probably next on Rome’s plans of expansion. So we probably should help them out. So they do have some allies from up north, Titanius and Genucius are very keen to wipe the floor with these guys. However, their enthusiasm might have led them astray, Dr G.

Dr G 36:19
Oh, no, what have they done?

Dr Rad 36:21
They didn’t spend quite enough time planning everything out, and they decide that they’re going to launch straight into an ambush without following all the possibilities through. Now what ends up happening is that Genucius dies fighting bravely at the front of this battle. In fact, he dies in front of the standards, Dr. G.

Dr G 36:48
Oh, that’s terrible news. Okay, of all of the places to die, that is from a sort of divine perspective, the worst.

Dr Rad 36:58
However, it is kind of admirable in the sense of it shows his bravery. So even though the Romans are going to be really irritated by the fact that they just launch in without much forethought, they forgive him because he’s dead.

Dr G 37:15
Ah, okay, because he led from the front, so presumably his wounds are also at the front.

Dr Rad 37:22
Hell yes, they are. Actually, it doesn’t specifically say, but I would presume so definitely, the point is being made here that he was brave and he was trying to do the right thing, even though completely missed that.

Dr G 37:34
And the kind of commander that is willing to put themselves at risk in the front line is you could view this as being, like, quite silly, because obviously the army needs its commander, and if you lose the commander, the army will probably fall apart, because they won’t know what to do anymore. Because you need somebody strategic maybe. But from a Roman perspective, this is a huge courage as well. Like, this is the sort of thing where it’s like, you can really rally the troops if you lead from the front and get them into it, if they weren’t really sure about what was going on and be like, run in.

Dr Rad 37:34
Yeah, just try not to die in the process.

Dr G 38:08
Yeah.

Dr Rad 38:08
That tends to be a downer.

Dr G 38:09
Don’t do a Genucius, because it’s risky if you die.

Dr Rad 38:15
And there are some questions again, about the nature of this death, because there is another conucius from 362 BCE, who dies in a suspiciously similar fashion, Dr G.

Dr G 38:28
So, looking forward, in another sort of 40 years, we’re going to have a similar moment. Okay.

Dr Rad 38:35
We might, we might.

Dr G 38:37
I sense problems with the chronology.

Dr Rad 38:40
Yes. Now Titinius, of course, is still alive, but the men all around him are thrown into chaos. Things are unraveling fairly quickly in this scenario, not ideal, so Titinius decides to gather all the men around, and he says, You know what? I feel like it’s too much of a risk to fight our enemy on level ground. So I would imagine like some sort of open plain where everyone can see everybody. It’s open season.

Dr G 39:10
There’s nowhere to hide.

Dr Rad 39:11
It’s wabbit season. Yeah, so things are not going particularly well, and the Romans do not feel great about this, and Titinius is going to cop all of the flat, because he is the one that’s left alive after this defeat. Very disgraceful. The Romans back in the city as well are panicking, as we see so often, because rumor of what is going down has reached them, which, again, sort of shows you just how close these things must be happening. Even though they sound very grand, they’re obviously not that far away, in that rumour can get back to the city pretty quickly in time enough for people to start tearing out their hair.

Dr G 39:55
All right. So, yeah, Rome’s not in a great way. They’re not feeling the vibe. They’re having a bit of a panic. Okay, goodo.

Dr Rad 40:00
Now even worse, perhaps, there is, of course, the military encampment before they where the Romans are besieging the city. They also hear that there’s been a pretty catastrophic defeat, and one of the Roman magistrates has been killed again. Not a morale booster. No, not what you want to hear in 396 BCE,

Dr G 40:03
No, not after you’ve been at this siege for so long.

Dr Rad 40:05
No. So they’ve heard that the Capenantes and Faliscans have won, killed the commanders and slaughtered the whole army, and that the remnants of their enemies are now coming for them, backed by all the men of Etruria.

Dr G 40:45
Oh, okay, well, that’s a real turnaround for the books, because last I heard, Etruria was not coming.

Dr Rad 40:52
Look, it’s another good lesson for our listeners, Dr G, in that rumors can get out of hand really quickly. Yeah. So in Rome, they’ve heard that all of the same things. So they’ve heard all of that, plus they’ve heard that the encampment before they of their fellow Romans is also being assaulted, and that, you know, there are going to be more people sent from their enemy towards the city itself. Okay, so their camp is under siege. They’re going to be attacked next and again, not far away. So time is a ticking.

Dr G 41:28
It seems like the panic is really setting in, and it’s becoming a bit contagious, isn’t it? And everybody’s story is worse than the last story, and people are believing everything that they hear regardless.

Dr Rad 41:40
It does seem that so we have this scene in Livy where the Roman citizens are racing to the walls. The women of Rome are running to the temples to pray for the protection from the gods, and they want instead for the gods to back Rome. Trash Veii. What is with this? What is with this turning of tables? Not appreciated gods of Rome. Thank you very much.

Dr G 42:03
We started this violence. We need to win to end it, not lose.

Dr Rad 42:08
Exactly. And they’re like, look, we’ll make sure that all the sacred rites are fully renewed. We’ll make sure that all the signs are dealt with. We’ll deal with all the stuff you want us to deal with. Just please, please, make sure our city stays strong and our enemies are defeated.

Dr G 42:29
Okay, that’s, it’s a big call.

Dr Rad 42:30
Now if this is ringing any bells it should. Once again, we have a bit of Homeric additions being inserted here. This is potentially meant to remind readers of what happened when Hector went out to battle. So it’s meant to be drawing on the Iliad basically.

Dr G 42:53
Interesting.

Dr Rad 42:54
Yeah. So panic in the city, women in temples. You know? Prayer happening? People at the walls.

Dr G 43:02
Yeah, everything’s getting to its sort of climactic moment, isn’t it?

Dr Rad 43:08
It really is, yes. So this is perhaps the moment to pause and just talk a little bit about what Livy’s actually drawing on here. So we’ve already talked about the priestly records, the family chroniclers, maybe drawing on later incidents in Roman history to make sense of the bare bones, and not Livy directly, perhaps also obviously his sources, the earlier analysts and that sort of thing. But we may also even have other sources, like Ennius, who I know you’ve spoken about a little bit before.

Dr G 43:40
Yes, so Ennius writes an epic of Rome’s foundation and early history, and his text becomes the preeminent school text for many centuries. So it’s only really displaced by Virgil’s Aeneid, and that takes a while. So there’s a good couple of 100 years where Ennius is the go to text, to learn, to study poetry, but also to learn about Rome’s history. So it would make sense for Livy to be drawing upon it, for sure.

Dr Rad 44:19
Yeah, and this is exactly it we so we’ve got Licinius Macer. He’s probably also drawing on someone called Valerius Antius, again, someone we don’t have much of, but we know was a major source of Livy. But he is also drawing on these epic traditions, which would come from ennius, would come from Homer. And this passage, apparently was also then later copied by other Greco-Roman writers because they found it, you know, very inspirational scene. I think it would be like them seeing a really intense part of a movie, you know, a scene that really resonates with them and gives them a strong visual. And so they go back to it as a reference point. And they’re doing their own version of something later on. So that particular passage is actually meant to be kind of iconic, I suppose.

Dr G 45:08
Mmm0mmm. Ah interesting. So, yeah, we’re getting more into like, what is history and is it just literature in another form.

Dr Rad 45:19
Indeed, indeed. Now, of course, the Romans need to make sure that their relationship is square with the gods if they want to see any success against Veii, and want to make sure they escape this terrible fate which seems to await them right now, enemies of the gate, although they’re not really in this rumored so water obviously had to be drawn off the Alban lake. And we know that potentially, this actually did happen, because we’ve got those remnants that we’ve talked about before, of, you know, the tunneling and that sort of thing. We don’t know exactly when that happened. Does it line up with these accounts? But there’s some sort of record there which is interesting, giving some archeological backing to our literary accounts. There does seem to have also been some issues with games, or some sort of festival that the Romans were meant to have held at this point in time, which would be again, connected with the gods. It sounds like, Oh, what a great moment to kick up your feet and have a great time, but that’s not, obviously what it’s about. And you would know more about this than I would with its religious connections, things like games and festivals.

Dr G 46:24
Well, sure, if it had cropped up in any of my sources, I would be able to tell you something about it. I mean in general terms, I assume this is going to be a reference and correct me if I’m wrong to one of the sort of Pan Latin get togethers, where people of a Latin background gather in certain locations to do some shared ritual stuff. So you have to send people out of the city, which obviously, in this at this point in time, sounds like it would be quite dangerous. Maybe it’s not the time to have a festival where you send some delegates.

Dr Rad 47:01
The Festivus for the rest of us.

Dr G 47:02
Yeah, look, everybody’s running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Is now the time other people would definitely argue, within the context of the city, that it is more important than ever to send a delegation to something that might be a collective kind of festival, precisely because everything seems to be in a very delicate balance, not in favor of Rome.

Dr Rad 47:28
Yes, and this is exactly why they’re like, Oh, crap. We really should have dealt with that water situation on the Alban lake before all of this went down. And they talk about games and a Latin festival. So I think you’re 100% on the money. Part of the issue, apparently, is that, from later sources, standpoints, they tend to use terms like Ludi and Feriae. I don’t know how to say that actually properly. And that, now that I read, now that I’m saying it out loud, I’ve just been reading it all this time, they are both things that involve people having holidays in ancient Rome, but they’re not necessarily, obviously, exactly the same thing that happened at exactly the same time. When we talk about Ludi or games later on, we are talking more about public games. You know, by the time we get into the period that’s better documented. But that’s not necessarily what’s happening at this moment in time. We don’t necessarily see games being attached to festivals this early, from my understanding, so there might be a bit of confusion there, but certainly there’s some sort of, you know, festival connected with the gods that the Romans realized. Well, we better hold them again, because the gods are clearly not on our side right now, not with enemies at the gate. No, thank you. And so they’re dealing with basically everything they possibly can. They’re trying to put out all the fires to make sure that they are protected.

Dr G 48:53
Yep, fair enough. Send the delegation. Do the games? Do the festivals? Go to the sweet locations and do some sacrifices.

Dr Rad 49:01
Yes, and now that this is all taken care of, that the Romans think very smugly to themselves, it is time for Veii to die. Mwahahahahaha.

Dr G 49:14
Oooo boy. Okay? Well, in that case, I think as as horrifying as it’s going to sound, I think this might be the moment to pause and to wrap up this episode, because I leave it on this cliffhanger, because things are about to happen and wow, what a build up.

Dr Rad 49:35
Absolutely. I mean, it shows that 396 didn’t necessarily start off that well for the Romanshowever, trust us, listeners, we’re building to a climax.

Dr G 49:49
Ooh, boy

Dr Rad 49:50
yeah, fun is us here with us. All right. Dr, G, well, that means it is time for the Partial Pick.

Dr G 49:58

(bird noises)

Dr Rad 50:01
Tell us how the Partial Pick works, Dr G.

Dr G 50:03
Well, we are raiding Rome against its own sort of measures of success. Now, I don’t, I don’t anticipate Rome’s gonna do great right now, but let’s give it a whirl and see. So we’ve got five categories, and within each category there are 10 Golden Eagles up for grabs. So the golden eagles are like the fancy things that might sit on top of your standard and

Dr Rad 50:34
Before you die in front of it.

Dr G 50:35
Before you die in front of it, yeah, or before you lose it, you know, all of those kinds of positive things. So the first category is military clout.

Dr Rad 50:45
Right. Well, so far in 396 the Romans have had a disastrous defeat.

Dr G 50:51
Yeah, they’ve gone for what an unplanned ambush that has led to the death of one of the military tribunes with consular power, and then the other one copping all of the blame for whatever happened next, which doesn’t seem great.

Dr Rad 51:08
And the Romans themselves don’t even seem to really know what is going on, because there’s such chaos amongst his forces. So, yeah, not looking good.

Dr G 51:17
Look, I feel like we can’t give them much of a score. It’s probably I, I’d be inclined to maybe give them a one for the fact that they’re still holding out at the siege area of Veii

Dr Rad 51:29
sure, yeah, well that’s the thing. They haven’t actually lost any territory or anything. They just were trying to take care of the allies of Veii It did not work.

Dr G 51:40
Yeah, yeah, they’ve suffered some military defeats, but we haven’t heard anything particularly negative about what has happened outside the gates of Veii. I mean, there’s been some sort of panic stations in Rome, but it sounds like they’re operating on rumor rather than fact. So I’m willing to give Rome one.

Dr Rad 51:58
Fair enough, that is one.

Dr G 52:00
One point. So far so good. Our second category is diplomacy.

Dr Rad 52:08
I feel like there is not much diplomacy going on, given that they’re trying to ambush their enemies. It sounds like there is no diplomacy going on. That’s a zero from me.

Dr G 52:20
All right? Expansion.

Dr Rad 52:23
No, not yet. Not yet. We’re tiptoeing closer, ever closer.

Dr G 52:31
Foreshadowing. Okay, so that’s a zero. Virtus?

Dr Rad 52:37
Okay, now, as disastrous as this whole plan was, I feel like maybe is dying at the front of his forces is an example of virtus, and that’s why the Romans are like, Well, you’re a bit of an idiot, but we love you, buddy.

Dr G 52:56
It’s sad and tragic, but thanks for doing it the right way.

Dr Rad 53:01
Exactly if you’re gonna go out, glad you went out in style.

Dr G 53:04
Yeah. So this is where, like Roman value systems are really quite different from anything that we would be accustomed to. Because when I hear about somebody leading from the front, I think very foolish, but I think the Romans think, Wow. What a man.

Dr Rad 53:23
They do. They hear that Salt’n’Pepa, and they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr G 53:29
And look, if he’d come back alive, that would have been chef’s kiss from a Roman perspective.

Dr Rad 53:36
Yes, exactly, leading from the front. Glorious win.

Dr G 53:41
Yeah.

Dr Rad 53:41
All would have been good.

Dr G 53:42
You can’t beat anything like that. He would have been a star player for years to come as a result of that. It’s just a real tragedy that he went and died instead.

Dr Rad 53:51
Yep, and left his teammate out there, going, what am I going to do now?

Dr G 53:57
Yeah, like guys, I thought we were a team, but you’ve left me all by myself.

Dr Rad 54:06
Poor Titinius.

Dr G 54:08
Indeed. So the last category is the citizen score. Was this a good time to be a citizen of Rome?

Dr Rad 54:17
Sounds pretty panicky. Sounds pretty sweaty.

Dr G 54:19
It sounds like everybody’s scared and rushing to the temples, doing some prayers, rushing to the walls, being like is the enemy at the gate. Oh God!

Dr Rad 54:31
They’re keeping eagle eyes out. They’re definitely feeling paranoid and not unjustifiably, whilst we’re laughing at the fact that this rumors got completely out of hand. You can understand why they would think that if the Romans have just had a catastrophic defeat, it’s not out of the question that the remnants of the Faliscans and Capenantes will eventually make their way there. I mean, why wouldn’t they, in some senses?

Dr G 54:57
Well, exactly. So there is a justifiable fear that the army that has just won over the Romans on the field will proceed to then March on Rome. And really, Romans sort of set themselves up for something like that, because if you’ve been besieging one of your neighbors for the last decade, maybe you’ve given your neighbors some ideas about how they could treat you.

Dr Rad 55:25
So look, it might be mythologized. Maybe the Romans were actually in the bath with a cup of tea and a scented candle burning, and they weren’t panicked at all. But even if we strip away the Homeric elements, I think it would make sense for the Romans to be feeling the pinch right about now.

Dr G 55:43
Definitely. So, in this sense, and particularly when we also have to account for the facts that people who had died on the battlefield also very likely to have been Roman citizens of some kind, then this is not great, not great news at all.

Dr Rad 55:59
So is that a zero?

Dr G 56:00
I think so.

Dr Rad 56:02
Wow. We really built up this episode, and now the Romans are here with just one out of 50 Golden Eagle.

Dr G 56:07
We are not done with 396.

Dr Rad 56:10
No, I was gonna say, I feel like we should maybe add that one eagle to the other eagles that they may or may not win for themselves down the track.

Dr G 56:22
Ooo that is, that’s a big call. I think we can argue about that one when we get there.

Dr Rad 56:26
All right, all right. I look forward to it, Dr G.

Dr G 56:30
Likewise. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com – We offer a huge thank you to you, if you’re one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we’d love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We’re on Ko-Fi for one or four ongoing donations or Patreon, of course. Our latest book, ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire’, is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don’t want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome’s glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire’.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 158 – The Fall of Veii: Part I appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

In 398, the Romans received some worrying signs from the gods, and now we return with a special message for them: From Delphi, With Love.

Episode 157 – From Delphi, With Love

In 397 BCE, the Romans were waging war on all fronts. On top of their ongoing siege at Veii, they were contesting their hold on Anxur with the Volscians, and their colony at Labici against the Aequians. Never ones to shy away from drama, the Romans were also dealing with internal division between the patricians and the plebeians. PHEW! Sounds exhausting.

The Tarquinii, from another part of Etruria, also noticed that the Romans had a lot on their plate. Now was their moment to attack and score some booty! The Romans were highly offended that anyone could even THINK of attacking them when they were already so busy. It was time for an etiquette lesson…

The Romans wiped the floor with these rude raiders, but the rest of their campaigns were in a stalemate. They weren’t losing, but they weren’t winning either. Clearly they needed some divine help, direct from Delphi.

The Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The ambassadors that had been seen to the Delphic Oracle after the sudden rise in the levels of the Alban Lake in 398 returned at this moment. They confirmed what the kidnapped soothsayer from Veii had told them in 398. Lower the levels of the lake and you will have your victory at Veii. Suddenly their captive seemed much more valuable.

Aside from their lack of military victories and the higher levels of water in the Alban Lake, the Romans discovered another sign that all was not right. When the magistrates for 397 had been proclaimed, something had gone wrong. Magistrates were proclaimed during the annual Latin festival for Jupiter Latiaris. If a mistake was made during the sacrifice or proclamation, there was only one thing to do. Get rid of this lot of magistrates and start all over.

An interregnum ensued whilst the Romans sorted out their magistrate woes. Very unusually, the Romans set their sights on someone who was not even campaigning, Publius Licinius Calvus. Calvus had been the first confirmed plebeian to become military tribune with consular power and was known to be very moderate. But how would the Romans pull off his election? Tune in to find out more!

OR

OR

Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:00
Hi listeners. Before we get into today’s episode, Dr G and I would just like to mention that we will once again be presenting at the podcast event of the year, Intelligence Speech in 2025 this event will be taking place on February 8, starting at 9am Eastern Standard Time. The tickets are $30 and are available at intelligentspeechonline.com this year’s topic is deception. So we will be hearing about all sorts of fake history. And historical deception seems timely. Last year, we had a blast talking about Augustus failed attempts to secure an air and we’re looking forward to presenting on something similarly Imperial and scandalous this year. We hope that you can join us and all your other favorite podcasters at Intelligent Speech, and now on with the episode you

Music. Welcome to the partial historians.

Dr G 1:13
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 1:18
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage, and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr rad, and

Dr G 1:28
I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 1:38
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr rad, and

Dr G 1:59
I am Dr G, and I’m super excited to be here because we’re about to talk about 397 BCE, indeed,

Dr Rad 2:09
we are Dr G as we trace the story of room from the founding of the city. But before we get to 397 Can we please quickly recap what happened in 398,

Dr G 2:22
look, there was some sort of lake. It rose up. I think that might be all I recall. Yeah, no, it was important. I didn’t have a lot of evidence, but I think I had some things that suggested that, you know, we had a dangerous time. There was some reading of some portents, one of the people from they revealed the nature of the portent to the Romans, which then prompted the Romans to take some action to make sure the portent worked out in their favor.

Dr Rad 2:51
You are more correct than you know. Dr G, so we’re right in the middle of this lengthy siege of they a rival Etruscan city to Rome, that even though we’ve got this very epic story, is actually not that far away. But we understand why the Romans want to conquer it. It’s powerful. It’s on their doorstep. It’s from a rival peoples they want it for their close to home. Yeah, and it’s been dragging on for a while. It’s been causing internal tension in Rome over issues like military pay and military service. So the quicker this is wrapped up, the better. And last episode, we did indeed have a man from ve, potentially an older man, a soothsayer of some kind, being kidnapped, and he revealed that the only way Rome was going to be able to conquer the city of a was if they figured out how to deal with the excessive water in this particular lake that you mentioned.

Dr G 3:52
Now, intriguing. Now, I have to say, one of our Patreon supporters got in touch with us about this, to discuss the way that there is some evidence from a volcanology perspective, that’s right, or the flooding of these kinds of volcanic lakes from volcanic activity that happens below them that then pushes the water up above the line that it usually sits at. So if you’ve got a lot of magma moving around under the surface, all of a sudden, you might get a situation which appears preternatural, but is actually the result of volcanic activity. And I loved the fact that they reached out with this detail, because I am not a volcanologist. I am an ancient historian. I was just baffled by this, like,

Dr Rad 4:38
what are you bringing to the show, if not volcanology, get out of here!

Dr G 4:42
Charm and good looks. Thank you.

Dr Rad 4:43
Well, that would make so much sense, and I agree with you. So glad that someone reached out with this detail. Because we are, of course, talking about the album like which is seemingly not connected to they, which is in completely the other direction. However, sign. Come from? Whence signs come? Dr, G, when the gods choose to speak, it may not be geographically appropriate, and that makes sense, because the Alban Mons was an active volcano up until around 1150 BC. I believe which, which might explain why there’s not a lot of people living this area until just after that. So that kind of makes sense. You know, the volcano stuff, it adds up.

Dr G 5:29
It does. So I think that’s an exciting detail that adds into this. Because you’re like, Okay, that sounds like a really bizarre story on the surface, but there could be some natural phenomena that is feeding into what is some very unusual natural observations that are happening from the side of they and the portents that are suggested as a result.

Dr Rad 5:50
Yeah. So thank you very much. Patreon, listener for your volcanology tip and with that, Dr, G, I think We might be ready to dive into 397, BCE,

Oh, all right. Dr G, 397 BCE, please tell me. Who are we dealing with as magistrates? This year,

Dr G 6:33
our players, the magistrates, we have a whole suite of military tribunes with consular power, and they’re all patricians,

Dr Rad 6:44
back in the saddle again for the ride through the town with the elites. Yeah,

Dr G 6:51
look, you can have some successes in your siege under a plebeian leadership. But is that enough to keep them in power? No people who have always had power want it back, and they want it back yesterday, so

Dr Rad 7:05
yesterday and forever. Dr, G, yeah,

Dr G 7:07
look so people we have in the role. We’ve got some names that are going to sound awfully familiar, and I think most of these people, by and large, have held positions before, or if not, they come from families that are going to be well known, well well heard amongst listeners, sure. So we have Lucius Iulius Vopisci.

Dr Rad 7:31
Ulis, yep, I definitely recognize that name, and I reconsider 90% of the people listening to this show

Dr G 7:38
like a Julii in power. What are the chances? Previously, a military Tribune in 401 so really, quite recently, Lucius Furius Medullinus,

Dr Rad 7:50
yeah, yeah,

Dr G 7:52
a Furius back in the saddle. Previously, consul in 413, and 409 and previously, military tribunein 407, 405, but most importantly, 398, just the previous year. Methinks,

Dr Rad 8:08
you’ve got a bit of a monopoly on power.

Dr G 8:11
He certainly seems to hold a lot of position. So he seems to be quite popular new kid on the block, but very familiar name, Lucius Sergius Fidenas,

Dr Rad 8:23
yes, descended, I presume, from a branch of a family that’s had something to do with the conquest of Fidenae, one would assume, yes,

Dr G 8:34
following up, also new to the role Aulus Postumius Albinus Regillensis, new

Dr Rad 8:40
man, but perhaps very familiar name.

Dr G 8:43
Yeah, we’re like, is that a new guy? Because that sounds like somebody we’ve talked about before. I agree. How many, how many, how many Postumii are there? We;ve then got Publius Cornelius, Maluginensis.

Dr Rad 8:58
I hate that name.

Dr G 9:00
Also first turn around the block, and then Aulus Manlius Vulso Capitolinus, who was also previously military tribune in 405, and 4020, okay. I do have some mention that there are some legates or some ambassadors, indeed, but apparently Livy talks about them, so I don’t have their names.

Dr Rad 9:21
Oh well, okay, I have their names so I can go through the little list, and then we’ll see how they come up in our story. We’ve got Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus. Now we think that’s his name, who’s a patrician, previously military Tribune with consular power in 406, 404 and 401 and then we’ve got Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, previously military Tribune in 400 BC. We’ve then got Lucius Valerius Potitus, and he has been military Tribune with consular power in 414 406, 403, 401, and 398,

Dr G 10:03
somebody’s popular at high school. Yeah.

Dr Rad 10:05
Now that’s, that’s one set. Oh, yeah,

Dr G 10:09
there are more sets. Yeah. Well, this is

Dr Rad 10:11
the thing. There’s a bit of confusion about, I think, these positions. So we may be dealing instead with Caius Valerius Potitus. Yeah. Consul in 410, military Tribune in 415, and 404 Kaeso Fabius Ambustus, military Tribune with consular power in 410, 404 and 401 or we might be dealing with a Numerius Fabius Ambustus.

Dr G 10:43
Oh, okay, now that that we’ve hit the Ambustii, yeah, in this list, I’m like, wait a minute. I had these people listed down for the previous year, but apparently, maybe some of them are ongoing in their ambassadorial Yeah. I

Dr Rad 10:59
think there’s a bit of confusion. There’s a bit of confusion. There’s definitely a bit of confusion happening around these Ambassador legate people. All right,

Dr G 11:08
okay. They’re still there, still hanging around. They are

Dr Rad 11:11
listed in Broughton, and therefore I accept that they were there.

Dr G 11:15
No fair enough. So when we’re talking about legates at this time period, it’s basically a delegation. You could be given any kind of task. It’s whatever the military tribunes or the Senate decide needs to be done. So it’s not like they hold a specific military position. I mean, you do get military legates later, but you could be asked to do any task that’s administrative in nature, that is supportive of the Roman state. Yeah. So whatever that is, and I’m probably about to hear about it for the first time,

Dr Rad 11:47
well, I think, I think the reason why there’s a bit of overlap is that we, of course, had some legits legging it to see the Oracle at Delphi in the previous year. I would maybe implying that maybe they’re still traveling at this point in time that might have something to do with it.

Dr G 12:05
Are you telling me it’s not that fast to travel all the way to Delphi okay, it’s

Dr Rad 12:09
bit of a journey. It’s a bit of a journey. All right. Dr, G, you ready? Therefore to jump into 397, now that we kind of know who we’re dealing with,

Dr G 12:18
I’m excited to find out what happens for sure? Yep.

Dr Rad 12:22
Okay, so we have a new enemy on the horizon for Rome in this year, the Tarquinenses.

Dr G 12:33
Oh, dear. Yeah, these the inhabitants of Tarquinii. This

Dr Rad 12:37
is to do with the area of Tarquinii, yes. So we’re talking about an Etruscan peoples, yes. Now they notice that Rome is dealing with a lot of other enemies at this point in time. So not only do they have the siege at they which is ongoing and they, of course, has by this time, being joined by neighboring peoples, the Falerr and people from Capena. And then we’ve also got them fighting the Volsci who were contesting occupation of Anxur. We’ve talked about that a few times. That’s been tossed backwards and forwards between the Romans and the Volscians like a hot potato. And then we’ve also got the Aequians who are engaged in attacking the Roman colony at Labici, oh,

Dr G 13:25
dear. It sounds like the Romans have got enemies on every single side.

Dr Rad 13:29
When don’t they talk to G, when don’t they this is

Dr G 13:33
a particularly robust group of everybody that they’ve really ever encountered, not having anything nice to say about them and deciding that attacking is worthwhile. So the Volsci and the Aequians, sort of to the south and the south east, the Falsicans, the Capenates and the people of they to the north, and the Tarquinii also to the north. It’s a pretty big sweep of war on two fronts and multiple enemies on both fronts, and

Dr Rad 14:03
just when you thought that Rome couldn’t take anymore. Dr, G, I’m gonna add a smattering of internal problems. Uh, oh yeah, we’re talking, of course, about the patricians and the plebeians.

Dr G 14:15
Well, Color me surprised. What are they up to now? Oh,

Dr Rad 14:19
well, you know, they always have these ongoing issues, don’t they? I mean, we’re in the conflict of the orders, and we will be for quite some time now.

Dr G 14:28
Oh boy,

Dr Rad 14:29
it couldn’t be really more problematic in Rome right now. So the people who are the Tarquinenses are right on the money in saying that Rome has its hands full. Now, if I were being historical about this. Dr, G, I might want to point out that there are some eerie parallels between events from this year at another year, which we haven’t actually covered yet, which is 388, BCE, oh, okay,

Dr G 14:55
that’s a very close year to have as a parallel, but I’ll allow it. Yeah.

Dr Rad 15:00
I think it’s just that historians have definitely noticed that there are some interesting overlaps in that. We also have war with the Tarquinii. We’ve also got Camillus showing up in that year. We’ve also got an attack on the Aequians. It’s just some interesting crossovers there, which may or may not be coincidental.

Dr G 15:22
This might explain why my evidence is such a mess. Because there is some evidence that I have that I think goes with a later year, but could possibly be connected with this one. And I think for now, I’m just going to leave it until later, and whenever we get to the episode where I think it belongs. But yes, there was some confusion, even with the small amount of things I have available to me as evidence right now about where things go in terms of the timeline. Yes,

Dr Rad 15:49
exactly, yeah. So basically, the tar quinnenzis, they decide they’re going to just dabble in some raiding whilst Rome is too busy to really pay attention. They totally believe that the Romans are either going to just ignore the attacks as they didn’t have the capacity to address it, or if they decided to deal with it, they wouldn’t be sending their best men, and therefore might be easily defeated or dealt with. I

Dr G 16:15
see. Okay, so it’s a raid of opportunity.

Dr Rad 16:19
It is definitely now, the Romans were not necessarily particularly worried by this raiding, because, of course, come on, they’re wrong. They’re way too awesome to worry about such minor problems. However, it’s the manners, the etiquette, that is at stake here. Dr G, it is an outrageous and unprovoked attack. How very dare you. Is basically their response to these people.

Dr G 16:47
How rude any warning. Yes, exactly.

Dr Rad 16:51
It’s just, it’s just not the way that we do cricket. Yeah, can’t

Dr G 16:57
you see, I’m busy with a whole bunch of other wars. You could at least send a letter to warn us we were about to do this kind

Dr Rad 17:04
of as predicted. The Romans indeed did not put much effort into their preparation for dealing with this new and unexpected enemy. But they also didn’t hesitate to deal with this situation. Aulus Postumius and Lucius Iulius. They weren’t able to hold a regular levy because the tribunes of the plebs are named, prevented one. So instead, they set out with a volunteer force totally made up of anyone who had been talked into signing up. And they decided to travel through car A and managed to surprise this new enemy as they were journeying home happily with their stolen booty in their backpacks.

Dr G 17:49
Wow. Okay, so I think the most impressive thing here is that there was anybody left in Rome who would volunteer go on a party when they’re in the middle of so many wars. And the reason why the tribune of the plebs are probably trying to prevent the levy is because the people, by and large, do not want to be levied anymore. No,

Dr Rad 18:08
who is, I agree with you, who is left to levy?

Dr G 18:11
Yeah. Who are these people? Yeah. Is it the young patricians who are like, it’s time for me to show my masculinity out in the field? Yeah. Is

Dr Rad 18:19
it children? Is it the elderly?

Dr G 18:23
I don’t know. Volunteers, Goodness me.

Dr Rad 18:26
But of course, because these people are totally beneath the Romans, the Romans managed to kill a lot of them. I mean, it is surprise attack, to be fair, and they managed to take back all the booty that had been stolen from them and headed back to Rome. Wow.

Dr G 18:41
Okay, so on some level, I suppose this could just be read as a standard surprise attack, but I wonder if this is also something where Livy is now trying to build a narrative of Etruscan decline, because interesting. So the Tarquinii are one of the Etruscan peoples, and we know that they is not in a great situation. They haven’t lost this siege yet. But watch out, everybody, spoilers.

Dr Rad 19:13
Yes, it could be definitely a bit of an indication of what is about to come spoilers. Yes, so the Romans then have a very amusing situation to me, which we’ve spoken of often, Dr G, which is where they basically put everything out in the open, and they say, Come and get your stuff. You got two days. Oh,

Dr G 19:31
okay, so is this like a is this a booty situation? Yeah,

Dr Rad 19:36
because I take him back, basically everything that had been taken in this, in this initial attack, has been taken back in the reverse surprise attack. And so they come home with all this stuff. And stupidly, the Romans have not put their name on everything in black texture. And so they just put it all out and they say, right, you got two days. Everybody and anything that’s left on the third day is going. To be sold under the spear, and the money raised will be split between the soldiers that served in this surprise attack. Selling something under the spear means a spear would sort of be set up to as like an advertisement saying, Come and get it, and it would be essentially a public auction. Intriguing.

Dr G 20:17
Now I wonder if there would ever be anything left, I feel like the onus would be on. The priority would be to take as much stuff as possible, particularly if you were involved in the raid. Because what if there was nothing left at the end for that auction to raise money for yourself? That would suck. Yeah, this, this does sound like a bizarre set of maneuvers. You know, there

Dr Rad 20:42
might be an odd shoe doesn’t have,

Dr G 20:46
like I see that leather vest, but I could make one better myself. Yeah, take that rubbish home. Etruscan rubbish. No. Well, so

Dr Rad 20:54
anyway, so that’s what happens. That’s a little bit obviously of Roman success, which is just as well, because as for the rest of the Roman campaigns, it’s not going that well. Dr, g Now, don’t get me wrong, the Romans are definitely not losing their other campaigns, but they’re certainly not winning. It’s basically a stalemate just all around. Ah,

Dr G 21:15
well, that’s tough times, isn’t it? Not making any progress, just sort of waiting it out, and it’s the grind of war. It

Dr Rad 21:23
is. It is so the Romans feel that they’re stuck in this situation. They no longer feel that they’re going to be getting any help from humans. We need to turn to the divine. Dr, G, and wouldn’t you know it? It’s right about now that those legates slash ambassadors returned from the Delphic

Dr G 21:43
Oracle. Oh, good timing, guys,

Dr Rad 21:47
exactly. Now they did have that soothsayer, the elderly soothsayer that had been kidnapped from they, who told them how to deal with the rising waters in the Alban Lake, and that unless they dealt with that, they would never triumph over they. But naturally, because he’s from the enemy, they’re in little bits and submissions that he might be trying to throw them off course. And they wanted verification. The Delphic Oracle says exactly the same thing as the old man has said. So now they have corroboration. Of course, being an Oracle, it says it in a much, much more wordy Oracle, e sort of way the the meaning is essentially the same, I

Dr G 22:23
suppose, yes. I mean the famously, these oracles could be misinterpreted. So I hope this one is clearer than most

Dr Rad 22:30
well. Interestingly, some historians, of course, have looked into this oracle, and it does apparently stem from something that has been translated from the Greek, and the prophecy is thought to be one that isn’t really an original Oracle from Delphi, but one of these ones that had sort of popped up in the late Republic and was reported to be an Oracle from Delphi. Oh, I

Dr G 23:00
see, okay, the way that, I mean, yeah, okay, yeah. So we’re dealing with a bit of a sort of an anachronistic sort of retrojection back into this, at least

Dr Rad 23:10
in the wording, yeah. I mean, the meaning might have, you know, always been there. But yes, the way that it’s worded, I believe, hmm,

Dr G 23:17
I think this is a really interesting move, on the behalf of the Romans to be like, we need to put our faith in not any sort of soothsayer necessarily, or even local members of the sipper lines, for instance, but we need to travel all the way to Delphi to get an answer. This might be indicative of just how under the pump the Romans feel in this moment, with this ongoing siege, that they’re like, We really need the big guns for this one. But it is an interesting sense in which we can understand Rome as being part of that broader Mediterranean world. They’re not just relying on their own people. They’re certainly not just relying on the Etruscans, and they’re willing to travel quite vast distances in order to get some sort of divine insight into their local problems,

Dr Rad 24:04
and now the Romans feel obliged to give the Delphic Oracle a very generous gift once the war was entirely over. So that’s their future intention. Ah,

Dr G 24:16
yes, okay, I look forward to this because I think I’ve read a little bit about this, but it doesn’t happen this year. I’m like, No, this

Dr Rad 24:22
is just a an intention. They’re like, mental note. Put it in the diary, guys. Once we finish dealing with this situation, we better send them something really nice. We’ll get them a box of lint chocolates. We want top quality. We want foreign champagne. The whole works.

Dr G 24:38
All right, so prepare yourselves for a hamper. Priestess of Apollo, given

Dr Rad 24:44
that we are currently recording this at around Christmas time, I feel like there’s going to be all sorts of strange things in this hamper as well that you would never normally eat, but somehow turn up in hampers.

Dr G 24:55
Yeah, you’re like, Oh, that’s really intriguing. Yeah, some

Dr Rad 24:59
sort of. Pate, some sort of spread made of something that you never thought could be turned into a spread.

Dr G 25:04
Well, you’re like, thank you.

Dr Rad 25:08
Now, of course, all of a sudden, the guy that they had kidnapped from they the soothsayer that had told them ages ago about this whole lake situation is very respected in urban society, because wouldn’t you know what he was telling the truth this whole time.

Dr G 25:24
Can you imagine his fate, if that he had not been corroborated by the Delphic Oracle, would have been death very quickly. So I’m glad for his sake, but that it’s turned out well, it’s

Dr Rad 25:35
I think this is where your version of events makes more sense than mine in this particular instance, because you highlighted that in your account, this guy was tortured for information, whereas in my account, he seems to very willingly just give information up. Either way, I definitely would have been suspicious. Torture means he might have just been saying it to make the pain stop. The other way around, it seems a little quick that he just suddenly turns against his own people and tells the Romans what they need to know.

Dr G 26:03
Where’s the sense of loyalty? What’s in it for him?

Dr Rad 26:06
Yes, the military tribunes, Cornelius and Postumius, want to use the soothsayer to take care of this whole album Lake overflowing situation, especially because now the gods are involved, they feel they have to appease the gods by taking care of that particular situation. Sounds

Dr G 26:21
reasonable, all right, so they’re going to get a workforce onto that one.

Dr Rad 26:25
Now they also find that there’s been an offense against the gods, because there was a problem with some of the magistrates.

Dr G 26:36
Oh dear.

Dr Rad 26:38
Turns out that there had been a problem with the election. Oh, okay, it had been improperly proclaimed, these Latin games and a sacrifice conducted on the Alban Mount. Now this is probably referring to a Latin festival that of Juppiter Latiarius. This is probably what it’s referring to here, which was something that is associated with the Latin League. It was held every year. And after this festival, that’s where there’d be a sacrifice, and there’d be the proclamation of new consuls or military tribunes at this time. So it seems that somewhere in here, at this very important moment of proclamation, something had gone wrong.

Dr G 27:24
Okay, so I think this is one of those things about Ancient Rome which is off overlooked, particularly for the Republic, but is super important, which is the way in which their politics is very much tied in to their relationship with the gods at all times. So the way that things are pronounced, the way that things are said, all of those ritual formulations, are extremely important in order to get right for things to be proper in the eyes of the gods, from a Roman perspective. So if something has gone wrong in any of that stuff, and they come back around and they realize this is a huge problem. So does this mean that they disband this whole group of, like, military tributes we’re

Dr Rad 28:10
getting there. We’re getting I’m just gonna add okay to what you just said. I think it’s also, I think you’re totally right about that, but I think it’s also potentially a problem with the sacrifice, like, it sounds like a great big stuff up on their part.

Dr G 28:22
Oh, a problem with the sacrifice. Do they have details about what went wrong with the sacrifice?

Dr Rad 28:27
No, just says there was a problem, a problem

Dr G 28:31
with a sacrifice. Yeah, all right, I’m very intrigued by this. Yeah. Please continue. Yeah.

Dr Rad 28:36
Well, and I just thought I’d also mention because people might not know much about this. Indeed, I don’t know much about this because I’m not really into religion as much as you are. But this particular gathering, this festival, it’s very ancient. As far as we can tell. It goes back a really, really long way. It’s held, funnily enough, on the Alban mount, which we keep talking about, this previously volcanic mountain, which has now become such a focus of so many of our stories. And it is something where various Latin people come together, and it’s where you can see this commonality between them in terms of the language that they speak in terms of the gods that they worship, potentially also the way that their societies are organized. You know, we offer, you know, we’ve often questioned, do they have exactly the same political setup as the Romans? Because sometimes it seems like the Roman sources assume that they do. Maybe they do,

Dr G 29:36
maybe they do. There has got to be some sort of cultural connection. You would assume, even if things are run slightly differently in each place, that shared language and a shared understanding of the gods that need to be looked after and appeased is a sense of commonality of purpose, even if there are small nuances of differences in how each one is run. Politically when they go back home, yeah? Now, if we’re talking about problems that you could have with a sacrifice, I mean, there’s a whole number of problems potentially. And this

Dr Rad 30:10
is a big have, yeah, this is a bull that is sacrificed, okay,

Dr G 30:14
yeah, because it has to be, obviously, it has to be the right kind of bull. So you would hope that that’s not the mistake that they’ve got the right kind of bull in terms of its coloration, for instance, and its age, things like that are very important. But it could be something about the nature of the procession to the ritual killing. It could be something about how the knife was wielded during the sacrifice. It could be something about what was said in the moment over the sacrifice, either before it happened or after it happened. So those verbalizations tend to be something that is really possible to make a mistake with, and could be heavily scrutinized afterwards. Now, how would you know you’d be waiting for other signs of the gods, right, to suggest that there was some sort of displeasure here, so then you’d have to backtrack. Yeah, yeah, the lake might be the indicator. Be like, Oh no, the lake, guys, I don’t think we did it, right, yeah.

Dr Rad 31:16
And it is. It is so interesting, because, as you say, I feel like I often do overlook these religious aspects to Roman life. And obviously this is beyond Roman life. This is about Latin communal life where they’re coming together. And it becomes a really important sign that you’re invited to this, you know that you’re part of that particular community, and it’s something that the Romans will continue to attend for, like, a really long time. So it’s probably not the only moment where we might mention this particular festival. Now we don’t know how far back this particular association goes exactly, even though we know the festival itself is very ancient, but it might be something to do with this myth idea that the Latins all trace their ancestry back to Latinus, the father in law of anaeus, who’s obviously very important in terms of Roman understanding of themselves and their connection to Trojan War survivors, who is transformed into The figure of Juppiter Latiarius after his death. Now that may come after the festival, maybe a way of explaining some aspects of it, but certainly it does eventually have that particular association as well, which again highlights that shared culture.

Dr G 32:35
Yeah. And as far as these sorts of things go, there’s likely to be a number of different locations, in different spots locally, where gatherings happen depending on the god, depending on the time of year. So shared sacred spaces, essentially where people come together to meet in order to do this kind of ritual undertaking, in order to make sure those relationships with the gods are solid. Now I think what I would love to know, and I think might be impossible to really know, is how often might it be the case that the Romans are turning up to these sort of shared sacred spaces in order to engage in communal sharing of gods and sacrifice with people that they are also potentially at war with outside of those spaces, I’ve wondered to what degree that is happening, or whether there are times where certain groups don’t attend in anticipation of not wanting to run into groups that they’re currently in conflict with it is an

Dr Rad 33:41
interesting question, because as far as we can tell, the Romans did not initiate this festival, and it’s something that they just they became a part of, and became a perhaps more important part of as they start to conquer. You know, surrounding cities and towns and their reach grows larger, but yes, I agree. Awkward,

Dr G 34:03
awkward. Oh, hey guys, just, just here for the sacrifice.

Dr Rad 34:09
Could you please pass the slaughtered ball

Dr G 34:12
that guy tried to stab me last year on the battlefield? Anything

Dr Rad 34:18
now, as you highlighted Dr G in this particular moment, the only thing that could be done to address this was to get all of the military tribunes to resign their office and to retake the auspices and start an interregnum in the place of the military tribunes. Because, oh goodness, yeah, it causes huge problems, obviously, for their their power, the legality of that power, it’s just not worth the risk.

Dr G 34:44
Wow. It’s been a while since, I think we’ve had an interregnum. Yeah? Okay, I’m up for that. Sure. Let it commence.

Dr Rad 34:52
Yeah? So, I mean, I think it’s because they see all these signs, not just the lake, but obviously the fact that they’re not having much success in battle, like they’re not you. Not a disaster, but it’s not what they aspire to. So the Senate orders that this takes place the interregges who are chosen are Lucius Valerius, Quintus Servilius Fidenas and Marcus Furius Camillus.

Dr G 35:12
Oh, okay, well,

Dr Rad 35:15
how convenient. Yes, there are ongoing problems caused by these unnamed tribunes of the plebs who are continuing to cause issues. In this particular instance, they are blocking elections until they receive assurances that most of the new military tribunes with consular power would be plebeians,

Dr G 35:38
fair enough. I mean, it’s a classic tribune of the plebs move. I applaud them for it, and I wish them all the very best. Yeah,

Dr Rad 35:45
yeah. And I think this is perhaps why they’re unnamed, because Livy’s just like, Oh my God, here we go again. Not more of this segue to what’s going on in the Etruscan land. Ooh. The Etruscans are also having a bit of a meeting at this moment in time. Now, we’ve often seen the Etruscans come together at voltuner. It’s where they all seem to meet chat and get on Veii’s case.

Dr G 36:16
What’s happening down there this time? Guys? You need help again? We’re busy. Yeah.

Dr Rad 36:20
So now that they’ve got the capernaus and the Philistines involved in this whole shenanigan, they are strongly suggesting that all the Etruscans should band together to try and help end the siege against vein, because they’re obviously now committed. And they’re like, Come on, guys, come on. We know you hate vein, but what about us? We’re adorable. However, once again, the Etruscans say a big fat no to helping. They citing their old reason that they had never shown any interest in helping or caring for anyone else but themselves. It

Dr G 36:51
is really interesting, because one How would Livy know this, but also this idea that Etruria as a nation is starting to break down. Like, under what circumstances would you not try to look after one of your own? They is an Etruscan city. So the idea that the rest of the Etruscans are getting together and being like, No, and it’s like, it’s really rejecting somebody from your family at that point. Oh, yeah. Like, you’re on your own, whatever. Yeah.

Dr Rad 37:23
No, I know it’s kind of bizarre, because surely they can see that things aren’t going terribly, but it’s not good. It’s been the Siege has been enduring for quite some time now, and what

Dr G 37:33
does it what does the true area think is going to happen if they falls? Who do they think is next? It’s like they haven’t thought ahead the way the civiliscans and the capinartes have. They’re like, they’re like, no, no, we’re a solid block. We’ll be fine.

Dr Rad 37:48
The Etruscans also have their own problems going on, which might also explain their reluctance to help the people of A and that is that they’re dealing with. And I quote my translation of Livy, a strange race new settlers. Who are these people? No freaking idea. The Etruscans aren’t actually engaged in warfare with them at this point in time, but it’s clear that it’s a prickly situation, right?

Dr G 38:14
Are these people, by any chance, from the North?

Dr Rad 38:18
I know what you’re thinking, and we can’t really be sure, it doesn’t seem quite right. Seems too early.

Dr G 38:25
Intriguing. Yeah, I

Dr Rad 38:26
I’ll just explain to the listeners. I believe Dr G is asking if they are indeed, Gauls. Are

Dr G 38:34
they have the French arrive. Everyone’s like, I’m confused, but their cheese is delicious, so I’ll let them stay for now.

Dr Rad 38:44
Yeah, honestly, not sure. But from what I’ve seen so far, I think the answer is probably no, okay, yeah, but we don’t know. Okay,

Dr G 38:52
I wonder if they’re people from the other side of the Apennines. Then there’s sort of like, the East Coast Italians coming over the way, being like, hello,

Dr Rad 39:02
East Coast. West Coast. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So the Etruscans decide to make a bit of a compromise in this whole scenario, which is that any of their young men who want to go and volunteer may go and help. They once again volunteering. Big thing 397,

Dr G 39:19
nobody’s got any money that that we’ve established

Dr Rad 39:22
that might be it.

Dr G 39:25
They spend it all paying the soldiers to get through winter. Nobody’s got any cash left. Etruscans included,

Dr Rad 39:30
yeah, with young people going to volunteer to help, they the Romans, of course, presumably don’t know that all of this is going on, that this is a negotiation that’s happening, and so all they see is this huge influx of young fighting men, and they’re like, holy crap. What does this mean? Is this a sign that worse is to come? This seems very worrying. And of course, as soon as the external threat that external pressure is increased, it means that the patrician and plebeian problems, they got to take a back seat that predictable pattern that we come to know and love. Dr, G,

Dr G 40:08
yes, we need to band together, put aside our personal political differences and make sure we win this war. It’s the only way. In fact, it is the only patrician way to navigate anything. Yes,

Dr Rad 40:22
it’s at this moment that we see a return of Publius Licinius Calvus, if that name doesn’t ring a bell for shame, because he was the first ever military Tribune with consular power, who was definitely, without doubt, a plebeian. And he first served in 400 BC, so only a few years ago.

Dr G 40:41
How could one forget that’s very exciting. But what’s he What is he going to do? Does this mean they’ve put him into a magistracy or,

Dr Rad 40:48
yeah, he’s he’s chosen again, to be prospective military tribune with consular power for the following year. I believe that’s what, oh, that’s what they want. And I think because they know that he’s a very moderate character. Remember, if we cast our minds back to 400 BCE, it seems that he was chosen because, whilst he has the plebeian background that would please the tribunes of the plebs and the plebs themselves, he was not offensively radical to the patricians,

Dr G 41:16
very willing to roll patrician style, yes, and

Dr Rad 41:20
because he had proved himself before, I think they see this as a compromise moment, once again, all right, very interesting. Now I’m going to add another detail. It’s going to blow your mind here. Okay, okay, so he was chosen even though he had not run for the office.

Dr G 41:41
Okay. Well, that sounding more classic Roman potential, weird horse moment being like, I’m just hanging around being a dude, and it’s like, we need you to save Rome. Yeah,

Dr Rad 41:52
I think that’s it. I think they see him as serving a very particular purpose and a moment of tension when they need the Roman people to be united, and the senators are very happy that he is around to serve this purpose. And I think the idea is they’re going to get the whole band back together. That’s what Livy says. He’s like, let’s just get everybody from 400 because that was a great team. We want that team. We need that team. Wow.

Dr G 42:15
Okay, well, I feel like that’s that will be an interesting moment for them, if that’s the path they decide to tread for the next year. But I guess, I guess we’ll find out soon. We

Dr Rad 42:26
will, and I’m gonna have to save, unfortunately, the details of exactly what happens for the following year, because, of course, this is all for the following year. So this is looking forward to 396, the detail that I’ll finish up on. And this is one I must admit, that I always find confusing to explain, because the Roman voting system is always one that perplexes me, particularly early on in this stage where we can’t be 100% sure about a lot of details, but the way that he was chosen was apparently by prerogatives. Now explaining this is where I get a little a little tripped up. Essentially, the idea is that there are 18 centuries of knights, and they would vote first, and if they all vote the same way, the other centuries are not required to vote because they outnumber it. That whole idea of like the the rich and the powerful out ranking everybody else,

Dr G 43:17
yeah, there’s a yeah, there’s a clear system of who gets to vote in what order. And then there’s a first past the post kind of element to this, where it’s like, once they reach a threshold of who the winner is, everybody else can just go home.

Dr Rad 43:31
Yes. The difference is that with the praerogativa, the idea is that one would be chosen by lot. Okay, yeah, so that’s kind of the idea, rather than them all voting together as a voting block, eventually, there was a system introduced where one would be one of the centuries would be chosen by lot, and it would be revealed to the rest of the assembly before a vote was recorded. So it was kind of being like, this is the way that we’re heading, kind of indication, I suppose,

Dr G 44:08
okay, and that selection by lot happens before the voting commences. Yeah,

Dr Rad 44:13
it’s this idea that one of the centuries. So presumably, what we’re talking about here is like the committee a century art, and it’s like one of the centuries from the first class would be chosen by a lot, and that would be like an indication of where things were going eventually, it was, I believe, adapted so that a single century would be chosen by a lot to try and make it a bit fairer. Now, all of these developments that I’m talking about here, they’re all things that we can only test for certain at a much later date. We have no idea when these things actually really started.

Dr G 44:47
Yeah, the voting organization is very unclear from our source material for this particular period, and I think we only start to get some really solid evidence, some hints and tips. It’s in a century or two.

Dr Rad 45:02
Yes, exactly. So exactly what this means is a little unclear, but it certainly, I think, is meant to be indicating that, look, this is the way that the vote would go. And we like this guy, we want Publius, Licinius Calvus, to be our man. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, so it’s a little confusing. I apologize that I’ve explained this badly, but it’s mostly because it’s all about who has the right to vote first, essentially. And the reason why it’s confusing is that it’s really hard to know exactly how this would have played out at this particular moment in time, for sure. And that is about all I have for 397, BCE, dr, G

Dr G 45:44
Oh, well. Exciting news. I have things to tell you about the broader Mediterranean world. Love it, not a lot, but I don’t have much on Rome, but I have made a note about this prerogative motion in voting systems, because I’ll go and have a look at it and have a look at it and see what I can dig up, because I would love to know more.

Dr Rad 46:04
Yes, and I must admit, when I looked the more I looked it up, the more I became incredibly confused, because it’s obviously been adapted several times, and none of those particular tested moments may have anything to do with this story.

Dr G 46:18
Yeah, it’s a tough one, particularly for this early period of the Republic. So the source that I have for this period is Diodorus Siculus, amazing. Who gets some of the names right of the military tribunes some of the names wrong, leaves a couple out. But he does also tell us about what’s going down with the Persians and the Athenians at this point in time. So we have this really interesting character called Conon. Now, Conon was a naval commander of the Athenians, and he gets voted in on multiple occasions as Dr Goss so as a military commander, General figure, and during the Peloponnesian War, he gets caught up with some situations around my deline, and he loses a whole bunch of his ships. And this is a problem, and he escapes out of this situation, and he flees to a king eurogoros And who’s in Cyprus. So he gets to a different island, he gets himself out of trouble, and it’s at that point that he’s put in touch with a guy called fauna barzos, who is a Sartre of the Persians, and is currently great king as well. So somehow, he falls in with the Persians, the powerful Persians at this time, and he is then taken in by the Persians and placed as an amral at the head of a Persian fleet because of his great skill set. So he’s basically escaped from a war like situation and sold his skill set to the Persians. The Persians have been willing to accept that, and he’s now an Athenian leading a Persian naval command. You’re like, this is chaos. What is this guy up to? I

Dr Rad 48:23
feel like that’s not a terribly uncommon story for the Greeks at this moment in time. Even though the Persians are often like their great enemy, a lot of people who fall afoul of their fellow Greeks seem to find their way to Persia.

Dr G 48:38
Yeah. And so it’s in this sort of like situation where it’s like he’s fallen in with the Persians, and they’re looking after him, and he’s been put in charge of stuff that they then send him because it probably because of his intelligence, they send him at the head of a Persian fleet to Athens so not only is he now working for The Persians, but he now is rocking up at the doorstep of his former homeland, entering the parius with 80 triremes. And he’s like, we’re here to help. The Persians are here to help everyone’s like, this situation is part of what is going on with this complexity of the Athenian situation, which has been variously strung out with the Peloponnesian War, which is just has wrapped up, but is now like, what are the consequences of that? And part of the consequences of that is that the Spartans are now seeing a power gap in opportunity, and so they see that this Conon character is that the head of this fleet, they try to make that a thing for them. It’s just getting really messy over there. He eventually gets lured back to Persia, and there he’s arrested because he’s not doing what the Persians want him to do. So the Athenians don’t seem to be particularly happy, and the Spartans are not very happy either. So it’s a tale of woe and dissatisfaction that is playing out in Greece. So I mean good luck to the legates and ambassadors who have been trying to travel to the Oracle at Delphi, because it seems like it’s a complicated time in the Mediterranean Sea in terms of who’s going where or what ship, and how they’re ending up, and who’s actually in charge. And how do you tell if somebody’s Persian or Athenian when they’re in command of a whole fleet of vessels? Nobody knows it’s madness out there. Indeed.

Dr Rad 50:36
Oh my goodness. Well, that’s

Dr G 50:37
that’s my fun tale. I’m sadly lacking in source material for the Romans. I

Dr Rad 50:42
suspect that will change for the next year. I’m very excited

Dr G 50:45
for the next year, because I have so many sources to consider,

Dr Rad 50:49
indeed. Well, I think that means, Dr G, that it’s probably time for and the partial pick a very tired little Igor today. So Dr G tell us about the partial pick. All

Dr G 51:04
right, we judge Rome by their own standards, and often they fail miserably, so we’ll see how they do this time round. But there are five categories that we’re going to consider, and they can win up to 10 golden eagles in each category, and at the end, we’ll add it up to see what they got out of 50 and whether it’s a pass or fail for the old romance this time round,

Dr Rad 51:27
I’m not holding my breath. I’m not going to lie. But let’s start off with our first category. First category is military clout, all right. Well, whilst widely acknowledged to be in a stalemate. They did have that little victory over those Raiders.

Dr G 51:43
I give them one point for that. They haven’t lost

Dr Rad 51:47
anything disastrously. They’re holding their own.

Dr G 51:51
They’ve won nothing else, but they’re facing so many enemies, okay, two I would expect, I expect more victories, but they’re

Dr Rad 52:01
not losing. They’re holding their own against several enemies and still managed to secure, okay, admittedly, a minor victory against some raiders, but still they got all their stuff back. Okay,

Dr G 52:12
how well have the Romans acquitted themselves in battle? Is the question that is connected with the concept of military clout. Well,

Dr Rad 52:20
they won against the Raiders. They got all their stuff back, and they give it back to everybody.

Dr G 52:23
Raiding is not a battle.

Dr Rad 52:25
No, the enemies were raiding. The Romans put those raiders in their place with volunteers, no less. Dr G, volunteers

Dr G 52:35
willing to give them one golden eagle. Nothing more. All right, fine, nothing less. The second category is diplomacy,

Dr Rad 52:44
Hmm, no, I don’t think so.

Dr G 52:48
I sense no negotiation. Well,

Dr Rad 52:50
I feel like the Etruscans are negotiating amongst themselves, but that doesn’t count for the Romans.

Dr G 52:54
It certainly does not expansion, no.

Dr Rad 52:58
I mean, they’re kind of just holding on desperately.

Dr G 53:05
Okay, weirdos? Oh,

Dr Rad 53:06
my God, no, there’s like nothing going on here.

Dr G 53:10
I don’t know. I felt like there was a weird to us moment when Calvus Didn’t put himself forward. Is

Dr Rad 53:18
that weird or so? Isn’t weird to us about taking action.

Dr G 53:22
I mean, yes, but it would also potentially if we had a scene where he actively declined.

Dr Rad 53:31
I don’t think that’s what happened. I think, I mean, it’s Look, I can’t, I don’t want to give anything away about the following year, but it seems more that he was just minding his own business, racing around trying to manage the folds of his toga. And he was chosen because he demonstrated that moderate behavior, which they felt Rome was sorely lacking at this point in time. And he doesn’t seem to have said No, exactly, okay.

Dr G 54:00
Well, he’s coming across as a pretty bland character. Yes, yes. Doesn’t say no. Just goes with the flow. I

Dr Rad 54:09
mean, look, there will there will come a moment which, which is going to complicate this story in the following year. But I don’t think he is like a Cincinnatus type of character where he’s like, you just leave me alone to farm. Well,

Dr G 54:21
in that case, I’m not seeing any clear signs of weird display. No.

Dr Rad 54:26
I mean, look again, there’s the dealing with the raiders, the military tribunes with consular power. They do that. They deal with the Alban Lake situation. But I feel that’s just politicking

Dr G 54:35
that is. I’m not necessarily seeing any standout figures of Roman weird to us. Yeah, all right. The final category perhaps the moment for redemption, because otherwise it’s looking pretty grim, is the citizen score.

Dr Rad 54:50
Oh boy. Okay, we don’t get a lot of insight in this year to what’s going on with the citizens, apart from the fact that there is this ongoing tension between the. Patricians and the plebeians. And again, it’s a very stalemate situation. While it doesn’t seem to be going that brilliantly for them, the tribunes of the plebs are definitely holding their own, unnamed as they are. They

Dr G 55:15
are. They seem to have denied a levy, but we also have citizens who are volunteering to go on some counter raid. That’s

Dr Rad 55:23
true. But from where are they? The ones that had their stuff stolen? Well,

Dr G 55:27
Give me back my blanket.

I want my shoes, damn it.

Dr Rad 55:31
How am I supposed to walk anywhere?

Dr G 55:35
They say, walk a mile in his shoes, and you understand him. Understand myself without shoes. Yeah? So anyway, I don’t know. Yeah, that’s what

Dr Rad 55:46
I mean. It’s very confusing. We do have the military tribunes refusing a levy. We have them postponing elections until they get certain assurances, which seem to have been somewhat successful because of this Licinius Calvus person being resurrected again, vanilla as he is. He is a plebeian vanilla bean.

Dr G 56:06
Well, I mean, if you have to have vanilla beans, let them be plebeian.

Dr Rad 56:10
Yeah, yeah. So there’s a little bit of success there, but there is still a lot of war going on, yes.

Dr G 56:15
So as a citizen, it doesn’t seem like it’s the worst time, because it’s not like that Romans having terrible losses on the battlefield, where you can be like, it’s a horrible time to be a Roman city. They don’t seem to be winning a lot either, no, except for the misplaced booty situation. So maybe

Dr Rad 56:34
two, yeah, I think that is fair. I think we also need to rewrite that famous line from Charles Dickens. It wasn’t quite the worst of times. It wasn’t quite the best of times.

Dr G 56:50
397, mediocre at best. Yeah,

Dr Rad 56:54
and that means Dr G that we have a total of three out of 50 Golden Eagles for Rome. Well,

Dr G 56:59
that’s quite low Rome, but maybe next year will be redemption.

Dr Rad 57:04
It’s one of those things because I’m like, actually, this was an interesting year in some ways, but it just wasn’t really going anywhere. It was like the holding pattern. Look this once again, could be Livy padding the narrative a little bit, until we get to the very big year of 396, he’s in a holding pattern. He’s circling. He’s circling a very big story not ready to come into land yet.

Dr G 57:29
Yeah. He’s like a little vulture just waiting for the 10 years to be up so he can start telling this tale about how

Dr Rad 57:36
How dare you He’s an eagle.

Dr G 57:39
Either way, either way. Yeah,

Dr Rad 57:41
all right. Dr, G, well, that is 397 wrapped up, and I am extremely excited to talk to you about 396 because I have indicated a number of times I have you it’s going to be a big one.

Dr G 57:53
Oh yeah, looking forward to it. You.

Dr Rad 57:55
Music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buy us a coffee on ko fi. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say salve to Taurus, Vicky, the Mercian People’s Front and Gail some of our recent Patreon and Ko fi supporters. Thank you so much for joining the partial band. However, if you lost all of your money betting on the wrong Gladiator, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review. And if you’re looking for something delightful and rumin to read over your holiday break, you can grab yourself a copy of our latest book, your cheeky guide to the Roman Empire out now Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 157 – From Delphi, With Love appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

In 398 BCE, the Romans were still enmeshed in their siege at Veii. Whilst the Romans waited, worrying portents started to appear. What did they all mean?

Episode 156 – Kidnapped!

The most concerning portent was a sudden increase in the levels of the lake in the Alban Woods. It was positively spooky. An embassy was despatched to visit the Delphic Oracle so that the mystery could be unravelled.

Lake Albano, courtesy of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulconologia.

Whilst the ambassadors were on the road, some casual conversation between enemies led to a revelation.  An old man from Veii seemed to have the answers the Romans needed, and unfortunately this led to him being kidnapped and interrogated. How else could the Romans get the information? They want the truth!

The old man and the Oracle both indicated that the Romans needed to figure out a way to draw off the water from the lake. Then, and only then, Veii would fall, and the Romans would be victorious.

Sounds simple! Just make the water go away, Rome.

OR

OR

Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
Music. Welcome to the partial historians.

Dr G 0:18
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad.

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:55
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians I am Dr G, and I am Dr rad, and we are tracing Rome’s history from the foundation of the city. And in this episode, we’re going to be looking at 398 BCE, so we’re right in the early period of the fourth century

Dr Rad 1:18
that we are Dr G. But before we dive into 398 Can we get a quick recap on what happened in 399

Dr G 1:24
It was either a hot summer, a severe snowstorm, or both. Well, I

Dr Rad 1:29
think the snowstorm actually happened in 400

Dr G 1:32
Well, so you say.

Dr Rad 1:34
So I say indeed, although Wait, how do Italian winters work? Wait, when is a winter? Oh, actually, that would make sense. It would span two years. Sorry, being in the southern hemisphere, it took me a moment to figure

Dr G 1:46
that out, yes. And the thing is that the source material doesn’t kind of line up in any other way. So, like that fragment can’t come in earlier than what it already did, or at least not as far as I can tell. So I think there are ways in which Livy and Dionysius might be a little bit out of sync with each other, and that’s fine, because there is that sort of prerogative around the 10 year siege. So we’re in this period of time where we know that Rome is and the writers of Rome are making up some of the time because they want this siege of a to take 10 years, just like the Trojan Well, yeah, they want to have this beautiful mirror to the Trojan War. So things are a little bit haphazard. Things are a little bit out of sync. And even when we look at our comparative source material from somebody like Diodorus Siculus, they’re out by a couple of years every time,

Dr Rad 2:38
exactly. And so, as a result of all this terrible weather, the Romans had to throw a gigantic party for themselves and for the gods. Most importantly, and the patricians decided to blame it all on the fact that there were so many plebeians elected to serve as magistracies.

Dr G 2:55
I mean, where else would terrible weather come from? Naturally? So, yeah. So this means that we head into 398 with the pretty traditional patrician chip on the shoulder about plebeians and what’s going on there. And I guess we’re gonna see how that plays out for them. Exactly.

Dr Rad 3:16
All right. Dr, G, let’s do it 398 BC, you

Dr G 3:37
so this year we have military tributes with consular power. It has been foreshadowed, and now we’re here.

Dr Rad 3:44
And the names, Dr, G, such sweet music to my ears, because they’re so familiar.

Dr G 3:50
Oh well, some of them, at the very least, exactly, Lucius, Valerius, Potitus, yeah, yeah, you’ve heard of him before. It sounds familiar. Is familiar previously, Military Tribune in 414, 406, 403 and 401

Dr Rad 4:04
It’s nice to have an experienced hand back at the wheel, all

Dr G 4:08
hands on deck, especially potituses. We also have Marcus Valerius Lactucinus, Maximus. Lactucinus

Dr Rad 4:19
of all sounds like a disease that you get when there’s too much pollen around. Well,

Dr G 4:23
interestingly, I

Dr Rad 4:24
did look this up because, yay. Wait, did have to do with milk? Oh, no,

Dr G 4:29
it has to do with lettuce, as in salad leaves.

Dr Rad 4:34
So the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Well, I don’t

Dr G 4:38
know. Is it any worse than Cicero, the chickpea. So the early Republican period, this name Lactocinus, or Lactucinus, if we go with a really hard seat, is related to, etymologically, the word for lettuce.

Dr Rad 4:55
He should marry his daughter to someone in the Cicero family so that they can have a salad. They could make salad together. Oh, yeah.

Dr G 5:02
So yeah, this seems to be one of the things. They’re not that common. A few of them crop up in this century, and we’re going to see one later on as well. But yeah, pretty rare. This guy is a new kid to the block. Never been a military Tribune before, so he must be pretty excited. This

Dr Rad 5:20
also doesn’t really add up with what they said in the previous year, which is that they were putting their very best candidates out. I mean, how can this guy be the best candidate who’s never held the office before? I don’t

Dr G 5:30
think you understand how best works from a patrician perspective.

Dr Rad 5:34
I know I’m just putting it out. I’m switching perspectives from all over the place. Sometimes I’m plebeian and sometimes I’m patrician. Just when you think I’m gonna Zig. I zag.

Dr G 5:42
think he was born that way, and that’s what makes him great. Yeah, we also have Marcus Furius Camillus.

Dr Rad 5:50
Come on, the Furii.

Dr G 5:54
of the story. He emerges. He’s here previously, military Tribune in 401, so quite recently, yeah, Andy’s Beau and Lucius furious. Medullinus

Dr Rad 6:06
definitely recognize this name, yeah. So

Dr G 6:09
a couple of Furii’s in this gang. Well, of course. I

Dr Rad 6:12
mean, if you’re putting forward your best, you’re putting forward the Furii, obviously, of course. I mean, I’m disappointed that none of them are Spurius Furius, but still,

Dr G 6:19
that’s true, although Camillus is the grandson of a Spurius Furius, that’s as good as it gets. So Lucius Furius Medullinus was previously consul in 413, and 409 so way more illustrious than the military Tribune with consular power.

Dr Rad 6:38
Seems so long ago that we talked about consul.

Dr G 6:40
Yeah, it’s been a hot minute,

and he was also a military Tribune with consular power in 407 and 405 so definitely experienced. Well, experienced. Yeah. Next we have Quintus, Servilius Fidenas, ah, yes, previously, military tribune in 402 and Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, also military Tribune with consular power in 402

Dr Rad 7:10
the old gang is back together. Yeah,

Dr G 7:13
the boys are back now. I also have the names of some ambassadors or legates, or legates, people who hold some minor but significant positions enough that it gets named in the year. We know who they are, apparently, almost somewhat kind of,

Dr Rad 7:35
we

Dr G 7:36
have parts of their names. I have a lot of oars in this list. Yes, me too. Yeah. So we’ve got Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus. Now, this guy, fabulous patrician background, previously military Tribune in 406, 404 and 401 wow. Yeah, he’s getting around. But now he’s been, he’s been given some sort of task this year, we’ll find out what it is.

Maybe the taskmaster shall tell you, Ambassador,

Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus. Question mark, not a patrician.

Dr Rad 8:10
No, he’s a guy. He’s the first one, you know, the

Dr G 8:14
only one, according to Livy, apparently, in 400

Dr Rad 8:16
exactly the inoffensive one. Oh, the palatable How could you forget someone as beige as him, the palatable plebeian? Exactly,

Dr G 8:27
he opened the door for the radicals of the following year, who

Dr Rad 8:31
did nothing and yet still got blamed for everything.

Dr G 8:34
I thought their military victories were quite significant, really. No, I know, but that’s what I mean.

Dr Rad 8:37
Like, they did nothing wrong, but they still got blamed for everything. Disaster.

Dr G 8:42
Yeah. So they are joined by these two guys. Are joined by a Lucius, Valerius Potitus, same guy as above. Apparently, you could be a military Tribune with Constable of power and be an ambassador, slash leggett, with your patrician. You can be anything. I mean, we could hire somebody else for the job, but I’ve just decided to hire myself.

Dr Rad 9:01
I just so qualified.

Dr G 9:03
I’ve looked at the candidates, and I’ve decided I should be the boss. I

Dr Rad 9:06
am clearly the man for the job, indeed. And that job, and that job, in fact,

Dr G 9:11
all the jobs, exactly. And that’s how we get kings. Everybody. Be careful. Now we’re not entirely certain that this is set in stone. This is one of the ‘ors’. So it’s either this Valerius Potitus, already in a role, or Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusu, who must be related. There’s a lot of similar names here, so Gaius Valerius Potitus, maybe instead of Lucius Valerius potitus, we’ll see now Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus was previously consul in 410 as I’m sure you recall, oh, naturally I never forget. And previously military Tribune with consular power in 415 and 404, some families are really dominating the upper echelons of power. Here they really are. Now we also. Have another or situation. So it could be the case that we have Kaeso,Fabius Ambustus as our last ambassador, legate, or Numerus Fabius Ambustus.

Dr Rad 10:12
the first one sounds for more familiar to me.

Dr G 10:15
The first one is more familiar because they’ve definitely had more roles previously, military Tribune in 410 404 and 401 whereas numerous has only been a military Tribune with consular power once in 406 but it’s anybody’s guess, some of the names are missing. And when we are missing the prey gnome and the first name, and we’ve only got the gens, and then the branch of the gens, it really does put us at a bit of a loss as to who we’re talking about.

Dr Rad 10:48
We’re like Roman names. They’re

Dr G 10:50
from a family, yeah.

Dr Rad 10:52
All right. Dr, G, are you ready for some drama? I am ready. Okay, so as we’ve noted, it’s an oil patrician lineup. And Livy s obviously very into this, because he does actually detail exactly how many times these guys have held the position before, etc, etc. So he wants you to know these guys are elite now. They do not do anything particularly significant at they itself. The siege continues. Well, there’s a surprise, yeah, there’s just some minor pillaging that goes on, you know, just to keep them on their toes. However, it’s time to take out the legs from this campaign. And by that, I mean, you’ve got to get rid of those pesky allies that keep trying to pin Rome between they and themselves, it’s time to take out the Falerii once and for all, exactly, and also, the Capenates hate those guys absolutely. So Potitus is the one who is picked to go against the Falerii the people of Falerii and Camillus is sent against the Capenates. Now I said that dramatically, because Camillus is a figure of note in Roman history. He is now against these enemies. They were able to capture lots and lots of booty, and then they destroyed anything that they didn’t take.

Dr G 12:20
Oh, okay, wow. Okay, yep.

Dr Rad 12:23
Annoyingly, this also was a year where there were lots of portents that were being reported. Dr, G, ah, yes. Now, at first, when they started being reported, it was just one person who saw something weird, and people were like, Hmm, maybe Bob’s gone crazy.

Dr G 12:41
What are you been drinking? Bob, yeah,

Dr Rad 12:43
I don’t think I believe you, but as time went on and more and more were being reported, it started to become concerning, especially because this war with they meant Rome was plung out of Etruscan soothsayers.

Dr G 13:00
Oh, no. I hate it when that happens. But then

Dr Rad 13:04
there was a portent that lots of people saw, and it got everyone really freaked out. Are you ready to hear? What kind of twisted thing would make them think that the world was about to end? I

Dr G 13:16
am interested to hear, particularly since I have some source material this year, so I’m wondering the extent to which our sources are going to agree or disagree on the fantastic things you’re about to tell me, look,

Dr Rad 13:27
it’s a pretty big deal, so I think they are going to line up, but nonetheless, strap yourself in, just in case. Don’t you falling off that chair the lake in the Alban woods, even though there had been no rain or any other sort of water source, suddenly got higher. Yep, there was more water in it, and nobody knew how.

Dr G 13:50
Oh, that’s weird.

Dr Rad 13:53
It was really, I know they were like, where’s the magician? How did they do that? They can’t explain it. And so they decide to send off representatives to the Delphic Oracle. That is a long way from home, it is, and this is where all our legates and ambassadors come in, yeah, however, road trip, yeah, exactly. Let’s get this elite band on the road show some people what we’ve got. However, whilst they’re off checking out the Delphic Oracle, as you say, it’s not close. So it’s happened that an old man of they just wandered out and chipped in his two cents about what this all meant. Now, apparently this was possible, because obviously the Siege has been going on for a number of years. At this point in time, and between the two warring armies, when they weren’t trading insults and having staring contests with each other, they were apparently chatting sometimes.

Dr G 14:54
Oh well, yeah, fair enough. I mean, a siege is a siege. You gotta get bored like bro. What’s happening on your. A third of the world. Yeah.

Dr Rad 15:01
Now I imagine that the way he said this, he didn’t just wander out and sort of casually throw it out there, like, oh, you worried about the lake. Here’s what it means. I think it was very much like the scene in the Harry Potter movies where Emma Thompson’s Professor character, the one who’s like the divination teacher, goes all weird, and, like, goes into a trance, and very clearly, is speaking for somebody else, like on behalf of somebody else, yeah, because I’m saying this, because Livy says he said it in a prophetic strain. Oh, okay, so I’m imagining something quite dramatic.

Dr G 15:38
Yeah, everyone’s like, wait a minute, that guy’s doing prophecy. Yeah, now,

Dr Rad 15:41
see it gets even more dramatic than more water, where no more water should be. What he says is that the Romans would never be able to capture they, whilst the water level remained high, once the water had been drawn off, that was their moment to seize. They once and for all. How strange I know the Romans were like, Yeah, okay, old dude, clearly you’re just trying to psych us out and make us like, even more worried about the lake getting higher. Mysteriously, lies, lies, I say exactly however. They can’t help but keep talking about it amongst themselves. It’s quite the topic of hot gossip. Dr, G, well, I

Dr G 16:26
mean, they’ve just had a really weird experience with like, strange weather events and their first lexternium, all of this sort of stuff. So maybe they’re in they’re in the mood for thinking about, well, what if, yeah.

Dr Rad 16:42
So the Romans started to just like, chat to some of the locals and ask, like, so who was that guy who, like, made that random comment that we’re not thinking about at all. And this, again, just shows how the theaters lasted so long that the Romans and the people they’re totally talking to each other, the Romans discover by talking to the locals that the guy was a genuine, legit soothsayer.

Dr G 17:10
No regular party tricks, but like No, no fundamentally trained in the arts of divination, exactly, trust and style, totally,

Dr Rad 17:18
totally legit. Could not be more above board. So the Roman who’d taken it upon himself, this random Roman guy to chat to the locals, asked if the old guy would come and meet with him, because he’s super, super concerned about this portent. So the Roman, apparently, is quite the charmer. He manages to put the old man at ease when he comes to the meeting. And he also very subtly, starts just walking him away from any of his own folk, walking him well away from his own group. Uh oh. He also made sure that he had no weapons on him when this happened, like the old man had no weapons, and then in plain sight of everyone, he abducts him. I know

Dr G 18:11
people on the walls are vaping like, hey, yeah.

Dr Rad 18:15
Now this is interesting, because apparently not all the sources that tell this story make it an old man and like a younger Roman soldier. And it might have been something that was added to sort of foreshadow that Veii was old and faltering and Rome was young and hot fresh.

Dr G 18:33
Well, look, I mean, it sounds like a reasonable way to approach it. There are some differences, definitely between the account that you’ve just provided from Livy, oh,

Dr Rad 18:43
and it’s not over yet,

Dr G 18:45
and the source material that I have prepared.

Dr Rad 18:47
Okay, which is good. This is good, all right. Now, crazily, the Etruscans cause a huge fuss about this, this kidnap in broad daylight, but the rumors are like, yeah, no, sorry. It doesn’t really matter how much you jump up and down. We’re keeping him. We like him. He’s ours now. Exactly he’s ours now. So they take the old guy to the general, and the general says, What am I going to do with this guy? Send him to the Senate. So he goes off to Rome itself, and the Senate interrogate him intently. They get out the spotlight. They put him in a dark room. They all crowd around him menacingly. There’s a bad cop, good cop, exactly, slapping him around. And they’re like, tell us about the Alban Lake prophecy. Tell us more. The Old Man points out that the gods must have been angry at the people of they to have sent him such a message at such a time, so that the Romans obviously overheard the key to defeating their enemy. I mean, it seems a bit crazy, because it’s telling them exactly what they need to do in order to defeat they they just need to drain the lake. Somehow,

Dr G 19:50
it does seem a bit strange, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Dr Rad 19:54
Now, apparently there was actually a record of this on the Etruscan side of things, so it was written down. Somewhere in Etruscan law. So I guess something like their version of the sibylline books that when the Alban water overflowed, if the Romans could draw it off, they would indeed defeat they but the gods would be by their side until that exact moment the old man then, apparently said, Oh, you’re worried about draining it. Well, this is how you drain it. It’s being very helpful. Wait

Dr G 20:27
a minute,

Dr Rad 20:28
I know inside of his own abduction, he’s super, super helpful.

Dr G 20:33
Yeah, look, I mean, I suppose he has been tortured because he’s now giving up everything he

Dr Rad 20:37
really is. So the senators are like, Really, okay, but they’re not sure if they can trust him, because, after all, he is from the enemy, and it’s super weird that he’s telling them everything with seemingly very little pressure. So they decide that they want to wait and hear what the Delphic Oracle says, because, of course, they’ve got their ambassadors of checking that out. All right, okay. Now, unfortunately, the Group of Ambassadors must have been having a fabulous time, because they did not return very quickly. Well,

Dr G 21:10
I mean, it’s not close. Delphi is not near Italy, really. I mean, think about, how are they going to get there? They either have to go over the Apennines and then they’ve got to take a ship, and then they’ve got to cut across some land, and then they’ve got to get to Delphi, and then they’ve got to do the whole trip in reverse, or they sail around. They go in the opposite direction. In Italy, they head towards Ostia, and then they sail all the way around the foot, all the way around and across to Greece, to Delphi and then all the way back. This is not, it’s not a pleasure jaunt that’s going to take, you know, a couple of weeks. It’s going to take a while.

Dr Rad 21:49
Excuses, excuses, Dr G, but because they’re not back in time, it means that they can’t actually drain the Alvin lake in this year, and therefore they just have to hold on a little bit longer, hold on for one more day,

Dr G 22:04
looking at the lake being like, Excuse me, still high. Yeah. Problems.

Dr Rad 22:10
Now this is all very confusing, because the final thing I’m going to just mention is that I don’t understand what the Alban lake would have to do with they because it’s nowhere near they it’s in completely the other direction. Excuse me, yeah, it’s not near ve at all. And so it’s really strange that this is mentioned in connection with this story. And even stranger, dr, G, I have archeological proof that something did go down with the Alban Lake.

Dr G 22:41
Oh, yes, likewise, yeah, there are some odd things with the Alban lake. So would now be a good time to mention some different source material into these.

Dr Rad 22:53
Feel free.

Dr G 22:54
Hmm, well, well, well, I have a few sources. Dionysus of Halicarnassus is first. Then we’ve got a bit from Plutarch, and then we also have a bit from Cicero. My

Dr Rad 23:07
goodness, diversity,

Dr G 23:09
you know, find my sources where I can Dionysus of Halicarnassus being back is great, to be honest. And I enjoy the fact that that this is one of these moments where there’s an A new parallel to be drawn with Livy and some distinctions to be made. So he opens this situation talking about the rising of the Dog Star. So this is Sirius, the brightest star in the in the sky, and talks about how that period of the rising of the Dog Star is related to a whole bunch of water events where lakes tend to fail and rivers tend to dry up, but the Nile, as an exception, has its inundation. So he sets up this whole sort of like water and the time of the stars. And then he talks about the Alban mount. Now, the Alban mount and the associated lake are in that Castelli Romani region to the south east of Rome, and really importantly, tie into the foundation story of Rome. So it is weird that we have this coming out in an Etruscan soothsaying situation, because it doesn’t tend to have a traditional association with the Etruscans, at least as far as we’re aware. Nevertheless, we’re talking about a similar region, like they and Rome are very close to each other. This is true, and while Rome would be on the way to the album mount. If you were from ve it’s still not that far, really. So they’re in the same region, essentially. One of the odd things that Dionysius tells us is that there had not been rain or snowstorms that could account for what happens with the lake. Which is weird, because previously, in the last year that just passed, we did have the unprecedented almost seven foot snowstorm in Rome. And I’m like, Are you sure you didn’t have any snow recently? Because I might explain it. I feel like you guys just talked about, like, the most outlandish and unheard of before or after snowstorm in Rome’s history.

Dr Rad 25:26
They have every right to be freaked out by this mysterious water that came from nowhere.

Dr G 25:30
Where did the water come from? I’m so confused. It’s not

Dr Rad 25:34
like we just had all this snow and then a really, really hot summer that melted it all. No

Dr G 25:38
idea. I’m perplexed, a mystery. I am purplex The gods. And the other thing to keep in mind about the Alban mount is it is a volcanic lake, so it’s, Oh, I did not know that, yeah. So it may be fed by some spring systems, but the rock itself underneath it is going to be pretty porous. So you’re not expecting the lake to ever rise a lot, it would have it would take an all enormous amount of water to raise the lake

Dr Rad 26:06
so scary. Dr, G, yeah,

Dr G 26:09
because it’s constantly sort of like slowly dissipating out through the mountain and down out into other regions. And that’s what makes the water so delicious, and it’s what makes it so good for growing grapes and things like that. The wine from that region is really well known. So all of these things, you’re like, Okay, well, it is weird that the lake has raised so significantly, although within the context of a snowstorm, maybe not so much, but leaving those

Dr Rad 26:37
crucial leave your logic at the door, please. I

Dr G 26:40
feel like Dionysius didn’t read back his previous draft. He just kept going forward. He sits down for a new day, and he’s like to to whoever he’s dictating this to, because we don’t think he put pen to paper himself. You know. He’s not like, you know, just give me the heads up on what just happened. And he’s like, nope, starting fresh. All right, so 398, there has been no snow. Anyway. This whole situation with the lake is so significant because it floods. So it raises above all of its conceivable threshold limits, and it starts to flood places, and the water runs down out of the Alban mount into the surrounding plains. Now this is a problem for Rome, because Rome is in the surrounding plains. Yeah, disaster. Also. There’s plenty of other towns along the way. So that’s a problem for everybody.

Dr Rad 27:34
You know. You think they just say that, you know that it flooded. It flooded, yeah? Rather than saying, Oh, my God, there’s so much water,

Dr G 27:44
where will it go? It goes out of the lake and down the mountain, that’s where it goes, that pallet makes sense to me. So I think it’s interesting that Livy didn’t sort of tap into that what seems to be like a key piece of like, just knowledge about how water might work. But anyway, it’s not his thing. So the Romans in general think that the gods might be mad at them fair enough, and it’s time to do some ritual propitiation of the gods in order to make things okay. And ask local bankers

Dr Rad 28:17
banquet, was it enough? They even had catches? Yeah, look,

Dr G 28:20
The lectisternium is over, guys, we can’t do another one of those just yet. Who would we invite

Dr Rad 28:27
these guards?

Dr G 28:29
So the local soothsayers apparently didn’t have a good answer on this situation, and this is what led to sending a delegation to the Delphic Oracle. Like you can’t get an answer, you need an answer. It’s time to visit Delphi anyway. That’s a long trip. So fair enough. But in the meantime, over in Fay, it turns out that one of the inhabitants of Veii

Dr Rad 29:00
is a man

Dr G 29:03
no is a holder of the knowledge of augural science.

Dr Rad 29:09
Birds, again,

Dr G 29:12
who the knowledge of which has been inherited from his ancestors. And the Etruscans are famous for their augury. So this is one of their ways of doing divination that that is really nice. And it turns out that if you’ve been in a siege for about five or six years, maybe you’ve struck up some acquaintances and friendships on either side of the wall. And this guy from they has ended up being mates with one of the Roman centurions, nameless, sadly, naturally, who knows some guy anyway? These two dudes, they get together every so often, have a bit of a chat. You know, they see each other wave from like, you know, down on the ground, from up on the wall, mate, let’s go.

Dr Rad 29:58
I’m not gonna kill you today.

Dr G 29:59
No. You starving yet? Why you’re looking good. Consider you got no food, all that sort of stuff. And apparently, on one of these days, this guy from ve remarks that he pities the Roman Centurion because of the calamity that is going to befall him and everybody, if the city is captured,

Dr Rad 30:19
wait, if Veii is captured, or if Rome is captured, it must be a captured, right?

Dr G 30:24
Oh no, the centurion, sorry. Oh, right, sorry, yes, yes, not the guy from me, the centurions, like, look, I’m, you know, sorry for you guys. You know it’s gonna end badly. We’re gonna capture the city. It’s gonna be a disaster. Yeah,

Dr Rad 30:35
you already so we did to your allies. It wasn’t pleasant. Sorry

Dr G 30:39
about that. Yeah, and then the Etruscan guy says, Well, you know, that’s interesting that you say that because you’re actually quite ignorant of what is going to happen in this situation. Because, you know, we’re in this endless war, fruitless toil, and you think you’re going to overthrow the city of Veii, and it seems like you don’t understand that there is a whole prophecy related to this. So nobody told you about the kind of

Dr Rad 31:13
reading your sibling books.

Dr G 31:15
So as an atratuscan, what I can tell you is you don’t know the prophecy, and it’s fated that they will be captured only when and only if the lake beside the album mount is lacking in its natural springs and is no longer able to mingle its waters with the sea.

Dr Rad 31:35
Hmm. Okay, that’s a bit more specific than mine. Yeah.

Dr G 31:39
So the idea that the lake actually feeds into a whole bunch of sort of tributary systems and eventually leads into the sea, which, you know, sounds pretty reasonable geographically. And I think the guy from Veii is feeling really confident as well being like, well, obviously, you know, you’re never going to be able to cut off a lake and a river system from the sea. That’s just not how things work. Boy, has this guy underestimated the Romans

Dr Rad 32:10
and their determination to beat them?

Dr G 32:13
So the Roman centurion is kind of like, this sounds serious, but it does sound like we’ve got, like, a way out here as well. And he tells the tribunes that he’s got a bit of a plan, and he’s wondering if he can move forward with it. And they’re kind of like, well, sure. I mean, I guess. I mean, let’s see what happens. It can’t be any worse than anything else we’ve been trying recently. So the Roman centurian is like, the next day to the guy from Veii, like, let’s have a chat, man to man, mano e mano, let’s do this thing. And the guy from Veii’s like, sure, you know, we can have a more fulsome chat about prodigies and things like that. That’s fine. And as they’re going for a bit of a walk away from the walls, it’s at that moment that the Centurion grabs the guy from Veii around the waist picks him up and runs away with him abduction and carries him off to the Roman camp, to the surprise of perhaps the guy from Veii, but not to the military tribunes who approved this plan ahead of Time, of course. So the tribunes, they use arguments. They threaten to torture this guy.

Dr Rad 33:25
Oh, okay, so in my account, it seems like he just gave everything up very easily. No,

Dr G 33:31
he doesn’t give things up very easily. They eventually send this guy to the Senate, because he doesn’t seem to be giving them any more fulsome detail. And he kind of just sort of states the same thing over to the Senate as well. Some of the Senate appear to think that this guy must be a bit of a huckster, a charlatan, somebody who’s just lying through their teeth to try and get the Romans worried. And others are kind of like, seems legit, you know, gotta? You gotta listen to the soothsayers. You wouldn’t want to dismiss somebody who’s got augural science in their background, would you so got the birds only sad? Yeah, the birds are with him. So it’s in this moment when we have the guy from Vay in front of the Senate and they’re disagreeing about whether they believe him or not, that the ambassadors that had been sent to Delphi earlier return, just in the nick of time. Oh, okay, yeah. So we’ve got this moment of the coming together of the guy from Veii, who is telling this story about the urban Lake and how, you know, if it’s cut off from the sea, that means Rome will win. That’s when they will fall. That’s when it’s foretold, and that’s the only time that it could happen. But now the guys from Delphi are back, and they’re like, Oh, well, this is interesting, because it turns out that the Delphic Oracle agrees with this an Etruscan prophecy. That’s what she’s told us as well. That’s what she said they’re like, ah. So this then sets in motion a whole train of action. There’s a sense in which that Dionysius, at this point, starts to talk about the gods and the genii of the city of they and the genii are this personification of divine force that is supposed to live in every person. So the idea that there is, there are gods of a place, and Genii sort of embedded in the people that also reflect the place, seems to be this sort of thing. And the idea that the good fortune of the city is really held in place by the gods and the corresponding genii, and this is where the Romans decide that it might be time to test out this prophecy by taking some action. That’s

Dr Rad 36:03
interesting, actually, because one of the academics I was reading about this passage mentioned that the idea of the gods deserting they and therefore that being the moment when the city finally falls is meant to once again, be really matching up with the narrative of the Trojan War and the gods deserting Troy. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Very

Dr G 36:29
interesting. Yeah. So this idea that the character and strength of a is somehow tied to the divinities, but is also tied into prophecy and somehow connected to this Alban Lake specifically. So there is a sense of location involved as well, and that, yeah, the fate of the city is in the balance in this moment. So the Romans come up with what I think is a very quintessential Roman problem solving for a prophecy like this. Let

Dr Rad 37:08
me guess it involves construction. We’re gonna

Dr G 37:11
dig some channels, guys. Let us divert the water that flows out of the Alban Lake and make sure that it no longer runs into the sea. That’s how we’re going to win this war.

Dr Rad 37:26
Smart, ARB,

Dr G 37:28
true. Smart, I did some Roman engineering. What I find fascinating about this whole tale is that, on the one hand, it sounds very much like the person from Veii is just trying to provide a distraction tactic and keep the Romans busy. Keep the Romans busy in the opposite direction.

Dr Rad 37:47
Yeah, exactly like suddenly the geography makes sense. You need to

Dr G 37:51
be looking over at the Alban Lake, guys. That’s where the problem lies. Not I mean, we’re going to be here until that problem is solved. So if you go over there and fix that and then come back here, and in the meantime, everybody in Veii is like, sort of laughing in the corner being like they fell for it.

Dr Rad 38:11
That’s it’d be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that they actually will be defeated. Well,

Dr G 38:16
that that is the real problem for this narrative, I think, yeah, but they’re not going to fall straight away. So in that sense, we’ve got a bit of a problem, because the Romans are now out doing various engineering works on the plains south of Rome, away from Veii to try and divert some water courses. And it’s kind

Dr Rad 38:35
of wild to think that you can actually still see, presumably, this tunnel that Livy and Dionysius and everyone was talking about that it actually still exists. I have heard it mentioned as well in one of the sources I was looking at that maybe, rather than being a diversion, very cleverly devised by the people of a maybe it had something to do with hygiene. You know, if the Romans are worried about plague or dealing with pestilence, you know, given all the environmental things that have gone on, maybe it was something to do with improving, like water flow, water supply, hygiene, something like that in their area.

Dr G 39:18
I think there’s reasonable grounds to assume that the locals in the area have done works around the lake in order to mitigate its potential for flooding like that would just make sense. Yes. So in order to it, because it’s it functions a little bit like a dam, and if you need to let some runoff happen, and you’ve got the capacity to control that a little bit. That’s preferable to letting it flood wherever it wants to and making it really, really difficult for people who live around that lake. Yeah. So controlling that environment, I think, is something that makes sense for the locals in the area, whether the Roman specific. Did it in connection to this prophecy? Is a whole other question. And one of the sources that I encountered for this that was considered to be modern scholarship, but it was, it did feel more like a 19th century Grand Tour journal. Was a guy who was like, I’ve just gone to try and find these tunnels related to this Alban lake. And boy, did I succeed. And I had to tie some rope around some olive trees and swing on over find out what’s going on. I was like, This is hilarious and very interesting. So there’s definitely engineering work that have that has been done that is related to the Alban Lake, for sure. The connection with this as early as this period on unclear, but the dating is Yeah. The dating might be Yeah. Well, definitely, there seems to be some grounds for this kind of idea. Now, whether you want to buy into this whole narrative, but Dionysius continues with more detail here as well, because it’s not just that the Romans go about this engineering work. The people in Veii find out about the engineering work, and they become incredibly concerned that the prophecy is about to come true the wrong way. Yeah,

Dr Rad 41:17
it makes it sound less like a clever diversion on that part. Well,

Dr G 41:20
apparently they become really quite concerned, and they send one of their most senior soothsayers at that point to the Romans as an envoy, and

Dr Rad 41:32
he’s like, we take it all back. We didn’t mean it,

Dr G 41:35
not that they didn’t mean it, but that they actually wished to end the war they wanted to, oh, my god, yeah. So they sent somebody really senior to the Romans to say, we would like to see an end to this siege. And, wow, we will give up. They and it’s at that point that the Roman Senate votes against peace. Holy

Dr Rad 42:02
crap. I’m glad you can’t see me right now. Dr, G, because my mind blown all over the walls.

Dr G 42:09
I’m sorry to hear it, because your brain is very special. The fact that it’s everywhere now is it’s a problem.

Dr Rad 42:17
We’re gonna have to put that back together again. We’ll deal with that later, after the audio,

Dr G 42:22
so yeah, the Senate votes against peace, which is a poor choice. I would say. You know, if people are willing to not fight and give up a place, ideally say yes, yeah,

Dr Rad 42:36
why would you want Is it because they really think that they have to do things according to the prophecy.

Dr G 42:42
Oh, they actually it’s not at all clear. Dionysius doesn’t give us like the rationale for why the Senate doesn’t want peace, okay, but does record the reaction of the envoy who really digs into them and says, What kind of place are you that you will not accept the submission of a city like who do you think you are, that we think we’re room, that when a city comes to you and says, we’re going to lay down our arms and surrender, that you would rather destroy it root and branch like what kind of people are you in the face of the gods that you would make that kind of decision? I

Dr Rad 43:30
feel like this is building to a larger narrative that Dionysius might have in mind. It has something to do with something that happens to Rome after they managed to conquer they

Dr G 43:44
no spoilers. So that’s Dionysius account of the situation, okay, and then we have plutarchs Life of Camillus. And obviously the focus is on Camillus, and so

Dr Rad 44:02
naturally he mentions the whole escapade against the Capenates. Yeah,

Dr G 44:06
Tribune for the second time, you know, for the present, he had nothing to do with the siege, because he was busy waging war with the Valerians. Oh, okay, and the capernatos. Oh, okay,

Dr Rad 44:21
there you go. And

Dr G 44:23
so he was a busy boy, not involved with the siege, but that’s very exciting. But then Plutarch also shifts into talking about the calamity of the Alban Lake.

Dr Rad 44:33
Oh, wow. Everyone’s very concerned about these water levels.

Dr G 44:37
This lake is considered to be an incredible prodigy. Yeah, tell me about it. No natural cause. Nobody knows where the water came from. It had been neither rainy nor nor had Rome been vexed with South winds,

Dr Rad 44:58
once again, overlooking this. Yeah,

Dr G 45:02
yeah. So the rivers had run low, so there could be no explanation at all for why the Alban Lake, on the other hand, was already somehow rising above its natural levels, swelling until it reached the skirts of the mountain and gradually touching the highest ridges.

Dr Rad 45:24
Sounds pretty pervy. Yeah,

Dr G 45:27
it is those skirts. They’re rising. Oh, yeah. This was considered a prodigy already, apparently, by the local shepherds and herdsmen. They had looked at the lake. They saw it first. They’re like, This is bad. The gods are involved, and then the waters break, and Plutarch describes this massive torrent coming down out of the mountain all of a sudden and flooding everything in its path, ruining the vineyards for which this mountainous area is so famous for, and heading all the way to the sea, which, if you’re in the urban mount, you can’t see the sea in the distance. So, I mean, it’s the least within, you know, a reasonable visual range. And everyone’s dismayed. Obviously, Rome’s it’s a problem for Rome and the inhabitants. It’s a problem for everybody in the local area. It’s all very low lying. Everyone in Rome, I imagine, is like running up to the tops of hills being like, Oh no. Then we get the similar sort of story about the soothsayer from Veii being on intimate and confidential terms with one of the Roman soldiers. Man

Dr Rad 46:35
three sources and still no names,

Dr G 46:39
no But similarly, the guy from Veii gets abducted by the soldier just they’re just friends, just two men, one abducting the other one with a prophecy. It

Dr Rad 46:51
sounds like the kind of friendship you should probably expect during a siege, to be fair to the Romans.

Dr G 46:57
So in that sense, Plutarch is a pretty good parallel. It sounds it reads like Plutarch read Dionysius of halicanassus is one of his major sources. Oh, and Livy, no, but he doesn’t have Livy s details. He has Dionysius. Yeah, I’m just kidding. Um, so I’m sorry he might have read Livy and decided that that one didn’t really convince him quite as much

Dr Rad 47:21
as, Oh, someone’s cooking now that she’s got her sauce material back,

Dr G 47:27
my sauces are back, guys, finally, we can know the truth about robes

Dr Rad 47:31
history. Yeah, I told by the Greek

Dr G 47:35
an impartial source to be sure. Oh,

Dr Rad 47:39
dear. All right, well, I think that probably does that wrap us up for 398,

Dr G 47:43
yeah, mostly. So this does get a mention in Cicero’s on divination as well,

Dr Rad 47:49
of course, on divination. Yes,

Dr G 47:53
he talks about this, not in terms of abduction of the soothsayer from Veii, but as a desertion, which might tie in quite nicely with Livy s version of events actually true. Yeah. So the idea that this guy from Veii gives up all of this detail so willingly,

Dr Rad 48:11
he’s just like, Oh, please don’t take me. Oh no, no, I’m on the other side. I have a prophecy that could really help you, and I have a prophecy that says that my city’s gonna fall in a couple of years. Oh no, I know what. I got a room. Don’t take me to the other side. That’s gonna win. I’d hate for that to happen exactly with my people, exactly. I need to be here when everything really goes tits up.

Dr G 48:36
That gives a sense like Cicero is more leaning into the desertion aspect of this and how that might play out, and certainly also conveys this idea that perhaps the people of a are really just war tired at this point.

Dr Rad 48:52
Well, yeah, they haven’t been able to get out, yeah, and

Dr G 48:55
they do, again, send an envoy to Rome, and they do seek peace at this point, and we don’t see peace. So it’s it’s glossed over a little bit, and there’s not as much detail about that in Cicero as we get in Dionysus of Halicarnassus. But certainly, this idea that Rome has a peace offer on the table, and they reject it does come through in a couple of different sources.

Dr Rad 49:23
Rome, Rome, you make it hard to root for you. Sometimes

Dr G 49:27
they certainly do. But yes, that is the end of my source material. All right.

Dr Rad 49:31
Well, Dr G, it’s time to wrap up. 398, that means it’s time for the partial pick. Woohoo. An Ow. Who, who? All right. Dr, G, tell us how the partial pick works.

Dr G 49:46
All right. We judge Rome by five categories. We like to think we judge them by their own standards, but really we judge them by a house completely

Dr Rad 49:56
arbitrary.

Dr G 49:58
They can win up to. 50 Golden Eagles under this system, and 10 are potentially on offer in each category. So our first category is military clout, okay,

Dr Rad 50:12
not really what I would call military clout. I mean, there’s a little bit of action in my account. You know, with the military tribunes with concealer power, seems to go, okay, but it’s nothing that spectacular.

Dr G 50:24
Yeah, I think we get Camillus, and that’s about it, but

Dr Rad 50:30
and Potitus.Thank you very much.

Dr G 50:34
Could forget Potitus? I mean, I just did so I can’t give points to somebody I forgot, even within the context of an episode we were talking about him, yeah. I mean, I feel like two, yeah, I’m not. I feel like I’m not in a good position to judge this one, because I

Dr Rad 50:50
feel like two, yeah, one for each of them, for Potitus and Camillus. Oh,

Dr G 50:55
all right. Two, it is our second category is diplomacy.

Dr Rad 50:59
Wow. Well, given your accounts, the Romans really fall on their face in this category.

Dr G 51:05
I think I would like to give them negative. I can’t, so I’m gonna go with zero, because they hand diplomacy come to their doorstep and they said, No, thank you. We’d rather try to wipe you all out. And

Dr Rad 51:20
I also think the kidnapping is also kind of undiplomatic. Yes,

Dr G 51:24
that is undiplomatic, isn’t it? And I don’t think that sending envoys to Delphi necessarily counts as diplomacy. No,

Dr Rad 51:32
no, that’s just for their own ends,

Dr G 51:36
indeed. So a solid zero there. Good job. Rome. Third category is expansion.

Dr Rad 51:43
No, again, it’s just faffing about at this age.

Dr G 51:48
Yes, there’s no territory gained nor lost. It would seem, trenches were dug, channels were made. Engineering happened.

Dr Rad 51:57
Says you, but yeah, oh, my account very specifically says nothing happens yet

Dr G 52:04
I see All right, so expansion is a zero, yeah, the fourth category is weirdos. No,

Dr Rad 52:11
oh, my god,

Dr G 52:13
Ro really falling on it.

Dr Rad 52:17
I know. I mean, there’s some chat that’s bad,

Dr G 52:20
is it weird to us to abduct somebody in broad daylight after you’ve led them away from a wall?

Dr Rad 52:26
Well, this is the thing. I think the Romans would like it, but I think they would think that’s pretty manly, yeah, but the guy’s nameless. I feel like they’re not really taking him very seriously. If they don’t at least bother to give us his name. Perhaps you are right. Yeah, I feel like if they really thought, oh my god, this is so cool, they would tell us at least what his name was, and also how weird was It was, yeah, exactly. It doesn’t come across that way. It’s very set up, like it’s very sketchy in Livy S account, the way that he’s like, Oh, hi, old man, you don’t happen to have any weapons on you. Good, good. Let’s just wander over here. Nothing suspicious, nothing to worry about. Look at

Dr G 53:09
it. Look at that bird.

Dr Rad 53:11
Yeah, and he’s like, Well, it’s kind of my thing. Thanks. Thanks for noticing Roman enemy.

Dr G 53:19
Okay, so is zero and weird, I

Dr Rad 53:20
think it has to be, yeah, okay.

Dr G 53:23
And the last category is the citizen score.

Dr Rad 53:28
Oh, I don’t know how to feel about this one, because we don’t really get much from the citizens. It can’t be good if they’re flooding and they have no plebeians in office, so that’s bad, even though they apparently think it’s good. Yeah, and the war is dragging on. I mean, it doesn’t sound

Dr G 53:50
great, yeah. And who’s digging those, those channels? Well,

Dr Rad 53:54
exactly. I don’t believe that patricians are doing it.

Dr G 53:58
I don’t think so. I’d be very surprised. I would be too Oh

Dr Rad 54:03
no. Dr, G, that means Rome has managed to scrounge together two gold

Dr G 54:11
Oh no.

Dr Rad 54:12
I mean, you think it would be good news actually, because they’ve got this prophecy that’s kind of in their favor, but it’s just not in their favor yet. I

Dr G 54:21
see, yeah, well, it’s tough times out there. Oh, that is rough. Well, I wish that your lakes rise only as much as you desire them to, and that there are no prophecies attached to them. In any case, actually,

Dr Rad 54:35
ironically, I am currently living in an apartment that floods whenever we get the tiniest bit of rain, and we are actually about to have it dug up and relayed so that basically, rain is better. I’m living this year, right? My life is you

Dr G 54:52
don’t need to time travel. You’re there. I

Dr Rad 54:54
am, and like the Romans, whenever it rains, I’m surprised. Said, I’m like, Oh, the levels are rising. Why? Why did the God take me? So

Dr G 55:06
what you really need is a prophecy.

Dr Rad 55:09
I really do. It would be a lot cheaper than what I’m going for.

Dr G 55:13
Well, a pleasure as Oh, indeed. Oh,

Dr Rad 55:16
music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buy us a coffee on kofi. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say survey to J9niners, Joe, Nigel, Scott and Kent some of our recent Patreon and Kofi supporters. Thank you so much for joining our partial band. However, if you’re feeling decidedly like a downtrodden pleb, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review and a quick reminder at the time that this episode is released, you will be able to pick yourself up a copy of our new book, Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire, at your local bookstore or on Amazon, Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome, you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 156 – Kidnapped! appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Our new book ‘Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire’ has nearly landed! Pre-order your copy via Ulysses Press!

It’s happening – the Romans enter the fourth century! In this episode, we compare and contrast the ancient source accounts for the year that was 399 BCE. Rome and Veii are still locked in a siege, with Roman forces outside the gates of the most preeminent Etruscan city to the south. Combined with the this situation is the suggestion that one (or more) plebeians have recently made it into the position of military tribune with consular power – no small feat given this is the most senior magistracy in Rome during the year that people are elected into it.

Episode 155 – A Feast for the Gods!

It’s fair to say that Rome’s been copping a rough time recently. From strange and unprecedented weather conditions to the ongoing challenges of trying to run a multi-year siege when you have a system of annual magistrates, Rome is in a tough spot. It’s moments like these that a consultation with the Sibylline Books is in order…

Our music is by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Sounds and Orange Free Sound.

The Apollo of Veii is thought to date to around 500 BCE so about a century prior to the action that takes place in this episode. This fabulous sculpture is held by the Museo Nazionale Etrusco.

Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to The Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battled wage and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr Rad.

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Welcome to a brand new episode of The Partial Historians, I am one of your hosts. Dr Rad.

Dr G 1:04
And I am Dr G, welcome.

Dr Rad 1:08
Dr G, I feel like listeners will have no idea how hard we have fought to get to our microphones today.

Dr G 1:15
Oh, dear listeners, we’ve been experiencing some audio issues.

Dr Rad 1:20
We still are experienced.

Dr G 1:23
Suffice it to say that we are podcasting in separate rooms of the same house

Dr Rad 1:28
and I am standing, which is very strange.

Dr G 1:31
Think of the vocal projection

Dr Rad 1:34
And I can’t hear myself. So this is going to be really interesting.

Dr G 1:37
So we have been tracing Rome’s history from the founding of the city and it this is a very exciting episode for us, because we officially tip into the fourth century BCE.

Dr Rad 1:54
That we do. And to do a quick recap of where we were in 400 BCE, the tipping point, if you will. The main thing that we were excited about was the fact that there was a plebeian elected to the supreme magistracies of Rome, the military tribune with consular power.

Dr G 2:15
Such a breakthrough. And I think, if I recall rightly, and maybe I don’t, there was more than one,

Dr Rad 2:20
No, you are 100% wrong on that.

Dr G 2:25
Well, there you go, folks, even historians don’t remember things properly. That’s why it’s always good to check your sources.

Dr Rad 2:30
Yes, but yes, we had one who was elected, and everyone was like, this isn’t too bad the world didn’t collapse on itself. And the other thing, I think to note, in terms of background, we’ve been talking about this for a few episodes, actually, but I feel it will be relevant to my narrative. Today, Rome is at war with Veii, an Etruscan city to the north.

Dr G 2:52
Yeah, this has been happening for a little while now, and we must be, you know, a good ways into what is going to be this 10 year siege.

Dr Rad 3:00
Yes, we’re getting ever closer. Dr G, to the end of the siege.

Dr G 3:04
Edging towards the end of the siege.

Dr Rad 3:06
Yeah. So that’s a recap. If you want a more detailed one, we actually just did a massive episode where we were kept the entire fifth century.

Dr G 3:13
Yeah, check it out.

Dr Rad 3:14
Yeah. But otherwise, I’m ready. Dr G, let’s go into 399 BCE.

Dr G 3:42
It’s 399 BCE.

Dr Rad 3:46
How’s your source material looking, Dr. G?

Dr G 3:48
Oh, I have source material.

Dr Rad 3:50
Really?!

Dr G 3:50
I’m so excited.

Dr Rad 3:52
Okay, well, you know what? Just in case it’s not as good as you think, I’m gonna let you do the magistracies, because I feel like that’s just become your thing.

Dr G 4:01
Now, that’s a little bit of an ouch from the old Livy lover over here.

Dr Rad 4:05
Nothing against you personally. It’s just Dionysius has been gone for a while now,

Dr G 4:10
I know, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Okay, so we start the year with military tribunes with consular power.

Dr Rad 4:18
We do

Dr G 4:19
Super important. And there is six of them, and I hate to break it to you, I did just go back and do a quick relook at 400 and at least from my sources perspective, there was more than one plebeian as military tribune with consular power in 400 now we could be quibbling about names, but definitely this year, we seem to have a whole spate of plebeians in the role.

Dr Rad 4:46
Well, way to go and spoil my fun. Dr, G, I was going to surprise you with the fact that Livy tells me explicitly that there is only one patrician elected to be military tribune with consular power in this year.

Dr G 5:02
Oh yeah, the old Marcus Veturius Crassus Cicurinus.

Dr Rad 5:07
Yeah, that guy yeah.

Dr G 5:09
Or Cicurinus, that’s the one that guy, he’s gonna stand up. So this guy, this one, sole patrician this year, is surrounded by a whole bunch of really interesting, different folk who do not seem to have patrician names. So we’ve got, first of all, Gnaeus Genucius Augurinus. We have Lucius Atilius Priscus. Both of these guys, first time in the role. Not a surprise when you’re not a patrician.

Dr Rad 5:09
Yeah, I could have told you that

Dr G 5:16
Marcus Pomponius Rufus, doesn’t seem to be a patrician either.

Dr Rad 5:43
No

Dr G 5:44
Gnaeus or Gaius – there seems to be some dispute about the praenomen with this guy – Duilius Longus.

Dr Rad 5:52
I feel like I’ve heard that family name before.

Dr G 5:55
Duilius?

Dr Rad 5:56
Plebian though it may be.

Dr G 5:58
Yeah, I think it has come up. It rolls off the tongue nicely, which means I must have pronounced it before.

Dr Rad 6:03
Exactly.

Dr G 6:04
And finally, we have Valero Publius Philo.

Dr Rad 6:08
Okay.

Dr G 6:09
So all of these guys, all five of these non patrician military tribunes, first time in the role, fresh cabs off the rank. I think we’re in that point where, in terms of the siege of Veiii, people are looking for new strategies and innovation.

Dr Rad 6:23
Look possibly. But I find it kind of amusing that, according to Livy, at least, it has taken several decades to get to the point where people finally felt comfortable enough to elect a plebeian to be military tribune with consular power. And now that they’ve had one year with one guy, they’re like, we’re all in. Let’s make it plebeian all the time. Turns out they’re great, yeah, exactly. I find that quite hilarious.

Dr G 6:50
They just had to try it.

Dr Rad 6:52
Yeah, exactly. Now they’re like, oh my god.

Dr G 6:54
It’s really opened a door for them. Now they’re getting experimental.

Dr Rad 6:57
Exactly, yeah, all right. So apart from the fact that we have so many plebeians in office, the first thing that Livy tells me about 399 is that there had been a terrible winter the year before, which, I think I did mention, and now in 399 it’s an incredibly hot summer.

Dr G 7:16
Ooh,

Unknown Speaker 7:16
Yes..

Dr G 7:17
Oh, a hot Roman summer.

Dr Rad 7:18
That’s right. I actually quite like the translation, so I’m going to read it out to you. It is noxious and baleful to all living creatures.

Dr G 7:25
Oh, god.

Dr Rad 7:27
Doesn’t sound great.

Dr G 7:28
Oh, look. I mean, I was in Rome last year and it was pretty hot. It was a six week heat wave. So maybe they had one of those.

Dr Rad 7:36
I feel like they did so naturally, if you have a terrible winter and then a really awful summer, it gets you wondering. Dr, G, have I offended the gods?

Dr G 7:49
Is climate change on the horizon?

Dr Rad 7:51
Exactly. What have we been doing? You know, I mean, Rome does become a industrial powerhouse, but I feel like we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves with that one. It’s probably more likely that they’ve offended the gods.

Dr G 8:00
Yeah, our chances are.

Dr Rad 8:02
Yeah. So as a result, they’re looking around. They’re going, what did we do? I can’t figure it out. And so they turn to their old trusty fail safe, the Sibylline Books.

Dr G 8:16
Yeah, okay, so the Sibylline Books, just to sort of recap a little bit on that we think that they turned up in Rome in the time of the kings and were sadly mostly destroyed through hubris. And the few books that are remaining are now safely guarded and taken care of and consulted in times of trouble. Now you could also go and see the Sibylline oracle directly. But there’s also the books.

Dr Rad 8:44
Exactly they decide to go for the books, easier option.

Dr G 8:48
Yeah, you never know if she’s gonna be available.

Dr Rad 8:50
Exactly. Now, we have actually mentioned this before. It seems like there are some guys who are kind of in charge of the books, or stuff relating to the books called the duumvirs. They’ve come up before, I believe. Now, those of you who studied places like Pompeii will know that a duumvir is the head magistracies in like, a smaller town like Pompeii, but in this case, we’re not really talking about that exactly. ‘Duumvir’ just literally means like the two men.

Dr G 9:22
Yeah, the two men who are looking after those books.

Dr Rad 9:25
Exactly. So they decide that what they need to do is hold a new religious ceremony. Now I’m building up to this because I’m not entirely confident that my tongue is going to get around it the lectisternium.

Dr G 9:43
Oh, yes. Oh, look, you and I, our sources are in sync in some respects.

Dr Rad 9:47
Okay, so apparently it’s the first one that was ever held in Rome, and it goes for eight days, and there are sacrifices to Apollo, Latona, Diana, Hercules, Mercury and Neptune. Now, listeners might be wondering, well, what is involved in this? Exactly? Apparently, the name comes from the idea that there are couches involved and food spread out for the gods, because, essentially, the Romans put out some couches, put down some images of the gods on those couches, and spread out a nice little banquet for them.

Dr G 10:30
A delicious divine feast.

Dr Rad 10:32
Exactly, exactly they are invited to partake in this sacrificial feast. Basically, we think it comes from Greek origins. The Romans being influenced by the Greeks because they have something kind of similar. I think the Greek versions are called the theoxenia, which is again basically a banquet for the gods, with their images spread out on couches and stuff.

Dr G 11:03
It’s a delightful image. And I wonder if this might be a good time to take you a little bit through what I have of Dionysus of Halicarnassus, because framing up the context for this whole situation, I think is really important.

Dr Rad 11:19
Yeah. No, please tell me.

Dr G 11:21
So Dionysus of Halicarnassus does not agree with Livy.

Dr Rad 11:24
Oh okay, fine,

Dr G 11:25
Sadly

Dr Rad 11:27
But you just said we were in sync.

Dr G 11:28
Well, in the sense that we’ve got severe weather on the cards

Dr Rad 11:31
Ah okay

Dr G 11:32
but we have very different types of severe weather being put forward.

Dr Rad 11:37
Let me guess it was a great winter and then an even better summer.

Dr G 11:42
It was a very severe snowstorm.

Dr Rad 11:46
Okay

Dr G 11:47
And the snow apparently was higher than seven Roman feet. So we’re talking like an epic snowfall.

Dr Rad 11:57
Yeah, you’d be trapped in your house with that

Dr G 11:59
Oh, not only that, your house would collapse.

Dr Rad 12:02
That’s even worse than I imagine.

Dr G 12:03
It’s disastrous. So a Roman foot is about 29 centimeters, or about, I think, what does that make it maybe, maybe a foot, a modern foot, a Roman foot and a modern foot might be similar in length, and so we’re looking at a depth of over two metres worth of snow, or about six foot, nine and a half inches of snow, at least. And think about Rome and its situation on some small hills, but mostly surrounded by plains. This is a very unlikely geographic location for such a high level of snowfall and it is reported to be completely unprecedented, either in source material before or records afterwards, at least down to the time of Dionysus of Halicarnassus. So they talk about this as like an exceptionally terrible snow event. And the consequence of this are massive, because with this much snow, you basically have issues with your herds. Cattle die from frostbite and things like this. The fruit trees, which might be starting to put on new growth, basically wither up and don’t produce anything for years to come. They have to recover from that. People think those fruit trees are dead.

Dr Rad 13:26
My god.

Dr G 13:28
And when the snow melts, it’s so heavy that it actually breaks structures. So there’s this massive issue. And to compensate for this, the idea of putting forward a lectisternium under these conditions, so some sort of banquet with sacrifices to the gods, when actually the township of Rome itself must be on the brink of famine and under pretty severedisaster circumstances already, the idea that they’re giving what little they have left to the gods in order to try and rectify this situation, I think, speaks remarkably to how strongly the Romans feel about their relationship with the gods and how they have to manage that, and how shocking this whole moment must have been for them to be like, Oh, we really need to do something different in terms of our ritual practice in order to compensate for whatever is going on here, because this was outstandingly terrible.

Dr Rad 14:30
Wow, that’s so sad. I didn’t think about the fact that they’re offering food to the gods, and they probably have almost none.

Dr G 14:35
Yeah, so sad.

Dr Rad 14:37
I know. Well, apparently when we see the lectisternium showing up in early Rome, it is often in connection to things like pestilence. So and we’ve talked before about how these environmental issues can obviously lead to wider issues with food supply and general health. They’re obviously trying to tickle. All the boxes, because they are including most of the major gods I could think about.

Dr G 15:05
So yeah, so those connections of these gods seem really important as well. So Apollo has a connection with healing, divination, music

Dr Rad 15:14
Exactly

Dr G 15:15
Also has an Etruscan legacy as well. So he was well known throughout the region, not just from a Greek perspective. Latona is the goddess of the night, and so she is often considered to be synchronous with Leto

Dr Rad 15:33
Okay

Dr G 15:33
Also known in the Etruscan and obviously, Diana and Apollo have a bit of a thing.

Dr Rad 15:42
singing!

Dr G 15:44
Exactly. So this idea that there is a whole range of these gods involved, including Mercury, bringer of culture, relationships with the shepherds, maybe try to get something right with the herds here.

Dr Rad 15:58
And also maybe trade, you know, getting supplies, resources, making sure they’re not, you know, totally cut off.

Dr G 16:05
Yeah. And this connection with trade might also feed into the connection with Hercules, who’s also associated with cattle breeding and trading and things like that, true. And then we also have Neptune. Now, why Neptune is involved might just be because of the melting snow, because otherwise, I’m not sure why he’s there.

Dr Rad 16:24
Well, again, if we go back to trade, how do you trade? By ship.

Dr G 16:29
Oh, yeah, it’s the fastest way to travel.

Dr Rad 16:31
Exactly. So it could be that, but who really knows? So don’t spell that out for us, unfortunately.

Dr G 16:36
That’s true. Now, what is interesting in Dionysius’ account, because we’ve only got a fragment.

Dr Rad 16:43
Better than nothing!

Dr G 16:44
Better than – ooo I’ve got something to talk about, Dr Rad. He mentions a source on this called, referring to a guy called Piso, who is an ex censor who wrote a series called the ‘Annales’, which is, you know, off the face of it doesn’t sound particularly unique. Writing ‘Annales’ is the sort of thing that anybody who’s anybody likes to do. Both Livy and Dionysius or Halicarnassus are essentially writing annales – a year by year account of things.

Dr Rad 17:15
And it’s essentially what you and I are doing. Dr, G.

Dr G 17:17
Oh yeah, we’re not unique either. Oh no!

Dr Rad 17:20
No, but you know, we’re anybody who’s anybody, that’s a good thing.

Dr G 17:24
Oh, that’s true. We’re an illustrious category.

Dr Rad 17:26
Exactly.

Dr G 17:26
Now, this is a reference to somebody who we do know, a guy called Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi. Now he was a Roman senator and a historian in the second century BCE, tribune of the plebs in 149, consul in 133 and then censor in 120. Now,the reason why it’s worth mentioning those dates is because he’s very much tied up in the whole situation with the Gracchi later on.

Dr Rad 17:59
Oh, okay.

Dr G 18:00
So it’s interesting that we’re starting to see callbacks to writers that are very much invested in things to do with the agrarian crisis that then is also placed back in time into this like fourth and fifth century period as well.

Dr Rad 18:19
Absolutely, now Livy does go a little bit crazy, Dr G. Apparently, because Piso, the original source, might have added on a bit of extra detail. And this, apparently, is something that Dionysius, your friend, tells us,

Dr G 18:35
Oh, yeah. Oh. Dionysius has some, has some beautiful detail from Piso, yes.

Dr Rad 18:41
And so he says how it wasn’t just the gods having a fun old time, it was everybody in Rome, because they were just opening the doors. They were throwing open their homes and saying, Come on in. Join my party. Doesn’t matter if I know you. Doesn’t matter if I don’t. And it was time to make up with people you might have been fighting with, and you weren’t allowed to start any new fights. You weren’t allowed to start any lawsuits. Prisoners were released forever, it seems because the gods seem to be smiling down upon them.

Dr G 19:12
Hmm, are you saying that Livy doesn’t believe this?

Dr Rad 19:15
I think Livy does believe this. I think it’s Dionysius who mentions that this was something that Piso talked about.

Dr G 19:25
Yeah, he does, but he doesn’t dismiss it. He just sort of recounts it.

Dr Rad 19:28
It’s the academic that’re dismissive. I think they’re looking at all the other lectusternium and saying, This doesn’t happen. Oh, come on, guys, there’s no party vibe. There’s no Block Party.

Dr G 19:38
Let Piso have his moment in the sun,

Dr Rad 19:40
We’re shutting it right down.

Dr G 19:42
He wants to call back to some beautiful, glorious golden era of Rome, the proper Republic, where things were done, right.

Dr Rad 19:51
Well, look, I think that Livy went even further than Piso. Yeah, I think that’s what the academics are assuming that Piso added a little bit of extra detail. On and Livy s like, you know what? I’ll take your extra detail and add some.

Dr G 20:04
Okay, well, that’s very interesting, because it does seem like it’s a time of severe crisis. And perhaps a proportionate reaction to crisis is to really lean into – in a sort of nihilistic, fatalistic kind of way – lean into life itself and celebrate the fact that you’ve survived. So to me, this level of excess with like freeing of slaves and everybody’s partying at everybody’s house doesn’t necessarily sound unlikely given the severity of the circumstances. So if we buy into – it’s beena really severe natural disaster, and it sounds like we’ve had a couple of those in recent years as well – that on the back of some other weather conditions, and potentially on the back of a really hot summer where they’ve now got this really severe winter that people are kind of open to embracing the fact that they’ve gotten through this, and maybe that’s led to some hedonistic behavior.

Dr Rad 21:06
Look, I’m not entirely discounting the partying. I think it’s specifically the freeing of prisoners.

Dr G 21:12
Yeah, nobody would ever do that.

Dr Rad 21:14
Yeah, I’m not really sure about that. Yeah, the idea that it was also like a gigantic bloc party. It might be a time when people are, you know, putting aside their grudges and that kind of thing. But whether it was, you know, like Rome is just having, you know, one big old shindig, it’s like, well, maybe not. Now, Dr G, if that’s all we have to say about this banquet for the gods, I’ve got something else for you that’s heating up just like this horrible, horrible summer.

Dr G 21:42
Oh, what is it?

Dr Rad 21:44
It’s the war with Veii.

Dr G 21:46
Oh, no. Is it still happening?

Dr Rad 21:48
It’s definitely still happening.

Dr G 21:50
Oh, that siege. When’s it ever going to end?

Dr Rad 21:52
I know the Romans are tinkering around with their siege equipment. You know, I don’t really know anything about construction, so I’m going to imagine they’re tightening something, tightening some lug nuts. No idea what that is.

Dr G 22:05
You know, making – covering the rocks that they’re about to throw with a little bit of animal faeces to make them less pleasant when they hit the target.

Dr Rad 22:12
Exactly, writing insulting messages on the rocks.

Dr G 22:15
Exactly.

Dr Rad 22:16
Yes, when, all of a sudden, they’re attacked from different sides by the people that have joined Veii: the Capenantes and the Faliscans, as well as Veii.

Dr G 22:27
Wow. Okay, yeah, so they does have some allies. These are the people, if I recall rightly, that are slightly further north, who realize if Veii falls, the domino effect that they’re worried about.

Dr Rad 22:38
They have twigged, yes, that’s right, that’s exactly what’s happening now. This has happened before, because when the first realized that we know that the Romans got caught in a very unpleasant sandwich between their enemies, and it didn’t go well for them, however, that was, of course, entirely down to their poor leadership,

Dr G 22:54
I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, the I’m not coming to help you unless you ask. And it’s like, well, I’m not asking

Dr Rad 23:02
This time, they learnt from history. An example of someone learning from history. Can you believe it?

Dr G 23:08
It’s possible, my friends, it’s possible.

Dr Rad 23:11
So as a result, when the Romans found themselves, once again, penned in, help was immediately sent from the main camp, and the backups were also able to assault the Capenantes from behind bit of their own medicine. The Faliscans were naturally terrified by this sudden attack, and the Romans decided to really push this advantage home. And with a sally, they finally sent them running away, and the Romans didn’t let up there. They continued to follow them as they ran screaming in the other direction, slaughtering them, left, right and center.

Dr G 23:47
Ahhh, I ahh suppose it’s war. I mean, that’s unpleasant, though.

Dr Rad 23:51
I think we’re on the Roman side here, so I think we’re supposed to be happy about that.

Dr G 23:54
Yay.

Dr Rad 23:57
Then some Romans also decide, why not raid some territory of the Capenantes.

Dr G 24:03
Well, as you do naturally, since you’re there.

Dr Rad 24:05
Exactly. And whilst they were doing that, they happened to run into the army. He was chasing us for the Faliscans, and so they join in killing the surviving Faliscans.

Dr G 24:13
Oh, okay.

Dr Rad 24:15
Yeah, the people from Veii take a look around at this situation and say, You know what? We might just go back into the city.

Dr G 24:22
You know what? This siege is, fine. I’m gonna live inside the walls.

Dr Rad 24:25
Thanks for the help, guys. But you know what? I’m a bit tired. I think I might just go back behind the walls.

Dr G 24:30
I’m gonna retire to my chambers and think about my future with the Roman camp outside.

Dr Rad 24:35
Exactly. Unfortunately, of course, they have – they naturally – whilst they were fighting, the Romans – had the gates to the city closed so that the Romans couldn’t just run into the city.

Dr G 24:44
That’s very clever.

Dr Rad 24:45
Yeah. Unfortunately, what this means is the people who decide to retreat are trapped.

Dr G 24:50
Oh no.

Dr Rad 24:51
I don’t say that again because I just hit the microphone with my nose. They are trapped.

Dr G 24:55
Oh no.

Dr Rad 24:57
And unfortunately, many of them are also killed before they managed to get inside.

Dr G 25:02
Oh, okay, this sounds like it’s a pretty stellar win for the Roman forces. It doesn’t sound like they’ve broken the siege at all, but they’ve really put a dent in morale and confidence.

Dr Rad 25:13
It’s that slow drip of psychological terror.

Dr G 25:17
With neighbors like these, who needs enemies.

Dr Rad 25:19
Exactly, and the reasons why the people of a were slow to let the soldiers in is, of course, they didn’t want the Romans to penetrate their city, so they were very slow about opening the gates.

Dr G 25:30
Wow, I can only imagine the sort of horrified conversations that would have happened inside the walls, because people are basically locking out their own relations and then watching them get slaughtered.

Dr Rad 25:42
Yeah, they’re saying really sorry, guys. We know that you’re tired, we know that you want a nap, but we just can’t risk it. Now, that’s basically all I get about the war with Veii for 399 but if we switch our attention back to the city itself, it’s time for some more elections, Dr. G.

Dr G 25:58
Ooh, elections. Oh, that’s exciting.

Dr Rad 26:00
Getting ready for next year now, naturally, the patricians are not at all happy at this situation where there are more plebeians in power than patricians. Outrageous.

Dr G 26:11
Not only that, it sounds like the plebeians as military tribunes with consular power, have had some real military breakthroughs, like they have just run down the enemy in a couple of different directions. And pen some of the Venetians, or the Veii- and Veiantes, I should say – Venetians will make us confused about Venezia. We shouldn’t do that.

Dr Rad 26:30
And blinds

Dr G 26:31
Yeah, the people of Veii trapped on the outside of their own walls. So it seems like they’re doing okay without the patrician leadership in the top position.

Dr Rad 26:42
But notice that there are no named commanders in any of that.

Dr G 26:47
Well, is that, because the patricians who write down history would never deign to give them any credit?

Dr Rad 26:55
I’m entirely in agreement with you. Now, the reason why they have a problem, of course, is that they thought this whole situation was meant to be about sharing power, because sharing is caring. But the plebeians are being so greedy, taking over all the offices, it’s like they’re running the state.

Dr G 27:14
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to look at the previous year and the way that they’ve all been stacked with patricians to then be like, You know what? What is fair?

Dr Rad 27:23
Fair is when the patricians get their way. I thought that was very clear. So the patricians decide, All right, guys, we can’t be sleeping on this one. We’ve got to really put our best fancily shoed foot forward. And they therefore select the absolute best candidates that they have on offer, and the plebeians could not resist. They were just so sexy and so arrogant.

Dr G 27:55
Have you seen the way he lifts his toga above his knee? (growls)

Dr Rad 28:01
And they started campaigning for the patricians as though it was actually a plebeian candidate, because they’re idiots. Of course, teamwork equals dreamwork, guys.

Dr G 28:13
I am unhappy about this turn of events.

Dr Rad 28:15
I know plebeians are fools. Now, naturally, there’s probably also something going on here with the whole religious angle, a terrible winter pestilence, which was just mentioned summer. The gods are upset. Plague is clearly coming after all of this stuff, the Sibylline books indicated as much, and we can link it all back to the fact that they were plebeians in office.

Dr G 28:46
Oh, okay. Oh, that’s the explanation.

Dr Rad 28:48
That’s the explanation. I mean, everything’s been completely fine. There has never been a plague or a pestilence while patricians were in charge.

Dr G 28:55
Yeah, I mean, who would be surprised at this turn of events? Soon as you put plebeians in power, what do you got? Disaster. That’s what you got.

Dr Rad 29:04
That’s exactly it.

Dr G 29:05
Now the gods are unhappy.

Dr Rad 29:06
Yeah, well, that’s what the patricians have been saying all this time, haven’t they, Dr. G? They were like –

Dr G 29:11
It’s true. I mean, at least they’re consistent.

Dr Rad 29:12
Yeah. That’s why they didn’t want them to have the consulship, like, we can’t. It’s too risky, sacred. And now look what’s happened. We gave you something else, and even then you screwed it up. For everybody.

Dr G 29:25
The gods are so disappointed in us that we’re just going to have to go back to having some patricians in power.

Dr Rad 29:30
That’s pretty much it. So the plebeians are basically fainting in the streets. They’re going, oh my god, they’re blood. It’s just so blue! I can’t concentrate. And they were also really scared that something much worse was coming their way, because the gods were clearly ticked off with them, and so all patricians were elected for the following year. And that is all I have from Livy today.

Dr G 29:52
Oh interesting, I know well, so there is some nice synergy, I think, between Livy’s account and what Dionysius of Halicarnassus are bringing to the table. Admittedly, we’ve only got a fragment of Dionysius, and the idea of there being like the terrible summer versus the terrible snowstorm, seems like you know, minor details, but maybe they had both that would explain some of the tragedy here.

Dr Rad 30:17
I think we can all agree we’re not going to time travel back to 399.

Dr G 30:22
Oh, yeah, no, I don’t think I want to experience that weather system. Whatever was going on. There was a bit of a problem.

Dr Rad 30:29
Cause tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 399!

Dr G 30:34
I mean, I’m happy to follow Piso on this. I mean, like, let people have some fun for a change. Like, why? Why would that have to be wrong. I mean, come on. Admittedly, I haven’t delved into the scholarship on this, but I’m sure people have very good reasons why they they want Rome to be a more grumpy place than it currently is.

Dr Rad 30:50
I don’t think they’re denying the celebration or anything. I think they’re just questioning whether it was quite as extreme as Livy points out.

Dr G 30:57
Would you really free people? Would you really just let anybody into your house?

Dr Rad 31:03
It kind of seems like a recipe for disaster, that when things are going badly, you’re like, I know, let’s let the criminals loose through the street.

Dr G 31:11
Well, it’s not even that they’re criminals necessarily, at least in the account that we get from Dionysius. It’s slaves being manumitted.

Dr Rad 31:21
Really? I was wondering why you said slaves earlier. Okay, interesting.

Dr G 31:25
It’s not necessarily criminals at all, unless you consider that debt bondage could be one of the ways that you end up enslaved, which is possible and is considered a crime, but is a crime of circumstance, not a crime that you really go out of your way to commit.