Cornelia Africana - What a woman! by Elisabeth Storrs

My previous posts about Roman women have centered on victims (Lucretia, Virginia) and villains (Tarpeia and Tullia Minor) whose virtues and vices served as exemplars both good and bad. Today I write about another celebrated woman who was seen as the architype of a Roman Matron. Her name is Cornelia Africana. 

Unlike the other women who were legendary figures, Cornelia’s existence is verifiable through the writing of the Greek historian, Plutarch, who refers to Cornelia in his histories about her two famous sons, the Gracchi Brothers.

Born around 190 BCE, Cornelia Minor was the daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the famed Roman general and hero of the Second Punic War, and Aemilia Paulla. Her name, ‘Africana’, derives from the cognomen ‘Africanus’ granted to her father after his conquest of the Carthaginians in North Africa. Like Lucretia, Cornelia is seen as an embodiment of civic virtue but she is a far more complex character given her interest in literature and ‘behind the scenes’ influence on politics.

Cornelia and her jewels by Angelica Kauffman, 1785

Cornelia grew up in luxury within an aristocratic household where her father encouraged appreciation of Greek culture and art. She was also schooled in Stoicism, a philosophy which espouses facing the vicissitudes of life with equal fortitude.

At seventeen she was married to the middle-aged Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in what appears to have been a happy marriage. There is an apocryphal story her husband discovered two snakes in his bed chamber, a male and a female. He consulted a seer who told him that he must kill one and let the other go. If he killed the male, he himself would die, and if he killed the female, Cornelia would perish. Such was his love for his young wife, Tiberius opted to kill the male snake, and he passed away not long afterward.

During their marriage, Cornelia bore twelve children of whom only three survived to adulthood –a daughter, Sempronia (later married to her notorious cousin Scipio Aemilianus to maintain the Scipio dynasty), and two sons, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (born nine years apart). She proudly claimed her children as ‘her jewels’.

When her husband died, Cornelia refused the hand of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes of Egypt and chose not to remarry, thereby fulfilling the role of the dutiful ‘univera’ ie a ‘one man woman’ loyal to her husband in life and death. Yet such a choice may well have been a shrewd way to ensure her own independence as well as control over her children’s lives. She already held an esteemed reputation due to her bloodline, and therefore could make choices for herself, a rarity in the ancient world. She thereafter devoted herself to her children’s education. Emulating her famous father’s Graecophilia, she hired the Greek philosopher, Blossius of Cumae, and the rhetorician, Diophanes of Mitylene, as tutors.

The Gracchi Brothers would go on to leave significant marks on Roman history as reformists who proposed the Roman State and wealthy landowners give land to poorer citizens. As a result, Tiberius and Gaius died, a decade apart, in bloody fashion. And this is where the story of Cornelia becomes particularly interesting. Fragments of letters reputedly written to her son, Gaius, were included in the manuscripts of Cornelius Nepos, one of the earliest known Latin biographers. In these fragments, Cornelia is seen as harshly admonishing Gaius for his rebellious actions which had caused unrest in Rome. For he advocated extending citizenship to Latin speaking allies and giving greater freedoms to the plebeians thereby undermining the power of aristocracy.

“No enemy has caused me so much annoyance and trouble as you have because of these events – you who ought, as the only survivor of all the children that I have had in the past, to have taken their place and to have seen to it that I had the least possible anxiety in my old age; you who ought to have wished that all your actions should above all be agreeable to me, and should consider it impious to do anything of great importance contrary to my advice, especially when I have so brief a portion of my life left.” (Nepos, Fragments 1.2)

Cornelia’s voice is forceful and there is an assumption she gives her advice freely and expects it to be heeded. It seems this could be true. In another letter, she advised Gaius not to punish a politician who had been an enemy of his brother which he duly obeyed.

Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, by Jules Cavelier

This correspondence was studied decades later by Roman scholars such as Cicero who attributed both Gracchi Brothers’ notable eloquence to their mother’s influence. He also praised the beauty of her writing style. Yet there is supposition the fragmentary letters are not genuine but rather propaganda circulated by an elite faction opposed to the agrarian reforms. Yet, if the letter chastising him is valid, I can understand the passion in her voice. This is allegedly a private epistle to her only living child. By this stage she had buried eleven children. Is it any wonder she would agonise over his politics knowing he might be violently assassinated in a riot as had Tiberius? Sadly, Gaius’ fate was to suicide amid a massacre on the Aventine Hill.

After Gaius’ violent death, Cornelia retired to a villa in Misenum where she received learned men from all over the Roman world to discuss literature and freely share ideas. Plutarch’s description of her here is not of a mother disenchanted with her sons but instead proud of them while displaying the stoicism that enabled her to endure the unbearable loss of all her children and her husband.

‘She had many friends and kept a good table so that she might show hospitality, for she always had Greeks and other literary men about her, and all the reigning kings interchanged gifts with her. She was indeed very agreeable to her visitors and associates when she discoursed with them about the life and habits of her father Africanus, but most admirable when she spoke of her sons without grief or tears, and narrated their achievements and their fate to all enquirers as if she were speaking of men of the early days of Rome.’ (Plutarch’s Life of Tiberius Gracchus 19.2)

After Cornelia died at an advanced age, Rome revered her for embodying Roman virtues and voted for an expensive bronze statue to be erected in her honour. Yet the inscription on the base limits her identity to the men in her life ie her father and sons. (Interestingly, there is no mention of her being the ‘wife of’ Sempronius Gracchus even though he’d been a consul and a triumphing general.) The base still survives and can be seen in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The inscription reads:

Cornelia Africani f(ilia) | Gracchorum (Daughter of Africanus | Mother of the Gracchi)

The Cornelia Pedestal, Capitoline Museums, Rome

The simplification of Cornelia’s character as an ideal mother and daughter sadly erodes her extraordinary erudition and unusual independence. Thank goodness for Plutarch! Although he writes about Cornelia through the lens of her son’s lives, at least he has given greater context to her than a worn inscription etched in weathered bronze.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the Tale of Ancient Rome trilogy and is the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia. Learn more at www.elisabethstorrs.com 

"Goings-on" in medieval nunneries by Carolyn Hughes

I have just finished writing the next book in my Meonbridge Chronicles series, set in medieval England. This story centres, not on Meonbridge, as the other novels do for the most part, but on a priory, to which one of the characters in the first Chronicle, Fortune’s Wheel, departed under something of a cloud. I always wanted to follow up what happened to her, but wasn’t sure that setting a novel almost entirely in a nunnery would make for an engaging story. So, I wrote other novels, about other characters, as the idea for this latest one gradually developed in my mind.

Then I discovered – or, actually, I think, re-discovered – Medieval English Nunneries, c. 1275 to 1535, a vast tome written in the 1920s by the well-known medieval historian, Eileen Power.

To digress briefly, I’ve often wondered who Eileen Power presumed her readership was… I have two others of her books, Medieval People and Medieval Women, and both include a few snatches of medieval texts, but I think I’m right in saying the quotes are translated into modern English. So perhaps those books were intended for a more-or-less inexpert readership. But Medieval English Nunneries is not only vast, with great quantities of notes, but is also littered with Middle English, Medieval French, and Latin, some of which is translated but a lot of which is not. Which overall makes it a challenging read for one who is not a trained, academic historian!

Nonetheless, I have read Medieval English Nunneries from cover to cover, and what I learned from it really opened my eyes, and soon enough I understood that writing a story about a medieval nunnery could indeed be engaging, not to say surprising and even exhilarating.

For what I read was that some medieval nunneries weren’t at all the havens of peace and prayer I might have expected them to be.…

Hildegard von Bingen and her nuns 13th century. Public domain.

There were apparently around 140 nunneries (priories and a few abbeys) in England in the later Middle Ages. Most were very poor, despite being largely inhabited by the aristocracy and gentry and, later, some women from upper-middle-class mercantile families. Many nunneries were small, very few with more than thirty nuns, a little over a quarter with between 10 and 20, well over half fewer than 10. As economic units, some of them must have struggled.

From what I gather, nunneries were not necessarily poor from lack of good management, but simply because their income was low. They would have relied on donations from benefactors, either permanent or long-term endowments, or shorter term or even one-off gifts from friends, relatives or people who wanted the nuns to pray for their or their loved-ones’ souls. The nunnery would also have the income from its estate, such as rents from tenants and money from the sale of crops. But their expenses were many: the costs of day-to-day living, food, clothing, candles, firewood; wages for servants (of which there could be several, even in relatively poor establishments); the costs of maintaining the buildings, which clearly could be huge; alms-giving to the poor, something nuns were supposed to do, albeit they were poor themselves! A few houses were wealthy, and presumably didn’t really struggle, but in many, if not most, the expenses often outstripped the income. Even in well-managed houses, the battle to keep their heads above the choppy waters of destitution must have been a real challenge.

That this was a problem can be construed from the measures put in place by bishops to safeguard nunneries’ financial health. The prioress was not supposed to make decisions by herself, but together with all the nuns – this communality of decision-making was a requirement of the Benedictine rule, and likely that of other orders too. Accounts were to be presented regularly to the bishop’s representatives, and it might seem obvious that a nunnery should have someone with specific responsibility for its finances (i.e. a treasuress), rather than letting the prioress have sole oversight. 

But what if a prioress had neither the ability nor the motivation to grapple with the mammoth task of managing the priory? Some prioresses were clearly terrible at their job. Yet perhaps it’s not surprising that some were unable to manage their priories properly, for, after all, they had no training. Maybe it is more surprising that so many were reasonably well-managed even if they did remain relatively poor?

However, in some cases, incompetence was not the (only) problem. For imagine a prioress who is discontented with the ascetic life and wants a bit of luxury, or who has a yen to assert herself above her sisters and do things “her way”, instead of by the Rules of her order, Benedictine or otherwise.

For a start, she might try to force her own election by whatever devices necessary. Eileen Power describes various examples of electoral subterfuge, where the community splits into rival factions, and the prospective prioress uses bribery or slander or some other devious, un-nun-like means to win the day.

Once in place, the prioress might then succumb to whatever “temptations” can help her assert her authority or implement her desires. Power mentions three such temptations:

• The desire to live a separate, superior sort of life, wearing luxurious clothes, not engaging with the life of the convent, sleeping and eating alone, travelling unnecessary, visiting friends, having friends to stay, even meeting men in private
• The urge to rule like a tyrant, instead of consulting the other nuns, as the Rule demanded
• The inclination to favour individual sisters, causing rifts, resentment, and even outrage…

These matters too were ones that bishops tried to tackle, but where their efforts were often in vain. Nunneries were typically visited and examined – by means of the bishop’s visitation, which was how all religious institutions, including religious houses and churches, were monitored and managed – only every three years or so. Therefore, the nuns were essentially left to their own devices for years at a time, during which all sorts of mayhem might be perpetrated.

It is through the records of the bishops’ visitations that Power is able to tell us so much about the difficulties of medieval nunneries and the measures the bishops tried to put in place to help them but also to curb their failings.

Apart from the financial problems, there were a number of other issues that might cause life in a nunnery to be less than contented.

For example, the very reason why the nuns were there. Had they entered the nunnery by choice, to pursue a religious life that they believed was their vocation? Or had they been sent there, possibly against their will, possibly even as a child?

Power makes it clear that at least some of the professed nuns in medieval nunneries were not there because they chose the life. Some were sent as children, others as young women. Power by no means claims that all of them were forced. She suggests that some – perhaps many, or even most? – professed happily enough, and might even have developed a vocation for the religious life. But it certainly was not always the case. For those, in particular, who entered the nunnery unwillingly, or at the very least, without their active consent, one can imagine the life might have seemed like a form of imprisonment.

To send your child to a nunnery was, I suppose, not necessarily done in order to “get rid of” them. For some, the religious life might have been seen as a sanctuary, an honour, or an insurance for the family. But at least some of these youthful internees might have met their fate when devious relatives did want to be rid of them, in order to access their inheritance, for a nun had no claim on her father’s estate.

In other cases, a man with a lot of children – sons and daughters – would give his sons priority, and might send “superfluous” daughters to a nunnery for a lower dowry than he might need to find her a husband. (In fact, canon law forbade the giving of dowries to nunneries as “simony”, but they happened anyway, and indeed were commonplace.) For some, a career as a nun might have seemed a natural “alternative” to marriage. Power suggests that the majority of young medieval women who entered a nunnery as a career did not have any particular religious inclination, but simply had nothing else to do, assuming I suppose, that they were unable, for whatever reason, to find a husband.

It is undoubtedly true that a girl might choose to take the veil willingly, not to say eagerly. She might see it as an honourable life for a girl who was unwilling or unable to marry, or indeed she might have a real calling to the life. But, for others, the nunnery might prove a prison, into which they were forced, unwilling but unable to resist, perhaps out of fear or simply sheer lack of agency.

It is of course impossible to know how many were willing and how many not.

But it seems that the majority of nunneries were apparently not full of desperately unhappy, antagonistic women, but were reasonably calm and contented places so, perhaps, regardless of the way they had entered their life, most nuns did learn to accept their fate and make the best of it. We shall never know.

So, why the nuns were there was one of the potential issues that might make, for some, their life a less than happy one. Another was the day-to-day life itself.

In the early days of nunneries, a nun’s day (aside from eating and sleeping) was marked by prescribed periods of prayer, some hours of work, and time allowed for reading and study. But Power tells us, that by the fourteenth century, reading was no longer widespread, and even work occupied less, if any, time than it once had, as servants tended to do it. As a result, says Power, “all nuns had was prayer”.

Nuns dining in silence while listening to a Bible reading.  

Pietro Lorenzetti, 1341. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons  

Obviously, those for whom the life was a vocation, where prayer was one of its most important, indeed joyous, aspects, would undoubtedly have relished spending most of their time in chapel. Moreover, even if reading and study had declined overall, one can imagine that nuns with a vocation would read and study anyway, so much of their time would be usefully, and happily, occupied. 

But for others, especially those who had no vocation, the lack of occupation could have rendered their lives as tedium without relief. Some reacted negatively. For example, some neglected the services – the holy offices – either by not attending them at all or by disrupting them in some way, such as racing through the psalms, to render them cacophonous and meaningless. 

The dearth of meaningful activity also encouraged some to try and brighten their lives a little, with more colourful clothes, pet dogs and forms of entertainment. The evidence that bishops attempted to curb these “brighteners” does suggest it was a problem, though how widespread it was it is impossible to know. I have already mentioned unscrupulous prioresses who sought a more luxurious and entertaining life, and perhaps finding it at the expense of the nunnery’s financial health. But from the bishops’ viewpoint, this was also about the failure of the nuns to observe the life of simplicity and abstinence which a nunnery was supposed to have.

Worse was when nuns broke the bounds of morality.

In principle, the life of a nun was “cloistered”: she kept to the confines of the nunnery, and did not leave it for any reason. Yet, it seems that nuns made all sorts of excuses for escape, and again, the evidence that bishops tried to curtail it indicates that such getaways were commonplace enough. Excuses might include visits to friends and family, weddings, funerals or christenings, pilgrimages, walks (for exercise) and even field work on the nunnery’s home farm. Clearly some of these excuses were probably perfectly legitimate, but it’s equally clear that sometimes nuns took advantage, especially perhaps of weak-willed or incompetent prioress, and ended up visiting improper places, like monasteries, or men’s private houses, or taverns. The latter seems somewhat unlikely but perhaps it has some truth! Anyway, as Power says, for hundreds of years, the bishops were mostly unsuccessful in forcing nuns to stay “cloistered”, and in the end, of course, the nunneries (like the monasteries) were dissolved, with the excessive freedom to “get away” cited as one of the principal reasons.

One of the reasons for insisting upon enclosure was of course the desire by the authorities to keep nuns away from men, and the temptation they posed. Chastity was one of a nun’s vows, and the only way of preventing nature taking its natural course was to keep her locked up and prevent her from meeting men. Although, she might come across men anyway inside the nunnery. The priest-in-charge or chaplain might even live within the nunnery’s walls, and illicit liaisons with priests were certainly recorded in the visitation reports. Moreover, some of the in-house servants might be men, and if a nun did engage in any outdoor work, she might have occasional contact with farm workers. So opportunities were probably always there for those who wished to find them… Power concludes that the majority of nunneries were almost certainly perfectly moral, and didn’t have their nuns gallivanting around the countryside or getting themselves into inappropriate liaisons with men. Nonetheless, the records of the bishops’ visitations reveal that immoral, even outrageous, behaviour, did occur, some of which led to the inevitable unwanted consequences.

Sometimes it was the prioress herself who set a bad example. There appear to be examples – if few – of prioresses or even abbesses who bore several children and even brought them up in the nunnery, which sounds extraordinary. Sometimes it was a nun who got into trouble, and occasionally she left the nunnery – apostatised – perhaps to set up home with her child’s father. But it wouldn’t have been a happy answer to her problem, for she risked being excommunicated. Often it seems, the apostate returned to the nunnery and had to undergo arduous penances in order to recover her position. 

My novel, obviously, focuses on the sort of mischief that did go on in some – but probably very few – medieval nunneries. I liked the idea of political manoeuvring – electoral subterfuge – for the potential for duplicity and conflict that would arise between factions. Also the concept of a prioress imposing her own inappropriate or even immoral desires on a place where her word was “law”, given that nuns owed her complete obedience, regardless of the worth or rationality of her decisions. And finally, the notion that the dissipation she might create would engender such grief amongst those nuns for whom such dissipation was anathema that they might be willing to cast obedience aside and rise up against her. I thought it might all make for a stimulating if surprising story.

However, as I shall write in my Author’s Note, this picture of a medieval nunnery should not be taken as the norm! Most of the 140 or so nunneries in Medieval England (and indeed also the monasteries) were probably reasonably pious and tranquil, working hard to make ends meet as best they could, although the very few wealthy institutions presumably didn’t have to work so hard. But, as Eileen Power writes, the evidence – from the bishops’ visitations – shows clearly that there were a few that were badly managed, had prioresses who were hopeless managers and/or incorrigibly self-seeking, where discipline was lax, piety at a minimum, and the inmates possibly feeling like prisoners.

Power’s book has been criticised for overstating the case for mismanagement and especially depravity in medieval nunneries, but I don’t feel she does especially overegg the situation. She draws on reports from the bishops’ visitations, which describe the “goings-on” in a few nunneries, sometimes in considerable detail. They certainly make intriguing reading, but there is no need to extrapolate from the few extraordinary examples to deduce that such behaviour was commonplace.

In truth, I feel that it is perhaps surprising that more nuns did not succumb to misbehaviour, given the circumstances in which some of them had entered their cloistered life, and the constraints with which they were required to live.

Anyway, I’ve drawn on Power’s descriptions of a few particular cases of prioresses or abbesses who brought either financial failure or shame, or both, to their houses, and overlaid them with my imagination to create a story that I hope gives a flavour of what life might have been like in those few houses that had the misfortune to be headed by a woman who was more interested in her own comfort, advancement and control than the well-being of her sisters. I hope it will be published early in 2025.

In Praise of Martial By LJ Trafford

Author's own pumpkin carving effort.

Alas the month of October has passed. October is a great month, it is the bridge between autumn and winter, the final resting point before the shops decide it’s Christmas and force the festival season down our throats until we surrender and start humming Slade’s Merry Christmas Everyone and having nightmares about undercooked/overcooked turkeys. There’s also this thing called Halloween at the end of October which bloggers feel compelled to write about.

My History Girls slot is pretty darn close to the 31st October but I’ll spare you the Halloween blog post because the Romans didn’t have Halloween. They did have ghosts and ghost stories and festivals connected to the dead but I am not going to make any tenuous links between anything they believed in and children dressed up as tiny Harry Potters escorted door to door collecting sweets.

No what I want to write about is #Classicstober ! #Classicstober as you’ll gather from the # is a Twitter, (or as it is now known X) event, it is a whole month dedicated to promoting ancient Greek and Roman history run by @GreekMythComix and @DrCoraBeth. Each day of October was dedicated to a different man or woman from antiquity offering up the opportunity for Classicists and enthusiasts alike to big them up for the education of the wider X audience. I was flattered to be asked to nominate an individual for the 24th October and as Pliny the Elder had already been nabbed I went for the poet Martial. Because I think he’s brilliant and by the end of this article you’ll think so too.

The Man

Author's own, heavily index stickered,  copy of The Epigrams by Martial.

Marcus Valerius Martialis was born probably in the late 30’s/maybe 40 CE or it could have been 41 CE and died possibly around 102/103/104 CE depending on what short bio you are reading on him. We certainly know he was alive during the 80s and 90s CE because he makes reference to Emperors Titus and Domitian and events under their reigns like the grand opening of the Colosseum in 80 CE. Yes really, Martial was there.

We also know that he was Spanish by birth, a Roman citizen who moved to the big city at some point in his life and attempted to make it big as a poet. Which he did. And that is about all we know about him. We could try to deduce his personality from his work but how much of that is truth and how much does he dish up to us simply because it makes a good gag? I like to think the latter because Martial as depicted by himself is not always a sympathetic character, in fact he’s often a bit of a git.

Why do I think Martial is brilliant? I’ll fess up and admit that a large part of his appeal is that he writes a form of poetry known as epigrams. An epigram according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is ‘concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event and often ending with an ingenious turn of thought.’
Sssh, don’t tell the Classics lot but I’m not a big fan of epic poetry as written by Homer and Virgil. Epic poetry is well epic, and that means long, very long. Epigrams are much shorter, deliciously so. Some of Martial’s epigrams are only two lines, such as this one: 

‘If from the baths you hear a round of applause, 

Maron’s prick is bound to be the cause.’ 8.88.

Which means you can happily digest Martial’s views on a wide variety of topics in the same number of lines that Homer dedicates to listing the ships that made up the Greek forces battling Troy.

So, yes my own lack of attention is a part of why I enjoy reading Martial but there are many other reasons too, such as his versatility as a poet. I have written three non-fiction books on ancient Rome: How to Survive in Ancient Rome which was a general introduction to the city in the year 95 CE, Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome an in-depth look at that topic and Ancient Rome’s Worst Emperors. Three very different books to which Martial was a key source for all. Let me explain.

Do as the Romans do.
When ancient Rome is portrayed in film or on TV there is a leaning towards certain topics and these topics generally are soldiers, gladiators and sexually depraved crazed Roman Emperors. None of which I disapprove of, I hardly could when I’ve personally contributed to it through my own books. However, Ancient Rome was brim full of people who weren’t soldiers – so didn’t have to worry about them pesky British tribes, nor gladiators – so no need to worry about an imminent and bloody death and who weren’t emperors – so didn’t live in luxury beyond our wildest imaginations. No, it was full of men like Martial whose concerns in life were let us saw charitably somewhat more trivial.

A great many of Martial’s epigrams are dedicated to dinner parties, such as not getting invited to one:

'Our dinner invitations are one-sided. When I ask you, you usually come, yet you never ask me. I shouldn't mind provided you asked nobody else. However you do. Neither one of us, Gallus, comes out blameless. [] I'm stupid & you're shameless.’ 3.27.

Then there’s the growing suspicion and paranoia about why he’s not on the party list, is it because he has not reduced himself to bribery?

‘How has it so suddenly come to pass, that, after so many pledges of affection on my part, and after the lapse of so many years, I, old friend as I am, am not included in your invitations. But I know the reason; I have not sent you a pound of refined silver, or a fine toga, or a warm cloak.’ 7.86

Or is it because his penis is too small?

‘You invite no one, Cotta except those whom you meet at the bath; and the bath alone supplies you with guests. I used to wonder why you had never asked me, Cotta I know now that my appearance in a state of nature was unpleasing in your eyes.’ 1.23

When he does secure an invitation he is not at all grateful and whisks off epigrams that are uncannily like the end of Come Dine with Me when that night's host is cruelly critiqued. '

Last night, Fabullus, I admit you gave your guests some exquisite perfume

 - but not one slice of meat.'. 3.12

'You drink the best yet serve us third-rate wine. I'd rather sniff your cup then swill from mine.'

Although to be fair to Martial some of the dinners he attends do sound absolutely dreadful.

‘The reason you ask us to dinner, Ligurinus, is no other than this, that you may recite your verses. I have just put off my shoes, when forthwith in comes an immense volume among the lettuces and sharp-sauce. Another is handed, while the first course is lingering on the table: then comes a third, before even the second course is served. During a fourth course you recite; and again during a fifth. Why, a boar, if so often placed upon table, is unsavoury. If you do not hand over your accursed poems to the mackerel-sellers, Ligurinus, you will soon dine alone.’3.50

The picture of Rome that Martial paints is one we don’t often get to see, a Rome of battling dinner party hosts, of an overcrowded city ‘Novius is so close a neighbour I could stand at my window and touch him with a hand’ 1.86, of gossips ‘Marius’ earhole smells. Does that surprise you Nestor? The scandal that you tells enough to make it fester’ 3.28 and bad hair ‘You’ve dyed your hair to mimic youth, Laetinus. Not so long ago you were a swan, now you’re a crow. You can’t fool everyone.’ 3.48

As you can tell Martial is delightfully candid and unafraid of causing offensive. This is as true when he tackles the subject of sex.


Martial on Sex
When I was researching my book Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome, I would stumble across references to certain Martial epigrams only to track them down and discover that there was no officially published English translation of them. When I finally managed to locate an English version I quickly realised why; because they are pure filth.

As an example I give you an extract from poem 11.21, translation courtesy of sententiae antiquae who you will find on X. Martial's issue is with Lydia's vagina which he finds too wide, he then proceeds to compare it with a series of other roomy objects.
Lydia is as wide as the ass of a bronze rider’s horse,
[] Or the old trousers of a British pauper,
Or the foul throat of a Revennian Pelican.
I am reputed to have fucked her in a salty fishpond.
I am not sure: I think I fucked the fishpond

It’s not often you read a poet complaining his girlfriends vagina is too big. But Martial is not done complaining about vaginas, oh no he’s also plagued by noisy ones.

'Galla, you have a fault which is not altogether trifling. Whenever I came to you and we were moved about with mingling groins, you were silent – but your vagina wasn’t. Oh, would that the gods would make you speak and it stay silent! I am offended by your vagina’s loquacity. 7.18

The poem continues with Martial wondering if sodomy with Galla would have been a better option. This does make it surprising that Martial alongside such filth also wrote poems for the Emperor Domitian. Like I said, Martial is versatile.



Poet to An Emperor
The Emperor Domitian ruled from 81-96 CE, 15 whole years which counts as a bloody long reign for a Roman emperor. In the 3rd century the average reign of an emperor was a measly 2.3 years. There’s not a lot you can do as a leader in 2.3 years but there’s plenty you can do in 15 years and Domitian did, including introducing new morality laws which were placed stricter penalties on things like divorce. That Martial should end up as a poet to an emperor who cared deeply about public morals borders on the staggering.

The Emperor Domitian. Claude, Buste Vatican, James Anderson, silver print.. Digital image courtesy of Getty’s Open Content Program

Well maybe not so surprising because it wasn’t as if Domitian turned to his nearest lackey and requested he bring forth that poet who wrote that thing he liked about women with noisy lady parts. Martial desired the emperor’s attention, he wanted to get his poetry in front of Domitian and he petitioned to do so through his work in a poem aimed directly at one of Domitian's chief lackies, his chamberlain Parthenius.

‘You know the times when our Jove is at ease, when he beams on us with his own benignant countenance, with which he is wont to refuse nothing to suppliants. You have no reason to fear that our request is extravagant; a book which is decorated with cedar and purple, and swells proudly with dark bosses, never makes too great or inconvenient demands. Yet do not put these compositions too forward; but hold them as if you were offering and contemplating nothing. If I know the votary of the nine sisters, he will of his own accord ask for the purple-covered book.’ 5.6

Parthenius helped out, perhaps buttered up by poems Martial wrote for him, including one for the Chamberlain’s son Burrus on the occasion of his birthday.

Sooooo what type of poetry did Martial, the author of a poem about his girlfriend’s noisy vagina and a friend’s bad hair dye write for the emperor? The answering is exactly what was required of him. Sucking up poetry of the highest order, and my god when Martial does suck up he really gets on board with it.

‘The Rhine now knows that you have arrived in your own city; for he too hears the acclamations of your people. Even the Sarmatian tribes, and the Danube, and the Getae, have been startled by the loudness of our recent exultations. While the prolonged expressions of joy in the sacred circus greeted you, no one perceived that the horses had started and run four times. 

No ruler, Caesar, has Rome ever so loved before, and she could not love you more, even were she to desire it. 8.11

 There is this one on the palace that Domitian had built on the Palatine Hill.

Smile, Caesar at the miraculous pyramids of Egyptian kings; let barbarian Memphis now be silent concerning her eastern monuments. 

How insignificant are the labours of Egypt compared to the Parrhasian palace! The god of day looks upon nothing in the whole world more splendid. 8.36

Domitian's palace on the Palatine. Photo By Scott Rowland

This is a radically different style of poetry to that which Martial had otherwise produced. There’s no gag at the end, no caustic put down. Martial’s poetry for Domitian has a saccharine punchline..

O ye gods, but such as are due to earth; since for so great a god as Caesar what prayers can be extravagant? 4.1

When you do not wear it, Caesar it may be called a breast-plate; when it sits upon your sacred breast, it will be an aegis. 7.1 

 An aegis being a shield that was carried by the gods Jupiter and Minerva

Caesar, the barbarian is as much delighted as awed. 7.5

Come on, it’s impressive. The art of praise, of positivity is something we play down in our society. We think the caustic and the sarcastic the product of a cleverer mind. That Martial can do both, be offensively sardonic and flamboyant praise is testament to his talent.
Talking about talent, could you produce a poem on the niche topic of the Emperor Domitian’s recently introduced anti castration legislation? No? Martial can.

'It used to be a common sport to violate the sacred rites of marriage; a common sport to mutilate innocent males. You now forbid both, Caesar and promote future generations, whom you desire to be born without illegitimacy. 

Henceforth, under your rule, there will be no such thing as a eunuch or an adulterer; while before, oh sad state of morals! the two were combined in one. 6.2

He’s brilliant, isn’t he?
And if you don’t agree with me I leave you with my all time favourite Martial poem which encompasses everything that is brilliant about him: it’s short, to the point, offending and funny.

‘You ask me what I get out of my country place, 

the profit gross or net, is never seeing your face.’ 2.38

LJ Trafford writes books about Ancient Rome. You can find some of them for sale here

November 9th, 1989 - Celia Rees

There are a few dates in history when the world turned. June 28th, 1914, when shots fired by Govrilo Princip in Sarajevo, set off a train of events which resulted in the outbreak of the First World War. April 19th, 1775, when the first shot fired on Lexington Green, Massachusetts, sparked the American Revolution, memorably described by Ralph Waldo Emerson as 'the shot heard around the world'. November 22nd, 1963, when another shot rang out across Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, killing John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. 9/11/2001 when two Boeing 767 passenger planes flew into the Twin Towers. 

9^th November, 1989 is one of those dates: the day, or rather the night, when the Berlin Wall fell.

 

When these things happen, we immediately recognise their huge significance. Years later, we can say where we were, what we were doing, when we heard the news. In that moment, we can't always see all the ramifications, but we know something very big has happened. The actual causes of the world changing events that follow might be complex, go back years, decades, even centuries, but there is that one thing, one event, which causes the dominoes to fall. 

 

This does not have to be violent, it could be minor, trivial even. As small as the turning of a page...

 

On 9th November, 1989, at 6pm a News Conference took place in East Berlin...

 

'The News Conference was due to start at 6pm promptly, live on East German TV. The usual thing. TV cameras ranged round the back and sides of the small rooms. Reporters in the centre, milling about, taking their red plush tip up seats in front of the East German spokespeople, four of them, ranged behind a long press conference desk which was the same drab mid brown as the wall panelling and raised at the front to hide their papers from view. Muddy green floor to ceiling drapes provided the backdrop. Microphone leads trailed from each station but the only one speaking was Günter Shabowski, the East German unofficial spokesman. Middle aged, thick set with heavy features, grey hair, grey suit, he droned in monotone German  ... They were about an hour in and, so far, pretty routine, nothing much said, nothing new anyway, just the usual water tread, change was coming but not quite yet .... Someone even reached to switch off the set when Schabowski picked up a sheet of paper and read a statement: East Germans would be able to leave the GDR without preconditions at all border crossings with West Germany. Everyone leaned forward. There was a moment of absolute silence, as if they could not quite believe what they had just heard. On the screen, people looked to one another, as if for confirmation, and then the hubbub started. An Italian journalist stood up and asked the question: When is this going to happen? A collective intake of breath as Schabowski shrugged, shuffled thorough his papers and answered: Das tritt nach meiner Kenntnis... ist das sofort... unverzüglich - As far as I know… this is immediate… immediately. 

Schabowski frowned and looked over his glasses stunned, perhaps, by what he’d just said. Over the page was the detail: the need to apply for travel permits, present passports for stamping, beginning the next day. The 10th. But he hadn’t read that. 

 

History turns on such small things.'

 

This is an extract from my work in progress, provisionally called the Berlin Birdwatchers but the title is likely to change. It's a contemporary spy novel, but the events go back to that night in Berlin. As a historical novelist, it is my task to take myself back to the past, to see with the eyes of those present, to re-create events as they are happening. 

 

This is how I saw that night in Berlin:

‘Several people nodded, unable to frame words for what was happening. Finally, finally the border was going to open with immediate effect. A hand reached up to change TV channels. The Conference was top of the Evening News. They would be seeing this in East Berlin. Everyone there watched TV from the West. They would come pouring out of their homes and apartments and on to the streets, family, friends, neighbours joining together and heading for their nearest border crossing. The guards would have had no warning. They’d had no orders. They didn’t know what was happening. No-one knew what was happening. But some tides are not for turning. They’d have to let the people through, a few at first, no doubt, then there would be no stopping the growing throng.

From outside, laughter, cheering, shouting. People were already out on the streets, making their way to the neopalladian splendour of the Brandenburg Gate with its four bronze horses pawing the sky. For so long, it had stood in brooding isolation behind a 3.6 metre high line of concrete, separating East and West. It would be attracting Berliners from both sides, like iron filings to a magnet.

‘Come on, let’s go.’ Rob grabbed her hand. ‘We can’t miss this.’

Outside, people were leaving their offices and apartment blocks, coming out of the shops, bars and cafes, joining from every side street and alleyway, all going towards the Brandenburg Gate. And then - there it was.

The Wall.

No guards, no barriers, warning signs rendered meaningless, the crowd was right against it looking up at people standing on the top. East Berliners. Many hands reached to help them down and into the West, welcoming them with Sekt, schnapps and beer. The crowd was laughing, cheering, dancing, many were crying. Perfect strangers kissed and parted in wild celebration. West Berliners were clambering on each other shoulders to be hauled up to join their brothers and sisters. The Wall, hated and feared for so long had suddenly become just a strip of graffiti strewn concrete. People straddled the top, beating at it, chipping away with tools they brought for that purpose. A man wielded a pickaxe. All along the wall, hammer and sickle was giving way to hammer and chisel.’

The rest, as they say, is history…

This is my last post for The History Girls. I was a founder member and, over the years, I’ve made many friends among this group of extraordinarily gifted women. I’m still amazed at the range and depth of their knowledge and their generosity in sharing this with our readers. So, my thanks to my fellow bloggers and of course to Mary Hoffman, who has kept us all going. I am, and will always be, proud to have been a History Girl! 

A section of the Berlin Wall. Imperial War Museum, London 

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

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