Castrum Novum theatre: The architecture and orientation of a newly discovered ancient Roman theatre

Posted on October 29, 2022January 6, 2024 by Giovanni

The Castrum Novum theatre has recently been resurfaced by archaeological digs at Santa Marinella, on the coast north of Rome. Its site and architectural orientation are particularly noteworthy.

Ancient roman theatre — The Castrum Novum theatre has been unearthed north of Rome. It is similar to the Roman theatre shown above.
It was built to face the sea and its orientation took advantage of the environment: The sunset provided dramatic stage-lighting.

Research by the Finnish University of Pilsen and the Institutum Finlandiae have also unearthed the temple’s lower building work. It had a regular architectural plan and was located some 50 metres from the sea front. The stage was ~30 metres length and there was seating area for ~1000 spectators. Brickwork with “bullae” (stamps) of Emperor Marcus Aurelius suggest this ancient Roman theatre was restructured under his rule and was in full use during the 2nd century AD.

It was oriented to take full advantage of the coastal environment:

Illumination: The sun setting with its rays shining onto the actors and “scaena frons” architectural stage rather than blinding the public.
Ventilation: The sea breeze would have been used together with savvy use of the rooftop sails to ventilate the cavea and spectators for comfort.

The city of Castrum Novum was an ancient and highly strategic coastal port since the Punic Wars. Its development from the 3rd century BC through ~800 years meant it had a highly developed infrastructure to support its logistical, trade and military function.

Statue of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius — Statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

The birth of Rome – a crucible for many ethnicities.

Posted on April 15, 2022January 6, 2024 by Giovanni

Whilst we think of ancient Rome as a unitary ethnic identity, the birth of Rome was all about assembling a number of sub-cultures into a new whole. This was not simply achieved through ethnic deletion but rather through assimilation and gradual absorption of the many local customs over time.

The approach created opportunity for those populations who had been taken over to actually create their own career and future, reshaping Roman society itself. It wasn’t always pacific and also resulted in revolts, but the approach was largely successful. It remained a characteristic of the later Roman Empire in what is known as “Romanisation”. It was also a bedrock of the shift to Christianity over 1000 years later: rather than delete and replace previous customs it was much more effective to acknowledge them and reshape them towards the new reality; for example replacing the fertility festival of Juno in February with Saint Valentine’s day.

These few notes capture some thoughts and ideas about the birth of Rome and the development of archaic Latin culture in the period from the 8th – 2nd centuries BC. Visiting a range of Italian cities including Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Roman Pompeii, Nocera and Paestum it is evident how a number of local cultures had many similarities yet also their own ethnic differences. Were they simply wiped out? Can they tell us something about the development of their most successful neighbour?

Greek colonies in the south of Italy pushed northwards and spread their own cultural influences. Etruscans, Latins, Sabines, Oscans, Samnites, Lucanians and other Italic peoples were coalescing into local identities, sometimes allied to one another and at other times warring for territorial dominance of resources, waterways, agricultural land and pastures for their cattle. Each of these were themselves an assemblage of smaller local groups, each with their own local characteristic, a village or fortified area on a given hill or mountain. Just like ancient Rome on the Capitoline and Palatine hills.

It is interesting to note how they had their own local languages and alphabets developed: Greek, Etruscan, Oscan, Nuceran, Latin and others were very much alive in parallel. Several of them even at the time of Pompeii’s destruction in 79AD. Roman dominance incorporated them into a unitary existence. It was recorded that Emperor Claudius was one of the last to know Etruscan language and wrote books on their culture. On the other hand, there are graffiti in Pompeii written in Oscan. Pontius Pilate was an Equestrian of Samnite origins – as his name suggests he was from the Samnite tribe of the Ponti(!) not Latin.

Visiting the city of Paestum, further to the south of Italy we can see a number of funeral paintings which portray events from every day life. It is interesting to compare them, and their similarities with those of Etruscan cities such as Tarquinia much further to the north. This gives us a sense of the many similarities across these cultures with that of Rome such as a love for Gladiatorial fights at funerals or of hunting and chariot racing.

In conclusion, the birth of Rome wasn’t a case of a culture coming out of nowhere and deleting those around it. It was more a case of various cultural identities coming together over time and the Romans having had the ability to incorporate and thread them together into a form of coexistence. Perhaps this can give us new ideas about the social reasons for the fall of the Roman empire.

Our perception of time and scale: What ancient Rome can teach us

Posted on April 2, 2018January 25, 2024 by Giovanni

Understanding history is difficult and open to interpretation, no doubt. Much of this difficulty is due to the complexity of the factors involved. The further back we look and the more fragmentary the information. Documentary evidence, or lack of it, seems the main hindrance but it’s not the only one. Our perception of time and scale is also an issue.

As people grow older they will invariably complain about “time flying by faster and faster”. Rather than being an issue with time itself, it is obviously an issue with our cerebral mechanisms for the perception of time. Plenty of studies are ongoing on the matter, but I would say it’s incontrovertible that the mechanism we have for the perception of time is at best non-linear. Indeed the issue is not only with our perception of time, but also with our perception of scale and magnitude. Tests of our sensitivity to quantities such as light brightness suggest we behave in a logarithmic fashion. Perhaps the same applies to time also, somehow.

Slavery in the US was abolished in 1865, less than 200 years ago and racial division of society has barely been dealt with in the last 100 years. Votes for women across the Western world barely became common-place in the early-mid 20th century. I daren’t consider how it can be that in the last 100 years entire populations have been involved, directly or indirectly, in genocide and the most horrific tortures and exterminations. Looking back from our current vantage point we can see those behaviours were unacceptable and we reject them as something “in the distant past”. Other generations. Choices made by people who had little in common with us: “yes but that wasn’t me, I’m one of the victors who reformed the system”.

A multitude of ancient Roman history themes are addressed as “ancient Roman…”. We rarely consider that ancient Rome spanned well over 1000 years. If we consider the extension of the term “ancient Roman” to include the Eastern part of the Empire, we would have to recognise it survived as far as the Renaissance. Mid 16th century, blasted by Turkish cannons. So the count would be something in the region of 2200 years from start to end. We are tempted and sometimes forced by necessity, to treat the highly fragmentary literary sources as is they were virtually contemporary. One or two hundred years between one literary source and another seem like an instant and taken as corollary proof of Roman behaviour.

Switching our vantage point can be revealing: Will people looking back at us some 2000 years from now, conflate Slavery, women’s vote, WWII gas chambers and genocide as common elements of our modern society? We’d feel it unfair, so is it fair to bundle such fundamental themes as “slavery in ancient Rome” or the role of “ancient Roman women” as if it were a single social context?

Which leads us back to asking “Were the Romans in the year 500BC much the same as in year 300AD?” When we consider ourselves as modern men and women responsible for the pervasive slavery 200 years ago, the answer is a very likely “no”. We are not the same people or indeed feel personally responsible for the slavery way back when in the 19th century. It follows that the Romans in the year 300AD were not the same as their forefathers in 500BC or indeed as their ancestors in the year 0.

So why from our distant vantage point do we consider the Roman people as one cohesive society, one moral system, one collective responsible party?

Conclusion on the perception of time in ancient history:

Perhaps both answers are correct and we easily shut our eyes to our current moral responsibilities, or we have something to learn when judging societies of the distant path: our judgement of history is shaped by our non-linear perception of time and scale.

The above also raises the question of whether what we judge in a society, historically, is very different from the way we judge ourselves in the present. The priorities seem to change: “The ancient Romans, were all a nasty bunch who condoned slavery and mass murder, they were all collectively responsible for xyz”. But when we consider ourselves as individuals living the present moment, today, we invert the moral order of importance: Less able to influence the overall behaviour of society and greater focus on the personal ability to procure a steady life for our immediate selves and family. Somehow more moral in the long-term and more bent on basic egocentric survival aspects in the short term.

Either way, the sense is that our judgement of history is subject to a great deal of non-linear behaviour between present and past:

A different set of moral scales.
Non-linear treatment of time

Climate in Rome Italy

Posted on March 29, 2018January 25, 2024 by Victoria

Ancient Roman Jobs, slavery and artificial intelligence…

Posted on March 11, 2018January 25, 2024 by Giovanni

Ancient Roman Jobs and Artificial Intelligence

This brief blog post about ancient Roman jobs and Artificial Intelligence is a continuation of the article relating to ancient Roman jobs. It makes a first stab at considering the consequence of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence and using the perspective of ancient Rome to help us consider some of the possible ramifications

The comparison of jobs between the modern and ancient worlds, and in particular ancient Roman jobs is a subject of growing fascination:

We can be surprised how so many of the ancient Roman job roles are in many ways very similar to our modern ones.
Ancient Roman technology may not have been to the level we have reached nowadays but in some areas such as Roman building and construction, it wasn’t so far behind. Other factors such as the strength of the Roman economy, social structure, and relative stability over a long period of time enabled a great deal of job and work specialization. Much as we would see today.

A parameter of growing interest in assessing jobs in the ancient world is the very recent arrival of “Robotics” and “Artificial Intelligence” in our own modern era. The first stage of this was visible in the mechanisation which arrived during the Industrial Revolution. Undoubtedly a “good thing” when we look back, but a period of social change, recession and Dickensian poverty as massive sectors of society were displaced. New jobs were created but in highly impoverished areas such as cole-mining. It is difficult to consider what could become the new job of the poor and illiterate when the age of Robotics arrives: A spade and bucket don’t make a Data Scientist!

From an ancient Roman lense, AI and mechanisation can be likened to the creation of a cheap labour source, very much like importing slaves during Roman times… which jobs will increasingly disappear in our own times? Will the modern day working and middle classes find themselves in the same predicament of their equivalents in ancient Roman society? Eventually literacy rates began to fall, people sell themselves into slavery for a better future, the class divide widened, not to mention the aspect of religion as people looked for new answers to the unfathomable social changes they were subjected to….there can be many aspects and debates to the reasons for the fall of the Roman empire. Are there lessons to be learned?

Please share your thoughts on ancient Roman jobs!