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Gareth Harney Profile picture
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24 Apr, 6 tweets, 3 min read
1) A day in the life of a young heir to the throne. In this delightful letter, a twenty-something Marcus Aurelius describes his day:

"Today I worked at my studies from 3am to 8am with some snacks. Then for an hour I cheerfully paced around my bedroom wearing only my slippers..
2) ..Then I put on my boots and cloak and went to say good morning to the emperor (Antoninus Pius). We all set off for a hunt and daring deeds were done! We climbed a steep hill and heard some boars were caught but didn't catch any ourselves. In the afternoon we returned home..
3) ..Then I returned to my books. Kicking off my boots and cape I sat on the couch for two hours and read Cato's speech "On the Property of Pulchra" and another where he impeaches a tribune. Before you tell your slave "Hey, go get me Cato's speeches from the library of Apollo"...
4) ..don't bother, as I have the volumes here! I know they have copies at the Library of Tiberius, so my tip is ingratiate yourself with the librarian there. When I finished the speeches I wrote a few wretched little things that are only fit for dedication to water or fire..
5) Now I seem to have caught a cold, maybe from walking naked in my slippers or maybe I caught it from my bad writing. I frequently suffer nasal congestion but today my nose is running more than usual. Instead of pouring olive oil in my lamp this evening...
6) ..I'll pour the oil on my head and go to sleep, all this riding and sneezing have tired me out. Farewell my dearest teacher whom I cherish more than Rome itself."

(Marcus Aurelius writes to his tutor Cornelius Fronto c.145 AD, 'Fronto's Letters', 4.5)

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Gareth Harney Profile picture
6 Apr
1) The Gemma Constantiniana is an astonishing work of Roman art but its journey across the millennia has been every bit as incredible: a tale of crusades, plunder, fantastic voyages, shipwreck, bloody mutiny and murder. Let's follow this masterpiece on its odyssey through time..
2) The 'Great Cameo of Constantine' or 'Gemma Constantiniana' was likely commissioned by the Roman senate as a gift for Constantine soon after his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in October 312 and perhaps presented to the emperor on his decennalia celebrated in 315.
3) The monumental carved agate cameo is one of the largest to survive from antiquity, almost a foot in length, and shows Constantine in a triumphal chariot drawn by centaurs, flanked by his mother Helena, his wife Fausta and a child thought to be his firstborn son Crispus.
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Gareth Harney Profile picture
21 Mar
1) Forget civil wars and assassinations, the greatest crisis of the Republic came as Pompey consecrated his grandiose theatre in 52 BC but couldn't decide how best to describe himself in its dedicatory inscription. As consul 'for the third time' should he write TERTIVM or TERTIO?
2) Pompey was unsure if he should inscribe that he was consul TERTIVM in the accusative, emphasising duration of time and his holding of the office throughout the year it was built; or should he write TERTIO in the ablative emphasising a time within which it had been completed?..
3) Pompey took the grammar problem around the most learned men of Rome, perhaps also contacting Julius Caesar in Gaul who had recently written his own (now lost) treatise on Latin grammar 'De Analogia' which he dedicated to Cicero..
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Gareth Harney Profile picture
20 Mar
1) When we think of the ancient city of Petra, we rightly picture the awe-inspiring 'Treasury' (Al-Khazneh), thought to be the mausoleum of a 1st century Nabataean ruler ..but the 'Rose City' famed for its rock-cut facades has over a thousand tombs, let's explore a few of them...
2) 'The Tomb of the Roman Soldier' - the mausoleum complex of a high ranking Roman officer from the late 1st century AD. The eponymous cuirassed Roman soldier stands in the central niche of the facade.
3) The interior of the Tomb of the Roman Soldier with niches for burials. Very few of Petra's tombs retain any of their original ornate internal decoration.
Read 25 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
14 Mar
1) In 1415 the Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini discovered a lost manuscript of Cicero in the library of Cluny Abbey, France. The manuscript copied on vellum in the 700s, gave us for the first time Cicero's complete speeches against Catiline and the magistrate Verres..
2) Two years later in the summer of 1417 at Langres, France, Poggio discovered ten more previously unknown orations of Cicero including the oration for Aulus Caecina (Pro Caecina).
3) Carolingian scribes had made many copies of Vitruvius' monumental "On Architecture" but Poggio rediscovered the lost masterpiece in 1414 in the Abbey Library of Saint Gall, Switzerland. In 1425 at Montecassino, he discovered the first manuscript of Vitruvius' "On Aqueducts".
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Gareth Harney Profile picture
13 Mar
1) Cassius Dio on the rise of disinformation, alternative facts and conspiracy theory in imperial Rome:

"Before the empire, all matters were brought before the senate and the people. Even when events happened far away, everyone knew of them, learned from them, wrote about them.. Image
2) "The truth of events, though possibly coloured by fear, favour, friendship and emnity, was always there to see in books and public records. But after this time, most events that happened began to be kept secret and concealed from the people... Image
3) "Now even the little information that is by chance made public is not trusted because it cannot be verified. Things that never occurred are talked about constantly while at the same time events beyond any doubt remain unknown to the people... Image
Read 4 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
27 Feb
1) Pliny took a surprisingly rational approach to the question of life after death, not typical of the classical world. Whether we agree or disagree, his logical train of thought can be appreciated:

"After our last day, we are all surely just as we were before our first day...
2) "Out of wishful thinking the mind projects itself into the future and creates a false life for itself after death; sometimes by attributing immortality to a soul, sometimes imagining we change into a new form, sometimes worshipping phantoms, or even turning a man into a god.."
3) "It is as if the way men breathe is somehow different to other living beings, or as if there were no animals known to live longer than us, animals for which no-one ever suggests a similar afterlife.."
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