Time to Honor Emperor Hadrian

Emperor Hadrian was a world traveler in the modern sense of the word. He understood Public Relations like no other and made sure all his subjects knew him, whether in the Far East or in remote Britain, where he left his “Hadrian Wall.” He was very much appreciated also since so many cities built arches in his honor and dedicated temples and baths to him. A rare exception on my traveling through Albania, where I found no trace of him. Strange, to say the least!

Hadrian was born in 76 AD and died in 138 AD after having reigned over the Roman Empire for twenty-one years. He belongs to the category of the five “good emperors,” joining ranks with Nerva, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Antoninus Pius. More importantly, he ruled at the height of Roman power in the middle of the Pax Romana, which started under Augustus in 27 BC and ended in 180 AD. This Pax Romana, a two hundred years-long peace period, was mainly due to Alexander the Great – a generally overlooked detail. Through his two years of fierce guerilla wars in Sogdiana and Bactria from 229 to 227 BC, Alexander had scared the hell out of the Scythian tribes on the northern frontiers of Central Asia to such an extent that they did not dare interfere with the Roman occupation in the following centuries.

Hadrian comes to me as a good-natured and friendly person who likes his contact with people. He is known to be generous to the soldiers under his command, making sure they were properly garrisoned; additionally, he implemented many military reforms and built appropriate forts. The emperor was on good terms with the civilians of the cities he visited and is said to have defended the weaker population against the empowered ones, which may be why he was so popular. He loved everything that was Greek, and that included his beautiful lover Antinous. He sought to make Athens the cultural capital of his empire, and he ordered the construction of many buildings all over the city for this purpose. Best known is probably his arch in the center of Athens carrying two typical inscriptions reading on one side. Here starts the city of Hadrian and on the other, Here ends the city of Hadrian. Athens, in turn, honored the emperor with a bronze statue at the Theatre of Dionysus. According to Pausanias, Hadrian also built a gymnasium with columns of Libyan marble, a Temple of Hera, an extensive Library, and a Pantheon dedicated to all the gods. We still can admire his life-size statue at the very heart of the Greek Agora. Another noteworthy feature of Hadrian’s legacy is the vaulted Eridanos River exposed during the metro construction works at the Monastiraki station.

This emperor is also remembered for his generosity and fairness, for changing the law to make sentences more humane and honest. In Rome, he restored many buildings, including the Pantheon, and allowed himself the luxurious Villa Hadriana at Tivoli, which he furnished with the most beautiful Greek statues he could find; if not the originals, then the best copies would do. During his travels, he often implemented public works projects and granted Latin rights to many communities.

Nothing much has transpired from his personal life except his affair with the gorgeous Antinous (when you see the very recognizable Antinous in a museum, you can be sure that Hadrian is not far off). Whatever his relationship with his wife Sabina was, she is often represented at his side. One such case that springs to my mind is Andriake, the harbor of Myra, where a bust of the couple enhances the entrance to the granary.

According to the latest news, the city of Antalya is renewing its appreciation for Hadrian by cleaning up the area around the gate built in his honor in 130 AD, known locally as the “Three Doors.” They are planning rather fancy landscaping with lighting in the shape of the sun. The project is not too clear, but it is nice to hear that this impressive city gate will gain prestige after many centuries of abandonment.

How we can be tricked into relying on the internet

The internet is a most wonderful source of information but once again I discovered how tricky and misleading some of this information can be. It happened recently when on Pinterest I came across these three magnificent heads, most likely terracotta’s, labeled as Alexander, Olympias and Philip. They were very lively and very lifelike, so much so that I could hardly believe the labels to be correct.

I questioned the different sources who had posted these pictures on Pinterest but got no reaction at all. Are people just swallowing anything these days? The doubtful labels, however, linked these heads to the Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome. That was another reason to raise my eyebrows since that museum is specialized in Etruscan art and I fail to see their connection with Alexander and his family.

Getting nowhere, I decided to contact the Museum of Villa Giulia in order to clarify this interpretation. It was not surprising to learn that they had no knowledge of this Macedonian royal family in their collection.

The picture of this so-called Alexander is, in fact, a representation of Apollo recovered from the Etruscan Sanctuary of Scasata at Falerii Veteres, modern Civita Castellana in the province of Viterbo and has been dated to the end of the fourth/early third century BC. It was part of a terracotta group that enhanced the front pediment of the temple dedicated to Apollo, an oracle shrine. Some sources imply that this Apollo was inspired by the Alexander head created by Lysippos – not entirely improbable, I’d say.

It appeared that another nearby temple had been excavated as well and it had been determined that it was dedicated to Minerva (Athena), Juno (Hera) and Jupiter (Zeus). This temple yielded stunning terracotta sculptures from the early fourth century BC among which a cult statue of Juno, the one that is apparently mistaken for Olympias.

As to the head that supposedly represents Philip, I have no further information but I could speculate that if it was found near the Juno terracotta it might depict Jupiter.

These three heads are absolutely superb and I believe they are well worth a visit to the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia next time you are in Rome.

"The troops of the king deserted him"

These are the words that appear on a clay tablet written by a contemporary eyewitness in Babylon after the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC.

[Picture from Livius site]

This cuneiform clay tablet belongs to the Astronomical Diary that was kept in the temple of the Babylonian god Marduk. These diaries contain not only daily observations of the sky but also all kinds of information about the current political events, the level of the Euphrates and Tigris, the food prices and other various news, as well as the meteorological records. Over the past two centuries, millions of these tablets have surfaced from all over Mesopotamia and the majority has not yet been deciphered, leaving us with wide lacunas.

Yet, with bits and pieces, we are able to extract useful information from these tables, like, for instance, the exact date of Alexander’s death on 11 June 323 BC.

In the frame of Battle of Gaugamela, these inscriptions suggest that the Persian soldiers were demoralized and that “the troops of the king deserted him”. These lines shed a very different light on the battle as recorded by Greek historians who wrote that Darius left his soldiers. It makes us wonder whether instead of an act of bravery or military genius on Alexander’s part, the battle was won thanks to the bribes of some of Darius’ generals, including Mazaeus (see: Two key afterthoughts on Gaugamela).

Due to the complexity of the battle, the vastness of the plain and the heavy dust that whirled around, nobody could actually have a consistent view of the maneuvers and clashes. Yet at the end of the day, the Macedonians were master of the field. Callisthenes, a nephew of Aristotle who had been appointed by Alexander to keep his official diary, could hardly have actually seen any part of the battle. He too had to rely on the accounts given by the Macedonians at that time. Although later historians like Arrian, Diodorus, Curtius and even Plutarch had access to his records, we have no way to verify what and how he originally told the events since his books are lost to us.

The cuneiform tablet which started this post is in the hands of the British Museum and has been closely studied by specialists. For me, there are three lines that are important in the frame of the decisive battle of Gaugamela, which I reproduce hereafter in my own simplified version:

That month, the eleventh [corresponding to 18 September 331 BC], panic occurred in the camp before the king. The Macedonians encamped in front of the king [must be Darius at Arbela].

The twenty-fourth [corresponding to 1 October 331 BC], in the morning, the king of the world [meaning Alexander as King of Asia] erected his standard [lacuna]. Opposite each other they fought and a heavy defeat of the troops. The king, his troops deserted him and to their cities [they went] They fled to the land of the Guti.[meaning the road to Ecbatana]

On the eleventh [corresponding to 18 October 331 BC], in Sippar [this is just north of Babylon] an order of Alexander to the Babylonians was sent as follows: 'Into your houses I shall not enter.'

For the complete text and pertaining comments, please refer to the site of Livius at this link and/or this link.

Based on the above, the least we can say is that we know only part of history and certainly only a tiny portion of what really happened that day of the battle on the dusty plain of Gaugamela.

Alexander meeting Diogenes in Corinth

Diogenes was a cynic philosopher from Sinope in Ionia on the Black Sea, born in either 404 or 412 BC, and he died the same year as Alexander in 323 BC in Corinth. He had settled in that city where he passed his philosophy to Crates of Thebes (365-280 BC), who in turn taught Zeno of Citium in Cyprus (334-262 BC) and became the founder of the Stoic School. Diogenes’ own writings have not survived, and most of his anecdotes have been recorded by Diogenes Laërtius in the third century AD in his “Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.”

Legend has it that Alexander visited Diogenes in Corinth when he was about twenty years old, although this cannot be historically confirmed. The story may have been told by Onesicritus, a disciple of Diogenes, who joined Alexander on his eastern campaigns and was retold in an embellished form by Ptolemy from where it could have made its way to the later Alexander Romance. It remains questionable whether there was any ground of truth in the tale.

[Picture from wn.com]

The best-known story about Diogenes is that he lived in a large barrel or jar and made a virtue of poverty. In that frame, he lived a more than simple life and criticized the fashionable social values and institutions, accusing them of corruption. He was reputed for eating and sleeping whenever he felt like it. He certainly was a highly controversial figure and did not shrink back from embarrassing Plato, sabotaging Socrates’ lectures, and even publicly mocking Alexander the Great. Well, this latest statement may not be true and is only a legend. But the story goes that when Alexander found Diogenes lying in the sun, he greeted him and asked him what he could do for him. Diogenes answered with his famous words, “Stand out of my sun.” This response made everyone present laugh, and Alexander may have picked up the humor, adding, “Truly, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

Let’s bathe in a 2,000 years old thermal bath

Would it not be great to know that the baths of Sarikaya will not only open to the tourists but would also allow us to actually bathe in these thermal waters?

This semi-Olympic pool at the foot of this sturdy Roman construction from the 2^nd century AD is also known as “Basilica Therma”. Nearby, it seems that two more thermal pools have been located. The water temperature of 48-49 degrees Celsius is pretty high for bathing but is said to have healing properties. What are we waiting for?

The Roman soldiers found their way to these luxurious baths where they used to rest before setting sail from one of the ports on the Black Sea. The place must have met high standards since recent findings confirmed that the hot water sources were also used in the floor heating system.

It would not be a proper Roman Bath if it were not decorated with an adequate number of statues of gods and goddesses, and discovering a snake figure is evidently the symbol of Asclepius, the god of medicine and health. The premises were still in use during the Christian era since a large baptismal font has been excavated and some pools were even used in the days of the Seljuk and Ottoman occupation.

Sarikaya is situated less than 80 km north of Kayseri and 325 km southeast of Ankara.

For our own bathing and in spite of the six years of excavations spent already, we’ll have to wait a few more years till the project is completed. I am also curious to learn the name of this Roman town and the full role it played in antiquity.

[The first picture is from Sarikaya Muhabir and the second picture is from The Daily News]

Le Roman d’Alexandre, traduit du grec par A Tallet-Bonvalot

Just as there is not one Silk Road, there certainly is not one Alexander Romance. 

The oldest known version dates probably from the third century AD and its author is unknown, although it has been attributed to Pseudo-Callisthenes - not known otherwise. This version is generally called version α and served for all subsequent versions, which appeared on a more or less regular basis until the 16^th century and were written in Latin, Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Hebrew, Arabic, Islamic, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Romanian, German, Ethiopic, Mongolian and many Medieval patois. Useless to say that each version added tales of its own fantasy and embellished the legend which Alexander became over the centuries.

Le Roman d'Alexandre (ISBN 9-782080-707888), which I read is the Codex Parisinus Graecus 1711, discovered at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris in the 18^th century. This Greek text is entitled The Life of Alexander the Macedonian, poorly copied, with spelling mistakes and others, and composed in the 11^th century. It is labeled version A since it closely relates to the original Romance.

The book has little to do with the historical Alexander, and the chronology of his conquests is entirely inconsistent and/or invented. To give it a credible resonance, we find familiar names in a utopian setting, for instance, Craterus of Olynthus as an architect in Alexandria or Parmenion lending his name to the Serapeum while Roxane is presented as the daughter of the king of Persia. Interestingly, Parmenion is accused of planning the murder of Alexander by bribing the king's doctor Philip at Tarsus. At the same time, he historically sent a letter to Alexander to warn him of Philip.

Alexander marches with a vast army to face enormous enemies without giving any detail on the battles or hardly a location but encountering one mythical or fabulous being after another. The book contains an amazing number of letters exchanged with the Athenians, Darius, Olympias, Aristotle, Porus, Kandaké, king of Meroe, and even with the Amazons and the gymnosophists. This is not a heroic Alexander but a wise man who always does the right thing, much to the awe and admiration of his audience. 

Le Roman d'Alexandre concludes with Alexander's will, which is made to fit the book's tale but can in no way be connected to historical reality. 

No progress in the Valley of the Thracian Kings

The Thracian presence in Bulgaria is best documented by the Tomb of Kazanlak, but hundreds and thousands of similar tumuli spread all over Bulgaria remain unexplored. In 2002, there was an exhibition in Brussels about the Gold of the Thracians. A map on the wall tagged all the Thracian burial mounds, and I had no idea there could be so many! Experts estimate that there are more than 15,000 of these tombs in Bulgaria, with the highest concentration in the so-called Valley of the Thracian Kings around Kazanlak.

In my earlier post from April 2013, Valley of the Thracian Kings, I tackled the severe shortage of funds for the maintenance and repair of these tombs. Unfortunately, more than three years later, it seems nothing much has changed. In Bulgaria, the revenues from entrance fees to the tumuli and other archaeological sites are not converted into conservation funds. This means that archaeologists are not too motivated to explore new tumuli and tombs simply because there is no way to restore them, leading to severe neglect and degradation of the painted walls and ceilings.

As mentioned before, a few remarkable tombs definitely deserve close attention. However, the Kazanlak Tomb is understandably closed to the public, who can visit a substitute replica next door. But there is also the tomb at the Shusmanets mound where a slim column supports the vaulted ceiling of the burial chamber, and seven half-columns adorn the inside walls. Another example is the nearby Ostrusha tumulus which contains a sarcophagus-like chamber from a single granite rock of 60 tons. The ceiling is decorated with frescoes of people, animals, plants, and geometric figures, and the central room of this tomb is surrounded by six other rooms in dire need of restoration. The best-known king of Thracia is probably Seuthes III, whose tomb has been closed to the public this summer pending the much-needed funds for emergency repairs. 

We know pretty little about the Thracians because they left us only a few inscriptions, which, although written using Greek letters, have not been deciphered. They were a people of horse breeders, miners, and talented goldsmiths. What transpires through their art is that they believe in an afterlife and their soul's immortality. Their kings were considered the sons of Mother Earth, and after their death, they must return to her womb. This could explain why they built these artificial mounds around their burial site in which the deceased ruler was placed surrounded by his horses, dogs, weapons, drinking cups, and playing dice. The burial sites proper were built from huge granite blocks and slabs. Generally, an entrance corridor led to one or more chambers, and all the walls were covered with paintings revealing details of their earthly life. 

Only about three hundred of the roughly 1,500 tumuli have been excavated in the Valley of the Thracian Kings. It is a shame that the rich heritage of the Thracian does not receive the attention it deserves, either in Bulgaria or abroad.

[Pictures from Australian News]

About spolia in Babylon

The word “spolia” is defined by Wikipedia as “the repurposing of building stone for new construction, or the reuse of decorative sculpture on new monuments, is an ancient and widespread practice whereby stone that has been quarried cut and used in a built structure, is carried away to be used elsewhere.” Well, that is what I thought also until I came across this article about modern-day spolia in Babylon.

Saddam Hussein’s controversial reconstruction of the Palace of King Nebuchadnezzar is well documented but now it appears that bricks from ancient Babylon have been reused in buildings erected in Hillah, south of Baghdad. Elderly locals from the city remember how the bricks were transported by donkey or river barges, and this custom is thought to go back to the 12^th century. In 1890 bricks from Babylon were used for the construction of the Hindiya Barrage on the Euphrates. Vandalism, for that is what spolia is, after all, continued far into the last century with Saddam Hussein’s madness to rebuild the palace and the American Army setting up their camp inside the old walls and driving their tanks through ancient streets.

The damage cannot be undone but Iraqi authorities are now facing another problem and that is to recover as many Babylonian bricks from the old houses in Hillah and other neighboring towns by monitoring their demolition. As always, some deny the problem, and others claim that the theft of bricks stopped in the 1940s.

Whatever the case, a group of journalists and activists created a social media campaign and hoped that UNESCO would consider reinserting the site of Babylon in their World Heritage List by the end of 2017. On the other hand, Iraqi authorities are aware that the restoration of the houses in Hillah should take place under the control of the General Authority for Iraqi Antiquities.

King Nebuchadnezzar II built his city of Babylon in the 6^th century BC and is said to have used as many as fifteen million baked bricks for the construction of his palace and surrounding official buildings! After all, Babylon was a huge metropolis covering 900 hectares of land. The square bricks used for this impressive construction carried Sumerian inscriptions and special regal seals.

It is heartbreaking to see remains from 2,700 years ago from such an important antique metropolis as Babylon disintegrate in front of our very eyes without being able to stop the damage.

Let’s hope for the best, as always.

Putting Halicarnassus on the (tourist) map

The Hurriyet Daily News recently published an article entitled “Mausoleum at Halicarnassus to be restituted” that made me raise my eyebrows. What did they mean with “restitute” for there certainly is no way to rebuild the Mausoleum since too many pieces have been lost over time.

On top of that, the rest of the article is pretty confusing with plans and projects that are very vague. What transpires, however, is that the Bodrum Municipality wants to put the city on the map and most probably on the tourists’ map.

Of course, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus is recognized as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and as I understand what the newspaper is trying to say, they intend to connect this monumental tomb built by King Mausolos in 353 BC to Bodrum harbor. I wonder how they can go about this for it would mean the destruction of a good part of today’s residential area.

It is also odd to read that a team composed of a professional tour guide, an underwater archaeologist, an architect, a businessman and a photographer had to be called to meet at the Bodrum Municipality in order to plan excavations to reveal more of Halicarnassus’ past. The projects that are discussed include more excavations of the eight-meter-long city wall and unearthing the 3,500-year-old hippodrome. The program also should tackle the restoration of the Jewish cemetery, the organization of a festival dedicated to Herodotus (International Herodotus Culture and Arts Festival), the illumination of the existing Myndos Gate and last but not least the collection of artifacts testifying of early Mycenaean occupation in the area (15^th-12^th century BC). By themselves, these are all excellent ideas but it seems that is all there is, ideas tossed on the table without any strong argument to back them up or plan to work them out.

Their intention to put Herodotus, the father of ancient history who was born in Halicarnassus in the 5^th century BC in the floodlights may simply be an additional PR for Bodrum.

It will be interesting to see which part of these projects, if any, will ever materialize.