Dorothy King's PhDiva: April 2009

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Friday, April 24, 2009

There has never been a book about Artemisia I of Halicarnassus, not even a full academic article. I wrote some academic articles about the Persian Stoa that the Spartans built with a depiction of her many moons ago, in the context of research on Caryatids. The research on her so far has been of that fragmentary nature, which is surprising considering she was such an important military figure. The fact that she was both a woman and the best documented Persian leader at Salamis makes the vacuum even more striking.

More recently I've been blogging about Artemisia, and trying to write a book about her role in the Battle of Salamis: Artemisia is the main subject, with Themistocles and Xerxes as supporting characters, and Herodotus as the narrator.

Recently I found out that the current plan for the sequel to 300 is a female figure at the battle of Salamis - the director Zack Snyder dropped some heavy hints about the material Frank Miller is working on here. (The last plan they announced seems to have been for some sort of a prequel, and hopefully they will their eye onto another battle soon and forget Artemisia.)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Marrakesh: Snails and Slime

The snails reminded me of a story about Marius and a siege during the Jugurthine War, where the town fell thanks to some snails (see here). The dead fish carcasses, of Garum making. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Marrakesh: Donkeys

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Battle of Mutina: 43 BC

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Mutina (Modena). Although Aulus Hirtius in theory won the battle, he was also killed in it - which makes it a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. The source is Appian III, 49 ff

As with so many of the Civil Wars, it's a little difficult to work out who had sided with whom, or why. Aulus Hirtius was in charge of the official army on behalf of the Senate, and that is why he had Octavian, Julius Caeasar's adopted son, fighting with him. He was fighting Anthony, the rebel, except that ... Hirtius and his fellow consul of 43 BC Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus were supporting Brutus, who had been Caesar's murderer, but who was the legal governor of Cisalpine Gaul.

After Mutina Octavian took over Hirtius' army and took on Anthony as a commander in his own right. Having been adopted by Caesar had been his stepping stone, but Mutina would give his legions to wield, and in turn led to the formation of the Second Triumvirate on the 26th November 43 BC.

Marriages were often made to cement such alliances, and this one resulted in the union of Octavian and Clodia Puchra. Clodia (or Claudia) was the daughter of Anthony's wife Fulvia.

Fulvia may or may not be depicted on a series of coins, such as the one on the left.

We do know that she did not take kindly to Octavian returning Clodia 'intact' in 41 BC and asking for a divorce. Fulvia, along with her brother-in-law Lucius Antonius, raised eight legions and briefly started a civil war known as the Perusine War because it ended around Perugia. Fulvia and her army briefly captured the city of Rome itself in 41. The source is Appian V, 32 ff.

Aulus Hirtius tends to be overlooked in military history, but he wrote extensively on military history. He had been a legate of Caesar's and added the eighth book to his Commentarii de Bello Gallico. He may be the author, or at least the editor, of De Bello Alexandrino, De Bello Africo and De Bello Hispaniensis, works usually ascribed to Caesar since they document his wars. His letters to Cicero are now lost.

Marrakesh: The Saadian Tombs III

Marrakesh: The Saadian Tombs II

Monday, April 20, 2009

A Brief History of Dirt

"They passed the solitary Column of Phocas, and looked down into the excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches, pavements, and shattered blocks and shafts - the crumbs of various ruins dropped from the devouring maw of Time--stand, or lie, at the base of the Capitoline Hill."

The Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1860

A few things recently made have made me think about 'dirt' - of the salacious as well as the archaeological kinds. It's partly to do with archaeology, and the best way I can think to get around to explaining my antipathy to 'women's history'.

I've always felt that anyone's life, if examined under a microscope, can be made to look bad. A few night ago I had dinner with a former Democrat 'operative' who used to work on opposition research. He told me some of the ways that voting records were manipulated to make any office-holder look bad during election campaigns.

King David was a great king but, as I've mentioned before, because of his private life there were debates amongst Islamic scholars about whether or not be was a Prophet. In Judaism and Christianity we accept that the good he did outweighed the bad, but in Islam it is questioned. [Image: BNF]

I was tempted to jest that even Jesus could be made to look bad under a microscope, but ... since he was condemned by Pontius Pilate, I guess we already know that.

Every once in a while someone comes up with the 'bright' idea (please note: heavy use of sarcasm) of nominating me for something, and I get vetted. Although, ironically, the two times that I know of, the issue has been not with me but with men I was dating ... I try to discourage such nominations, because frankly someone rooting through my life is not worth the 'honor' of the 'position' I'm being considered for. As boring as I try to keep my life, it's easy to make minor issues look bad.

I have no interest in the 'dirt' of others' lives. I love the Daily Mail for its' amusing stories, but tend to ignore the ones about celebrities' love lives. I also have no interest in gossip about people I know, nor about those long dead. That may seem like a strange thing for a historian to write.

Throughout history, private lives have been just that - private. Most people had feet of clay when it came to their loves, peccadilloes and bedroom habits, but it did not distract from their public loves, nor did it make them any less great. I don't care if Alexander the Great was bisexual, as it seems in no way to have affected his military record. Catherine the Great may be gossiped about because of her lovers, but I prefer to concentrate on the way she modernized and revolutionized Russia. Nelson's mistress made no difference to the outcome of Trafalgar.

Clearly a lot of people do care, or so many tabloids wouldn't be sold each day.

I love writing about Greek and Roman history as most of the gossip and scandal has been lost or can be ignored. Almost nothing is know of Gaius Marius' private life, and that meant that when doing research on him I could concentrate on his accomplishments rather than his foibles.

The catalyst for the recent publishing trend for Women's History was Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Few of the books that have followed in its wake have been either as well researched, nor as well written, though they have continued the concentrated over-examination of people's private lives.

Georgiana was a rather silly girl. She wasn't involved in politics; she slept with a politician. Her love life may have been exciting, but she was not particularly interesting - certainly not according to her husband. Far more interesting was Lady Elizabeth Foster, the much-maligned mistress whom the Duke of Devonshire married after Georgiana's death. Thanks to Foreman's biography, Elizabeth is universally derided. Whenever I read such books, I want to shout "but! there are two sides to every story!" ...

Elizabeth was certainly an attractive woman, as we can see in these two portraits: by Angelica Kauffman (Ickworth House, above); and by Joshua Reynolds (Chatsworth House, below). But for a man as powerful as the Duke of Devonshire to keep her by his side from 1782 until his death in 1811, and for him to marry her in 1809 when not only did he not 'have' to, but she was 50 and had probably lost much of her youthful bloom ...

Although Elizabeth's role as anything other than a bedroom distraction is glossed over in Foreman's biography ... my guess is that what kept the Duke interested in her was her brain and their common interests. Georgiana may have been 'fun' and had a nice selection of hats, but Elizabeth was educated.

Edward Gibbon - of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire fame - was a huge fan of hers.

She funded a translation of Horace into Italian by Molajoni. And she corrected it before publication where she thought it was inaccurate. The Iter ad Brundusium and the Aeneid were also illustrated and published thanks to her.

She was a patron of the arts as well as a great Classicist.

She arranged for the Vatican to have casts of the Parthenon frieze soon after Lord Elgin brought it to London. She got involved in the post-Napoleon repatriation of works of art to Italy. And ...

This is what the Roman Forum looked liked in 1760; a higher resolution version of this engraving by Piranesi is here. By the time Elizabeth visited after her husband's death, the arch had been cleared of the accumulation of topsoil, but much of the Forum was still buried and used as pasture for cows.

Cardinal Ercole Consalvi helped her get a permit, and in December 1816 Elizabeth started to excavate, beginning with the Column of Phocas - seen here in the left foreground. Then she dug around the area, down to the Roman travertine paving. Some of her finds can be seen in the Capitoline museum, such as the porphyry column shafts.

Elizabeth Foster was an interesting woman, but ... well, you can see why I'd be annoyed when these aspects of her life are ignored in favor of making her some sort of a fluffy mistress who 'stole' silly Georgiana's husband, when Georgiana was too busy choosing hats. I've heard a lot of women apologize for Georgiana, saying she was a 'product' of her age - but so was Elizabeth. If one sets aside her private life, she's still interesting. The same cannot be said for Georgiana.

History should be about public lives and achievements, not bedrooms.

(A book of Elizabeth's papers is available here on Google books.)