Dear Plutarch,
Today is a
catastrophic fire alert day. I am ready for the possibility that I
may have to flee with my family to safety. After packing a few
clothes and some bottled water, I turned to my bookshelves. I packed
Herodotus, I packed Seneca's Epistles, and I packed all your books
Plutarch. I am proud to call you my friend and to value your writing
as much as I do. With one bag full, I then I found an old leather
doctor's bag and packed all of Cicero's books, and the Seven Pillars
of Wisdom by TE Lawrence, then I packed Plato and Marcus Aurelius,
Epictetus, a few books of poetry. I have my ukulele, my setar and my
frame drum. My own collected writing is all stored on my computer,
and backed up on external hard-drives. It is fascinating to make a
list of this nature, and to identify so clearly the most important
items in my possession.
The fires keep
getting closer. Nearby towns are already being evacuated and a fire
on the road leading to the nearby farm where I work is now being
attended to. The rainless storm winds are reaching 90km per hour.
Now, as the sun sets, the temperature is at last dropping from 45C.
It should be 22C by nightfall. Fire fighters will work through the
night. Heroic champions all of them. If any of these fires are
found to have been deliberately lit, is is easy to imagine a return
to public lynchings. However, I did not write to you today to talk
about fires, books or mob justice.
Tangled as I have
been in the Civil Wars of Rome, in Cicero's letters and Caesar's war
stories, I have found myself asking the question, where did it begin?
So, I turn to you, Plutarch. You who knew the old stories so well.
The story of
Romulus and Remus is confusing, confounding, absurd, mythical,
mundane and layered with so many possible variations, that discerning
the historical truth of the events is impossible. Or, as you put
it...(in the introduction to your life of Theseus – from the Dryden
translation of 1906)
As geographers crowd into the edges of their
maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in
the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy
deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a
frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I have compared the
lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through
those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history
find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther
off, Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the
only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no
credit, or certainty any farther.
Let us hope
that Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying
processes of Reason as to take the character of exact history. In any
case, however, where it shall be found contumaciously slighting
credibility, and refusing to be reduced to any thing like probable
fact, we shall beg that we may meet with candid readers, and such as
will receive with indulgence the stories of antiquity.
I asked the
question (where did it all begin..?) because I wanted to understand
something about the pride that Cicero felt for his nation. He wrote,
in a letter to Aulus Manlius Torquatus, in January 45BCE, '...you
are living in a city which gave birth to, and fostered a systematic
rule of life...' In order to
understand that statement, I recently began reading An
introduction to Roman Law, by
Barry Nicholas, 1962, which has
been far more exciting to read that I ever expected. I can see why
Cicero would be proud of his city's legal history.
However,
I'm getting ahead of myself, I wanted to understand the
underlying myths that the Roman people told themselves about their
origins. So, in your account of the legend of Romulus and Remus, I
found a few things I would like to discuss. I'll try to summarise...
The two boys,
founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were possibly the twins of a
prostitute, or a vestal virgin, possibly kidnapped, or abandoned in
the wild, possibly suckled by a great she-wolf...there are more
variations, each of them equally plausible in my mind.
Their city site
was chosen based upon a bogus oracular reading...actually, that's a
good place to pause for a second. The Roman origin story, the
founding myth, contains an open accusation that oracular readings
could be falsified. The way you tell it seems to make plain that the
whole system of bird auguries was far from reliable, in fact it reads
to me like it was well understood that this religious belief was
frequently manipulated by people in power to suit their own purposes.
So right off the
bat, this founding myth sounds more like a cynical history than an
ancient fairy tale. Certainly, Plutarch, by the time you were
writing about it, the world had become very sophisticated, deeply
cynical, and, enriched by hundreds of years of written history, Rome
had developed a high level of self awareness and critical thinking.
Reading Tacitus shows me just how jaded a 'modern' Roman might
become, when exposed to the books, plays and luxury of high society,
not to mention politics, court intrigues and war.
But, back to the
story...
So they build the
city, there's a bit of fighting with the neighbours, Romulus kills
his own brother over a dispute about walls and city boundaries, and
then comes the rape of the Sabines. Rome, at a critical stage in its
early development, has buildings, roads, industry....but hardly any
women. There were some attempts at making marriage deals with the
neighbours, but when that fell through, treachery, kidnapping, rape
and war was the next obvious step.
In the fourth
month, after the city was built, as Fabius writes, the adventure of
stealing the women was attempted; and some say Romulus himself, being
naturally a martial man, and predisposed too, perhaps, by certain
oracles, to believe the fates had ordained the future growth and
greatness of Rome should depend upon the benefit of war, upon these
accounts first offered violence to the Sabines, since he took away
only thirty virgins, more to give an occasion of war than out of any
want of women. But this is not very probable; it would seem rather
that, observing his city to be filled by a confluence of foreigners,
few of whom had wives, and that the multitude in general, consisting
of a mixture of mean and obscure men, fell under contempt, and seemed
to be of no long continuance together, and hoping farther, after the
women were appeased, to make this injury in some measure an occasion
of confederacy and mutual commerce with the Sabines, he took in hand
this exploit after this manner
Setting up a big
festival, the Romans invited their neighbours to celebrate, and right
in the middle of the party, the Romans kidnap all the young women.
Some say it was only a few pretty girls, others say it was hundreds
of girls and a few married women. Some say it was a violent act,
complete with rape, others claim that no such crimes were
committed...the women were hostages, in the old fashioned method,
taken to ensure peace with the neighbours, but this time with the
added bonus of also granting wives to the unmarried men of Rome.
I've got to say
Plutarch, as far as origin stories go, these Romans don't seem to be
ashamed of airing their dirty laundry. I wonder, did you consider
yourself better off having been born Greek? The Romans thought
themselves superior to all other people, but I have this funny
feeling that the Greeks were sometimes quietly laughing at the silly,
sometimes pompous pride the Romans had for themselves.
Anyway, so
there's a long gap between the kidnapping, and when the Sabines came
back to rescue their women. It's a really long gap. Years.
Children have been born in the intervening time, born of the
'arranged' marriages to the Roman men. When the Sabines come back to
fight the Romans, the war is terrible, and many young men die. The
wives take matters into their own hands and stop the fighting in the
following manner.
For the
daughters of the Sabines, who had been carried off, came running, in
great confusion, some on this side, some on that, with miserable
cries and lamentations, like creatures possessed, in the midst of the
army, and among the dead bodies, to come at their husbands and their
fathers, some with their young babes in their arms, others their hair
loose about their ears, but all calling, now upon the Sabines, now
upon the Romans, in the most tender and endearing words. Hereupon
both melted into compassion, and fell back, to make room for them
betwixt the armies. The sight of the women carried sorrow and
commiseration upon both sides into the hearts of all, but still more
their words, which began with expostulation and upbraiding, and ended
with entreaty and supplication.
“Wherein,”
say they, “have we injured or offended you, as to deserve such
sufferings, past and present? We were ravished away unjustly and
violently by those whose now we are; that being done, we were so long
neglected by our fathers, our brothers, and countrymen, that time,
having now by the strictest bonds united us to those we once mortally
hated, has made it impossible for us not to tremble at the danger and
weep at the death of the very men who once used violence to us. You
did not come to vindicate our honor, while we were virgins, against
our assailants; but do come now to force away wives from their
husbands and mothers from their children, a succor more grievous to
its wretched objects than the former betrayal and neglect of them.
Which shall we call the worst, their love-making or your compassion?
If you were making war upon any other occasion, for our sakes you
ought to withhold your hands from those to whom we have made you
fathers-in-law and grandsires. If it be for our own cause, then take
us, and with us your sons-in-law and grandchildren. Restore to us our
parents and kindred, but do not rob us of our children and husbands.
Make us not, we entreat you, twice captives.”
...
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