Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
ROME
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SOCIETY
The
of Greece, the
isles
\\
Eternal
But
to
life
almost to
stir
... to
with
life
hark to Byron
that realm of
And
stirs to
cities
step
are
hymns
is set.
as he
now
yet.
of Greece!
isles
call a
symposium
when
Pompeii
... to
when Nero
fell
lives,
sports,
literature,
cities,
the architecture
and science
that
young, the
still
make headlines
as they
scour sea floors in minisubs and scuba gear, study infrared aerial photographs,
map
how men
-yar^hW-iiiyM|ji
1
Hyman
GREECE
j ROME
a
Bui Itiers
oj
Our World
RIGHT: ASTRIDE A DOLPHIN, MYTHICAL HERO TARAS CLUTCHES TRIDENT AND WINE CUP;
2.300-YEAR-OLD COIN FROM TARAS (TARENTUM). A GREEK COLONY IN ITALY.
OVERLEAF: ACHILLES VANQUISHES PENTHESILEA, QUEEN OF AMAZONS. AT TROY;
6TH-CENTURY B.C. ATHENIAN VASE PAINTING IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON
,j
ROM
Builders of
ir
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
SOCIETY
World
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IN
Foreword by
staff:
MERLE SEVERY
Editor and Art Director
Editorial consultant
PAUL MacKENDRICK
Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin;
Academy
Rome;
author of The Mute Stones Speak, The Greek Stones
Speak, The Roman Mind at Work; co-author of
Classics in Translation, The Ancient World
CHARLES
HYMAN
O.
Designer
Picture Editor
EMILY VERMEULE
THOMAS
ALLEN,
B.
ROSS BENNETT,
JOHN
Age
PUTMAN,
J.
BERRY
DAVID
EMELINE RICHARDSON
L.
REECE,
F.
ROBINSON
JR.,
Editor-Writers
author of
Associate Editors
MacKendrick and
SEYMOUR L. FISHBEIN,
EDWARDS PARK
in
JAMES
The Etruscans
P.
WERNER
KELLY,
L.
WEBER
Production Managers
GILBERT CHARLES-PICARD
Professor of
Roman Archeology,
WILLIAM W. SMITH,
JAMES R. WHITNEY
the Sorbonne;
Tunisia; an excavator
at
the
Time
of Hannibal
JEAN
F.
LEICH,
SUSAN SIDMAN,
PIERRE GRIMAL
MARIANNE HURLBURT,
SARA DE VENGOECHEA, Picture Research
EDWARD MARTIN WILSON, Design
WILHELM R. SAAKE, Pr
Rome,
ESTELLE SADl
BARBAK
Chapters by
LEONARD COTTRELL,
of Ulysses
author of
The
Found;
Bull of
Mino
IREIDEI
VM
!..
\SHStMi
1 POGCENPOHL, H
IOHN D CARS! \NN K'. HNKA
>KI
<
M"('
Photographs by
Paintings by
H M HERGET. BIRNEY
ROBERT
S.
CLANZMAN,
LETTICK,
TOM
LOVELL,
staff;
"
Foreword
Our chart
merely noted the spot as "ruins." But what magic ruins these
my map was Troy. The very name conjured up heroic
deeds of Achilles and Hector; the legendary beauty of Helen that "launch'd a thouits prince, Paris, stole her from Sparta; the golden treasure that
emerged from the dust in one of archeology's greatest adventures.
The deck
heaved under
deep-thundering." Our
Agamemnon's
Aegean from Greece. From our deck we studied the sunny Turkish
coastline where the vengeful Greeks landed for the ten-year siege.
Suddenly, 30 centuries of myth and history came alive. Jason and his fabled
Argonauts passed here in quest of the Golden Fleece. Xerxes, King of Persia, flung
a bridge of boats across the Hellespont and marched the hordes of Asia against the
handfuls of Greece. Alexander the Great crossed here to invade Asia and conquer
the greatest empire the world had yet known.
Twenty-two centuries later came a retired German merchant, Homer in hand, to
fulfill a boyhood dream.
Our ketch anchored at the bustling port of Canakkale, and as I sped in a car over
a modern highway I mused on the fabulous life of that merchant, Heinrich Schliefleet
sails
across the
my
me
The "windy
The best I could find
was a small wooden one in the souvenir shop. Yet Sara found far more.
"This south side of the city was not so steep," our guide Huseyin recited. "So
the Trojans might have brought the big wooden horse in here, with Odysseus and
other Greek heroes inside. On the west, Schliemann found 'Priam's treasure.'
The gold of Troy! "It came from that trench, beside the fig tree," he added.
school,
wife and
a fresh perspective.
Riffling
through our
Iliad,
we
under the
wall.
."
when
fig tree
Achilles chased
Sara listened closely, then ran over to spread her hands along
With her
fingertips
she
Greek inventiveness transmuted the Phoenician aleph and beth into the alpha
and beta that gave us our alphabet. Here arose the concepts of law and government
that rule our lives, thoughts that enrich our minds, beliefs that inspire our souls.
A humble HELEN graces a Hellenic harvest. Timeless tableaux greet modern eyes
in lands where Greek heroes reaped glory and Rome sowed the peace of empire.
FARRELL GREHAh
made
at
men through
his
on
Peloponnesian mountainside,
recalled
how
Oedipus
Rex, Orestes,
conscious
illumine the
to
human
character.
In southern France
du Gard,
Museum team
many seasons. Here we held earthenand cups used by the sailors for their food and
drink, the swords they fought with, axes, copper bullion,
even stone anchors that took us back to Homeric times. How
close we felt to Odysseus that "much-enduring" wanderer
whose homeward voyage from Troy spanned years of adventure in a realm of nymphs and monsters.
To give readers the same rich experience, Book Service
Chief Merle Severy and I planned Greece and Rome: Builders
of Our World. We sought to weave the story of the ancient
world around its towering figures. Such an approach proved
enormously popular in a companion volume published last
sponsor his work for
ware
plates
water
In that
commissioned
artists to re-create
after
to
still
SOflr
bearing
Segovia 19 centuries
Romans
devised by engineers
were
who knew no
What
adage;
all
that
is Roman, says an
moves is Greek.
v~
life.
We
turned
to
knowl-
edge as consultant during the long months of preparation. Final proofs followed
his thunderbolts
E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One). Indeed, in so many ways, we are all Greeks
and Romans. Let us voyage into the ancient world to find how that came to be
.
^UJC
~et
-Jk
**tf
CONTENTS
Toreword
Quest for
Our
Golden Heritage
Wake
VOYAGE
IN
12
i3
of Odysseus:
The World of
Pericles
74
113
188
To the strident sound of war trumpet, horns, and hydraulic organ, gladiators perform a dance of death
'
ws^F^s^r^^ttjnaj^.^ -
in this
:si
250
ns
294
337
372
MAPS: Thera 56
Trojan
War 69
Magna
Graecia 100
Etruscan
City of
cities
Rome 348
Caesar
in
Gaul 379
Id-century
Magna, preserved in
the
Museum
in
back of book
r^uwK3snK
^vr~z?2tt%vBmr^~v?*-\&TZ^^
Quest for
*;
4
"A.
Our
By Merle Sever
Golden Heritage
was a miracle
Itnostrils
down
escaped to bear
its
with
fiery
imperial rider
Roman
equestrian
now
of
Rome's seven
was Constan-
Roman emperor
to embrace
mused, that they mistakenly immortalized a pagan predecessor, Marcus
Aurelius. His officials had dutifully persecuted
the faith.
How
ironic,
"Men
Marcus
Aurelius.
Roman
emperor,
Renaissance
men
Photograph by
Adam
YJoolfitt
at their
bold
13
enthusiasm
flowered
upper
anew
lip.
Independence
of
in
in
life
fanned fever-
will to win.
his
Waterloo was
We
still
Hannibal, Caesar;
we
its
...
As we
learn more,
and Rome.
sensed rome's power, the reach of her empire, atop Hadrian's Wall that once
I spanned
Britain; at Palmyra,
at
throbbing Vindobona
Vienna on the Danube; at Volubilis, Thugga, and Leptis Magna, spreading grids
of silent streets under the North African sky. Nowhere did I feel the pulse of Roman
life stronger than in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii.
Cross the threshold of a Pompeian house, and 19 centuries drop away. In the
peaceful court, fountain and foliage delight the eye. In rooms alive with murals
detailing the labors of Hercules, the loves of Venus, voices
to conjure a family
museums
14
at
from
its
portraits, to
to
seem
to echo.
How easy
sudden bursts of
fire in
snakelike
and
a.d. 79.
naturalist,
drawn
commander
to the
scene
as
much by
scientific curiosity
as
by duty.
It
six miles
entombed Pompeii,
south of Vesuvius.
wind-whipped
pellets of
fleeing
hail of lapilli,
pumice, scourged
or pillows.
tiles
lifted,
its
people, lay
P
V.
BLAIR,
BIANCHI,
to
then fled
wounded on
Discovered
forgotten city
in
a bike.
1748, the
was mined
now
showed where
to plant,
in the
E.
BATTAGUA. OPPOSITE
Roman
writers
who
so delighted in conversation!
"He's already started wading into Greek and he's keen on his Latin,"
fancy
at dinner.
its
Its
sign
is
the
Caesar in Africa.
Houses turn their backs on the streets, but the people's voice vox populi cries
out on the walls. Red-lettered political posters proclaim: "Numerius Barcha, a fine
." And "Numerius Veius Barcha, may you rot!"
man; I appeal to you to elect him.
.
it.
Some
16
it.
Here Pompeians
in separate sections.
\f
I
;1
jr
wearing elaborate coiffures and cloaks of Indian cotton or Chinese silk. Gold and
pearls weight their ears; the jewelry copies Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian designs.
Slaves shade their mistresses with parasols. "She buys all the creams the slender
Indians send us," complains a husband. At bedtime he chides her: "You
away
in a
hundred
A patrician sniffs
little jars
at
the street
lie
stored
chained
to the
sauce
much esteemed,
are turning
A cloth
chant has inscribed in his vestibule Salve Lucrum "Hurrah for Profit!"
respectable people are
18
moving out
of
Pompeii
to
suburban
villas!
mer-
No wonder
Gladiators lure
it
commit mayhem. Once, when Pompeians massacred neighboring Nucerines there, Nero closed it for a decade.
Raised voices arguing about gladiators draw me to the
thertnopolium, a tavern that sells mulled wine. Asellina
it
patrons have
scrawled her
name on
a wall along
owns
with
better
men
of a big
show coming
up.
fighters either;
Not
will
for
a poster
Odeon
I'll
E.
e*TTAGLI
Nuts, bread,
figs, intact
eggs
engulfing
mud hardened
Famed murals
(opposite) in Villa
of the Mysteries
Bacchic
rites.
An
show forbidden
initiate
into a
filled.
Bacchante whirls
awaits a
fertility as
to castanets.
19
for office
and
ENGRAVING BT
for a
grand
finale, a
Such was life in pompeii, arrested by the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24,
a.d. 79. For
more than
and
its
neighbor, Herculaneum,
tombs
of
world, faultless in
The coaches
marvel
at
its
of the
beauty, transcendent in
Grand Tour
rattled up,
its art.
and
a procession of notables
came
to
these subterranean cities spared the ravages of time. Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum captivated the tastemakers of an age. Borne by poets, painters, and collectors, news of the wonders swept a modern world once again falling in love with
20
CRUMBLING crown
Rome,
of golden
its
awe today
it did when Grand Tourists came to survey its silent shell (above)
and Shelley wandered its "ruined stairs and immeasurable galleries."
Statues that once filled upper arches stand on a coin of Emperor
Titus (below, right). He opened the Flavian Amphitheater,
as
named
to
for his clan, a.d. 80, passing out slaves as door prizes
it rang four centuries
screams of dying men, the clang of the
An
House.
the
named
On
gladiators.
it:
Domus
his
fire
found buried
as
if in
taller
COINS OF NERO,
AD
64-66.
i-0.
80; BRITISH
word "grotesque."
Nero as sun god,
drained
It
its
:,
:,
and lighten it. Engineers today use them for the same purpose.
Through the 29-foot open window to heaven beat the bright rays
of Sol and the rains of Jupiter Pluvius, drained by a sloping pavement.
Warm light from this sole source once bathed a rotunda sheathed in marble,
bronze, and gleaming gold, and rich in statuary honoring seven planetary deities.
Now
amid impressive simplicity it touches tombs of Raphael and two Italian kings,
more enduring faith. Since a.d. 609, Christians have worshiped here under
Hadrian's harmonious dome and "the eye of God" in Rome's best-preserved ancient building.
and
altars of a
the ancient one. Arbiters of fashion went Pompeii-mad. From palaces of Catherine
the Great's Russia to pseudo-Greek mansions of Mississippi Valley planters, neoclassicism reigned. Pompeian arabesques decorated English drawing rooms; Pom-
Wedgwood founded
clinging
soft,
gowns
"Grecian mode."
town to meet the demand for
garlands and "Herculaneum figures." In rapt obedi-
a Staffordshire pottery
new
of the
is
the shortest
way
to
couldn't turn
up with
a spade,
he bought
And what
the
Grand Tourist
from swindlers.
Art dealers fattened on foreign purses in this age of easy authentication, when
English lords sent home statuary by the shipload. "If the Colosseum were port-
//
Rome
became
Rome
with
full classical
"I
Concepts of the
thought. Repelled alike by the absolutism of kings and the despotism of the mob,
VENUS DE MILO,
island of serenity
in ageless allure.
Gone
amid
who
rose
from the
sea.
Yet she mirrors in marble the quest for perfection that ennobled ancient Greece.
25
w^il
11
'
>
1
mKmz$g^^ t-K*&^'&&
J
hm
-V
its
juice
Our
Roman
grain goddess;
winnow wheat
a
water
grapes and
woman
tips
winnow
from the Consent of the Governed." He warned that "power should be a check to
power," that legislative, executive, and judicial functions should be separate. The
founders of our nation spelled
This was the theory of the
Romans
split
it
and balancing
name from
Senate took
its
block a
His
bill.
cry, "Veto
I forbid!" is
26
later
Pitt,
Patrick
Henry modeled
style.
their
When
JA*5
Lincoln said "of the people, by the people, for the people";
when
Churchill said
all
27
its
pilgrims as the
womb
and the
arts.
Zeus loosed two eagles, one from where the sun rose,
the other where it set; and where they met, here in a realm
"tortured by the rages of the Earthshaker," a stone marked
the omphalos, the very navel of the earth. Here Apollo spoke
*>
hci.cn
*so
ruai
schcioc
utiohal ciociaphic
nvf
*s Ji
sa
,M&
*"
r^
Jn
r*y
Americanized his columns for the U.S. Capitol with tobacco and Indian-corn motifs.
As Greek columns and Roman domes marched westward, and early steam
little Doric temples, ancient names spread over the new land:
Augusta,
Rome, Athens, Carthage, Corinth, Sparta, Syracuse, Utica, Troy
Hannibal, Cicero. Cincinnati was named for the society formed by officers retiring
after the Revolutionary War. They honored the patriot Cincinnatus who led Rome
to victory over her foes, then laid down his sword and returned to his plow.
Inevitably Washington would be portrayed in sculpture as Pater Patriae a barechested Jupiter in classic robe, arm raised in a Ciceronian gesture. Enthusiasm for
antiquity even led a painter to enlist Rome's goddess of love and god of medicine
in a salute to progress a painting titled "Venus Vaccinated by Aesculapius."
engines chuffed in
From
that
a crag
shadow
in the
symbolized
all
of
Mount
felt
down through
r**
'1
Gulf of Corinth.
Parnassus,
rings
down
in piety.
Yet,
when
it
comes
me, where
is
and married
his mother.
"Now
let
the
weeping cease,"
hope
in the
it
ends. "Let
abyss of despair,
in death.
Mycenaean
earth god-
Apollo.
He
and cultivated their minds, so did their gods melbecame a patron of arts, maker of laws,
healer of the sick. His father, thundering Zeus of the roving
the land
shaker
who
in Sicily,
I
ans.
From
this
30
believe
him
it."
to look
men and
What
among
them!
soul of Greece.
Then
about a.d. 390 the Christian emperor Theodosius closed the pagan shrine.
Pagan? Of course. But as I stood within the ruined Temple of Apollo, I thought of
human mind
Apollo,
wine,
some
who had
T BA6lC
MAS'
gods
their
in their breasts,
one striving
CENTURA
IS
*KI DMAl v.i'.J*. ATHENS. COMIC MASK. HELLENISTIC TERRACOTTA FROM MELOS; BRITISH
"-
MUSEU
32
We
FIFTH-CENTURY FOOTRACE
IN
ARMOR
AT OLYMPIA; PAINTII
long run
in
Greek
athletic ideals.
one-day festival
to a
at
From
a sprint in a local
for garlands
Athens
in 1896.
who compete
in
many
it
shaped his
Roman
tale of
poet Ovid
who
fell
in
W.
to
S.
life
as Galatea.
Gilbert of Gilbert
was
in 411 B.C.,
when Athenians
first
saw
today as
it.
it
short
men to their
life
is
by thousands
of mysteri-
when
ingly beautiful
messengers of
Music could
heal, turn
an Olympian ear
its
to
your cause,
The numerical
to ancients
When
poetry)
the
this ancestor of
34
Muse
of choral song
wed
to
lives in musicals
Roman
architect-engineer Vitruvius
of his
to
myths
of
in Tarquinia. Music
and dance moved both men and gods.
Rome saw its first stage show, Livy
father.
art of
"No
Cicero.
Few Romans
did,
but
many
5TH-CEHTUHY 8.C
MURAL
IN
PALAZZO VITELLESC
it
carefully:
Asian
melodies in the lascivious Phrygian and mournful Lydian modes undermined the
Lawmakers agreed that the Dorian mode, austere and manly as the northwas best for building spirited soldiers in Sparta, responsible citizens
in Athens. At the great Panhellenic festivals, Greeks honored Muse as well as muscle. Delphi's Pythian Games, resounding in the stadium high above the theater,
began as a musical contest. Then athletes came to compete, and Pindar rhapsodized
on victories of "glorious-limbed youth." Juvenal, a Roman, caught the essence of
the Greek idea: "A sound mind in a sound body."
From the stadium's enduring stones my thoughts drifted to fragile treasures of
papyrus and parchment containing fragments of Greek writings. What miracles
character.
ern invaders,
have shown up in mummy cases. Aristotle's books and notes, stored in a cellar
were rescued in Asia Minor by the Roman general Sulla. Later
the books were lost. All we have of Aristotle came from the surviving notes.
Of some 150 Greek tragedians, we have works by only 3. Of 82 plays written by
Aeschylus, we have 7; of Sophocles' 123, 7 also; of Euripides' 92, we have 19. We
air,
by
a pupil's heirs,
know
3 nearly complete
35
JONATHAN
S.
8LAIR
Roman
city
story.
who made
about those
it,
didn't bother to
Troy.
"Any
He
goes
aloft to
computers.
He
hunt
earthbound
Roman
wreck.
We may
We
rene, familiar,
See
it
read of a
the
new
open
to
at
view.
discovery tomorrow,
is
page-one news.
No
secrets here.
frieze
How
the ancients
for
tip
Centuries have scrubbed off the color they delighted in just as our
washed so much
If
the
They built their Parthenon with misappropriated funds. Slavery tarnished their
Golden Age. They curbed overpopulation by infanticide, and one of their socialsecurity programs consisted of dispensing hemlock to persons over 60.
Greece was a poor country lacking in most resources but the resourcefulness of
man. Athens' culture did not leap full-armed from the head of Zeus as her patron
Athena did. Greeks borrowed what they needed, across island stepping-stones
37
the
drowned
cities in the
blue depths.
new
science,
Roman wreck
off
Turkey.
(opposite) that
currents waft
vacuums up sand;
it
away. Searchers
amphoras once
filled
with wine
eels.
mermen phone
to the surface.
R.
CASSU
lift
word
of
them and
lives
on
examined
idiotes.
life
by
participating;
anyone
who
where each
citizen
knew
every
38
Aeschylus soldiered
at
this site;
Roman
may
art,
speculate
be troves eclipsing
in the
mud,
'M-
at
Salamis, and sheathed his sword to write The Persians, our oldest historical play.
human
commandment. Divine
as the
man,
in Socrates'
were mainly
it
abstract.
They
down
left to
When
the
to earth, the
Rome marched
of their Testament,
Roman
the organization of
They
are with us
still,
we
Romans, even
as, thrust
man
by
that
of a wine-dark sea.
^g
^S
NO"
By Emily Vermeule
The World
of
Odysseus
O MOST PEOPLE who
own
was
real at
all,
when Greeks
art declined,
and knowledge
of writing faded.
b.c.
lived in the
grew
We
still
some
his world
scarce,
cannot
climatic change
and south.
of the situation;
After Greece
it is
emerged from
its
citadels of their
of
in the
Museum
in
men
looked
National
B.C.,
it.
lifted
such
Magnum
43
to
weapons,
treasuries of gold.
One
How
Mycenae gives
its
and
by
rare times
to the era
firelight
tried
at
Mycenae,
new
things, did
them
well,
when
Homer's, that
In 1876,
is
the difference
If
yellow-gray
was
Its
all
glories
grew in
were poor
in truth
one
of those
its
Mycenaean Age,
when men
terrible their
name
fought
of the great
who
up and putting
in a
the top, Heinrich Schliemann found the Royal Shaft Graves just inside the Lion Gate,
crowned by
a temple, mariners
prayed
to
where headless
Here in
six
unmatched,
a stone-ringed
Mycenae
still
Men and
their
b.c.
animals had walked above those gold-clad bones for more than a hundred
Gold
literally
Other skeletons
disks,
from
diadems and
belts,
pins.
The
list
rosettes
swords buried with the princes suggest careers not wholly spent in peaceful
War and
Of
all
looting and a
foil.
and
command
of chariot fighting
trade.
to their riches.
Poseidon for safe passage on his storm-swept sea highway of destiny for rocky, island-fringed Greece.
PHILLIP HARRINGTON
ii
whs
dance
mi CENTRAL hearth
in
he chants for
of a
Strumming
Mycenaean
king's
his hire, he
composes as
megaron
hi
fact
It
of
of the
of Crete
Alan
J.
Wace and
B.
Carl
we
now have
which
reached
its
peak
in the 14th
to
b.c.
command nearby
it
became
mainland brigand
who
stylish
with every
aspired to elegance.
shown from
court to court.
and bronze
tools.
Under
the
Mycenaean
Of
all
him
came from
had
at Troy.
to learn
made
But he
and he
Any
fix
m o picture
pi
life among the Mycenaeans, let us
shi captain on his travels in the fall of 1230
m a ship
follow
B.C.
fine pottery
and
trinkets
to the
goods: ivory,
46
woven
to
buy caravan
:i
mm
S^t^-.jr''
'^V^
I.
m- mej
i^2 ^^MB>4
44
tin,
1^
all
packed
impounded
in the
kept dying from overeating, Aktor always thought and were buried in state
with dozens of vases, ropes of beads, and piles of cloth crammed into their tombs.
But
now
in
of Nauplion.
of their kings
had ravished
way diminished
dowry and desirability. Yet the High King could control them. His dynasty
was related to nearly every important family in Greece; when blood ties failed
to enforce his policies, his trained army succeeded.
Tired, dusty, scratched by thorns, Aktor sighted Mycenae in late afternoon.
It rose in circles on a hill, blending curiously with the landscape, commanding
in
47
shoulders
its
FAPRElL CREHAN
homeward bound
view
to Tiryns, Argos,
in the twilight,
into an oak tree to eat the tenderer bark one reason the forest
of barley a
his
made tough
Other small
shields.
were yellow with wheat, green with vines, red with raw
a
was dying,
earth.
On
a rock
fields
outcrop
started, fires
As he
to
white-shrouded corpse. In the tomb, where the bones of old skeletons had been
&&
-..:
it.
From
burden on a
a
bier.
ft
-j
~-
R? ^
empty
seemed
Still, life
(left).
Athens
to find
at 46,
him
a bride
How
Minor,
then, he asked,
it
be Troy.
~fVl
sea.
He paced around
it
and
it
in the first
light.
"Priam's
Watchmen
Schliemann decided
On May
to call
it
quits.
was
Homeward
Archeologists
now
dry
Greece.
soil of
it
in rituals to their
gods.
it,
lamps, used
in clay
in
burned
it
as
it
when
Women
unheated quarters.
An
and
oil
down
shaking
Workers
men
ripe fruit.
beam
at right use a
from a woven
Customer at left,
to press oil
container.
in
rose, sage,
produce perfumed
oil
major
filled
dangerous
the
trip to the
doorway with
filled in
rocks, then
smashed
men
on the
filled
man
a roasted ox
song and shuttled olive branches about, the mourners keened their
now
woman
until the
blood came.
Suddenly
loud
rattle
announced
swung
by one
where men steadied the team. The charioteer, swaying after miles of jouncing
on footrests a few inches above ground, noted Aktor, travel-stained like himself,
52
and
Do you need
"Where
are
me
to the
Lion Palace?"
Gladly accepting company, Aktor followed his guide above the terraced
them
roofs
broad
in angles
stair
circle
and branched
which led
off into
deep ravine
to a scene of
breathtaking loveliness: the great green plain of Argos spreading mistily to the sea.
In a square apartment off the forecourt Aktor took a
a barefoot servant girl to freshen himself,
his
pouch he carried
few trinkets in
it
The challenge
it
in black
guard
Torches were being hung on the walls and dim light filtered
windows. No
to
At the inner
fire
glowed
down from
upstairs
freshly retouched,
lay across
it.
53
Six nobles in
with his
on
feet
a stool inlaid
And
High King
sat the
there,
of
Mycenae.
with stubby hands and crooked nose, a look of quick temper, perhaps,
little fat,
and
a bit of greed,
In the
background
a singer in a
lyre,
with
He hoped he would be
lyre.
its five
invited to listen.
But his business was quickly done. The king solved Aktor's problem by dictating
free
had
died.
Now
at
passage through
all
Aktor knew that palace records were kept on clay tablets packed in wicker baskets
in a
and
to priests at
country shrines.
these complicated
sedentary
to far
life
little
marks
of a scribe
had
to
He wondered whether he
could learn to
make
little
Even in
soldiers
Aktor
felt
around the
last
still
in Egypt
and
dreaming
a song,
name, Cyclades. To
hills
the
and he
congenial inn where barley beer and wild stories would refresh
He gave
a tooled scabbard
and
built
women washing
left for a
him
before sleep.
shelter at night
gives
circle that
wiry
men
among
the
them
of the Cyclades
heavy rubble
clothes. Island
walls.
At most,
women were
prized as slaves or concubines, but they were not easily caught. Villagers themselves
One day
B.C., a
down
sea, loot
familiar paths.
One
can imagine
divided by torchlight.
in Homeric days.
proud luxury," never set hoof to humble tasks.
Odysseus could manage a farm household, or oikos (whence our word "economy");
he scorned the "lawless outrageous Cyclopes who
neither plow with their hands
nor plant anything." But his world owed more to flocks than fields. Sheep and goats
(lower), at home in rough terrain, yielded milk, cheese, and meat; wool for clothes;
The chariot
to the
steed, "delight of
54
and
bottles.
The
on meat and
flat
barley bread.
SC E_: FAP
55
m
down on
land
Showers
and
sea.
the fault
Turkey and
Sicily.
air.
The volcanic
island of Thera
was
Some
erupting.
waves 160
scholars think
civilization died
of Crete,
Today
it
It is still
when
life
interior of the
circle
an active volcano.
its
ago
ashfall.
Cliff-top
whitens the
drowned
to
a century
Minoan
under the
to Plato's
steps,
itself
Did such
huge hole
mountain hurled
anchor
in the
lip
of Thera's
In
1967
scientists
found
(right), stored
sites
of
and found
wood and
and chunks
by
began
to
sites.
found
it
to
down
to the black,
Mycenae
THERA
Knossos
CRETE
56
soil,
rocky beach.
Athens
wine and
olive
oil.
>%
In a
gullies
We
three-story dwellings.
which had
tilted slightly
had
had cut
upper
two- and
floors of
had sagged
into the
little
saw six painted storage jars still upright along a wall; lighter
had been tossed across the floor. A line of loom weights lay
between cylindrical holes where the loom's wooden legs had
We
we
jars
stood.
when
finally
hearth
had
still
its
cooking gear.
lost
A window
opened
off the
showed where
how
left
the heavy
things behind. The town lay deserted until the tenth century B.C.,
when
band
of
new
foothold.
Time will tell if the buried town can be freed from its burden,
and how well it was preserved. Greek archeologists plan to clear
out the houses, replacing furnishings and fixing
stairs,
but leaving
nature of
life
houses and
real
its
streets,
Any
sailor,
from the Stone Age onward, must have caught his breath
it.
bull leapers
itself.
thrilled
Cretans
at
to
back
at Knossos. Frescoes
to
ground.
show
missed hold,
gory death. Legend says the mighty sea king sacrificed Greek
to a
in a labyrinth.
IGRAPHIC 8Y
H.
killed
it
'
59
punctuate
have looked
f he
culture we
m unfolded
exotic; to
it
seemed
like
call
Minoan,
after the
home. To Egyptian
their
travelers
own rough
it
must
land.
Minoans,
who
dwelt in valleys slightly withdrawn from the sea. In stone tombs they placed
their
dead with fine raiment and delicate gold jewelry. Clearly Crete was in touch
with rich regions like Egypt and the Levant. Shortly after 2000
B.C., in a
spurt of
energy and grandeur, Cretans began building large palaces around central courts.
labyrinthine ruins
at
Knossos
recall the
power
of the
>'-*~r-
+Jkl
we
see
they appear. In this Middle Minoan Age luxuries grew more expensively delightful,
we
call
Linear A. Visiting Greeks saw the elaborate palace architecture, the brilliant
points to Thera's eruption as the destroying force. Only Knossos seems to have
recovered, slowly. Perhaps
to the
its
weakened
state
to take
over
.**>
Sir
to
Crete
Minoan
civilization
*Y_#
ik"
gradually from
Minoan
princes.
New
weapons, horses,
all
attest to the
presence
Mycenaean power in Crete at this time. At the beginning of the 14th century
Knossos fell again and finally, damaged by savage fire, collapsed. From then on
Crete was a minor power, with Greeks in the ascendancy until the Trojan War.
of
/I
greek who visited the northern coast of Crete would have come by the
1 dockworks near modern Herakleion. Here wealthy ship captains controlled
/
J.
at
shoreward end of the road which ran through low hills to the palace
Knossos. The traveler could rest and wash at a pretty inn whose wall paintings
m. the
a frieze of partridges
rich gardens
The palace
itself,
of greenery
beyond
symbol of the
labrys,
a small river.
by red columns
set off
it
with shadows,
balconies caught the sun. Gardens surrounded the whole with splashing fountains
and
carefully tended
beds of crocuses,
irises, roses,
and
lilies.
show was
neighbors of
the right
a king's
hand
of diplomacy;
at the
absence of
found
it
hard
to
mount
By the time
its
ground
floor
life-size
feel lost in a
its logical
soft voices,
fortifications.
had no windows.
a visitor
he would
And
its ruler.
floors, the
life
toilets.
mingled their murmur with the chatter of green monkeys, the song of caged birds,
the slithering of house snakes, the distant bellowing of the sacred bulls.
It
Perhaps 5,000 people would watch one of these graceful exhibitions, the most
spectacular entertainment in
a precise series of motions,
fertile, as
court
life.
bull.
Odysseus called
girls,
trained in
it,
Crete
was once
the
trios,
hub of the
Mediterranean. Snow-crowned
forests that yielded timber,
Minoan
exhausted the
cypress
fLL SREHJN
65
Wi<
T.
of
Greek
London
lecture
records? Hittite?
spurred Ventris,
88 signs too
On
newfound tablet
word ti-ri-po,
ti-ri-o-we; a handleless
ti-ri-po tripod
Though
ti-ri-o-we 3-handled
pot
skeptics remained,
many
a-no-we handleless
pot
scholars hailed
beta.
then
it
first
followed Semitic
Code
"as
Gortyn (below),
law. In 403 Athens adopted
proclaiming 500
boustrophedon,
of
Romans 300
from Greeks
in Italy.
tail.
Life
who
young Cretans
Minoan
art
or in
their lives.
Wind and
She gave
cycle of seasons.
Despite her
on peaks,
wave obeyed
shows bold
men
the Great
center
had
its
Demeter
The Linear B
for handicrafts,
Artemis
for
names
of
crowd.
to
DERIVATIVE
<gle
agony
apology
warfare
quite
at Troy,
fit
mound
mark. emblem, signet
at Hissarlik, site of
b\\
of citizens
the beleaguered
city.
character
cnticaJ
j--<
Age Greece
iter
of Bronze
Agamemnon
Homer
tells
us in the
Iliad,
despot
dynamic
eccentric
the
itself.
ecclesiastic
67
leisure, discussion
school
a concubine.
his
The Greek
When
battle
In a
mighty
Agamemnon
"you
dropped
within you
Agamemnon now
that
girl,
strong citadels.
untouched,
Though
Nestor, "the lucid speaker of Pylos," believed none could scorn these
old
gifts,
wrathful Achilles held out. The fighting intensified. Led by their great champion,
"manslaughtering Hector," son of King Priam, the Trojans drove back the Greeks,
disabling
When
of
him and
the
sound
of his
fell,
behind
bloody
remaining outside
to
meet
Achilles in single combat. But "the shivers took hold" of Priam's son; he broke
and
ran.
Three times around Troy's walls Achilles chased the Trojan prince.
Then Athena, partisan of the Greeks, tricked Hector into standing firm,
and Achilles finished him off. The Iliad ends with the burial of Hector.
In the Odyssey
of the
wooden
Prof. Carl
we
horse,
and
of the
fall
of Troy.
and judged
(page 73) must have been the one Homer's heroes besieged. This was a weakened
JOYOUS RETURN
IN HIS
to
Athens,
named Aegean.
The
reality
of Theseus
power ruled
more
and
likely
Minoan
paid Knossos
in
sea
Athens
grain
oil
Then,
turned.
Crete.
and
in the
Now
raiders
might join
in a coastal foray.
all
the kings
Queen
among women,"
abduction of Sparta's
Helen, "shining
Agamemnon
to lead the
drew
Modern Helen
(right)
measures
Orchomenus
Ithaca^.
Delphi
'+.
Corinth'' -Athene
<
<
AULtS
Argos.V- M y c enae
^y^
"Trryns
Sparta
Troezen
ty
'.<,.
Cydades
,*,
Pylos
Aegean
Sea
Rhodes
Crete
Knossos
Phaistos
69
racial
other since at least 1800 b.c. Astride land and water routes
of Asia
to the sea.
where
a fertile plain
at
the crossroads
rivers ran
cloth, silver,
Trojan horses, "born of the north wind." Rivalry between Troy and the newer
Mycenaean colonies
have sparked
a blaze of
of
relations.
Some quick
r~
He
in Asia
But
we know
for chariot
Two
that
on neighboring settlements.
and wore
panoply
special
manned
charioteers
The warrior
carried a pair of
damage from
inflict
a distance
while the driver maneuvered, warding off trouble with whip, knife, and warning
yells.
Chariots attacked individually. Pole, yoke, and traces often parted or tangled a team,
and one
We
of the
to
spring
down and
battle club of
can picture the whole Homeric armory: ash spear, polished goat-horn bow,
javelins, slings.
duel between foot soldiers opens with spears flying, striking the ground or thudding
into play,
to nobles.
Homer
slasher,
delights in
describing livers and eyeballs quivering on spear points, arrows slicing past corselets
at
neck or
belt,
dismembered corpses
men hamstrung
or
left
when
she dipped
him
it.
wound
make him
was an emotional
women
his
Homer
invulnerable.)
body and
stir
loot.
of justice played
no part
in
firing palaces
and honor by
the legend
where
was
wooden
in its side
"tongues flickering
like
flame
his
in scaly coils as
he cried
to
heaven.
Trojans breached their walls to drag the horse inside, then celebrated the Greek withdrawal.
Dire prophecies of their princess Cassandra went unheeded and their city
{GRAPHIC BY LOU'S
S.
was
destroyed.
GLJN2M*N
71
The
of
their
women.
one
of the
Achilles,
most famous
sail off.
who
sacked
of war.
in
Greek mythology.
among warriors remain with the wooden horse, " sitting within and bearing
death and doom for the Trojans." We may never know what Mycenaean invention
elite
gave
rise to the
But Troy
became
fell.
who
Virgil's Aeneid, or
Libyans.
Some Greeks
and western
found
strife
islands.
escaped
south
to Africa
settled in Asia
Many
moved westward,
where
like
Minor.
that reached
grumbled
at
of Odysseus fit
all
those years.
well
enough
b.c.
In place of the
imposing
Mycenaean palaces rose flimsy and squalid buildings. The Dark Ages descended.
Only poets guarded the knowledge
resourceful
and determined
in their battles
and
in their
homeward
its
heroes,
striving.
TROY
Hellenistic llion
of Athena, theater.
Archeologist Carl
W. Blegen
TROY
He
identified
c.
300B.C.-A.D.400
and Roman
Fall
Ilium.
Temple
into oblivion.
(right).
IX
VIII
700-300B.C
TROY
VII
i3oo-itooB.c.
TROY
VI
i80o-i3oo
B.C.
TROY V
I90Q-I800
B.C.
TROY
IV
2050-1900
B.C.
TROY
III
22OO-20S0
B.C.
TROY
II
2500-22OO
B.C.
heralds rise
TROY
Rubblework
3000-2500
B.C.
Sft?
*f
In the
Wake
of
Odysseus
Bradford
to Cyclops' cave
and Calypso's
isle,
Voyage
in Search
of Fabled
Lands
vs#
*-\><
I
~--.
Jp*
/hen homer's
hero, odysseus, strayed into the western Mediterranean, his voyage had all the excitement of today's space travel. In
that misty age following the Trojan War, he knew less of the world into
which the winds tossed him than the captain of a spacecraft knows of the
moon. Though Minoans and Mycenaeans had traded in Italy and Sicily as
early as 1600 B.C., memory of these voyages had dimmed by Homer's day,
and he launches his hero into the unknown. Conqueror of men and monsters, master and lover of goddesses, much -enduring wanderer over the
"fish-infested" sea, Odysseus symbolizes man's questing spirit.
I have always felt that Homer's geographical descriptions, his treatment
of wind and weather, indicated an original source based on fact. And since
World War II, when I spent three years cruising the Mediterranean with the
Cfttli- hr,,z, ,i-,ilh thfi uiihor to Ithaca
,i
>t
men
V/V/ars of Hercules
ROMAN STTUE,
1ST
CENTURY, MRS. ISABELLA STEWART GARONER MUSEUM, BOSTON; ERICH LESSING, MAGNUM
'* -V
car/c Islands
JVlany were
whose
AdrittkSe*
Sardinia
cities
he saw
they
.
HOMER
Jerba Island
Mediterranean
Royal Navy,
Sea
a staysail ketch,
I
ty's
to
remote islands.
other.
The conviction
again
seemed
King
felt
as
though
were gazing
of ithaca, an island
oracle
had warned
He
off
first tried to
that
if
he
left
cliffs,
in the
Time and
It
at
Homer's epic
Agamemnon
to
for
Homer's hero
is
broad shoulders.
wound in
his
As Ovid later wrote using the Latin name that is now more familiar
"Ulysses was not beautiful, but he was eloquent." He was, in fact, a man of many
wiles, boastful, but loyal to his friends and courageous in adversity. The goddess
Athena admired his "many-colored mind ever framing some new craftiness."
Odysseus spent ten years in the siege of Troy. Finally his cunning stratagem, the
Trojan Horse, won victory for the Greeks. While Priam's citadel still smoked above
its plain, Odysseus' men hauled in the sleeping stones (pierced mooring rocks so
named because mariners generally beached their craft at night) and headed homeward. He would hug the shoreline, for he had no maps, no compass, and little
knowledge of weather or currents. He rode a primitive, pitch-covered "black ship"
thigh.
77
way home
weaves the
spell of
Homer's
drug
visitors.
Ivory beaches
wear
women
(right)
^1
-
k.
5E
1 1 ^1
'
i'fr*n
78
1
1
\ \
a simple square sail when the wind was favorable and the arms
oarsmen when the wind was adverse. Some 40 freemen took turns at the 20
oars 10 to a side while Odysseus and other nobles gave orders and steered.
Heading northwest with his squadron of 12 ships, Odysseus made a landfall at
Ismarus in Thrace, near modern Alexandroupolis. Here his raiding mariners
brought aboard many jars of "honey-sweet red wine." Then a savage storm from
the north swept the ships southward down the Aegean, past islands of the
Cyclades Delos, Seriphos, Siphnos, Melos, Thera. From the deck of a small boat
too have seen these isles, often trailing banners of cloud before that
same wind.
Odysseus made for the channel between Cape Malea, at the southeastern tip of
Greece, and the island of Cythera. He planned to skirt the Peloponnesus as he
worked north to Ithaca. But the wind rose again and the swell plucked the vessels
away from land. Hard though the men strained at their oars, they could not double
the cape. The wind sent them scudding southwestward, hurling them across
whitecapped waters, starting Odysseus on his long adventure. It would be another
ten years before he set foot on Ithaca again.
I
//
we landed
isle of
ships could
easterly
first
winds
but on
make
agree.
Under good
sailing conditions
by
Odysseus'
a strong north-
wind, the squadron would have sailed 648 nautical miles. Jerba
lies
about
IINFIELD PARKS
J.
fruit of lotus."
Those
79
'*
?&W
w*
<
ft..
who
ate
The
lotus
it
wanted
happy indolence.
myxa, which
In
was torpedoed off this coast during the war and spent
week here. But for the Naval Discipline Act, I doubt
would have left to hazard the sea once more. There are
nearly a
if I
worse things than resting in the shade when the sun is high,
swimming in the cool of the evening, and feeling a deep,
trance-laden peace. I think one must look beyond the lotus
for the seaman's reluctance to leave.
Determined to return home, Odysseus dragged his men
aboard and led his ships away from that drowsy African
shore. He had no idea how far west of his destination he
had been carried. So he headed northward, on a course that
put him aground on a "wooded island" that held "wild
goats beyond number."
By my reckoning this was the island of Favignana off
western Sicily. In classical times it bore the name Aegusa,
Goat Island hardly a coincidence. Fog shrouded the beach
wreathes
and
fled his
cave clinging
to the fleece of a
ram
t\
(right).
when Odysseus'
ships ran up on
murmur
Hearing the
it.
When came
1
of rollers,
we dropped anchor
world
seconds
later the
mist parted and there was the island, a hundred yards dead ahead. From here
And from
Leaving
all
here
but his
bleat of
own crew
to feast
traffic
(Erice),
have used
it
upper
shepherd
mus
lip."
who
rolled a
when
still
towering 2,400
goats,
Odysseus struck
ever since.
on Favignana's wild
*"
*-
Sicilian
Polyphe-
/
/
KJH
where
He
mouth.
silent
named
of Erice
black-mantled women.
citadel
was
her ancient
girls
cult.
paid homage
to the
homecoming mariners.
spawning tuna blunder
nearby Favignana.
men
preferred
On
puppies,
hills,
."
.
made
He gave
a giant
."
83
Giants
..
cliffs
along the
pelted
my men with
went up
Only
to
its
mind
Napoleon
its
airs, calling
84
name
when French
in World War
II.
stone aside to
make
let
wool on the
bellies of the
sheep
Polyphemus
felt
men
to
cling to the
thus leaving the cave last of the sheep? Never in the old days were you
left
behind
by the
bloom
flock,
but long-striding,
.
far
him
that
still
asks you
tell
hazard
whole enclosed by
to
to mariners.
rampart of bronze.
."
home
of the
wind
god with the Aeolian Islands northwest of Messina, but I favor the island of Ustica,
60 miles from Favignana. When I first saw it, a heat haze hid its base, so it "floated."
Homer mentions no other islands near it, and Ustica is the only solitary island in
this part of the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Pilot warns of its "steep and inaccessible" shoreline. This must be what Homer meant by his "rampart of bronze."
Sailors today speak of an "iron-bound coast."
Your
B C
a temple ruin
turned Odysseus'
men
NATION
like
into swine.
sweeps
Italy's coast
from Terracina
Modern
in
Greek)
the other
winds
in a
it,
as
to
up the
strait
time before
86
we
could
make out
cliffs.
we worked
Tacking constantly,
Cliffs
our
way
in
and suddenly
it
dawned on me.
stood high on either hand. Through the heart of them ran a knife thrust of
the sea.
of the sea
winds
inland for nearly a mile to a secure anchorage. Bonifacio lies about 240 miles north-
less
may
Rowing
all
Laestrygonians,
who
Sicily,
but by
now he
sense of direction.
his
Now
of
Circe's
first
were bruised, our hair stiff with salt, our eyes red from lack of sleep. We anchored
at Terracina just below the mountain, and we knew how Odysseus and his men
must have felt when they limped into this haven.
Odysseus probably intended to lay up for the winter. It was fall when I first
came here, and the smoke stood up still and blue from San Felice Circeo. Perhaps
near here Odysseus' men saw the smoke rising from the palace of Circe.
The "dread goddess" invited the mariners to a feast and bewitched them with a
them with her wand, she penned them in pigsties, "and they took
on the look of pigs, with the heads and voices and bristles of pigs, but the minds
within them stayed as they had been before."
Provided with a countermagic by the god Hermes, Odysseus forced the goddess
to restore his shipmates. Impressed, Circe not only obeyed but became his mistress. Her maids served him wine and bathed him, "mixing hot and cold just as
and pouring it over shoulders and head, to take the heart-wasting
I wanted,
weariness from my limbs." Amid such luxury Odysseus lingered nearly a year.
wondered, that until a few years ago all roads leading
Could it be chance,
toward Circe's Mountain displayed the sign, "Motorists, Beware of Boars"? A few
potion. Smiting
away
miles
else,
lies
into beasts?
And who
mountain one day, I saw a dark-haired young woman make her way to a stream.
She carried a wicker basket. Would this modern Circe fill it with the same herbs
1 he swift ship as
was seen by
drew nearer
and they
it
the Sirens,
to the
to disaster.
"dashed
But
his
from which her ancestress had made her potion? Far more prosaic,
discovered.
It
held the family wash, which she rinsed and hung over spiky bushes of yellow broom.
Later, as
sat
over coffee in the market square of San Felice Circeo, the padrone
show me
offered to
I
of caves
men now
rotted away."
beeswax so they could not hear the Sirens' song, for those
home. If Odysseus wished to hear it, he must get his
the mast and pay no heed to his pleas to be set free.
who
men
bind him
to
Capri
at
the
all
else
have
shipwreck
war and
fell
90
spell.
stay forever!"
we heard
it
thundering
my
voyage
anywhere. Once
to
man
little
point
Odysseus
heard them
clearly
ignored his pleas to turn him loose. Not until well away
did they set Odysseus
Of
men
free.
Then
wandering rocks.
had forewarned the hero: "No
waves
have equated
ous giant,
a
that
of the sea
a tranquil cove
with
a beautiful
nymph and
terror,
Odysseus guided
his ship
of Messina, inhabited
far better to
mourn
six friends
Charybdis
it is
still
lies
Odysseus braved.
Hephaestus, Greek god of fire,
worked a forge on the nearby isle
of ravening fire"
of Vulcano.
counterpart,
From Vulcan,
we
his
Roman
get "volcano."
at
Homeric times,
still
91
dragged
1 stood bestriding
had
a
for
expected Scylla
to starboard. All
We
we added
Changes in the sea
floor even in the last 150 years have weakened these
whirlpools. How fearsome they must have been to the
Greeks in their open boat, under oars!
If Charybdis is fact, what about Scylla? Well, it's just
possible that huge squid might have inhabited these
rocks 3,000 years ago. Today squid and octopus fishing
plays a large part in the local economy.
Between the village of Scilla, as Italians spell it today,
and the coast of Sicily, less than four miles away, lies the
finest swordfishing ground in the Mediterranean. I have
sailed with the swordfish boats here and shall always
maelstrom, but not until
power did
full
remember
that
moment of fabulous
home and a great
excitement
when
swordfish jumps,
come
watched
swordfish boat
Charybdis.
Among
gladioli.
little girl
in a fanlike gesture, as
if
Approaching the terrors of the strait, Odysseus followed Circe's instructions to the letter. He hugged the
Italian shore by Scylla's rock, while across the way Chaand the
rybdis "sucked down the sea's salt water
rock around it groaned terribly, and the ground showed
at the sea's bottom, black with sand; and green fear
seized upon my companions."
While they gazed at this awesome sight, Scylla
stretched her long necks and snatched six of the crew.
Now proud Odysseus knew pity as "they cried out to
me and called me by name, the last time they ever did
it.
they gasped and struggled as they were hoisted
up the cliff. Right in her doorway she ate them up. They
were screaming and reaching out their hands to me in
this horrid encounter. That was the most pitiful scene
that these eyes have looked on in my sufferings as I
.
the Strait
Italy's toe,
tides of the
can suck a
skiff
down
92
From
the Sirens,
"A.
*v
"
!
\**L
<Jhe
peering
fishes,
over the
all
cliffside,
some
sea monster
Where monster
swordfishermen
now
men
stalk their
on
how
fish spotters
bluffs directed
men
in skiffs.
from
tall
from
There a castle
before, that
all
and
wisdom
is to
take our
From
Scylla,
By
my calculation
."
.
the Ithacans
at sea
ably low on water. They clamored to go ashore for the night, instead of sailing past
as their captain
his
men
wanted
to do. Reluctantly,
94
Odysseus agreed
It lies
at
to
put
in,
warning
cattle.
strait, just
GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER
95
/,
l&?
expect the vessel to have reached with the oarsmen pulling their hardest. There are
no other anchorages for many miles. Taormina sits high on a hill overlooking the
harbor. Two small rivers, the Alcantara and Minissale, flow into the sea nearby
fresh water for the taking. Long after Homer's time Greeks believed that the sun
god's cattle roamed the plains between here and Mount Etna. Their old name for
the area, Tauromenion, stems from their word for bull, tauros. Some object that
Homer called the sun god's island Thrinakia, a name never applied to Sicily. I am
not disturbed. With the change of three letters the kind of slip writers make every
day we have Trinacria, Three-cornered Island, a common name for Sicily in
ancient times, and a fitting one.
I
was disappointed
to see
few
cattle at
has found better use for the land. Vines, olives, date palms, and mulberry trees
now spread their green over the dark soil. One name, Val
preserves the memory of what was once cattle land.
A long spell
we call sirocco
Africa in winter, picking up humidity as it moves north. Those who have never
experienced it can have no idea of its effect on body, nerves, and temper. I have
heard that there was a time in Sicily when any sirocco that blew for more than ten
days got the blame for crimes of passion committed during the spell of weather.
And the Greeks endured a whole month of sirocco!
Continued on page 102
of
Jlandsome
horn-curved
dark-prowed ship
Sacred cattle of the sun god Helios tempted
Odysseus' crew, stranded and starving.
Despite dire warnings, the
enough beef
themselves
men butchered
and doomed
to
Olympian wrath.
97
WHO
'HELIOS
BRINGS JOY
to
mortals"
still
resort squeezed
PUL
iJj
x
MjHKSF
,
__^^^^^MM
"-ifc*-*
^aC'
~V
*~^.
'*ra
f\:*^k
. .
j-*-
>/.(
^j^Bj
^s^T^
ITALY
Terracotta from
memory
Cumae
smiles in
Naples
(
to Etruscans,
^Neapolis
c.
750
'Cumae
Kyme
B.C.
Neapolis,
from Cumae
c.
600
"New
Paestum
Poseidonia
City" founded
sail
in
on 6th-
the Louvre.
Magna Graecia
480
B.C..
the
Museum
in
Founded by Gela
Syracuse.
Its
in
S80,
it
rivaled
tyrant Phalaris
roasted opponents
in
a brazen bull.
100
in
Tarentum
Metapontum
many
Taras. for
Roman
Heraclea
of these
cities.
Greek
example, became
Tarentum,
whence
Trade-rich, luxury-
loving Sybaris,
where
STATUTE MILES
late sleepers
banned
coined
roosters,
"sybarite."
it in
510 B.C
ways?
Is it
on some business,
?"
Sicily.
Crete's trading
strategic
way
station,
even fought
Br
its
parent, Corinth.
newcomers
Graeci after an
name "Greeks."
Magna
and fire,
Herodotus completed
yracuse
c
"EUREKA!"
cried Archimedes of
buoyant force
Here he applies
it
to test Hieron's
Strife.
Archimedes lived
in Syracuse;
&*
Food began to give out. Exhausted trying to keep order, Odysseus went to pray
help and succumbed to a natural Mediterranean urge understandable when
the sirocco has reduced a man to a limp bundle of exacerbated nerves. He fell asleep.
He awoke to find his men had been listening to the rebellious Eurylochus,
one of the nobles. Eurylochus had grumbled that "hunger is the sorriest way
to die" and that he "would far rather gulp the waves and lose my life in them
once for all, than be pinched to death on this desolate island." So the crew had
killed and eaten some of the cattle.
How sad the Greeks did not know that the little rock-fringed cove of Taormina
holds some of the sweetest lobsters in Sicily! Mooring here once on my way south
to Syracuse, I bought five sea-green beauties for the equivalent of an English
pound. In the big hotels they would have cost a pound apiece. The lobsters were
still damp from the sea, trailing a little weed between their spiny legs and blowing
sad bubbles from their whiskered mouths. The Sicilians, amazed to find that I
sailed alone with my wife, were deeply touched by her plight: "A woman workfor
We popped
One needs
down behind
Etna, the
But Odysseus' crew ate beef. Frightened to stay any longer in the sun god's land,
he decided
to
to reach
No sooner had
what Circe had prophesied took place. The vessel was
overwhelmed by a storm. "My men were thrown in the water, and bobbing like
sea crows they were washed away on the running waves all around the black ship,
and the god took away their homecoming."
Some scholars have maintained that the shipwreck scene the speed with which
the ship is overcome proves that Homer didn't know what he was talking about.
But thunderstorms come up quickly in this part of the Mediterranean. A sudden
squall snapped the forestays. The backstay was made of leather, extra strong to
Unfortunately the news had already reached the gods on Olympus.
the ship set out than exactly
filled to a
following breeze.
Now, without
the
counteraction of the forestays, the backstay caused the mast to collapse onto
the stern, crushing the helmsman's skull. The ship broke up in pounding seas.
Odysseus lashed mast and keel together to form a raft. He was the sole survivor.
rom there
brought
me
Ogygia,
home
For seven years Odysseus was to be detained by this goddess on her mysterious
island, described
by Homer
Messina.
Some
on
away from
the Strait of
no land
at all until
one comes
to the
No other
North African
coast.
Jill day long her sails were filled as she went through the water,
and
the
sun
set,
and
all the
BRADFORD. ABOARD
102
A STAYSAIL KETCH,
.Vfc-
^.*vjr
r.r.^.1 ^.~
'
'
seems
sister island
Italy
of
bridge. Odysseus, a
across. Yet
salt
water,"
feel
called
PHOTOGRAPHE
may
Calypso, shining
among divinities,
kept me with her
on
visited the
hollow caverns
in her
was
when men
cedar split in
finally relinquished
she
She
also told
Bear on his
man
him
left
to set
hand."
glance at the
map shows
that
if
of
Malta worshiped
when he
drifted ashore
amid
debris
their
seven years
slip by.
Honeycombed with
caves,
(opposite) below
Hagar Qim.
105
protect
him from
spray.
He
330 miles
lies
less
than a
craft.
As he neared Corfu, the sea god Poseidon, rankling at the fate of his son Polyphemus, raised a
mast and
sail
the sea.
crouched amidships,
I
fell
afoul of the
at
the raft
and
Poseidon's mercy.
same kind
of
weather while
The
wind was too strong for canvas. We sprang a leak.
Our pumps jammed. All that terrible night we
crossing the Ionian to Corfu with two friends.
and exploded
in spray.
He grasped
off,
he
swam
a rock,
but
boom
felt
of surf,
the cool-
and the
up an unspeakable sea
and drove me to your shore
stirred
Wrecked by
Odysseus swam
to the isle
BRONZE POSEIDON, WHICH ROSE OFF CAPE ARTEMtSION AFTER 2.400 YEARS
UNDER THE AEGEAN SEA. NOW STANDS IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM AT ATHENS;
FARRELL GREHAN RIGHT: WtNFIELD PARKS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER
107
are flattened.
The island
of Corfu
He was
So the wanderer
swam landward
into the
mouth
safe at last.
fits
water." Seen from a small boat, Corfu does resemble a Greek shield, with
Pantocrator forming the central boss.
And
Mount
mer's description of Odysseus' landing place. At Ermones Bay on the island's west
moving
I
inland, lay
fell
He awoke
to the
sound
he had
of
**'
AA
1
had helped her with the washing. Her attendants were terrified by this naked wild
man, but she took pity on him and led him home. Over a banquet at the palace of
King Alcinous, Odysseus revealed his identity and told the story of his wanderings.
Alcinous and his family, ancestors of today's hospitable Corfiotes, sent the hero
on his last lap home, laden with gifts, in one of their large, 52-oared galleys. A
passenger for once, Odysseus fell asleep as Corfu receded astern and the galley
drove south toward Ithaca.
By dawn next day the Phaeacians were within sight of Odysseus' kingdom.
They entered a cove where two headlands "jut out, to close in the harbor and shelstill bound
ter it." They lifted their guest ashore "and set him down on the sand
fast in sleep." They set his possessions beside him, "next to the trunk of the olive."
I have sailed here and looked at "the harbors where all could anchor, the rocks
going straight up, and the trees tall growing." I have seen the jutting headlands
.
lA/hat are
whose land
the people
have come
are they
to
hospitable
minds
Land
is
day it
measured by how many
spelled power,
retainers
it
Homer
tells
of "cattle-bringing"
in cattle in those
Without a return
the dowry no
Boys learned
to
handle
They harked
bow and
and swim.
to the warrior's
gift
saw
code
in
their fathers
was
at palace hearth
isle.
as
But most
109
B.C.;
THE LOUVRE
which shield the entrance to Vathi, modern port and capital of the island. The
winding hill-paths and the sandy beach with its olive trees are recognizable today.
In that cove on my port hand Odysseus awoke in the twentieth year since he
had left his home. As my boat slid into Port Vathi to drop anchor, I pictured him
standing on that small beach with his jutting beard, his torn hands, his boarwounded thigh, and his indomitable heart.
For ten years he had known "battle, murder, and sudden death" at Troy, and for
ten more years he had known every aspect of the Mediterranean the summer
mornings that bloomed on its unruffled surface, the knifing winds of winter that
scored it, the sirocco draping the mountains with cloud and beading his forehead
with sweat, staining his squaresail with
its
damp
breath.
walked toward the Raven's Rock, where Odysseus met his faithful friend, the
swineherd Eumaeus, and learned of the suitors who infested his palace, seeking
Penelope's hand. These he would slay to regain his wife and throne. Near the
I
110
O
waste
in
its
no longer
spinning
Her 20-year
from an
way
back
"Those people
I
stirred at the
will
thought of the
city of
you know
My own
I
Odysseus?"
so close to Odysseus
me
Shadowing
his hero
home
that
heroes of the
Ill
wmam
V
\
'.
&
,m~M
MHH
.;'
By Paul MacKendrick
The World of
Pericles
HE MORNING SUN warmed
its
"Olympian"
Pericles led
in British
Museum
Adam
Woolfitt
113
Monarchy
aptly defined
In the
seventh century
were said
to
be writ
gave way
(single rule)
B.C.
to oligarchy (rule
by the
in blood.
power and
became
few).
new
buildings,
artists.
an assembly
to
War with
Persia
it
a hateful
at
later
meaning.
traders
Athenians, whose
now
the
new dead
to
As
be
Pericles
finished his address the citizens turned quietly to pay reverence, then passed
m have stood
'
Pericles strolled,
and
have
have held
who
in
suburb"
life
of their city.
of the city,
where
Pericles spoke.
my hand
an ostracon
an
inscribed potsherd
Odeon
of
in Pericles' time.
ACROPOLIS, "Highest City" of ancient kings, rises 260 feet above Athens. Its temples flamed
when Persians stormed the citadel in 480 b.c. Rebuilding, Pericles added the gleaming Parthenon
IJllRf*
***&&A
~*
^v
'-.s
%
playwrights who
of Euripides
Pericles
and
stimulated
my
prods
a
imagination as
young Athenian
Let us
picture the
him Megacles. We
call
life
of
follow
him
Athens
with
ears.
Though he
claim, "Greeks
He walks
is
preoccupied he cannot
to cheat
the Panathenaic
houses nestle
the rocky,
one another."
Beyond
trees.
windswept
hill
the Agora,
Acropolis,
crowned with
On
Megacles'
left,
famous Sophist
whose
is
way
theories of the
young men
so excite the
to material success
of Athens. His
name
him
expounds
as he
"Man
is
a revolutionary doctrine:
the measure of
all
things."
Man,
No wonder
new
who
the sun
is
A
"We
former pupil
agreed
win,
to the
confronts Protagoras.
judgment;
EVZONES
now
if I
of the Palace
lose,
won't have to
117
pb
'JllB^ ^l
I
Jf
to
reflects
almost exactly the subtle, tricky style of reasoning ("sophistry") the Sophists teach.
Crossing the Agora, Megacles pauses outside the law courts, where citizens have
gathered around the allotment machines, a pair of slotted
and
tube.
sampling of those
Now
a black
If
the world's
of
it
official
dismissed.
and
an
who want
first
first, all
men
to
difficult.
support a
is just
tickets
those with
in the first
pillars
to serve as jurors
man
for a day.
measured by
a klepsydra
(water stealer), a pair of clay pots set so that water flows from one to the other,
taking about six minutes. Each juror has two wheel-shaped bronze ballots.
means "not
guilty";
he wants
118
to
solid
hub
he votes.
'
a fellow
Athenians vented
ire
on too-powerful leaders by
Temple of Hephaestus
rises behind.
Hollow-hubbed
disks
condemned
the philosopher
deemed
unexamined
life
w
ROMAN COPY OF GREEK STATUE. BRITISH MUSEUM ABOVE: AGORA MUSEUM
.HUH
--Jr^
PAINTING BT ROBERT
An Athenian
C.
*
v
'
^l^H
mK
a^H
?;
'
An
official
may
own
hire a ghostwriter;
cases.
still,
The
litigant
he memorizes
to
amateur
lies at
An
JfimL
workmen
I,
one
vote on ostracism
is
about
to take place.
old,
Athenians
L ^l\
act
W mWfM
A
I mm
AS
hct
who, they
On
may
fear,
name
try
broken pottery,
a bit of
man
of the
BIRTHPLACE OF DEMOCRACY,
the Agora dozes at the foot of the
Acropolis. Athenians thronged here
to discuss,
to
Athens.
banished
If
6,000 voters
man, he
without
offers
one
to
Megacles.
already inscribed
Enmity
a
A hawker
it
He
with
a basketful of
bears the
name
sherds
it is
of Pericles!
is
power sometimes
in
for
keeping Athens
and
a
irises.
even
at a
for roses
are in town.
pamphlet
Innumerable booths
of fruits, vegetables,
and
offer
delicacies.
is
At the
going
fast,
for a laborer)
wide
Sausage
varieties
sellers
11,
men
litigate,
be
will
harangue,
(left)
He
all
and the
sacrifice of a pig
He
is
related to Pericles
and approves
first citizen."
MffTllIIl
of his policy:
~"
To calm his anger, Megacles makes
gymnasium, one
for the
with
oil,
win
its
body
He hopes
to
throws
to
Some
on punching bags
in the
some
friends
on the
javelin
and discus
strigil
oil his
"wisdom without
vigor"
loss of
Athenians
manly
exercised
famed
gymnasiums: the Academy, where
Plato expounded his philosophy
of the ideal republic; the Lyceum,
minds and bodies
where
in three
Cynosarges
where Cynics
riches and preached
("agile dog"),
growled
at
self-denial.
Cynic, Zeno,
boy went
to
private school
pedagogue.
numbers,
how
He
to
learned music,
read papyrus
scrolls
waxed
civic
122
H. M.
HERGET
javelin.
He
thong
wound around
it
gives
it
a spin so that
it
pitches on
its
point.
admires, too, the graceful sweep of the discus thrower. To Megacles and
many
another Athenian it's the look of the thing that counts, not just training until
you
are
muscle-bound
He
who once threw a 316-pound stone over his head with one hand!
He wanders over to the stable to see his horse. He has ridden this
fine Corinthian
aristocrats.
is
he rids himself of
anxious
oil
to clean up.
With
a strigil, or scraper
sets
gymnasium conversation.
Now
For
what
Or
stout wrestler, or
BEST preserved theater in the ancient world spreads its giant fan of stone at Epidaurus,
across the Saronic Gulf from Athens. Perfect acoustics bring every whisper of Euripides' Ion
to the 14,000 seats of this theatron, or seeing place, built 2,300 years ago. The orchestra,
where the chorus sang in early plays, evolved from a threshing floor
marked out by circling cattle; altar at center made a performance a sacred rite to Dionysus.
The skene, or stage, which began as a booth or tent where actors dressed, became
the scene for the drama, or action. A cranelike machine enabled a god
to make a sudden dramatic appearance deus ex machina.
or dancing place
*3
IMW
*^
Y
ft
**.>
"E**
M\
i-=^3*
i.
%1
>fc*"*^^"^^
It's
Megacles would
like to take
pacing the portico and talking animatedly. Megacles recognizes the waddling
the
his
famous method
of
final
which
infuriates
who
has
gait,
sum
many,
fascinates Megacles.
two
sides.
To him,
at,
Megacles has few doubts about the relative importance of brain and brawn.
All in
all it
gymnasium rigorous
and mind. Tomorrow Megacles can give the brain another workout,
body
be
plays in the theater of Dionysus at the foot of the south slope of the Acropolis.
~~1
"*
song,
as the
Great Dionysia in March. This time, however, the archons are reviving
ten-year-old tragedy, Sophocles' Antigone, to compete with the other plays. The prize:
a wreath of ivy. Sophocles,
now
65,
Like his friend Pericles, Sophocles served as a general, elected to that rank perhaps
as a
reward
wisdom
It
He
has never seen the play, but he knows the story of Antigone,
who
buried her
considered
religious
and
a sacred obligation.
meaning,
priest of
tale
sit
on wooden
to a state
on the side
row
center."
of the
hill.
word entered
seats built
some
Dionysus
his wife will enjoy the best seats in the open-air theater "front
the
The
competed
century ago
the poet Thespis arrived in Athens with a chorus and an actor called the hypocrite
(answerer) who gave set speeches. Since then Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
and the
skilled "thespians"
a sophisticated art.
who perform
their
and brings
relief
stir
the imagination
Aristophanes' lines, after 2,300 years, sparkle under the stars in the Odeon
of Herodes Atticus below the Acropolis. In his comedy Plutus, Chremylus explains
to Blepsidemus his plan to lead the blind god Wealth to Asclepius' shrine. Sight restored,
Wealth (Plutus) will reward honest men (like these two) instead of villains.
THEATER BUILT
IN
2D CENTURY
A.D.:
MICHAEL KUH
127
chorus wear masks to magnify their voices and increase the solemnity of the scenes.
Costumes seem
Megacles
larger than
feels conflict
life;
own
putting gods
above
guard catches
commits
suicide.
take their
own
The
lives.
tyrant's life
her.
becomes
a living death:
latter course,
at
all.
way
in this pitiless
universe, exalted
proud
be an Athenian brought up
to
determined
of the heroine,
defy tyranny,
to
m onight,
on
Megacles
#syn
symposium,
literally a
"drinking together."
hired
M caterer
catei
frees the host to enjoy the occasion fully.
number from
Guests
and
their sandals
washes
a slave
When
their feet.
they take
washing
Meat
and portable
their hands,
At
first
diluting
arrives,
their plates
it
sounds
about
a note,
a battle
when
may
with bread,
to dogs.
this
a flute player
the world
fruit, nuts,
was young.
whatever
hair
else
and beards
Now
their necks.
One
of these cups,
girl
holding
too much.
The
toasts
now
fly
to
from person
to guest,
to
toss
Plato describes a
symposium,
or drinking party.
Entertainers, riddles,
males only.
If
the
fit
mood
of
his teacher
Greek Comedy.
of hiccups, tells
the wine
large mixing
Socrates and
symposium attended by
and two
split
of everything they
men
in two,
of.
Then Zeus
takes
may
Socrates,
since been
more
serious,
known
as "Platonic love":
We
that has
must progress
129
from love of
until
we
body
a beautiful
gain a mystic vision of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
apt.
is
more
Homer and
from Euripides' new
Guests quote
typical.
Repartee
is
quick,
They sing
to
Medea:
When
originality flags,
the historian
130
and
Xenophon,
air.
boy and
a girl
mime
and he
Symposium of
The
girl
in the
as an
example
asks,
why
knew
if
dozen hoops
of
women's
someone
air.
"My
great
aim in
life,"
he
replies,
to us,"
th
their
way
to
snug
apart, finished
fortress
where most
by
Long
Pericles to
Walls.
make
of the population
lie
streets of
in regular lines
Smells of
tar,
pitch,
and oakum
fill
from the
the
air.
in
that
its
grid
Europe's
planning, ranked as
Shipyards
(right), trade,
industry spur a
new
rise to
and
fame.
sea.
From
forts at the
wineshops do
a brisk business.
at
Hook-nosed merchants
in
from Phoenicia.
galley
from Cyprus
unloads copper ingots. Ships are in from Naxos, Cos, and Lemnos in the Aegean;
and Abdera
a
good
in Thrace.
story, talking to
beyond
just
to
hear
back from
Wars, which he
Today
in
calls
an inquiry a
my
journey takes
irt
historia.
Athens marvels
at
it.
me
through the
street of the
to the
Agora,
hardware shops
*k -~
called
Hephaestus Street
after the
god
of blacksmiths.
and before,
Many
this
Periclean Athens
was
own
and the
locations.
We
street of the
a city of small
hear of the
boxmakers.
shopkeepers;
employed
TO MARKET
stalls
Acrobats
twirl,
beggars
moan
their
120 slaves.
On
asses
MAGIS. GEOGRAPM
carts
wood
laden with
woven by
their
women and
was
cleaned by
urine.
and
his reputation
Jewelers
was
worked the
Their
fullers.
was
a tanner,
Coinage was
a state
its
flans,
struck.
Athenian
furnaces and
from
silver coins,
Athena
side, her
in
worked
dug
shifts of
yard-high
washed,
filtered,
produced
134
silver
sterling.
Pottery
A smith
(far left)
hammers
a slab
artisans, he
works
to order
on
customers.
An
artist
aliens, or slaves.
a stool beside
him.
clay black;
and
also oxidizing
Roman
all
handsome
The
citizens, resident
aliens, or metics,
times,
easy democracy of
him on an Athenian
the
buy
their freedom,
a slave
street.
and
if
a slave girl
had
by her
a child
was born
free.
Slavery
of wine
and
olive
oil,
led Athens'
its
name from
nor did
An
it
life
of the
ceramics. In the
fifth,
as
soon as
it
was
he had
slept,
and
was ready
*)
was
it
got
in the
on
butcher carves a
how
the clay, a
tell
kiln
biographers in
men throw
with a
wheel, older
show
many
was Athens'
light,
draped
it
F.
Kitto put
it,
As
free.
to face the
world
in five minutes."
/*
/
/
/I
EGACLES HOME along with thousands of others, crowds inside the five-mile
>
circumference of the
Arm
walls set
Greek -can
burrow through
easily
these walls. But then they are virtually fireproof, so Athens needs no
department.
fire
Neither do the houses need central heat in this climate. Residents dull the
winter
chill
torches
and
Most go
to
lamps supply
oil
bed
at
dark and
dog with
caged cock
mosaic
his
little
work by
artificial light.
realizes
he has entered
wealthy home,
upstairs
but Athenians do
house quickly
visitor to Megacles'
light,
rise
its altar
and
The
life
of the
its
freely
about
tail
floor
symposium, which
also
first libraries.
court.
is,
he cannot afford
it.
mere
He
puts
of his
but well-off as he
Some
cell.
galleries.
up overnight
suite,
guests
The simple furniture exhibits proud craftsmanship chairs with beautifully carved
backs; couches with lathe-turned legs; carved chests, tables, three-legged stools.
Woven
rugs and curtains add color to the decor. The house lacks a private well and
fountain;
and have
For Megacles and his friends, their living rooms extend to the Agora and the
streets of
Athens; this
is
man's world.
them
Women
in
mind
words
Pericles addressed
men
the least occasion to talk about you, whether for praise or for blame."
of Socrates' wife
who wrote
man and
wife, wrote of a
husband
setting about to
make
his 15-year-old bride "docile, and domesticated." She must be a good manager,
and bibulous
least gluttonous
must draw up
is
to
last a year.
a cool one.
woman should be good for everything at home, but abroad good for nothing."
Thus the playwright Euripides thumbnailed Periclean policy toward the secluded sex.
With distaffs and spindle whorls, women spun wool and flax in their own quarters,
"A
then
-GRAPHIC BY LOUIS
S.
pestle.
GLANZMAN
137
5TH-CENTURY STELE. CERAMICUS MUSEUM. ATHENS. CUP DETAILS. BELOW: ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM; OPPOSITE: MUSEUM OP FINE ARTS. BOSTON; (LOWER) ROYAL MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORY. BRUSSELS
when
they are
ill.
"I don't
mind,"
To Xenophon,
meant
and everything
in its
One
stored.
who
life,
could hardly
appears before
"Cosmetics
bound
may
to catch
fool strangers,"
he
He
is
shocked.
sniffs,
"but I'm
just out of
(With
that
adds:
"It's
for
138
husband
it
tears.)
And he
all
husbands were
make
that stuffy
While
Even
woman
baby plays
in a
eye,
when he
and
and goose
and
girl
may have
swarmed around
little.
her wedding
bawdy
wool. (Unhappily,
leave
home,
the marriage.
mar
escorted there
boy fished,
On
the
cherished her
of virginity.
cattle.
couple might
The wedding
ritual
soothed him
fussed, jug
with rider
goddess
high chair.
rattling inside
30.
like
arranged marriages.
men
not set eyes on each other until their wedding, for parents
girls
gift-bearing friends.
hung an
father
for a daughter,
he displayed
olive
tufts of
her in a basket
would adopt
her.) Five
days
after birth, a
nurse or female
central hearth;
On
name,
rear,
and educate
good omen.
Pericles
himself
name always
signified
Alcibiades,
to save";
was
for
some
name
When
WEBB
a clay bottle
later
Mormo, who
shapes.
If
ate
who changed
hobgoblin
into fearful
this failed,
rattles,
treat,
Xenophon had
remained with
learned: not
and be
silent in the
their
mothers and
who
taught
him manners
the rattan or strap. In school the child took physical training, learned to play the lyre
and
to write
tablets.
He
later
did arithmetic and geometry, but usually studied no foreign language or science.
science,
and
Plato,
who
Homer.
of age
if
To celebrate the occasion the new citizen gave a drinking party, and cut and
dedicated a lock of his hair. His next two years belonged to the
in a cadet corps,
made pilgrimages
to the shrines,
state.
He
enrolled
Birth, education,
Women washed
ritual of burial
or cremation.
took place before sunrise, that the corpse might not pollute the sun's
They buried with the dead man those things he might need
armor, tools, containers for food and drink.
on
his tongue to
pay Charon's
He even
carried
light.
in afterlife: arms,
money an
obol
he three greek commandments were "Honor the gods; help your friends;
adorn your
city."
When
I Pa
Parthenos, Athena the Virgin, patron of the city;
fellow citizens;
goddess
the
all
time, with a
enemies carped
common
like a scarlet
bloom
at the
honored Athena
he gave work
to his
expense
newness."
Money
contributed by Athens'
woman.
"ATHENA, Triton-born, guide our city," prayed Pericleans. This bronze of their patron
goddess of war and wisdom, arts and sciences lay amid the ruins of Piraeus after
Romans sacked the port along with Athens in 86 B.C. She emerged in 1959, seven feet tall
in her long-plumed Attic helmet, gazing "gray-eyed" through semiprecious stones.
4TH CENTURY
140
B.C..
'
0fi'
VA
1
Vjay.
>
The
critics, of
how he
Pericles beautified
architecture.
The
it,
He
music
hall,
the
Odeon
Pericles inspired
supervised
it.
and
task of building
it,
Athens'
it
allies
paid for
it,
it
and technique.
Let us imagine Phidias going over the accounts with Ictinus and Callicrates,
the architects, in 432 B.C., near the
for the year
amount
end
to 24 silver talents,
roughly equivalent
to $100,000 today.
Out of this Phidias has to buy marble, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress. He has
to pay quarrymen, carters, carpenters, stonecutters, assistant sculptors, as well as
ivory workers, goldsmiths, and painters who work on Athena's statue; ropemakers
for
rope to hoist the stone; and crews to strengthen the ten-mile road from the
of tons of marble.
*1
its
neighbors,
it
wears iron-streaked
seem
to sag.
lest
it
suit.
Columns lean in and back so they will not look splayed. Built up
of drums locked in hairline joins and fluted to trap shadows, they
swell two-fifths of the
slightly thicker.
way up
to
in size to look
perfect union of
all ages.
T_
,
143
144
S.
IN
WHO SPENT
A FORT
wasteful, or
who
later built
And Athena
from
firm
by piety and
Even the
patriotism.
for slow,
medieval cathedrals,
trotting along
two
a half to
them
fires
if
When
of a mule,
rest,
but kept
encouraging them.
a
hung by
worker
fell
a thread,
men and
smooth
pace. Pericles
Phidias must
how
they have
Panathenaic
sell
festival.
When
the job
is
done,
He
is
glad
On
for every
ounce delivered
him.
to
who
stands by with
in the
new
robe
Parthenon.
on the temple
frieze:
young men on
in miracles with
Poseidon
(guides will
show
Athena
and
guardianship
for
a salt spring
gushes forth
400 figures of
The long
lines form.
Young cavalrymen,
and
halt, half a
broad-brimmed
beautifully unmilitary in
One heads
the
wrong way;
others
trot, canter,
spirits
in
some
Next come
order.
Then follow
the corner of the temple, sacrificial animals appear. Keats wrote of them:
"Who
coming
are these
to the sacrifice?
mysterious priest,
And
At
last
all
of other gods.
shields his
moment
A man
and,
of Athens' religious
when you
boy
in the
life.
remember
that
at
.
make
men won
The Age
since.
it
into
hosts of Persia
life
little
It is
art
more than 30
a flowering.
years.
in 490 B.C.,
on the plain
like
of
when
and exploded by Venetians' cannon shattered the temple in 1687. Restored by Greeks
with American aid, the fluted columns still reflect the glow of Athens' golden age.
JAMES
146
P.
PHOTOGRAPHER
"Where grew
and
peace.'
Seeking Scenes
of Grecian Glory
herever
journey
tably takes
me
to
in the labyrinth of
some
Greek
intersection of past
history,
my road inevi-
and dip along stark ledges or cleave a fertile valley. It may lead
triumph of Marathon, the valor of Thermopylae, the mystery of Delphi, the majesty of Olympus. Whatever the road, whatever the destination,
there comes a moment when I stand, like Agamemnon, "neither in water
nor on dry land," poised between myth and history, enthralled by the
may
twist
to the
timelessness of Greece.
"The Persians encamped over there, near their fleet," the young Greek
army officer was saying as we stood at Marathon. He swept his hand toward
the sea. "Our Greek hoplites were there, nearer Mount Pentelicus." He
scanned the plain, shading his eyes against the afternoon sun.
Silhouette of courage, Leonidas the Spartan holds the pass of Tliermopylae ; Farrell
'
Grehan
XERXES'
ARMY
REJOICE,
WE CONQUER!"
gasps
news to Athens
that Darius' Persians have
been defeated at Marathon.
a courier bearing
Exhausted, he
Ten years
falls dead.
later, in
480
B.C.,
who scourges
when
'
480BC.^[
<
by a
\ Thebe?
Platata^"^
479 BC
Corinth*
until
N)e/o
i
X Battles
Sparta
marches unchallenged
Myctlt + .
Miletus
480BC
fleet,
at Salamis, their
army
at
STATUTE MILES
DRAWN BY LISA BIGANZOLI
GEOGRAPHIC ART DIVISION
stockades and advanced, shield to shield, spears ready, chanting the paean of
As
been 490
."
listened, past
B.C., for
the captain at
"horse landing craft" that island-hopped across the Aegean. After seizing Eretria,
the Persians landed an estimated 20,000 infantry
of
whose
subjects approached
far
him on
and wide,"
their knees.
they clustered in small city-states such as Athens, Corinth, Thebes, and Sparta,
famed fighters of
war during that holy time.
go
to
150
and her
by some 600
militia,
general Miltiades gave the order: "Take food and march." Joined
Only
a superior, professional
"Miltiades knew,"
in the center,
at
Marathon against
to
defend the
city.
their archers,
and weakest
in the wings. So he
weakest troops in the center, his strongest in the wings. His idea, you
see, was to envelop the enemy by crushing the Persian wings. Then he could wheel
placed
in
his
i
-
1
s
A myth
cus toward the Persian ships. Suspecting that this reflected a plot in Athens, the
at
to the city.
The
sight of
them arrayed
for battle
fleet.
Then
Assembly of Citizens
spend the windfall on a navy instead of dividing it among the people. His
speech had effect. Within three years the city launched 200 ships of a new class
the trireme, a galley propelled by three banks of oars.
to
/\ cross
JL
for a
massed these forces on the Asian shore of the Hellesand Aegina responded by forming a defensive
would eventually include 31 city-states. But most Greeks, awed by
league that
whose waters
you can see capes jutting out from either shore to form
the strait's narrowest stretch. Here Xerxes bridged the channel with boats. His
Egyptian subjects, renowned as the world's best ropemakers, produced the great
bridge cables. (A sample of their craft has been excavated in an Egyptian quarry:
rope 18 inches in diameter attached to a 70-ton block of stone.) Sod covered the
mile-long plank roadway and high screens lined it so that animals crossing on it
From
at
Across the Hellespont in 480 tramped an army that ancients numbered in the
in the
the
mound
and
Marathon
They
fell
where,
original messenger.
AT THE PASS OF THERMOPYLAE a Persian tide surges along the shore and breaks against
Greek courage. Bronze-helmed Leonidas slashes under a hail of arrows. Gulf of Lamia r
no longer hems the mountains. But Persian arrowheads pointed scholars to the spot where,
attacked from the rear by traitor-guided foes, Spartans went down fighting.
S.
cw
>.kZ*<
>*,
-:
tJL
V',!
^-
w
iii&Wi
<
ing emissaries.
these cities
their earth
done so,
and water by
156
dumps holding
of every kind.
worka
fleet
maintained food
The depots
also
had
by
become
fierce torrents in
"A sea
in
of troubles breaks
Athens'
of triremes
shields, an
Mount
slopes of
enthroned
Aegaleos.
of Salamis
called
formed by a finger
and the mainland.
deploy,
Triumphs
in Sicily
at Salamis
and
at
Himera
c.
480 B.C
IN OSTIA
Bay of
MUSEUM.
brandished stone-
to
who
Wave-lashed, unable
still
seem more Turkish or Slavic than Greek, the men hardfaced, the women proud and lovely.
Place names have so changed that I could only assume I
stood on the correct vast plain upon the coast of Thrace
where Xerxes assembled and numbered his army. I imagined
him riding along the ranks in his golden chariot, inspecting
the mightiest force the world had yet seen.
Here were Persian warriors in leather jerkins and fishscale armor, high-booted Phrygians, Mysians bearing
sharpened stakes, wooden-helmeted men of the Caucasus,
Scythians in pointed caps, Iranians behind tall wicker
ITALY;
lash.
army, said
And ahead
lay a pass
Eleusis
Mount Aegaleos
-
PERSIAN FLEET
Saronic Gulf
Psyttaleia
of the
king
who commanded
own 300-man
If
guardsman
fell,
through, laughed
at a scout's
royal guard,
all
his
battle.
were Spartans,
exclaimed,
valiant
men
ritualistically
"now
are
you
preparing
to die.
"O
king!" he
the most
in Hellas."
who manned
mountaintop
trail to
outflank the
most
of his army.
send away
shattering charge.
men
Now,
last,
spear-
grapes warmed by
mystery
rites,
named
for mystai,
The
rites
are
still
a mystery.
Where
fell.
the
if
if
not,
it
with
Leonidas
still
of the poet
theirs.
saw
is
Greek
in legend,
we
lie."
pinpointed this
site after
159
^2;'
his gods:
f i-t-i
a powerful spear,
edged
J. with sharp bronze
and descended in a
flash from the peaks of Olympus." Thus, Homer
relates, the goddess Athena leaves her father
Zeus and his consort Hera in their celestial home
(right). With Hermes in winged cap, she sets off
.
to
arrange the
homecoming
of Odysseus.
gods
philandering
made
the
was endless,
homage
for ancients
a bird.
war god
Zeus
Hera
Jupiter
Marriage
Juno
Poseidon
Sea
Neptune
Hades
Underworld
Pluto
Hestia
Hearth
Vesta
audience. Ares
Hephaestus,
made
who
war,
smith
ignobly
Roman
Greek deity
Apollo
Light, Truth,
Athena
Aphrodite
Wisdom
Ares
War
Hermes
Artemis
Hephaestus
Fire, the
human
flesh,
and Ixion
tried to
for
By
ritual
and
Divine Smith
Minerva
Venus
Mars
Mercury
Diana
Vulcan
fate
sacrifice,
The
at
from such an
oracle,
problem.
Impiety was dangerous
but doubts could not be
stilled. Herodotus, comparing other religions, questo a specific
that
gods resemble
He
But they reacted furiously to hybris, presumptuous pride. When Prometheus stole the gods'
fire,
equival
Apollo
Music
wisdom
art, drama,
noble themes, rousing tales, delightful fancies have given the gods immortality.
Still
and
poetry.
Its
161
rooted
in
Iris
and the
youths
name
Corn poppy and reseda also doctored ills. The sleep of death
came from hemlock, white-flowered relative of our parsley.
Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus was Father of Botany, and after
2,300 years Greek still names our flora: Tragopogon (goatsbeard),
heliotrope (turning to the sun), chrysanthemum (golden flower).
tip of
to the island of
When
the Athe-
nian admiral Themistocles met with other naval commanders in Salamis, they could
look across the mile-wide narrows and in the distance see Athens in flames.
As
the Persians
uated
its
to
their
elders across the channel to Salamis, leaving only a token force behind.
city.
evac-
swam
to
its
Abandoned
Gulf of Salamis today. Steel-plated ships in scarlet priming paint banish the ghosts
wooden
of
reddened
triremes that
strait
smashed Xerxes'
galleys to
matchwood and
filled
the
Themistocles lured the Persians into the narrows by sending a slave to Xerxes
with the
tale
162
scatter.
maelstrom of
island's lee
came
flailing oars
a crescent of
of Hellas, joined to save their land. Aeschylus, veteran of the battle, re-created
the Persians
"till
He
told
it
in
itself
and
flight
broke out.
."
.
Bearing news of the Salamis disaster, messengers sped across the Aegean, rode
the Royal
to Susa,
that linked
the satrapies of the Persian empire. "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor
gloom
bad news
to spread:
An army
of
some
100,000 Greeks
hills
last of
the
south of Thebes.
unity the Greeks had found strength. And Athens had found inspiration to
Inlead
the Greek world though her people had returned to the embers of their
city
and had
Pericles, they
lost everything.
163
But graven on
all
could understand:
Plutarch,
this
of Apollo at Delphi.
Know
famed
its
first-century
ad.
biographer, native to
many
years.
i 1 1
13
**
"?"
irnt
km
by geography and jealousy into feuding city-states, they had combined against the
invader. Was it merely to defend their homes? To seek a deeper answer, I turned in
my personal odyssey from scenes of battle to shrines of unity.
My first pilgrimage took me through the birthplace of Greece Thessaly. Here
roamed the ancestors of the Mycenaeans, the "first Greeks in Greece." Paleolithic
remains found here date to 20,000 B.C. or earlier. Myths swirl through this vast,
fertile plain and its surrounding wall of mountains. An archeologist friend once
took me to the little town of Farsala on the plain of Thessaly, where we stood on a
Mycenaean mound and watched women wash laundry in a concrete tank that
caught the spill of a stream. "That stream, I believe, was where Thetis dipped her
infant son Achilles, holding him by the heel," my friend said.
Homer's Iliad calls Achilles ruler of Phthia. Mythology adds the tale of his
mother, an immortal, trying to make him invulnerable by dipping him in charmed
waters. Could Pharsalus be a corruption of Phthia? But the name of this stream,
Letheos, disturbed me. "I thought Thetis dipped Achilles in the Styx," I said.
My friend explained. "Only two rivers flowed from Hades, the Styx and the
Lethe. A pardonable slip by the bard who told the story. No?"
I gazed at the laundrywomen and pictured the baby Achilles, soaked except for
one dry tendon that bears his name where a fatal arrow finally struck.
Mount Olympus, crowning the myth-haunted plain, was the birthplace of the
gods. From the twisting Kozani-Larisa road one sees it jagged against the eastern
sky. That uneven crest, like a cockscomb, looked to the ancients like divine thrones.
On those pinnacles they saw the gods ruled by great Zeus, who dispatched rainbows as his messengers and hurled thunderbolts of wrath.
But to hear the will of the gods Greeks journeyed, as I did, to Delphi, their
most sacred shrine. Northward from Athens I drove, past vineyards and olive
166
there
is
man"
on
fillet
his
Homer
brow,
Greek
of four great
crown: laurel
Corinth, parsley at
cities
welcomed
Nemea,
olive at
Olympia. Jubilant
life,
loads,
and
donkeys,
a sputtering
women
Boeotia,
recalled a spot
to life for
me
woman
guide
"That
It
168
GRAPPLING
Olympia,
crown
the Olympics' supreme event:
naked
in
for glory at
broad jump,
he has
my
drank
marks
falls
Competitors
altis,
filed
from the
an area hallowed by
left),
you experience
(left),
entrance (far
father's blood,"
stant
arched
spirit of
Delphi,
erected
on
by various
a ledge of
Twin
trained 10
the last
Greeks chronicled
trees.
gods
Gulf of Corinth
Ionian Sea
Olympia
Corinth.
PELOPONNESUS
.Sparta
.Delphi
//Isthmus
Connth
f
Athens.
EpidauruSf
Aegean Sea
Cape Malea
PELOPONNESUS,
is
Here ships
its thumb.
roadway, avoiding
from sea
to sea.
Commanding
enriched by
tolls
and
to Corinth's
Razed by Romans
in
44
the
frowning
in
146
B.C.,
spread
its
refounded by Caesar
splendors beneath
on
enriched themselves by
Priests
sat
perhaps induced
and raved.
a tripod
rhymed prophecies.
The Pythia's answers were usually framed by crafty
he
He
empire."
Persia
seemed
to
Battle of Salamis
".
by giving Athe.
And when
wood-built wall
wooden
CENTURY
B.C.;
who may
walls were
search:
from your
flee
shall a
... a
when
their bets
for diligent
Struggling through
main road toward Corinth and the Peloponnesus, I reflected on the contrast between old and
of the
new
in Greece.
Unlike
much
of western Europe,
taverna,
and
talks the
to
town, driving
evening away.
slither, a patient
god of healing,
saw people farming every foot of rocky Peloponnesus soil and recalled what a Greek collaborator
had told Xerxes when the king wondered if Thermopylae would be defended: "Want has at all times
past.
been
is
an
and
a fellow dweller
ally
strict
whom we
Aristophanes
staff.
Cos,
Pergamum. Proper
diet, exercise,
and
baths prepared them for hypnotic dreamhealing that produced "divine" cures.
460
But as
treats him.
saw
B.C.,
on case
forecast
its
histories,
course.
He
and
in
prognosis
laws."
and cross a
ills
Romans
tax-financed medicare,
olives reappear as
hospitals.
subsidized
in
Rome.
to kill us all,"
griped
it."
171
of each state
bound
became
When a
a fortified city
Religion
grew
mother- or mefro-polis.
first
dalous amours with local nymphs. Minor kings and queens began to trace their
lineage back to Zeus.
Though
thus developed a religious unity, building not only temples to the gods of their
cities
Now,
Greeks.
I neared one of the greatest shrines, OlymHere men worshiped Zeus and Hera in Doric temples and in the stadium
the sacred Olympic Games. Gray temple columns rise among the pines that
pia.
of
all
172
FROM HARBORS
like
bell
and
lifeline
grain.
at least since
honored a sacred truce during the festival. For a week, Greeks mingled as
and city-states forgot their other rivalries to cheer on native sons they
had proudly sent to win wreaths at the Games.
I stood where the athletes took their oaths, swearing to Zeus that they would
states
brothers,
173
"Coins
Owl
of
well minted
Athens' tetradrachm
cattle,
Menelaus armor
down
Homer valued
cattle:
Minor
stamped them
to attest value,
who
rich.
names and
basket
ratio in their
was sound
Now
archeologists
with interest. Once shy of silver, Athens minted silver-faced coppers like U. S. coins today
Aristophanes fumed: "debased, barbaric tender this new-fangled copper trash."
fair. And I saw the statue plinths upon which disgraced cities had inscribed
names of oath-breakers. In the stadium, I saw the grooved marble starting
blocks where sprinters dug in their toes. I walked the grass-covered banks where
40,000 or more spectators sat, swatting flies.
I imagine the all-male crowds were not much different from fans at a modern
sports event. Old-timers probably recalled the good old days: "Remember Milo of
Croton? Why, he could eat a bullock in a day. Carry one, too. Started out lifting it
when it was a calf. He could hold a pomegranate in his fist uncrushed, mind you
and nobody could snatch it from him. There was a wrestler!"
Wrestlers used holds still seen. But the pankration (all-strength) combined boxing, wrestling, stomping, and finger-breaking. In one match, a man died as he won.
His body got the victor's crown. In a.d. 67 Nero, an unlikely Olympian, made a
play
the
farce of the
games.
tactfully halted;
won. He
also
in the Peloponnesian
notes of a shepherd's pipe rose from a
The wavering
answering chorus. Here near Epidaurus, shrine
Sheep
tinkled a
fold
bells
hills.
faint,
At
wayside taverna
Epidaurus
hills
lies at
god
a child offered
knew
the
of healing,
a
found
fold.
My
of wild flowers.
road
wound
to
Zeus,
174
who
for a
was
a stranger
approached through
Hades, blamed
guest.
upon
its
posy
means
head
me
whom
Pluto,
many
god
of
illnesses.
In the Epidaurus
ings,
some
of
them models
marks
to blindness, ulcers,
and aches
in the hemikrania,
mackendrick, consultant
the
left
museum and
to the
mag-
from tem-
to
commerce.
ple fees.
on
a site
itself a
could understand
form of therapy?
a theater
not drama
is
From
the top
is
gleam
see,
of the sea.
modern
its
1928 earthquake,
lies
about
you drive past vines whose grapes became the sweet, seedCo rinthus later just plain "currant."
Corinthian love of luxury and pleasure, infamous in the
city's seventh-century B.C. heyday, shocked St. Paul nearly
700 years later. "I speak to your shame," he admonished
Corinthians. Guides point out the plinth where they say he
spoke. Grecian Corinth survives in the Temple of Apollo's
columns. Destroyed by the Romans, then rebuilt and embellished, the city lost most Greek traces. But Romans still told
less raisins of
whose studded
Me!
175
"Apollo, Delos
is
Hymn
to the
Delian Apollo
The good
life
so pre-
commerce
them.
century
thing in
B.C.,
and
idle
common: hatred
so disdained
of Athens.
The
fifth-
176
know why
WINDS OF prosperity
sails of Delos.
filled
the
Legendary birthplace
on a
collision course
177
"He
is
best
who
is
trained in
II
of Sparta
them
citizenship.
and denying
These
perioikoi,
who
thus
battle, a
young Spartan
178
much
of Greece
from 431
the Greeks against another Persian invasion. In 478, after the Persians
driven from mainland Greece, Ionian-Greek states in Asia Minor united under
Delos,
From
a free association of
autonomous
later era.
states, the
moved from
Delos to Athens. By 448, Athens was collecting dues from league members by
in
unfit babies
left
home
who
from
drills
to steal food. In
war.
and savage
legend, a lad
him open
cliffs
to learn
bedded on rushes,
Sparta,
let it rip
to
any
would cause
stifle
trouble,
and risked
human
faced exile
if
they marched
they got
to
fat.
common
When,
mess,
in tight ranks,
it."
force.
Pericles
used
Athens'
all
FARRELL GREHAN
When
the
man began
little
established
city that
had
were
ally,
slain, the
women and
children enslaved.
180
left a
"THE CITY
IS
to exercise
themselves."
to
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first battle.
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commander
slain at Syracusans'
-i
Syracusans fortify
treasure-rich Olympeium.
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Leon
BAY OF THAPSUS
ummer
4I4-.
3d
squabble between
Himera and
an army as he marches
empire into
He
expand her
415 B.C. she
Sicily. In
collects
to the rescue.
making
friend of Sparta.
Athenians
retire
(3)
sail into
Great Harbor
to
Catana.
Syracusans
build
seize
pass
wall
defensive
attack from
at
and
During winter
Athenians
Euryelus
summer
Leon
(5),
(4),
drive
city walls.
(6)
and
Fearing
start
direct
battle,
defenders
Plemmyrium
(9) as
and
(14).
When Athenian
sailors
rior,
Meanwhile,
to
own
(8).
fleet
Athe-
off
anchors at Dascon
,UP
Sparta, lands at
(1), fight
Plemmyrium
only
to be
mutiny,
toward
inte-
in quarries (16),
where most
will die.
183
history's
of Pericles,
home
answer charges
of sacrilege. Instead he fled to Sparta, where he seduced the
queen. Athens condemned him to death. So did Sparta, for
his double-dealing. Alcibiades promptly defected to the
Persians but turned on them. Fickle Athens restored his
to
lost a battle
wronged maiden.
of a
with Persian
money
and was challenged by the Athenian armada. The Spartans refused to engage in battle, and
sailed into the Hellespont
went on
for
One day
battle,
was
cut. Starving,
paradoxically toppled
by
Athens
a land
fell
power.
The Spartans were urged by their allies to kill all the men
They refused, for they remembered Marathon.
of Athens.
B.C., a
die.
war
was
escape, but he would
sentenced to
Friends offered
the past
may
not be blotted
not break the laws of his beloved polis even though they
Macedonia,
of
who
tells
no need to hurry,"
us, he "quite calmly,
184
it."
...
lost a
Athens
to
He
whose
siren
song of Syracusan
An
Crammed
into
and then
Athens.
Syracusan quarries
HI
ml m
7:
>**?/<
WA&
The World of
Alexander
In a dogged 25,000-mile quest
start
Ends
and the
shadow from the columns
fingers of
When
As darkness
wind-riffled pines,
and
It is
theater, splaying
of the
Temple
enclosure.
let
of the Earth
fell
we
and moonlight
settled
of Apollo.
filtered
through
man
prophecies.
the day
is
He
whom
Apollo speaks.
She refuses, but the youth drags her into the temple.
"My
Alexander
in battle; detail
last,
"thou
art invincible!"
188
S*>\1
LIBYAN DESERT
Siwa
Ammon
LIKE
three continents
and Macedonians
to
tht
m6
mp
of his world,
light
on far corners
He changed
out.
Greek influence
migrated eastward
skill.
He
lusted for
when Mycenaeans
Syria anil Asia Minor
to the
land they
settlers
mi
following the
189
left
a Persian as governor
and Greeks
he
spti
nOmed
be
hi
colonists
who
wake
cities in
Red h
the Footsteps of
In
capaeum.
HIS
EMPIRE
HIS
Intermittent lakes
Town
sites
Major
battles
HAP BY ELIE
nope
city
the 8th
imported half
to
its
Swamps
Elevations in feet
name
STATUTE MILES
SA68AN ANO JOHN W LOTHERS
COLCHIS
in the
MARCH
S
T^nais*
the Footsteps of
In
EMPIRE
HIS
Dry
Intermittent lakes
Town
sites
Major
MARCH
salt lakes
battles
city
Swamps
Elevations in feet
name
STATUTE MILS
SABBAN AND JOHN * LOT
MAP 6V [LIE
GEOGRAPHIC ART DIVISION
ope
COLCHIS
Trapezus
Caspian Sea
ARMENIA
Persia's greatest
army
Gaugamela. 331 B
falls
at
TURKOMAN
Xlssus
the 8th
in the
imported half
to
its
ARABIA
MA
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Arabian Sea
Karachi
V'V-f^V-,
5*j
To rule well,
first be ruled,
Aristotle taught
a royal pupil
*&
That
is all
A new
father of logic,
Aristotle
to
live
"a noble
absorbed
life."
how
"The
flute,"
decided
to
master in the
art of
192
to
The lad
moral
effect;
it is
Aristotle (to
specialties that
too exciting."
whom
still
tradition
stand.
it
Philip's
left).
mosaic (opposite)
signed "Gnosis
made
it."
thunder
still
commanded on
at
the right
of history's
mountain
to
mountain, from
city to city,
all
the
way
his troops turned sullen and mutinous. In time he brought them back to Babylon,
which saw his death and the breakup of his subjugated but unreconstructed
APLES. SCALA
GEOGRAPHIC STAF
SSI
L
*VA1
fl
&8
empire.
He had conquered
all.
He had
spirit
puzzle historians from his time to ours. Conditioned for conquest by Philip,
schooled in logic by Aristotle himself, inclined toward recklessness by his vio-
lent
194
as
perhaps
Thessaloniki,
Nea (New)
of his youth.
horses,
Pella
lion.
In
others,
and hunters
attack a stag.
guide told
"These
soon
may
lie
of
At
Pella's school
he was.
wheat.
had
He
when
We
ture, Philip
"I
own
"O my
thyself, for
Macedonia
Alexander
left
Pella
is
too
on
The prince
kingdom worthy
of
little."
a bright spring
day in 334
B.C.,
rhythms of Macedonia
memory of Alexander,
stately
stir a
whose name
says,
to
adopt
helmet-shaped headdress.
Matrons wear
He never
returned.
to the
Dar-
danelles in 20 days
shore.
From
195
//
As
enemy domain,
across to the
to his general,
Parmenion. Taking the helm of a galley himto Troy. His most treasured possession
self,
he steered south
was
copy of Homer's
ander deemed
it
Iliad,
all
mili-
tary virtue
of rolling
women
In
fields
wheat gleams
like
wind-rippled
rice.
silk,
On
and
graze in
it
the present
town
of Biga.
men
to follow,
Victory
in Asia.
at
still
more than
from Troy, he
soil.
led his
men
to victory at the
197
Persian
fleet,
no immediate
threat.
But the
Alexander determined
power by overrunning
to
maritime provinces.
its
He
turned
many
who
cuts to the
With hardly
we saw
only a
blue glint of the sea that once lapped the stones at our
feet.
198
SUMPTUOUS CENTER
of cults
liberator. Settled
traders, caravaneers,
and devotees
When
temple
mad
in
356
Ephesians built a
treasury
St.
wrote
was "Bank
of Asia."
Gospel
whose "magic
nations."
St.
}ohn
in this city,
Romans worshiped
(below)
but festivals
coast.
It passes through Izmir, ancient Smyrwhere the fragrance of roasting lamb pervades vinegarlanded streets and the swoosh of jets counterpoints the
Alexander marched.
na,
winds past rock coves where fishing vildrowse in the sun and sponge divers spread their
pungent harvest to dry.
We camped beneath cliffs honeycombed with tombs, and
of Izmir the road
lages
my
village."
"*rr
**^*
^P
Soon he signaled me
to a stop,
girl
thought
we were going
He vanished
"Please. Wait."
to a
We entered a courttree
and
oven.
mighty monuments
market."
into the
Coast of wonders
sired brilliant minds,
On
wooden house.
to
Gordium
to ren-
They
slit
200
the
doorstep
fertile
settlers,
Near Eastern
civilizations,
and
science.
monuments
They learned
wooden
to
shape
of marble while
motherland Greeks
in
Spring
Asia Minor's
still
worshiped
shrines.
"mausoleum" at Halicarnassus,
(above).
the
which
the
still
commands
the harbor.
Helios in
Rhodes
in the
On
Pergamum,
successors built
learning.
set to
music of
Sappho burn
on the
isle
of Lesbos. Smyrna,
SCHREIDER
triangle in a circle,
we know
whereupon
Samos gave
his
name
to a
It
still
and
as parchment. In the
2d century
who grew
his
own
willed the
kingdom
III,
poison plants,
to
Rome.
201
<*sh
:\i
S&e
^>
33
women
it
to
filled
Helen.
Amused, the woman opened her kerchiefwrapped lunch and pulled out a loaf of bread. It
was sprinkled with black. "Ayni the same," she
laughed. When dried, the white specks become
the black poppy seeds of the baker.
At Gordium a few mounds and crumbled walls
mark the site where fabled King Midas once held
court.
famous
would be
it
Who-
the young
capital of
Turkey
and trucks
on the new
day the
els
defile
was
it
by
side
side.
stormed
it
in a night attack
and marched on
to
Helen and
In a hovering helicopter
on the
army Alexander
recounted feats of Xenophon
and the Ten Thousand
To spur
Forced
maneuvered the
to fight at Issus,
He
set before
spirit
and
historian, immortalized
looked out
seems,
is
them ancients
now
shelter
in his
II.
On
common
Moslem
farmers.
good.
met cavalry
attacks
Macedonian infantry
drove forward. Alexander and the Companions
charged at the Persian horsemen. The enemy front
collapsed and Alexander raced on toward Darius
himself. The King of Kings turned and fled, leaving
behind his family and harem.
Bristling with spears, the
to
it
march up country."
Xenophon joined 10,000 Greek mercenaries,
hungry veterans of the Peloponnesian War,
who hired on with a Persian army in 401 B.C.
Cyrus the Younger led them from Sardis,
Anabasis, "the
men
Alexander's
battlefield of Issus,
confronted Darius in
his
On
fell
short.
the mountains of
Armenia Xenophon
led.
on them
narrow passes. Snowdrifts mired them;
some went snowblind or lost toes to frostbite.
Xenophon shared their trials, once quit his
horse to march in a grumbling soldier's place.
One day shouts rang from the van:
"Thalassa! Thalassa!" "The sea! The sea!"
Four wintry months from Cunaxa, survivors
embraced each other, goal in sight, their foe
shamed by an outnumbered band of Greeks.
As Alexander's tale ended, his outnumbered
and cheering him
men "crowded round
to the echo bade him lead on without delay."
Fierce tribesmen rolled boulders
in
203
royalty." But of
all
Iliad.
He found
this
key naval
peninsula.
When
him
causeway,
entry, Alexander
to the island.
After seven
of stones
port,
and
all
of his empire.
staff.
"Were
Alex-
204
down
"Fighting
among
the foremost
Braving javelins at
in
Issus,
coastal plain
now
paint
a pass
at his rear,
pawed
His cavalry
the center, with ranks so tight that long spears from the fifth
bristled
beyond the
first.
Trained
to
to
hemmed
in
by
hill
and
sea.
now
thread
guarding
it;
this
fort
rail
X?
>-s>
1t~
*r^
4W
iD
FRANK SCHRElDER. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STAFF. LEFT: PAINTING FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BY TOM LOVEL
When Alexander
fleet,
Macedonians
causeway
started a
the island-city, defenders harried his workers with missiles, fire ships,
who
even frogmen
rams
by a hide
tent,
Tyre
to the
into slavery.
The causeway,
him
the World.
Then he
sailed
down
Helen and
to Cairo.
Egyptian journalist,
jovial
Abd El Hamid, a
we drove toward Alexandria on
wheat, cabbages,
alfalfa,
and
and Moslem occupation, Alexandria's univerand museums drew scholars from all over
Christian,
sities, libraries,
the East.
has lost
Though
its
nessman
still
told us:
"Now
Cairo
is
the
andria
He
sighed with
relief
when
and
We
and
social
207
persuaded
few fathers
to
to school.
of
cooperative.
We
Nor even
We're going
To take us
When
to
away
in a
Alexander arrived
chief priest of
two donkeys.
Ammon,
or
Mercedes.
at
Amun, an Egyptian
Ammon"
deity
whom
Ammon
at
trek,
From
thirsts.
He
desired."
on
Horned Alexander,
whom
Ammon,
Though he never disclosed those anSiwa well satisfied. Word spread that he had
been told he would rule all lands.
Alexander returned to Tyre, rested his troops, then
ander's questions.
swers, he
marched
left
swiftly northeast to
reinforced army.
We
also left
trail
land that today makes Syria one of the few Arab countries
an unsuccessful
effort to
of soldiers. This
The
Iraqi
it
::::::
::::::,
!
'TTTTTTTTTTTT.f'jn^
<***
in a circle
of a right
triangle's legs
*\
new
tell,
marked
city's limits
manned
circumference
When
in
3d century
B.C.
Actual girth
is
24.901.
miles.
around 14
b.c.
Misnamed
New
Over
at
all
a 400-foot
To
came
doctors, athletes,
first
pack warehouses.
It
was
the greatest
emporium
lit
the Mediterranean
and
wonder
of the
world
AD
at
I.
Great
men
learned
Almagest,
and
famed Library with its
about
celestial
symmetry (above).
knew better,
Earlier Greeks
but
moved,
he reasoned, objects cast into
the air would be left behind!
his ideas
Samos deduced
on its axis and turns round
the sun; and Hipparchus of Nicaea divided the
year into 365 V* days. Archimedes (page 101)
studied here, and here came Herophilus, who
dissected condemned prisoners and held that
the brain, not the heart as Aristotle had taught,
is the site of intelligence; Eratosthenes, head
Homeric
texts;
Aristarchus of
Marvelous machines of
of the Library,
hinted
at a
whose description
wind
Euclid,
real work.
"most
(below)
^r
'
&
-$
!
"^
lifts
water to
whose
At Syracuse
in
fields
(left).
212 B.C.
still
Archimedes held
f>
when the
but centuries
of the globe
blows.''
9Mfc_ mM
"Give
and I
me
will
a place to stand,
move
the world.
T*.
A,
mm
J
^^^Hjn
LEFT: HELEN AND FRANK SCHREtDER. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
STAFF. EUCLID'S PROOF. 8TH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT;
BODLEIAN LIBRARY. OXFORD. ASTROLOGICAL CHART. C. 1247;
B1BLIOTHEOUE NATIONALE. PARIS. PTOLEMY FROM BETTMANN
'
211
"My men
have orders
to search
every car
He
we were given
Still,
we
and to
assure that we would have no trouble with the "pacified" Kurds an armed escort
to Faysh Khabur, where Alexander crossed the Tigris to face Darius.
The Persian king's best hope of stopping the seemingly irresistible Macedonians
lay in his scythed chariots. To give them every chance, he leveled the plain near
Gaugamela, east of Mosul. When Alexander saw the freshly prepared ground he
thought Darius had undermined it to trap the Macedonian cavalry.
We climbed a knoll at Gaugamela. Below us flocks of sheep churned the dust into
a brown cloud. To the north lay the long, low hill from which Alexander may have
first seen the campfires of the Persian host. Plutarch describes the voices coming
from the Persian camp as "the distant roaring of a vast ocean."
Alarmed at the enemy multitude, Parmenion proposed a night attack. Alexander
would have none of it. "I will not steal a victory," he countered. He was not boasting. He wanted to break the Persians' fighting spirit in a head-on battle; a surprise
attack might give Darius an excuse for losing. Alexander and his army got a good
have
to
be careful."
night's sleep.
By
all
off balance.
right,
a pass
lack of sleep.
line
Darius countered with cavalry charges, then loosed his chariots, curved
Unable
horses and drivers to the ground. Darius again launched his cavalry, exposing a
gap in his
line.
Ever
alert for
Com-
panions into a wedge and plunged straight for Darius. The Persian king, seeing
chariot
>* T vA
Darius remained free, Alexander meant to pursue him. The fleeing monhad gotten a good start eastward into the mountains, and for the moment
Alexander was content to wait. He marched south to Babylon on the Euphrates,
whose people surrendered almost eagerly, and rested his troops for a month.
We found it difficult to evoke the glory of Babylon from what remains of it today.
Walls that Herodotus described as more than 300 feet high, and so wide that two
chariots abreast could race atop them, have vanished. The glazed tiles that adorned
its buildings glisten in museums across the globe. The Hanging Gardens, another
of the Seven Wonders of the World, are now mud-brick platforms devoid of a
as long as
arch
While
in Babylonia,
pool-like mirages.
For a while
we
paralleled a
when
HONEYMOON PALANQUIN
Bedouin bride
(right).
hides a
Distorted
lead camels.
showdown with
Darius.
When we
we had. The caravan moved on. We folphotographed from atop the moving LandRover. Suddenly the sheik unslung his rifle and posed!
Alexander hurried on toward Persepolis, along the way
We
shared what
lowed, while
and
bullion, gold
drill
rigs sprout
from the
men
wintered in luxury
at Persepolis,
^v^gtr
-*'
^p
more
of
its
any other
city
on Alexan-
they were
first
when
in silent tribute.
much
in-
were already
who continued
331 B.C.
Apadana, or audience
hall,
in
boils to a
and
fury.
we
staircase of the
terest as
to
the dry
which occurred
*- ;
v.S*
the
Afc
7=X<
~N<
^v>
_-
*?fc
rolled
Tigris-Euphrates marshes;
conquer the
rest.
all
Persia,
to
to
come.
swamp
his
high-prowed mashuf.
Arabs bred
Madan make
homes
tains.
When
capital of
some 50,000
talents of
marched
perhaps
who
train,
to Zadracarta,
modern Gorgan,
to
last,
title
own
Alexander
the
Moun-
extraor-
gage
silver
still
but the
and north
steppe,
of the Elburz
Through
glimpsed
a ghostly
horseman
we occasional-
100-mile-long barrier
still
stand,
call it
Alexander's Wall.
217
win
h rites
came here
first
his senses,"
**;
gods with
"Avenge
Greece,'
firebrand.
had restored
to dazzle
"
j-
>
1*
/V
3?
^i?
SE
even
^5
Now
of the king"
kept
"eyes and
power
ears
to revolt.
BRITISH
MUSEU
week some
to
speak the truth." Most trusted was the king's cupbearer who,
like the lion on the gold drinking horn, watched for poison.
Not all kings ruled well. Artaxerxes III slew likely successors
and enraged Egyptian subjects by feasting on their sacred
Apis bull. Yet Persia's legacy lives. We speak her tongue
in words like paradise, pajama, and sherbet;
savor Persian pastimes in polo, backgammon,
and perhaps chess "checkmate" stems from
shah mat, "the king is dead." Though lizards
scuttle about the pillars of Persepolis,
Persia's
monarchy
envoys of
old,
..
To learn what we could about it, we searched out American anthropologist William
Irons in a remote Turkoman settlement. We found him in a yurt and were invited
by
in
we
sat
on
felt
mats around a
filtered
fire
rice,
and drank
tea;
smoke
Bill Irons translated as the father of the family spoke. Looking at the old
man's wispy beard and his eyes reflecting the red embers of the fire, we felt we
were listening to an itinerant storyteller of long ago.
"You know, Alexander had two horns growing from the sides of his head. But he
bread,
want anyone to know about them, so he wore his hair long. Only his barber
knew, and he was sworn to secrecy. But the barber just had to tell. He whispered
his secret into a well. Soon reeds grew from the well, but whenever anyone made a
"
flute from them, no music came out, only the words, 'Alexander has two horns.'
didn't
"What about
the wall?"
we prompted.
He divided his kingdom between them. They were
to separate
them."
As Alexander marched east from Gorgan, he learned that Bessus, the Persian
general who had plotted Darius' murder, had fled to Balkh in what is now northern
Afghanistan. Proclaiming himself King of Persia, Bessus began raising another
army. Alexander saw this as rebellion and set out to nip it.
Driving over Alexander's route, which later became the old Silk Road between
TURKOMAN nomads
tenting near
dye
came from
a scale insect,
in
tomb
at
Pasargadae Alexander
hundreds of knotted
won renown
first
Turkoman steppe to
find
to the
him
223
China and Arabia, we measured our progress by the caravansaries. These fortified
were spaced about every 17 miles, the average distance a camel train could
hostels
Mud
brown
now. Trucks
Road into a torturous
washboard that left us quivering for hours after we camped each night.
Near the Iranian-Afghan border, Alexander learned of a revolt to the south and
postponed his pursuit of Bessus. Speed, mobility, and surprise, three aces in his
travel in a day.
roaring past
ruins in a dusty
spew black
deck of military
tricks,
diesel
224
of another Alexandria.
Silk
He
left a
We know
it
garrison in control
as Herat.
much
as
it
did
when
it
heavy loads.
and
Silk
Africa.
merchants
Nightingales sing in
reel
wooden
wander from
While
at
thread in
cages.
dim
little stalls.
Women
stall to stall,
:>^E
DES
M"
:si_
'
;
r.G-:F-
from sunset's
and Meshed,
Iran.
Trodden by
fame
Dazzled by China's
imperial
Rome
of gold for a
silk,
paid 12 ounces
pound
of
it.
225
west Afghanistan,
we drove
for a
an uprising of a different
away from
slaves.
many within
his Macedonians.
dress.
At the same time he grew distrustful of his old friends. Hearing rumors of
a plot
seen.
We
life,
He decided
it
Khawak
Pass.
pass. But
to try Philotas,
CRUMBLING CITADEL
of Herat
still
guards
Mongol invaders
this ancient
Alexander
when
to
strong
turbulent times
men
stole
women.
IICHAUD. RAPHO
GUM
We
left
to take
a driver
to take
us over the
Khawak
Pass.
mile
227
beyond the
village
endured
all
absence of
... in this
all
tents before
dawn
we began
Soon
to
after
we
started
human
wind-whipped world,
up the foot-wide
trail,
Helen and
had not
conditioned us for following him on foot over a mountain
in midwinter. At 8,000 feet we were gasping for breath. By
noon we reached the snow line. The trail became icy and
treacherous. Before dark we came upon a crude stone hut
with a flat mud-covered roof. We waited at a respectful
realized that a year of following Alexander
by
car
distance while
the
man
of the house.
could
saw
feel
it
whiskered
Mohammad
bridle,
and
we should make
the
day.
snow caused
harmful
to those
who were
fatigued.
It
was
especially
."
.
every step A strain in the knife-edged air, the Schreider party slogs
over 11,650-foot Khawak Pass in the Hindu Kush. Rather than
round the range, Alexander crossed here to cut off the evasive Bessus.
228
^SMm>^i^
,.'
Fatigue
horse,
our lungs.
We
Above
Ever so slowly
foot.
day.
we
tails to
help us along on
And
then the
in the
buz kashi,
round
a pole
and drop
it
in his
goal
".
so.
When
... for
there
was
Two
days
later
we
circle.
in Bactria,
Scions of superb
players
flail at
through
this
230
in
travel
feet.
each
up Alexander's
"Alexander when he
trail
and followed
it
now a mere
surrounded by mud-walled ruins. Bessus had
fled Balkh as Alexander approached, but the Macedonian made it his headquarters for two years while
to Balkh, a once-great
in
caravan center,
village
her" Amm
Amu
Darya.
These hard-riding nomads were the toughest adversaries he had yet faced. We saw a sample of how
tough they might have been at nearby Mazar-i-Sharif,
present capital of Balkh Province. Today, as in Alexander's time, northern Afghanistan breeds horses
Samarkand
men
in
1221,
in
Searching
five
foreigner
may
from Kabul
There the
Blue
is
recalled
radiance of Mazar-i-Sharif's
Mosque
pigeon lands
legend says,
232
palaces,
(opposite). If a colored
in the square,
it
Moslem
to
rafts of tents
No
of his empire.
We
way we
fly
tourist
fields of
wheat descend
to the
size
Kunar River
rifle
work
the land."
M
*S. i:v;
'
*
y*
he replied firmly,
"is not
on the
list."
trail
Bessus,
Macedonians captured
new
leaders
"Come
see
my
it
with
dawn Alexander
flying soldiers."
Roxane,
belonged
who brought
to
artisans
of Islam,"
Helen and
summer
of 327 b.c.
open-hearted, open-faced
communal
grist mill in
remote
nowhere
they
customs found
mountains;
else in these
call to
of far-off Greece.
Kafirs
"Infidels" to Moslem
make wine and in a
neighbors
effigies
to 120,000.
It
included thousands
of Persian
Somewhere
who
Dancers
prestige.
age-old
rite.
and
in
left
an
Tufted helmets
Kafirs
who
still
live in the
'
images
we might
to adorn their
Helen and I exchanged excited glances. Curtius mentions
wooden sepulchers and wine. Was it possible that in this
sea of Islam there remained a tiny island harboring traces of
Greek culture even older than Alexander?
Macedonians
The
We entered Pakistan
left
Nawa
Pass.
Peshawar we
by snow. But we could fly to the town of Chitral, hire
a jeep to Ayun, then walk 18 miles to the Kalash villages.
Like a jagged wound, the Brumboret Valley slashes into
the Hindu Kush. The path that threads its boulder-strewn
sides is too steep even for mules. Here, and in the nearby
south. At
closed
Rumbur
We
crawled along icy ledges and crossed the green Brumboret River countless times on trembling bridges made of
lightly tattooed.
we had
headdresses;
Up
We
by
shells.
We
like those
stared at those
wooden
When we met
Nowhere
we found
Our guide
ander's time.
after question.
Yet they
at Pella
and
the
at
on chairs.
Kamdesh, had
sat
and on coins
translated as
The
we
we
of Alex-
asked question
of Alexander?
They did
not.
fire,
as ancient Greeks
We
on
now
his,
throve in this
earlier great
fertile valley.
Alexander across
we had
tufted black
helmet
this third
pioneer river
developed irrigation,
was
first to
we
in
to
decided
their
war on
a neighbor,
King Porus.
239
fit
where we could
we
reached
vertical
thong-
Descending
to a village-lined valley
every
man
we
noted that
women. This
Men
is
have been
than looking
"Well, the
at
men
about looking
don't
seem
me," Helen
at
to
worry
said.
different."
contested every
hill.
beginning
Minor
to
tell.
in a year
nearly a year
to
capture an area in
Over
spot
we
same
conquest of
Porus
at the
Jhelum River.
240
We
its water diverted and imMangla Dam, part of the largest irrigation scheme in the
world. Swollen by spring rains, the Jhelum that Alexander faced was not even
fordable. He ordered boats brought overland from the Indus. Across the Jhelum
stood Porus with 35,000 infantry and cavalry, and 200 elephants.
pounded by
the colossal
After a series of feints Alexander ferried his forces across the river under cover
survive yearn to return to their families, to enjoy while they yet live the riches
for
them.
...
noble thing,
King,
is to
know when
to stop."
Angered and disappointed by the speech, Alexander sulked in his tent for three
When at last he bowed to the will of his men, they rejoiced. "Alexander,"
they said, "has allowed us, but no other, to defeat him." He led his men back to
the Jhelum to begin the journey home.
days.
huge entourage
downriver
the
The
marching along the banks, the
embarking
started
in
rest
"It
when
all
fall
"to hear
Those Indians
down
their
to
army
own
came
... to
whom
running
also
wild songs."
trip
along the
Jhelum, Chenab, and Indus Rivers took nine months as the army fought from city
into the
when
leader
troops
still
saw
lived
that their
wounded
(left).
him
(one, Bucephala,
honored his
horse).
enrolled
Romans,
first to call
Alexander
the
greeting,
we
return by sea, or follow Alexander overland? Our maps showed few roads, most
of them mere camel tracks. We faced 1,100 miles of almost
to this part of
uninhabited wasteland.
we had
But
In Karachi,
diers broke
stores,
abandoned most
Traveling in March,
terrain
was
fuel,
even
of their booty.
we found
mud
flats,
we camped wherever
Throughout
m mm
4t
?mi
this terrible
1&S
"^
GREATNESS shows
in
Alexander's
water when
he emptied
his
it
on the ground.
He had hoped
depots for his
to set
up supply
fleet, sailing
sank
in
sand,
men
died of thirst.
to Persepolis.
found only
this
a royal
The authors
rocky wasteland
the
Land-Rover
in a flash flood.
out
the whole
it
245
feel of the
we had
largest of several
around were
fields of
We knew
tures,
few phrases of
we persuaded
young man
to
guide us 20 miles
to
faithful
followed a dry
we
Alexander
When
Many
reached
terrain.
we
we headed
Susa also saw the death of Calanus, a fakir Alexander had brought from India.
full
of
539.
ways flamed into open rebellion. He had incorporated Persian units into his army
and now he was sending some of his Macedonians home. His men shouted: "Send
us all home. You can campaign with your father Ammon." They thought Alexander believed himself a god; they
right.
He
execution of the leaders and an impassioned defense of his actions. Then he held
a feast
"ALL here
was
THOMAS
246
J.
w*
-.
He had won an empire covering more than one and a half million square miles.
He had mapped unknown territory, built cities, opened trade routes, stimulated
the exchange of ideas.
to the
for
his
"successors"
fought each other for power. Eventually the empire crumbled into city-states, small
to fuse
at
Susa
bride; 80
became Rome's
ideal.
As Arrian wrote, "Alexander had no small or mean conceptions, nor would ever
have remained contented with any of his possessions
but would always have
searched far beyond
being always the rival, if of no other, yet of himself."
.
Perhaps
own words
no
on
it
was
to his
made Alexander
great.
His
limits of labors to a
to
man
noble enterprises.
... It is a
and
lead
to die,
'
when
Etruscans
tilled
them. Southeast,
me
foothills.
To
these ageless places are Arretium, Cortona, Perusia, in their time the
brown goats
spilling
down
a hillside
hills
Porsena, King of Clusium and chief of the League of Twelve Cities, marched with
the hosts of Etruria. His
all
Horatius on the
wooden
to get as far as
my
town
called
Rome
first glint
of grandeur. Later,
when Rome
burst forth from her Latin hills to conquer the peninsula, the Etruscan cities were
her sternest enemies. But no one withstood the legions forever, and now, in the
land the Etruscans had enriched, only their tombs survive. Nearly
life
comes from
way
their
of death. Small
all
we know
for
'>
%m&
.-.
*-%
wV *
VALVASSORi
aerial
photograph exposes
fields
near Cerveteri.
deep
area where
skirts
excavated
253
; ri
sites
of the
worn
(a
sparse yield
may
soil).
Like gigantic treasure maps, the photographs led archeologists to lost Etruscan "islands." But could a tomb's con-
tents
Lerici of
Then
size.
a drill bores
down
Vigorous
games come
game
a sack
and
flails a
quick
worth opening.
who
light-equipped peri-
hurling,
is
by
man
savage
of games,
Herodotus
their origin.
He
said
chariots RACE
was
to find a
new
man
witnesses
it
which
Those whose lot
across a frescoed
lots as to
From their
games evolved
a fun-filled hereafter.
duels at funeral
255
From
po
a Tyrrhenian toehold
Spina
Piacenza
Bologna
Fiesole
Arn
UMBRIA
Arezzo
Volterra
Cortona
ETRURIA
Populonia
fl
RuseHae
Orvieto.
Adriatic Sea
'Perugia
Chiusi.
.Vetulonia
>.
SABINES
'<
Volsinii
Vuk:
Tarquinia* Falerii*
Elba
SAMNfTES
LATINS
Veil,
Cerveteri*
Rome
CAMPANIA
AlbaLonga
Corsica
Capua*
Cumae*
.(viola
'Naples
Tyrrhenian Sea
.Salerno
Paestum
^ Q.
Heraclea*
1
Twelve
cities
of the original
Etruscan League
in
O
P
T
O
B.C. shelters
pre-Etruscans in central
STATUTE MILES
LISA BlGANZOLI
DRAWN BY
Italy.
GulfofTaranto
LUCANIA
red
Called Villanovans by
archeologists (for the discovery
site
tilled,
Urns for
their
cremated dead
thatched
mud
hamlets
jars
copper,
the
plied to
tin,
Magna
Graecia. Their
commemorated by
came
to the
Some
times.
came from
tale
the north or
were native
to the region.
traditions of antiquity
of
modern
we do know
Many
We cannot
by piecing together
in ancient
and
know
is
the Tyrrhenian
cities
upon
archeology.
that a
new,
Etruria in
archeologists, myself
by
We
speech seems
to sputter
with
clicks
Stone,
word
for
may
still
our "person."
it.
Alas,
we
257
*%
-v.
>
Jgtr
T%t
'"'f
fl|Py
Vi
Pfcr.
"most blessed
of
all
plains,
and
fruitful hills,"
Campania
of writing
Romans
we have
translated
in the south.
Blessedly
to clog
258
with
+?
"
"land of calves,"
and golden
cities
toil,
GENTLE SMILES,
lively gestures
weave
reclining on a couch. Tender pose atop a sarcophagus expresses a wish that the
marnage
last
but a
unto eternity. Ancient Greeks would recognize dress and hair styles,
man and
.'- CERTUIV
*~jjf*
_^_
-*"
we have
homes and
hewed
homes
Whatever
as did
its
their cities.
all
On
around the
left,
he plows
to a
furrow
up
by the plow. Wherever a road will enter, men lift the plowshare and carry it across the width of the roadway, breaking
follow him, carefully throwing inward the clods turned
network of
streets
on
Beyond the
(a
The
GEOGRAPHIC
streets
streets
a cypress-shaded sanctuary
sidewalks cloaked
men
Such
woman
daintily
lifts
her
festivals
soothsayers
in
artist
this year.
262
seemed wild
Romans, tame
to austere early
lounging
to
where
who
to
read portents
seer reads
omens
on bronze mirror
(left,
in a liver
above);
model
by novices.
Roman
B.C.,
architect Vitruvius as
"heavy-headed,
low, broad." Statues of terracotta (baked earth) or gilded bronze adorn the rooftree,
Some
name to Tarchon,
plowman turned up a baby with
the gray hair of an old man and the gift of prophecy. Tarchon summoned the
princes of Etruria to record the sayings of the earth-born child. From these spring
city
overlooking the
sea.
Book
of Entrails,
liver of a sacrifi-
cities,
the
263
TT,
meaning
to
could
tell
me what
it all
hills,
thought,
"An
Etruscan priest
meant."
By
b.c.
to
hills far
man
summer
sail
dusk, to gather sardines and mullet. In this timeless town you can
still
enjoy what must have been the feastday dishes of Vulci and Tarquinia: pork livers
simmered with bay leaves, roast pork flavored with rosemary, and fish stuffed with
the same pungent herb. It grows on the nearby hills, tinting them with the pale-
all
living
marten, cat, duck, and dachshund-like dog shared afterlife with the dead,
who
opened tombs,
DS.
air often
5TH CENTURY
turned bones
BC;
When
diggers
DAN McCOY. 8LAC* STAR. LEFT TOMB OF THE RELIEFS, dTH CENTURY
B C
SCALA
265
IT
2&
GOLD FIBULA. VULCI. 7IM CCNTUKT IC, BRITISH MUSEUM. LONDON
B.C.;
life," as
Lawrence put
it,
to plunge.
its
tail
breathed
Arezzo
in
life
into
it;
in
Etruscan tombs:
Greek
style,
were
and
the
art
gleams
in a
brooch decorated
modern-art look.
B.C.; CHIUSI
MUSEUM
n^C3M
f
cT^
-
\
l \
ma.
Jri
a>
*i
MERLE SEVER
GEOGRAPHIC STAFF. LEFT: TOMB OF HUNTING AND FISHING. TAROUINIA, 6TH CENTURY
B C
SCALA
and sea enriched the Etruscans, who mined the craggy isle
and fished Tyrrhenian waters (left). Seabirds and dolphin cavort
about a boat protected by lucky eye on prow. As of old, Elba's ore goes to
mainland smelters; moderns draw iron from slag the ancients discarded.
GIFTS OF earth
of Elba
and there
is
ample room
for a brave
an ancient
salt
Romulus,
Rome.
by Etruscan
rite of
now
Castel Gandolfo,
Rome,
summer
tale.
Alba Longa,
is
of the original
their huts
their
at the
with
269
Free with
that
his
that
Rome's
Etruscan kings in their 100-year reign put their stamp on the city's history. Draining the
new
swamps between
the Capitoline
life:
and Palatine
Hills,
Etruscans created a
and lawcourts, the senate house, and the citizens' assembly. Here beat the heart of
a city that would become the center of an empire and the ancient world.
Before the Etruscans came, Romans sat on bare hillsides to watch chariots race
on the great course called the Circus Maximus. Etruscans ringed the track with
wooden
bleachers.
On
monument,
Temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; we can still see its cutstone foundations under the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The temple's statue of
Jupiter gave the Romans their first image of a god.
the 210-foot-long
xr*
Other Etruscan symbols would endure in Rome. When Tarquin the First conquered Veii and Caere, Dionysius of Halicarnassus says, these royal Etruscan cities
sent him their regalia: a golden crown, an ivory throne, an eagle-topped scepter, a
purple, semicircular cloak, and bundles of axes
toga; the axes
and
rods.
lictors
The arrogance
When
of Tarquin the
Hill outpost
fell;
he perished there or
Roman honored by
swam
to safety,
at the
city.
city.
Brave
he lived on in
Roman
fate,
hearts.
but whether
He was the
first
fierce
Samnite
275
am
B.C.,
"What a battlefield
Rome and Carthage!"
he declared:
leaving
to
THE
271
>
SYMBOL OF ROME,
glory of Etruscan
Myth
says
art,
Mars fathered
by
its
"So perish
When
all
who
ever cross
my
walls!"
Isle of the
B.C..
A.D.;
PALAZZO
DEI
CONSERVATORI, ROME
tribe
cities in the
Po
Magna
had
Gulf of Taranto,
summoned
Valley.
Rome,
every Etruscan
of
Naples
to the
Rome. He fought in vain, though he won two costly battles (henceforth no soldier
would cheer a pyrrhic victory). In the dazzle of Rome, the Etruscans flickered out.
For centuries the Forum they had built would witness the pomp of processional
triumphs awarded consuls victorious in war. In purple toga, with crown and scepter, a mortal turned god for a day would ride in a chariot to the temple on the
Capitoline. His face would be reddened with minium so that he looked like a
terracotta image of a god. These trappings of Tarquin and his gods would gird
Rome's armies as she turned to face a master warrior, sworn to destroy her.
>
L^V
By
Gilbert Charles-Picard
The World of
Hannibal
HE CHILD
From
made purple
a shellfish they
dye; from a
b.c. thrust
westward
and
Italy
(Magna
"New
One
City."
them
Romans rendered
it
They
called
it
"Carthago" and
its literature,
nothing.
We
Hannibal, "the man for whom Africa was too small a continent," looks out upon Italy's Lake Trasimeno,
scene of a mighty Carthaginian victory over Rome: Tom Allen, National Geographic staff
read
275
nq
a
few impressions by
with
its
its
"little rat").
Romans
He shuffles
onstage, earrings dangling, followed by aged slaves doubled under trashy wares.
you
there,
without a belt!"
to
recovering from the First Punic War, fought for the domination of
To challenge the
swift,
bronze-prowed galleys
it is
said,
on
of Carthage,
beached Punic
vessel.
trained
They met
S2m
Sicily.
Rome had
Mylae,
Sicily, in
260
B.C.
Unclad
them into position thundered Roman soldiers to redden the decks. Such battles
humbled Carthage. In 241 b.c. the city bowed to Rome.
The Carthaginians gave up footholds in Sicily they had struggled to maintain for
five centuries since they first collided there with Greeks. Moreover, the 23-year war
drained the treasury. Their unpaid mercenary army mutinied and led into savage
rebellion the Libyan peasants
for its life,
Rome
who worked
to
end the
One Hundred and Four, turned the city defenses over to Hamilcar Barca,
young general who had led the mercenaries and knew how to defeat them.
the
a
legionary sets grappling hook and leaps clear; soldiers rush across to win a sea battle with land weapons.
STANLEY MELTZOFF
HftL'^t/
>*
V
it <
him with
new regime
jurists
and
hair-splitting officials
irregularities
Himilco, once victor over the Greeks in Sicily, had been dressed in a slave tunic
to confess his sins at the temples.
hung
for
was pinned on
that
same
who had
rallied to
foes
of the People,
278
New
fanned out
Gades and
build new ones. Legend deifies
to
expand ports
like
on a
hill
in
hill's
Greek
279
Now
in city squares
and temple porticoes one heard philosophers trained in Greece praising the
advantages of a wise monarchy even, perhaps, a popular government.
M
m
Polybius,
HE historian
h
a
bac
backbone of
fact
who watched
about the
Hannibal
himself told of his oath half
Hanni
described
a century after
he took
its politics.
it;
our shadowy
As Director of Tunisian Antiquities for many years, I watched
the past" weave each small discovery into the fabric of knowledge.
the details of daily life, I must often rely on informed conjecture.
its
fulfillment.
to
vision of Carthage.
"detectives of
But to picture
when
I
a boy's
vow
imagine the father in the study of his house, probably on Mount Megara,
Rome 's
lUI
foVf
^r
today's Sidi
bou
in a healthful climate:
by
sirocco
From
The
Greek
as
of the wealthy,
after its
seemed disinclined
to sting.
in Carthage,
Hamilcar viewed Cape Bon, 65-mile spur of the Atlas Mountains pointing toward
Sicily.
at
Cape Bon
to
on pink cement.
homes
that
tell
its
us much.
to
site
street
galleries.
stuccoed altar received offerings to the family gods. Benches lined the court and
vestibule for the comfort of visitors; a large reception
Middlemen and
room with
walls painted
V.
own
products.
to imitate rare
(borrowed
it,
many
like so
a frieze
floors
showed
talons
its
except
bathroom opened
off
heaving
at the prey's
one side
its
flesh.
brought for a
of the city.
at
visit
by her
In the
flat
at
and
Hanno,
a terracotta
resemble a nipple.
cakes, light
little
of cloth
outside
to the
face.
a griffin
leonine body
for the
oily, in a terracotta
Some baked
their duties.
wet from
still
open
fire,
Conscious of the
Now
to
them confidence
Moreover,
of her
politics.
own
it
was
affairs.
for
an
He
attack.
He was
would remain
a vassal
far
with
JL
its
common
Punic War,
to
let
her thrive.
showed
Rome forever. To make war
left
clearly
and no
fleet at all.
Rome
lay in Spain
mercenaries in action.
had been
hope
of the
First
and wide,
and tributary
his best
city.
harrowing
M^
ran the
off,
echoed
that Carthage
who
Rome,
in thought.
The rape
remained deep
What
And
anywhere
in
else in the
western Mediterranean.
from
the hills or Greeks sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar to prowl the Atlantic coast.
Carthaginian marts echo in souks of Tunis stall-lined alleys where smiths din,
perfumes sweeten the air, and memories stir of slave trade. Vanished Carthage lies under
suburban sprawl. Sightseers can reach it by tram, disembarking at Hannibal Station.
ROBER1 MOORE
282
Bt
BBMMM^MI
.^^m
* *
%$n
4
*
* *
*
<
Hi
tJsStKiJ
9
:
r
:
vfc
-'
"
to give
In Spain,
He
raise an
could
like Alexander's.
see
the farthest
all
the
He would
of
estates.
had so reduced
of Carthage
that
he did
little
free time.
his
powers
one
of the councils
Roman
own
five
could
remain under
to quit the
who
did not
Perhaps Hannibal
He would have
uniform short
clasped
at
was
to
make
attire.
of his
For he
//r
-m
and sloping
s
toward the ground, so
down and
pit filled
with
fell
fire."
when
that
placed thereon
HEART-SEARING RITUAL
appease Baal
firstborn to
in
time of
crisis.
through the
of the idol
Those who
Hammon
Babies "pass
hands
fire" as sloping
roll
284
SffS noble
Hammon,
on the
stele that
marked
its
ashes.
PAINTING BY PETER V
BIANCMI. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STAFF ARTIST. OPPOSITE: STELE FROM CARTHAGE, 4TH CENTURY B.C.. BARDO NATIONAL MUSEUM;
W ROBERT MOORE
protector of the city, received from this terrible Canaanite deity the promise
of blessings to
make them
The
little
cargoes.
The anguish of watching without visible emotion while flames reduced their baby
to a tiny pile of
Now
to give
felt
them
a sense of regeneration.
in themselves
some
of the
awesome
285
it*?!
1
force
The common
admitted
folk of
to the
Later ages
their city
through so
many
perilous centuries.
to
be
grew
skeptical of the
monstrous
tales of infanticide.
But in 1921
Tunisian
officials
a slender
tombstone
off a stele
with a child in his arms. Diggers probed the spot where the prowler had found
and some 25
of the port
feet
of small steles
young
child.
286
on the
built
razed Carthage.
in the shape
and thrones all Punic monuments. Under nearly every one was
amid
a necropolis
as are
all
Hammon,
this is dedicated.
."
.
sacrificial dedications:
it
Queen
Elissa, in legend,
on a flaming pyre
to
leaped
win favor
J.
medicine through
of the urns
this tophet.
be sent
to
them
Some asked
We
They named
King
Molech."
who sought
evil spirits
from
to
living
ward
Romans
left
the place
dancers
fire to
to clear this
infants'
had
(whom
where the
city's traditional
founder,
off
and dead.
its
tabernacle,
and the
hill called
the Byrsa
was crowned
287
lu
by the Temple
of
Eshmoun,
many-columned
its
by
portico reached
little
a stairway
chapel.
M HE first
F
of Hamilcar's ancestors to settle in Carthage, five generations after
m Elissa,
Elissa had passed along to his descendants his reverence for the god Baal
Shame
lamem, Lord
of the Skies,
and
Shamem
human
ever since. Even priests could not explain the differences between Baal
and Baal
Hammon
sacrifice.
to
be ready
at Baal
Shamem's temple.
sacrifice
Now
he called
bull
and
288
ram
brow
MATRON OF CARTHAGE
rouges with
below with
and
(below,
left)
When Rome
Carthaginian
tresses to
women
sacrificed their
make catapult
slings.
Men
as well as
women
jingled with
shells
\M;
T?&$.
m
.*.^'fc
-iijx*
and
One
tree
them with
fattens
may
oil.
and
own
branches.
Mago, wrote
28-volume
treatise
crops.
Latin
the
potters
like those of
town
lies
"*<$
want
"I
father.
go with you."
to
He
picks
up the
ig
child,
and
sets
They
him on
rump.
his horse's
down
the
hill
from Megara.
and occasionally
War
built thatched huts here, and the road passes them smelly shacks around
which naked children, black and white, play with emaciated dogs.
To seaward, red cliffs tower over the road clay quarries used by potters and
Donkey caravans
brickmakers.
or
new
molded
Hamilcar prods his mount past and into the road through Carthage's northern
necropolis
where
One
grave shafts.
a
stiff statues,
little
and busts
the Carthaginians
in
mourning,
Beyond
will
mark the
it.
men with
Kilns
trinkets,
god
purchased by families
eternity.
where
women
children
swarming
Then come
the workshops
wares
to
be
sold.
to the
crowd.
about the party, calling out blessings and praises and shouting curses on Rome.
good
up
and
to
and
his son.
alley
a fat purse!
cross a courtyard
They
for safety.
Now
making way
priest cannot
complain of their
do belong
gifts.
He
has donned
291
at
his vestments:
Now
he
sits
thousand years
old,
he finds
and he pauses
curses
upon
in his reading
now and
then to heap
accompanied by
and an
official
sacrificer, flute
observer
who
the ruling'ftobles.
He
know
and harp
players,
word
spy for
that
might
beardless YOUTH,
and so
discredit him.
Shrewdly, Hamilcar consults a stone tablet listing the fee for each
pays the
official the
sacrifice,
required amount for a bull and a ram, and sees that his
The spy's
official duties
end
here.
glare
from
Now
the
words
by harp and
flute,
Young Hannibal understands little of the rite but stands firmly beside his
The sacrificer's ax flashes twice. Attendants carry away the two victims.
No
consumed
at
the
altar.
The
priest leads
is
a burnt offering
all
the flesh
father.
must be
the sanctuary, to enter into the presence of his god. Unlike Egyptians and Greeks,
Phoenicians
What
They look
But
feel
it
statues they admit to their temples represent only external aspects of a deity.
set
on
the
work
alike
at
of the smith
it
it is
through the
vow
a transparent stone
it is
considered
but hesitates to
move
it.
into the
hand and
leads
him
of hatred.
is at last
clear to Hamilcar.
',
'
In the Footsteps of
Hannibal
Tom
to
keep a
vow of hate.
jxVi mi*
FvU
V
jflgyT -
liH
ft
BM|^B[jB|r
UP,
'
i
*
*j|L
Rome
and build
a pyre
I'
A
I
<h
r-
'
and
Battles
STATUTE MILES
DRAWN BY LISA BIGANZOLI
GEOGRAPHIC ART DIVISION
Phoenician)
War
begins.
FAIN
^/
\7
Baleairic
/zMk 7
-WV
boy in training
mus
ust hit bread to eat it.
fa/a,
Islanders
joined Hannibal.
219 BC v
Sagunto?*
Saguntun
ValenciJ
BALEARIC ISLANDS
Denia
On
Elche .
Helike
Murcia*
Cartagena
Carthago Nova
and
coiffure
of
the Iberian
"Lady of Elche."
where Hamilcar
to light
Age Europe,
Roman
general told his troops as they braced for battle on the plains of the Po. "All
colonial capital of
New Carthage
in Iberia
with the baggage of war and the colony's silver to pay for more. At their head rode
Hannibal, who would never see this city again.
From here
father,
"This
is
our oldest
street,"
my
me down
a cobbled, tranquil
lane.
street
curtained door-
at
"And
ing
me
museum.
about lay
All
mines
that conjure
down
wit-
wooden
pulleys haul
woven
in
esparto,
the
like a
Roman
island in
the soft
warmth
of Carthage.
Now
name
And
the skies
still
flash
mem-
Barca Thunderbolt.
When
golden bonfire of
and leaped into
treasure
it.
own
houses
Hannibal's catapults,
accurate
to
maximum
up
to
60 pounds.
Romans
later rebuilt
Saguntum's
298
Sagunto,
I
erect.
When
Hannibal's
men
struggled
up
it,
writes the
hill.
Roman
falls,
Han-
falters.
it,
Rome's
war
a 17-year
their
amid
ruin.
As
its
towered
homes
victors
300
"men under
pledged
to kill
them
vow," for they
themselves
if
Northward they
past the port named
their leader
trekked,
fell.
who founded
it-
Spanish commerce.
Our Lady
in 1493.
of Carthaginian rule,
Rome
years.
wmfiiimmmmw'
m
%
l
i
^%^
:*^\
v-
//
1
1
i
to
i
&l
**?*
Mr
<3*r
^K^
Carthage
for
Rome
will call
it
Hannibal's
11,000
at Saguntum, he cashiers
army of heavy baggage and siege
machines. He must travel swift and light, for no longer does
he parade through an Iberia pacified by the Barcas.
His white-robed Numidian cavalrymen probe ahead.
10,000 others.
He
strips the
bridle, lion
when
Atop these
the
Iberia.
whinny
grandly
garbed mahouts, called Indoi by the ancients, who associated
elephants with India. But the drivers, like their charges,
come from
sit
Africa.
vanquished
An
band
battle.
of long-haired
to
him
as they
Barcelona that lures tourists with timeless Iberian delights: sun and song.
JOHN LAUNOIS. BLACK STAR OPPOSITE. UPPER: HOWELL WALKER. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STAFF
303
like a
balcony on the Mediterranean, stood in his day as the Carthaginian citadel of Tarchon. But soon after he marched by,
the
Romans came
campaign
to
of triumphant
submission
Rome, eloquently
to the
to the invaders.
very name;
around 230
teeming city where traffic jams
to peel away the centuries and
dressed blocks
tell
Barcino. In this
it
tried
its
city
men
city
massive foundation
Glitter
pillars pierces a
hides Hannibal's
trail
Roman
mosaic.
in a
deep cork-oak
forest overlooking a
parties
But not
all
between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, Hannibal lost thousands of men in unchronicled skirmishes and desertions.
Near the Pyrenees lay another tempting source of supply
a great market where his army could stock up on lamps
and lamp oil, tent cloth, sandals, rope, hide pouches,
amphoras, cooking pots, and woolen cloaks for the Alps.
In Ampurias I walked in Hannibal's time. He would have
known it as Emporion, a Greek port and international trade
center established centuries earlier.
at the water's
edge.
Its streets
Its
stone jetty
still
stands
at
sharp
GREEK emporium on
Iberia's shore,
Roman
villas, early
Its skilled
into cloth.
churches.
grass.
304
>*
As
tented
here,"
my
Roman town,
an encampment caught
eye.
young men from England, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Spain.
He climbed out of a newly excavated Roman house and held up a roof tile.
"When you get down to these," he said, "you know you've reached the floor,
not the roof. It caves in, you see, and the rest falls on top of it. The good stuff is
usually near a wall. My favorite find was a chicken egg unbroken!"
He told me he'd keep an eye out for elephant bones. By all reports, though,
Hannibal had all his elephants with him as he headed toward the Pyrenees.
305
A natural border, the sea-to-sea mountain chain walled off Iberia in Hannibal's
day and, since 1659, has separated the Spanish and French heirs of Iberians and
Celts. Following Hannibal's traditional route through a 950-foot pass, I crossed
into France at Le Perthus.
visitors
When
Though
officially
fiercely
independent Celtic
summoned
when
were few, when the rake of wave on pebbly beach was the only sound,
I thought of Hannibal at the Rhone. Scion of Phoenician mariners, lifelong dweller
by the sea, he now must venture into a rocky realm masted by mountain peaks.
villages
^^k
had seen
like a
dome
French
call
<**-
Van Gogh
And from
here
St.
Trumpeting
in terror,
Hannibal's elephants
raft the
Lured onto sod-topped
Rhone
ground,
Trained
to terrorize
amok
and crush his own men; the mahout then had to kill
the beast by hammering an iron wedge into an eyeball.
Carthage, which stabled 300 and gave them prisoners to trample,
portrayed the big-eared African species on coins. One coin,
linked to Hannibal's time and place 217 b.c. in Italy shows
an Indian species. Scholars suggest that his herd of 37 included
in battle
DRAWING BY WILLIAM
H.
307
Four days' march from the sea, somewhere near today's Aries, Hannibal paces
the river's western shore. Diplomacy ends here. To cross, he must draw his sword
against the Volcae, a Celtic tribe too wild for blandishment.
every
craft
He
has commandeered
rafts,
hide-hulled boats.
Infantrymen begin boarding. Cavalrymen lead horses into the swift waters.
Across the river, howling Volcae warriors brandish their shields and spears.
for a column of black smoke. Some of his men,
up the river the day before, have already crossed. As their smoke signal
up in the morning air, he leaps into a boat and orders the others launched.
The
to
as a
men
of
from piney
and
crags.
unaware they
Most
Some plunge
mahouts. But
the elephants
all
are
freeze in terror as
make
it
drowning
across.
Numidian
scouts intercept
them and,
in a savage skir-
Roman
forces reach
off pursuit.
Italian
fortresses
Romans
knowledge
little
Han-
secure,
felt
For
my
by
nature" the
guide
of the British
and
still
is
debate
of Polybius.
Elephants, he sheds
Gavin,
to the
the
Roman
Mediterranean since
Rhone and
the
Drome
River,
river.
"Hannibal's Rock,"
later.
He was
my
host Albert
pointing up to
it
Gueymard
on the Drome.
Flat,
told
me
street of Sail-
red
Roman tiles
A Roman
milestone,
church.
its
town
called Hannibal's.
309
^ F3
'.
and
I saw
famed
me from
grape press to bottler, where the bubbly, crystalline wine, filtered 16 times,
,*#
and pressed
by M. Perminjat.
"All must be perfect," he said, "the
gulped the
wine rested
faint aroma
where fermenting
hung
in the
GORGE
'&L
damp
"Bad wine," sniffed M. Perminjat. Small wire cages protected the light
when faulty fermentation burst a bottle. Ancient army wine was
notoriously sour, almost vinegar. The French would call it vin aigre. Did a shattered amphora, I wondered, inspire Hannibal's wine assault on the Alpine rock?
Beyond Saillans, darkening clouds grayed distant peaks. Below me, streams
roiled through a narrow, misty pass. Above glowered the sheer walls of the Gorges
des Gas. Tall spruces guarded the canyon's rim. Rain blurred the world of today,
and the past shimmered into view.
As Hannibal's men file along a ledge in a narrow defile the Gorges des Gas,
by Sir Gavin's reckoning Celtic mountaineers swarm down the precipitous
slopes. The "sure-footed" raiders, in Livy's account, drive soldiers and pack
animals "tumbling over the edge
like falling masonry." But, rallied by Hannibal, the army fights through, seizes a Celtic settlement on the heights, and pushes
eastward. Natives soon reappear, proffering olive branches and wreaths, tokens of
peace. They offer to guide Hannibal to the higher Alps.
Three days later, the column, strung out in a long line "on a narrowing track,"
threads another gorge. Suddenly, boulders rain down from the heights. Natives
spill out of crevices and clefts in the walls of the defile. Half the army, led by
Hannibal and the elephants, slashes out of the trap and makes a stand at a towering
outcrop that commands the wide valley beyond. Soon after dawn, the survivors of
the nightlong battle stagger out to join their comrades at the rock.
Sheets of rain veiled the road ahead. I slowed the car to an elephant's plodding
pace. Rain-sluiced rocks tumbled from the cliffs above. Golfball-size hailstones
sheared small branches off trembling trees. The muddy Guil River frothed hundreds of feet below my cliff-hanging road. I wound through a high-walled cut in
the valley called Queyras local dialect for "Huge Crag." When I emerged from
air.
311
the gorge, the rain stopped. Athwart the valley ahead glis-
you madman..,
over your savage Alps"
"On,
on,
Juvenal
Queyras.
that
I
may have
twisted
some 20 miles
farther
to a
mined
to
become
vertical.
The remnant
of the road
ended
'
on a
up
shelf
tilted
hanging hundreds
dim path
Hannibal's final
me. Upon that vast and
sea where Hannibal and
barrier
peaks
line of
snow-streaked
now towered
Hiking
reached a broad,
before
above the
I
saw
flinging
Beasts flounder in
drifts.
Ranks
V.
/^
'
mSV
vr\m
Monte Viso
Co/ </e
/a
Traverse fte.
k,
a n c e
Va
! I
^*>
guarded by
and
led
him
to the
Italy's 12,602-foot
Somewhere
Traversette,
in that wall
Sir
snow-clogged Col de
la
Traversette,
was
the
a notch
Col de
la
trail
marked by
cairns,
by
a corridor, floored
on
despair, Hannibal
to halt, pointing to
paved ledges
"
until the
steep, ice-
315
How
the troops
(I
marveled
too,
after
fire
The
316
tribe's
name
lives
his
army
finally
In a cavalry
was outflanked
and severely wounded. His young son saved his life, according to Livy. Years later the lad would again meet Hannibal
and earn the name Scipio Africanus.
The elder Scipio regrouped near Placentia (Piacenza
today), where the Romans were raising a stronghold against
rebellious Celts even as this new nemesis crossed the Alps.
Rome's other consul, Sempronius Longus, rushed to Scipio's
aid. "The whole military strength of Rome and both consuls," Livy wrote, "were now facing Hannibal." The armies
some 40,000 Carthaginians and new Celtic recruits against
a slightly larger force of Romans and their allies drew up
on either side of the Trebbia River.
Hannibal, scouting the battlefield, finds on his side of the
river a steep-banked, bramble-lined stream.
He
orders his
men
warming
feint
provokes a
Hannibal had expected, goads Sempronius. The consul rashly orders all the troops into the freezing river to pursue the
Here
in Cisalpine
Gaul the
still fertile
today.
foot.
hits
Few
fall
where he has
new
allies.
Though
317
a variety of
wine
him
to
move
Turin.
q
^
on.
in pitch-sealed barrels,
Col (tela
Triversette
Monte Viio
..
12.602 feet
now marched
first
winter in
Italy.
army traversed
paths today unknown and descended
obvious"
routes, the
the
Apennines on
into the
immense
men
to
high
baleful
swamp
of Hannibal's day.
Rome
its
Roman
Etruscan
allies.
army
at
so close to the
ROGER-VIO
had chosen
to fight.
men
The Romans
But Hannibal, luring them on, chose
in pursuit.
318
to Virgil,
Viso,
to a rivus, or
Roman-Carthaginian
Po Valley hams fed Rome;
its sheep yielded fine wool for
rugs and towels, coarse wool
for slave garments. Hannibal and
In days of
rivalry
it.
Hasdrubal
fell
Genoa
in
203
for Carthage
B.C.,
and
took
sail
died.
Zama
202 BC
Milan
Roman
men ambush
the
Genoa
Spoleto
Spoletium^-v
Horsemen of Hannibal
butcher
"^
Romans trapped
at Trasimeno's shores
Celtic warrior loots
fallen
Roman
at Cannae,
bloodiest battle
of Hannibal's War.
j^ome
Hannibal's dash
Rome
to
BC
211
rn
VolW
v
r
Naples<
annaeX
216 8 C
CAMPANIA
APULIA
iT
Brindisi
Brundisium
"Forward,"
to "all the
cries
.Taranto
Tarentum
Hannibal,
Battles
ir
STATUTE MILES
DRAWN BY LISA BIGANZOLI
AND ISKANDAR BADAY
GEOGRAPHIC ART DIVISION
Crotone
Croton
Called
home
to Carthage.
Hannibal
of the war
"first-rate authority."
SICILY
tica
Carthage
Syracuse*
its
Margherita.
here.
"Whenever
One
of the fliers
the
said, "clouds
when
covered the
to
pray
at
city.
patroness,
St.
nebbia
is
only a fog.
Our
it
to Africa,
where
it
adorned
his grave.
SPANISH SWORD,
-THE INTREPID"
deadly
trap.
mouth
of the pass.
The
rest
now
lies half a
mile away.
decoy detachment at
of his men he posted on the hills that curved around
end
of the
trail.
left
Roman army
after
them, past
hid.
"By the
battle-cry
>> *
^r>
I INTREPID
MbIi
.^.'*i
The
villa
serves as a
home and
is
Sanguineto,
a personal
named
museum
for the
for Prof.
Teodorico Moretti
me
Hannibal (page 274) gazes out on the lake, and into a man-made
villa. "Decades after the battle," he told me, "Romans carved
out this shrine to Flaminius, I believe, and cremated the bones they found." He
showed me relics he had sifted from the ashes: a Celtic spearhead, a Roman lance
tip. He handed me a heavy iron arrowhead. "This," he said, "killed a Roman."
where
a bust of
>
r.v
4.-*
'
'
** *
tium (Spoleto),
prepare for an assault on Rome, 60 miles to the southwest. Whatever his plans,
to
to Livy.
Han-
loss,"
men
killed every
by
Roman man old enough to bear arms. They carried off slaves,
and so much wine that they bathed their horses in it. Burdened
Now
Italy
first
fell
upon
the patchwork of
Roman
colonies
and
Campania.
formed the map
and vineyards
of
of
became a chessboard for a grim game that would last 14 years. Hannibal's
opponent was Quintus Fabius Maximus, dubbed "the Delayer" because he
"The vineyard
is
of first importance"
Cato the Elder
farming how
to test for
watered
under a foreman,
to rise
who
last to
auctioned
go
to
"first
bed,"
to
among
later did
Cato,
Hannibal,
sail
from Rome."
323
avoided a direct fight and aimed to wear out his foe by harassment. Slipping away
from the Romans, Hannibal recrossed the Apennines and spent the winter of 217
There he plotted a move to sweep two Roman armies off the board.
The sky rumbled and flashed the name of the Barcas as I drove down the narrow
road to the epic battlefield of Cannae. Twilight darkened into night, and the mood
of battle seemed to prowl the ranks of gnarled olive trees. As darkness hid the field
from my eyes, I was left with the specters of my mind. Now I could see the battle,
in Apulia.
324
fall
(right).
in,
to
PAINTING BY PETER
V.
the trap"
AFTERGLOW OF BATTLE
lingers
in
22 centuries ago,
"Roman
soldiers
as once
walked
at
night the
Roman
to
to
Cannae the
including 80
Roman
senators,
custom of cremating
He
buried
Rome
Capua,
in Italy.
died in a pyre of
war
in 1083.
enemy
thirsts
Romans had
what men
will call
glitter
On
On
drawn from
wielding
Roman
Roman
front of the line, their long, coiled hair their only helmets.
Whirling long-range
advancing Romans.
tally
Though mor-
rides on.
drives like a
wedge toward
the
fall
back.
Now
all
a full
fruits
horn
upon
Hannibal
Apulia.
in
and hung
as
(salt).
Romans
pastry.
raised chickens
severed, hamstrung
ing
men clamber
On
men
render
at
lie
later
Hungering
for
more booty,
will take
days you
march on
ever echo: "You know,
exults:
"Within
328
five
will not
victory."
1[ke hannibal, turned westward from the horrors of Cannae to the charms of
J Campania, where farmers still delight in recalling how their bountiful land
I
"weakened the fibers of both body and mind," Livy dourly reported.
Near Capua I wandered along the banks of the Volturno River. A vast irrigation
system has tamed it, but the Volturno still flows through history, as it had in the
third century b.c. Here the Romans drew their post-Cannae line that held Hannibal in the south, and here the German defense line cracked in 1943.
Terrorizing allies of Rome, winning over turncoats, Hannibal ravaged the south.
He razed hundreds of villages, destroyed the peasant-farm culture, and set the
would
economy
owners but
modern times.
For months a trembling Rome awaited him. The Senate closed the city's gates,
not only to bar him but also to keep citizens from fleeing. To placate the gods, the
Senate buried alive in the Forum a Celtic man and woman and two Greeks.
"A most un-Roman rite," Livy commented.
As the months drew on without a blow, the Roman backbone stiffened. In his
slash from the Trebbia to Cannae, Hannibal had slaughtered 100,000 Romans and
their allies. Teen-agers, slaves, and convicts refilled the ranks. Yet each year, from
retard the
development
summer of 216 to the turning of the tide in 207, Rome's determinadimming Hannibal's hope of a climactic victory. He had but a lifetime.
the despairing
tion grew,
330
all
off
from
other side of
Italy,
Roman
By the time
besiegers had
his
TARANTO'S WATERS
lure youths
Hannibal made
heel. In
restored
with
When
it
a thorn in Italy's
to the
Romans, who
dance set
to special music.
spidefs
bite,
tarantella
still
charms.
draw
knew he could
eral,
Iberia.
Livy
see a
see a
man who
New
Carthage. By 207
Sophonisba
(right).
Roman
But the
They wed.
general Scipio,
moved
fearing treason,
against
should have
if I
had not
Rome,
Zama.
mercy and Hannibal's pleas
grown
away, pecking
ancient
when
met again,
Scipio
how
in peace.
Asked by
he ranked history's
generals, Hannibal
named
first
332
at
Rome's
allies.
PAINT.sg BY PETER
out.
He
J.
followed Hannibal's
trail
at
him
Hannibal
said,
to carry the
of
of his army,
333
Scipio struck
at
for peace.
who had
little
deserted
sailed
held
a small clay
after they
plain of
many
of
"Carthage must
be destroyed!"
Cato the Elder
all
other weapons
leave their
to
doomed
city,
masters
manned
walls; 100,000
Now
each house
is
a fortress, each
Romans
fight
and
burning temple.
Scipio
At
334
of Carthage.
maneuver
thousands of men,
fore.
name by
by agents
of
till
to die as
your
last
men "in
kingdom
of
when
out in 146
Beyond the blue seam of sea and sky lay Rome. There, I realized, stood Hannibal's
monument: the city that had learned survival in the shadow of his sword. For he
had made of her a crucible where Romans tempered the iron will of empire.
ti
<!>*.
JS*
-&+^-
9k-
s&
/,jb>
'%%
>&.
rf%
'
By
Pierre Grimal
The World of
Caesar
m KNOW of no
m imperial Rome
better place to
of
^S
From every
direction,
roads converge
city fade,
and
from
all
at this spot.
it
seems,
late
after
summer
and captured
its
heart;
field,
now
of
Posters
fall
art.
of Caesar's enemies.
One
Hill;
Adam
Woolfitt
saw,
conquered."
on seats of power
Hi
as white steeds
the
Forum
in
triumph
in
<
8
iw
r
>y%
'
'J J!
i'|
IK
Ki.I
Ky
#4
">w
PAINTING FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BY BlRNEY LETTICK
money and
339
the
warm
blood in bowls as
it
spills.
accompanied by children
who
will catch
drag their chains. Soon they will return to the dungeons, some never to see
the light of day again. Behind
clad in purple tunic
crown over
grow
them
and gold-adorned
who
rouged
like Jupiter's;
moment he
is
man
him with
jests, lest
not a
the gods
"Romans,
well
where Caesar
offers the
In less than
god the
it
the Forum,
cut Caesar
would
MAGNUM
a
v-
jtf
30
died. Yet
two centuries
earlier
Rome
scarcely
controlled the Italian peninsula. Then, countering Carthaginian moves, she seized
Sicily
huge
cloth being
The ancient
with fortunes, leaving smoldering resentment. Generals swelled with victory and booty
threatened the capital. The Republic reeled until Caesar grasped power. Henceforth,
Romans understood
that the
to legislate
a "divine"
in the
man.
For had not Caesar revealed his divinity with superhuman deeds?
His successor and adopted son, Octavian, shrewdly encouraged that belief in the
provinces. But in
(first citizen).
He
Rome he
took the
lived simply
and
now was
which had
applied to the
merely as princeps
increase, innovation,
into a
title
that
would echo in
by the Senate
man who
ruled
Rome an
emperor.
for
new
conquests; he pacified
the vast realm already won. For centuries afterward a line of emperors
some
342
brutal,
some good,
tens of millions,
laced
with
by
fine roads
ability,
and
joined by a
common
culture.
is
our heritage.
f\
a city of brick
m. His massive
the
work begun by
and
badly needed
It
of marble.
of
left it a city
it.
match
mobs choked
ugly,
hillsides,
fall
the Tiber
slum
areas,
he gave
city's lungs.
Rome shaded
was
life's
noblest ambition
in a republic ruled
by
rhetoric.
fires
art,
accusations at Catiline
revolt
when he
citizen of
who
plotted
Republican
Rome
a formality,
religion as divinely
Marcus
Aurelius (right)
presides as priest
during a sacrifice
to Jupiter
on the
Capitoline.
state
favored
Clearing
groves, porticoes,
Gardens transformed
at
human
embodied
in the
the Aeneid,
died in 19
B.C.
founding
city's
it.
Rome
at last
He
had found
of the
willed
its
Augustus
its Iliad.
little to
people
Rome, created
destruction, but
to sing the
Roman
its
world
role,
insulae "high-rise"
Companies
to fight fires.
The conflagration
Romans knew
On
an
of a.d. 64 gave
the emperor
razed land Nero built his fabulous Golden House with immense gardens and
artificial lake,
drained 15 years
LIFE
OF ROME
this
still
amused eyes
of
in
344
let
Colosseum.
sunlight
in.
He
also laid
Though some
Between
a.d. 96
monarchs Nerva,
Pius,
Trajan, Hadrian,
Antoninus
It
Rome
historian
/et us spend
of the
Temple
of Jupiter.
at
work tidying up
their
Rome honors
execution any
may be buried
condemned
to
alive.
save from
345
flute,
man might
For exercise a
(right).
skip along,
digs an
my
hied
to
Horace:
"Now
is
and
Nearby,
men
importance has
one
suit
to
appear as
witnesses or stand bond. Trials often become shouting matches, and the praetor,
or chief magistrate, calls in six burly lictors to restore order with their rods.
One
who
greet him.
follow customs
Although the
city swells
army
and
of friends, slaves,
man a
the Senate
Free
chamber his
men, the
clients
clientele.
clientes
choose
From
earliest
all
still
times politics
of
a small town.
Roman
secretaries.
names
And
a public
man's importance
lounge outside.
flattery of a
patron as a
way
of
life.
Before
dawn
they rush to his dotnus and jostle for position in the atrium, the spacious central
room open
346
man
and
may
girl
perhaps
to
house and
noble with a
quick dagger thrust. But for the most part the crowd consists of humble supporters
who
money which
In Republican days Senate meetings touched off great debates, even battles.
Now
and documents
things go
for dealing
commercial activity
of Trajan's
their
Forum which
human wares by
to the
cuts
the
new
latrunculi.
still
latest financial
the
Forum has
lost
much
Temple
Though
of Castor
and
Pollux.
A.D.. OSTIA
hawk
OS
with the
while
rise as the
of its
to feed bonfires,
Life in the
walls.
Forum begins
Residence elsewhere
is
mere
eclipse
" acm
Rome
Senatus Populusque
wracked by
Refuse
Shrines and
smiled on
monuments
match
its
multiplied, to gods
glorified
When
to
fire, flood,
filled valleys,
Over
of papal
and earthquake,
cows grazed
in the
Forum.
St. Peter's,
who
it.
shrank
majesty.
it
Constantine
first
near
burned.
EOF
ST PAUL
TO OSTIAN
WAY
to
del
to St. Peter's
to
f>
first let
us meet
of
and (CENTER)
FRITZ HENLt.
PHOTO RESEARCHERS
to the baths.
leads
We
will follow
them
them, but
I HELlure of money, abundant stores of grain, and the pleasures of the city
m brought
brouj
thousands upon thousands flocking into Rome from the countryside
xY
and the
provinces. Often they found themselves packed
upper
air.
flats;
narrow
into tiny
filled the
rooms on the
lower
enough
floors.)
light or
tossed slops along with garbage into the streets, hoping the next rain would
it
Roman
wash
city,
had
to
it
hills
fill
the
"How
dearly one
must pay
Satires,
complained Juvenal,
streets.
street
350
life.
"You
will
Dawn
be a
fool to
ends the
fitful
while clerks record each load. Priced low, even given away
at times,
warehouses
grain guarantees
The
Cyprus and
Syria,
and
silks
street of the
by
on the Field
stalls.
street
on
up here and
from
in
rolls of
to introduce
new
books,
veils
Posters
skilled slaves
woven
there beneath
little
at the
Forum Boarium, the cattle market between the Forum and the Tiber; to the nearby
Forum Holitorium donkeys haul baskets of vegetables from gardens outside the city.
A squealing pig darts across a street, bumping cursing pedestrians. It belongs
to the
neighborhood
Fortune
home
of
tellers in
miller,
who
fattens
at
it
on
his leftovers.
their voices
Women
of the streets
Taverns offer bread and wine; frequent customers are cutthroats and secret police.
351
1*2
w
1
"while stands the COLOSSEUM, Rome shall stand," quoth the poets of the marvel
that has endured 1,900 years. Jarred by quakes and traffic, scarred as a medieval
fortress,
flayed of its marble skin by Renaissance builders, the brick and concrete skeleton
shows cells for beasts and gladiators under the 287-foot-long arena, Latin
for "sandy place." Floored with timbers, it was sand-strewn to soak up blood.
On
/'
>'
^t
'
BEfii
*& ygg*
jbb? ^efljpj
l^AAA'
^j
lUSiSUiiiiimi
Still,
the
when Nero
rail at
the
capital,
Rome welcomes
streets,
like Seneca,
who must
toil
a slave is freed as a
reward
354
satirists
of the Orontes."
slaves.
Rome's shops,
mills,
labor.
Many
though
now most
peregrini, or foreigners,
on
who
trot for
for service.
emperor.
Some
rise to
become surgeons,
feat of Trimalchio,
to
Rome from
and went on
of his
owner
to build
another fortune.
#
v/ /
/V-^
Partem
all else,
et circenses!
think of the
to
and
longs
ea
eagerly
for just two things bread and circuses."
an
idle
and
moderns
to
as distractions offered
They held
been regarded
Each
crisis in
city's
gods.
93 devoted to games
at
roman holiday
splinters ship
first
last feted
biggest
in
Prisoners
lions or,
who
it
in blood.
helped build
it
faced
Men
hunted beasts
trees; beast
fought
were killed in
topped 10,000.
(left)
and
bow and
'
(/
ARTHAUD-HELENE AOANT
355
carried
on
litters,
racecourse
at
at
circensis to the
they're
off!
urged on by 250,000
collisions, poets
we
pompa
official signals
own
women
an
full,
at their
stare
also
and comedies
in spectacular
Romans
posters,
escapades;
villa.
of love
and
avarice, deception
to
music by mimes,
in imperial days.
(Seneca, tutor to Nero, wrote tragedies that later inspired Shakespeare, but they
were intended
to
be
be slain by a mob, a
to
of Troy
"/
M
If
now overshadows
all else.
part
to pieces.
Iail caesar, we who are about to die salute you!" The emperor nods
M.
M.
the
at
slave
weapons
trumpet sounds.
clash
the Colosseum echoes with 50,000 voices howling for blood. In minutes one
on
his back,
The
loser's
for
and
man
lies
thumb down.
Gladiatorial combats
The
victor collects
palm and
sacrifices.
mob
cries.
prizes.
Mourners
staged them in the belief that the precious libation of blood momentarily animated
the deceased.
to
badge of family
popular favor. Generals, senators, and emperors put on ever more elaborate shows.
When
typical
laving in luxury
frolic in the
this
"Palace
on
Romans
to the cold
caldarium and
pool
of Pharaohs
in
celestial
in size
"attractions of civilization";
known
hooded cloak
drenched the
one of Titus's hundred days). Then buffalo are pitted against bears
or elephants. Criminals, dragged into the arena, face lions.
the last
to
poor wretch
lies still,
Now
is
When
men
off.
furrow
and blunting
their pity,
until the
men
of
to
of glory
a
,
sun
favors of
may
some
sit
while people
the eve of
among them,
first
noting those
Roman
Rome's
earliest
its
own
sake.
Many
who bathed
was
infants.
At nine days
a lad
to a
family
name
like Julia.
Dropouts by 13,
boys graduated
to loftier
girls
Italy (above)
fifth
360
after
BATTAGLIA
Romans did
as tutor.
fighters
appear carefree
nomen
who
and porticoes
of
combat the
for
tell
They
in the palaestra.
libraries, gardens,
stroll
On
care.
omans borrowed
m'^r exercising
of
feast in public
weapons, medical
under
doctor's orders
And
if
the ball
ball
chase
to
it.
Seneca complained of the noise the splash of bathers, the cries of brawlers
and
of
vendors offering
lukewarm
pools.
and drank
and scraped
and "the
with a
it
strigil to
dirt.
Use the
fuller will
strigil,
Martial advised,
with perfumed hands; a depilator plucked unwanted hairs from face and body.
The
whose Epigrams
Martial,
words
body and
spirit.
us before the cock crows with your savage threats and beatings?" Others
to disturb
who
girls
at
set
From dawn
to
Roman numerals
(88
(calculi)
subtract, multiply,
for instruction in
street clatter.
Roman
awkwardness
on an abacus
to the
to add,
grammaticus
literature.
In the second century B.C., Cato the Elder advised his sons: "Stick to the point
will
come."
Later,
had
to
develop
legal principles
knew
and which
that as a
Roman
century
B.C.,
memory
for precedents.
international law,
Paul
prodigious
fifth
still
guide
citizen he
for the
much
had the
of
and
Justinian's
Roman
They
also
law.
famed code
Thus lawyers
developed
of the
and could
Our concepts
of justice today
greed, corruption,
judged in the
By the end
power of life
much
owe much
betrothed
at
seven,
wed
had
sacrifice
be Gaia."
When
at
young men
were
puberty. Since
tu Gaius,
had
to
would
say.
"Where you
are Gaius,
"tiers
for hours: first the coiffure
362
familias the
"I
cruelty,
must be
who, amid
influence over their children's lives, and those with daughters haunted
Gourmands scorned
Rome's
.
is
rich clustered
fortunes and
swap
at
banquets
to flaunt
afoot
one
was comfortable
and
let
eat
Romans
wooden
Menus might
more.
offer:
Gustus
(Appetizers)
DORMOUSE WITH
PINE KERNELS
BOILED OSTRICH
hen.
Secunda Mensa
(Dessert)
ludicrous.
oil
"Wash your
belch politely,
One
disputandum there
MUSEUM OF
feet
we
ANTIQUITIES. TRIPOLI
observe:
is
De
no accounting
60LD JEWELRY
for tastes.
LEE
E.
BATTAGLL
mother's arms and went to her
lifted
lest
how Rome's
recalled
off
Sabine women.
own
increased her
own
And
fortune.
and summered
swimming
Campania.
in
Among
my
"Let us live
and never
fear."
of reclining
man
sat
on couches. Trimalchio,
She had, he
silver.
and claws
of a
hawk.
hounds yelped
in spices
a sauce
//r
-m
at their heels.
Roman
cuisine
abounded
made by
salt.
-*
stifling
summers
or at lakeside or seashore.
High
i : -
v a
_ -
mountains
society favored
Campania
Hadrian brought
to Tivoli,
(Baiae
From
a simple
79).
villa
Soon
villas
beauty of gardens.
into hunters
and hounds,
to the
evolved
Campaigns
He
life,
guide
364
filled
academy
like Plato's
all
that
Here
face
sisters of
Mars
Athens' caryatids
across a pool.
Power-thirsty
Romans drank
respite
Grandest of
still
soul
all
abuilding
mortally
questions of
into
it
a villa,
many Romans
the world
fashioned
ill:
villas.
was Hadrian's,
when he
"fleeing
asked,
little
pale, cold,
had the
found in temperate
Athenodorus once
living. Stoics
tried to teach
women,
Stoic
human
valued a
life
existence
is
of reason, restraint,
for years.
of restraint.
and
self-mastery.
Knowing
the
paid court until Athenodorus finally revealed that the emperor's ardor was in vain.
Augustus was not angered, but neither did he change his ways.
On
an
little
performed prescribed
would
produce rain and guide rulers, Ceres would provide grain, Mars would protect armies.
Before important actions officials turned to augurs,
who
malformed infant.
wondered how diviners could pass each other
on the
street
without laughing.
should be gods,"
365
On
let
around
the hearth while the father tossed cooked beans into the darkness to propitiate
the
dead
who roamed
the streets.
who
Imported
cults
slew a bull in cosmic battle; in grottoes believers were baptized with the blood
of sacrificial bulls.
Many Romans
longed
for the
Isis
proffered immortality.
end
of the
world when
their
god an
who
sacrificed children
tolerant
Romans. So crowds
lawn
parties. Yet
when
and
pay
lip
gleefully
one
of Nero's
warehouses
trip
to
upstream
by
Craftsmen
filled
and added,
Ostia, developed
arcades with
crowded
the
of the Tiber.
feel
Rome
in
mosaic include
of a
this
mark
Narbonne merchant.
in
(upper
right).
Here throbbed
the
of the
common
life
folk.
field of stars."
the Crimea, copper and tin from Britain, salt and fish sauce
from Spain, glass and leather from the Levant, parchment and
horses from Asia Minor, wine and honey from Greece, iron
and timber from the Balkans, gems and spices from Ceylon.
Under
in a single venture,
NATIONAL GEOG
and
lost
them
as quickly. Experts
factiones, clubs
whose
drivers
gamble
,A
"ft.
;KU\
(0MMi-
called numerarii
built roads
Alexandria,
of the East
In
were required
on
set controls
image
of
grace
o Europe's
modern
he emperors who
cities
new
its
great cities
splendor.
baths,
The
trade.
of Africa.
and Germany,
who
in his
madness proposed
When
who on
homeland.
becoming
a god."
Claudius proved a good ruler but an unlucky lover. His third wife plotted against
it
was
who poisoned
him.
She enthroned her son Nero, then fought him for power. Nero had her thrown
when
if
to
drown
swam
she
and
actor;
he ordered
But
fifth
It
a retainer to kill
Rome
survived
century,
it
its
not.
all else.
won
not surprisingly, he
At
last,
when everyone
He competed
the world
artist
is
eccentrics, survived
as
every event
losing!"
until, in the
set
down by
Virgil:
Our fine
lie
now
in ruin, but
some things
have not changed: the light of her sky, heat of her summers,
the
swarming
line, "I
I
am
When
370
full
As
walk her
alien to
is
man who
tore
potential of her
life
streets
Rome from
in the city
in her squares,
think of Terence's
is
Rome's
legacy.
Rome
herself.
THE STONES OF ROME, from humble paving to triumphal marble, glowed in the glory
of empire, when legions bound "scattered nations into one." Titus's victory over
Jerusalem rebels, a.d. 70, raised this arch on the Sacred Way. Rome's sun set
over ravaged grandeur, but her legacy would enrich "regions Caesar never knew."
ADAM WOOLFITT
d&
From
and
].
Putman
on the
Conqueror's Path
to
Mighty Empire
Roman
from Ravenna at dusk in a muledrawn carriage. In the night their lamps sputter out and they lose
their way. At dawn they find a peasant who will guide them, but on foot.
As they climb down, he notices the leader: tall, middle-aged, with quick,
dark-brown eyes in a cadaverous face. The peasant leads the officers along
party of
officers hastens
country paths until they reach a river, where legionaries wait. Centurions
rise,
is silent.
salute,
unknown
now demands he
To do
so,
Men
of pride
is
sure,
orders.
German
tribes,
whole of
and penetrated Britain,
land." All
Senate
he
and await
lay
means
a rigged trial
'
&
V*
.%'(%
J?.
*'
*:
Nk
Yet the
citizen.
political
Jonathan
5. Blair
enemies have accused him of misconduct in Gaul. Yet to cross this river the
Rubicon, the border between his province and the territory of Rome itself is to
plunge his nation into civil war. Suddenly, he strides forward: "The die is cast."
His legionaries cheer as he leads them across toward Rome. It is 49 b.c.
I was across the narrow stream before I knew it, swept along by holiday traffic
bound for Rimini and other resorts along Italy's Adriatic coast. Only a small, rusty
plaque marked it as the storied river of decision. Half a mile downstream, where
it
meets the
sea,
among reeds, and I found on its banks only a shepherd and his flock.
had come in quest of Caesar genius, enigma, one of history's most remarkable
men. In a little less than 15 years he set Rome on the path to empire, shaped the
vanished
I
battlefields
from
the Atlantic to the Black Sea, reformed our calendar, fathered a son
by Cleopatra,
and at his death became a god by decree of Rome's Senate. Caesar the man and
the legend has fascinated the ages. Scholars have labeled him both "the complete
and perfect man" and "a crook," agreeing only with Shakespeare that he bestrode
the narrow world like a colossus.
To follow his footsteps I would travel 20,000 miles through a dozen nations.
I would search the pages of Suetonius, Plutarch, and other ancient writers. But
my principal guide would be Caesar's own Commentaries the Gallic War and
the Civil War. Packed with detail, they
my
tell
much about
me
a sharper picture.
little
of
tossed a pebble
teen-aged lad, wracked by fever, hides out in the Sabine hills northeast of
Rome, the quarry of bounty hunters. Gaius Julius Caesar has seen his world
shattered. He had known the privileges of a noble Roman family. His mother, the
worthy Aurelia, had instilled in him the traditional virtues of disciplina and severitas; his tutor, a Gaul, had taught him Greek as well as Latin, literature and philosophy. He had sat in the Senate to watch his relatives debate.
He had watched, too, as his uncle Marius rose to power by championing the
masses, winning glory in war, finally bending the Senate to his will with the help
of a
band
But
of cutthroats.
now Marius
is
a priest of Jupiter.
it
in a carnival of blood.
posted the names of his enemies and awards their property to their
He
has
killers.
He
learns that at the request of the Vestal Virgins (Caesar charmed, even then), Sulla
will grant
him
The ordeal ends. But the harsh lesson the power of the
of men's greed will burn in his memory.
followed, Caesar fought in Asia Minor as a junior officer and
a hearing.
CILICIAN PIRATES
en route
loll in
to
GUFFAW
as
to crucify
and having
374
>
fc-s
*
TOT
m.
<
1
*
tfV
j*s
"
'"
w
^
Returning
the Senate
376
RT
GREENER PASTURES
still
in
When
N.
mountain
folk of
Reidenbach.
new
life
Gaul, Caesar marched across the Alps to bar them from his
first
to their
homeland chalking up a
>
r '
IjjEp^F*?*
W~
fe?:
Hi* -*
- *
g
-
-A* ijE^'
-
HI
f^
^.. V
-
"^
6
^_
-
solid
His remark brought snickers. He was Rome's most notorious rake, and a fop who
added fringed sleeves to his senatorial toga and combed his thinning hair forward
to conceal his increasing baldness.
In 60 B.C.,
command
in Spain,
he
joined with a general and a millionaire to control the politics of Rome. The gruff
a soldier's eye.
Pompey's conquests
in Syria
and
Asia Minor had almost doubled Rome's revenues. Yet the Senate refused to vote
bonuses for his soldiers. Caesar vowed to push the bonus bill through. He also
married his daughter Julia to Pompey. She grew to love her husband and, as long
as she lived, would keep the two ambitious men from each other's throats.
Crassus, third
whose "many
member
When
of the Triumvirate,
Courage he had.
terrorized the land with his slave army, Crassus crushed the rebels
on crosses
refused to vote a rebate for his tax collector friends. Caesar promised aid.
For Caesar, the payoff was a consulship, Rome's highest office, and later the
viu 1 .i:i..o
"All Gaul
is
Caesar
to
Gaul
German encroachment,
Rome
now
a fertile land
won
is
to
from the
down
brought
all
first
Rome.
east.
coastal
As savior
at Alesia.
all
military glory
and
Germany, and the Low Countries. Into Gallia Comata Long-haired Gaulpoured Rome's language, laws, architects, merchants to spur civilization.
The conquerors banned human sacrifice but let other Druid rites persist.
Sanctuary of Sequana at the Seine's source has yielded cowled statues
in
wood
(left).
Romans
amphitheaters
such as that
Italy
at Aries (lower),
now
BRITANNIA
Verulamium
/^
^j^Londinium
^ondon
X-
Deal
&;
.Boulogne
BELGAE
Un>t"c
e
.Lutetia
MA
/M.Cenabum
Loire
Orleans
CELTAE
TNJfl
r
Coblenf*4.
Paris
,MAv
Bourges
Alesia
'J
on
q_
Mulhotfse.,
<^
D
Uxellodunum
7
1>
^M^alp/^
C^
NTmes.
v
rWfconne.
.Aries
H,
Battles
STATUTE MILES
DRAWN BY LISA BIGANZOLI
GEOGRAPHIC ART DIVISION
O^
Massilia
Marseilles
Po
Rubicon .
ITALY
379
f^<
**
**
Sr
t?
--
TORRENTS
900
its
No
mortar
Gard
it
River.
has attested
to
Rome's sway
in
its
provincia
southern Gaul.
in
Provence,
stones (opposite)
daily into
Rome,
its
Tiber fouled
piped water
Gaul, vast, bountiful, untouched by any civilized conqueror. Soon after he received
the governorship of the provinces, Caesar found the opportunity to march.
drove north from Rome, along misty Apennine ridges, up the broad Po Valley,
to Geneva. Here Caesar hastened in 58 b.c. when he learned
that the Helvetii, "a stalwart race," planned to cut across Transalpine Gaul in a
westward migration. For two years they had stored grain; then they put the torch
to their farms and villages in the land we know as Switzerland and gathered along
the east bank of the Rhone. Caesar, deeming them "a hostile people," burned the
bridge at Geneva and built a rampart that stretched about 18 miles downstream.
The Helvetii seemed penned between the Alps, the Jura Mountains, and Caesar's
wall. But at the southern end of the wall they slipped through the Pas d'Ecluse, a
gorge Caesar found "scarcely wide enough for the passage of wagons in single
file." I found French road crews toiling to straighten and widen the highway that
the
memory
of Caesar's uncle,
a professional
javelins, a
drove west
envisioned
who had
381
'
"If
won
over
As
a village of
proffers drink
'
.A
6*
i.
1M
1
JLI
\DO-
at legionaries
Heads of
a
slain
wagons and
chariots prized
it
lives in
modern French.
would know their leaders would not desert. With a shout, the Helvetii charged
into a shower of javelins that pinned many of their shields together and slowed
their drive. Then the Romans drew short swords and swept downhill, pushing
the tribesmen back on their camp. The fighting raged on into the night, with the
defenders pouring missiles out from behind their carts. At last they broke and fled.
When Caesar overtook them, they "groveled and begged for peace." Records
found in their camp revealed that 368,000 Helvetii had begun the journey. "Those
who returned home," Caesar noted, "showed a total of 110,000."
Cows graze the battle site today. The bark of a dog, the voices of farmers in their
fields echo across haunted hillocks. At nearby Bibracte, mountaintop citadel of
free Gaul, only wind and strolling tourists disturb the dark copses where Gallic
chieftains gathered. They knew the victorious Roman would want a parley.
From "well nigh the whole of Gaul" they came big, broad-shouldered men
with blonde locks and moustaches, clad in wool trousers and tunics, some with
golden torques around their necks. They thanked Caesar for ridding their land of
the invaders and proposed an assembly to discuss future relations. He agreed.
The land Romans called Gaul was peopled by tribes of Celtic stock the Belgae,
the Aquitani, and the Celtae, or Galli. They dwelt in villages and hilltop citadels,
cleared land for grain, worked iron mines, and coursed rivers and trekked forest
at
HOME
underground, a family
jgr
and
electricity,
Many
date from
Gauls holed up
Roman
in
times;
them, seeking
A farmer
pitches
of Chdteauneuf (left)
hay near Dijon, Roman
Germanic
Burgundians, settled
its
name.
of
revels," wrote
one
in aimless
Roman
critic.
GEOGRAPHIC STAFF
priests,
the Druids,
funerals:
dead man
pyre."
courage since
asked
at the
Prof. Joel
it
University of Dijon,
the test of
modern
how
when he
their functions in
a god,
and where
it
struck they
385
"nation
war mad
At ancient
Alesia,
52
B.C., scholars
Caesar
in
and schoolchildren
world Gauls
built
and
lost.
many
graves
god
bronze (below,
bolt,
left)
Taranis in
holds a sun
*P
Pfm~
hi ;**
'
ISA
\
To earn his favor, Druid priests
in
sheaths
demanded
Mother goddess
statue
on farms.
On
a vase
artist
mail,
served as armor.
Tamed
Romans
and
edge of empire.
wt
came with
their
at
is
We
find images of
and
traditions
Caesar's Gauls
harvest,
The
still
valid.
Gallic chieftains
enemy from
their
The troubled area lay outside his province, but Caesar saw the aggression
"reflection on the majesty of Rome." He would march against the Germans.
tages.
as
followed the legionaries east into Alsace, the French border province whose
and architecture reflect the flow and ebb of German influence here
over the centuries. When the Romans marched in, villagers filled their ears with
tales of German prowess, their enormous stature, their incredible fighting skill,
their piercing eyes that stared people down. The locals' fears infected the legions.
"All over the camp there was much signing and sealing of wills," Caesar wrote.
Some even whispered of mutiny. Caesar summoned his officers and tongue-lashed
them for their lack of faith in him. He himself was not worried in the least. He told
them he would strike camp before dawn and note carefully those who answered
the call of duty and those who yielded to cowardice. He knew he could count on
the Tenth Legion, his favorite, "a fine body of troops." But the others? When dawn
broke, the entire army marched.
Near the site of today's Mulhouse, an industrial city on the Rhine River plain,
the two forces collided, so swiftly that the legionaries had no time to hurl javelins.
Some leaped atop the close-packed German masses, wrenched away their shields,
and hacked from above. The Germans broke, racing for the Rhine 15 miles away.
There the German chieftain Ariovistus and a handful of followers boated or swam
I cuisine
As he stood
at the
up
the
wooded
rest.
He
settled
field
Italy.
In 57 B.C., Caesar struck boldly into the land of the Belgae northern France,
demanded
wine and folk festival. Ancient Gauls loved "dyed garments besprinkled with gold"
and feasts where heroes gorged on heroic helpings at times, some said, an entire pig.
JOHN
388
J.
,fw
'ifa
m*
tf
iir.Bi'K
Special Portfolio:
of
War
smashed by stones
cursing of
men
or seared
screaming
by
whistling
fireballs,
"A most
Now
(at left)
it
was named
for, to
For rapid
fire
shown nearing
much
At Avaricum (Bourges),
Romans labored
With
skills
It
learned in the
Roman
tunnels.
availed
them
little.
From
When
at
their well
in.
wild ass
Gaul
25 days
the troops.
be understood
In letters to
if
Rome, he used
ambush,
by self-interest
army
in
And when
the battle
came
to
in the
victory.
Museum of Roman
Civilization.
Rome
391
A volley of javelins,
then bristling swords
a Gallic or a German army, Caesar had
one supreme advantage the Roman legions.
No longer a citizen muster, they formed a force
of professionals honed by his uncle Marius into
Facing
bloody drills,"
wrote Josephus, historian of the Jewish War
(a.d. 66-70) in which Rome razed Jerusalem.
Unlike the unwieldy phalanx, the legion could
advance over broken ground and quickly shift
units to threatened sectors. It was deep enough
to provide constant support for the fighting front.
are bloodless battles, their battles
A Roman
army went
many
each
On
Legionaries
Institute.
Rome
393
and
a hill site
When weary
at
hand.
dug
inward to
form a wall. This they palisaded with stakes,
toted as part of their 60-pound packs.
A square camp 2,000 yards on a side
sheltered two legions. Tents rose along a grid
of streets. At night no one entered without
the password, changed daily and passed from
maniple to maniple on a tablet. In the morning
three trumpet blasts signaled breakup of camp.
At the first, tents were struck; at the second,
mules loaded; at the third, the army marched.
In Caesar's day engineers fought as part of
combat units and put special skills to work on
roads and bridges. They fitted out ships for
his Brittany campaign in 56 B.C. To bridge the
a 13-foot-wide ditch, tossing dirt
its
and
Roman
brought
men by doubling
their pay,
handsome arms
(men with gold- and silver-inlaid weapons were
less likely to abandon them). He addressed them
as "comrades" and winked at off-duty escapades:
sharing spoils generously, issuing
"My men
Caesar's soldiers
knew no
finer tribute.
bed,
"money
Augustus studded
394
From
Trajan's
Institute,
Rome
If!
the
tithe
At nearby La Borne
a potter
While other
burned
their
men
tribes
of marsh-girt
their ground.
Avaricum held
But he pressed
its
warriors planned a
The
women begged on
not to be
left
their knees
all
when
Romans.
swarmed
"fierce,
drowned Avaricum
in blood.
Sambre
ambush
the
as the
mans
after
peace
But
when
talks,
on the Meuse near Huy and had the entire tribe sold at auction in one lot 53,000 souls.
Now the Belgae were humbled, but they would not re-
main
so.
And
their land
would know
the
agony of conquest
So
Belgium, an elderly
there.
"The ancient
Namur,
woman
asked
fortress city of
replied.
my
southern
She shook
nothing but a
my brother." When
she
proud
left,
mili-
of his uniform.
397
"On
and
the
at far right
down
fleeing
tribes that
women and
caesar
children; survivors
"flung themselves into the water and perished.'' Bridging the broad Rhine downstream,
Caesar terrorized the countryside until "the Germans were overawed." In 9 B.C. Romans founded
Confluentes here (today bustling Coblenz), then pushed eastward to the Elbe; 18 years later,
amid rain and lightning in Teutoburg Forest, the Roman-trained chieftain Armmius ambushed
and massacred three legions under Varus, who took his own life. "Quinctilius Varus, give me back
my legions," moaned Augustus. He pulled the frontier back to the Rhine, where it stayed.
E .OCA NG SOu'-WARr 6> A.BER
*s*
55
~*-
:*
...*.
u v
kept
Roman wine
s-
we know
as Trier,
today: In
auch etwas.
there
is
also
In
wine there
something
is
truth;
in beer.
g**TS*
B4
SRtt
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'
"T
lV~
'
'
nrim in
(.I
I/
challenged Caesar.
He
built a fleet
'"
and destroyed
- --
their ships
drove
now through
darkly
its
German
lieu-
tribes again
wooded
felt
mechanized armies
in
401
The tribesmen
by pursuing legionaries
at
^ar
OT??^
to have learned
something about the country with its harbors and landing
places." It was also an opportunity to even scores with Belgic
tribes which had settled in Britain decades before and had
resist
him.
grow
these
cliffs,
clung to
ribbon of white
When
Caesar saw
He swung
He
approached he broke
off
Kent
to
and departed.
followed his route across
Caesar
cliffs
bristled with
of Dover
men under
arms.
Caesar came
and
to reconnoiter
enemies
called
known
in
Gaul.
He
mistakenly
The white
a car ferry,
7 reached Britain
and saw the enemy"
He drove
them from his path and proceeded toward the Thames. There
he found only one place where the river could be forded
and that with difficulty. Stakes had been driven into
and
their
home
Men
called Picts
came
Painted
to
be
People.
<*
I"
"They had
to
jump from
the ships,
55
b.c. Deep-draft
"Come
404
Wise
on, men',
to the
in after him.
on swift small
craft.
In land clashes
as
to battle
to
next year
peril.
had
to strangers,"
Rome. He returned
His
triumph and
his infant
son the
43 gave him
name "Britannicus."
in
Verulamium (opposite)
bearbaiting and
cockfights. This town grew into
theater of
Romans watched
St.
the
Albans
(right),
Roman
England's
soldier
first
named
for
who became
Christian martyr.
first
on
in
in caster, cester,
and Chester.
WINFIELD PARKS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER. ABOVE AND OPPOSITE: ADAM WOOLFITT. RELIEF
IN
'-
the banks
and riverbed, and defenders lined the opposite shore. The legionaries
plunged into neck-deep water, mastered the obstacles, and scattered the Britons.
Scholars have long debated the site of that crossing.
Amid
legions of bowler-
financial
district to call
Museum
at a
map:
is
the traditional
head-on
hid his people and hounded the invaders with 4,000 chariots, picking off raiding
parties. Finally, Cassivellaunus
woodland base
fortified
by
gathered
a ditch
407
Many
Today
Britain wears
its
Roman
Albans, in
all
As
ward,
my
I
at
St.
villas,
Verulamium
to
eastsaid:
our roads; their towns became our towns. Before the Ro-
the
Thames
to a three-mile
cornered by a
along paved
Londiniutn, in the
fort.
from
wall
Thatched huts
London.
jet lifted
ROMAN LONDON.
AND HIST
streets.
Drawbridge,
London Bridge,
leads to huge basilica and forum.
Where smoke rises from kilns and
workshops at left, St. Paul's
near
site of
Cathedral
today's
now
stands; Billingsgate
eP*
*
v*
r<
If
riHb
^r
Roman
had become
ally
their master.
The
resistance
began
camp and
Roman
massacre of
traders at
Cenabum
(Orle-
Noble Vercingetorix
might
defies Caesar's
in Gaul's last
stand
ancient military
Vercingetorix
renown and
fell
was
It
to forego
liberty."
Roman supply
to let
them defend
laid siege to
aged nor
scaled
it,
women
their town,
walls,
its
guards his
still
rid their
when
But
lines.
the
knees
Vercingetorix
ramparts at Alesia. To
he agreed. Legionaries
this
He
and gouged
Wintering
in Italy
when
the
citadel of Gergovia,
Alpine
held, he withdrew,
east into
on
With Professor Le Gall
Caesar stood at the head
placed his
command
and
see everything
its
I
fate of Gaul.
of
some
hill
where
"From
he could
it
necessary."
felt
that
by blockade."
Thereupon he blockaded
9V-1
to the
As
eyes.
except
away
Romans with
named for
at the
Fabian tactics
make
his
fortress in
went grain,
men
cattle,
and 80,000
Around
call.
it
23 redoubts.
drifts
the ring
summon
a relief force.
fell
on the attackers
The next day Caesar watched Vercingetorix lead his fordown from Alesia in surrender. They were
"distributed as loot among the whole army, one to every
man." Their chieftain went to Rome to rot in prison.
Professor Le Gall led me across the battlefield where
excavations have yielded arrowheads, swords, and the little
mortars in which legionaries ground their grain. We walked
lorn tribesmen
tight.
B.C.;
A /
.wr*
T&
>/ar
X
i.
in their rear.
caesar
of
between
From within
futile
army
at Alesia,
pinning
bristling spears
attempt
to
it
siege walls.
down
in a
to direct assault,
Caesar ringed
it
He sowed
pits spiked
tree limbs
to turn
them away.
relief
in a
When
Gauls breached
my
Now
down out
of a concealing
helplessly, then
bowed
Vercingetorix watched
young
in surrender.
to
Borne
in
in
46 b.c.
414
/(>
heel,
t*le:
shores.
cordoned
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mighty wall
ol stone,
begun a.d.
builder* to adorn
Rome*
stony-,
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Irajan already
In the
at
Baalbek (lower!.
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pursued Pompey
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snows
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her mighty empire
pursued Pompey
civil
war,
Tunisia, llerda
finally
brought Britain
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to
adorn
Rome's sway,
still guards Trier,
isle:
in the
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galleys (bottom)
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town
wake. Ruins of a theater, temples, and smelting furnaces proclaim the fusion of the two
cultures -the distinctive
Gallo-Roman
civili-
measure
of Caesar's influence
on France?"
art,
logical,
mark and
that of Rome. Gaul was ready for Rome's gifts."
After Alesia, Caesar's struggle in Gaul drew
to a close. The next year saw only scattered
precise cast of our thinking bear his
Gaul
conquer
to
to
to
it.
defend it and
The campaign
to
new
a vast
territory to
to
Rome. For
CAESAR
triumvirs,
would return
to
Rome
as consul, protected
by
its
at
plan. Crassus
on the plains
and his
of Parthia,
now
by
At Alexandria
boatman unrolls
a rug
piutarch
and
out
down
to
such a siege,
his
Caesar "in
my
judgment, cold
her love of
418
salad days,
in blood."
Mark Antony;
consumed them
both.
PAINTING FOR
path that would lead him around the vast rim of the Mediterranean, to
and
into the
many battles,
arms of Cleopatra.
he disband his army and return from Gaul as a citizen or be considered a traitor.
Thus Caesar faced his Rubicon. (Strangely, Caesar himself never mentions the river.)
When
he decided
to
celeritas
419
f^r*r~*
13.
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3T-
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^
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Then he swept on
to
at
sar's
men
starved in their
Rome
tied
move men,
to
and
spice caravans
Aleppo
to
Antioch,
Capua
Rome
312
B.C. In time
Rome" and
to
in
Mansiones
to
in
(lodging
horses to travelers
who rumbled
in
hour a
rate
unsurpassed
WHEN
cities
supplies
owned much
site.
We bumped
across grainfields
we came
and
to a rise over-
Pompey sought
to
avoid this
battle.
Day
after
day he had
young
aristocrats
on his
staff,
him
at last to
men
rush for-
wounded men
Pompey drew
hill forts,
in
at his
scream.
Pompey
Romans
did as the
Palmyra
(right),
did.
Syrian oasis
mean
Under Rome
it
"city of palms."
raised triumphal
and
whose passion
for
Now
421
to swing round and smash Caesar's right flank and rear. Everything, he knows,
depends on this sweep. But Caesar shifts six cohorts to his flank with orders to mass
their javelins into a bristling wall and jab at the faces of the horsemen. Pompey's
hounds
by the Enipeus.
There some 24,000 surrender, 15,000 lie dead. "They would have it so," Caesar
notes bitterly. Pompey escapes, flees to Turkey, then to Cyprus and on to Egypt,
desperately seeking men, money, aid. Caesar follows, the hunter after his quarry.
them
to their
When
a hill
once again but would trouble him no more. The Egyptians, seeing
little
it
skillfully.
One
and unrolled
it
before Caesar.
man carried a
From
the carpet
stepped Cleopatra. She was 21 years old, attractive rather than beautiful, dark but
not Egyptian she came from the Macedonian house that had ruled here since
Alexander's day. Strong-willed, well educated, raised in a corrupt court, she saw in
Caesar the means to regain the throne. Witty, bold, sensual, she enchanted Caesar.
it.
Once
his
water into the drinking-water conduits. Caesar got his small, desperate force to
dig wells and found sweet water in abundance.
He
high, one of
little
at this
opportunity
to
marvel
"miracle of size and engineering." Once, fighting along the island cause-
When
to
swim
for his
life.
reinforcements from Syria marched into the Nile Delta to aid Caesar,
Ptolemy turned to head them off. In a sharp clash a few miles north of Cairo, the
young king drowned in the Nile. Now Cleopatra ruled Egypt, and Caesar ruled
Cleopatra. They had shared perils; now they could take their pleasure.
Off they went, the conqueror and the queen, gliding up the river of the Pharaohs
and cypress, propelled by oars, to gaze on the matchless panoand red desert, pyramids and temples more than 2,000
years old, herds of cattle, the endless rise and fall of shadoofs lifting water from
Africa's heart, and clear night skies ablaze with stars.
"He often feasted with her to dawn; and they would have sailed together ... to
in a barge of cedar
rama
of grain-rich delta
Triumph
conquered"
Turkish farmers thresh wheat where scythe-wheeled chariots raced uphill against Caesar's
dug-in legions. The brevity of his immortal words echoes the speed of his victory:
to Zela; Vidi, he saw Pharnaces, King of Pontus and enemy of Rome;
Veni, he came
Vici, he vanquished him four hours after getting sight of him. Pharnaces' father,
Mithridates the Great, had fared better; 20 years earlier he crushed a Roman army here.
JONATHAN
422
S.
BLAIR
yf/Jf/
V" Jo f^^-r^"
^t^a!
half of
Roman
men owned
Caesarion, in
Caesar
left after
eight
whom Romans
tian interlude.
When
made
sword
wench
to
bed"?
Pierre
Caesar combined
Rome's
business with his own pleasure. "He had been
at war for a decade," the professor told me.
Grimal
believes
"I think
he
felt
was
local ad-
by
air,
the days
when
legionaries patrolled
it
against Parthia.
My car headed
up the misty valley of the Yesil Irmak and out of the 20th century.
creaked along on solid wooden wheels, girls came to village wells
with
Carts
When
Returning to Rome,
XV
sail for
family
names
Vici.
North Africa
of Scipio
425
ink port paid him three million pounds of olive oil in annual tribute.
But Leptis prospered under Rome, gave birth to Emperor Septimius Severus,
outshone neighboring Oea (Tripoli) and Sabratha.
The
trio
of cities (poleis)
named
and
Bm
Tripolitania.
/// /////
wni
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at
Hadrume-
women washing
pounding it against
One offered me something to eat: bread
Once a breadbasket of Rome, Tunisia pre-
and
oil.
found
sea,
South of Sousse
to a
headland
where every step crushed fragments of Roman mosaic and brick, seemingly the city's only
remains. Then, atop a mound, they showed me
fields
their "secret."
squeezed
down through
a hole
The
own
enemy
was
brief.
The
legion-
everyone they caught. Scipio, Cato, and Juba escaped, only to commit suicide.
Caesar
moved on
to Utica,
He added Numidia to the province of Africa, heralding a day when Rome's dominion would spread
over the continent's entire northern rim. Roman
would rise amid the mountains of Algeria
and Morocco; legionaries would push south into
the Sahara to conquer the Fezzan region of Libya.
Back in Rome, the populace welcomed Caesar
with a 40-day thanksgiving and cheered themcities
mock
sea battles.
Then came
hills until
to
use of
litters
of scarlet
.*
NATION
GEOGRAPHIC STAFF
saw Caesar's
Speeding
to
Spain
war.
by
When
"rushed
like a
madman
to the forefront of
battle,"
his ranks.
"He had
Caesar's
men drove
rallied
now
first
Munda, walled
above
like all
recalls that of
Romance
Roman
colonists; Spanish,
429
robes.
He
Italy.
The Senate changed the name of Quintilis, originally the fifth month, to July in
would convert Sextilis into August. Because the year
began in March rather than January, the Roman numbers seven, eight, nine,
Caesar's honor. Augustus
in
Caesar thrilled
beautify the
city,
Rome with
new
When
ways trampled
tradi-
to
appear
among
February
festival
when
those
and baggage
cavalry,
Hispania, source of
built of
enduring granite
He
aqueduct (page
9).
living symbols of
:na.
#$
train
it
B.C.,
artillery,
mighty
Rome's legacy.
EEOGMPH
P'
;>*:>
1
|\
i
1
v
"He was
stabbed with
way onto
the
Forum, he
sought to place the crown on Caesar's head. A roar of shock
rose, reflecting the centuries-old Roman hatred of monarchy.
Caesar pushed the diadem away. The crowd cheered.
Still, many were convinced the dictator would take the
crown at the first politic moment. Conspirators met. Among
the 60 enlisted,
three
and twenty
WOUnds"
as he
Suetonius
last battle,
"Would
plotters scrawled
you were
alive
that
now, Brutus" on
Junius Brutus,
Caesar lived on
Romans
had come
into the
an incision
in his
the operation
They saw
He
own
we
hand.
in legend.
how
he
world through
mother's body
call
"Caesarean.
drew
lean
about
to find ourselves
dishonorable graves."
433
As Caesar took
One
is
crowded round,
as
if
to
pay their
respects.
behind, stabbed him below the throat. Caesar struggled to break free. Now, surrounded by daggers, he covered his face. Twenty-three times the blades plunged
in. Caesar suffered in silence, though Suetonius records, "that when he saw Marcus
"
Brutus about to deliver the second blow, he reproached him: 'You, too, my son?'
The Senate dispersed in terror, the killers waving bloody daggers.
strolled the site, today the busy bus-transfer point of the Largo Argentina. At
its center a parklike excavation a wizened woman scurried amid the ruins, setting out milk for dozens of cats. I turned from their squalling and walked southeast
I
Forum. Shadows fell across the Via Sacra. Along this sacred way Caesar's
was
borne on an ivory catafalque. From the Rostra Mark Antony eulogized
body
to the
his patron in a speech which, through the genius of Shakespeare, has inspired
me
your
ears.
come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, the
."
good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.
The mob went wild. Some threw torches onto the bier. Into the flames actors
tossed their robes, soldiers their arms, women their jewelry. Romans thirsted for
blood, but the slayers had vanished. All night long mourners watched the flaming
bier. The black stone altar of the ruined Temple of the Divine Julius marks the spot.
.
On
it I
found
Actium
of
rule.
kill
lost
to
slain,
and
own
lives in
faults,
when barbarian
down the centuries,
brought peace and order and a better life for millions. Even
its
civilization flickered
he struggled
to
still.
military glory?
434
way
of Western man.
BEYOND HADRIAN'S TOMB. TODAY CASTEL SANT' ANGELO: ERICH LESSING. MAGNUM
Index
Text references are indicated
in
roman
type;
illustrations
text in
and
illustruted
boldface.
*Designates map.
/\chelous 267
Achilles 2-3, 7, 50, 68, 71, 72, 166
Acropolis, Athens 5, 8, 40-41, 114-115,
117,121, 127, 142, 142-145
Actium, battle 434
Aegaleos, Mount 156, 157
Aegean Sea 69*, 7T, 79
Aegeus, king 69
Aeneas
Aeschylus
162, 163
Africa 318*, 332, 333, 334, 424, 425, 426427, 429; see also Carthage
Agamemnon
"Mask
332;
army
Ammon
Amu
sails a
Museum
a beehive
tomb
Aphrodisias 36-37
Aphrodite 83, 146, 161, 162, 170, 175;
Temple of 36
Apollo 8, 30, 34, 67, 161, 164, 171, 176,
177; Buddha in image of 243; temples
of 28-29, 30, 164-165, 169, 175, 179, 188
Aqueducts
443
Aquitani 379*, 384
Archeologists 35-36; Bass, George F. 8,
38; Blegen, Carl W. 35, 46, 66, 68, 73;
Bradford, John 253; Erim, Kenan T.
36; Evans, Sir Arthur 46, 62, 63, 66;
Katzev, Susan 38; Le Gall, Joel 385,
411; Lerici, Carlo M. 253, 255; Maiuri,
Amedeo 16; Marinatos, Spyridon 56,
57, 59, 159; Merrifield,
Schliemann, Heinrich
Archidamus
Archimedes
Ares 161
Argos 44,
416*
Athenodorus 365
Athens 56*, 66, 69*,
tecture 5, 40-41, 114-115, 118-121, 124125, 132-133, 140, 142, 142-145, 147;
artisans 133, 134, 135, 142;
burning of 114, 150, 162, 163, 192,
215; citizenship 118-119, 120, 135, 140;
naw
-aduceus 171
Caere (Cerveten) 252-253, 264, 264-265,
238
mausoleum
349*
Aurelian, emperor
349*; Aurelian
Wav
348*
Ax
284-286, 285
Baal Shamem 288; Temple of 291-293
Baalbek, Lebanon 415, 417*
193, 213. 217, 246
symposium
Roman
416*
Bithynia, kingdom 335, 366
Black Cleitus 197, 237
Black Sea 374, 417*
Blue Grotto, Malta 104
Boats and ships: Carthaginian 276. 276277; "eve" painted 88, 268; feluccas
94, 418; Greek 71, 100, 130-131, 131,
132, 170, 175, 176-177, 182-183; mashuf
216; naggar 418; Odvsseus 77, 88-89,
102; Pakistan 238; Phoenician 279;
Roman 277, 400, 416; staysail
ketch 77, 103; Yankee 7
8. 189*,
200-201
Bonifacio, Corsica 77*. 84-85, 86-87
Bourges, France 379*. 391, 3%, 411
Bradford, Ernie 79, 88, 103
Bridges: boats used 7, 238, 240; Roman
380, 381, 393, 394, 398. 402. 409, 430-
431
Roman conquest
Calhmachus 442
Calypso 102, 105
Camel 332; caravans 212-213, 224
Bedouin 213
Bronze Age
271
Caesar, Gaius Julius 336, 337, 341-342,
348, 370, 372-434; assassination
432-433, 434; battles 415*-417*, see also
Civil War; Gallic Wars; character 392,
394, 434; childhood 374; Commentaries
Camulodunum,
128-129,
Britain:
Banquets: Greek
Baa
aal Hammon
Babylon 190*,
Bacchus 366
Chariots 52, 63, 72, 146, 157, 166, 266267, 273, 339, 340; gold relic 221; races:
Byzantium 101
Cannae
Capitoline
349*
Hill,
Cappadocia
Rome
190*. 202,
of,
Rome
Cassandra
Thebes
203
Capua
422
Charybdis 91-92
Chateauneuf, France 384-385
Chiana Valley, Italy 318
71
Roman
419-429; battles:
Lenda
Munda
41b*. 421-422;
Thapsus
Cleon
134, 180
384, 388;
Rome
Thracia 208
Colchester, England 406, 409, 415*-416
Cologne, Germany 400, 416*
Colosseum, Rome 20-21, 25, 344, 349*,
352-355, 442
Colossus of Rhodes 200-201
Commentaries (Caesar) 374, 379, 385, 398,
400, 403, 404, 414, 422
Bronzes
Brundisium
Cave dwellings
France 385
Celtae 379*, 384
Celtiberians 2%, 320
Celtic peoples 384, 408
Celts 282. 284, 296, 306,
308-309, 311, 317, 322, 324,
326, 330, 384, 408, 417
Cenabum, Gaul 379*, 411
Euboea
101
437
Highlights
Commerce
oncrete
23,
442
c.
1000
ROMAN
GREEK
Cormium
in
Corinth 44,
Homer composes
Roman
Knossos
Crown,
Crusaders 8, 200
Cryptography 391
Cuirass 71, 320
aristocratic
437
Curtius Rufus, Quintus 190, 195, 218,
228, 239
Cyclades, islands 46, 54, 69*, 79; idol 444
Cyprus
Iliad
Games
800
776
c.
and Odyssey
c.
750
421
Croton (Crotone),
recorded Olympic
500
government
c.
Romans
593
Rome
admitted to
acia 416*
Lebanon
415;
Mace-
d^,
Mycenaean
Roman
67; Persian
161, 199, 270, 320,
name
of deity
Dionysus
63, 67;
liberty, property,
Minoan
400
War
c.
404
c.
400
Gauls sack
Drama: Greek
Rome
390
magistrate,
W^
open
to
plebeians 367
Rome swallows up
Latin neighbors 338
300
ROMAN
GREEK
Durance
c.
Dyrrhachium
380
H, bro
Greek war
300
Archimedes
335
slain
Romans
Romans
Engineering
Rome wins
Sicily, Sardinia,
Ephesus
8,
Eros 146
Eryx 83; Mount Eryx 82
Esquiline Hill, Rome 343, 344
Etna, Mount, Sicilv 99
Etruna 251-273, 257*; Hannibal's march
318, 319*, 320
Etruscans 442; dance 35; language 101,
252, 257; origin 255, 257; realm 257*;
221
at Cannae 216
Scipio Africanus defeats
at Zama 202
Hannibal
200
up
in
Rome
warrior 444
100, 101, 150*, 158. 162
Euclid 210, 211
Eumaeus 110
Euripides 32, 35, 117, 123, 124, 127, 130,
137, 167, 178, 184
Eurylochus 102
Evzbnes 116-117
Euboea
145
124-125, 175
Eratosthenes 211
Corsica 227
Rome
430-431, 442-443
English Channel 402-403, 409
Romans
by Roman
Asculum 279
Beneventum 275
at
defeat Pyrrhus at
360,
Rome
Chaeronea 338
Darius HI becomes King of Persia 336
Aristotle founds
Battle of
c.
416*, 421
Peripatetic school
314-315
149
Romans
destroy Carthage
in Third Punic War 146
Astrologers and Jews expelled
from Rome 139
Tiberius Gracchus, tribune,
institutes land reforms 133
Noncitizens barred from Roman towns 126
Julius Caesar born 100
iabian
tactics 411
Fabncian Bridge, Rome 273
Faesulae (Fiesole) 318, 319*
Faience 63
Fanum Fortunae (Fano) 319*, 333
Farsala,
Turkey
Fasces 271
Favignana, island
power
of tribunes 82
Caesar consul 59
Rome bans political parties 55
Caesar raids Britain 55
Caesar crosses Rubicon 49
Caesar defeats Pompey at Pharsalus 48
Julian calendar begins 46
Caesar slain 44
Octavian defeats Antony at Actium 31
Virgil begins the Aeneid c. 30
Horace writes second Satires 29
Octavian assumes title of Augustus 27
Birth of Jesus 8-4
Rome's
Horns 429
Rowers
75
Eruption of Vesuvius entombs Pompeii 79
Plutarch writes his Lives
162-163
department organized 6
Reign of Tiberius 17-37
tire
Italy 328-
Roman
Forum, Rome
329;
c.
3%,
Gaul
100
Hadrian
eastern
sets
Euphrates River as
c.
Gaea, goddess 30
Galatea 34
109
Gallic Wars 374, 377, 379*, 381-388, 390391, 397-414, 415*-416*; Britain invaded
402-409; leaders see Ariovistus; Caesar,
Gaius Julius; Vercingetorix; major
battles: Alesia 386, 410-414, 418;
313
324
378
452
Bibracte377
400
439
crafts 382, 387, 397; rebellion 411; religion 385, 386, 388; villages 382-383,
Hyacinthus 162
Hygeia, goddess 175
398
243
Gaul 373, 374, 376, 378, 379', 411, 415416'; tribes 384
Germanic
Germany (Germania)
402, 416*
Gibbon, Edward
25,
345
Goats
Greece: city-states 30, 150, 163, 169, 171172, 173; modern 171; unification 163,
166, 179, 192-193; see also Persian
98, 100-
311-313, 314
Gylippus 183
122-123, 122-123, 127
Ha
180
Helios 94, 97, 98, 102; Colossus 200-201
Hellespont 7, 73, 150*, 153, 173, 184,
189*, 196-197, 197
Helots 178, 179, 180
Helvetii 377, 379*, 381, 384
51, 69, 71, 73, 77,
133, 135;
Herakleion, Crete 65
Herculaneum 20
Hermes
Herophilus 211
Hieroglyphs, Egyptian 66
Hieron, king: crown 101
Himilco 278
Hindu Kush
239, 248
Hipparchus 211
Hippias 150
Bodrum
army 430-431
Iberians 326
Ibex, winged, vase 220
Ictinus 142
Ides of March 433
Ilerda (Lerida) 415*
Iliad
(Homer)
Janiculum
171
Hill,
Rome
269, 271
Hippodrome 166
Jerusalem 392
Jewelry 247; Athenian 134; Carthaginian
288-289; Etruscan 266-267; Mycenaean
51; Roman 351, 362-363
Jewish War 392
Jhelum River 242, 243; battle 191*, 240241, 242
Josephus 392
Juba, king, Numidia 429
Julia 378, 418
Julius Caesar see Caesar, Gaius Julius
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) 374, 418, 424,
433, 434
Homer
Horses
388, 401;
Horse
256, 269
Gymnasiums: Athens
Halicamassus
270
Juvenal 312, 335, 346, 350, 351, 355, 362,
368
JXab
abul, Afghanistan
Khawak
Pass,
Hindu Kush
191*, 226-
Knossos, Crete
67, 69*, 442
Languages
440
Lawrence, D. H. 266
League of Twelve Cities 252, 257*
Legion 391, 392; legionaries 373, 381,
383, 388, 390-395, 398, 402, 403, 407
191*, 232, 236
Lemnabad,
USSR.
Liw
Locn,
M*
MacKendnck,
Lacedonia 192-195
Dr. Paul
Madan 216
Magna Graecia
Mago 284, 290,
9,
175
Maharbal 328
Malea, Cape, Greece 77*, 79, 170*
Malpasso (Bad Pass), Italy 320, 321
Malta, island 77*, 102, 104, 105, 279*
Wars
150;
174.
442
Column
Markets:
Ampunas (Emponon)
304-305;
Mars
Masinissa 333
Metauro River,
Italy 319*,
333
Medes
Megaron
46-47, 53-54
Melkart, Pillars of (Gibraltar) 292
Melos, island 180
Mining: Attica 134, 153; Cartagena 297298; Etruscan 264, 269; Gaul 391
Minoan
195, 204,
Munda,
battle 415*,
429
Mycenaeans
Na
Naples (Neapolis),
257*, 319
Narcissus 162
National Geographic Society
expeditions 8, 36, 221
Naucratis, Nile Delta 101
441
Rome
WE
and
rebuilt
Ninth-century
B.C.
whose
by metal
column
styles
was
high point in the Parthenon (pages 40, 147). Slimmer Ionic (7) thrusts toward a
capital with volutes curled like a ram's horn or seashell
(A). Callimachus, 5th-century B.C. bronzesmith inspired,
the story goes, by acanthus leaves (B) growing rank
around a basket on a maiden's grave, designed the ornate Corinthian column (8), named for her town.
Etruscans fostered use of the keystone arch (9) that
could carry more and span farther than post and lintel.
With the arch, audacious Romans engineered marvels,
bridging rivers in one leap (10), or in many (11) page
430). For heroes they raised triumphal arches like Constantine's (12) in Rome. Their barrel vaults (13) crossed
to breed the groined vault (14). Tiered vaults of concrete
volcanic sand, stones, and water ribbed the matchless Colosseum (15: pages 20, 352). A circular sweep of
arches domes the Pantheon (16; page 22).
Arch-borne aqueducts defied river (1 7) and gorge (19),
where water dipped, then siphoned back uphill. Mountain tunnels with repair shafts (18) maintained the flow.
Pipelines in open terrain (20) tempted tappers.
Scorning detours, Roman road builders bored mountains, filled valleys, stretched causeways over marshes.
While engineers with cross-staff and stakes checked
the Doric order
(6),
reaching
its
on
Nero
Parmenides 101
Nervii 397
Nestor, king 52, 66, 68; "Nestor's cup"
51
New
Nicias 182
Nile, river 417*, 418
Nimes, France
Pella,
193, 239;
Oc'ctavian
Peloponnesus
see
Odysseus 7,
Odyssey (Homer) 43,
77; quoted 74-111
Oedipus 30, 31, 34
Penelope
8, 43-72, 74-111
Pentathlon 169
Pentilicus,
8, 30, 34,
168-
169, 199
Olympic Games
Pergamum
Pelops 175
Augustus
173-174
i62, 166
Onagers 390, 391
Mount
Phalans 100
Phalerum, port 153
Xerxes 218-219
Rome
Pan 153
Panathenaic
festival,
Athens
122, 144-
145, 146
II of
Philip
Philodemus
Macedonia 184,
of Gadara 364
Philosophy 117-118,
Philotas 226
Phocaeans 101
Phoenician alphabet 7. 66, 67
Phoenicians 105; colonies 97, 275, 279*,
282; see also Carthage; religion 281,
287-288, 291-293, child sacrifice 284287; ships 276. 276-277, 279; trade 275;
wares 280-281
Phrygians 157, 184
Piazza del Popolo, Rome 349*, 350351
Piazza Navona, Rome 348*
Picts 403. 417
Pillars of Hercules 76*. 101, 132
Pinciana Gate, Rome 349*
Pindar 100
Piraeus, port 130-131, 131-132, 140, 180
Pirates, Cilician 375, 376
Pisistratus 114
212. 214-215
Palatine Hill,
349*
Bodrum 200
Pompev
433
of
all
things'
Protagoras
2000
Cycladic
idol.
National
Museum, Athens
B.C.;
I.
&*iqf
//>,
m
Minoan
terracotta,
1800 B.C.;
Herakleion
Museum
I
I
Winged Victory
of Samothrace,
Hellenistic, 2(H) B.C.; the Louvre
Poseidon
athletes
centuries B.C.
on
a ship's
prow with
a swirl of clinging
The
life,
Roman
artist,
realism (pages
.172, 432).
age.
We
(many were
170
Potrias 67
Pottery 46, 62, 73, 397; Athenian 134,
135, 138-139; Campanian 291;
Etruscan 267, 271; Thera 57, 59;
Tunisian 290
Pretani 403
Pnam, king 50, 51, 68, 69, 77
Propvlaea 142
Protagoras 117, 123
Ptolemy, astronomer 211
Ptolemv, kings 209, 210, 211, 248, 422
Punic Wars: First 276-277, 282; Battle
of Mylae 276-277
Punic Wars: Second 294-334; leaders
see Africanus, Hannibal, Scipio;
major battles 319*, Cannae 324-325,
326, 328, Metauro 333, Ticino 317,
Trasimeno 275, 320-321, Trebbia
317, Zama 332, 334
Q,.ueyras.
Palace,
Rome
349*
Religion:
109,
Minoan
67;
Mycenae-
an
MP
Rhine-Danube
Roman empire
Caracalla
(Roman
Museum. Naples
Rope
153, 304
349*
Roxane
Saddle 230
Saguntum (Sagunto)
296*, 298-299,
300, 303
Saillans, France 296*, 309-311
St Albans, England 379*, 406, 407,
409, 415*
St. Peter's Basilica,
Rome
348*, 351,
435
Salamis, battle 100, 114, 150*. 156157, 162-163, 171
Blue
Roman
Samarkand
Homeric
Mosque
233
Qumnal
Sappho
201
Athenian
Scvthians 157
Seal of the United States 9
Segovia, aqueduct 8-9, 431
Selinus, Sicily 100*. 182*, 183
Simonides 159
mines
134, 153
445
88-89, B9, 91
:<)8-209
ce 12]
'
in Africa 424
I* 1*', 199, 201; see also
Izmir
Socrates M, 119, 127, 129, 131, 137, 139,
Smyrna
War
Spartacus 378
Spartans 149, 158, 159, 177, 178-179
Sports and games: bull leaping 58-59,
65, 67; buz kashi 230, 231, 232; chil-
444
Steles 138, 284, 286, 286
Stoas 117, 120-121, 122, 132-133
Stoics 122, 365
Strabo 79, 89, 94, 210, 382, 387
Srngil 123, 123, 361
Stromboli, island 7T 90-91, 91
Stvx, river 63, 71, 140, 166
Theodosius, emperor
Theophrastus 162
28, 31
Trasimeno, lake,
ltalv
320-321; battle
182-183
Syria 189, 209, 417*, 420, 421, 424
Troy
Taormina (Tauromenion),
logical table 73
Tunisia 290, 318-319*, 416*, 424; presidential guard 332; souks 283
Turin, Italy 316, 318*
Turkey 423, 425
Turkoman steppe 190-191*, 217, 223;
nomads 217, 222
Twelve Tables 361
Taranis 386
Umbnans
(Ombrici) 257
States: Great Seal
Post Office motto 163
Ustica, island 77*, 85, 86
Utica 319*, 334
United
9;
motto
Winged
Women,
X,..anthippe 131,
137
140; the
Ten
Xerxes
7, 73;
Zoroaster 221
Vases
Venus de Milo
24, 180
Vercingetorix 410, 411, 414, 418
Verulamium, Britannia 379*, 407, 409,
j.
A. c.
arens, Director;
mcconnell, Manager
Color separations by Beck Engraving
Company, Philadelphia, Pa., Graphic
john
366;
Herman
Venus
status of:
9;
415*
446
Wa
Zeus
Uxellodunum, Gaul
Zama, plain
204, 206-207
Umbria
Vulcan 91
Windmill 211
1 ablets,
Wine
Sulla 374
Susa, Persia 190*, 217, 246; mass
wedding 246, 248-249
Susa Valley, Italy 316-317
Swine 86, 88, 328
Switzerland 376-377, 379*, 381
Swords 71, 320, 324-325, 355, 392-393, 411
Symposium 128-129, 129, 131, 137
414
e.
Color Plate,
Inc.,
Stamford, Conn.,
Va.,
Company,
Donnelley
&
111.
bound by Fawcett-Haynes
Corporation, Rockville, Md. Paper by
Oxford Paper Company, New York.
Printed and
Acknowledgmen ts
and Herculaneum by Marcel Brion, Da;7y Life in AnRome by Jerome Carcopino, Everyday Life in Ancient
Rome and Cicero and the Roman Republic by F. R. Cowell,
The Celtic Realms by Miles Dillon and Nora Chadwick,
peii
cient
and Caesar by
many
individuals and orfor the wealth of information they provided. We especially thank Celestine Bruchetti of the
Etruscan Academy in Cortona, Italy; Prof. Joel Le Gall,
University of Dijon, France; Prof. John F. Latimer of The
George Washington University and Prof. Bernard M.
Peebles of The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C.; Richard M. Haywood, Professor of Classics, New York University, and Cornelius C. Vermeule
III, Curator of Classical Art, Boston Museum of Fine
Arts, for checking paintings; and James A. Cox, who
helped write picture captions.
We compared many translations of ancient sources;
editors
The
ganizations
are grateful to
Other
reliable
companions included
Lat-
taries
ularly turned
to
A Companion
to
J.
F.
C. Fuller.
We
World by
Cary and
R. A. G.
E.
Homer
A Companion
to Latin Studies
by Chester G.
Starr,
An
In-
tiquities of classical
Our
Rome by Theodor
zestful reading.
editors
lands.
studied
art
made
Poets in a Landscape
ilton,
wax
tabellae; \ational
st
ish
Museum, Naples
Museum, London;
the
Crete and
al
Museum
Museen,
ological
Museum,
of Antiquities,
Museum, Rome;
the Arche-
Museum,
in
many
departments contributed to this book. See listing on following page. Some 900 issues of National Geographic
contain a treasure of information, illustrations, and
firsthand accounts of archeology and life in Greece and
Rome. Consult the National Geographic Index.
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H.
Vice President, American Telephone
& Telegraph Company (Ret.)
s ta
,?tTi?
JR., Former
ry of the Navy
Dee
J.
EARL WARREN
Chief Justice of the United States
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JAMES
E.
WEBB
ALEXANDER WETMORE
Research Associate,
Smithsonian Institution
LLOYD
WILSON
B.
(Emeritus)
WIRTH. Former
LOUIS
Senior Scientist. Office of Anthropology, Smithsonian InstiW. STIRLING. Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution. JAMES H. WAKELIN. JR.,
L. WIRTH, PAUL A. ZAHL. and
the senior officers of the Society; BARRY C. BISHOP, Secretary on leave;
EDWIN W. SNIDER. Secretary
tution.
Whitney
CONRAD
M. Lavery
Editorial Research:
Manion
LLOYD
J.
Edward
Geographic Research: George Crossette (Chief); Newton V. Blakeslee (Assistant Chief). Virginia L. Baza, Leon J. Canova, John A. Weeks
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
MELVILLE BELL GROSVENOR
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in
irdancc with the laws of the United Stales, as a nonprofit scientific and
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promoting search and exploration. Since 1890 the Society has supported 455
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Chairman of
Jr.,
Assistant Editors:
Editors
Tin
GROSVENOR
1).
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MATTHEW
CONRAD
PHOTOGRAPHIC
DELK. JOSEPH
B.
Assistant
Leonard
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Explorers Hall:
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ume,
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go adven-
writers
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sweep
of Alexander's
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rise
Roman
440 in breathtaking
and
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at
curving con-
straight,
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to the
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