What humanized the Romans for you as a individual?

[Celtic505]

I've been reading about the Romans for about as long as I can remember. I was always fascinated as a kid by their glorious Empire & conquests, the twisted thirst for blood in their gladiatorial games & famous names like Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero, etc....but I suppose in all my time studying them I never really felt connected to them as actual human beings. I mean, I knew they were people like you & I of today, I often tried as I got older to fit that in with my boyish first impressions of them as larger than life mythical figures of history. Certainly seeing things like the magma casts of huddled survivors in the ruins of Pompeii are quite humbling & make you think. And the amount of death & pain through slavery & the gladiator games & Christian (among other groups) persecutions were things to be reviled & also sympathetic towards their victims. But I don't know why I still just felt centuries away from these people. Just something I couldn't place was still there that made me not feel so much as.....I don't know, I suppose real? They were so larger than life in history, everybody knows of the Romans, its like their not only thousands of miles away (from the United States) but years as well & they just seemed so far away & I don't know what else, but their experience never felt authentic or real to me. I mean that not as if they never existed, or history is wrong. I mean in the way I can relate to them personally. I can see pictures of a bombed out hospital in Iraq with children crying & I feel sad & cry because I can imagine them being my family, I can imagine their pain, all I want to do is reach out a thousand miles to hold them & say it will be alright. But with the Romans? I don't get that same feeling. Anyways, I never did until just the other day...I was reading the Osprey campaign series book on the Varus disaster & I got to the page with the picture of the infamous Marcus Caelius monument. I looked at it for about probably the 1,000th time in my life. I've seen it so often & so many pages of different books, I've seen his torques & armillae designs used in so many illustrations & reenactors. I had literally seen this monument so often that I almost didn't even read the small insert next to the photograph of it. I knew it was a monument put up for him after the battle & the image of his gear so often used as a source on what Romans & particularly Centurions might look like but I read it anyways & I guess I've been quite lazy in my studies throughout the years. I guess I remember reading his brother had it built but I suppose it was the timing or the way it was written. But for the 1st time I noticed the information & took note of it. This man had perished in battle. His brother, without a body to mourn, without ever getting to say goodbye or really knowing how his beloved (I assume) brother died. He wrote that if his bones or remains were to be found that they be interred here at this monument. I don't know, something about that struck me inexplicably. I immediately began to shed tears at what I felt was a touching tribute to a fallen comrade & a beloved brother. I come from an Irish-Catholic household of 8 kids, 5 brothers & 2 sisters. All of my brothers are close. If one of them ever died, especially young (well, Caelius was 52 but still.... he didn't die an old man in his bed) it would scar me & my brothers for life. We'd never be the same. I imagined Publius Caelius maybe returning to the site of the monument throughout his life reminiscing of when they were boys playing together or when they got older & started talking about girls. It just touched me, I don't care if that sounds stupid or effeminate But in that instant. I got it. I understood the Romans were people like me. They had brothers & sisters & children & hopes, dreams, fears, aspirations, phobias, anxieties, senses of humour, compassion, love, etc. They were just human beings. In that one instant of taking notice to something I had see over a thousand times & actually taking the goddamned time to read the translation instead of studying the statue I had a moment I will remember for the rest of my days, as long as I continue to be a follower of Roman history. I am ashamed this moment had not come sooner. I'd been studying Romans for years, at least over a decade now. I wonder how many of you have had similar experiences? Do you any of you have trouble seeing them as real people? Do you get hung up on their mythical status in history? (I don't mean like Hercules myth, I just mean like, there's certain people so often brought up in history & so famous they are larger than life, a not very good example being Hitler, the name so often used to the point where its almost a caricature of itself, you don't think of him as being an actual individual with thoughts & emotions. You just think of this force of history, people like him, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, etc.) Or have you always seen them as people just like you? I'd be interested in what everybody has to share. Thanks for reading my long post. I tend to write much as I have too much stuff going on in my head to keep it all in. -Dennis
Oh yes, by the way I will post the Caelius monument below just to give reference I suppose, maybe some people don't know which piece I am referring to, though I doubt it. But if you don't that'
[attachment=8611]caelius.jpg[/attachment]
s okay too. Hell, I didn't even know the translation of the text for the past 13 years!

[1493541]

Hey, I guess a way I could make a connection is they were really like America. So much even that the libertarians and tea partyist got together to discuss how similar America is to that society. Seeing graffiti can have some good effects too I guess.

[Epictetus]

Reading Marcus Aurelius. He was one of the most powerful persons on the planet during his lifetime, and he lived in a strange and alien society, but he had all the same hopes and doubts and fears as anyone.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Like David, it was from reading words written nearly 1700 years ago that made me really think. Those words were written in person by Ammianus Marcellinus, a one-time Tribune in the Roman army serving under the Emperor's Constantius II, Julian, Jovian and possibly Valentinian & Valens. When you read his work you begin to get a grasp of 'him' as a person, mainly I think because in many cases he was speaking as an eye witness to the events he described. His narrative of being inside Amida when it was besieged and then his escape when it fell to the Sasanids is both informative and in some respects quite chilling in the telling.

Of course some of the things Ammianus revels in we consider totally aborrent today, the slaying of every man, woman, child and animal in a town by the Romans during one campaign described in glowing terms comes to mind. Yet, we know that he was a product of his age, and as such we perhaps can, if not forgive, then at least understand why they did what they did.

[Renatus]

What humanises the Romans for me is that most touching of tombstone formulae, commonly applied to a wife, child or other loved-one, sit tibi terra levis, 'may the earth lie lightly on you'. It rarely fails to moisten the eye.

[daconey]

Dennis,
Absolutely love your post, I have thought about that same theme from time to time and had that conversation with my wife on several occasions. I have always been passionate about History, in particular European history. As an American who has had the pleasure of living for nine non-consecutive years in Europe, walking the Limes, and seeing Pompeii has put a lot of humanization to them for me. Prior to 1998, it was just a national geographic article or a dry documentary. It is this passion for having to see their magnificent cities and architecture, amongst many other things that did it for me. As a career Soldier myself I can relate to the traveling of far and distant lands, interacting with the locals and opening yourself up more to other cultures that I just cannot put a price tag on. I even married a Barbarian from Germania (joking) Although I have not been in hand to hand combat with the enemy I have seen death and destruction up close in both Iraq and Afghanistan and Roman Soldier tomb stones have become personal and not just words. (The stein hall in Mainz, Germany landesmuseum is finally re-opened by the way with several fine examples) The Caelus one is of course my favorite and I have a small replica in my display case. Meet the Romans w/ mary beard comes to mind about how to relate to a culture so far ago however, everywhere you go look and see, The might of Rome still exists and influences today. In politics, the calendar, how armies are organized etc. That is my little rant; I love this forum but am more of just a reader and not a typer (just like facebook) everyone have a merry Christmas, happy Hanukah or whatever applies.

Eric

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I like that one Renatus :lol:

[1493541]

There was a tombstone for a slave that said , "bought as a slave, died a son", which I find helpful. You can't for get Catullus's rants about how he was going to "sodomize and face fuck" his enemies for not liking his works. Those seem like emotions

[Nathan Ross]

Catullus's rants about how he was going to "sodomize and face fuck" his enemies

Yeah, Catullus is good for that sort of thing - I'd take him over Virgil any day!

As for inscriptions, I still like this one (gravestone of an anonymous primus pilus from north Africa, discussed here)

I wanted to hold the corpses of Dacians; I held some
I wanted to sit on a seat of peace; I sat on one
I wanted to march in magnificent triumphal processions; I did that
I wanted all the financial advantages of being a primuspilus; I had them
I wanted to see the Nymphs naked; I saw them.

:-)

[Flavivs Aetivs]

We had a discussion about that particular tombstone a while back if I recall.

[Theodosius the Great]

Cicero's works and letters.


~Theo

[John1]

That their dna is still alive and well and living in rural England.

[Vindex]

Handling excavated artefacts from contexts which mean the last person who held them was a soldier or civilian. Spine tingling.

[Kegluneq]

Handling excavated artefacts from contexts which mean the last person who held them was a soldier or civilian. Spine tingling.

I think this to some degree. The problem is that often then you're connecting to what you believe the original owner to have been, so I find it more of a moving than a personalising experience, if that makes sense.

Actual language and representative art moves us a bit closer, from the tombstones of children to the letters of Cicero and the Vindolanda tablets. But on the whole, all we can do is remember that people in the past were much like ourselves, even if we no longer have any real way of connecting with them on an immediate, personal level.

[Vindex]

Hmmm...I think they are further removed from us than we like to think. Yes, they are human, but they are not emersed in a monotheistic culture which drives our (Western European Christians) moral and political core.

Different values on so many levels.