tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/roman-emperors-38205/articles
Roman emperors – The Conversation
2021-08-12T08:30:18Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/152830
2021-08-12T08:30:18Z
2021-08-12T08:30:18Z
A bitter culture war in the fourth century shows we may not be as divided as we think
<p>A large crowd gathers, seething with anger over the ignorant and harmful ideas of their opponents. They want to stamp out the power of the old regime for the good of the world. The group comes upon a statue honouring the outdated ideologies they have come to hate and tears it to the ground, shattering it to pieces.</p>
<p>This scene may sound familiar. So much like the demise of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52954305">in 2020</a> and the Capitol riots <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55575260">in Washington DC</a>. But I’m actually describing episodes from the eastern Roman Empire in the late fourth and early fifth century AD. Imagine zealous Christian monks tearing down statues of Greek gods, such as Artemis or Zeus, rather than anti-racism protesters or MAGA fanatics.</p>
<p>It happened in a world dominated by the far-reaching Roman Empire, in which only elite men could receive an education and hold positions of influence, while ordinary people lived as craftsmen, traders and farmers or cared for their children. The previous century had been marked by plague and famine, but people in this time lived in relative safety. Very few read, so almost all went to listen to speeches on street corners, the public square and from the pulpit as a source of entertainment and learning. It was a very different time.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I was reminded of this scene in 2020 when <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52949014">anti-racism protests</a>, in the wake of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52861726">murder of George Floyd</a>, led to the toppling of statues <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/confederate-statues-photos.html">around the world</a>. I research the history and philosophy of Christianity in the fourth century and I focus, in particular, on a certain bishop named <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-of-Nyssa">Gregory of Nyssa</a>. Gregory wrote many ornate theological texts which both advanced what it meant to be a Christian and helped people to live better lives.</p>
<p>Alongside sermons and treatises, Gregory also wrote biographies of certain holy people. He did this because he thought that these stories could subtly influence people to believe and act in accordance with his vision of Christianity. So, my research reconstructs the reasons why Gregory thought that biographies could influence people in this way. I ask how the rhetoric made them feel and what it taught them, and then I explore how these feelings and knowledge change what people believe and do. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This is a Conversation Insights story</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
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<p>I find this area fascinating because today we are starting to come to terms with the fact that all media shapes our beliefs and actions. So Gregory offers us a useful way to think about how it does this. And a crucial part of my research has been coming to understand what society was like and what people believed in order to grasp the ideas and actions of ordinary people and figure out how Gregory was trying to influence them. As my research progressed I discovered that there is a really significant parallel between then and now. Namely, the fourth century seemed – on the surface at least – to be divided by a bitter culture war. But a closer look revealed that this “war” was overstated – just as I believe it is now. </p>
<p>This parallel isn’t just a quirk of history – it’s genuinely insightful for us today because it helps answer a particularly pressing question: why does society feel so polarised – as if on every issue we’re divided into two warring factions – when there is <a href="https://www.britainschoice.uk/">evidence</a> which suggests that is not the case? It seems that the misperception that society is incredibly polarised comes from those who shout the loudest.</p>
<p>Social media has helped amplify divisive voices, with the far right and the far left of the political spectrum both using their reach to spread misinformation and sow the seeds of division. This all happened in the fourth century too. But instead of Twitter and YouTube, each side of the divide used letters, sermons and speeches to spread their distorted version of reality. So what was dividing Rome all those centuries ago?</p>
<h2>Christianity is legalised</h2>
<p>Until the beginning of the fourth century, the official religion of the empire had been the worship of the traditional Greek and Roman gods such as Zeus and Athena. These gods were worshipped through sacrifices and public ceremonies. Then, in 313, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor">Emperor Constantine</a> decreed that Christians were free to worship whichever gods they pleased and Christianity finally became legal.</p>
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<img alt="Battle image from Greek manuscript." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410627/original/file-20210709-21-14ozcs9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Battle image from Greek manuscript depicting Emperor Constantine’s vision in the sky before a battle in 312AD prompting his conversion to Christianity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity#/media/File:BnF_MS_Gr510_folio_440_recto_-_detail_-_Constantine's_Vision_and_the_Battle_of_the_Milvian_Bridge.jpg">Wikipedia/National Library of France</a></span>
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<p>This meant that Christians did not have to carry on hiding in the margins of society, as they had once done. They quickly rose to prominence. First, Constantine converted to Christianity, then almost every successive emperor kept the Christian faith. Bishops began to play crucial roles in local power structures, churches popped up everywhere, and by the end of that century the emperor Theodosius I introduced <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/%7Egrout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/paganism.html">laws</a> outlawing the worship of those old Greek and Roman gods. The fourth century was a time of enormous cultural change as one dominant ideology gave way to another. Rome was moving from paganism to Christianity. </p>
<p>For a long time there was a widespread historical view that this century was a time of bitter conflict between pagans and Christians. <a href="https://archive.org/details/conflictbetweenp0000momi/page/n9/mode/2up">Scholars believed</a> there had been a culture war for a number of reasons and one of the most important was that they read the extreme voices as if they represented the reality of the age.</p>
<p>Then, slowly, historians began to <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336931.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195336931-e-26">investigate</a> what ordinary people thought. They saw that most in society were much more moderate in their religious beliefs and found a great deal in common with the “other side”. But who were the extremists dividing Rome at the time?</p>
<h2>The fanatic monk</h2>
<p>The fourth century was a moment about which the adage “history is written by the victors” is certainly true. There are a great many examples of Christian authors who paint a deceptive picture of the ideological landscape of their time. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Chrysostom">John Chrysostom</a> is a particularly useful example. Chrysostom was born in Antioch (which is now in Turkey) with every advantage. His father ranked highly in the military and Chrysostom received the finest education available under the tutelage of one the most famous teachers in the empire.</p>
<p>Then, once he committed himself to Christianity, he became a monk, living austerely in the desert, scarcely eating or sleeping, until he permanently damaged his body. At which point he moved back to the city, was ordained first as a deacon and then a priest and began to preach to his congregation.</p>
<p>Through his sermons, Chrysostom constantly defined what it meant to be a “true Christian” and what it meant to be pagan. One of his rhetorical strategies was the creation of a false choice: making his audience choose between either his strict beliefs or being a pagan. We could compare Chrysostom here to statements in the culture war today. <a href="https://twitter.com/DrIbram/status/1302724906212380673?s=20">For example</a>, “you are not truly anti-racist if you are pro-capitalism”.</p>
<p>Chrysostom never left any middle ground. This gave the sense that “true Christianity” was a very narrow path and also that it had absolutely nothing in common with paganism. </p>
<p>Throughout his works he says that being a Christian means that a person adheres to a strict set of beliefs about God. For example, good Christians had to live “a holy life” which meant, among many other things, not going to the theatre, because men might lust after the women singing and dancing on stage and neglect their families. Christians also had to give charitably to the poor and not use magical objects and spells. If a person was to step outside of these boundaries in any way then they were not a Christian – at least according to Chrysostom’s rhetoric. For example, in <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1908.htm">Instructions to Catechumens</a> he strictly forbids any Christian from wearing an amulet to keep them safe from illness (as was the pagan practice at the time), saying: </p>
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<p>And what is one to say about them who use charms and amulets, and encircle their heads and feet with golden coins of Alexander of Macedon. Are these our hopes, tell me, that after the cross and death of our Master, we should place our hopes of salvation on an image of a Greek king?… Thou dost not only have amulets always with you, but incantations bringing drunken and half-witted old women into your house…</p>
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<p>During the course of this moral command he draws an implicit comparison with the pagans through the figure of an old woman. Historians have <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/religious-identity-in-late-antiquity/religious-identity-religious-practice-and-personal-religious-power/B414248BB8F6A59A9858D8FE572D161E">suggested</a> that this woman was casting some kind of spell over a talisman of Alexander the Great while <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342703.001.0001/acprof-9780195342703-chapter-7#acprof-9780195342703-chapter-7-note-56">uttering spells</a> which call upon the Christian God. Chrysostom then says in no uncertain terms that she is not a Christian because they do not use amulets. Instead, he goes on to imply that this woman is a pagan by comparing her to a demon, as he characterises pagan worship as demonic: </p>
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<p>I especially hate and turn away from her, because she makes use of the name of God, with a view to ribaldry. For even the demons uttered the name of God, but still they were demons.</p>
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<p>In this way, he sets up a false choice between two completely distinct and polarised options: be a Christian and don’t use amulets or be a pagan and do. There is no middle ground. </p>
<h2>The fanatic pagan</h2>
<p>But Christians were not the only ones ramping up the rhetoric. Pagans did it too. Emperor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julian-Roman-emperor">Julian the Apostate</a> is one of the few pagan figures from that time whose texts survive in the historical record. Born in 331, he was the nephew of Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity legal in 313, and was brought up in the Christian faith but converted to paganism as a young adult.</p>
<p>He continued his philosophical education and eventually became <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julian-Roman-emperor#ref3788">emperor in 361</a>. But he died on a battlefield just 20 months later, after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Persia, seeking military glory. He is most famous for being the last pagan emperor. </p>
<p>During his short reign he tried to dislodge Christianity as the dominant religion of the empire. He attacked Christian ideology, incited power struggles within the church, openly preferred pagans for high office, expelled Christians from the army and banned them from teaching. He also tried to restore paganism to its previous station by restoring bloody animal sacrifices and the temples to the heart of public life and reforming the priesthood. </p>
<p>In particular, Emperor Julian tried to promote a very specific understanding of the ancient Greek literature, such as Homer and Plato. He believed that they revealed knowledge about the gods rather than simply being fine literary works and so he laid claim to them as belonging to pagans and insisted that “true Pagans” should venerate the gods as they are presented in these ancient texts. In this way he set forward a very particular vision for paganism. Importantly, he also drew a very sharp comparison to Christians and defined their relationship to these ancient texts in very uncharitable ways. In an <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letters_of_Julian/Letter_36">edict</a> banning Christian teachers from teaching these Greek texts, he said:</p>
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<p>When a man thinks one thing and teaches his pupils another, in my opinion he fails to educate exactly in proportion as he fails to be an honest man…But if in matters of the greatest importance a man has certain opinions and teaches the contrary, what is that but the conduct of hucksters, and not honest but thoroughly dissolute men in that they praise most highly the things that they believe to be most worthless… </p>
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<p>Emperor Julian defines the Christian relationship with ancient Greek literature in a very narrow way, saying that they think that these texts are worthless, when in fact, a Christian might not have thought of them as divine texts but still would have seen their enormous value as literary objects. Julian allows no room for that nuance or middle way. Instead, he presents two false options: treat these texts as revelations of the gods or see them as useless. He paints a picture which says that pagan and Christian understandings of these Greek texts are completely polarised.</p>
<p>These texts are not isolated examples, but part of an enormous body of Christian and pagan literature which presents these two ideological systems as distinct, with no middle ground. In that wider context, both Chrysostom and Julian tell a very particular story about society – that being a Christian or a pagan involves a very narrow set of beliefs and practices, which are mutually exclusive. The result is a perception that society is split in two halves. </p>
<h2>New evidence</h2>
<p>But historians have since turned away from this picture. Over the past 50 years lots of different evidence has come to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Pagans_and_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empir.html?id=Xln6LIaOwCcC&redir_esc=y">light</a> which shows that this image of society was, in fact, false. The fourth century society was not composed of two warring factions. </p>
<p>In particular, scholars have begun to look to other sources for information about ordinary people’s beliefs and practices. As a result, historians now suggest that everyone who worshipped the Christian God did not follow the same strict set of beliefs and practices as Chrysostom and the same is true of those who sacrificed to the pagan gods.</p>
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<img alt="Image of ancient papyrus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1796&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385636/original/file-20210222-21-14kkbl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1796&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A piece of excavated Oxyrhynchus papyrus - an amulet against fever.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/images/papyrus/0012rwf.jpg">University of Glasgow</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>At the turn of the 20th century, two archaeologists, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, <a href="https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/oxyrhynchus-papyri">excavated</a> thousands of papyrus texts from an ancient rubbish heap in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. Since then scholars have slowly been digitising and translating these texts, finding scraps of ancient books, as well as various discarded documents, such as court records and private letters. In 1999, Marvin Meyer <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h93iCQkR9WMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">published</a> their translation of <em>Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1151</em> – a text which was written roughly at the same time as Chrysostom and paints a very different picture of society. </p>
<p>The papyrus is a <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342703.001.0001/acprof-9780195342703-chapter-15#acprof-9780195342703-chapter-15-note-8">magical amulet</a> designed to ward off illness. The owner would have probably bought it from a local priest at a local church or saints shrine. Before handing over the scroll the cleric would read it out-loud, then the owner would then have rolled it up into a small container and worn it around their neck. The idea was that the amulet would ward off illness as the owner wore it. It sounds like the sort of thing that Chrysostom vehemently denounced from his pulpit as unchristian – but the language is Christian. It says:</p>
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<p>Lord † Christ, son and word of the living God, the one who healed every disease and every sickness, heal and look upon your female slave Joannia also, to whom Anastasia alias Euphemia gave birth, and expel from her and put to flight every fever-heat and every kind of chill. </p>
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<p>This scroll is not an isolated case. Meyer published his translation of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1151 alongside hundreds of other Christian magical texts, dozens of which were written during the fourth century. For example, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h93iCQkR9WMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">a spell</a> to protect a woman against fever, which closes by calling upon the Christian Triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). </p>
<p>These scrolls are important evidence of a seamless integration of non-Christian magical practice and Christian language. Consequently, <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336931.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195336931-e-26">they show</a> that not all ordinary Christians, members of the clergy and religious orders followed the same narrow set of behaviours which Chrysostom set out.</p>
<p>Historians have begun to think that this moderate understanding of religious belief and practice was quite widespread, rather than being a few isolated cases. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/religious-identity-in-late-antiquity/religious-identity-religious-practice-and-personal-religious-power/B414248BB8F6A59A9858D8FE572D161E">They</a> advance this idea on the basis of the content of early Christian sermons. In the case of magical amulets, the fact that Chrysostom chose to denounce them in his sermon to baptismal candidates shows that many churchgoers used them, otherwise he wouldn’t have considered it a problem worth raising. </p>
<p>Sermons also show us that ordinary worshippers regularly practised a whole range of activities which the fanatics denounced. A great number of Christians observed pagan religious customs and vice versa. Christians observed pagan festivals and attended lectures about pagan gods. Clearly, a significant portion of society did not observe the strict boundaries around what it meant to be a Christian or a pagan, which the fanatics tried to set up. </p>
<p>These pieces of evidence are significant because they show that there is a certain disconnect between the story which Chrysostom and Julian tell about what it means to be Christian or pagan and the reality of what individual people actually believed. This evidence does not invalidate the ideas which Chrysostom had about Christianity or Julian about pagan philosophy, but it does reveal that they were the ideas of extreme voices on the margin rather than representative of half of society. It also shows us that historians initially let these extreme figures tell the story rather than looking at what ordinary people believed.</p>
<h2>Here and now</h2>
<p>And so back to today. It feels like the world is polarised between two groups who have nothing in common. But in reality there are a broad range of beliefs and values and these extreme voices only represent a small proportion of people. The same dynamics, which make society feel more polarised, are at play now, just as they were 1600 years ago.</p>
<p>I believe that we might be incorrectly perceiving the nature of today’s society for similar reasons, we are misled by the loudest and most extreme voices as they define what it means to be left or right wing, rather than falling back on the data about what people actually believe. </p>
<p>For example, the international research group <a href="https://www.moreincommon.com/">More in Common</a> released “<a href="https://www.britainschoice.uk/">Britain’s Choice</a>” which they described as one of the largest ever national studies of the UK’s social psychology. Their findings show that the country is not divided between two opposing groups but rather, is composed of seven different kinds of people, each with their own distinctive values and beliefs. </p>
<p>There are two groups who are particularly politically active and agree on little – “progressive activists” and “backbone conservatives”. But they only make up a small proportion of society (13% and 15% respectively). Importantly, each of these groups share many values and there are even some priorities which they all share, such as having pride in the NHS and being happy about advances in gender equality. The takeaway is that the UK, and society in general, is not divided into two sides of a culture war.</p>
<p>If people want to find out what society is actually like – rather than how it feels – they should stop letting the extreme voices tell the story and listen to ordinary people. Then, we might actually see the country for what it is: a complicated place in which many are divided – but also a haven for people to come together and bond over the things they have in common. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/cant-face-running-have-a-hot-bath-or-a-sauna-research-shows-they-offer-some-similar-benefits-158552?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Can’t face running? Have a hot bath or a sauna – research shows they offer some similar benefits</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-culture-of-silence-and-stigma-around-emotions-dominates-policing-officer-diaries-reveal-152657?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">A culture of silence and stigma around emotions dominates policing, officer diaries reveal</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-double-lives-of-gay-men-in-chinas-hainan-province-153945?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The double lives of gay men in China’s Hainan province</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan James William Gilfeather receives funding from the following bodies: University of Cambridge Divinity Faculty; Peterhouse, University of Cambridge; The Church of England Research Degree Panel; and The Diocese of London in the Church of England. He will also be ordained as a minister in the Church of England in June 2022. </span></em></p>
Voices on the extremes don’t represent society.
Ryan Gilfeather, PhD Candidate in Divinity, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138944
2020-06-07T19:49:32Z
2020-06-07T19:49:32Z
Spare change? Cashless transactions could end the cultural legacy of the coin
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339976/original/file-20200605-176585-1iy4ymc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C5431%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ancient-coin-roman-empire-600w-382256434.jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As shoppers and retailers do away with cash transactions, we may be witnessing the end of a major source of social and historical information – the coin. </p>
<p>In the modern age, coinage is increasingly seen as cumbersome, a vector for disease and costly to manufacture. Yet for more than 2,600 years, coins have faithfully preserved insights into human society through the eyes of the issuing state. </p>
<p>Coins reveal how rulers wanted their subjects to perceive their politics, their national identity and the social values they wanted to celebrate.</p>
<p>Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev <a href="https://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ist/fas.htm">wrote</a> in 1861: “the drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages in a book”. Nowhere is this more evident than on coinage, where words are limited. </p>
<p>Coins have always conveyed a message and, helpfully for historians, they are anchored to a specific time and place. Historian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/28/harold-mattingly-obituary">Harold Mattingly</a> once called Roman coins the “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=trkUDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA342&lpg=PA342&dq=harold+mattingly+coins+as+newspapers+of+the+day&source=bl&ots=dHqgFfxaO3&sig=ACfU3U3I8K0O-CKFCd2b3QwGEg8u447vhw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj73OeW0unpAhXn7XMBHT02BiwQ6AEwCnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=harold%20mattingly%20coins%20as%20newspapers%20of%20the%20day&f=false">newspapers of the day</a>” – announcing new emperors, naming of heirs, proclaiming battle wins, holiday celebrations and events.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-losing-millions-every-week-but-they-are-already-working-hard-to-preserve-coronavirus-artefacts-137597">Museums are losing millions every week but they are already working hard to preserve coronavirus artefacts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The emperor’s new coins</h2>
<p>Coins of the beleaguered Roman emperors of 69CE – during the Roman civil wars, when imperial reign was reckoned in months rather than years – depict imagery designed to bolster public confidence in the emperor of the moment. </p>
<p>Vitellius used imagery of the loyalty of the army. One example depicts clasped hands with the accompanying inscription <em>FIDES EXERCITVVM</em> (loyalty of the armies). The idea was far more aspirational than reflective of reality. That same year, Otho who reigned for 12 weeks, optimistically declared his <em>VICTORIA</em> (“victory”) and <em>PAX ORBIS TERRARIUM</em> (“worldwide peace”) on coins circulated during his fleeting reign.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339977/original/file-20200605-176550-q1qoy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roman Coin Denarius of Otho.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Roman_Coin%2C_Denarius_of_Otho_%28FindID_837069%29.jpg/1024px-Roman_Coin%2C_Denarius_of_Otho_%28FindID_837069%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coins can offer detail where literary sources are lacking or incomplete. A large bronze sestertius (a denomination of Ancient Roman coin) that Titus had minted in 80-81CE, depicts not only external structures and statues but also intricate details of the Roman Colosseum interior. It also shows spectators, staircases, an imperial viewing box, and even depiction of the engineering mechanism for awning to provide shade.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339994/original/file-20200605-176550-15rs6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Colosseum on Titus’s large bronze coin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Mynt_-_Skoklosters_slott_-_100272.tif/lossy-page2-1200px-Mynt_-_Skoklosters_slott_-_100272.tif.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ancient coins show that rivalry between cities is not new. In Ancient Rome, a city was honoured with the title <em>neokoros</em> (temple keeper) when permission was granted to build a temple to the emperor or imperial family. </p>
<p>The city of Ephesus was the first to be honoured with such a title during the reign of Nero (54-68CE). Cities vied to have neokoros on their coinage and in the ensuing centuries more than three dozen cities held the title, some multiple times over.</p>
<p>Militaristic exploits were a common theme celebrated on ancient coins. The brutal Roman response to uprising and unrest in Judea resulted in the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70CE. Many coins of the time depicting <em>Judea Capta</em> (Judea captured) were issued by the emperor Vespasian. His son Titus, whose sacking of Jerusalem as military commander was his sole claim to military glory, used coins to exaggerate the Jerusalem victory and secure his own line of succession.</p>
<h2>Language used</h2>
<p>Roman coins minted in the provinces away from Rome typically were inscribed with Greek rather than Latin. Rome may have conquered the Mediterranean politically by the first century CE, but Alexander’s spread of Hellenistic cultural and linguistic influences long outlived the collapse of his rule. </p>
<p>The linguistic components on coins help provide insight into the terminology used at the time. The word for city founder, <em>ktisths</em>, on coinage helps explain the term’s single appearance in the New Testament – though this has been traditionally translated as “creator” in modern English editions due to the similarity of ktisths to <em>ktizw</em> (meaning: to create). </p>
<p>The term’s use on coins makes it clear Peter the apostle was not referring to a cosmological creator but to a city founder and hence sustainer. When Peter writes to the marginalised and fledgling Christian community, he seeks to encourage them with an image of God as founder.</p>
<p>Even seemingly innocent imagery can reveal darker meaning. Pontius Pilate’s coinage for Judea showed a ladle (simpulum) and curved rod (lituus). These were commonly assumed to lack human representation out of respect for Jewish sensitivities. In fact, they were symbols of Greco-Roman pagan religion and imperial cult. This showed Pilate’s allegiance to Roman ideology rather than any Jewish sensitivities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339983/original/file-20200605-176580-yifnka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pontius Pilate used symbolism on Judea coinage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Coin-of-Pilate.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Still in circulation</h2>
<p>Imagery on older coins are very much current and still in use in modern coinage. The Athenian owl prominently displayed on the the tetradrachm coin from the 5th century BCE still features on recently issued 1 Euro coins.</p>
<p>The modern state of Israel sought to reverse Vespasian’s ancient war cry with a positive variation of the Judea Capta inscription. The new coin contrasts <em>Judea Capta</em> on one side with <em>Israel Liberata</em> on the other. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339984/original/file-20200605-176542-g3sc0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Athenian owl still features on the Greek Euro coin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/one-greek-euro-600w-153184568.jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Money has taken various shapes and forms over human history. This includes feather money, cowrie shells, spade, boat and knife money. But it is the simple circular disk of stamped metal that has endured. </p>
<p>These small pieces of stamped metal have preserved insights into religion, community identity, monumentality, language and imperial power for thousands of years. </p>
<p>Future historians and archaeologists may find creative ways of mining cultural data out of our digital transactions, but for the time being, modern coinage continues the long human tradition of expression and national identity formation through state issued coinage.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-14-indigenous-words-for-money-on-our-new-50-cent-coin-113110">The 14 Indigenous words for money on our new 50 cent coin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael P. Theophilos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Coins have always conveyed a message and, helpfully for historians, they are anchored to a specific time and space. Rome’s emperors used coins to push their political agendas.
Michael P. Theophilos, Senior Lecturer, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140125
2020-06-05T13:18:09Z
2020-06-05T13:18:09Z
Dear Mr Trump: the Bible has a long history as a symbol of protest, so don’t use it as a sign of repression
<p>Amid Black Lives Matter protests taking place in Washington DC and nationwide on the evening of Monday June 1, US president Donald Trump walked the short distance from the White House to St John’s Episcopal Church, where he posed outside while holding a Bible above his head. </p>
<p>The photo-op proved <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-bible-st-johns.html">controversial</a> for a number of reasons: tear gas was used on peaceful protestors to clear his path and Trump’s actions seemed to be an incongruous response to the situation at hand.</p>
<p>Trump’s use of the Bible in Monday’s act of political theatre participates in a long history of using sacred texts to legitimise state power. From courtrooms to the US Capitol steps, the Bible is <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/3616">regularly used</a> as a physical symbol of political authority. Such practices in American public life continue a long history of using the Bible as a material object in order to authorise political power – a history that goes back to the late Roman empire.</p>
<p>Though Christians have been interested in the content of their scriptures from the beginning, the use of the physical presence of Christian scriptures as a symbol of power began in a period when Christians faced legislative pressure, marginalisation and violence. We believe the evidence suggests that Christian interest in and defence of their physical books was a response to the aggressive actions of Roman emperors. </p>
<p>In AD249 – in light of challenges to his legitimacy – the newly proclaimed emperor Decius issued a decree that everyone in the empire should perform a sacrifice to the genius (“divine spirit”) of the emperor. In exchange for this display of loyalty to the state, each subject would be provided with a certificate called a <em>libellus</em> (“little book”) as proof of participation and material evidence of loyalty. </p>
<p>Copies of these certificates demonstrate, as historian James Rives <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/300738?seq=1">has shown</a>, that the decree was not aimed specifically at Christians. Nonetheless, it affected Christians in unique ways, and a number were martyred.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saint Reparata prepares to martyr herself before the Emperor Decius.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bernardo Daddi, Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around this period, and arguably in response to Roman demands that people carry certificates of loyalty to the state, Christians began to use their scriptures as physical manifestations of divine presence and power. Just as individuals who had sacrificed to the genius of the emperor were expected to carry their <em>libelli</em>, Christians might carry Gospels – tokens of allegiance to a different divine being.</p>
<p>By the late third century, the Gospels came to represent Christian identity. According to an <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/NPNF2_01_Eusebius_Pamphilius_Church_Hist/taagmnUcsD8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Marinus+the+divine+Gospels">account</a> preserved by the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, the martyr Marinus had to choose between “the divine Gospels” and sacrifice (with the associated <em>libellus</em>), between Christ and Caesar. Marinus chose the Gospels and was accordingly martyred.</p>
<p>Many Christians thought of their sacred texts as powerful objects, manifestations of divine presence and authority. By the early fourth century, Gospel books and folded-up pieces of papyrus or parchment with scriptural passages functioned as amulets to secure healing or ward off evil, a set of practices attested by both <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36333673/_Magic_and_Communal_Boundaries_The_Problems_with_Amulets_in_Chrysostom_Adv._Iud._8_and_Augustine_In_Io._tra._7_Henoch_39_2_2017_227_46">ancient authors</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-amulets-christian-9780199687886?cc=us&lang=en&">archaeological evidence, primarily from ancient Egypt</a>. Before Christians wore crosses around their necks, they wore sacred texts.</p>
<p>In AD303, on the 20th anniversary of his reign, the emperor Diocletian issued his “First Edict” against Christians. Among other things, the edict required destruction of Christian books. Yet a number of Christians throughout the empire defied the imperial command, preferring to die rather than hand over their books.</p>
<p>According to one Latin account, a Sicilian Christian named Euplus <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Scribes_and_Their_Remains/w7KrDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whoever+gives+up+%5Bthe+scriptures%5D+loses+eternal+life.+euplus&pg=PT63&printsec=frontcover">maintained</a> that “whoever gives up [the scriptures] loses eternal life”. Euplus was executed with his Gospel book hanging from his neck, marking his identity as a Christian.</p>
<p>As a sacred object, the Christian book became <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/714568">a symbol of resistance to imperial power</a>. In one account, a group of Christians from the small North African town of Abitina (modern-day Henchir Chouhoud el Bâtin, Tunisia) defied the imperial decree. This refusal to hand over physical books of scripture was a show of the Abitinian Christians’ loyalty to God over Rome.</p>
<p>Referring to Christian scriptural books as “the law,” the fourth-century martyrdom account <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_DdzpSgtXBYC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Acts+of+the+abitinian+martyrs+the+law&source=bl&ots=xOksV08OrA&sig=ACfU3U0jjlpkkig3J3adAN9f-pWMGm-MKQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtlfejrenpAhV0gnIEHcRKAvEQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20law&f=false">Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs</a> sets up a question of political allegiance: will one follow the law of Christ or the commands of Caesar? The contest between divine law and imperial edict centred on physical scriptures. </p>
<p>To preserve the physical books of scripture was to profess Christian identity and appeal to a higher, divine authority. By contrast, those who handed over sacred books to be destroyed by imperial functionaries renounced their allegiance to God.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walters Art Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As North African Christians grappled with the aftermath of Diocletian’s edict, figures such as the bishop Petilian of Cirta (in modern-day Algeria) argued that to hand over the sacred book was to condemn Christ himself to the pyre. In these developing theologies of the book, material scriptures manifest divine authority and even embody Christ himself. The Bible as a book was a source of authority that could challenge even the demands of the Roman empire.</p>
<p>The use of the Bible as a material symbol of divine authority began in response to political oppression and violence. In North Africa in particular, some Christians refused to hand over books for destruction or to accept those who had done so as their religious leaders. </p>
<p>While the history of the Bible as symbol expanded from this point – so that Bibles are held aloft in liturgical spaces and used to cement the authority of legal ceremonies – the symbolic power of the Bible began as a form of political resistance. There is a tragic irony to the fact that a mode of resistance developed by disenfranchised and powerless North African Christians is now weaponised against black people by the most powerful man in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The history of early Christianity shows the power of the Bible used as a sign of resistance against repression at the hands of the Romans.
Jeremiah Coogan, Postdoctoral Scholar of the New Testament and Early Christianity, University of Notre Dame
Candida Moss, Cadbury Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87246
2018-01-10T19:33:45Z
2018-01-10T19:33:45Z
Explainer: where do the names of our months come from?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201250/original/file-20180108-83563-1gpd415.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the Roman-era Sousse Mosaic Calendar, El Jem, Tunisia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our lives run on Roman time. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and public holidays are regulated by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gregorian-calendar">Pope Gregory XIII’s Gregorian Calendar</a>, which is itself a modification of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Julian-calendar">Julius Caesar’s calendar</a> introduced in 45 B.C. The names of our months are therefore derived from the Roman gods, leaders, festivals, and numbers. If you’ve ever wondered why our 12-month year ends with September, October, November, and December – names which mean the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months – you can blame the Romans.</p>
<h2>The calendar of Romulus</h2>
<p>The Roman year originally had ten months, a calendar which was ascribed to the legendary first king, Romulus. Tradition had it that Romulus named the first month, <em>Martius</em>, after his own father, Mars, the god of war. This month was followed by <em>Aprilis</em>, <em>Maius</em>, and <em>Iunius</em>, names derived from deities or aspects of Roman culture. Thereafter, however, the months were simply called the fifth month (<em>Quintilis</em>), sixth month (<em>Sixtilis</em>) and so on, all the way through to the tenth month, December. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201252/original/file-20180108-83553-1u16ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mars and Rhea Silvia by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1617/20.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The institution of two additional months, <em>Ianuarius</em> and <em>Februarius</em>, at the beginning of the year was attributed to Numa, the second king of Rome. Despite the fact that there were now 12 months in the Roman year, the numerical names of the later months were left unchanged. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-gods-behind-the-days-of-the-week-87170">Explainer: the gods behind the days of the week</a></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Gods and rituals</h2>
<p>While January takes its name from <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-janus-the-roman-god-of-beginnings-and-endings-86853">Janus</a>, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, February comes from the word <em>februum</em> (purification) and <em>februa</em>, the rites or instruments used for purification. These formed part of preparations for the coming of Spring in the northern hemisphere.</p>
<p>The <em>februa</em> included spelt and salt for cleaning houses, leaves worn by priests, and strips of goat skin. These strips were put to good use in the festival of the Lupercalia, held each year on February 15. Young men, naked except for a goat-skin cape, dashed around Rome’s sacred boundary playfully whipping women with the strips. This ancient nudie run was designed to purify the city and promote fertility. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201254/original/file-20180108-83559-1087lp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from Lupercalia by Andrea Camassei, c. 1635.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The origins of some months were debated even by the Romans themselves. One tradition had it that Romulus named April after the goddess Aphrodite, who was born from the sea’s foam (<em>aphros</em> in Ancient Greek). Aphrodite, known as Venus to the Romans, was the mother of Aeneas, who fled from Troy to Italy and founded the Roman race. The other version was that the month derived from Latin verb <em>aperio</em>, “I open”. As the poet Ovid <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674992795">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For they say that April was named from the open season, because spring then opens all things, and the sharp frost-bound cold departs, and earth unlocks her teeming soil …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were similar debates about the origins of May and June. There was a story that Romulus named them after the two divisions of the Roman male citizen body, the <em>maiores</em> (elders) and <em>iuniores</em> (juniors). However, it was also believed that their names came from deities. The nymph Maia, who was assimilated with the earth, gave her name to May, while Juno, the goddess of war and women, was honoured by the month of June. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-seasonal-calendars-of-indigenous-australia-88471">Explainer: the seasonal calendars of Indigenous Australia</a></em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>Imperial pretensions</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201255/original/file-20180108-83567-1lonzi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cameo of the emperor Augustus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The numerical names of the months in the second half of the year remained unchanged until the end of the Roman Republic. In 44 B.C., <em>Quintilis</em> was rebranded as <em>Iulius</em>, to celebrate the month in which the dictator Julius Caesar was born. </p>
<p>This change survived Caesar’s assassination (and the outrage of the orator M. Tullius Cicero, who complained about it in his letters). In 8 B.C., Caesar’s adoptive son and heir, the emperor Augustus, had <em>Sextilis</em> renamed in his honour. This was not his birth month (which was September), but the month when he first became consul and subjugated Egypt.</p>
<p>This change left four months – September, October, November and December – for later emperors to appropriate, though none of their new names survive today. Domitian renamed September, the month he became emperor, to <em>Germanicus</em>, in honour of his victory over Germany, while <em>October</em>, his birthday month, he modestly retitled <em>Domitianus</em>, after himself. </p>
<p>However, Domitian’s arrogance paled in comparison with the megalomaniacal Commodus, who <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html#ref12">rebranded all the months</a> with his own imperial titles, including <em>Amazonius</em> (January) and <em>Herculeus</em> (October).</p>
<p>If these titles had survived Commodus’s death, we would not have the problem of our year ending with months carrying the wrong numerical names. But we would be celebrating Christmas on the 25th of <em>Exsuperatorius</em> (“All-Surpassing Conqueror”).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caillan Davenport receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
If you’ve ever wondered why our 12-month year ends with names that mean the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months, you can blame the Romans.
Caillan Davenport, Senior Lecturer in Roman History, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88267
2017-11-29T16:11:49Z
2017-11-29T16:11:49Z
How our discovery of Julius Caesar’s first landing point in Britain could change history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196951/original/file-20171129-29123-11p3qnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Trust/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the nine-year-long Battle for Gaul, Julius Caesar <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/caesar/gallic_war/home.html">fought his way</a> across northwest Europe. He invaded Britain twice; <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/4*.html#20">in 55BC</a>, and again <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/5A*.html">in 54BC</a>. But while archaeologists have found <a href="http://www.alesia.com/">evidence of the war</a> in France, there has been very little discovered in Britain – until now. </p>
<p>At a site called Ebbsfleet, in northeast Kent, my colleagues from the University of Leicester and I finally uncovered the site where Julius Caesar’s fleet landed in 54BC. A series of surveys and excavations, spanning from 2015 to 2017, revealed a large enclosure, defended by a ditch five metres wide and two metres deep. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196945/original/file-20171129-29098-nezcwi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What a find: pilum tip from Ebbsfleet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Leicester</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We dated the ditch all the way back to the first century BC, by examining the pottery and using <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_ocr_gateway/radiation/radioisotopesrev5.shtml">radiocarbon dating techniques</a>. </p>
<p>At the bottom of the ditch, we found the tip of an iron weapon, which was later identified as a Roman spear, or “pilum”. Similar weapons were discovered at the site of Alésia in France, where the decisive encounter in the Battle for Gaul took place. What’s more, the defensive ditches at Alésia are the same size and shape as those we discovered at Ebbsfleet.</p>
<h2>In Caesar’s own words</h2>
<p>Our dig was situated next to Pegwell Bay, a large, sandy beach with chalk cliffs at its northern end. This striking landscape also helps to confirm that we really have found the location of Caesar’s base. Most of what is known about Caesar’s voyage comes from his <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/caesar/gallic_war/home.html">own written accounts</a>, based on his annual reports to the Roman senate.</p>
<p>When the Roman fleet set sail from France, they intended to use the wind to help them cross the Channel to find a large, safe place to lay anchor and prepare for battle. But the wind dropped, and the fleet was carried too far northeast by the tide. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196943/original/file-20171129-29123-171fuf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We came, we saw, we excavated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Leicester.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At sunrise, Caesar saw Britain “left afar on the port side”. Only high land would have been visible from a small ship far out at sea. And the only such land in northeast Kent are the cliffs near Ebbsfleet. Caesar also describes how he left the ships riding at anchor next to a “sandy, open shore” – a perfect description of Pegwell Bay. </p>
<p>Given Caesar’s own words seem so clear, it’s surprising that Pegwell Bay has never been considered as a possible landing site before. Instead, Caesar was long thought to have landed at Walmer, 15 kilometres to the south. One reason might be that, until the Middle Ages, Thanet was an island. </p>
<p>The Isle of Thanet was separated from the mainland by the Wantsum Channel. But no one knows how big the channel was 2,000 years ago; it could be that whatever disadvantages it presented were offset by the presence of a large and safe beach, where 800 ships could land and disembark 20,000 men and 2,000 horses in one day.</p>
<h2>Peace by force</h2>
<p>Despite the imposing size of Caesar’s fleet, it was long thought that his landing had little lasting impact on Britain. Caesar himself returned to France immediately after the two campaigns, without leaving a garrison. Yet the discovery of the landing site gives us cause to question this assumption.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196941/original/file-20171129-29114-10yppqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Making history at Ebbsfleet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Fitzpatrick/University of Leicester</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historical sources, royal burials and ancient coins indicate that from about 20BC, the kings of southeast England had strong links to Rome. But historians have found it hard to explain how these alliances came into existence. The suggestion that they sprung from diplomatic ties forged by the emperor Augustus at that time has never been convincing. </p>
<p>But Caesar tells us that he reached a peace accord with the Britons in 54BC, even taking hostages from the ruling families to ensure the agreement was respected. Perhaps the alliances which came to light in the 20s BC were originally established by Caesar, a generation before emperor Augustus asserted his authority over the Roman Empire.</p>
<p>The close ties between Rome and the kings of southeast England assured emperor Claudius of a relatively easy military victory, when he first set out to conquer England in 43 AD. So it seems Caesar’s earlier conquest could have laid the foundations for the Roman occupation of Britain, which lasted more than 300 years.</p>
<p>For Caesar, the consequences of his invasions were clear. In his day, Britain lay beyond the known world. By crossing the ocean and conquering Britain, Caesar caused a sensation in his homeland. He was awarded the longest public thanksgiving in Rome, winning great acclaim and glory in the process. Mission accomplished.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Fitzpatrick receives funding from Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>
At Ebbsfleet, in northeast Kent, archaeologists have finally uncovered the site where Julius Caesar’s fleet landed in 54BC.
Andrew Fitzpatrick, Research Associate, University of Leicester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85608
2017-11-22T19:04:48Z
2017-11-22T19:04:48Z
Guide to the Classics: Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars explores vice and virtue in ancient Rome
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195373/original/file-20171120-18525-184kgg6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Giovanni Cavino, I primi dodici imperatori Romani (‘The first twelve Roman emperors’), plaquettes produced at Padua, c. 1550. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giovanni_cavino,_i_primi_12_imperatori_romani,_padova_1550_ca.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a memorable scene from the classic BBC TV series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074006/">I, Claudius</a> (1976), three frightened senators are summoned to the palace in the dead of night by the emperor Caligula. Rather than being executed, they are treated to a command performance by Caligula himself, who dances before them dressed in a shimmering gold bikini. </p>
<p>Caligula’s midnight dance routine is the climax of a sequence of horrors and indiscretions committed by the emperor. He has his predecessor suffocated to death with a pillow, executes his cousin because of his irritating cough, and engages in an incestuous relationship with his sister (they’re both gods, you see).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tebTGIddPDk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Caligula dances for Claudius and two other senators. Scene from the BBC TV series, I, Claudius (1976).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These outlandish scenes cannot be ascribed to the imagination of the scriptwriter <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0700474/">Jack Pulman</a> or to <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-graves">Robert Graves</a>, the author of the original novels <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Claudius">I, Claudius</a> and Claudius the God, on which the series is based. The incidents are adapted from Suetonius’s On the Lives of the Caesars, a collection of imperial biographies written in Latin in the second century A.D.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195365/original/file-20171120-18547-1dfyebs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Latin edition of The Twelve Caesars published in 1541.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Suetonius’s work describes the lives of Rome’s first 12 leaders from Julius Caesar to Domitian - hence it is best known today as The Twelve Caesars. This is the title it bears in the paperback <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/35589/the-twelve-caesars/">Penguin Classics edition</a>, translated by Robert Graves himself in 1957, and still in print today. </p>
<p>Suetonius’s unforgettable tales of sex, scandal, and debauchery have ensured that his writing has played a significant role in shaping our perceptions of imperial Rome.</p>
<h2><strong>The man and the work</strong></h2>
<p>Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was a scholar and intellectual who held administrative positions at the imperial court under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. He was a prolific author, writing biographies of poets and orators, as well as works on topics as diverse as the games, the Roman year, bodily defects, and lives of famous courtesans.</p>
<p>He probably began to write the Caesars when he was Hadrian’s secretary of correspondence. However, the biographies were only published after Suetonius was dismissed from Hadrian’s service for being too familiar with the emperor’s wife.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192575/original/file-20171031-18730-1pnypm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bust of Hadrian in the Musei Capitolini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Political expediency meant that Suetonius wisely avoided writing about Hadrian. Instead The Twelve Caesars includes the Julio-Claudians, Rome’s first imperial dynasty (Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero), three short-lived emperors during the civil wars of A.D. 69 (Galba, Otho, Vitellius), and the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian).</p>
<p>The structure of the individual biographies has often puzzled modern readers, who expect Suetonius to tell his story in a linear fashion from birth to death. Although Suetonius usually begins with an emperor’s family and upbringing, the bulk of each Life consists of an assortment of memorable, and sometimes salacious, anecdotes about an emperor’s public conduct and private life.</p>
<p>But this is no mere haphazard catalogue of sex and corruption. Instead, Suetonius tells his readers that he has carefully organized the stories “by categories”. These categories include the emperor’s virtues (such as justice, self-control, and generosity) and his vices (like greed, cruelty, and sexual excess). </p>
<h2><strong>Virtues and vices</strong></h2>
<p>In the second century A.D., when Suetonius was writing, there was no chance of a return to the Republic, but aristocrats still expected the emperor to behave as if he were merely the most prestigious citizen rather than an autocrat. The stories of virtue and vice in the Caesars are carefully selected to illustrate whether emperors measured up to this standard. </p>
<p>When Suetonius describes an emperor’s ancestors, he highlights how their qualities influenced the ruler himself. Early in the Life of Nero, the reader encounters Nero’s grandfather who staged particularly cruel shows in the arena. This helps to explain the later tales of Nero’s own savagery, because the reader would see that this vice was part of his nature.</p>
<p>Suetonius is fair and evenhanded in his treatment of his subjects. All emperors appear as flawed men with both virtues and vices, but the balance between them depends on the individual ruler. He even gives due credit to the notorious Caligula, who began his reign by publishing the imperial budget and showing generosity to the people. Suetonius then signals a change:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Thus far, it is as if we have been writing about an emperor, but the rest must be about a monster. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This “division” – a statement in which Suetonius clearly separates the anecdotes illustrating virtues from the vices – is a feature of several of his biographies. In Caligula’s case, it is from this point on that we read about his pretensions to divinity, his condemnation of aristocrats to hard labour in the mines, and his sexual immorality.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S2HmvMXmHdU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Emperor Tiberius, played by George Baker, in I Claudius.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tales of the emperors’ sexual habits constitute some of the most famous passages in Suetonius. He chronicles Tiberius’s sordid behaviour on Capri, detailing how he forced men and women to engage in threesomes, had children perform oral sex on him, and raped young men who took his fancy.</p>
<p>When the Loeb Classical Library, which features the original Latin and the English translation of classical texts on facing pages, published their first edition of <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674995703&content=toc">Suetonius</a> in 1913, these chapters about Tiberius’s behaviour were left in Latin because they were considered too scandalous to translate. Although they are now translated into English, these graphic tales still have the power to shock and unsettle the reader.</p>
<p>An emperor’s private life and his sexual conduct were fair game because they reflected whether or not he was fit to rule. The same applied to members of his family. Augustus’s daughters were praised by Suetonius for spending their time weaving in his house. (Such gender stereotypes remain with us today, if one recalls the photo shoot of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pm-tries-to-knit-herself-out-of-the-poll-doldrums-20130624-2otl5.html">Julia Gillard knitting in Women’s Weekly</a>). When his daughter Julia flagrantly flouted Augustus’s own adultery legislation, Suetonius reports that he had no choice but to exile her. The imperial family had to set standards for the entire empire.</p>
<h2><strong>Man or god?</strong></h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195366/original/file-20171120-18528-1ekwmt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Silver coin of the emperor Otho.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the virtues and vices, Suetonius’s Lives usually conclude with a narrative of the emperor’s death and a detailed physical description of his body. Suetonius didn’t hold back in these passages, even pointing out that the emperor Otho sported a terrible wig to hide his bald patch (as his coinage also reveals).</p>
<p>The <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lives-of-the-caesars-9780199537563?cc=au&lang=en&">description of the emperor Nero</a> is particularly memorable:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He was of a good height but his body was blotchy and ill-smelling. His hair was fairish, his face handsome rather than attractive, his eyes bluish-grey and dull, his neck thick, his stomach protruding, his legs very thin…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The different body parts were supposed to indicate character traits. Nero’s blotchy skin likened him to a panther (regarded as a deceitful creature); his hair colour suggested courage; the bulging beer belly had connotations of power, but also exposed his devotion to pleasure; his feeble legs indicated both femininity and fear. Nero was thus revealed to be a contradiction.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195367/original/file-20171120-18525-1etevob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The emperor Claudius as Jupiter, Vatican Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The descriptions of the bodies are also very funny. They undercut the divine pretensions of emperors, whose statues showed them in heroic nudity with six-packs that demonstrated their virility and likened them to gods. (Once again, not much has changed, as revealed by the images of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/10205156/Hunting-shooting-and-fishing-with-Vladimir-Putin-Russias-man-of-action.html">Vladimir Putin’s shirtless hunting expeditions</a> or <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/will-abbott-kill-the-curse-of-the-budgie-smuggler-20091202-k53b.html">Tony Abbott in his budgie smugglers</a>). </p>
<p>Suetonius’s stories about the emperors’ faults and foibles exposed them as human beings. He even collected their famous sayings to shed light on their character – the famous line “as quick as boiled asparagus”, intoned beautifully by Brian Blessed’s Augustus in I, Claudius, is straight out of Suetonius. </p>
<p>His account of the witty <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lives-of-the-caesars-9780199537563?cc=au&lang=en&">sayings of Vespasian</a> shows that the emperor frequently joked about his own economic policies:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When his son Titus criticized him for putting a tax even on urine, he held up a coin from the first payment to his son’s nose and asked him if he was offended by its smell. When Titus said no, he observed: ‘But it comes from urine.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Vespasian emerges as a rather avuncular figure. He even pokes fun at the deification of emperors, proclaiming in the days before his death, “Oh dear, I think I am becoming a god!”</p>
<h2><strong>Laughing at power</strong></h2>
<p>But the humour of Suetonius’s Caesars is often double-edged. He tells one story about the time Nero visited his aunt on her death bed, and she lovingly remarked that she would die happy once she had the hairs from the first shaving of his beard. Nero joked that he would shave it off immediately. He then gave his aunt an overdose of laxatives to kill her off and seized her estate for himself. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Head of Nero, with beard, from the Palatine Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roman aristocrats reading this tale would probably have laughed, given its absurdly comic elements. But it would have been nervous laughter. For such stories reminded them of the power of the emperor. While they might have chuckled at another’s misfortune, they would have been acutely aware that one day it could be them.</p>
<p>Suetonius’s Caesars is thus more than a haphazard collection of gossip and scandal, but a work that sheds light on the world of the Roman aristocracy and how they lived (and coped) with their emperors. The stories of the emperors’ virtues and vices illustrates what Roman elites considered to be acceptable behaviour by their leaders. </p>
<p>Suetonius’s biographies also cut the emperors down to size, revealing them to be men with human flaws, rather than gods. They offered a necessary means of escapism in a world where imperial fickleness could end one’s career – or one’s life.</p>
<p><em>Recommended translation: Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, Oxford World’s Classics edition by Catharine Edwards (2008).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caillan Davenport receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
Suetonius’s unforgettable tales of sex, scandal, and debauchery have ensured that his writing has played a significant role in shaping our perceptions of imperial Rome.
Caillan Davenport, Lecturer in Roman History and ARC DECRA Research Fellow, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76687
2017-04-28T01:48:10Z
2017-04-28T01:48:10Z
Is the death penalty un-Christian?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167030/original/file-20170427-15084-m8jrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/upturnedface/2927452123/in/photolist-5sFXwt-dWbC1Y-dWbFYN-dW66rX-dW62ix-dW63az-dWbCMy-dWbJX5-dW68sR-dW68XK-dWbGTY-dWbE2J-dW69dD-dWbHt5-dW68ci-dWbAwW-dW5ZCZ-dW66Xr-dWbHNU-dW664z-dWbJcy-dWbEjA-dWbFGy-dWbFnw-dWbD4Q-dW61pc-dW615Z-dW64SP-dWbDDE-dMnDY3-dMnEq3-dMh4NP-dMnEcu-dMnBZj-dMh3Rp-dMnEEU-dMh5Cn-dMh5Uv-dMh3Ct-dMh4A4-dMh4mD-dMh73i-dMh51K-dMnD7N-dMh5pM-5sFXpa-7VL5N6-jVwdpS-aSwhNn-8zEvQc">Kurt Morrow</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arkansas <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/04/27/arkansas-readies-to-carry-out-last-planned-execution-before-drugs-expire/">executed a fourth prisoner</a> on death row Sunday night. Three days prior to that, the state had <a href="http://katv.com/news/local/arkansas-death-row-inmate-jack-jones-executed">done two back-to-back executions</a> by lethal injections in Lincoln County, Arkansas. <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/lethal-injection/days-arkansas-final-execution-where-are-we-now-n751036">Four</a> other executions have been blocked by court order.</p>
<p>As a Catholic scholar who writes about religion, politics and policy, I understand how Christians struggle with the death penalty – there are those who cannot <a href="https://themennonite.org/feature/early-challenges-capital-punishment/">endure</a> the idea and there are others who <a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/03/16/the-traditional-case-for-capital-punishment/">support</a> its use. Some Christian theologians have <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/04/catholicism-amp-capital-punishment">also observed</a> that capital punishment could lead to the conversion of criminals who might repent of their crimes when faced with the finality of death. </p>
<p>Is the death penalty anti-Christian? </p>
<h2>The two sides</h2>
<p>In its early centuries, Christianity was seen with suspicion by authorities. Writing in defense of Christians who were unfairly charged with crimes in second-century Rome, philosopher <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/athenagoras-plea.html">Anthenagoras of Athens</a> condemned the death penalty when he wrote that Christians “cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly.” </p>
<p>But as Christianity became more connected with state power, European Christian monarchs and governments regularly carried out the death penalty until its <a href="http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Library_Collection_P6_ETS114E_ENG.pdf">abolition in the 1950s</a> through the European Convention on Human Rights. In the Western world, today, only the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/countries-that-still-have-the-death-penalty/">United States and Belarus</a> retain capital punishment for crimes not committed during wartime.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167033/original/file-20170427-15086-1ad84hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Support for the death penalty is falling worldwide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/death_penalty/2937014575/in/photolist-5twY7k-5twY8n-fFT65t-813yfq-Kx9TD-9DzEsj-poByNB-8iXGMk-pF8eu5-pF3YJe-cyXWLJ-pF3XUt-am3ELd-poDwNd-duVETN-p7gWwG-pCXtVf-cMrv1h-nGbnT3-4DZ2wd-9r5HDb-eZbScr-8jPh8h-eZH7J-21CetV-4McWq3-poDxjo-oJctxQ-aMeSDt-51k2hN-aynBpn-osEPKU-pF8dEu-oJct5W-8LYokp-acLEzH-8j1ZMd-Kx4iG-7CLrDR-eza2oB-nFANSF-9QSCGn-diNRn6-diNRyK-diNU2H-aSPx1F-92dZud-poByZt-8vbDmd-pF8euW">World Coalition Against the Death Penalty</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>According to a <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/13/some-major-u-s-religious-groups-differ-from-their-members-on-the-death-penalty/">2015 Pew Research Center Survey</a>, support for the death penalty is <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/international-polls-and-studies-0">falling worldwide</a>. However, in the United States a majority of white Protestants and Catholics are in favor of it.</p>
<p>In the Hebrew Bible, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+21%3A12&version=ESV">Exodus 21:12</a> states that “whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.” In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A38-39&version=ESV">Matthew’s Gospel</a>, Jesus, however, rejects the notion of retribution when he says “if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”</p>
<p>While it is true that the Hebrew Bible prescribes capital punishment for a variety of offenses, it is also true that later Jewish jurists set out rigorous standards for the death penalty so that it could be used only in rare circumstances. </p>
<h2>Support for death penalty</h2>
<p>At issue in Christian considerations of the death penalty is whether the government or the state has the obligation to punish criminals and defend its citizens. </p>
<p>Saint Paul, an early Christian evangelist, wrote in his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13&version=ESV">letter to the Romans</a> that a ruler acts as “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” The Middle Ages in Europe saw thousands of murderers, witches and heretics put to death. While church courts of this period generally did not <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/sean-mcglynn/violence-and-law-medieval-england">apply capital punishment</a>, the church did turn criminals over to secular authorities for execution. </p>
<p>Thirteenth-century Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas argued that the death penalty <a href="http://www.aquinasonline.com/Questions/cappunsh.html">could be justified</a> for the greater welfare of society. Later Protestant reformers also supported the right of the state to impose capital punishment. <a href="http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom34.xiv.i.html">John Calvin</a>, a Protestant theologian and reformer, for example, argued that Christian forgiveness did not mean overturning established laws. </p>
<h2>The case against</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000983">deterrence value</a> of capital punishment remains an issue of debate. In the United States, there are also strong arguments that capital punishment is <a href="http://www.ncadp.org/pages/racial-bias">unfairly applied</a>, especially to African-Americans. </p>
<p>Among Christian leaders, Pope Francis has been at the forefront of arguing against the death penalty. <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html">Saint John Paul II</a> also maintained that capital punishment should be reserved only for “absolute necessity.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-francis-calls-abolishing-death-penalty-and-life-imprisonment">Pope Francis observes</a> that the death penalty is no longer relevant because modern prisons prevent criminals from doing further harm.</p>
<p>Pope Francis speaks of a larger ethic of forgiveness. He emphasizes social justice for all citizens as well as the opportunity for those who harm society to make amends through acts that affirm life, not death.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167031/original/file-20170427-15081-psr12x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jesus’ message was of forgiveness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bsmith84/5379336085/in/photolist-9cmvcT-coP5oE-j4Ff4-e278EA-FCkKe-8GtxVC-btn8Jw-9x38JT-awrEyA-8BNnY7-9x68zW-9x68xS-bqvZv5-bESC7Q-9x68As-4v54tB-4AACWb-eefEqu-493Gd3-8s2DnH-9ZJJWb-6xDUh6-cfAoFu-9x68xd-jhFewr-e6uRnn-goJw6a-5TSZH5-9x68vN-8s2BYZ-qBseiu-9x68AC-asAYMU-bGh42Z-egWLTN-FfgA8J-3PX9PS-bGgY6t-Di6px-H4sCbJ-7Mj58T-arszZv-sfNgUH-7JmTmx-7w7reg-7xEDXE-dL9Wtf-8TtuMZ-5zbXk1-9n4Zm9">Brandon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jesus’ admonition to forgive one’s enemies is often thought to do away with the “law of the talion,” or an “eye for an eye” retribution – a standard that goes as far back as the prebiblical <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp">Code of Hammurabi</a> – a law code of ancient Mesopotamia.</p>
<p>For many, the debate is about the relationship between Christ’s call for forgiveness and the legitimate powers of the state.</p>
<p>Those Christians who support capital punishment argue that Jesus was talking about heavenly realities, <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/01/why-christians-should-support-the-death-penalty/">not the earthly matters</a> that governments have to deal with. <a href="http://www.anabaptistwiki.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=A_Christian_Declaration_on_Capital_Punishment_(General_Conference_Mennonite_Church,_1965)">Christians who oppose the death penalty</a> say that being Christian means bringing heavenly realities to the here and now.</p>
<p>This debate is not just about capital punishment, but about what it means to be a Christian.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the Western world, the U.S. is one of only one of two countries with capital punishment, and support remains strongest in the ‘Bible Belt’. Here’s a look at the historic arguments within Christian communities over the death penalty.
Mathew Schmalz, Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Holy Cross
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.