Adrienne Mayor on Enemies of Ancient Rome

So the topic you’ve chosen is Enemies of Ancient Rome.

Yes, Rome is really hot right now: there are video games, TV series and lots of books out there about the Roman Empire. It was hard making a choice, so I’ve chosen some personal favourites and some that are off the beaten track.

Your first choice is a work of fiction, Winter Quarters.

This is a historical novel written by Alfred Duggan. It came out in 1956, and it’s my favourite. I still have the battered paperback, held together with yellowing Scotch tape, that I read on my first trip to Greece 30 years ago, and really was my entry into the ancient world. It’s an odyssey about a warrior from Gaul, which had been recently conquered by Rome. And every time I reread it – and I do that every few years – I get swept up in it, this perspective of a former enemy of Ancient Rome, who decides to join the army of Julius Caesar. He leaves his village in the Pyrenees, and goes on Roman campaigns across Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. Then they travel to the edges of the Steppes, to what is now southern Russia. Finally his Roman army is defeated in Parthia, now modern Iran, and our hero survives and decides to join the victorious Parthian army. He finds himself patrolling the borders of Afghanistan.

So he ends up once again as an enemy of Ancient Rome?

He’s an enemy of Rome again, but now he’s actually looking out towards the East, towards the raiders that are harassing Parthia. He is hoping to be rescued by the Romans, who will then reward him with citizenship, though it’s pretty hopeless. Duggan has got a deep knowledge of the first century BC, but what I really enjoy is his ability to write from the point of view of non-Romans. These are enemies of Rome, outsiders, former foes, who are drawn into Rome, this powerful magnetic force. The defeated Gauls were welcomed into Rome’s legions, but they experienced a lot of ambivalence. They’re wary, they’re proud. The hero is proud of being from the Pyrenees, but also feels pride in serving in the greatest army in the ancient world – and he struggles to understand the alien character and culture of Rome. This book allows you to peer at the Romans through their enemies’ eyes. It’s also a wonderful way to get a sense of the vast sweep of this rising Roman power, the incredible adventures and exotic sights that could be packed into one individual soldier’s lifetime. These were tumultuous times.

I also think it’s relevant today, because it shows how the wealth and military might of a great empire can become this inexorable force, that either destroys the enemy or it can attract them, sucking outsiders into its world view and drawing them in.

Yes, I can see why it could apply to America today, also in terms of the ambivalence. People love America but they also love to hate it.

They want to participate in the empire’s wealth and the power, but they’re really wary and cautious and adversarial and want to resist it too. And that tension really comes out in this novel.

Your next choice is J P V D Balsdon’s 1979 book Romans and Aliens.

This is about Rome’s image problems among its enemies, its issues with bad PR. It’s a classic, and very entertaining. Balsdon was a British historian from Oxford, he also wrote novels. This is really a great source book on the way of life of the Romans, on their cultural attitudes towards their enemies and subjects, who were from so many different nationalities. He’s got well-documented chapters on every conceivable aspect of Rome’s relations with its neighbours and conquered peoples, from the early republic to the end of the empire, and it’s written in a wonderful narrative style.

What I like is that he juxtaposes Rome’s dominant outlook with examples of just how alien the Romans appeared to the rest of the world, which is a unique perspective. Some of the chapter titles and section titles give you a flavour: ‘Snobbery begins at Rome’, ‘Bad Press for Rome’, ‘Good Press for Rome’, ‘Bricks to Throw at the Romans’, ‘Skeletons in the Roman Closet’, ‘Rome’s Offensiveness Abroad’, ‘The Ghastly Bad Taste of the Romans.’

So, Balsdon really combed through the sources to give us a view of Rome and its enemies. It’s just jam-packed with lots of out-of-the-way information, fascinating material that is really hard to find in any other book.

Why aliens?

Rome considered non-Romans to be aliens, barbarians. It’s an old-fashioned book, very witty, but there might be a few politically incorrect things in there… But he’s presenting both sides of a mirror of cultural prejudice. One of the first chapters is ‘Romans – God’s Own People,’ and there’s also ‘Rome – Capital of the World.’ That’s Rome’s perspective, that they are the centre and everybody else is outside.

But didn’t some of these barbarians later become Roman emperors?

Yes, and that fits with what I was saying earlier with regard to Winter Quarters, about Rome’s extraordinary ability to absorb and co-opt its enemies.

Your next choice is The Spartacus War – which is supposed to be a real page-turner.

Barry Strauss is a friend of mine, and I really admire his writing. This book is about the great slave revolt led by the gladiator slave Spartacus. The scholarship is impressive, but he also has this dramatic narrative style – leaving you in suspense at the end of each chapter. It’s also obvious that Strauss travelled extensively throughout Italy, visiting all these sites, and that really enhances it, it makes it really immediate because he’s been there, he’s able to absorb some of the spirit of it. I also chose this book because the cable TV show Spartacus: Blood and Sand is causing a big buzz in the States – everybody is watching it. People can now find out the real story in this book.