What was the Roman Republic Really Like?

Lead Poisoning in Rome

Lead in ancient Rome's city waters

Authors:

Delile et al

Abstract:

It is now universally accepted that utilization of lead for domestic purposes and water distribution presents a major health hazard. The ancient Roman world was unaware of these risks. How far the gigantic network of lead pipes used in ancient Rome compromised public health in the city is unknown. Lead isotopes in sediments from the harbor of Imperial Rome register the presence of a strong anthropogenic component during the beginning of the Common Era and the Early Middle Ages. They demonstrate that the lead pipes of the water distribution system increased Pb contents in drinking water of the capital city by up to two orders of magnitude over the natural background. The Pb isotope record shows that the discontinuities in the pollution of the Tiber by lead are intimately entwined with the major issues affecting Late Antique Rome and its water distribution system.

Roman Jewelry Turns up in Japanese Burial

If we consider the geographical distance and ancient means of transportation, then envisaging Roman influence in Japan seems like an unlikely event. However we are forced to reconsider this outlook since researchers have found glass jewelry belonging to the Roman Empire, in a fifth-century Utsukushi burial mound!

Extensive tests carried out by the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties on the glass jewelry, discovered at the Utsukushi burial mound in Nagaoka, Kyoto Prefecture, date the items between the first and fourth centuries AD. The researchers analyzed the components of 5mm glass beads, which have tiny fragments of gilt attached to them.

Analysis reports that the light yellow beads were made with natron. This was a chemical used by craftsmen in the Roman Empire to melt glass. The beads also have a distinctive hole in them, indicating a multi-layering technique, very predominant of that era. In this method, craftsmen ‘piled up layers of glass’ and quite often put a gold leaf between the layers. This discovery opens up a whole new set of questions on the influence of the Roman Empire and its extent.

Link.

Mary Beard on Identifying Julius Caesar Busts

Archaelogists Find Gates of Hell

Chemical Warfare, 256 AD

Almost 2,000 years ago, 19 Roman soldiers rushed into a cramped underground tunnel, prepared to defend the Roman-held Syrian city of Dura-Europos from an army of Persians digging to undermine the city's mudbrick walls.

But instead of Persian soldiers, the Romans met with a wall of noxious black smoke that turned to acid in their lungs. Their crystal-pommeled swords were no match for this weapon; the Romans choked and died in moments, many with their last pay of coins still slung in purses on their belts.

Nearby, a Persian soldier — perhaps the one who started the toxic underground fire — suffered his own death throes, grasping desperately at his chain mail shirt as he choked.

These 20 men, who died in A.D. 256, may be the first victims of chemical warfare to leave any archaeological evidence of their passing, according to a new investigation. The case is a cold one, with little physical evidence left behind beyond drawings and archaeological excavation notes from the 1930s. But a new analysis of those materials published in January in the American Journal of Archaeology finds that the soldiers likely did not die by the sword as the original excavator believed. Instead, they were gassed.

no time, but kewl.

What's In It?

In the ruins of a city that was once Rome's neighbor, archaeologists last summer found a 1,000-pound lead coffin.

Who or what is inside is still a mystery, said Nicola Terrenato, the University of Michigan professor of classical studies who leads the project---the largest American dig in Italy in the past 50 years.

The sarcophagus will soon be transported to the American Academy in Rome, where engineers will use heating techniques and tiny cameras in an effort to gain insights about the contents without breaking the coffin itself.

"We're very excited about this find," Terrenato said. "Romans as a rule were not buried in coffins to begin with and when they did use coffins, they were mostly wooden. There are only a handful of other examples from Italy of lead coffins from this age---the second, third or fourth century A.D. We know of virtually no others in this region."

This one is especially unusual because of its size.

"It's a sheet of lead folded onto itself an inch thick," he said. "A thousand pounds of metal is an enormous amount of wealth in this era. To waste so much of it in a burial is pretty unusual."

1 INCH of folded lead? That can't be good...DON'T OPEN IT!!! ;)

Stinking Persians!!!

Or...Romans at Dura-Europas Killed By Chemical Weapons?

A cramped tunnel beneath a Middle Eastern fort might have produced the oldest evidence of chemical warfare, according to a CSI-style review of archival records.

Presented at the recent meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, the review focused on the dramatic remains of 20 Roman soldiers unearthed in the 1930s in the city of Dura-Europos, Syria.

Sitting on a cliff overlooking the Euphrates River, the Roman fort at Dura was the site of a violent siege by the powerful Persian Empire around 256 A.D.

No historical record of the battle exists, but archaeological remains have helped piece together the action.

I think I am going to need to see a few more bits of evidence (or just the paper), but if its true, that's quite impressive. The Later Romans had Greek Fire, so its very possible that the Persians had their own weapons of nastiness.

Romano-Byzantine Empire Declines Due to Climate Change?!

The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.

Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.

The researchers, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geology graduate student Ian Orland and professor John Valley, reconstructed the high-resolution climate record based on geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave, located in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve near Jerusalem.

"It looks sort of like tree rings in cross-section. You have many concentric rings and you can analyze across these rings, but instead of looking at the ring widths, we're looking at the geochemical composition of each ring," says Orland.

Using oxygen isotope signatures and impurities — such as organic matter flushed into the cave by surface rain — trapped in the layered mineral deposits, Orland determined annual rainfall levels for the years the stalagmite was growing, from approximately 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D.

While cave formations have previously been used as climate indicators, past analyses have relied on relatively crude sampling tools, typically small dental drills, which required averaging across 10 or even 100 years at a time. The current analysis used an advanced ion microprobe in the Wisconsin Secondary-Ion Mass-Spectrometer (Wisc-SIMS) laboratory to sample spots just one-hundredth of a millimeter across. That represents about 100 times sharper detail than previous methods. With such fine resolution, the scientists were able to discriminate weather patterns from individual years and seasons.

Their detailed climate record shows that the Eastern Mediterranean became drier between 100 A.D. and 700 A.D., a time when Roman and Byzantine power in the region waned, including steep drops in precipitation around 100 A.D. and 400 A.D. "Whether this is what weakened the Byzantines or not isn't known, but it is an interesting correlation," Valley says. "These things were certainly going on at the time that those historic changes occurred."

hmmmm...

Stretching the Truth for Fiction?

I've been working on Epylium Aurelia and I have been finding that certain aspects of it are, well, unknown. I don't mean the obvious allohistorical bits (like whether or not the Romans could even work out an Transatlantic capable ship), but for example what was the state of the Maya during the mid First Century BC? Were they a handful of regional states? Were they a gaggle of independent city states? Were they somewhere between?

I suspect that I am going to have to make something up. Too much of the time period - the Late Preclassic - simply unexplored and unknown. Then the question is how much is too much for this sort of thing? Make it less than blatant - duh - and even plausible - ok - but in the end? Whatever I write will end up being obsolete even as I put it to page and I will get roasted by some Meso-American alt-hist geek for it too.

In some ways, it doesn't matter. The story is set some seven centuries after the conquest and incorporation of the Maian into the Imperium. It's a longer time of assimilation than they have had to date in Mexico OTL. However, it can and does matter to me as a writer for making the background as solid as I can. The period immediately after the conquest - oh about 15 years +/- - is present and actually already written, but I am hoping to include an appendix on the timeline at the end of the book. Also, I am hoping to hold this up a bit higher than the average althistory book on the shelf in the SF section.

We'll see. Just venting out some thoughts.