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History 104A, October 10: Hail Caesar & Caesar & Caesar

I repeat -- one, no classes on Columbus day, October 12th. The

class is today, the ugly Columbus day because -- I hate it that they

change these dates to the weekends so all you people can be lazy and

get a day off from school and get a three day weekend.

A There's nothing wrong with that.

THE PROFESSOR: And the year Columbus discovered America?

A 1992.

THE PROFESSOR: He didn't discover it. It was here; right? So

we call it a violation of the prime directive. Once again, there is

no school on October 12th for me, for this class only. I'll be in my

other classes. I will not be here and I will send out an e-mail to

remind you October 28th is it the Friday?

A I don't think anybody has that day.

THE PROFESSOR: Yeah. We don't get off for Halloween. I'm

turning into a pumpkin, so now I'm going down to San Diego to see my

son's soccer team play, so it's absolutely illegal, it's illegitimate

reason, but I don't hear bitching here too much to get rid of me.

Q Is that the Friday or the Monday?

THE PROFESSOR: The Friday. I think that's it procedurally.

We were talking a bit started out a bit on the life in Rome or

Roman life generally. And we're going to continue with the so so

corny video tape, but at least it's entertaining in a bad way. And it

does show various elements of life in Rome. We'll start out with

that. And then I will continue with vomiting.

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(showing movie)

For the dozens of people who came in after we started, we're

going to be nice to you and let you know that the non-Columbus day

that's really Columbus day on Wednesday, there will not be class.

Mark that down in your books. And that also on October 28th, the

Friday, there will also not be class.

Q Are other classes not meeting?

THE PROFESSOR: No just me. I'll be up here for my other

classes.

Q I mean today. You said it was Columbus day?

THE PROFESSOR: Columbus day stopped being a holiday for most

schools when people started being concerned about the violation of the

prime directive and it's generally not celebrated anymore. Are there

any comments on the film or questions about it?

A couple of points just for a basis of it. One, people are

people and I think that's what the film intended to show. And two,

the development of a law system that very much our words of our system

come from, innocent until proven guilty, the concept of equality, the

anti slavery element, even though it existed. Translation, a lot of

things can be written in the law, it's how it's carried out, including

the whole sense of precedence, customs. The Roman law was codified a

number of times. The one that lasted and came down to us is what we

call the Fall of Rome. It came to us from the sixth century AD or CE

from the Justian code J-U-S-T-I-A-N. And at that in time, the Roman

empire, if you will, spread out from Constantinople, Byzantium and

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became the Byzantium empire of Rome, Rome in the East.

The life in Rome, as it indicated, was difficult. We talked

about the bread and circuses. And I wanted to give some description

of some other elements of the life including upper and lower class.

And this part I want to present from a number of elements that I have

here.

I think I mentioned that the Romans had statues to their

ancestors and Roman statues to themselves, a little different from the

Greeks who seem to have the idealization element in their statues,

their paintings and drawings were much more realistic. The Roman

houses were built around an atrium similar to the Mediterranean tile

in Spain. Everything was inside the house with the garden in the

center, not built like we do with our lawns outside and our open

backwards, except in California where everybody has high fences. Go

East and the most amazing think, I think, for most Californians is to

see no fences to speak of. Don't ask me why, we out here with our

individuality demand that sense of privacy. That's another story.

The main center of the house was in a sense the dining room.

Romans loved to eat. They loved their 20 or 30 courses, meals.

And they also had a room near the left hand of the dining room, the

left side by the couch that was called a vomitorium. They vomit so

they can eat. They eat so that they may vomit. I thought I would

pick that out for any of you that are bulimic. Some of the dining

rooms had recommendations for their guests such as -- do not cast

wanton glances or ogling eyes at another man's wife, being modest in

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your language. They were obviously -- mentioned the baths of

Caracalla. I want to get back to the house. Let's get to the

parties. I like parties because we mentioned that earlier.

Romans loved their gathering especially the wealthy. They were

sort of like weddings and Barmitzvahs every few weeks spending

millions of dollars for their guests. The emperor Tiberius spent

$4 million on food and drink alone. It wasn't Tiberius. It was

another Roman trying to impress the emperor Tiberius, he spent $4 for

one party. He committed suicide after that because he had no money

left. ... at a cost of $5,000 a course. Now, coming from New York, I

have gone to a couple of Barmitzvahs worth a couple of thousand

dollars. One of Nero's friends spent a couple thousand dollars on

roses. A feast cost 300,000. But we must remember that at his

banquet, he gave to each of his friends gifts which included gold and

silver dishes. He gave them beautiful slaves and carriages with teams

of mules and their drivers. Roman millionaires loved dissolving

pearls in vinegar and then drinking them.

I mentioned the huge baths of Caracalla. I mentioned the common

people living in apartment houses that were constructed basically of

concrete, heavy wooden beams to support the flooring that went as high

as six stories, and wooden bricks were used for bridging balconies.

Wood, rubber and stone utilized to make attractive facing. The risers

were of stone or wood, windows and balconies were decked with pots and

flowers. Fires continuously breaking out. There was a combined fire

fighting force of about 7,000. The fire fighting equipment of course

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was not inadequate. The great fire of 64 AD and the reign of Nero

devastated 10 of 14 regions of Rome. And of these ten, three were

almost completely destroyed. Since the tenements were often Jerry

built and since, by law, the walls cannot be more than 18-inches in

thickness, the building sometimes collapsed under their own weight.

Roman builders so excellent in their public structures, paid little

attention, surprise surprise to the permanence in low class housing.

Now, of course many of you have heard the story of Nero fiddling

when Rome burned. it is highly unlikely since they didn't have the

fiddle, but it is possibly that he did play the harp or an instrument

similar to the harp. Yes, he was a little off the deep end as were a

number of Roman emperors like Caligilar who made a horse his a

senator, declared himself God and his sister as Hera, and later killed

her personally and turned the palace into a brothel insisting that all

the senators wives serve as prostitutes, collected money to help pay

off the debt of Rome. Not a bad idea maybe. Well, get rid of the

debt that we are now in trillions of dollars now, I suppose.

The Roman wealthy also imported ice from the Alps. They brought

it down, packed in straw, and their drinks were made with ice. They

did not have refrigeration, no. Rome was, to say the least, the

cosmopolitan city with all groups of people all colors, all creeds,

and as indicated in the video, many people of different races from

different parts of the world had high positions in the Roman empire.

The Romans encouraged local self-government. We talked -- the Romans

still saw themselves as small landholders and farmers. Bread and

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circuses. In 45 BC Julius Caesar found, in Rome, no less than 320,000

Roman citizens receiving free grain. From Augustus onward, they

numbered around 200,000 and must be remembered that these 200,000 were

adult male, so as women and children must be added to the total. I

mentioned the hippodrome and the chariot races and the colors that

were part and parcel of that era of fighting over which team they were

going the support.

Back to projector. I do have a DVD. I'm not sure if I'll be

able to show the whole segment I wanted to on I Claudius on Friday

because we will have the group meeting on Friday instead of on

Wednesday. Be prepared for the group meeting on Friday itself.

We had talked about the Roman emperors starting of course with

Octavian becoming the Caesar, if you will, the Augustus in 27 BCE.

And we go through a series of basically so so emperors. There is no

plan in session. And what we find is that the emperors are really

appointed by the Pretorian God, the emperor's own elite military.

Augustus extends the Roman boundaries to pretty much what it finally

became.

He is followed by Tiberius -- and I'll have those up for you in a

minute -- who is then followed by that crazy emperor, Caligilar, who

is followed by a survivor who does the good job, Claudius. However,

he is duped by his second wife, Messalina, who he loves dearly. And I

think I may have noted that she enjoyed her sexual antics and once had

a contest with a prostitute in Pompeii to see who could sleep with the

most men in one night, and she won. Don't ask me how many. I'm sure

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it doesn't amount to as many as John Kennedy, based on the stories

which are phony of course. And he's followed by his son, basically a

mistake, Nero who again off the deep end, forces people to listen to

him sing off tune, kills people for the hell of it, including his

mother who he kicked off her raft into the sea.

After Nero's death, we see four emperors in one year. And his

palace is destroyed and built on top of his palace ask the famous

coliseum. The coliseum which could hold about 40 or 50,000 people, I

talked about earlier, the site for the games including of course

humans fighting animals, obviously is most famous perhaps in many of

your eyes for the Christians and the sacrifice of Christians in the

various games, but Christians weren't the only ones killed in the

mausoleum, nor were they the only ones that were buried or hiding in

the catacombs which is the underground burial areas and tombs

throughout Rome. Have any of you been to Rome? Anybody here?

A In German we saw Roman ruins.

THE PROFESSOR: Did they have catacombs there? Burials, areas

underground where you could walk through?

A Yeah. They just lady to nowhere. And they were still uncovering

stuff like we were there. There were an am fully theater.

THE PROFESSOR: And the point they're making is the Romans

extended their culture, their baths throughout their empire, if you

will, including of course into England and into the area that

Alexander had conquered. The sense of Rome, as I say, around the

Mediterranean sea. I want to you show you something that I put up for

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whatever it's worth.

Once again, I put these in with the lectures on those days.

They're PowerPoint presentations or at least ways of putting some

information on-line and Connie, when she sends me the lecture

transcripts, I stick it in there. Your textbook gives a fairly good

feel for the cultures, but different from the one I used in previous

years. It doesn't have as much detail, which may or may not be good

based upon your own interests in history. So what I have here are the

Roman emperors, and it keeps coming out different on here than it does

on my Mac at home. I played some games. And for some reason, it's

totally different here.

What we see here is the pantheon, the Romans built this

phenomenal structure with a hole in the center and a tremendous dome

that wouldn't be matched again until the Renaissance era in building

with a whole reflecting the universe coming through and around the

pantheon are the Gods. These are not the Gods. These are the

emperors and there are periods of time. And they are. I ran down

copies from other books, a little summary of the accomplishments of

each. So you get a little more detail, not a lot, but a little more.

And between 96 and 180 in a sense, Rome really does reach its height

which are known as the five good emperors; a very efficiently run

empire; however, basically after 180, Marcus Aurelius allows his son

to go on the throne. And like the son of many people, his son was

incompetent. And with that we move into a year of tremendous decline

until Diatheses and Constantine at the end of the third and the

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beginning of the fourth century AD. That's there. It will be in

these lecture notes for you to take a look at and get a little more

detail. We'll see you on Friday.

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