Across the Waters of Time- Pliny Remembered

by Ken Parejko

  Study, practice your horsemanship, and send my blessings to your mother.

  Uncle Gaius.

  Cyrene,

  10 July, 826

  Caecilius,

  I am sorry to hear of your recent illness, but heartened that it has passed. I have lived in Rome during several of its plagues, and can tell you that a healthy, long life is perhaps best considered an anomaly. But I wish you good and long health, and you can be assured I will do whatever I can to bring them to you. Be careful of the doctors, though. Most are no more than quacks interested in your money. Have Quintilian recommend someone; he’ll know who’s good and who isn’t. Mostly, I believe, your youth and general good health are the best doctor you can find. And, might I add, do be careful what you eat, because it is from that your body builds itself, healthy or not.

  I have described Cyrenaica a little for you, in my previous letter. Now you will get a short history lesson, which some day may prove useful to you -- for who knows when some little fact or anecdote might on a future day solve for us a great mystery? I would like to remind you, from the beginning, dear nephew, that while my History of the German Wars is quite popular, I give most credit for that to Polybius. For in writing it, I scanned the many histories already published, and found none as great as Polybius’. It is one thing to describe a battle, or an assassination, or a political intrigue. Many do that well. Some perhaps even better than Polybius. But for getting beneath the surface of events, to understand and explain them, he is second to none. He insists on the accuracy of facts, discarding rumors, unsubstantiated marvels and so on. He believes, as I do, that history is a handmaiden of virtue -- that the reading and learning of history properly molds a person’s character. Just as the food you put in your mouth can either make you strong or poison you, the words that enter your eyes can affect your character. Of all the ways of knowing about an event, personal knowledge or experience receive from Polybius highest priority. He writes of the fall of Carthage as an actual participant. He believes in the value of careful, painstaking research, and is a suitor not of some patron’s money or some emperor’s praise, but of truth. The love of truth is an uncommon romance, and no one loved her more than he.

  Though I have written a history, I am not a historian. If I am remembered at all I believe it will be for the project I am now undertaking, a grand and somewhat tedious collection of anecdotes, facts and observations about the natural world, which I hope in not too many years to let loose into the light of publication. Though it is not a history as such, it is a natural history, to which I apply many of the principles learned from Polybius, who by the way appears to have passed through Cyrene during one of his many travels.

  So, as it may serve you some purpose, in the end, I will tell you just a little of what I know of the history of this land and its people. I have brought a small part of my library with me, and from it and local sources I have learned the following. Herodotus writes that Cyrene was founded by immigrants from Thera, the island just north of Crete. I take you now, Caecilius, back almost to the time of Romulus and Numa, hardly more than a century from the founding of Rome. I have an assignment for you, which I expect you to answer in your next letter to me. Go down to the Sublician bridge, Rome’s oldest and only wooden bridge, according to legend built by Ancus Marcius, who like Vespasian was of Sabine stock. I want you to tell me what you find on the far end of it. What statuary is there, and why.

  I take you to the Sublician because according to Herodotus it was while Ancus Marcius was king, exactly 704 years ago, that the Delphian oracle told King Battus of Thera to found a colony on the African coast. He filled a dozen, twenty, who knows how many ships with the more adventurous of his folk, and leaving Thera behind followed the winds to Africa. On reaching the coast of Africa the Therans sailed west until in a sheltered harbor by a rich and luxuriant land of pastures and fruit trees they found cold, tasty water gushing out of the ground. In the basins of the springs were many beautiful irises, which I myself have seen growing there, at the base of the city’s acropolis. They are very large irises with a most delicious odor. I was just last night, in fact, pouring over my Theophrastus to learn of the kinds and uses of iris, whose root is a wonderful medicine.

  In Greek -- as you well know -- iris is kure, so Battus named his new city Kurena, our Cyrene. This, the city named for its lovely flower, is the city over which I now rule in the emperor’s name and just now look out upon, asleep in the gentle African night.

  Cyrene was early on known for its pastures, and therefore its sheep and horses, especially on the Plain of Barka. After that grains were grown and finally a plethora of fruits, which grow exceedingly well here, and olives.

  You likely know Athena as the goddess of war, in her form Nike or Victory. But in earliest times, I have read, she was known as Pallas. We have her in that form as Juno Lucina, who represents that wonderful clear light which illuminates the world just before dawn and just after sunset -- do you recall the lake beside which you were born, Caecilius, how lovely it is between sunset and dark? How often I walked her shores, enchanted by that gentle light. That was Lucina’s time. Lucina also became the goddess of storms, and from that of battles, hence her connection to Athena. There are different stories of Athena's birth. Callimachus, a native of Cyrene who claimed descent from King Battus himself, and who served for a time as librarian at the wonderful Alexandrian library I was so fortunate to have visited, is called by your own mentor Quintilian the prince of Greek poets. Callimachus writes that after Athena’s birth she was washed in Lake Tritonis, a salt-lake not far to my west, by native Libyan nymphs. That means in the east she is goddess of light, but here further west the goddess of lakes and water, so in the twilight glow off a quiet lake she may be doubly found. The Syrtic Lake Tritonis, which I have not yet visited, is the land of the lotus- tree and the infamous lotus-eaters. As you know, the lotus-fruit is indeed sweet, becoming even more delicious as it dries. It is so sweet that Odysseus’ men, having tasted it, and the warm hospitality of the Lotophagi, lost all desire to find their way home. One winter solstice you and I went together, as I recall, to see the celebrations at the Temple of Lucina on the Esquiline. All the pretty girls in white, garlands and candles in their hair, the great bonfires and torches, to help Juno Lucina as midwife of the new sun. As you know, I am not a believer in all these Junos -- Juno Moneta, Juno Ossipago, Rumina, Sospita -- how they multiply on us, eh Caecilius, like dormice in a barrel. Maybe we feed them too much, too many fine fat calves. A few barley-cakes and bones might be better for them, what do you think? I showed you then, alongside Lucina’s temple, the old lotus-tree said to be older than the temple itself, a tree which has grown for more than four hundred and fifty years. The one they call the Capillata, in the Forum, may be even older. That is the tree on which the Vestal Virgins hang their hair, taken from them when they join the Vestals, hung there they say to keep it from sorcerers’ hands. By legend the oldest tree in the city is a lotus, in the Vulcanal, and goes back to Romulus’ own time, more than eight hundred years ago. Whether this story is true or not, I cannot say. But you will recall, I hope, that Crassus once sold six lotus-trees from out of his garden, for ten million sesterces!

  Augustus’ library on the Palatine has most of Callimachus’ work. You might visit it to improve your Greek. I have come to agree with Callimachus that big poems are big nuisances. If you follow Virgil back, in a Polybian sort of way and ask why he wrote his Eclogues, which we find so touching, you will find -- yes, Theocritus, certainly -- but also Callimachus, smiling out at us with his little gems, the polished stone mined out of the folk-songs of the Sicilian, Greek, and Cyrenean shepherds.

  Do you remember the shepherds on the hillsides of Comum and their songs sung to drums and crude lyres? More and more I think of the common folk, dear Caecilius, and miss the simple country pleasures, drowning as I am in a sea of bureaucracy. Sometimes, in the cool of the evening, I stroll out to the edge of town only to hear the pipes and songs of the she
pherds and their wives.

  You see, dear nephew, how when one lifts to smell a lovely iris sprouting out of a quiet pool one finds a throng of shades, each crying out for remembrance.

  Now I will show you how a few more steps on the path of Cyrenian history can lift us up into the very heavens. When I was in Egypt I saw, along the southern horizon, a constellation called the Hair of Berenice. The Berenice for whom it was named was the daughter of King Magas of Cyrene. And this is the story behind it. When Alexander the Great died, his general Ptolemy took control of much of his conquered territories, and ruled as Ptolemy the first, king of Egypt. Ptolemy came to conquer Cyrenaica, then married this Berenice. When Ptolemy was leaving to fight the Syrians, Queen Berenice promised to dedicate a lock of her hair to Aphrodite, if he returned safely. When Ptolemy returned after defeating the Syrians, Berenice cut some of her hair and deposited it at Aphrodite’s temple.

  As you know, some magi believe that possessing someone’s fingernails, hair, or pieces of skin gives you power over them. One day the Queen’s hair disappeared from the Temple, probably stolen by sorcerers. To appease the public’s fears, the court astronomer declared that he had seen her hair up in the sky, in a new constellation which he named the Hair of Berenice.

  So you see, from Cyrene we have traveled first to the Esquiline and its Temple of Lucina, then sailed far up into a foreign sky. While some may find these journeys tedious, to me by remembering them we trace the connections between time and place which are the very sinews of God.

  The oil burns low, and to the east I see the shade of Pallas stealing across the landscape. I will soon have official work to do, and need to catch a few moments sleep. I will take this subject up in my next letter.

  Don’t forget – your assignment is to identify the statue on the far-end of the Sublician bridge.

  Fondly, your uncle,

  Gaius.

  27 July, 826

  Caecilius,

  Excellent. Yes, the image on the bridge is Horatius Cocles, the one-eyed hero who defended the bridge against the Etruscans more than five hundred years ago. Certainly we could renovate the bridge, and some have argued we ought to. But we have kept it wooden, because as Rome’s very first bridge it reminds us of our past, which we forget at our peril.

  No, you cannot see Berenice’s Hair from your room. It is a remarkable fact that as one travels north or south, new constellations arise. In Egypt I was able to see the star Canopus as well as Berenice’ Hair. Perhaps some day you can travel there, and remember to look up to find them.

  I will not tarry long in the remainder of my history of Cyrene, as I’m sure you have other lessons to learn. I assume Quintilian is keeping you quite busy. If he were not, I would be disappointed.

  It was the defeat of Hannibal at Zama which brought us to this continent, nearly three hundred years ago. You’ve been taught the history of that battle many times, and know that none of all we’ve fought were more important, for if we had lost it, you and I would not be free Romans but Carthaginian slaves.

  The times have not been easy for us, here. The local tribes keep trying to shake us off. Augustus put all Africa under the rule of a single proconsul and formed the Legio III Augusta in Carthage. A century ago Balbus used that legion to conquer Cyrenaica though he seems not to have totally convinced the natives of that. You will recall that when I was last in Rome we attended Euripedes’ Troad, at the theater Balbus built to commemorate his victory here. The most powerful tribe, the Garamantes, come over now and again from south of the mountains to lay their claim to the province. Valerius Festus, fortunately, has shown the Garamantes the error of their ways. Now we trade with them, mostly horses, and for the time being at least they cooperate.

  As I mentioned in an earlier letter, Vespasian himself was quaestor here before becoming senator. He also served as priest at the Temple of Apollo. The Temple supports itself on land-grants on which olives, wheat and other crops are grown for profit. Vespasian was administrator of these lands. We jump ahead now to when a dispute arose between the temple administrators and the tenants who worked the land. Shortly after the death of Claudius, Nero sent Lucius Acilius Strabo here – I am told he lived in the very rooms I now inhabit -- to settle that dispute. Strabo, flexing the muscles of the pax romana, declared that the extensive Temple properties belonged to Rome. Well, the Cyreneans were not happy about that, and to placate them Nero ordered Strabo to promise the tenants the right to live on the land, even if they did not own it.

  You’ll recall from your lessons how many conflicts have arisen in our history after conquering a territory and taking over the local natives' lands. Marcus Livius Drusus, during the consulship of Sextus Julius Caesar, favored granting the plebeians more land, and supported citizenship for the Italic tribes east of Rome. As you might imagine these ideas were not popular among the wealthier of our countrymen, many of whom derived their wealth from their extensive landholdings. When this Drusus was assassinated, the Italic peoples revolted. For three years there were monumental battles and a great loss of life.

  Lucius, who of course is still with me, would have been a citizen but that his ancestors from the city of Corfinium, capital of that revolt, refused our offer of citizenship after the wars were over. Had they done otherwise he would have been born a citizen, and his life much different. But his gain would have been my loss, for I doubt I could ever have found such a good and faithful servant, who has in all these years become my friend.

  Because of these hard questions of land-grants and ownership we have decided, like the Gracchi brothers of old, to make agrarian reform a high priority. With Vespasian’s blessing we are surveying all lands taken from the Cyreneans by wealthy Roman landlords. After what I expect to be lengthy legal arguments, most will be taken out of the landlords’ hands into state ownership, to be rented out to the tenants. I am receiving great help with this project from the legate Quintus Paconius Agrippinus. Vespasian’s purpose, I believe, is two-fold, first to gain revenues as rents and taxes, and secondly to gain control over cultivation of the lands, to favor wheat production. The locals live off barley, and many of the lands in question have been used to raise that inferior grain. North Africa and Egypt are the breadboxes of the empire. Vespasian intends, by whatever means possible, to keep the granaries of the empire full. I will do my small part to help him.

  We are also preparing to undertake a census of the province, as part of a larger census Vespasian has ordered for the entire empire. As you might imagine, this is no small project. We had a minor revolution here just last week. For a few days it wasn’t safe to be out, so I stayed mostly in my offices. This all dates back to the Jewish Wars. Though we’ve declared victory and Vespasian and Titus have had their triumph, I fear the Wars aren’t yet over. When Judea fell to us the Sicarii fled this way. It was here their brand of terrorism originated. Earlier this year one of them, called Jonathan the Weaver, began seriously fomenting the local Jews, of which there are many, against us. The excuse he used was the insult of the fiscus Judaicus, Vespasian’s Jewish tax, which requires a denarius per annum from each Jew in our provinces. For centuries this tax went to the Temple. But the Temple is no more. Now it comes instead into the imperial treasury. Vespasian is using the money, among other things, to rebuild the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter, destroyed during the civil war. This being made to donate to the building of one of our Temples of course rankles the Jews to no end.

  We had to turn the army on the Sicarii, right here in the streets below the provincial palace. Though a few escaped, many were killed and captured. Under torture this Jonathan named wealthy Jews who supported his gang and several were arrested and decapitated in the forum. Perhaps you have heard that he also claimed Josephus as a co-conspirator. An investigation is under way in Rome, and I am forwarding to the judges all the information I have about the case. I have no doubt of Josephus’ innocence. It is likely that Jonathan is simply jealous, and angered that a former Jew could become such a highly-placed indiv
idual in Rome.

  Things have settled down here, after a bit of a scare.

  Keep diligent in your studies, and I promise to keep you in touch with events here.

  Vale,

  Uncle Gaius.

  17 August, 826

  Dear Caecilius,

  As I have recounted in other letters, while certainly no Rome, Athens or Alexandria, Cyrene has produced its share of great thinkers. In this regard, I ask you to step outside when you have a free moment and glance sideways at the sun. Do not look directly at it, or you may be blinded! There is no planetary body of more importance to us than the sun. Yet how little we know about it, how it produces its heat and light, how it moves, even how large it is. Having caught a glimpse of it, I ask you to think about the question: How large is the sun? Please respond with your answer, and arguments supporting it.

  Vale,

  Uncle Gaius

  29 August, 826

  Very good, Caecilius.

  You are right to reject the argument of the Epicureans, that the sun is in fact no larger than it actually appears, in other words that it is in reality about one foot in diameter. The mathematician Dionysius (of Cyrene!) laid that argument to rest. Like yourself, he argued that the sun is actually much larger than it appears, but is very far from us.

  But don't feel bad that you are stumped by how far it is. The ships of many astronomers and mathematicians have run aground on that shoal. How can we determine how far away the sun actually is? I know of no way of actually measuring it, but there is a way of demonstrating its relative distance.