Ancient use of drugs question.

Your post does not make sense to me Angie.

HBO?

I think she may be talking about Home Box Office. I've seen it when I'm in Thailand. It's a television station. I think there's a series about ancient Rome on it.

From the Second Season of the Series.
An HBO Series shown on channel 13 of Rome. The question came up from the Second Season of the Series which finished.

Here is the link:

Rome

Here is th link, the first one does not work for me or I did it wrong.

http://www.hbo.com/rome/

Wilso in the US it was shown on channel 13.

Re: Ancient use of drugs question.
If it's mixed in a potion and eaten or drank, it's quite possible. If they're smoking it; it's bogus.

During this period, Rome had a large and pretty sophisticated pharmacology. Both Opium and Marijuana were known and used for pleasure. Their use was probably pretty much confined to the Patrician classes, but no one can be really certain. As already pointed out, both drugs were almost certainly taken orally, perhaps mixed with food and drink. There is no evidence for smoking; no pipes with drug residue have ever been found, nor are they likely to even exist.

"Rome" was a HBO series that recently concluded. The series had very fine production values, a good story-line that mixed real historical characters with a large array of people who only exist in fiction. Generally, the series was true to what we know about the zeitgeist of the period (The end of the Republic and transition to Imperial Rome). The dialog, of course is sheer invention, but the chaos and political struggles happened more-or-less as depicted. The prevailing philosophy of the time amongst upper class Romans was a strange mixture of Epicurean and Stoicism. Violent death was common as factions struggled for control of the State. The Patrician Class dominated the Republic which was far closer to the Sopranos world than Democratic Athens. The Republic had been in disarray since before the time of Sulla, and there was constant troubles besetting Rome. That set the stage for a power struggle primarily between Pompey and Cesar for the control of Rome.

The series begins with that struggle focusing on Cesar at the end of the Gallic Wars, and Pompey's efforts to marginalize him. The real stars are Valerian and Titus Pullo, two fictional soldiers in Mark Anthony's division of Cesar's Legions. These two idealized soldiers, one a minor officer and the other a plain infantryman, are present or involved in the struggle that continues up until Octavian consolidates his position as First Citizen of the Republic. Rome was tired of the chaos and instability that had accompanied the decline of the Republic, and was quite happy to accept the fiction of a Republic as opposed to reality. The reign of Augustus was long, and during that time Rome prospered. The Empire was pretty much at peace, brigandage and piracy were curbed, roads and public works were completed throughout the Empire, local governments were pretty much left to govern themselves, the Roman franchise was extended to leading men in the provinces, AND the taxation was very low. Augustus was an able administrator and master politician who utilized the looted wealth of Egypt to guarantee his power, which though nominal was complete. The rule of Augustus was widely accepted as a Golden Age.

Between that beginning and ending of the series, the 21st century audience is treated to sure-fire entertainment material. Blood and sex, intrigue and betrayal, and lofty sentiment coupled with the decadence that has so long fueled this genre of film making. Even what we know of the real "historical" characters is taken from materials written with what may have been less accurate than intended to justify the writers own agendas. Here in a two season series we have a modern version of "Julius Cesar" and "Anthony and Cleopatra" set against a backdrop of a reasonably accurate portrayal of what life might have been like for countless individuals who never made it into the history books. Ultimately "Rome" is a Classic Comics version of history ... entertaining and close enough to the real thing to satisfy a mass audience.

Thanks for the description Asherman. You are always a pleasure to read.

"Even what we know of the real "historical" characters is taken from materials written with what may have been less accurate than intended to justify the writers own agendas."

I apologize for this monstrosity of a sentence. Let's try again.

Much of what we believe, even about the historical characters in the series is a just a bit suspect. Roman writers were just as susceptible to tweaking a story to support their partisan agenda's as any modern commentator. Some writers "sucked-up" to the guy in charge, while others blackened reputations with sheer invention. Caesar's writing may reflect his own perceptions, but he was certainly self-serving. Cicero's accounts are the other side of the coin and just as questionable in their facts. These guys were in a power struggle that placed greater emphasis on winning than on accuracy. Later writers also tended to color their writing. For instance, Tiberius probably wasn't the monster he's pictured to be. Characters like Atia and Servilla existed, but their prominence in the series goes far beyond what is actually known about their lives. We know more about Octavia, because Augusts married her off and divorced her repeatedly for political reasons. Octavia raised her child by Anthony along with his children by Cleopatra, and it was from that line that the later Julio-Claudian Emperors sprang. Nero was the last of the line, and after the Three Emperors (whose reign lasted less than a year) the Emperors were Flavians (Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian).

Well, that's a little better even if it's longer. One of the amazing things is not how terrible the Emperors between Augustus and Commodus were, but how effective and dedicated most were to the Roman State. Out of 13 Emperors whose power was absolute the really bad ones were: Caligula, Nero, Domition, and Commodus.

What we know of Cleopatra, and that damned little, which is likely to be reliable, comes from Plutarch's Lives--she was considered by most Romans to have been an odious and bewitching seductress. This was a pretty bit of hipocricy from Romans, who maintained a false allegiance to "Republican" values, and matronly virtue, while the tolerated the affairs of their wives, if they thought it would advance their political careers. The Emperor Gaius, known to history by his cognomen, Caligula, offended Roman mores because he paraded the sexual depravities of his "court" publicly--it wasn't that the behavior offended them, it was that he didn't dissemble, that he didn't maintain the facade of virtue which the order of Patres paraded before the order of Plebs, who i doubt were ever fooled by the charade.

Almost all other references to Cleopatra very invariably scurrilous. After all, she had "seduced" Iulius Caesar, and then Marc Antony. The evidence is pretty good, though, that although her dalliance with Caesar was politically motivated (and that was nothing foreign to Caesar, a notorious bisexual, and it was long believed that he had conducted a homosexual affair with the King of Bythinia to procure an advantage for Rome--and he succeeded if he was so involved, the King deeded his kingdom to the Empire upon his death), her affair with Marc Anthony was genuine. Her suicide upon learning of Antony's suicide (he had mistakenly believed she had already taken her life), as well as their previous relationship, suggest that she probably genuinely loved him, and his ability to live extravagantly and shower honors on her didn't hurt.

Plutarch seems to have come closest of writers in antiquity who viewed her objectively (or as objectively as he was able). Almost all other accounts constitute either panegyrics (very few), or character assassination (most of them). I haven't seen the series, so i can't comment on its accuracy.

Whether or not Cleopatra used drugs, i couldn't say. Although it wouldn't surprise me, i doubt that she was either an addict or an habitual user. She showed herself to be about the only clever powerful person in Egypt in her lifetime, and she long survived tumults which would have either killed or marginalized anyone who wasn't very clever and adroit. Addiction to powerful drugs would have been a death sentence to her.

As Ash has pointed out, drugs and poisons were common in that era, so common, in fact, that sellers of poison were proscribed as witches, and they and all of their families could be executed out of hand if convicted of selling poisons. That only had the effect, though, of making them exceptionally discrete, and it meant that poisons were out of the price range of all but the wealthy. Apart from wine, used by almost all classes, other drugs certainly were common. Most people only drank diluted wine (legends of an alcoholic Europe ignore the economics of the situation), which was sensible, since most water was suspected, and "bottled water" has been in use in Europe for literally thousands of years. But datura in many forms was well known and used both as a drug and a poison. Marijuana was known and used, and for quite a long time. Tunisian and European archaeologists raised a Punic (Carthaginian) warship in the 1980s which had a hold full of marijuana. It was the leafy variety, not useful for rope making, and no one would be making rope on board a warship at any event. There are records which say that the galleys which the Carthaginians used for patrolling and scouting, with only a single bank of oars, did not use galley slaves or mercenaries, and one assumes that they didn't want to trust important missions to slaves or mercenaries. Some scholars long disputed this because pulling oars on a galley is exhausting work. However, some now speculate that if Carthaginian volunteers were used, and large quantities of marijuana were common (something which is pure speculation), the oarsmen may have used it to allow them to endure long hours of heavy labor.

There is usually nothing new under the sun, and our technology only allows us to do more casually and quickly the things which people have always done. Drug use has an ancient history.

By the way, even Plutarch didn't have much nice to say about Cleopatra, as can be seen in this excerpt from his life of Marc Antony. He also saw her in the light of "vile seductress," but anyone who reads ancient history learns to accept and take with a grain of salt the constant anti-woman bigotry of ancient writers. Basically, the thesis is that all men are by nature innocent and pure, while all women are by nature evil and lustful.

Nevertheless, Plutarch is the most reliable source, because he was not given to mindless panegyrics in his lives of the Greeks and Romans. Almost all accounts of the relationship of Antony and Cleopatra are based on this passage.

By the way, one of the reasons that so many drugs and poisons would have been available at Rome 2000 years ago is that the trade of many regions found a terminus in the Mediterranean. Via the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, gems, silk, dyes, spices and drugs made their way to Rome from as far away as India and China. Overland trade routes existed when Rome was just a collection of huts with a temple on the Capitoline and pretensions it was as yet incapable of realizing.

But there have also been contentions that there had been contact between the "old world" and the "new world" long before the Spanish conquest. In 1976, the mummified remains of Ramses II were taken to France for study. One of the scientists who studied the remains said that she found flakes of tobacco in the cerements which were used to wrap the body. Many since then have claimed that tobacco was found in the stomach of the mummy, and that nicotine was found in his tissues. About the later claim, i am skeptical, because the organs were removed and stored separately during mummification, and it has long been considered unreliable to ascribe organs found in jars to any particular mummy. But the French scientist who claimed she found tobacco in the cerements effectively ended her own career. It has long been taken as axiomatic that there was no contact between the eastern and western hemispheres, and academics and scientists don't appreciate people who publish research which questions the basic assumptions of their work.

It has since been claimed that traces of cocaine have also been found in mummies, and cocaine is also a "new world" plant. The following link will take you to a page which discusses the claim that traces of cocaine were found in a mummy. Frankly, in find that page suspect, but it does accurately describe the claim made by a German woman.

This page has a transcript of The Mystery of the Cocaine Mummies which was a television program on the subject. I found this by searching for "the Bay of Jars," a bay in Brazil from which amphorae from the Roman imperial era have been frequently brought up from the bottom of the bay. This could, of course, have resulted simply from a trading vessel being blown off course, and foundering in a bay in Brazil in which the ship sought refuge. However, the Romans did know of the Canary Island (despite the association of the name with birds, the Romans named them the "Canary" islands because they found so many dogs there--canares), and in the right season and with the right winds, a voyage of about ten days would take a ship from the Canaries to the coast of Brazil.

Plants which contain nicotine can be found in Europe and Asia, and were used for thousands of years for mortuary purposes. The remains of "barbarians" found in swamps in Denmark have had such plants used to prepare the bodies for burial. But tobacco concentrates nicotine as does no other plant, and the tissue of tobacco leaves is distinctive. Of course, the coca plant from which cocaine is derived is unique--no similar plant exists in "the old world."

Steanta wrote-



I know everything there is to know about Cleopatra. I don't need any records or archives or any of that bullshit. All that's for pedants and presbyterians and suchlike.

Put the snake-bite on her and she'll do your bidding.

Seteanta wrote-



Is not what I read and is not very likely.

In actual fact she got the yellowbellies at Actium and that dropped MA in the **** bigtime and he knew that if he got captured alive he would be punished in the manner approved by the Ancients which, as Gibbon explained, was to be beaten with rods (the fasces) until he expired which was a fate the self indulgent Mummy's boy,Nero, stabbed himself to avoid.

How can anybody possibly believe that " her affair with Marc Anthony was genuine". Leaving out young kids I mean.

Stennatter wrote-



He also wrote-



Obviously Stenttata is convinced that the purity and innocence of our modern ladies is something unusual.

Snetana wrote-



Big deal. I heard that traces of cocaine were found on 99% of the £20 notes returned the the Bank of England for renewal.

I wish I could remember what Holden Caulfield said about Egypt in his exam essay.

Just in case anybody here take seriously anything they saw in the HBO series Rome, here is the historian Tacitus's description of Atia Balbia Caesonia, who we saw in the series as a lascivious, unscrupulous conspirator:

In her presence no base word could be uttered without grave offence, and no wrong deed done. Religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but also their recreations and their games.

Yeah- it depends which histories you get yourself married to.

The best history is contained in the language, in art and knowledge of the human organism. Ovid won't have missed much and if he tells us in one crafted line what others turn into books so much the better.

Modern art says to me that we are in the ****. And what does even a dog do when it's in the ****. It tries to get out. It doesn't keep digging.

Hence we elect our Governments and usher them in with a fanfare and within 2 years their poll ratings are the worst since records began. One would expect that from folks thrashing about in the **** and not knowing what to do next.

We saw presumably, not me though, Atia Balbia Caesonia, portrayed as a lascivious, unscrupulous conspirator to try to spark the dying libido of the TV audience; which is enough to get them to wheel themselves in front of the advertising hoardings.