Tuesday 12 July 2011

[Istorija] Svetonije o Juliju Cezaru - De vita Caesarum, deo cetvrti

preveo Nikola Sop

Vojnike je cenio samo po njihovoj hrabrosti. Koliko je bio prema njima strog, toliko i blag. Nemoljiv je bio narocito kad se neprijatelj nalazio u blizini. Trupama nikada nije javljao ni kad ce krenuti na put, ni kad ce poci u borbu. Hteo je da vojnici budu spremni u svakome trenutku. koji put bi bez narocitog razloga pokrenuo celu vojsku, narocito u praznicne ili kisovite dane. Nikad nije vojnike hrabrio potcenjivanjem neprijatelja. Naprotiv, njegovo brojno stanje i njegovu moc uvek je preuvelicavao. Kada je na glas da se Juba priblizava sa vojskom, zavladalo medju vojnicima pravo zaprepascenje, on im je u zboru rekao : "Znajte da ce koliko danas ili sutra stici kralj Mauretanije sa deset legija, trideset hiljada konjanika, sto hiljada lako naoruzanih i trista slonova. Neka dakle neki prestanu vec jednom sa proturanjem laznih vesti i neka se drze istine, koja je meni najbolje poznata. Inace cu te lazove ukrcati u neku olupinu od broda, pa neka se iskrcaju tamo, gde ih vetar odnese." nije kaznjavao svaki njihov prestup. Ali je nemilice gonio i okrutno kaznjavao svakog begunca i buntovnika.

Inace je bio vrlo popustljiv. Katkada je, posle kakve pobede, dozvoljavao vojnicima da se provode po miloj volji. Tom prilikom rekao bi za njih da su i u igri sjajni vojnici. Od miloste zvao ih je svojim drugovima. Voleo je da ih vidi u oruzju, koje je bilo bogato ukraseno zlatom i dragim kamenjem. Ne toliko zbog toga, sto je to lepo izgledalo, koliko da ih na taj nacin prisili da se hrabro bore da ne bi izgubili tako skupo oruzje. Velika je bila njegova ljubav prema njima. Kad je cuo za Titurijev poraz, od zalosti pustio je bradu i kosu. I nije se sisao ni brijao sve dok ih nije osvetio. Time je od svojih vojnika stvorio najodanije i najhrabrije pristalice. Prema prijateljima bio je neobicno dobar i do krajnosti pazljiv. Kaj Opije razboli se bas na samome putu, kad ga je pratio kroz neke vrletne i neprohodne predele. U blizini je bila samo jedna krcmica. Cezar mu ustupi svoje mesto, a sam je prenocio napolju, pod vedrim nebom. Kad je bio na vrhuncu moci, dao je visoke polozaje nekim ljudima, vrlo niskog porekla. Zbog toga su mu mnogi prigovorili. On je na to odgovorio : Ako sam pomocu razbojnika i ubojica dosao do ovolike vlasti i moci, uzvraticu istom merom". Medjutim, ima mnogo njegovih dela, zbog kojih mu prebacuju da je zloupotrebljavao svoju moc i da je zato s pravom ubijen. Ali je protiv njega raspirio najogorceniju mrznju ovaj slucaj : kad su jednoga dana dosli preda nj svi senatori, noseci mu najvece pocasti i odlikovanja, on ih je kraj Venerinog hrama docekao sedeci . Neki pricaju da je hteo ustati, ali da ga je zadrzao Kornelije Balbo. Drugi opet vele da mu nije ni na pamet palo da ustane. Stavise, mrko je pogledao na Kaja Trebacija, koji ga je opomenuo da se digne. Taj njegov cin jos je vise osudjivan zbog jednog slicnog slucaja : Prolazeci u trijumfu, i sam se naljutio sto tribun Poncije Akvila nije hteo pred njim ustati. Povikao je na njega : "Tribune Poncije Akvila, de zatrazi sada od mene da povratim repubiku". I nekoliko dana nikome nije hteo nista da obeca ili ucini, osim pod uslovom : Ako to dozvoli Poncije Akvila.

Po mnogim kobnim znamenjima naslutio je Cezar svoju skoru pogibiju. Bas nekoliko meseci ranije seljenici u Kampaniji kopali su temelje da podignu svoje kuce. Na tome mestu bilo je starih grobova, koje su morali da uklone, pa su s vremena na vreme nalazili u njima po koji stari predmet od vrednosti : Tako su iskopali neku bakarnu plocu bas na mestu, gde je kako se prica, bio sahranjen Kapis, osnivac Kapue. Na ploci su bile urezane ove reci : " Kad budu iskopane kosti Kapisove, tada ce jedan potomak Julijev poginuti od ruke svojih srodnika i mnoga krv, koja ce posle toga natopiti Italiju, osvetice njegovu smrt". Ne treba ovo smatrati nekom izmisljotinom. Za taj dogadjaj svedoci Kornelije Balbo, Cezarov najprisniji prijatelj.


Nekako u isto vreme jave Cezaru da konji, koje je posvetio na dan svoga prelaza preko Rubikona, nikako nece da uzimaju hranu i stalno rone suze. U casu, kad je prinosio zrtve, opomenu ga svestenik Spurina da se cuva opasnosti, koja mu preti na dan martovskih Ida. Poslednje noci, uoci dana svoga ubistva, sanjao je da leti u oblacima i da jupiteru pruza desnicu. Njegovoj zeni Kalpurniji ucinilo se da joj se rusi kuca nad glavom i da joj muza u zagrljaju ubijaju. Zbog svega toga, a i zbog slabog zdravlja dugo je oklevao da li da ostane kod kuce i da sednicu senata odgodi za neki drugi dan. Ali ga je Brut nagovorio da svakako podje, jer ga skoro celi senat vec odavno ceka. Cezar dakle podje oko jedanaest sati pre podne. Neki covek pruzi mu u prolazu pismo, u kome su bile podrobne vesti o celoj zaveri. On to stavi medju ostale spise, koje je drzao u levoj ruci, nameravajuci da to kasnije procita, kad mu se pruzi zgodna prilika. Iako mu zrtva ranije nila dala nikakva dobra znamenja, ipak podje u skupstinu. jos se nasmeja svesteniku Spurini, tvrdeci da su martovske Ide dosle, a njemu se nista nije ogodilo. Na to ovaj odgovori : "Martovske Ide su dosle, ali jos nisu prosle".

Kad je stigao u senat i seo za svoje mesto, opkole ga urotnici, kao da bi hteli da mu pridju zbog nekog sluzbenog posla. U tome trenutku priblizi mu se tulije Cimber, htijuci toboze da ga nesto zamoli. Cezar mu dade znak da sad nije vreme za to. U to ga Cimber zgrabi za haljinu. "To je krajnja drskost," povika Cezar. Tada mu jedan od Kaska zabode noz ispod grla. Cezar ga uhvati za ruku i ubode pisaljkom, koju je slucajno drzao. Bas je hteo da skoci, kad ga spreci drugi udarac bodeza. Odjednom spazi sa svih strana ostrice, pokrije glavu i levom rukom skupi haljinu da bi sto casnije poginuo. Zadobio je dvadeset i tri uboda. Jednom je samo zajauknuo, bez ijedne reci. Neki pricaju da je rekao, kad je medju urotnicima video Bruta : "Zar i ti moj sine" ? Neko je vreme lezao mrtav na podu. Svi su bili pobegli. Najzad ga tri roba odnesose kuci na nosiljci, niz koju mu je visila jedna ruka. Od tolikih rana jedna je samo bila smrtonosna i to ona na prsima. Tako je tvrdio njegov lekar Antistije. Zaverenici su hteli da njegovo telo bace u Tibar; svu njegovu imovinu da uzme drzava i da poniste sve njegove zakone i uredbe, ali su od toga odustali, bojeci se konzula Marka Antonija i Lepida, zapovednika konjice.

Neki su naslucivali da ni sam Cezar nije zeleo da duze pozivi, a nije se ni cuveo, jer je bio slabog zdravlja. Nije se obazirao ni na proricanja svestenika, ni na opomene prijatelja. Nekima se opet cini da je i sam Cezar smatrao da je bolje sto pre podleci zasedama zaverenika, koji su na nj stalno vrebali, nego ziveti u neprekidnom strahu.

Nijedan od urotnika nije posle njega ziveo duze od tri godine, niti je umro prirodnom smrcu. Osudjeni svi do jednog, poizgibali su svaki na svoj nacin : neki u brodolomu, drugi u bici; a neki su se ubili onim istim macem, pod kojim je Cezar izdahnuo.

Sunday 10 July 2011

[Web : dokumentarac] BBC - Hadrian


In this fantastic BBC documentary Dan Snow discusses Hadrian's legacy in Egypt, including 2000 year old graffiti!






Ovaj dokumentarac moze se naci u celosti na demonoidu.

[Web] : Emperors of Rome: Hadrian (24 January 76 – 10 July 138)

[Istorija] Svetonije o Juliju Cezaru - De vita Caesarum, deo treci


Svi su znali da je Cezar bio veliki sladostrasnik i da je svoja uzivanja skupo placao. zaveo je i neke vrlo ugledne zene. Medju njima Servilijevu zenu Postumiju, Aulijevu Loliju, krasovu Tertulu, pa cak i Pompejevu Muciju. Ali je narocito voleo Serviliju, Brutovu majku. Za vreme svoga prvog konzulata, kupio je za nju jednu bisernu ogrlicu, od sest miliona sestercija. U doba gradjanskih ratova, dao joj je, osim ostalih znatnih poklona i nekoliko lepih imanja, koja je onako ispod ruke kupio za male pare. Govorilo se i to da je Brutova majka podvela Cezaru svoju kcerku Terciju. On nije postovao svetinju bracne veze ni kad je bio u Galiji. To jasno pokazuje ova pesmica, sto su je pevali njegovi vojnici.

Gradjani, pricuvajte svoje zene, 
dovodimo vam ljubavnika celavog,
koji po Galiji kupuje zene za novac,
sto ga je u Rimu skupio.

Imao je i kraljice za svoje ljubavnice. Medju njima i eunoju, zenu maurskog kralja Boguda. Nazo pise da je Cezar cesto davao poklone i kralju i kraljici. Od njih je najvise voleo Kleopatru, s kojom je cesto provodio po celu noc za stolom.


U vinu je Cezar bio vrlo umeren. To tvrde cak i njegovi neprijatelji. U vezi s time poznata je Katonova recenica : "Medju svima rusiocima republike, Cezar je jedini bio trezan." - U orujzju i jahanjubio je vrlo vest. neverovatno izdrzljiv u svakome naporu, on je retko isao pred svojom vojskom na konju; cesto je pred njim pesacio, gologlav, pa bilo sunce ili kisa. Najvecom brzinom prelazio je i najduze puteve. Lako odeven i bez ikakva prtljaga, cesto je na obicnim kolima prelazio na stotine milja dnevno. Kad bi mu put preprecila kakva reka, on bi skakao u nju, pa bi je ili preplivao ili bi, odrzavajuci se na mesinama, pustio da ga voda odnese na drugu obalu. Tako se desavalo da je stizao k cilju pre svojih izvidnica. Na svojim vojnim pohodima, koliko je bio hrabar toliko je bio i oprezan. Vojsku nije nikad vodio kakvim opasnim putem. Uvek bi prvo tacno ispitao okolinu.

Spremajuci pohod na Britaniju, najpre je otisao sam da izvidi kojim ce pravcem najlakse doploviti i koja je luka najpodesnija za iskrcavanje vojske. Jednom je cuo da mu je vojska u Germaniji opkoljena i tako odvojena od svog vojskovodje. Prerusen u Gala on se probio do nje kroz neprijateljske logore. Jedne zime presao je iz Brindizija u Drac, izmakavsi neprijateljskoj floti, koja je u blizini krstarila. Posto mu vojska, po utvrdjenom planu, nikako nije stizala, on se nocu potajno ukrca u malu ladju. Glavu je pokrio da ga ko ne bi prepoznao. Iako je besnela strasna bura, nikako nije hteo da odustane od puta. Najzad se vratio, kad su mu ladjicu skoro progutali valovi.

Nijedno predskazanje nije ga moglo pokolebati u ma kakvoj odluci. Desilo se da je zrtvena zivotinja umakla ispod samog noza. Iako je to bio koban znak, on je ipak posao protiv Scipiona i Jube. Kad se iskrcavao na africku obalu, spotakao se i pao na zemlju. I tumaceci taj slucaj u svoju korist, povika : "Imam te u rukama, Afriko." - Bitku je zapocinjao ne samo po utvrdjenom planu, nego cesto i sasvim slucajno. Koji put je i posle dugog pesacenja pustao vojsku u boj. Katkad i po najvecem nevremenu, kada to niko nije ocekivao. Samo se u kasnijim godinama teze upustao u bitku, smatrajuci da vojskovodja treba da bude otoliko oprezniji, ukoliko je vise pobedjivao; i da je gubitak u porazu uvek veci od dobitka u pobedi. Pobedjenog neprijatelja gonio je sve dotle, dok ga ne bi potpuno izbacio iz njegovih utvrdjenih polozaja. Pred kakvu opasnu bitku, naredjivao je da se uklone svo konji, pa i njegov, zeleci da time ukloni svaku priliku za bezanje. Sam je cesto uspostavljao red medju pokolebanim vojnicima; priticao im u pomoc; vracao begunce, a poneke i svojom rukom odvlacio natrag u borbu.

Friday 8 July 2011

Ancient Greece: Song of Seikilos

Uploaded by Toyotomi on Sep 6, 2008

This song is one of the earliest examples yet found of a complete musical composition from the ancient world. Although other songs have been found that pre-date 'The Song of Seikilos' by many centuries, they only survive in fragments.

Seikilos carved the song on a grave pillar in dedication to his wife.

The Grave was discovered in 1883, near Aydin in Turkey. Archaeologists believe it dates between 200 BC and AD 100.

Seikilos also inscribed a poem on the gravestone, it reads:

"Hoson zēs, phainou

Mēden holōs sy lypou;

Pros oligon esti to zēn

To telos ho chronos apaitei."

In English:

"As long as you live, shine,

Let nothing grieve you beyond measure.

For your life is short,

and time will claim its toll."

From the Atrium Musicae de Madrid directed by Gregorio Paniagua, recorded in 1979.


[Web : clanak] National Geographic : The Search for Cleopatra

 

Archaeologists search for the true face—and the burial place—of the “world’s first celebrity.”

By Chip Brown
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

Where, oh where is Cleopatra? She's everywhere, of course—her name immortalized by slot machines, board games, dry cleaners, exotic dancers, and even a Mediterranean pollution-monitoring project. She is orbiting the sun as the asteroid 216 Kleopatra. Her "bath rituals and decadent lifestyle" are credited with inspiring a perfume. Today the woman who ruled as the last pharaoh of Egypt and who is alleged to have tested toxic potions on prisoners is instead poisoning her subjects as the most popular brand of cigarettes in the Middle East.

In the memorable phrase of critic Harold Bloom, she was the "world's first celebrity." If history is a stage, no actress was ever so versatile: royal daughter, royal mother, royal sister from a family that makes the Sopranos look like the Waltons. When not serving as a Rorschach test of male fixations, Cleopatra is an inexhaustible muse. To a recent best-selling biography add—from 1540 to 1905—five ballets, 45 operas, and 77 plays. She starred in at least seven films; an upcoming version will feature Angelina Jolie.

Yet if she is everywhere, Cleopatra is also nowhere, obscured in what biographer Michael Grant called the "fog of fiction and vituperation which has surrounded her personality from her own lifetime onwards." Despite her reputed powers of seduction, there is no reliable depiction of her face. What images do exist are based on unflattering silhouettes on coins. There is an unrevealing 20-foot-tall relief on a temple at Dendera, and museums display a few marble busts, most of which may not even be of Cleopatra.

Ancient historians praised her allure, not her looks. Certainly she possessed the ability to roil passions in two powerful Roman men: Julius Caesar, with whom she had one son; and Mark Antony, who would be her lover for more than a decade and the father of three more children. But her beauty, said Greek historian Plutarch, was not "the sort that would astound those who saw her; interaction with her was captivating, and her appearance, along with her persuasiveness in discussion and her character that accompanied every interchange, was stimulating. Pleasure also came with the tone of her voice, and her tongue was like a many-stringed instrument."

People have been puzzling over the whereabouts of Cleopatra's tomb since she was last seen in her mausoleum in the legendary deathbed tableau, adorned with diadem and royal finery and reposed on what Plutarch described as a golden couch. After Caesar's assassination, his heir Octavian battled Antony for control of the Roman Empire for more than a decade; following Antony and Cleopatra's defeat at Actium, Octavian's forces entered Alexandria in the summer of 30 B.C. Cleopatra barricaded herself behind her mausoleum's massive doors, amid stores of gold, silver, pearls, art, and other treasures that she vowed to torch lest they fall into Roman hands.



It was to the mausoleum that Antony, dying of self-inflicted sword wounds, was brought on the first of August so he might take a last sip of wine and perish in Cleopatra's arms. And it may have been in the mausoleum where, ten days or so after Antony's death, Cleopatra herself escaped the humiliation of defeat and captivity by committing suicide at the age of 39, reputedly with the venom of an asp. The Roman historian Dio Cassius reported that Cleopatra's body was embalmed as Antony's had been, and Plutarch noted that on the orders of Octavian, the last queen of Egypt was buried beside her defeated Roman consort. Sixteen centuries later Shakespeare proclaimed: "No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / a pair so famous."

And yet we have no idea where that grave might be. The wealth of attention paid to Cleopatra by artists seems inversely proportional to the poverty of material generated about her by archaeologists. Alexandria and its environs attracted less attention than the more ancient sites along the Nile, such as the Pyramids at Giza or the monuments at Luxor. And no wonder: Earthquakes, tidal waves, rising seas, subsiding ground, civil conflicts, and the unsentimental recycling of building stones have destroyed the ancient quarter where for three centuries Cleopatra and her ancestors lived. Most of the glory that was ancient Alexandria now lies about 20 feet underwater.

In the past few decades archaeologists have finally taken up the mystery of Cleopatra's whereabouts and are searching for her burial place in earnest. Underwater excavations begun in 1992 by French explorer Franck Goddio and his European Institute of Underwater Archaeology have allowed researchers to map out the drowned portions of ancient Alexandria, its piers and esplanades, the sunken ground once occupied by royal palaces. The barnacled discoveries brought to the sea's surface—massive stone sphinxes, giant limestone paving blocks, granite columns and capitals—whet the appetite for a better understanding of Cleopatra's world.

"My dream is to find a statue of Cleopatra—with a cartouche," says Goddio. So far, however, the underwater work has failed to yield a tomb. The only signs of Cleopatra the divers have encountered are the empty cigarette packs that bear her name, drifting in the water as they work. 

More recently, a desert temple outside Alexandria has become the focus of another search, one that asks whether a monarch of Cleopatra's calculation and foresight might have provided a tomb for herself in a place more spiritually significant than downtown Alexandria—some sacred spot where her mummified remains could rest undisturbed beside her beloved Antony. 

In November 2006 at his office in Cairo, Zahi Hawass, then secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, pulled out a sheet of Nile Hilton stationery. On it he had sketched the highlights of an archaeological site where he and a team of scientists and excavators had been digging over the previous year. "We are searching for the tomb of Cleopatra," he said, excitedly. "Never before has anyone systematically looked for the last queen of Egypt." This particular quest had begun when a woman from the Dominican Republic named Kathleen Martinez contacted Hawass in 2004 and came to share a theory she'd developed: that Cleopatra might be buried in a tumbledown temple near the coastal desert town of Taposiris Magna (present-day Abu Sir), 28 miles west of Alexandria.

Located between the Mediterranean and Lake Mareotis, the ancient city of Taposiris Magna had been a prominent port town during Cleopatra's time. Its vineyards were famous for their wine. The geographer Strabo, who was in Egypt in 25 B.C., mentioned that Taposiris staged a great public festival, most likely in honor of the god Osiris. Nearby was a rocky seaside beach, he said, "where crowds of people in the prime of life assemble during every season of the year."

"I thought before we started digging that Cleopatra would be buried facing the palace in Alexandria, in the royal tombs area," said Hawass. But in time, Martinez's reasoning persuaded him another theory might be worth exploring: that Cleopatra had been clever enough to make sure she and Antony were secretly buried where no one would disturb their eternal life together.

A child prodigy who'd earned her law degree at the age of 19, Kathleen Martinez was teaching archaeology at the University of Santo Domingo, but it was an avocation; she'd never been to Egypt or handled a trowel. She traced her obsession with Cleopatra to an argument she'd had with her father in 1990, when she was 24 years old. She wandered into his library one day looking for a copy of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Her father, Fausto Martínez, a professor and legal scholar normally quite careful in his judgments, disparaged the famous queen as a trollop. "How can you say that!" she protested. After an hours-long debate in which Kathleen argued that Roman propaganda and centuries of bias against women had distorted Cleopatra's character, Professor Martínez conceded that his opinion of Cleopatra might have been unfair.

From that moment Martinez resolved to learn everything she could about the queen. She pored over the canonical texts, particularly Plutarch's account of Mark Antony's alliance with Cleopatra. It seemed clear that the Romans had been intent on depicting her (at worst) as a decadent and lustful despot and (at best) as a manipulative politician who'd played the bitter factions of the emerging Roman superpower against each other in a desperate bid to preserve Egypt's autonomy. It was also possible that modern-day researchers might have missed important clues about where Cleopatra was buried.



"You cannot find anything in any ancient writing about where Cleopatra is buried," Martinez said. "But I believe she prepared everything, from the way she lived to the way she died to the way she wanted to be found."

In 2004 she emailed Hawass. She did not receive a reply. Unable to have herself smuggled into Hawass's office inside a sack—the famous stratagem by which the 21-year-old Cleopatra is supposed to have acquainted herself with Julius Caesar in 48 B.C.—Martinez assailed him with emails, upwards of a hundred by her estimate. Again, no reply. She headed for Cairo and eventually wangled an audience with Hawass through a guide who had worked for the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Hawass asked when Martinez arrived in his office in the fall of 2004. She did not explain that she was searching for Cleopatra, worried that he would lump her in with the nuts who believe aliens built the pyramids. "I want to visit places that aren't open to the public," Martinez explained. Hawass granted her permission to visit sites in Alexandria, Giza, and Cairo.

Martinez returned to Egypt in March 2005, calling on Hawass with the news that she had been appointed an ambassador of culture by the Dominican Republic. He laughed and said she was too young to be an ambassador. She told him she'd visited Taposiris Magna the previous year and wanted to go back. There were remnants of a Coptic church on the site, and Dominicans were interested in the history of Christianity. Hawass again said yes.

After she had photographed and walked the site, she again called on Hawass. "You have two minutes," he said. The time had come to drop the veil. Martinez explained to him that she wanted to excavate at Taposiris. "I have a theory," she said, and finally confided that she thought Taposiris Magna was where Cleopatra was buried.

"What?" said Hawass, grabbing his chair. A group of Hungarian archaeologists had just concluded excavations at the site, and French archaeologists had excavated Roman baths just outside the walls of the temple. Plans were pending to turn Taposiris Magna into a tourist attraction.
"Give me two months," Martinez countered. "I will find her."

Cleopatra VII was born in Egypt, but she was descended from a lineage of Greek kings and queens who had ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years. The Ptolemies of Macedonia are one of history's most flamboyant dynasties, famous not only for wealth and wisdom but also for bloody rivalries and the sort of "family values" that modern-day exponents of the phrase would surely disavow, seeing as they included incest and fratricide.

The Ptolemies came to power after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, who in a caffeinated burst of activity beginning in 332 B.C. swept through Lower Egypt, displaced the hated Persian occupiers, and was hailed by the Egyptians as a divine liberator. He was recognized as pharaoh in the capital, Memphis. Along a strip of land between the Mediterranean and Lake Mareotis he laid out a blueprint for Alexandria, which would serve as Egypt's capital for nearly a thousand years.

After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., Egypt was given to Ptolemy, one of his trusted generals, who, in a brilliant bit of marketing, hijacked the hearse bearing Alexander's body back to Greece and enshrined it in a tomb in Alexandria. Ptolemy was crowned pharaoh in 304 B.C. on the anniversary of Alexander's death. He made offerings to the Egyptian gods, took an Egyptian throne name, and portrayed himself in pharaonic garb.

The dynasty's greatest legacy was Alexandria itself, with its hundred-foot-wide main avenue, its gleaming limestone colonnades, its harborside palaces and temples overseen by a towering lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, on the island of Pharos. Alexandria soon became the largest, most sophisticated city on the planet. It was a teeming cosmopolitan mix of Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Nubians, and other peoples. The best and brightest of the Mediterranean world came to study at the Mouseion, the world's first academy, and at the great Alexandria library.

It was there, 18 centuries before the Copernican revolution, that Aristarchus posited a heliocentric solar system and Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth. Alexandria was where the Hebrew Bible was first translated into Greek and where the poet Sotades the Obscene discovered the limits of artistic freedom when he unwisely scribbled some scurrilous verse about Ptolemy II's incestuous marriage to his sister. He was deep-sixed in a lead-lined chest.

The Ptolemies' talent for intrigue was exceeded only by their flair for pageantry. If descriptions of the first dynastic festival of the Ptolemies around 280 B.C. are accurate, the party would cost millions of dollars today. The parade was a phantasmagoria of music, incense, blizzards of doves, camels laden with cinnamon, elephants in golden slippers, bulls with gilded horns. Among the floats was a 15-foot Dionysus pouring a libation from a golden goblet.

Where could they go from there but down? By the time Cleopatra VII ascended the throne in 51 B.C. at age 18, the Ptolemaic empire was crumbling. The lands of Cyprus, Cyrene (eastern Libya), and parts of Syria had been lost; Roman troops were soon to be garrisoned in Alexandria itself. Still, despite drought and famine and the eventual outbreak of civil war, Alexandria was a glittering city compared to provincial Rome. Cleopatra was intent on reviving her empire, not by thwarting the growing power of the Romans but by making herself useful to them, supplying them with ships and grain, and sealing her alliance with the Roman general Julius Caesar with a son, Caesarion.
Lest her subjects resent her Roman overtures, Cleopatra embraced Egypt's traditions. She is said to have been the first Ptolemaic pharaoh to bother to learn the Egyptian language. While it was politic for foreign overlords to adopt local deities and appease the powerful religious class, the Ptolemies were genuinely intrigued by the Egyptian idea of an afterlife. Out of that fascination emerged a hybrid Greek and Egyptian religion that found its ultimate expression in the cult of Serapis—a Greek gloss on the Egyptian legend of Osiris and Isis.

One of the foundational myths of Egyptian religion, the legend tells how Osiris, murdered by his brother Seth, was chopped into pieces and scattered all over Egypt. With power gained by tricking the sun god, Re, into revealing his secret name, Isis, wife and sister of Osiris, was able to resurrect her brother-husband long enough to conceive a son, Horus, who eventually avenged his father's death by slaughtering uncle Seth.

By Cleopatra's time a cult around the goddess Isis had been spreading across the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. To fortify her position, and like other queens before her, Cleopatra sought to link her identity with the great Isis (and Mark Antony's with Osiris), and to be venerated as a goddess. She had herself depicted in portraits and statues as the universal mother divinity.

Beginning in 37 B.C., Cleopatra began to realize her ambition to enlarge her empire when Antony restored several territories to Egypt and decreed Cleopatra's children their sovereigns. She appeared in the holy dress of Isis at a festival staged in Alexandria to celebrate Antony's victory over Armenia in 34 B.C., just four years before her suicide and the end of the Egyptian empire.

It was Cleopatra's intense identification with Isis, and her royal role as the manifestation of the great goddess of motherhood, fertility, and magic, that ultimately led Kathleen Martinez to Taposiris Magna. Using Strabo's ancient descriptions of Egypt, Martinez sketched a map of candidate burial sites, zeroing in on 21 places associated with the legend of Isis and Osiris and visiting each one she could find.

"What brought me to the conclusion that Taposiris Magna was a possible place for Cleopatra's hidden tomb was the idea that her death was a ritual act of deep religious significance carried out in a very strict, spiritualized ceremony," Martinez says. "Cleopatra negotiated with Octavian to allow her to bury Mark Antony in Egypt. She wanted to be buried with him because she wanted to reenact the legend of Isis and Osiris. The true meaning of the cult of Osiris is that it grants immortality. After their deaths, the gods would allow Cleopatra to live with Antony in another form of existence, so they would have eternal life together."
After studying more than a dozen temples, Martinez headed west of Alexandria along the coastal road to explore the ruin she had begun to believe was the last, best hope for her theory. The temple at Taposiris Magna had been dated to the reign of Ptolemy II, though it may have been even older. The suffix Osiris in its name implied the site was a sacred spot, one of at least 14 throughout Egypt where legend holds that the body of Osiris (or a dismembered part of it) had been buried.

With the Mediterranean on her right and Lake Mareotis on the left, Martinez mused on the possibility that Cleopatra might have traveled a similar route, selecting this strategic location for her burial because it was inside the limits of ancient Alexandria and not yet under the control of the Romans during those last days before her death. "When I saw the place my heart beat very fast," she recalls. As she walked the site, she trailed her hands along the white and beige limestone blocks of the temple's enclosure. This is it! she thought. This is it!

In 1935 British traveler Anthony de Cosson had called Taposiris Magna "the finest ancient monument left to us north of the Pyramids." What was surprising was how little work had been done at the site. In 1905 Evaristo Breccia, the renowned Italian archaeologist, had excavated the foundation of a small fourth-century A.D. Coptic basilica in the otherwise vacant courtyard of the enclosure and discovered an area of Roman baths. In 1998 a Hungarian team led by Győző Vörös found evidence of a colonnaded structure inside the enclosure that they concluded (incorrectly, as it turned out) had been an Isis temple.

It was clear when Vörös's book, Taposiris Magna, was published in 2004 that the temple had had three incarnations—as a Ptolemaic sanctuary, a Roman fort, and a Coptic church. But was that the whole story? Zahi Hawass found himself pondering the possibility that a black granite bust of Isis that Vörös had coaxed from the dirt of Taposiris Magna might well be the face of Cleopatra herself. In October 2005 the dig got under way.

Today it's easy to imagine that the view from the pylon of Taposiris Magna looks much like it did in Cleopatra's day—if you can block out the unsightly band of condominiums and resort hotels between the coastal highway and the broad white sand beach and glimmering blue expanse of the Mediterranean. One hot, sun-washed morning at the temple in May 2010, Kathleen Martinez was bundled in a long-sleeve shirt, head scarf, and fingerless woolen gloves. "For some reason I am always cold when I am here," she said. The two months of excavation she had requested had turned into three months, and three months had become five years.

On the bedrock in the middle of the site an array of column fragments showed the ghostly outlines of what Hawass and Martinez have concluded was not a temple to Isis, but a temple to Osiris. It was oriented on the east-west axis. At an angle just north were the faint hints of an Isis chapel; to the south, an excavated rectangular pit: "That was the sacred lake," Martinez says.

It's a cliché that you can stick a shovel in the ground almost anywhere in Egypt and find something amazing from the long-gone past. When Martinez and a team of excavators began probing the ground in 2005, she was focused less on the ultimate prize of Cleopatra's tomb than on simply finding sufficient evidence to sustain her theory that Taposiris Magna might be the place to look. She hoped to demonstrate that the temple was among the most sacred of its day, that it was dedicated to the worship of Osiris and Isis, and that tunnels had been dug underneath the enclosure walls. Within the first year, she was rewarded by the discovery of a shaft and several underground chambers and tunnels. "One of our biggest questions is why did they dig tunnels of this magnitude," she says. "It had to be for a very significant reason."

During the 2006-07 season the Egyptian-Dominican team found three small foundation deposits in the northwest corner of the Osiris temple, just inches from where the Hungarian expedition had stopped digging. The deposits conclusively linked the Osiris temple to the reign of Ptolemy IV, who ruled a century and a half before Cleopatra. In 2007, further supporting the view that the site was very important to the Greeks of ancient Egypt, the excavators found a skeleton of a pregnant woman who had died in childbirth. The tiny bones of the unborn baby lay between the skeleton's hips. Her jaw was distended, suggesting her agony, and her right hand was clutching a small white marble bust of Alexander the Great. "She is a mystery," said Martinez, who had a coffin built for the remains of the mother.

In six years Taposiris Magna has become one of Egypt's most active archaeology sites. More than a thousand objects have been recovered, 200 of them considered significant: pottery, coins, gold jewelry, the broken heads of statues (probably smashed by early Christians). An important discovery was a large cemetery outside the temple walls, suggesting that the subjects of a monarch wished to be buried near royal remains.
Yet the tomb of Cleopatra still hovers out of reach, like a tantalizing mirage, and the theory of who is buried at Taposiris Magna still rests more on educated speculation than on facts. Might not Cleopatra's reign have unraveled too quickly for her to build such a secret tomb? A fantastic story, like a horse with wings, flies in the face of the principle of parsimony. But it's a long hard haul from not-yet-proved to disproved.

Critics of Martinez's theory point out that it is rare in archaeology for someone to announce they are going to find something and then actually find it. "There is no evidence that Cleopatra tried to hide her grave, or would have wanted to," says Duane Roller, a respected Cleopatra scholar. "It would have been hard to hide it from Octavian, the very person who buried her. All the evidence is that she was buried with her ancestors. The material associated with her at Taposiris Magna is not meaningful because material associated with her can be found in many places in Egypt."

"I agree that Octavian knew and authorized the place where she was buried," Martinez says. "But what I believe—and it is only a theory—is that after the mummification process was complete, the priests at Taposiris Magna buried the bodies of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in a different place without the approval of the Romans, a hidden place beneath the courtyard of the temple."

If Cleopatra's tomb is ever found, the archaeological sensation would be rivaled only by Howard Carter's unearthing of the tomb of King Tut in 1922. But will finding her tomb, not to say her body itself, deepen our portrait of the last Egyptian pharaoh? On one hand, how could it not? In the last hundred years about the only new addition to the archaeological record is what scholars believe is a fragment of Cleopatra's handwriting: a scrap of papyrus granting a tax exemption to a Roman citizen in Egypt in 33 B.C.

On the other hand, maybe finding her tomb would diminish what Shakespeare called "her infinite variety." Disembodied, at large in the realm of myth, more context than text, Cleopatra is free to be of different character to different times, which may be the very wellspring of her vitality. No other figure from antiquity seems so versatile in her ambiguities, so modern in her contradictions.
It was lunch hour at the dig site, and the workers had gone to eat in the shade. We were sitting on top of the temple pylon in the radiance of noon, staring out at the sea beyond. There was a feeling of stillness in the air, an inkling of eternity, as if the old Egyptian gods were about—Re, who ruled over the earth, sky, and the underworld, and Isis, who saved Osiris by tricking Re into revealing his secret name.

The search for Cleopatra has come at no small cost to Martinez. She gave up her thriving law practice in Santo Domingo and poured much of her savings into her quest. She moved to an apartment in Alexandria, where she has begun studying Arabic. But it's not an easy life, far from her family and friends. During the revolution earlier this year, she was confronted by a group of aggressive men as she worked at the excavation site. For now, work at the site is on hold. She hopes to return in the fall.

"I believe we are going to find what we are looking for," she says. "The difference is now we're digging in the ground, not in books."

Thursday 7 July 2011

[Istorija] Svetonije o Juliju Cezaru - De vita Caesarum, deo drugi

preveo Nikola Sop


Evo u nekoliko reci, sta je sve ucinio kao vojskovodja u roku od devet godina. Pokorio je i ucinio rimskom provincijom celu Galiju, koja se prostire izmedju Rone, Rajne, Pirineja, Alpa i Gebena. tu ne racunam gradove, koji su vec bili u savezu i prijateljstvu sa rimskom drzavom. Nametnuo im je godisnji danak od cetrdeset miliona sestercija. Prvi je od Rimljana ucinio vojni pohod na Germane, cije se zemlje prostiru na desnoj strani Rajne. Provalio je u njihovu zemlju, presavsi preko mosta, sto ga je narocito podigao za tu priliku. Strahovito ih je potukao u nekoliko bitaka. Napao je i Britaniju, koja je dotle bila potpuno nepoznata. Svima pobedjenima nametnuo je velike poreze i uzeo taoce. U tolikim uspesnim pohodima samo je triput bio zle srece. na putu u Britaniju bura mu je unistila skoro celu flotu. Druga nesreca, to je poraz kod Gergovije u Galiji, gde mu je unistena jedna legija, a reca nesreca snasla ga je u Germaniji, kada su mu iz zasede ubijena dva legata.

Za njega kazu da je bio visoka stasa, beo u licu i skladno gradjena tela. Obrazi su mu bili nesto puniji, sve do pred kraj zivota, kada je poceo da pati od padavice i od tako nemirnih snova, da se cesto budio iz sna sav uzasnut. Dvaput ga je bas za vreme samog prijema, uhvatio epilepticni napad. Telo je negovao vrlo brizljivo. Sisao se i brijao uvek sa najvecom paznjom. Cak je posle brijanja cupao zaostale dlake. Tako pricaju neki koji su to podrugljivo iznosili. Vrlo je tesko podnosio celavost, koja je bila predmetom mnogih sala i izrugivanja. Da bi pokrivao celu, prebacivao je kosu s potiljka na teme. Narod i senat obasuli su ga mnogim pocastima. ali se ni jednim odlikovanjem nije toliko koristio, koliko odlikovanjem da uvek moze nositi na glavi lovorov venac. Kazu da je jako pazio i na odevanje. Njegova haljina bila je sva u naborima, koji su mu padali sve do ruku. Oko nje je vezivao pojas vrlo nemarno. Zato je Sula, kada bi savetovao optimate, cesce puta rekao : "Cuvajte se toga mladica , nemarno opasanog".

Stanovao je najpre u jednoj skromnoj kuci u suburskom kvartu. Ali kad je postao veliki svestenik, preselio se u drzavnu zgradu, kraj Svete ceste. Mnogi su za njega pricali da je jako voleo raskos i sjaj. uz velike troskove podigao je kraj Arecija jedan zamak; zatim ga porusio do temelja samo zbog toga, sto nije potpuno odgovarao njegovom ukusu. To je ucinio, i ako je jos bio slabog imovnog stanja.


Kazu da ga je u Britaniju odvukla nada da ce tamo naci dragog kamenja. Radovalo bi ga kad bi svojom rukom merio koliko je tesko. Dok je sluzbovao kao upravnik pojedinih pokrajina, uvek je za vreme jela imao dve trpeze. Jednu za lica otmenog i visokog porekla, a drugu za ona nizeg staleza i za ugledne mestane. U svemu se vrlo pazljivo i strogo drzao kucnog reda. Tako je bacio u okove pekara, sto je pred njim izneo bolji hleb, a gostima dao losiji. Sam je, bez icijeg zahteva, osudio na smrt nekog slobodnjaka, svoga ljubimca, sto je napastvovao zenu jednog rimskog plemica.

Nista ga nije tako sramotno zigosalo, kao njegova neprirodna veza sa kraljem Nikomedom. O toj sramoti govorilo se na sva usta. To dokazuju ovi stihovi iz Licinija Kalva : "Kralj Bitinije, to je Cezarov ljubavnik" . - U to vreme, kako prica Marko Brut, neki ludak, koji je smeo sve da kaze, pozdravio je pred jednim velikim skupom Pompeja kao "kralja" a Cezara kao "kraljicu". Kaj Memije otvoreno je izneo za njega da je sluzio Nikomeda za stolom, zajedno sa ostalom sluzincadi i evnusima i da mu je pruzio pehar vina na ocigled mnogih gostiju i rimskih trgovaca , cija imena podrobno navodi. Ni Ciceron nije cutao. U svojim pismima navodi da je Nikomedova posluga uvela Cezara u kraljevu spavacu sobu i da je tu lezao sa kraljem na zlatnoj postelji, pokriven grimizom. Tako je u Bitiniji izgubio svoju mladicku nevinost. I ne samo to. Jednoga dana, kada je Cezar branio u Senatu Nikomedovu kcerku Nizeju, iznoseci dobrocinstva, koja mu je kralj ucinio, Ciceron mu je upao u govor i rekao pred celim senatom. "Ta dosta vec sa tim obavezama. Svi znamo sta si ti njemu dao a sta on tebi ". Najzad, za vreme njegova trijumfa nad Galima, vojnici su uz ostale saljive pesme pevali i ovu bas bezobraznu :

Cezar je pokorio Galiju,
a Nikomed Cezara.
Cezar slavi trijumf sto je pokorio Gale,
a Nikomed, koji je pokoriop Cezara, ne slavi trijumf.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

[Istorija] Svetonije o Juliju Cezaru - De vita Caesarum, deo prvi


Posto se tako poklopilo da su poslednja dva posta imala veze sa Cezarom odnosno cezaroubicama i njihovom novcu, evo prilike da se prenese i deo onoga sto je istoricar i Hadrijanov sekretar Gaj Svetonije Trankvil o njemu napisao. Knjiga koju pri tome koristim jeste ono malo Deretino izdanje 12 rimskih careva gde su Svetonijeve biografije znatno skracene i u stvari predstavljaju samo izbor. Prevodilac je Nikola Sop.

U svojoj sesnaestoj godini izgubio je oca. Sledece godine postao je Jupiterov svestenik. Rastavio se od svoje zene Kosucije, koju je ozenio vrlo rano i uzeo Korneliju, kcerku konzula Cine, koja mu je uskoro rodila kcer Juliju. Diktator Sula uporno je nastojao da ga od nje odvoji, ali mu to nikako nije polazilo za rukom. Zbog toga je Cezar kaznjen oduzimanjem svestenicke casti, lisenjem zeninog miraza i sviju porodicnih prava. Bio je prisiljen da se krije. I premda je sve vise patio od groznice, koja ga je hvatala svaki cetvrti dan, morao je svake noci da menja svoje skloniste i da potplacuje spijune da ga ne prokazu. Najzad je pomilovan, na molbe vestalki i svojih rodjaka, Mamerka Emilija i Lucija Kote. Poznata je cinjenica da je Sula na tolika i uporna navaljivanja svojih najboljih prijatelja i najuglednijih ljudi , ipak na kraju udovoljio njihovoj molbi i tom prilikom svecano izjavio, bilo onako nasumice , ili u nekom nadahnucu : "Neka im bude. Eto im ga; samo neka znaju da ce taj, za koga se sada toliko zalazu, biti jednom na propast optimata, jer se u Cezaru krije mnogo Marija".

Vojsku je sluzio najpre u Aziji, pod vodjstvom pretora Terma. Kad ga je ovaj poslao po brodovlje u Bitiniju, zadrzao se tamo kod kralja Nikomeda. Suskalo se da mu se tada Cezar podao. taj glas utvrdio se jos vise kada se saznalo, da je posle nekoliko dana opet posao u Bitiniju da utera neki novac, sto ga je dugovao nekom svom klijentu slobodnjaku. Ostalo vreme  svoje vojne sluzbe proveo je mnogo uspesnije. U vojnom pohidu na Mitilenu Termo ga je odlikovao hrastovim vencem za gradjanske zasluge.

Sluzio je i na siciliji, pod Servilijem Isaurikom, ali kratko vreme. Kada je cuo za smrt sulinu, pozurio je u Rim, ocekujuci, osim ostalog, i nove razmirice, koje je raspirivao Marko Lepid. Premda ga je Lepid mamio velikim ponudama, ipak je odbio njegovo prijateljstvo, ne pouzdavajuci se u njegove sposobnosti i smatrajuci da prilike nisu tako povoljne, kako se u javnosti mislilo. Ali, kad se utisala gradjanska pobuna, on optuzi za globljenje Kornelija dolabelu, bivseg konzula i coveka koji je slavio trijumf. Kad je ovaj proglasen nevinim, Cezar se sklonio na Rod, da izbegne mrznji i da tamo u dokolici i tisini slusa Apolonija Molona, tada najcuvenijeg ucitelja govornistva. Vec je bila zima, kad je tamo otisao. Negde oko ostrva Farmakuze zarobe ga pirati. Ogorcen zbog toga morao je da ostane kod njih oko cetrdeset dana. S njime je ostao samo jedan lekar i dvojica sluga, jer su ostali pratioci, cim je zarobljen, odmah otisli da nabave novac za otkupninu. Kad im je napokon isplatio pedeset talenata, iskrcali su ga na obalu. Na brzu ruku Cezar spremi flotu i smesta se dade za njima u poteru. Pohvata ih i kazni smrcu, kako im je, dok je bio zarobljen, cesce puta pripretio u sali. Bas je tada kralj Mitridat pustosio obliznje pokrajine. Da ne bi saveznike izlozio opasnosti, krene sa Roda u Aziju; skupi tamo vojsku , potisne iz provincije kraljeve namesnike i utvrdi vlast nad drzavama, koje su se vec kolebale. 

Sluzio je kao kvestor u onostranoj Spaniji. Kad je po nalogu pretorovom, kao vrhovni sudija obilazio naselja rimskih trgovaca i resavao njihove sporove, na tom putu stigne u Kadiks. Spazivsi kraj Herkulova hrama kip Aleksandra Velikog, tuzno je uzdahnuo; i kao prekorevajuci se, sto do toga doba nije ucinio jos nista slavno, dok je Aleksandar u njegovim godinama vec bio pokorio jedan veliki deo zemljine kugle. Trazio je priliku da se sto pre vrati u Rim i tu okusa svoju srecu. Vracari su mu po jednom snu (sanjao je da je silovao majku) predskazali da ce vladati nad celom zemljom, jer majka, koju je u snu vidio pod sobom, nije drugo nego majka zemlja.

[Web : clanak] The Most Famous Ancient Coin Of All



By Heritage Auction on July 4, 2011 9:12 AM


The coin will be on view at Heritage’s Beverly Hills offices, 9478 West Olympic Blvd., Friday, Sept. 2, with a special Roman-themed reception held on Saturday, Sept. 3, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
The ‘Ides of March’ denarius, struck in 42 B.C., is the only Roman coin to openly celebrate an act of murder, the only Roman coin to mention a specific date and one of the very few ancient coins to enter the popular imagination.
Should the coin reach its pre-auction estimate of $500,000+, it will establish a record price for a Roman silver coin.
Not only is this one of the finest examples known of this historic rarity, this ‘Ides of March’ denarius once resided in the collections of well-known Hollywood producer Sy Weintraub and the actor Peter Weller. It was also in the world-famous Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection, sold in 1990, with an auction pedigree going back to the early 1900s. As an important historic coin with a distinguished pedigree, it is one of the most desirable collectible of any kind that one could ever imagine acquiring.
The event celebrated on the coin, of course, is the assassination of Julius Caesar on the “Ides of March,” March 15, 44 BC. The dime-sized silver coin depicts the head of Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the ringleaders of the assassination plot, on its obverse. The reverse depicts a dome-shaped liberty cap, flanked by two drawn daggers, and the Latin inscription EID MAR.
Since the early part of the 2000s, the coin has been part of a private Arizona private holding, dubbed The Rubicon Collection for Heritage’s Sept. 7 auction.
Marc Antony and Octavian (41 BC). Gold aureus
All the coins in the Rubicon Collection are of outstanding historical importance and quality. There are, for example, two rare portrait coins of Cleopatra, several of Julius Caesar, and an actual Roman die used to strike silver denarii. The Eid Mar, however, is definitely the star of the show.
In the 21 centuries since the “Ides of March,” Brutus has been hailed as both a champion of liberty and damned as a vile traitor. Born about 85 BC, Brutus was from a long line of Romans famous for resisting tyranny and defending Republican liberty. He was a close friend and protégé of Julius Caesar, but when Caesar seized power as Dictator in 49 BC, Brutus joined the Republican forces opposed to him. After the defeat of the Republicans the following year, Caesar pardoned Brutus and gave him every preferment. As Caesar became more megalomaniacal, however, Brutus joined the conspiracy against him and is said to have delivered the fatal dagger thrust, prompting Caesar’s final words (spoken in Greek), “You too, my child?”
The line was made famous, and forever entered popular culture, when Shakespeare later changed it slightly in his masterpiece Julius Caesar, creating the immortal line, “Et tu, Brute?”
Marc Antony and Octavian (41 BC). Gold aureus
Marc Antony and Octavian (41 BC). Gold aureus
After the murder, the conspirators fled Rome in a rush, barely ahead of a lynch mob. Brutus assembled a pro-Republican power base in Greece where he could wage war against Caesar’s successors, Mark Antony and Octavian. Looting gold and silver from the local population, he began to strike coins to pay his growing army.
His early coinage follows traditional themes, but his final type, the EID MAR issue of mid-42 BC, breaks the old Republican taboo by placing his own portrait on the obverse, coupled with the pileus or “cap of liberty” (traditionally given to freed slaves) between the daggers that executed Caesar. The choice of types could be seen as a brazen act of defiance as the armies closed for an ultimate clash in northern Greece.
In a final twist of fate, Brutus used the same dagger he had plunged into Caesar to take his own life following final his defeat at the second battle of Philippi on October 23, 42 BC.
The great rarity of Eid Mar denarii today is doubtless because the type was deliberately recalled and melted down by the victors, Mark Antony and Octavian.
 
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