Roman emperors Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Tales of Times Forgotten

For the Last Time, Donald Trump Isn’t the Modern-Day Julius Caesar

One thing I have discovered is that people really love to directly equate Donald Trump with various historical figures from the ancient world. As I discuss in this article from December 2019, Trump’s evangelical supporters are constantly comparing him to Cyrus the Great, claiming that he is God’s vessel appointed to fulfill God’s will by enacting conservative policies. Meanwhile, people who do not like Trump seem to habitually joke about Donald Trump being Caligula or Nero.

Both Trump’s supporters and his fiercest enemies, though, love to compare him to one man in particular: Julius Caesar. This obsession with equating Trump with figures from ancient history annoys me because it inevitably leads to the distortion of history to suit the needs of the present.

No, the Ancient Romans Didn’t Overharvest Silphium to Extinction Because It Was a Highly Effective Contraceptive

Chances are, many of my readers have seen articles on the internet about how, supposedly, in ancient times there was a kind of giant fennel plant called silphium that was grown in North Africa in the region around the Greek city of Kyrene that was a highly effective contraceptive, perhaps even the most effective one of all time. According to the articles on the internet, the ancient Romans were so horny and they loved having sex so much that they overharvested silphium, leading it to go totally extinct in around the middle of the first century AD.

There is some truth to this story, but much of it is false. Silphium was a real plant that really was grown in the region around Kyrene in North Africa and some Romans did believe it to possess contraceptive properties. Likewise, there is a Roman source that seems to support the idea that some Romans thought that, by the middle of the first century AD, the particular variety of silphium from Kyrenaïka had become extremely rare, if not extinct.

Nonetheless, it is unclear whether silphium was actually effective at all as a contraceptive and, although a few ancient texts claim it to have possessed contraceptive properties, its primary use in antiquity was never as a form of birth control. In antiquity, silphium was, in fact, always primarily desired as a food item because people thought it was a culinary delicacy. There is far more ancient evidence for silphium’s consumption as a food item than there is for its use as a method of birth control.

Who Was the Strangest Roman Emperor?

A number of ancient Roman emperors have acquired reputations for being very strange. In particular, emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian are well-known for their alleged bizarre antics. It is unclear, however, to what extent these reputations for bizarreness are warranted, since many of the most famous stories concerning these emperors are apocryphal. (For instance, Nero definitely never played the fiddle while Rome burned and Caligula definitely never made his horse a senator.)

I think it is generally agreed, though, that the strangest Roman emperor—at least in terms of how he is portrayed in our extant sources—was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, known to later generations as Elagabalus. Elagabalus had a brief, but notoriously bizarre reign, which lasted from 16 May 218 AD until 11 March 222 AD. According to historical sources, Elagabalus was highly eccentric and his reign was ridden with scandal.

No, the Romans Did Not Just “Steal” All the Greek Deities

Lots of people seem to wrongly assume that the Romans “stole” the Greek gods and just renamed them. People often portray this as though it were an act of plagiarism, like one student copying another student’s homework. It is easy to see how they have gotten this impression, since they know the Greeks came first and that the names of the Greek and Roman deities are used today interchangeably. The problem is that this is not at all what actually happened.

In reality, the ancient Greeks and Romans originally had separate deities with different names, different mythologies, and different attributes. These deities were worshipped in different and unique ways that were specific to the culture in which they were venerated. In other words, the Romans had their own deities. Then, due to immense Greek cultural influence in Italy, the Romans gradually came to identify their own native deities with the Greek ones.

In the process, the Romans adopted the traditional stories and distinctive divine attributes belonging to the Greek deities and attributed them to their own deities as well. Eventually, by around the first century AD or thereabouts, the Greek and Roman deities had become largely indistinguishable from each other and they were widely seen as the same deities only with different names.

Was Septimius Severus a Black Roman Emperor?

It has been widely claimed on the internet that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (ruled 193 – 211 AD) was a black man. For instance, a blog post published on the site Rasta Livewire on 25 September 2010 describes Septimius Severus as “first black African-born Emperor of Rome” and declares that it is important for black people today to “remember and celebrate” the Severan Dynasty he founded.

The claim that Septimius Severus was a “black Roman emperor” has even found its way into peer-reviewed journals dealing with contemporary black culture. For instance, here is an article written by Molefi Kete Asante and Shaza Ismail titled “Rediscovering the ‘Lost’ Roman Caesar: Septimius Severus the African and Eurocentric Historiography” that was published in March 2010 in the Journal of Black Studies, a peer-reviewed journal on contemporary African-American culture, that advances this claim.

So, was Septimius Severus a black man? Well, it depends on what you happen to consider “black.” Septimius Severus was definitely born on the African continent; that at least makes him African. Unfortunately, there are some serious problems with calling him a “black Roman emperor.”

Why Lead Poisoning Probably Did Not Cause the Downfall of the Roman Empire

Many people seem to have the impression that everyone in ancient Rome suffered from lead poisoning because the Romans used pipes made of lead. Indeed, many people seem to think that this was a major contributing factor in the decline of the Roman Empire. This idea is largely inaccurate, but there is some truth behind it. It is certain that some people in ancient Rome did suffer from lead poisoning. Nonetheless, we have very little evidence to indicate that lead poisoning was ever a widespread ailment on the scale that most people seem to imagine. Contrary to popular speculation, it is highly unlikely that lead poisoning played a significant role in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It is also highly unlikely that lead poisoning made any Roman emperors go insane.

No, the New Testament Canon Was Not Decided by Constantine I

Many people today, especially many freethinkers and atheists, wrongly believe that the Roman emperor Constantine I (lived 272 – 337 AD) was the one who decided which books would be included in the New Testament. This idea, despite its widespread popularity, is completely wrong.

The truth is that most of the Biblical canon was already decided long before Constantine I was even born. The remaining questions about the Biblical canon that still existed during Constantine I’s lifetime were not resolved until at least several decades after his death. As far as we know, Constantine I himself had no significant involvement whatsoever in the selection of texts to be included in the New Testament.

Who Was the Last Roman Emperor? A Harder Question than You Might Think.

Many different people throughout history have been described as “the last Roman emperor.” You may then be left wondering, “Who really was the last Roman emperor?” Unfortunately, a direct and concise answer to this question is impossible, because the answer depends entirely on who you think counts as a “Roman emperor.” The fact is that there are all kinds of different people who could potentially be considered the “last emperor of the Roman Empire,” many of whom were not even Roman.

Why “Roman Orgies” Weren’t Really a Thing

For decades, ancient Rome has been associated in the popular imagination with orgies. Indeed, perhaps the very first thing most people think of when they hear the words “ancient Rome” are Roman orgies. The problem is that there is no good evidence that orgies were ever at all common in ancient Rome. In fact, we do not even have a single reliable, first-hand, nonfiction account of one; all we have are salacious rumors, propaganda, and works of erotic fiction. In other words, the idea of “Roman orgies” is a complete misconception. The story of how we all came to believe in Roman orgies, however, is truly bizarre and fascinating.

Misconceptions about Roman Gladiators

It is certainly no secret that the film and television industry absolutely loves gladiators. In fact, the film Gladiator from 2000, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crow, has been widely credited with rekindling popular interest in the classical world in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, almost everything Hollywood thinks it knows about gladiatorial combat is actually wrong.