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Topic: I'm going to post one interesting fact about the Romans in this thread every day for a year

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE started this discussion 1 week ago #132,749

Hello, plebs! Minichan is quiet these days and I am overflowing with useless trivia about a dead civilization. So, just for fun, let's have another mega thread.

Some ground rules: The facts can be about about any period in Roman history, from the Roman Kingdom right up until Constantine XI. I'll also throw in a few facts about the "historical afterlife" of the Romans, interesting ways in which people remembered the Romans after they were gone. Also, the "facts" might be anything from neat self-contained facts, to short posts about broader topics, or specific people or artefacts, etc.

Most importantly- "Interesting" means interesting to I, Killer Lettuce. I will try to make the facts accessible and of interest to anyone, but no guarantees!

Overall, the aim is for 365 posts, one per day. Yes I have too much time on my hands. No, I've never been diagnosed.

Oh, and if you have any ideas or something you want to know about, feel free to suggest stuff and I'll try to look into it.

Edit: that transparecy did not work, but it's funny so I'll leave it in.

(Edited 9 minutes later.)

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 1 week ago, 2 minutes later[^] [v] #1,416,457

(#1) Okay, let's start with a good one.

In the early Roman Empire, during trials, the prosecution would sometimes commission and bring in a painting of the defendant committing the crime they were being accused of. It was meant as an emotional appeal to try and influence the judge.

We know this happened because we have a surviving text where a Roman rhetorician, named Quintilian, complains about it:

Still I would not for this reason go so far as to approve a practice of which I have read, and which indeed I have occasionally witnessed, of bringing into court a picture of the crime painted on wood or canvas, that the judge might be stirred to fury by the horror of the sight. For the pleader who prefers a voiceless picture to speak for him in place of his own eloquence must be singularly incompetent. 

Quintilian, Oratoria, Book VI, circa 95 AD
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/6A*.html

This one makes me laugh. It's like an ancient version of the "I've already depicted you as the soyjak!" meme, except it's taking place in a serious law court and could well contribute to someone being seriously punished.

Just for fun, here's also a silly AI mock-up of this happening.

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Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 1 week ago, 12 hours later, 12 hours after the original post[^] [v] #1,416,565

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 1 week ago, 4 hours later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #1,416,597

(#2) Just for fun, I'm going to go from Quintilian to... Taylor Swift.

Did you know that Taylor Swift has, on a few occasions, worn Roman coins as jewellery?

Two jewelry pieces of particular note are a replica silver denarius of Roman Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117–138) and another described as a bronze coin of Philip I (224–249) mounted in a necklace.

[...]

According to Page Six, Swift was to wear a Steven Battelle-designed silver pendant featuring the goddess Roma during the American Football Conference Championship game that preceded the Super Bowl game.
Battelle explained, “She was believed to watch over the city’s citizens and protect them from harm, as well as being a fierce defender of Rome in war.”

Battelle said this is a genuine Roman Republican coin, struck in 109 to 108 B.C. The reverse features Victoria, the winged Roman goddess of victory. Battelle added, “There is something almost talismanic about the messages that we try to interpret from those coins. To me, someone wearing an ancient coin piece has not only an appreciation of the beauty of the ancient images, but an appreciation of the continuity of history and our place within it.”

https://www.numismaticnews.net/can-taylor-swifts-ancient-coins-bring-new-eyes-to-collecting

Now, putting genuine coins into jewellery mounts is generally frowned upon in the ancient coin community, as it can damage them. It is possible to do it without damaging them, no idea if that's the case here.

Of course, this is far from a modern thing. This goes all the way back to the Romans themselves. Archaeologists often find Roman coins which were, back in ancient times, repurposed as jewellery. This could be highly elaborate pieces of jewellery incorporating coins, or just common bronze coins with holes made in them to be worn as necklaces.

During Late Antiquity, gold coins, in particular, often received ornate framing devices, such as this fourth-century pendant from North Africa. Here, a medallion (double solidus) of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) is set within a large frame that comprises elaborate gold openwork—a specialty of late antique goldsmiths—interspersed with gold busts sculpted in high-relief frames.

There were certainly less elaborate ways of adorning oneself with coins: humble bronze coins were simply pierced and strung, showing that wearing coins remained popular regardless of class.

https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/gold-pectoral-with-coins

As I said, it's frowned upon to damage coins to make them into wearable jewellery... But it does look very cool.

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Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 1 week ago, 5 hours later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #1,416,646

Fuck yeh it's kewl

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 1 week ago, 18 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^] [v] #1,416,830

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 1 week ago, 4 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^] [v] #1,416,833

(#3) Okay, watches. Wristwatches. That's a good jumping-off point for a fact.

Surely having the time in a small and portable way mist be a fairly modern thing, right? Not so! The Romans had small and portable sundails they could use for much the same purpose.

It’s the four or fifth century and you’re a wealthy, cosmopolitan Roman sightseeing across the empire, or perhaps an armchair traveler entertaining other well-educated friends for dinner. What could you pull out to impress your companions? One good option would be a geographical portable sundial, the closest Romans got to an iPhone.

These sundials were designed to tell time on the go—but it turns out they really excelled at being a snazzy gadget. Many were made of shiny bronze, they sat comfortably in a hand, and it took real technical knowledge to use them properly. There are about a dozen examples known today, each with a cheat sheet of coordinates for using the device in specific places.

It’s a powerful tool more than a millennium before GPS, atomic clocks, or even a practical way to determine longitude. “If the sun is shining, you are carrying with you one portable gadget or instrument that is your own, a very personal thing, and you can supposedly rely on it to tell you what the time is,” says Richard Talbert, a historian at the University of North Carolina who has written a new book about the devices, called Roman Portable Sundials.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/early-tech-adopters-ancient-rome-had-portable-sundials-180962225/

The most impressive example I've heard of myself is this cute little one that was found in Heraclium. It's shaped like some ham. Pic related, a 3D printed recreation of it.

Using this recreation, academics found it works really well, in terms of measuring hours. You just need to adjust the "tail" to the current month and it works great.
https://www.bordersundials.co.uk/ham-roman-sundial-heraclium-bay-of-naples/


For context, here's a bit about Roman timekeeping, and why sundials were perfect for them.

An hour was defined as one twelfth of the daytime, or the time elapsed between sunset and sunrise. Since the duration varied with the seasons, this also meant that the length of the hour changed. Winter days being shorter, the hours were correspondingly shorter and longer in summer.[1] At Mediterranean latitude, one hour was about 45 minutes at the winter solstice, and 75 minutes at summer solstice.[4]

The Romans understood that as well as varying by season, the length of daytime depended on latitude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_timekeeping

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) triple-posted this 1 week ago, 23 hours later, 2 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,017

Anonymous C replied with this 1 week ago, 4 hours later, 2 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,058

I bet some ancient Romans had a phobia of miniature creatures

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Oatmeal Fucker !BYUc1TwJMU joined in and replied with this 1 week ago, 5 hours later, 3 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,075

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 1 week ago, 17 hours later, 3 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,259

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 1 week ago, 5 minutes later, 3 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,260

(#5) Speaking of games, check out this Roman dice tower!

It's pretty cool. You drop the dice in at the top, they'd fall down, and hit some little bells on the way out.

There's two inscriptions on it, which translate to "The Picts are defeated, the enemies destroyed, play with confidence" and "Have a happy life".

I love artefacts like this, as they give an insight into ordinary Romans. They loved games, just like lots of modern people do, and loved fancy custom gear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vettweiss-Froitzheim_Dice_Tower

(Edited 58 seconds later.)

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Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 1 week ago, 18 hours later, 4 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,387

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 1 week ago, 8 hours later, 4 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,589

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 1 week ago, 39 minutes later, 4 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,594

(#6) Anyway, Microbiology! Good segue.

Throughout human history, we've always had pathogens, bacteria and viruses and such that can make us sick and kill us. And of course, as human populations grew, and roads and trade networks facilitated more people moving around, pathogens could spread far more rapdily- leading to pandemics.

The Roman Empire, in its history, faced it's share of pandemics. But, for a long time, all we had to get off of were the accounts from Roman historians describing the symptoms. And, sure, a modern-day scientist could look at those symptoms and make an educated guess about what the disease might have been, but it didn't necessarily line up neatly with modern diagnoses, and there was ultimately no way to know for sure what exactly a given plague was.

One of the biggest of these was the Plague of Justinian, which struck from 541AD to 549AD. It's named after the then Roman Emperor, Justinian, who was himself infected but survived. While exact numbers of deaths can't be obtained, it's estimated to have killed millions. But, as significant an event as it was, we just couldn't be sure exactly what pathogen was responsible.

...Until recently, when it became possible to use modern science to get an exact answer!

For the first time, researchers have uncovered direct genomic evidence of the bacterium behind the Plague of Justinian—the world's first recorded pandemic—in the Eastern Mediterranean, where the outbreak was first described nearly 1,500 years ago.

The discovery, led by an interdisciplinary team at the University of South Florida and Florida Atlantic University, with collaborators in India and Australia, identified Yersinia pestis, the microbe that causes plague, in a mass grave at the ancient city of Jerash, Jordan, near the pandemic's epicenter. The find definitively links the pathogen to the Justinian Plague marking the first pandemic (AD 541–750), resolving one of history's long-standing mysteries.

For centuries, historians have deliberated on what caused the devastating outbreak that killed tens of millions, reshaped the Byzantine Empire and altered the course of Western civilization. Despite circumstantial evidence, direct proof of the responsible microbe had remained elusive—a missing link in the story of pandemics.

https://phys.org/news/2025-08-ancient-dna-plague-justinian-mystery.html

For context, Yersinia pestis is the bacteria behind Bubonic Plague, which also ravaged vast swathes of the world in the later Black Death. That's a picture of it, by the way. Quite a looker, huh?

(Edited 22 minutes later.)

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Anonymous F joined in and replied with this 1 week ago, 4 minutes later, 4 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,597

@previous (Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE)

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Oatmeal Fucker !BYUc1TwJMU replied with this 1 week ago, 36 minutes later, 5 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,603

Anonymous G joined in and replied with this 1 week ago, 1 hour later, 5 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,604

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 6 days ago, 1 day later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,831

Okay, genomics! People find this interesting, let's stick with this for a bit.

It's very cool how we can use this science to get hard data in otherwise shadowy time periods or geographical areas. Of course, for the Roman Empire, lots of DNA studies tell us that people moved around a lot. You might find a Syrian guy who got buried in Britain. Cool.

But that's not much of a fact, probably everyone already knows that the Romans moved around a lot. But what genomics can also tell us is when... This didn't happen.

Fact #7- DNA testing suggests that rural Britain wasn't affected that much, genetically, by being in the Roman Empire.

Low Genetic Impact of the Roman Occupation of Britain in Rural Communities

Abstract
Abstract The Roman period saw the empire expand across Europe and the Mediterranean, including much of what is today Great Britain. While there is written evidence of high mobility into and out of Britain for administrators, traders, and the military, the impact of imperialism on local, rural population structure, kinship, and mobility is invisible in the textual record. The extent of genetic change that occurred in Britain during the Roman military occupation remains underexplored. Here, using genome-wide data from 52 ancient individuals from eight sites in Cambridgeshire covering the period of Roman occupation, we show low levels of genetic ancestry differentiation between Romano-British sites and indications of larger populations than in the Bronze Age and Neolithic. We find no evidence of long-distance migration from elsewhere in the Empire, though we do find one case of possible temporary mobility within a family unit during the Late Romano-British period. We also show that the present-day patterns of genetic ancestry composition in Britain emerged after the Roman period.

The discussion section also summarises the findings, and has other interesting bits:

The Roman period in East Anglia was not one of great genetic change: the major sweeps of allele frequency change occurred before or after this period. Whether it was one of great cultural change, we cannot say from our data. While polyandry is described in the early period by Caesar, by the time period studied here we find no evidence for this practice in this region. We do find support for mobility, potentially even within a family, though not nearly at such high levels as previously indicated by other isotope studies.

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/81d6fa70-1c44-4f24-9c23-e01564e8a3f4
You can read the full PDF there, if you'd like. A lot of it went over my head, haha, but it's interesting stuff!

I'll try to keep this brief but, in short, this is super interesting because it backs up a stereotype about Roman Britain being something of a backwater that didn't get completely as Romanised as other provinces.

To be clear, it wasn't irrelevant. Lots of Romans went there, Roman officials wanted to go here to advance their careers, and a large number of usurpers popped up here. The Emperor Claudius invaded it in the first place because it was considered a valuable prize he could use to boost his own prestige.

But, on the other hand, we never hear about any Roman Senators who were born in Britain (doesn't mean there weren't any, but their absence is noteworthy). The Romans also never completly got the island under control, and the Picts up in modern-day Scotland were always a problem. And, perhaps most tellingly, the island doesn't go on to develop a Romance language- the dominant language here is a Germanic one.

So, pretty interesting study, and I guess it's not so different to the modern world- rich countries have big cities that lots of people want to go to, so they become more diverse, but countryside backwater towns that are isolated enough generally avoid most of that.

(Edited 57 seconds later.)

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Septimius Severus replied with this 6 days ago, 2 hours later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,839

Green !!bO/s3MBcD joined in and replied with this 6 days ago, 5 hours later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,878

Green !!bO/s3MBcD double-posted this 6 days ago, 19 seconds later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,879

Anonymous I joined in and replied with this 5 days ago, 22 minutes later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,880

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 5 days ago, 4 hours later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,980

@1,417,839 (Septimius Severus)
What's that? You want a fact about Septimius Severus? Well, okay, he was a pretty interesting Emperor.

Fact #8: Septimius Severus has the dubious distinction of being the Emperor who fought the largest ever civil war battle during the Roman Empire. The Battle of Lugdunum, which was fought in 197 AD. Cassius Dio, a Roman historian who was alive at the time, put the total numbers at 150,000 Legionaries total.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lugdunum

It was fought between Severus and a rival Emperor, Clodius Albinus. It put an end to the wider civil war, the Year of the Five Emperors (which had begun four years earlier but nevermind that).

This was immediately after the period which modern historians call the Pax Romana, so the Empire was arguably at the height of it's prosperity, facilitating a power struggle of this size.

This would, I argue, have disastrous consequences down the line, as Severus massively accelerated the trend of debasing the currency in order to buy the loyalty of his troops to win this war. But, in the shorter-term, him winning in Lugdunum would bring in a period of reasonable stability under him and the Severan Dynasty he founded.

Here's a picture of a bust of his that I took.

(Edited 3 minutes later.)

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 5 days ago, 2 minutes later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,981

Anonymous F replied with this 5 days ago, 22 minutes later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,417,990

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 5 days ago, 1 hour later, 6 days after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,011

Anonymous J joined in and replied with this 4 days ago, 20 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,131

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 4 days ago, 12 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,206

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 4 days ago, 19 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,207

Let's pivot to something easier I can do off the top of my head.

Fact #9: Verism was a Roman art style that emphasised age and experience. It was most popular in the Roman Republic, before the rise of Augustus and the Roman Empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verism

This picture is an example of a bust showing Verism. What's super interesting here is how, while on first impression you might just want to say "Oh wow, this is super realistic" it... Might not be. Generally, this art style wants to make the subject look old and experienced, so it's carrying an implicit message- this person is experienced, he's fit to lead The Senate/his family/whatever. The real men could have been less wrinkly and weathered than some of these busts imply.

But when Augustus first becomes a prominent political figure in the tumult of the Republic's civil wars that will ultimately turn it into the Empire, he's only 20. He can't do Verism, or he doesn't want to. So... He abandons it. All of his portraits show him as a young man. Interestingly, they all actually keep doing this until he dies, he's always portrayed as youthful even when he's actually quite old. His Julio-Claudian successors relax this a bit, you can see statues where Tiberius and Claudius look visibly older, but they don't go back to Verism, their age is portrayed more subtly.

Verism got a brief revival under the next dynasty, the Flavians, as Vespasian does come to power as a older man and probably wants to project experience. But this ultimately doesn't last and, as I recall, all subsequent dynasties go back to younger-leaning portraiture, until you get into the third century and you get into the more simple, stylised portraiture.

Pretty interesting, IMO. In an age well before photography, statues were such an important way for people to promote themselves, and we can visibly see how the way they wanted to do this could suddenly change based on politics. Again, not so different to today, probably.

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) triple-posted this 3 days ago, 1 day later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,383

One of my favourite Roman items is inscriptions. Not only do they let us hear from ordinary Romans who otherwise wouldn't be in the historical record, but they're one of the best ways to make the Romans relatable to modern people. Anyone can relate to someone mourning a relative.

Fact #10: Inscriptions commemorating a Roman girl, Geminia Agathe.

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Oatmeal Fucker !BYUc1TwJMU replied with this 2 days ago, 5 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,402

Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 2 days ago, 17 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,484

It's Valentine's Day! So let's have a fact about love. ❤️

Fact #11: Under the Empire, Roman soldiers were legally unable to marry... But many of them had de facto wives anyway. Septimius Severus may have abolished this by 197 AD.

Legal provisions only exacerbated this problem. From the early principate, and most likely since the reign of Augustus, Roman soldiers were legally incapable of entering recognized marriages. At the very end of the second century AD, Septimius Severus was said to have granted them the right to “live with” (i.e. marry) their wives. Bythe fourth century ad, in any case, wives and children had come to be considered typical features of soldiers’ lives, although the earliest surviving explicit reference to their formal marital capacity dates from as late as ad 426. We do not know if officers such as centuriones were also subject to the ban while it was in effect. Equestrian and senatorial commanders were exempt, yet barred from marrying women from provinces in which they performed their duties.

However, soldiers were not physically prevented from cohabiting with women or raising children: the state merely denied them and their conjugal families the legal entitlements that conventionally accrued from marital unions. Moreover, we do not know of any penalties for soldiers who established such relationships. Thus, “non- recognition” of marriage might be a more precise term than the traditional label “ban.”

Source

So, even when their marriages weren't legally recognised, Roman Legionaries out serving in the Legions still wanted female companionship. And, on the ground, this seems to have been widely tolerated. How do we know? Funerary inscriptions, as inscriptions are neither cheap nor very secret. Like this one:

To Cocceia Irene, his most chaste and pure wife, (who) lived 30 years and a month, Gaius Valerius Justus, actarius of the Twentieth Legion, set this up.

https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/507

Awwwww. It just goes to show that, even if a Roman Legionary was out in a distant place, he could still fall in love with a woman and marry her unofficially.

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Green !!bO/s3MBcD replied with this 1 day ago, 5 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,509

chill dog !!81dzJNNYL joined in and replied with this 1 day ago, 33 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,513

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 1 day ago, 18 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,667

Okay, Valentine's Day is FUCKING OVER! No more love, only heartbreak now!

Fact #12: The future Emperor Tiberius happened to find love in his arranged marriage... And then it was taken away from him.

Near the end of the 1st Century BC, The Emperor Augustus was busy consolidating power now that he, basically, had complete control. A big part of this was managing political marriages within his family. Like in many ancient and medieval societies, it was quite normal for the elite in Roman society to marry not out of love, but for political alliances.

His stepson, Tiberius, was a part of this. He was initially involved in an arranged marriage to Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Augustus's close ally Agrippa. Tiberius was a notoriously socially awkward man, I could post loads of anecdotes about him rubbing people the wrong way. He was a talented general and was liked by his troops, he just seemed to be bad at social interactions when he was off the battlefield, and regularly put his foot in his mouth with his elite peers and with commoners.

But despite this, he found love in this arranged marriage, fathering one son with Vipsania and seeming to genuinely love her.

...And then it got taken away from him.

...Although she (Vipsania) was thoroughly congenial and was a second time with child, he (Tiberius) was forced to divorce her and to contract a hurried marriage with Julia, daughter of Augustus. This caused him no little distress of mind, for he was living happily with Agrippina, and disapproved of Julia's character, having perceived that she had a passion for him even during the lifetime of her former husband, as was in fact the general opinion. But even after the divorce he regretted his separation from Agrippina, and the only time that he chanced to see her, he followed her with such an intent and tearful gaze that care was taken that she should never again come before his eyes.

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, The Life of Tiberius, 121 AD

☹️

Suffice to say, his marriage to Julia was unhappy. To cut the story short, Tiberius and Julia didn't seem to like each other. Although he did get Julia pregnant, the child she had died in infancy and no more followed. The marriage was eventually anulled when an infidelity scandal erupted around Julia, and she was subsequently exiled by Augustus.

Vipsania, meanwhile, had been married off in 11 BC to a Senator called Gaius Asinius Gallus. Unfortunately, we don't get much information from our sources on what Vipsania made of all of this- it's a rule of thumb in ancient sources that, in general, important elite men are paid more attention than women. For his part, Gallus pops up a few times in the historical record where he's noted to be critical of Tuberius.

In 33 AD when Tiberius was Emperor, shortly after Vipasania died, he had Gallus imprisoned and he died of starvation. Tiberius did purge quite a few Senators in his various treason trials, but it's pretty easy to assume that this one was very personal.

Tiberius, generally, didn't seem to like being Emperor, with a famous quote attributed to him saying that being Emperor was like “holding a wolf by the ears." And although it's always important not to assume too much about people we did not know, and to not project our own assumptions onto historical figures, it is a safe assumption that being forced from a happy marriage into an unhappy one purely because his stepfather wanted to tweak the dynasty dynamics did not help make Tiberius any happier.

If you love someone, be grateful. It's one of the best things in life, and not everyone in human history got to have love.

(The picture is one I took, a statue of Tiberius. Chad alert.)

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) double-posted this 1 day ago, 2 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,668

Island Boy replied with this 18 hours ago, 7 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,711

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Killer Lettuce🌹 !HonkUK.BIE (OP) replied with this 9 hours ago, 6 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,801

Okay! Let's have a bit of a fact series on... Identity.

Let's have a little think about identity in the modern world. If I want to prove my identity, I could produce my driving licence. If I want to prove my citizenship, I can use my passport. If I had doubts about a policeman, I could ask him to produce an identity document proving he is one. Along with the identity itself, various information is tied to you, like taxes: if I try to evade my taxes, the government has records which show whether or not I've paid all the taxes I should. And of course, all of this is backed up by electronic databases and the internet, so anyone who has the appropriate authority and needs to be able access and verify this sort of information can.

Obviously, the Romans didn't have photo ID cards or electronic communication. Yet, identity was still vitally important for them. Whether you were a citizen, Freedman/woman, or a slave gave you distinct legal rights and limitations. And sure, if you're just in your local community, you'll be known by your community, but what if you go further afield? How did the Romans manage identity?

Fact #13: the Romans could prove identity by the testimony of others (written or verbal), or just by "acting the part". Types of documents proving legal status also existed.

Here's a great example from Roman Egypt, preserved on a papyrus document, that pretty neatly shows us how identity verification worked in the Roman Empire. A Roman veteran needs to prove his status to get legal recognition.

Valerius Clemens, who wishes to reside for the time being in the Arsinoite nome, aged . . years. The above-mentioned, a veteran, declared that he had served in the 2nd cohort of the Itureans and exhibited a Latin letter from Pactumeius Magnus the former praefect showing that after serving in the above-mentioned cohort he had received his official discharge on the 31st of December in the consulship of Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus Pius and Quintillus. He also presented as warrantors Marcus Aurelius Petesouchus, Serenus Petronius, and Julius Gemellus, all three veterans, who wrote a sworn declaration along with him that he had used no fictitious evidence. And the signature of Allius Hermolaus, tribune of legion II Trajana Fortis, attached to the aforesaid name, Valerius Clemens, aged 52, with a scar above the ankle of the right foot

Epikeisis of a Roman Veteran, Roman Egypt, 188 AD
https://www.attalus.org/docs/select2/p315.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Super interesting. So, there's a few things going on here. Firstly, Valerius is able to get one of his former commanding officers to write a letter affirming his identity and status, and that he indeed served in the specific cohort that Valerius claimed to have been in. Another important man, the Tribune of Legio II Trajana Fortis, also sends a signature, and there's mention of Valerius being distinguishable by a scar on his ankle. Lastly, Valerius is also able to call on three other veterans to also confirm his identity and also vouch for the evidence he has provided. Pretty solid, when you think about it.

This sort of thing wasn't just for soldiers and veterans, though. People travelling, even those of a lower social status, could carry letters affirming their identity. These are letters of recommendation, which were very common in the Roman world.

Ulpius Celer to Hermeros, greeting. Allow me, sir, to commend to your notice … on, a slave of our lord the Emperor, a member of my household and esteemed by me. He is most deserving of advancement and of your favour, and I do not disguise that any service you can render him in his career will be most welcome to me. Farewell.

An Official Letter of Introduction on a papyrus
https://papyri.info/ddbdp/c.ep.lat;;81

So, this time we've got a slave (whose name is lost) being recommended by his master to a man called Hermeros. Again, we've got a name vouching for somebody.

Military diplomas attesting Roman citizenship were also issued to Roman Auxiliaries (non-citizens) who completed their time in the Roman army, doing which granted them Roman citizenship.

Okay, that's all very interesting, but what if you don't have any documents on you or witnesses around to vouch for you? For that, we have a very famous example- Paul the Apostle!

The commander brought Paul inside and ordered him lashed with whips to make him confess his crime. He wanted to find out why the crowd had become so furious.

When they tied Paul down to lash him, Paul said to the officer standing there, “Is it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been tried?”

When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked, “What are you doing? This man is a Roman citizen!”

So the commander went over and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
“Yes, I certainly am,” Paul replied.
“I am, too,” the commander muttered, “and it cost me plenty!”
Paul answered, “But I am a citizen by birth!”

The soldiers who were about to interrogate Paul quickly withdrew when they heard he was a Roman citizen, and the commander was frightened because he had ordered him bound and whipped.
[...]
As the conflict grew more violent, the commander was afraid they would tear Paul apart. So he ordered his soldiers to go and rescue him by force and take him back to the fortress.

Acts 22:24-23:10

To cut the rest of it short, Paul's case here gets bumped up the Roman chain of command a few times, until eventually Paul is sent off to Rome to appeal directly to the Emperor.

What's important here is that Paul claims he's a Roman citizen, and the Romans who were imprisoning him immediately get nervous and start treating him better, to the point that they're willing to send soldiers to protect him. That legal status did matter a lot. And, reading against the grain a bit here, we can infer that A) Paul was convincing enough that the Romans believed his world. B) A person could just claim to be a citizen in a pinch if needed, and their claim could be taken seriously. It's pretty understandable that Paul, in his situation, wouldn't necessarily have documents or witnesses to hand to prove his identity or status.

(Edited 2 hours later.)

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[email protected] (OP) replied with this 9 hours ago, 20 minutes later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,802

Oatmeal Fucker !BYUc1TwJMU replied with this 7 hours ago, 2 hours later, 1 week after the original post[^] [v] #1,418,804

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