This all started, as most resolutions do, as a ridiculously ambitious plan that got far out of hand. I was going to read Grote (I have the first 11 of the 12 volume Everyman’s edition), Mommsen, and Gibbon, as well as several major and important works on specialized and lesser known topics (e.g., Gruen on Rome and the Hellenistic world, Bury’s History of the Later Roman Empire, and Vasiliev’s History of the Byzantine Empire).

At some point as I worked toward mapping this all out (all while ignoring real, pressing work) I realized that I would be better served by focusing on a few classics in a more or less connected narrative, and this project was born. It’s less ambitious, but ambitious enough. Laura Gibbs came along and made sure that my resolution would have to stick by putting in a lot of work, collecting the necessary volumes from Google Books, creating a calendar of readings, and making her own blog on the subject. I’ll be using print editions most of the way, but can read any of the books on my computer (and even my phone–if I want to squint), thanks to Laura.

I’d love to see some more commitment, and more blogs in response to what everyone is reading. We already have a few commitments in the comments to the original post. Any more takers?

Roman History Notes: Mommsen 1.1

Mommsen rightly notes the importance of the Mediterranean sea, which both separates and connects a continuum of successive, dominant cultures which he sets as landmarks of Mediterranean antiquity by the token of their chief cities:

1. Thebes (Egyptian)
2. Carthage (Phoenician, which he calls Syrian)
3. Athens (Greek, which he calls Hellene, a term I wish we would adopt)
4. Rome (Italiian)

These people were distinct and each had an enormous impact in one phase of history, but Mommsen wants us to know that we are in a different phase of culture, and the implication is that ours will end as these did.

Some time is spent defining Italy, which is what Mommsen really has in mind when he says Rome, and he always thinks of it as a kind of mirror of Greece. Sicily is its Peloponnesus. While Greece looks east, Italy looks west: Epirus and Acarnania, on Greece’s west coast, were as significant as Apulia and Messapia on Italy’s east coast, just as Attica and Macedonia in the Greek east were as important and Etruria, Latium, and Apulia in the Italian west. He notes that the two nations were so close, yet so far, and while this is true geographically, he will show how true it was culturally as well.

Roman History Notes: Mommsen 1.2

I’m struck here by Mommsen’s pretense to scientific scholarly rigor–e.g., his protests against making judgments on racial origins but rather sticking to the historian’s task–while retaining some hints, if not overt references, to archaic notions of racial difference. He talks of savages, and cultures less capable of culture. His examples are entirely non-Indo-European (and almost entirely non-white). One may say that in this regard Mommsen was a product of his time, but protest as he might, the undercurrent is there and should be kept in mind.

Much of the material here is focused on Indo-European (which he calls in the language of his time Indo-Germanic) language and culture, and what he calls Graeco-Italian culture. I can’t imagine this being comprehensible to most readers, but with a background in classical languages and in linguistics I found the reading mostly interesting, but perhaps better treated briefly with the bulk of the discussion relegated to an appendix. Don’t be put off by this lengthy discussion (which will be especially difficult if you can’t read Greek characters). While one may quibble with the details, and may disagree with how closely he aligns the languages, the basic point is a compelling one that survives scrutiny.

(I should note that his antique terminology for language groups, etc., can be jarring for anyone acquainted with the subject and misleading for others. It may be best to read through this section lightly, to get the general impression.)

He uses countless examples of linguistic connections between (and disconnects from) the various languages and their common parents to establish both the affinities and differences between the Greeks and Italians. In cultural development, derived from linguistic analysis, the two branches seem to descend from a common parent: they share terms used in agriculture, religion, and war to such a degree that they markedly differ from other cultures which branched off earlier.

They developed their common religion differently, as they did their common patriarchal culture, and one of the primary differences which Mommsen notes is the shift each shows regarding the individual and society. Greek culture, he says, emphasizes the individual and personal liberty (consider the gods, and even personal names), while Roman culture emphasizes the collective and one’s obligation to it (consider the same).