Episode 156 – Kidnapped!

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In 398 BCE, the Romans were still enmeshed in their siege at Veii. Whilst the Romans waited, worrying portents started to appear. What did they all mean?

Episode 156 – Kidnapped!

The most concerning portent was a sudden increase in the levels of the lake in the Alban Woods. It was positively spooky. An embassy was despatched to visit the Delphic Oracle so that the mystery could be unravelled.

Lake Albano, courtesy of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulconologia.

Whilst the ambassadors were on the road, some casual conversation between enemies led to a revelation. An old man from Veii seemed to have the answers the Romans needed, and unfortunately this led to him being kidnapped and interrogated. How else could the Romans get the information? They want the truth!

The old man and the Oracle both indicated that the Romans needed to figure out a way to draw off the water from the lake. Then, and only then, Veii would fall, and the Romans would be victorious.

Sounds simple! Just make the water go away, Rome.

Things to listen out for:

• LOTS of patricians in power
• Dangerous shortages of Etruscan soothsayers
• Sneaky Roman youths
• Road trips!
• An owl suddenly covering for Igor

Our Players for 398 BCE

Military Tribunes with Consular Power

L. Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401

M. Valerius M. f. M. n. Lactucinus Maximus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 395

M. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Camillus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 401, 394, 386, 384, 381

L. Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat) Cos. 413, 409. Mil. Tr. c.p. 407, 405, 397, 295, 394. 391

Q. Servilius Q. f. P. n. Fidenas (Pat) Mil. Tr. 402, 395, 390, 388, 386

Q. Sulpicius Ser. f. Se. n. Camerinus Cornutus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 402

Legates, Ambassadors

(Cn. Cornelius) Cossus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 406, 404, 401

(P.) Licinius (Calvus Esquilinus) Mil. Tr. c.p. 400, 396

(L.) Valerius Potitus (Pat) Cos. 392, Mil. Tr. c.p. 414, 406, 403, 401, 398

OR

(C.) Valerius Potitus (Volusus) (Pat) Cos. 410, Mil. Tr. c.p. 415, 404

(K.) Fabius Ambustus (Pat) Mil. Tr. c.p. 410, 404, 401, 395, 309?

OR

(Num.) Fabius Ambustus (Pat)

Our Sources

• Dr Rad reads Livy, 5.14-15.
• Dr G reads Dionysius of Halicarnassus 12.10-33; Cicero, On Divination, 1.44; Diodorus Siculus, 14.82; Plutarch, Life of Camillus 2.3-4.4.
• Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
• Cornell, T. J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC) (Taylor & Francis) Forsythe, G. 2006. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War(University of California Press)
• Lomas, Kathryn (2018). The rise of Rome. History of the Ancient World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674919938. ISBN978-0-674-65965-0. S2CID239349186.
• Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
• Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2^nd ed). (Wiley).
• Smith, C. 2019. ‘Furius Camillus and Veii’, in Taboli, J., Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 219-224.
• Young, J. 1875. ‘The Alban Lake’ The Athenaeum no. 2505, pp 575-576.

Sound Credits

Our music is composed by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Automated Transcript

Dr Rad 0:15
Music. Welcome to the partial historians.

Dr G 0:18
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad.

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:55
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the partial historians I am Dr G, and I am Dr rad, and we are tracing Rome’s history from the foundation of the city. And in this episode, we’re going to be looking at 398 BCE, so we’re right in the early period of the fourth century

Dr Rad 1:18
that we are Dr G. But before we dive into 398 Can we get a quick recap on what happened in 399

Dr G 1:24
It was either a hot summer, a severe snowstorm, or both. Well, I

Dr Rad 1:29
think the snowstorm actually happened in 400

Dr G 1:32
Well, so you say.

Dr Rad 1:34
So I say indeed, although Wait, how do Italian winters work? Wait, when is a winter? Oh, actually, that would make sense. It would span two years. Sorry, being in the southern hemisphere, it took me a moment to figure

Dr G 1:46
that out, yes. And the thing is that the source material doesn’t kind of line up in any other way. So, like that fragment can’t come in earlier than what it already did, or at least not as far as I can tell. So I think there are ways in which Livy and Dionysius might be a little bit out of sync with each other, and that’s fine, because there is that sort of prerogative around the 10 year siege. So we’re in this period of time where we know that Rome is and the writers of Rome are making up some of the time because they want this siege of a to take 10 years, just like the Trojan Well, yeah, they want to have this beautiful mirror to the Trojan War. So things are a little bit haphazard. Things are a little bit out of sync. And even when we look at our comparative source material from somebody like Diodorus Siculus, they’re out by a couple of years every time,

Dr Rad 2:38
exactly. And so, as a result of all this terrible weather, the Romans had to throw a gigantic party for themselves and for the gods. Most importantly, and the patricians decided to blame it all on the fact that there were so many plebeians elected to serve as magistracies.

Dr G 2:55
I mean, where else would terrible weather come from? Naturally? So, yeah. So this means that we head into 398 with the pretty traditional patrician chip on the shoulder about plebeians and what’s going on there. And I guess we’re gonna see how that plays out for them. Exactly.

Dr Rad 3:16
All right. Dr, G, let’s do it 398 BC, you

Dr G 3:37
so this year we have military tributes with consular power. It has been foreshadowed, and now we’re here.

Dr Rad 3:44
And the names, Dr, G, such sweet music to my ears, because they’re so familiar.

Dr G 3:50
Oh well, some of them, at the very least, exactly, Lucius, Valerius, Potitus, yeah, yeah, you’ve heard of him before. It sounds familiar. Is familiar previously, Military Tribune in 414, 406, 403 and 401

Dr Rad 4:04
It’s nice to have an experienced hand back at the wheel, all

Dr G 4:08
hands on deck, especially potituses. We also have Marcus Valerius Lactucinus, Maximus. Lactucinus

Dr Rad 4:19
of all sounds like a disease that you get when there’s too much pollen around. Well,

Dr G 4:23
interestingly, I

Dr Rad 4:24
did look this up because, yay. Wait, did have to do with milk? Oh, no,

Dr G 4:29
it has to do with lettuce, as in salad leaves.

Dr Rad 4:34
So the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Well, I don’t

Dr G 4:38
know. Is it any worse than Cicero, the chickpea. So the early Republican period, this name Lactocinus, or Lactucinus, if we go with a really hard seat, is related to, etymologically, the word for lettuce.

Dr Rad 4:55
He should marry his daughter to someone in the Cicero family so that they can have a salad. They could make salad together. Oh, yeah.

Dr G 5:02
So yeah, this seems to be one of the things. They’re not that common. A few of them crop up in this century, and we’re going to see one later on as well. But yeah, pretty rare. This guy is a new kid to the block. Never been a military Tribune before, so he must be pretty excited. This

Dr Rad 5:20
also doesn’t really add up with what they said in the previous year, which is that they were putting their very best candidates out. I mean, how can this guy be the best candidate who’s never held the office before? I don’t

Dr G 5:30
think you understand how best works from a patrician perspective.

Dr Rad 5:34
I know I’m just putting it out. I’m switching perspectives from all over the place. Sometimes I’m plebeian and sometimes I’m patrician. Just when you think I’m gonna Zig. I zag.

Dr G 5:42
think he was born that way, and that’s what makes him great. Yeah, we also have Marcus Furius Camillus.

Dr Rad 5:50
Come on, the Furii.

Dr G 5:54
of the story. He emerges. He’s here previously, military Tribune in 401, so quite recently, yeah, Andy’s Beau and Lucius furious. Medullinus

Dr Rad 6:06
definitely recognize this name, yeah. So

Dr G 6:09
a couple of Furii’s in this gang. Well, of course. I

Dr Rad 6:12
mean, if you’re putting forward your best, you’re putting forward the Furii, obviously, of course. I mean, I’m disappointed that none of them are Spurius Furius, but still,

Dr G 6:19
that’s true, although Camillus is the grandson of a Spurius Furius, that’s as good as it gets. So Lucius Furius Medullinus was previously consul in 413, and 409 so way more illustrious than the military Tribune with consular power.

Dr Rad 6:38
Seems so long ago that we talked about consul.

Dr G 6:40
Yeah, it’s been a hot minute,

and he was also a military Tribune with consular power in 407 and 405 so definitely experienced. Well, experienced. Yeah. Next we have Quintus, Servilius Fidenas, ah, yes, previously, military tribune in 402 and Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, also military Tribune with consular power in 402

Dr Rad 7:10
the old gang is back together. Yeah,

Dr G 7:13
the boys are back now. I also have the names of some ambassadors or legates, or legates, people who hold some minor but significant positions enough that it gets named in the year. We know who they are, apparently, almost somewhat kind of,

Dr Rad 7:35
we

Dr G 7:36
have parts of their names. I have a lot of oars in this list. Yes, me too. Yeah. So we’ve got Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus. Now, this guy, fabulous patrician background, previously military Tribune in 406, 404 and 401 wow. Yeah, he’s getting around. But now he’s been, he’s been given some sort of task this year, we’ll find out what it is.

Maybe the taskmaster shall tell you, Ambassador,

Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus. Question mark, not a patrician.

Dr Rad 8:10
No, he’s a guy. He’s the first one, you know, the

Dr G 8:14
only one, according to Livy, apparently, in 400

Dr Rad 8:16
exactly the inoffensive one. Oh, the palatable How could you forget someone as beige as him, the palatable plebeian? Exactly,

Dr G 8:27
he opened the door for the radicals of the following year, who

Dr Rad 8:31
did nothing and yet still got blamed for everything.

Dr G 8:34
I thought their military victories were quite significant, really. No, I know, but that’s what I mean.

Dr Rad 8:37
Like, they did nothing wrong, but they still got blamed for everything. Disaster.

Dr G 8:42
Yeah. So they are joined by these two guys. Are joined by a Lucius, Valerius Potitus, same guy as above. Apparently, you could be a military Tribune with Constable of power and be an ambassador, slash leggett, with your patrician. You can be anything. I mean, we could hire somebody else for the job, but I’ve just decided to hire myself.

Dr Rad 9:01
I just so qualified.

Dr G 9:03
I’ve looked at the candidates, and I’ve decided I should be the boss. I

Dr Rad 9:06
am clearly the man for the job, indeed. And that job, and that job, in fact,

Dr G 9:11
all the jobs, exactly. And that’s how we get kings. Everybody. Be careful. Now we’re not entirely certain that this is set in stone. This is one of the ‘ors’. So it’s either this Valerius Potitus, already in a role, or Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusu, who must be related. There’s a lot of similar names here, so Gaius Valerius Potitus, maybe instead of Lucius Valerius potitus, we’ll see now Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus was previously consul in 410 as I’m sure you recall, oh, naturally I never forget. And previously military Tribune with consular power in 415 and 404, some families are really dominating the upper echelons of power. Here they really are. Now we also. Have another or situation. So it could be the case that we have Kaeso,Fabius Ambustus as our last ambassador, legate, or Numerus Fabius Ambustus.

Dr Rad 10:12
the first one sounds for more familiar to me.

Dr G 10:15
The first one is more familiar because they’ve definitely had more roles previously, military Tribune in 410 404 and 401 whereas numerous has only been a military Tribune with consular power once in 406 but it’s anybody’s guess, some of the names are missing. And when we are missing the prey gnome and the first name, and we’ve only got the gens, and then the branch of the gens, it really does put us at a bit of a loss as to who we’re talking about.

Dr Rad 10:48
We’re like Roman names. They’re

Dr G 10:50
from a family, yeah.

Dr Rad 10:52
All right. Dr, G, are you ready for some drama? I am ready. Okay, so as we’ve noted, it’s an oil patrician lineup. And Livy s obviously very into this, because he does actually detail exactly how many times these guys have held the position before, etc, etc. So he wants you to know these guys are elite now. They do not do anything particularly significant at they itself. The siege continues. Well, there’s a surprise, yeah, there’s just some minor pillaging that goes on, you know, just to keep them on their toes. However, it’s time to take out the legs from this campaign. And by that, I mean, you’ve got to get rid of those pesky allies that keep trying to pin Rome between they and themselves, it’s time to take out the Falerii once and for all, exactly, and also, the Capenates hate those guys absolutely. So Potitus is the one who is picked to go against the Falerii the people of Falerii and Camillus is sent against the Capenates. Now I said that dramatically, because Camillus is a figure of note in Roman history. He is now against these enemies. They were able to capture lots and lots of booty, and then they destroyed anything that they didn’t take.

Dr G 12:20
Oh, okay, wow. Okay, yep.

Dr Rad 12:23
Annoyingly, this also was a year where there were lots of portents that were being reported. Dr, G, ah, yes. Now, at first, when they started being reported, it was just one person who saw something weird, and people were like, Hmm, maybe Bob’s gone crazy.

Dr G 12:41
What are you been drinking? Bob, yeah,

Dr Rad 12:43
I don’t think I believe you, but as time went on and more and more were being reported, it started to become concerning, especially because this war with they meant Rome was plung out of Etruscan soothsayers.

Dr G 13:00
Oh, no. I hate it when that happens. But then

Dr Rad 13:04
there was a portent that lots of people saw, and it got everyone really freaked out. Are you ready to hear? What kind of twisted thing would make them think that the world was about to end? I

Dr G 13:16
am interested to hear, particularly since I have some source material this year, so I’m wondering the extent to which our sources are going to agree or disagree on the fantastic things you’re about to tell me, look,

Dr Rad 13:27
it’s a pretty big deal, so I think they are going to line up, but nonetheless, strap yourself in, just in case. Don’t you falling off that chair the lake in the Alban woods, even though there had been no rain or any other sort of water source, suddenly got higher. Yep, there was more water in it, and nobody knew how.

Dr G 13:50
Oh, that’s weird.

Dr Rad 13:53
It was really, I know they were like, where’s the magician? How did they do that? They can’t explain it. And so they decide to send off representatives to the Delphic Oracle. That is a long way from home, it is, and this is where all our legates and ambassadors come in, yeah, however, road trip, yeah, exactly. Let’s get this elite band on the road show some people what we’ve got. However, whilst they’re off checking out the Delphic Oracle, as you say, it’s not close. So it’s happened that an old man of they just wandered out and chipped in his two cents about what this all meant. Now, apparently this was possible, because obviously the Siege has been going on for a number of years. At this point in time, and between the two warring armies, when they weren’t trading insults and having staring contests with each other, they were apparently chatting sometimes.

Dr G 14:54
Oh well, yeah, fair enough. I mean, a siege is a siege. You gotta get bored like bro. What’s happening on your. A third of the world. Yeah.

Dr Rad 15:01
Now I imagine that the way he said this, he didn’t just wander out and sort of casually throw it out there, like, oh, you worried about the lake. Here’s what it means. I think it was very much like the scene in the Harry Potter movies where Emma Thompson’s Professor character, the one who’s like the divination teacher, goes all weird, and, like, goes into a trance, and very clearly, is speaking for somebody else, like on behalf of somebody else, yeah, because I’m saying this, because Livy says he said it in a prophetic strain. Oh, okay, so I’m imagining something quite dramatic.

Dr G 15:38
Yeah, everyone’s like, wait a minute, that guy’s doing prophecy. Yeah, now,

Dr Rad 15:41
see it gets even more dramatic than more water, where no more water should be. What he says is that the Romans would never be able to capture they, whilst the water level remained high, once the water had been drawn off, that was their moment to seize. They once and for all. How strange I know the Romans were like, Yeah, okay, old dude, clearly you’re just trying to psych us out and make us like, even more worried about the lake getting higher. Mysteriously, lies, lies, I say exactly however. They can’t help but keep talking about it amongst themselves. It’s quite the topic of hot gossip. Dr, G, well, I

Dr G 16:26
mean, they’ve just had a really weird experience with like, strange weather events and their first lexternium, all of this sort of stuff. So maybe they’re in they’re in the mood for thinking about, well, what if, yeah.

Dr Rad 16:42
So the Romans started to just like, chat to some of the locals and ask, like, so who was that guy who, like, made that random comment that we’re not thinking about at all. And this, again, just shows how the theaters lasted so long that the Romans and the people they’re totally talking to each other, the Romans discover by talking to the locals that the guy was a genuine, legit soothsayer.

Dr G 17:10
No regular party tricks, but like No, no fundamentally trained in the arts of divination, exactly, trust and style, totally,

Dr Rad 17:18
totally legit. Could not be more above board. So the Roman who’d taken it upon himself, this random Roman guy to chat to the locals, asked if the old guy would come and meet with him, because he’s super, super concerned about this portent. So the Roman, apparently, is quite the charmer. He manages to put the old man at ease when he comes to the meeting. And he also very subtly, starts just walking him away from any of his own folk, walking him well away from his own group. Uh oh. He also made sure that he had no weapons on him when this happened, like the old man had no weapons, and then in plain sight of everyone, he abducts him. I know

Dr G 18:11
people on the walls are vaping like, hey, yeah.

Dr Rad 18:15
Now this is interesting, because apparently not all the sources that tell this story make it an old man and like a younger Roman soldier. And it might have been something that was added to sort of foreshadow that Veii was old and faltering and Rome was young and hot fresh.

Dr G 18:33
Well, look, I mean, it sounds like a reasonable way to approach it. There are some differences, definitely between the account that you’ve just provided from Livy, oh,

Dr Rad 18:43
and it’s not over yet,

Dr G 18:45
and the source material that I have prepared.

Dr Rad 18:47
Okay, which is good. This is good, all right. Now, crazily, the Etruscans cause a huge fuss about this, this kidnap in broad daylight, but the rumors are like, yeah, no, sorry. It doesn’t really matter how much you jump up and down. We’re keeping him. We like him. He’s ours now. Exactly he’s ours now. So they take the old guy to the general, and the general says, What am I going to do with this guy? Send him to the Senate. So he goes off to Rome itself, and the Senate interrogate him intently. They get out the spotlight. They put him in a dark room. They all crowd around him menacingly. There’s a bad cop, good cop, exactly, slapping him around. And they’re like, tell us about the Alban Lake prophecy. Tell us more. The Old Man points out that the gods must have been angry at the people of they to have sent him such a message at such a time, so that the Romans obviously overheard the key to defeating their enemy. I mean, it seems a bit crazy, because it’s telling them exactly what they need to do in order to defeat they they just need to drain the lake. Somehow,

Dr G 19:50
it does seem a bit strange, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Dr Rad 19:54
Now, apparently there was actually a record of this on the Etruscan side of things, so it was written down. Somewhere in Etruscan law. So I guess something like their version of the sibylline books that when the Alban water overflowed, if the Romans could draw it off, they would indeed defeat they but the gods would be by their side until that exact moment the old man then, apparently said, Oh, you’re worried about draining it. Well, this is how you drain it. It’s being very helpful. Wait

Dr G 20:27
a minute,

Dr Rad 20:28
I know inside of his own abduction, he’s super, super helpful.

Dr G 20:33
Yeah, look, I mean, I suppose he has been tortured because he’s now giving up everything he

Dr Rad 20:37
really is. So the senators are like, Really, okay, but they’re not sure if they can trust him, because, after all, he is from the enemy, and it’s super weird that he’s telling them everything with seemingly very little pressure. So they decide that they want to wait and hear what the Delphic Oracle says, because, of course, they’ve got their ambassadors of checking that out. All right, okay. Now, unfortunately, the Group of Ambassadors must have been having a fabulous time, because they did not return very quickly. Well,

Dr G 21:10
I mean, it’s not close. Delphi is not near Italy, really. I mean, think about, how are they going to get there? They either have to go over the Apennines and then they’ve got to take a ship, and then they’ve got to cut across some land, and then they’ve got to get to Delphi, and then they’ve got to do the whole trip in reverse, or they sail around. They go in the opposite direction. In Italy, they head towards Ostia, and then they sail all the way around the foot, all the way around and across to Greece, to Delphi and then all the way back. This is not, it’s not a pleasure jaunt that’s going to take, you know, a couple of weeks. It’s going to take a while.

Dr Rad 21:49
Excuses, excuses, Dr G, but because they’re not back in time, it means that they can’t actually drain the Alvin lake in this year, and therefore they just have to hold on a little bit longer, hold on for one more day,

Dr G 22:04
looking at the lake being like, Excuse me, still high. Yeah. Problems.

Dr Rad 22:10
Now this is all very confusing, because the final thing I’m going to just mention is that I don’t understand what the Alban lake would have to do with they because it’s nowhere near they it’s in completely the other direction. Excuse me, yeah, it’s not near ve at all. And so it’s really strange that this is mentioned in connection with this story. And even stranger, dr, G, I have archeological proof that something did go down with the Alban Lake.

Dr G 22:41
Oh, yes, likewise, yeah, there are some odd things with the Alban lake. So would now be a good time to mention some different source material into these.

Dr Rad 22:53
Feel free.

Dr G 22:54
Hmm, well, well, well, I have a few sources. Dionysus of Halicarnassus is first. Then we’ve got a bit from Plutarch, and then we also have a bit from Cicero. My

Dr Rad 23:07
goodness, diversity,

Dr G 23:09
you know, find my sources where I can Dionysus of Halicarnassus being back is great, to be honest. And I enjoy the fact that that this is one of these moments where there’s an A new parallel to be drawn with Livy and some distinctions to be made. So he opens this situation talking about the rising of the Dog Star. So this is Sirius, the brightest star in the in the sky, and talks about how that period of the rising of the Dog Star is related to a whole bunch of water events where lakes tend to fail and rivers tend to dry up, but the Nile, as an exception, has its inundation. So he sets up this whole sort of like water and the time of the stars. And then he talks about the Alban mount. Now, the Alban mount and the associated lake are in that Castelli Romani region to the south east of Rome, and really importantly, tie into the foundation story of Rome. So it is weird that we have this coming out in an Etruscan soothsaying situation, because it doesn’t tend to have a traditional association with the Etruscans, at least as far as we’re aware. Nevertheless, we’re talking about a similar region, like they and Rome are very close to each other. This is true, and while Rome would be on the way to the album mount. If you were from ve it’s still not that far, really. So they’re in the same region, essentially. One of the odd things that Dionysius tells us is that there had not been rain or snowstorms that could account for what happens with the lake. Which is weird, because previously, in the last year that just passed, we did have the unprecedented almost seven foot snowstorm in Rome. And I’m like, Are you sure you didn’t have any snow recently? Because I might explain it. I feel like you guys just talked about, like, the most outlandish and unheard of before or after snowstorm in Rome’s history.

Dr Rad 25:26
They have every right to be freaked out by this mysterious water that came from nowhere.

Dr G 25:30
Where did the water come from? I’m so confused. It’s not

Dr Rad 25:34
like we just had all this snow and then a really, really hot summer that melted it all. No

Dr G 25:38
idea. I’m perplexed, a mystery. I am purplex The gods. And the other thing to keep in mind about the Alban mount is it is a volcanic lake, so it’s, Oh, I did not know that, yeah. So it may be fed by some spring systems, but the rock itself underneath it is going to be pretty porous. So you’re not expecting the lake to ever rise a lot, it would have it would take an all enormous amount of water to raise the lake

Dr Rad 26:06
so scary. Dr, G, yeah,

Dr G 26:09
because it’s constantly sort of like slowly dissipating out through the mountain and down out into other regions. And that’s what makes the water so delicious, and it’s what makes it so good for growing grapes and things like that. The wine from that region is really well known. So all of these things, you’re like, Okay, well, it is weird that the lake has raised so significantly, although within the context of a snowstorm, maybe not so much, but leaving those

Dr Rad 26:37
crucial leave your logic at the door, please. I

Dr G 26:40
feel like Dionysius didn’t read back his previous draft. He just kept going forward. He sits down for a new day, and he’s like to to whoever he’s dictating this to, because we don’t think he put pen to paper himself. You know. He’s not like, you know, just give me the heads up on what just happened. And he’s like, nope, starting fresh. All right, so 398, there has been no snow. Anyway. This whole situation with the lake is so significant because it floods. So it raises above all of its conceivable threshold limits, and it starts to flood places, and the water runs down out of the Alban mount into the surrounding plains. Now this is a problem for Rome, because Rome is in the surrounding plains. Yeah, disaster. Also. There’s plenty of other towns along the way. So that’s a problem for everybody.

Dr Rad 27:34
You know. You think they just say that, you know that it flooded. It flooded, yeah? Rather than saying, Oh, my God, there’s so much water,

Dr G 27:44
where will it go? It goes out of the lake and down the mountain, that’s where it goes, that pallet makes sense to me. So I think it’s interesting that Livy didn’t sort of tap into that what seems to be like a key piece of like, just knowledge about how water might work. But anyway, it’s not his thing. So the Romans in general think that the gods might be mad at them fair enough, and it’s time to do some ritual propitiation of the gods in order to make things okay. And ask local bankers

Dr Rad 28:17
banquet, was it enough? They even had catches? Yeah, look,

Dr G 28:20
The lectisternium is over, guys, we can’t do another one of those just yet. Who would we invite

Dr Rad 28:27
these guards?

Dr G 28:29
So the local soothsayers apparently didn’t have a good answer on this situation, and this is what led to sending a delegation to the Delphic Oracle. Like you can’t get an answer, you need an answer. It’s time to visit Delphi anyway. That’s a long trip. So fair enough. But in the meantime, over in Fay, it turns out that one of the inhabitants of Veii

Dr Rad 29:00
is a man

Dr G 29:03
no is a holder of the knowledge of augural science.

Dr Rad 29:09
Birds, again,

Dr G 29:12
who the knowledge of which has been inherited from his ancestors. And the Etruscans are famous for their augury. So this is one of their ways of doing divination that that is really nice. And it turns out that if you’ve been in a siege for about five or six years, maybe you’ve struck up some acquaintances and friendships on either side of the wall. And this guy from they has ended up being mates with one of the Roman centurions, nameless, sadly, naturally, who knows some guy anyway? These two dudes, they get together every so often, have a bit of a chat. You know, they see each other wave from like, you know, down on the ground, from up on the wall, mate, let’s go.

Dr Rad 29:58
I’m not gonna kill you today.

Dr G 29:59
No. You starving yet? Why you’re looking good. Consider you got no food, all that sort of stuff. And apparently, on one of these days, this guy from ve remarks that he pities the Roman Centurion because of the calamity that is going to befall him and everybody, if the city is captured,

Dr Rad 30:19
wait, if Veii is captured, or if Rome is captured, it must be a captured, right?

Dr G 30:24
Oh no, the centurion, sorry. Oh, right, sorry, yes, yes, not the guy from me, the centurions, like, look, I’m, you know, sorry for you guys. You know it’s gonna end badly. We’re gonna capture the city. It’s gonna be a disaster. Yeah,

Dr Rad 30:35
you already so we did to your allies. It wasn’t pleasant. Sorry

Dr G 30:39
about that. Yeah, and then the Etruscan guy says, Well, you know, that’s interesting that you say that because you’re actually quite ignorant of what is going to happen in this situation. Because, you know, we’re in this endless war, fruitless toil, and you think you’re going to overthrow the city of Veii, and it seems like you don’t understand that there is a whole prophecy related to this. So nobody told you about the kind of

Dr Rad 31:13
reading your sibling books.

Dr G 31:15
So as an atratuscan, what I can tell you is you don’t know the prophecy, and it’s fated that they will be captured only when and only if the lake beside the album mount is lacking in its natural springs and is no longer able to mingle its waters with the sea.

Dr Rad 31:35
Hmm. Okay, that’s a bit more specific than mine. Yeah.

Dr G 31:39
So the idea that the lake actually feeds into a whole bunch of sort of tributary systems and eventually leads into the sea, which, you know, sounds pretty reasonable geographically. And I think the guy from Veii is feeling really confident as well being like, well, obviously, you know, you’re never going to be able to cut off a lake and a river system from the sea. That’s just not how things work. Boy, has this guy underestimated the Romans

Dr Rad 32:10
and their determination to beat them?

Dr G 32:13
So the Roman centurion is kind of like, this sounds serious, but it does sound like we’ve got, like, a way out here as well. And he tells the tribunes that he’s got a bit of a plan, and he’s wondering if he can move forward with it. And they’re kind of like, well, sure. I mean, I guess. I mean, let’s see what happens. It can’t be any worse than anything else we’ve been trying recently. So the Roman centurian is like, the next day to the guy from Veii, like, let’s have a chat, man to man, mano e mano, let’s do this thing. And the guy from Veii’s like, sure, you know, we can have a more fulsome chat about prodigies and things like that. That’s fine. And as they’re going for a bit of a walk away from the walls, it’s at that moment that the Centurion grabs the guy from Veii around the waist picks him up and runs away with him abduction and carries him off to the Roman camp, to the surprise of perhaps the guy from Veii, but not to the military tribunes who approved this plan ahead of Time, of course. So the tribunes, they use arguments. They threaten to torture this guy.

Dr Rad 33:25
Oh, okay, so in my account, it seems like he just gave everything up very easily. No,

Dr G 33:31
he doesn’t give things up very easily. They eventually send this guy to the Senate, because he doesn’t seem to be giving them any more fulsome detail. And he kind of just sort of states the same thing over to the Senate as well. Some of the Senate appear to think that this guy must be a bit of a huckster, a charlatan, somebody who’s just lying through their teeth to try and get the Romans worried. And others are kind of like, seems legit, you know, gotta? You gotta listen to the soothsayers. You wouldn’t want to dismiss somebody who’s got augural science in their background, would you so got the birds only sad? Yeah, the birds are with him. So it’s in this moment when we have the guy from Vay in front of the Senate and they’re disagreeing about whether they believe him or not, that the ambassadors that had been sent to Delphi earlier return, just in the nick of time. Oh, okay, yeah. So we’ve got this moment of the coming together of the guy from Veii, who is telling this story about the urban Lake and how, you know, if it’s cut off from the sea, that means Rome will win. That’s when they will fall. That’s when it’s foretold, and that’s the only time that it could happen. But now the guys from Delphi are back, and they’re like, Oh, well, this is interesting, because it turns out that the Delphic Oracle agrees with this an Etruscan prophecy. That’s what she’s told us as well. That’s what she said they’re like, ah. So this then sets in motion a whole train of action. There’s a sense in which that Dionysius, at this point, starts to talk about the gods and the genii of the city of they and the genii are this personification of divine force that is supposed to live in every person. So the idea that there is, there are gods of a place, and Genii sort of embedded in the people that also reflect the place, seems to be this sort of thing. And the idea that the good fortune of the city is really held in place by the gods and the corresponding genii, and this is where the Romans decide that it might be time to test out this prophecy by taking some action. That’s

Dr Rad 36:03
interesting, actually, because one of the academics I was reading about this passage mentioned that the idea of the gods deserting they and therefore that being the moment when the city finally falls is meant to once again, be really matching up with the narrative of the Trojan War and the gods deserting Troy. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Very

Dr G 36:29
interesting. Yeah. So this idea that the character and strength of a is somehow tied to the divinities, but is also tied into prophecy and somehow connected to this Alban Lake specifically. So there is a sense of location involved as well, and that, yeah, the fate of the city is in the balance in this moment. So the Romans come up with what I think is a very quintessential Roman problem solving for a prophecy like this. Let

Dr Rad 37:08
me guess it involves construction. We’re gonna

Dr G 37:11
dig some channels, guys. Let us divert the water that flows out of the Alban Lake and make sure that it no longer runs into the sea. That’s how we’re going to win this war.

Dr Rad 37:26
Smart, ARB,

Dr G 37:28
true. Smart, I did some Roman engineering. What I find fascinating about this whole tale is that, on the one hand, it sounds very much like the person from Veii is just trying to provide a distraction tactic and keep the Romans busy. Keep the Romans busy in the opposite direction.

Dr Rad 37:47
Yeah, exactly like suddenly the geography makes sense. You need to

Dr G 37:51
be looking over at the Alban Lake, guys. That’s where the problem lies. Not I mean, we’re going to be here until that problem is solved. So if you go over there and fix that and then come back here, and in the meantime, everybody in Veii is like, sort of laughing in the corner being like they fell for it.

Dr Rad 38:11
That’s it’d be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that they actually will be defeated. Well,

Dr G 38:16
that that is the real problem for this narrative, I think, yeah, but they’re not going to fall straight away. So in that sense, we’ve got a bit of a problem, because the Romans are now out doing various engineering works on the plains south of Rome, away from Veii to try and divert some water courses. And it’s kind

Dr Rad 38:35
of wild to think that you can actually still see, presumably, this tunnel that Livy and Dionysius and everyone was talking about that it actually still exists. I have heard it mentioned as well in one of the sources I was looking at that maybe, rather than being a diversion, very cleverly devised by the people of a maybe it had something to do with hygiene. You know, if the Romans are worried about plague or dealing with pestilence, you know, given all the environmental things that have gone on, maybe it was something to do with improving, like water flow, water supply, hygiene, something like that in their area.

Dr G 39:18
I think there’s reasonable grounds to assume that the locals in the area have done works around the lake in order to mitigate its potential for flooding like that would just make sense. Yes. So in order to it, because it’s it functions a little bit like a dam, and if you need to let some runoff happen, and you’ve got the capacity to control that a little bit. That’s preferable to letting it flood wherever it wants to and making it really, really difficult for people who live around that lake. Yeah. So controlling that environment, I think, is something that makes sense for the locals in the area, whether the Roman specific. Did it in connection to this prophecy? Is a whole other question. And one of the sources that I encountered for this that was considered to be modern scholarship, but it was, it did feel more like a 19th century Grand Tour journal. Was a guy who was like, I’ve just gone to try and find these tunnels related to this Alban lake. And boy, did I succeed. And I had to tie some rope around some olive trees and swing on over find out what’s going on. I was like, This is hilarious and very interesting. So there’s definitely engineering work that have that has been done that is related to the Alban Lake, for sure. The connection with this as early as this period on unclear, but the dating is Yeah. The dating might be Yeah. Well, definitely, there seems to be some grounds for this kind of idea. Now, whether you want to buy into this whole narrative, but Dionysius continues with more detail here as well, because it’s not just that the Romans go about this engineering work. The people in Veii find out about the engineering work, and they become incredibly concerned that the prophecy is about to come true the wrong way. Yeah,

Dr Rad 41:17
it makes it sound less like a clever diversion on that part. Well,

Dr G 41:20
apparently they become really quite concerned, and they send one of their most senior soothsayers at that point to the Romans as an envoy, and

Dr Rad 41:32
he’s like, we take it all back. We didn’t mean it,

Dr G 41:35
not that they didn’t mean it, but that they actually wished to end the war they wanted to, oh, my god, yeah. So they sent somebody really senior to the Romans to say, we would like to see an end to this siege. And, wow, we will give up. They and it’s at that point that the Roman Senate votes against peace. Holy

Dr Rad 42:02
crap. I’m glad you can’t see me right now. Dr, G, because my mind blown all over the walls.

Dr G 42:09
I’m sorry to hear it, because your brain is very special. The fact that it’s everywhere now is it’s a problem.

Dr Rad 42:17
We’re gonna have to put that back together again. We’ll deal with that later, after the audio,

Dr G 42:22
so yeah, the Senate votes against peace, which is a poor choice. I would say. You know, if people are willing to not fight and give up a place, ideally say yes, yeah,

Dr Rad 42:36
why would you want Is it because they really think that they have to do things according to the prophecy.

Dr G 42:42
Oh, they actually it’s not at all clear. Dionysius doesn’t give us like the rationale for why the Senate doesn’t want peace, okay, but does record the reaction of the envoy who really digs into them and says, What kind of place are you that you will not accept the submission of a city like who do you think you are, that we think we’re room, that when a city comes to you and says, we’re going to lay down our arms and surrender, that you would rather destroy it root and branch like what kind of people are you in the face of the gods that you would make that kind of decision? I

Dr Rad 43:30
feel like this is building to a larger narrative that Dionysius might have in mind. It has something to do with something that happens to Rome after they managed to conquer they

Dr G 43:44
no spoilers. So that’s Dionysius account of the situation, okay, and then we have plutarchs Life of Camillus. And obviously the focus is on Camillus, and so

Dr Rad 44:02
naturally he mentions the whole escapade against the Capenates. Yeah,

Dr G 44:06
Tribune for the second time, you know, for the present, he had nothing to do with the siege, because he was busy waging war with the Valerians. Oh, okay, and the capernatos. Oh, okay,

Dr Rad 44:21
there you go. And

Dr G 44:23
so he was a busy boy, not involved with the siege, but that’s very exciting. But then Plutarch also shifts into talking about the calamity of the Alban Lake.

Dr Rad 44:33
Oh, wow. Everyone’s very concerned about these water levels.

Dr G 44:37
This lake is considered to be an incredible prodigy. Yeah, tell me about it. No natural cause. Nobody knows where the water came from. It had been neither rainy nor nor had Rome been vexed with South winds,

Dr Rad 44:58
once again, overlooking this. Yeah,

Dr G 45:02
yeah. So the rivers had run low, so there could be no explanation at all for why the Alban Lake, on the other hand, was already somehow rising above its natural levels, swelling until it reached the skirts of the mountain and gradually touching the highest ridges.

Dr Rad 45:24
Sounds pretty pervy. Yeah,

Dr G 45:27
it is those skirts. They’re rising. Oh, yeah. This was considered a prodigy already, apparently, by the local shepherds and herdsmen. They had looked at the lake. They saw it first. They’re like, This is bad. The gods are involved, and then the waters break, and Plutarch describes this massive torrent coming down out of the mountain all of a sudden and flooding everything in its path, ruining the vineyards for which this mountainous area is so famous for, and heading all the way to the sea, which, if you’re in the urban mount, you can’t see the sea in the distance. So, I mean, it’s the least within, you know, a reasonable visual range. And everyone’s dismayed. Obviously, Rome’s it’s a problem for Rome and the inhabitants. It’s a problem for everybody in the local area. It’s all very low lying. Everyone in Rome, I imagine, is like running up to the tops of hills being like, Oh no. Then we get the similar sort of story about the soothsayer from Veii being on intimate and confidential terms with one of the Roman soldiers. Man

Dr Rad 46:35
three sources and still no names,

Dr G 46:39
no But similarly, the guy from Veii gets abducted by the soldier just they’re just friends, just two men, one abducting the other one with a prophecy. It

Dr Rad 46:51
sounds like the kind of friendship you should probably expect during a siege, to be fair to the Romans.

Dr G 46:57
So in that sense, Plutarch is a pretty good parallel. It sounds it reads like Plutarch read Dionysius of halicanassus is one of his major sources. Oh, and Livy, no, but he doesn’t have Livy s details. He has Dionysius. Yeah, I’m just kidding. Um, so I’m sorry he might have read Livy and decided that that one didn’t really convince him quite as much

Dr Rad 47:21
as, Oh, someone’s cooking now that she’s got her sauce material back,

Dr G 47:27
my sauces are back, guys, finally, we can know the truth about robes

Dr Rad 47:31
history. Yeah, I told by the Greek

Dr G 47:35
an impartial source to be sure. Oh,

Dr Rad 47:39
dear. All right, well, I think that probably does that wrap us up for 398,

Dr G 47:43
yeah, mostly. So this does get a mention in Cicero’s on divination as well,

Dr Rad 47:49
of course, on divination. Yes,

Dr G 47:53
he talks about this, not in terms of abduction of the soothsayer from Veii, but as a desertion, which might tie in quite nicely with Livy s version of events actually true. Yeah. So the idea that this guy from Veii gives up all of this detail so willingly,

Dr Rad 48:11
he’s just like, Oh, please don’t take me. Oh no, no, I’m on the other side. I have a prophecy that could really help you, and I have a prophecy that says that my city’s gonna fall in a couple of years. Oh no, I know what. I got a room. Don’t take me to the other side. That’s gonna win. I’d hate for that to happen exactly with my people, exactly. I need to be here when everything really goes tits up.

Dr G 48:36
That gives a sense like Cicero is more leaning into the desertion aspect of this and how that might play out, and certainly also conveys this idea that perhaps the people of a are really just war tired at this point.

Dr Rad 48:52
Well, yeah, they haven’t been able to get out, yeah, and

Dr G 48:55
they do, again, send an envoy to Rome, and they do seek peace at this point, and we don’t see peace. So it’s it’s glossed over a little bit, and there’s not as much detail about that in Cicero as we get in Dionysus of Halicarnassus. But certainly, this idea that Rome has a peace offer on the table, and they reject it does come through in a couple of different sources.

Dr Rad 49:23
Rome, Rome, you make it hard to root for you. Sometimes

Dr G 49:27
they certainly do. But yes, that is the end of my source material. All right.

Dr Rad 49:31
Well, Dr G, it’s time to wrap up. 398, that means it’s time for the partial pick. Woohoo. An Ow. Who, who? All right. Dr, G, tell us how the partial pick works.

Dr G 49:46
All right. We judge Rome by five categories. We like to think we judge them by their own standards, but really we judge them by a house completely

Dr Rad 49:56
arbitrary.

Dr G 49:58
They can win up to. 50 Golden Eagles under this system, and 10 are potentially on offer in each category. So our first category is military clout, okay,

Dr Rad 50:12
not really what I would call military clout. I mean, there’s a little bit of action in my account. You know, with the military tribunes with concealer power, seems to go, okay, but it’s nothing that spectacular.

Dr G 50:24
Yeah, I think we get Camillus, and that’s about it, but

Dr Rad 50:30
and Potitus.Thank you very much.

Dr G 50:34
Could forget Potitus? I mean, I just did so I can’t give points to somebody I forgot, even within the context of an episode we were talking about him, yeah. I mean, I feel like two, yeah, I’m not. I feel like I’m not in a good position to judge this one, because I

Dr Rad 50:50
feel like two, yeah, one for each of them, for Potitus and Camillus. Oh,

Dr G 50:55
all right. Two, it is our second category is diplomacy.

Dr Rad 50:59
Wow. Well, given your accounts, the Romans really fall on their face in this category.

Dr G 51:05
I think I would like to give them negative. I can’t, so I’m gonna go with zero, because they hand diplomacy come to their doorstep and they said, No, thank you. We’d rather try to wipe you all out. And

Dr Rad 51:20
I also think the kidnapping is also kind of undiplomatic. Yes,

Dr G 51:24
that is undiplomatic, isn’t it? And I don’t think that sending envoys to Delphi necessarily counts as diplomacy. No,

Dr Rad 51:32
no, that’s just for their own ends,

Dr G 51:36
indeed. So a solid zero there. Good job. Rome. Third category is expansion.

Dr Rad 51:43
No, again, it’s just faffing about at this age.

Dr G 51:48
Yes, there’s no territory gained nor lost. It would seem, trenches were dug, channels were made. Engineering happened.

Dr Rad 51:57
Says you, but yeah, oh, my account very specifically says nothing happens yet

Dr G 52:04
I see All right, so expansion is a zero, yeah, the fourth category is weirdos. No,

Dr Rad 52:11
oh, my god,

Dr G 52:13
Ro really falling on it.

Dr Rad 52:17
I know. I mean, there’s some chat that’s bad,

Dr G 52:20
is it weird to us to abduct somebody in broad daylight after you’ve led them away from a wall?

Dr Rad 52:26
Well, this is the thing. I think the Romans would like it, but I think they would think that’s pretty manly, yeah, but the guy’s nameless. I feel like they’re not really taking him very seriously. If they don’t at least bother to give us his name. Perhaps you are right. Yeah, I feel like if they really thought, oh my god, this is so cool, they would tell us at least what his name was, and also how weird was It was, yeah, exactly. It doesn’t come across that way. It’s very set up, like it’s very sketchy in Livy S account, the way that he’s like, Oh, hi, old man, you don’t happen to have any weapons on you. Good, good. Let’s just wander over here. Nothing suspicious, nothing to worry about. Look at

Dr G 53:09
it. Look at that bird.

Dr Rad 53:11
Yeah, and he’s like, Well, it’s kind of my thing. Thanks. Thanks for noticing Roman enemy.

Dr G 53:19
Okay, so is zero and weird, I

Dr Rad 53:20
think it has to be, yeah, okay.

Dr G 53:23
And the last category is the citizen score.

Dr Rad 53:28
Oh, I don’t know how to feel about this one, because we don’t really get much from the citizens. It can’t be good if they’re flooding and they have no plebeians in office, so that’s bad, even though they apparently think it’s good. Yeah, and the war is dragging on. I mean, it doesn’t sound

Dr G 53:50
great, yeah. And who’s digging those, those channels? Well,

Dr Rad 53:54
exactly. I don’t believe that patricians are doing it.

Dr G 53:58
I don’t think so. I’d be very surprised. I would be too Oh

Dr Rad 54:03
no. Dr, G, that means Rome has managed to scrounge together two gold

Dr G 54:11
Oh no.

Dr Rad 54:12
I mean, you think it would be good news actually, because they’ve got this prophecy that’s kind of in their favor, but it’s just not in their favor yet. I

Dr G 54:21
see, yeah, well, it’s tough times out there. Oh, that is rough. Well, I wish that your lakes rise only as much as you desire them to, and that there are no prophecies attached to them. In any case, actually,

Dr Rad 54:35
ironically, I am currently living in an apartment that floods whenever we get the tiniest bit of rain, and we are actually about to have it dug up and relayed so that basically, rain is better. I’m living this year, right? My life is you

Dr G 54:52
don’t need to time travel. You’re there. I

Dr Rad 54:54
am, and like the Romans, whenever it rains, I’m surprised. Said, I’m like, Oh, the levels are rising. Why? Why did the God take me? So

Dr G 55:06
what you really need is a prophecy.

Dr Rad 55:09
I really do. It would be a lot cheaper than what I’m going for.

Dr G 55:13
Well, a pleasure as Oh, indeed. Oh,

Dr Rad 55:16
music. Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. You too can support our show and help us to produce more fascinating content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon or buy us a coffee on kofi. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes. Today, we would like to say survey to J9niners, Joe, Nigel, Scott and Kent some of our recent Patreon and Kofi supporters. Thank you so much for joining our partial band. However, if you’re feeling decidedly like a downtrodden pleb, please just tell someone about the show or give us a five star review and a quick reminder at the time that this episode is released, you will be able to pick yourself up a copy of our new book, Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire, at your local bookstore or on Amazon, Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome, you

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